Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone (27 page)

‘Electrolux.’ He laughed aloud.

‘Right, Electrolux. That was in the line of duty?’

‘Well, we’re working together, right? It’s good for the emerging contractual relationship.’

She laughed again and nestled against him, gently kissing the top of his pectoral muscle where it met his collarbone. ‘Love this part,’ she said. Then she sat back, her face suddenly serious.

‘What’s wrong? You’re not awake and staring at me because I’m some kind of vision.’

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘you are kind of hot.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever. What’s going on?’

‘I keep thinking about Morelli,’ he said.

‘I knew it,’ she said, looking down at the sheets.

‘It’s not right,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t in a fit mental state to make the call to volunteer.’

Grace propped herself up on her fists, anger flashing in her eyes. ‘Jan, she
ran
. She’s legally dead. She’s lucky she’s not being strapped down to a gurney for lethal injection.’

‘What if that’s what’s actually happening? Just more slowly? What if the drug is slowly degrading her brain? What if she’s getting cancer?’

‘That’s not happening, but even if it were, how is that different?’

‘I have no problem with someone’s facing justice, Grace. I do have a problem with their being used for medical experiments. Especially when it’s . . . coerced. We’re supposed to be the good guys here.’

‘You haven’t been listening to Crucible,’ Grace said. ‘This
is
justice. This
is
the law. Everything going on here is authorized.’

Harlequin shook his head, reached for words.

She pushed herself out of bed, racing around the bedroom to find the clothing they’d hastily scattered in their eagerness to be with one another, sliding on her panties, grabbing her skirt.

He sat up, marveling at how sexy she was even when racing to get dressed. ‘I kind of liked you better without all that.’

‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘Get dressed.’

He looked at the clock on the wall, the numbers displayed from a recessed projector in the ceiling, expensive and state-of-the-art, like everything she owned. ‘It’s almost ten,’ he said. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the lab. We’re going to pay Morelli a visit.’

‘What? Now?’

‘Yes, now,’ she said, pulling on her blouse and buttoning it quickly.

‘Grace. What are you . . .’

She spun on him, stabbing with a finger. ‘I am getting tired of the implication that we’re using her as a lab rat. We have
helped
that woman. We have taken someone emotionally disturbed and given her some measure of control over her emotions. Not only is she not getting cancer, she’s able to think straight for the first time in her life.

‘You seem to have forgotten who I am, Jan. Yes, I’ve done well for myself. But that is incidental and always has been. It isn’t why I do this. So, we’re going to visit Morelli right now, and you’re going to pay attention this time. This drug is the best chance the world has to put a lid on magic, to make it usable and controllable by everyone. And that’s just one possible application. We’re doing double duty, both saving someone’s life and moving toward that goal. You need to know that, and I mean
really
know it. So, let’s go.’

He gaped at her sudden outrage. ‘Grace, it’s late . . .’

Her hand flew to her face. When she pulled it away, Harlequin saw a bright trail of blood, slowly working its way from her nostril down to her upper lip. ‘Damn it.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

She dabbed at her nose experimentally. ‘Oh, yeah. Let me get a tissue.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Sure. Happens a lot. Too much coke in my early days.’

‘Ha. Wait. Are you serious?’

‘As a heart attack. You don’t make it as a junior business analyst on Wall Street if you aren’t doing blow with your colleagues. Don’t worry, I quit a long time ago. This is the enduring wages of my sin. I’ll be right back.’

As she left, Harlequin sighed, slid out of the bed, and began fumbling on his pants. The ends didn’t justify the means here, and he was right to be bothered by what was going on. But a part of him mourned the loss of the intimate moment, lying in bed with this amazing woman. If only he’d kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be shrugging on his clothes to go down to the lab. As he buttoned his pants, he felt an urge, and followed Grace to the bathroom.

‘Gang way,’ he said. ‘I’m willing to go outside in the middle of the night just to let you make a point, but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to get to piss firs . . .’

Grace stood frozen, a syringe in her wrist. She quickly pulled it out, hiding it behind her back.

But not before he noticed two things.

First, the syringe was filled with a yellow liquid that looked disturbingly like urine. The white adhesive label had been peeled off, leaving the uneven residue of the backing.

Second, it had been faint, merely the whisper of an echo, but Harlequin had felt something. Anyone else would have dismissed it as a shiver, the games our nerves play with us when we stand up suddenly or twist our backs wrong.

