Subterrene War 03: Chimera (17 page)

I took another pull on my cigarette and watched as an APC lumbered down the street, its wheels crunching over broken glass and concrete; the vehicle’s turret motor whined. By reflex, I hid my cigarette behind my hand and waited for the crushing boom of the thing’s cannon, expecting to have to dive to the floor again, but so far everything stayed quiet. Once it had passed, my concentration returned. Margaret. She had seen something, had information that the brass wanted—or information they
suspected
she had—and according to Jihoon, the operation in Spain may have been related, but something didn’t
make sense. The Koreans were spooked and had jump-started a genetic warfare program. But after the war in Kazakhstan, with its associated casualty figures and the holo clips of satos wasting on camera, almost the entire world, including Unified Korea, had jumped on the Genetic Weapons Convention, signing and ratifying it overnight—maybe not so much out of sympathy for satos as for a fear that nobody could compete with our, China’s, or Russia’s production programs. So it would be better if
nobody
had satos. And the Koreans, also overnight, turned their back on the agreement, despite the fact that if anyone found out, it would be their ass. All of Asia would cry for their heads. A pack of cigarettes later and the answers still wouldn’t come, so I stubbed the last one out and glanced at the clock, sighing with fatigue as I stood and turned on the light.

“Half an hour,” I said, shaking Jihoon’s foot to wake him.

He rubbed his eyes. “Got it. You look like you didn’t sleep.”

“I didn’t. Something tells me we’re going to run into a lot of satos out there, and if there’s one thing I hate more than them, it’s the bush. You take the first shower.”

Jihoon went into the bathroom, and I turned the light off again before walking back to the window and peering out. The moon was setting in the distance, and shadows hid most of the area except for a spot under a single streetlight that had somehow avoided destruction over the last two days. I was about to close the drapes when something moved. A figure hid in a doorway across the street and I froze, watching as whoever it was worked his way closer to the hotel, until he found a position in an alley. If we’d had our gear, I could have used the vision hood to get a
better view, but for now all I could do was stare, hoping that something would happen to give me a look. Eventually there was a glint. The flickering streetlight hit something metallic, and my skin crawled before it occurred to me that I was standing by the window, and I dropped to the floor at the same time a stream of tracer fléchettes cracked through the opening to slam into the far wall. My gun belt was still on. I crawled to the door, opened it, and then stood to sprint for the staircase, jumping down the steps in an effort to make the street before the sniper had time to escape. By the time I made it to the lobby doors, where I hid behind a column with my pistol drawn, the night staff yelled to me that they had already called authorities and asked if everyone was all right.

Keep moving,
I told myself. Getting out through the door would be too obvious, so I charted a course to the next column and then sprinted for it, waiting for the fléchettes to crack again, and then jumped through one of the broken windows, firing into the alley where the man had hidden. But by the time I reached it, it was empty; whoever it was had bailed. I spat and kicked a piece of rubble, angry because I was already sweaty from the day before and now there would only be time for a quick shower since my watch said it was already quarter to four. A growl of vehicles sounded in the distance. Soon the Thais would be there, and I ran back up to the hotel room, realizing that I’d forgotten to check if Jihoon had been hit.

He was half-dressed by the time I got back.

“Where’d you go?” he asked.

“You didn’t hear that?”

Ji shook his head. “What?”

“Someone opened up on me from across the street. Sniper.” I pointed to the holes in the wall, and he whistled.

“That’s good.”

I stared at him in shock. “Are you a nutcase? What’s good?”

“Well,” he said, pulling on his boots, “now we know that whoever is after us is a really bad shot.”

I pulled my uniform shirt off and headed for the bathroom, shaking my head. Nothing made any sense anymore. It was the worst mission possible for someone at my point, a guy on his last legs and in need of retirement, and it got worse with every passing second.

“Hey, Chong,” I called from the bathroom.

“What?”