But Harlequin had made his living for the past four years sniffing out rogue magic.

He knew a current when he felt one.

Before he knew what he was doing, he crossed the space between them, grabbed her wrist with one hand, and reached behind her back with the other. She twisted, tried to pull free, her head butting against his chest. She was strong, athletic, but he had at least fifty pounds on her and held her easily, his fingers digging into her palm and raking the syringe out of her hand.

He brought it around and stared at it while she swore at him. ‘Let me go!’

He did, feeling again for the current. It was gone. ‘What the fuck is this?’ A tiny pool of the fluid remained in the bottom of the syringe. He glanced again at the label, carefully scratched off. It was possible he was mistaken, but this looked exactly like LL-14. 60 ccs. Six times the dose he’d watched Dan inject into Morelli.

‘Is this . . .’ He’d pay for it later, but for now he was icecold rational. The old mantra rose in his mind.
Easy now. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. ‘
Is this LL-14?’

Grace opened her mouth, then closed it. She pulled away once more, then gave up.

‘Jesus, Grace. You’re Latent.’

She gave no answer, only stared back toward the bedroom.

Betrayal. Hurt and rage swamped him. He felt his magical tide rise and fought it down. She’d played him for a fool on the night they’d met, and she hadn’t stopped playing him since.

‘Aren’t you?’ His voice rose.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ she asked. Her voice trembled. Grace the CEO, the power broker, the self-made millionaire was gone. This was the voice of a frightened girl.

Just as quickly as it came, the anger fled. In its place was a dull ache, grief for the relationship that now must change, compassion for this woman who must endure it. This beautiful, brilliant woman, who gave him the one safe space he’d ever known since magic had found him.

‘No, Grace.’ His voice was thick. ‘I’m not going to kill you.’

Hicks’s voice filled his head, and he felt his knees weaken.
Grace Lyons made her fortune in finance. Why the hell is she suddenly dabbling in pharmaceuticals?

‘You weren’t just looking to do good. You came up Latent and searched for a way to hide it. 10 ccs controls it, but 60 ccs makes it undetectable, is that how it works?’

‘I
was
trying to do some good, Jan. Manifesting got me thinking about it. The SOC has made it impossible for people to even think about controlling Latency, and Channel’s work was my answer to that.’

He put his back to the wall and slid down to a sitting position, folding his arms over his knees. ‘Jesus. Antipsychotic. And I bought it like it was on sale. You fucking lied to me, Grace. You used me and lied to me.’

‘No, Jan. I didn’t. Nothing has changed. Developing Limbic Dampener can still help you, help me, help anyone Latent. Look what it’s done for Morelli already!’

‘You’re a Selfer.’

‘What does that even mean, Jan? I haven’t hurt anyone. I am in complete control of my magic. Hell, you didn’t even know I was Latent until ten seconds ago! I am producing a drug that will revolutionize the way you use magic, that will cure mental illness! I’m a productive, contributing, ethical member of society. If that’s being a Selfer, then I’m proud to wear that label.’

Harlequin sighed, trying to wrap his head around the realization. Failing. All he could concentrate on was the rapid pulse of his heart, each beat alternating thoughts.
Betrayed. Fool. Betrayed. Fool.

‘What would you prefer? That I’d turned myself in? That I’d given up all I’d built so your bosses could hand it over to Entertech? They are your prime magical contractor. Who do you think would develop the drug if not Channel?’

Harlequin shook his head. ‘And us, Grace? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?’

She knelt in front of him, lifting his chin with a finger. If there was a lie in her eyes, he couldn’t see it.

‘Never,’ she whispered. ‘We’re the same, Jan. Neither of us asked for this. Both of us made the tough choice, did what we had to do to keep going, to keep doing good.’

‘Bullshit,’ he said. ‘You could have self-reported. You could have joined up.’

‘Could I?’ She pointed at the towel rack beside the basin. He felt her current now, rising up out of nowhere, tight, disciplined, as controlled as any SOC operator.

The towels began to shrivel, the cotton twisting, turning green, then purple, then black. A sulfur stink filled the room, tickling Harlequin’s nose, burning in his throat.

‘I never had a chance,’ Grace said, as the towels turned to black sludge, dripping off the rack to pool on the tile floor. ‘I never had a choice.’

Harlequin could only nod. Because it was true.

Had the towels burned, things would be different, but the SOC didn’t take Probes.

Thus always to wolves.

Chapter Fourteen

Big Fish

Goblinkind is not united in the ‘Embracer’ tribe belief that mankind needs to be brought back to the magical wellspring of its birth. The ‘Defender’ tribes dub humanity as ‘keach’, or ‘lost’. To goblins raised in the Defender faith, humans actually died when they were cut off from the magical wellspring. The human incursion into the Source is nothing less than an invasion of the walking dead. We are zombies to them, and the exploitation of resources and destruction of their people is evidence of the consequences of our being allowed to exist here unchecked. Just as Embracers would give up their lives to save humans, Defenders fight just as hard to destroy us, with ejection from the Source being their ultimate goal. Unfortunately, Defender tribes outnumber Embracer tribes by roughly four to one.

– Simon Truelove
A Sojourn Among the Mattab On Sorrah

The slope off the
Breakwater
’s starboard side steepened, and Bonhomme ordered the bow around to port to keep the ship from heeling over dangerously far. The leviathan continued to match their pace, sides swelling as it pulled in more and more water. The goblins formed a frothing patch behind it, out of the line of fire, ready to pounce on the ship once the giant wave capsized it.

Bookbinder scanned the skies again for incoming helos, saw none. He thought of the
Giffords
’s sailors turning the white waters red. He closed his eyes and shuddered.

Think. There has to be a way out of this. Think.
Panic clawed at his mind, clouding his thoughts. He couldn’t afford that now. Bonhomme had found a way to use the equipment they had at hand in the last dustup with the goblins; maybe he could do it again now.

‘So, we can’t outrun it. Which means we have to fight it,’ Bookbinder said.

Bonhomme started to snort contempt at the idea, then his expression faded to thoughtfulness. ‘I’m wracking my brain here, sir. Don’t see a way.’

I don’t either. ‘
Well, that OC worked a miracle against the goblins. Flares were a smart idea, too.’

‘That thing is underwater, sir. There’s no way to get the OC to it. We don’t have a dive crew even if we had the time’ – he looked doubtfully out the bridge window at the increasing grade of the slope – ‘which we don’t.’

‘Can we shoot it? Maybe if we pour enough rifle rounds into it . . .’

Bonhomme glanced up at Rodriguez.

‘That far down? That thing is huge. I don’t think we’d be able to kill it quickly enough,’ the boatswain said.

‘Not a lot of time here,’ Marks said, eyes growing wide.

‘What we need,’ Bonhomme said, pounding a fist on the console, ‘are damned depth charges.’

‘Could we rig some of the pyro for that?’ Bookbinder asked. ‘Some way we can waterproof it and chuck it over the side so it blows up down there?’

Rodriguez frowned. ‘I don’t see how, sir. That stuff is all meant to go off in air. Get it wet, and it doesn’t work.’

The grade of the slope increased, and Marks turned to Bonhomme. ‘Sir, we’ve got to accept that we’re about to be capsized. Let me get the crew as ready as we can. Let’s get folks into PFDs and SAR vests and maybe put some rafts in the water, launch the small boats. Not sure it’ll help, but it’s something.’

‘Do it,’ Bonhomme said, and Marks raced out the hatch and down the ladder.

‘We take the wave bow on,’ Bonhomme said. ‘If we angle it right, I guess there’s a chance we can hold on better than the
Giffords
did. We’re a different hull, broader and flatter.’ The look in his eyes showed he didn’t believe it even as he gave the orders to the helmsman, and the bow began to swing around to face the creature.

‘Maybe if we get right over it?’ Rodriguez suggested.

‘So it can blast us into the sky directly from below? That’d be worse,’ Bonhomme said.

The ship groaned as it came hard to starboard, heeling more deeply into the slope. Bookbinder was impressed with how agilely the buoy tender turned while simultaneously sickened by the steep grade sweeping past them. Out the bridge window, the wire-rope swung off the
LOVE ME TENDER’
s boom, the huge crane groaning as its weight slewed to one side.

Bookbinder’s eyes shot wide. ‘How much does that . . . thing on the end of the crane weigh?’

‘What?’ Bonhomme asked.

‘The ball and hook thingie! The one that’s holding the boomer?’ Or what was left of the boomer. The oil drum was scorched black, splashed with blood and so full of bullet holes it looked more like a desiccated sponge than anything metal.

‘The hook? I don’t know. Depends on whether they’ve got the ball or the sheave block up there. I think it’s the ball. It’s more than half a ton. Maybe a ton.’