“Even if we have no clue what’s going on, someone is getting ticked off. Maybe
that’s
good.”

N
othing had changed since my earlier experiences in Bangkok, which felt like they’d happened yesterday: the Royal Army never hurried unless it was to panic. We waited. Then waited some more. The Thais took their time in preparing for the trip to the front, and we’d be heading northwest toward the Thai-Burma border with a supply column that consisted of six-wheeled trucks in a thousand different forms—cargo, troop carriers, but more than anything, alcohol tankers and armored personnel carriers. Every fourth vehicle was an APC. The Thai version was smaller than the American one, suited to the vile roads we’d have to travel, and if they hadn’t improved any since I had last visited (the mountain passages were more like goat trails and were wide enough for only one vehicle) then God help us if someone came in the opposite direction. I wouldn’t go inside any of the vehicles, not even the APCs, and Jihoon looked up at me from the assembly field.

“You’re riding on top?” he asked. “Why not inside? Are you
that
claustrophobic?”

I lit another cigarette and grinned from the deck of an
APC. “It’s not claustrophobia. You didn’t learn this one in the tanks?”

He shrugged. “Learn what?”

“These types of APCs have one large compartment, so when they get hit by a rocket, the overpressure liquefies everyone inside at the same time it cooks them. Ride on top, and you’ll get blown into the air but maybe survive. I’ve seen about five guys live because they made that decision, to sit on the top instead of inside. I was one of ’em.”

Ji glanced at the loading ramp and then looked back at me again before he sighed and grabbed hold of a tie-down, lifting himself using the nearest tire as a ladder. He had just settled when Colonel O’Steen jogged up. The colonel handed me a computer chit and shook his head.

“Priority transmission from your CO at SOCOM, Momson. For your eyes only.”

“Thanks, Colonel,” I said.

He nodded and crossed his arms. “You boys see any trouble down in Khlong Toei yesterday? Maybe a group of Koreans with clubs?”

Ji and I looked at each other, and I smiled.

“No. Why?”

“Witnesses said that a Japanese guy and an American shot three Koreans and then ran yesterday. The Koreans had passports and visas, but there’s nothing on them in foreign ministry databases.”

“Wasn’t us,” I said. “And besides, Chong here is Korean, not Japanese.”

“Well, it’s funny because they also caught the guy who took a shot at you in the hotel, and he was Korean too. Found him near one of the Khlong Toei gates, and he still had his Maxwell. They’re interrogating him now.”

I shook my head, worried, but then again not; once we hit the bush, it wasn’t like they’d be able to send anyone to arrest us. “It’s a hell of a world. Strange things happening every day.”

O’Steen stared at me and frowned, the seconds ticking off. He nodded. “Well, whatever’s on that chit, the Thai Army is treating you like special cargo to be delivered at any cost, the highest priority. Good luck up there,” he said and left.

I made a mental note of the fact that our pursuers had been Korean, not sure of what to make of it, then settled back into the wait. Then we waited some more. The Thai soldiers laughed and smoked, half of them wearing ancient surplus armor—the only stuff we sold them and which didn’t have chameleon skins—and the other half dressed in even more ancient tiger-striped battle suits. Battle suits were basic rubberlike undersuits that had been equipped with cooling units and that were one-piece garments that zipped up the front and had a hood with a clear plastic face; the hoods sealed over the suits’ shoulders and would protect their wearers from chemical or biological attacks. Each had backpack power and air filtration. I took a drag and exhaled, thinking how much they’d need the gear where we were going, my cigarette smoke sinking the same way I’d once seen clouds of gas blown over my trench in the bush so that the image made me break out in a cold sweat; gas was the worst. You had to stay buttoned in your suit after they hit because armor was the one thing keeping you alive. Decontamination could take days or weeks—if they got around to it at all—and by then you’d be so crazy from smelling your own sweat that it was almost better to let the stuff take you
down in the first place. The mission was getting to me, I decided. The computer chit glinted in my hand, and I turned it over, wondering if I wanted to see it until finally Ji grabbed the thing and slid it into my forearm slot. It took a moment to slip on my vision hood.

It was Colonel Momson. His face flickered onto my heads-up display, and I barely heard him when the camera zoomed out to show Phillip, smiling as he held a Popsicle. The kid’s hair hadn’t been cut. I grinned at that and almost started crying because it meant the bastards hadn’t gotten into his head yet, hadn’t corrupted it with the same filth I’d had to endure by choice. He was out, and it was all that mattered for now; I’d worry about getting him later.

The image faded then, and it switched to an audio track with Momson’s voice. “There have been new developments since that last time we met. A week ago we sent a team into Wonsan, Unified Korea, to recon the area and see if they could get any information based on the names and addresses you provided us with from the Madrid operation. Unified Korean operatives picked them up within a few days. They held the men in isolation and tortured them until finally one of our guys escaped, barely making it to the US embassy in Pusan, where he told our liaison that the Koreans had been asking about the American in Spain, Stan Resnick—who he was and what the operation was all about. It’s no surprise. By now the Koreans have a holo image of you and will be on the lookout for your biometrics, so our analysts advise that if you’re still in Bangkok, you should change your appearance as soon as possible. Already Unified Korea has lodged a formal complaint with the State Department, and we’re getting a lot of heat from POTUS, who hasn’t
been briefed yet on the Spain op. Pusan is pissed that you killed all their people, Bug; be careful.

“There’s something else. We didn’t tell you about a crucial component of your mission because at the time there wasn’t a need for you to know, but all the mothballed Germline ateliers are being reactivated, and construction of new ones began just before you left for Madrid. In two weeks, State will announce that we’re formally withdrawing from the Genetic Weapons Convention. China just finished taking the western districts in Russia, and reports are coming in from all over that they’re repositioning forces, moving troops toward India and Burma. The Indians, Thai, Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians are screaming for help, and three carrier groups are already prepping to move out.

“As part of the new training regime for genetics, we’re going to include a manual called the
Book of Catherine
—the same sato who was with Margaret when the two escaped from Russia and traveled through North Korea. She’s someone that the Joint Chiefs spent a lot of money to capture, a perfect killer. We debriefed her as best we could, but once in our custody Catherine just gave us basic information and then demanded discharge. But one thing came through during the sessions: she considered herself to be in direct communication with God. We don’t consider this insanity because it’s what they’re trained to believe, and it made her totally fearless. Deadly. What
was
odd was that at over three years past expiration, she was in better mental form than when she was first fielded; totally fearless instead of being a mental basket case. Margaret likely absorbed some of Catherine’s ideas, and from the little information we have, she’s more than just a
sato to the other escaped genetics in Thailand, and considering the shit that’s about to rain down over southeast Asia, we’re canceling your kill order; the higher-ups want Margaret alive. In the coming months we may need those satos to slow down a Chinese advance if they decide to invade Thailand because we’re not ready yet and production will take time. Get the word to Margaret; convince her any way you can that we’re on the same team and that she needs to slow down a Chinese invasion force if one should cross the Thai border; only then proceed with the plan to find Chen, whose voice and physical biometrics are now uploaded to your system. Your mission just got bumped up to priority one. End of message.”

“
Real
special,” I muttered and then worked my forearm controls to delete the video portion of the chit; there was no reason for Ji to see Phillip, but whether the message was for me alone or not, he needed to hear Momson. I yanked the chit out and handed it to him. “You gotta freakin’ hear this.”

“It said for your eyes only.”

I pulled my vision hood off and picked up the cigarette I’d placed on the APC deck, taking one last drag before tossing the butt away. “Yeah, but you’re not going to freaking believe this one.”

“I was looking at your backpack computer unit,” Ji said. He inserted the chit into his slot. “It’s bigger than any I’ve seen. You have a semi-aware in that thing?”