‘Is there any way we can drop it on that monster? Maybe tip the whole crane over the side? It’s not a depth charge, but . . .’

‘We can do it,’ Rodriguez said suddenly, her voice rising.

Bonhomme nodded. ‘We’ll need to be right over the top of it, but if we drop the hoist brake or cut the wire-rope, the ball weighs enough to throw it down. If we extend the jib, it’ll drop from sixty feet up. That’d give it some speed. Assuming that thing is as big as a blue whale? Should punch a hole in it. Jesus, that’s a crazy idea.’

‘Well, the sane ones aren’t doing us a whole lot of good right now,’ Bookbinder said.

‘Point,’ Bonhomme said. ‘Bosun, get that boom extended as high as you possibly can, over the starboard side. Cut it as close as you can to the starboard rail, so the ball just misses us.’

‘We might be able to load a heavier . . .’ Rodriguez began.

‘No time for that,’ Bonhomme cut her off. ‘Just get it in position.’

He turned to the helmsman and called out the commands that would bring the
Breakwater
directly over the leviathan. They had come fully about by now, the helmsman making slight adjustments as the monster grew larger before them. The bow dipped sickeningly far, the ship picking up speed as it slid down the slope.

Bonhomme gripped the console railing. ‘Shit,’ he whispered. ‘Shitshitshitshitshit.’

A howl went up from the goblins as they realized the
Breakwater
was charging them. They rushed the ship, the water whipped to a froth around the leviathan’s growing form.

Bookbinder heard splashes and saw one of the ship’s small jet boats racing off the port bow, two of the precious rifles held by sailors on board. A small pseudopod of white water rippled out toward them, but the vast majority of the creatures swarmed back aboard for the third time, clambering up onto the buoy deck just as Rodriguez raced out of the hatch, making for the crane.

Bookbinder turned to Bonhomme. ‘Can you keep her on top of that thing?’ Bonhomme kept his eye on the compass and continued calling commands to the helmsman, pausing only long enough to shout ‘Go!’

Bookbinder raced after Rodriguez, finding himself in the same passageway where he’d first stood with the boarding teams. The hatch stood open, Marks outside it, ushering sailors back inside as the first goblins appeared around the crane.

Bookbinder and Rodriguez charged out, waving at them. ‘Turn around! We’ve got to get to the crane!’

‘What?’ Marks asked.

‘The crane!’ Bookbinder shouted. ‘Get to the crane!’

Marks turned, leveling his pistol and firing twice into the packed group of goblins. They covered the buoy deck now, outnumbering the sailors at least ten to one, with more climbing aboard every moment.

‘Well, shit,’ Rodriguez said.

‘Yup,’ Bookbinder agreed.

‘Charge of the Light Brigade, eh?’ Marks asked.

‘Something like that,’ Bookbinder replied.

‘Can we do it?’ Marks asked.

Bookbinder shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out.’

He gave a yell and charged. Marks, Rodriguez, and the remaining sailors went with him. Guns boomed around him, the nonskid surface of the deck resounded beneath his boots. He had time to draw his pistol and fire once before sailor and goblin collided and mixed, a writhing mass of blue, blaze orange, and sick sea green. Both sides let out a cry and Bookbinder found himself face-to-face with a thing out of a pirate’s nightmare.

The goblin’s face was distended into a long, lampreylike mouth, the round maw lined with three rows of triangular, sharp teeth. Its bald head trailed seaweed from a field of barnacle-like growths.

Bookbinder raised his pistol again, but the thing ducked low, catching him in the gut and driving him backward. The tube mouth snuffled at his chest, flexible lips working the teeth against his uniform. He shouted, trying to get a hold on it, hands scrabbling for purchase over the slick surface of its back. At last, he locked his hands over his own wrists and squeezed his arms together. The goblin gasped and he flexed, pressing forward against the monsters behind it. He felt the sharp prick of its small teeth punching through his uniform blouse and scoring the T-shirt beneath. He squeezed harder, and the gasp became a snarl, the bottom of its soft ribs bending under his grasp.

Bookbinder wasn’t a strong man, but he was twice the size of a goblin. He shouted and squeezed with everything he had, crushing the goblin into its fellows for added leverage. The monster gave a wet wail as its ribs gave way. Bookbinder released it and kicked it, sending it to flop limply along the deck.

Rodriguez was at his side, hefting an empty shotgun barrel first, shouting incoherently as she laid about her. A goblin leapt over its comrade, reaching for Bookbinder with a saw-edged long knife before Rodriguez brought it down with a heavy stroke to its bulbous skull.

Behind the goblins, the crane hovered, tantalizingly close. The water had turned black to either side of the
Breakwater
’s bow, filled completely with the huge body of the leviathan.

A goblin grabbed Bookbinder’s wrist, its fingers a series of sucker-tipped, waving tentacles. His arm burned as it pierced the skin. He turned to claw out its eyes, and found he couldn’t find anything resembling a head. Its eyes were directly in the center of its torso, looking at him over a horned beak. He punched it. Punched it again and again. The grip on his wrist only grew stronger and more painful as it yanked his hand toward the beak.

Bookbinder saw Rodriguez’s shotgun stock crash into one of the thing’s limbs, but it didn’t move.

‘Gaaaah!’ he screamed, yanking his hand away from the sharp-looking beak, tearing the skin against the sharp protrusions in the tentacles that held him fast. The bladed delta of the beak’s tip hovered over his hand, his wrist . . .

A sharp crack sounded from over his shoulder and the thing spun away. The tentacles released his wrist, leaving a red, streaming patch that had once been occupied by his watch.

His finger smarted, bleeding from the knuckle.
My ring. I’ve lost my wedding ring.

It was a token, a bauble, but grief swept over him, followed closely by rage.
Julie. I’m sorry. I should have taken better care of it.

Bookbinder looked topside, where one of the bridge windows had either been busted out or opened. Bonhomme leaned through, a smoking rifle in his hands. He turned, taking aim at another goblin. If he was no longer bothering with the helm, that must mean they were right over the leviathan.

Now or never.

Bookbinder stepped on the goblin’s corpse and launched himself into the air, landing across three more goblins, punching wildly. He heard a roar as the sailors followed suit. He felt something sharp slice into his face, his thigh. He shut his eyes tight, raw wrist screaming. His fist thumped against flesh once, twice, then banged painfully against metal.

He opened his eyes and found himself face-to-face with the crane operator’s control-booth door. He yanked on the door handle and nearly yelled with relief as it swung open, sending him staggering back into Rodriguez, who was screaming, swinging the empty shotgun.

‘Bosun!’ Bookbinder shouted, grabbing her arm. ‘I can’t work this! Get in there!’

He heaved, swinging her around him and into the open door as a goblin sank a bone club into his stomach, doubling him over. He slouched against the crane’s side, winded, listening to the machine’s motor roar into life. Marks was at his side, swinging his empty pistol, punching and kicking, buying him precious breathing room to recover. A moment later, the crane swung out over the
Breakwater
’s side, throwing Marks and Bookbinder back into the mass of goblins as another shot from the bridge sent one of the creatures spinning to the deck.

He turned back for Rodriguez, but nausea swamped him, and his vision grayed. Bookbinder had a vague sense of being dragged backward, the crane receding in the distance.

‘Wait. We’ve got to get her out of there,’ he tried to say. Nothing came out.

With the sailors clear of the crane, Bonhomme opened up with the rifle in three-round bursts. The goblins hissed, cringing.

Bookbinder felt the shadow of the superstructure loom over him as they dragged him backward through the hatch. The nausea subsided, and he struggled to his feet, shrugging off the sailors. ‘I’m fine! I’m fine!’

But his voice was drowned out by a sudden metallic rasping. The crane’s wire-rope began to race along the metal spool, spraying sparks and billowing gray smoke. The rasping became a scream as the heavy ball and hook dropped like a stone.

Goblins swarmed over the crane operator’s booth, hammering at the plastic, smashing through with spears and clubs. One jerked back, gurgling, as Rodriguez grabbed a piece of the splintered plastic and drove it into its throat.

At last, the hook and ball splashed into the water and disappeared, the smoke from the wire-rope turning to steam as it abruptly cooled.

The goblins backed off, thrusting spear after spear into the operator’s booth’s opening. Bookbinder lurched forward, but Marks held him fast. ‘Don’t, sir. There’s nothing you can do now.’

The goblins stabbed again and again, then turned, satisfied, moving toward the superstructure. Bookbinder strained to see Rodriguez in the operator’s booth. He looked around at Marks and the remaining sailors, exhausted and bleeding. Any attempt to go back out there would be overwhelmed, leaving the superstructure open.