Ure Infectus (Imperium Cicernus Book 4) (16 page)

With a heavy duffel bag in each hand, Jericho stepped off
the hovercraft and onto the grassy field before nodding his thanks to the
craft’s operator. Benton had arranged for the conveyance after thankfully
accepting the job of operator for this unexpected Adjustment on such short
notice.

“How far to the safe house?”
Jericho asked, having placed a tiny, high-quality earpiece in his left ear just
before stepping off the craft.

“We
be
lookin’ at…” Benton replied,
“
six
clicks by crow’s flight, probably more like seven
and a half if you stick to the flat. But you only need four point two clicks to
make the top of that hill and set up for the shot.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” Jericho muttered as he
set off toward the proposed blind atop the hill.

“That cannon can punch through Class II vehicle armor at
three clicks, easy, my man,” Benton assured him, referring to the long-range
weapon Jericho had brought with him for the mission. “All you need is a line of
sight and you
be
golden—hey!” he yelled unexpectedly,
causing Jericho to duck instinctively as his adrenal glands began flooding his
body with epinephrine. “Dammit, Eve, I done told you to stay outta my
God-damned vids—them shits is private!”

Jericho set his jaw and took several deep, cleansing breaths
before coming out of his crouch and resuming the journey to the setup point.
“Problems?” he asked in a voice little more than a growl.

“Sorry, my man,” Benton apologized after several seconds of
silence, “girl just won’t stay outta my stuff, feel me?”

“No,” Jericho replied shortly. After a few more steps he
stopped and looked at the hill before him. He had initially planned to set up
on top of that hill and, using a high-end targeting scope, execute the
Adjustment from long-range with a single shot. But the more he had thought
about it, the more he became convinced that it was all a setup.

Jericho had learned things about Obunda in recent years
which had cast doubt on more than just the other man’s trustworthiness, but he
had never accumulated sufficient evidence to support any kind of meaningful
action.

“We’re dropping Plan ‘A’,” Jericho said, literally dropping
the duffel bag containing the disassembled cannon.

“Say what!?” Benton asked incredulously. “This be the
simplest job you ever done, boss man: just walk up that hill, lay flat against
a rock till nightfall, then blast that fool through the eye with the BFG and
you be back in time for breakfast!”

Jericho considered it, and even though Benton had confirmed
that the top of the hill was completely clean—no EM signatures, no heat blooms,
not even a slight disturbance of the fauna had taken place in six months of
accumulated satellite imagery—he shook his head in negation. “We’re going with
Plan ‘B’,” he said as he broke into a jog that would skirt well around the
hill—in fact, he meant to go around at least two hills to the left of his
original setup point before making for the safe house.

“You the boss,” Benton sighed. “I thought you
was
just bitchin’ about bein’ too old for this shit,
though…now you wanna take on a six man detail up-close-and-personal-style? You
ain’t no
borg
, feel me? These
be
in-their-prime military types who get paid to do one thing: kill dudes like you
who try to get up in their business.”

“Cut the chatter,” Jericho snapped. “Work up some high-res
imagery for me; I’ll need an approach in about two hours.”

“You got it,” Benton agreed reluctantly, and Jericho
quickened his pace for what he estimated would be an extra fifteen kilometers
tacked onto his planned hike.

But at least he would be breathing clean, unpolluted air
while he ran it.

“I’m in position,” Jericho said between deliberately deep breaths
after he had completed his trek. It was nearly night, and according to the
intel on the data pad—intel which Benton had largely corroborated—General
Pemberton would be transferred off-world the following evening, which meant
that they would be departing the safe house early in the morning. The time
crunch was just one of several aspects which heightened Jericho’s wariness, and
when he received Benton’s data packet with the information he had requested for
the small fortress, that wariness proved more than justified.

“We
be
dealin’ with
twelve
,
not six, professional killers,” Benton said through the earpiece. “I
be
readin’ a detection field like nothin’ I’ve ever seen—at
least not outside of a full-blown military base or global bank vault—and these
dudes each be packin’ some serious heat. I’m seein’ plasma pistols on each of
them mo-fo’s, along with a pair of concealed autocannon turrets with near-total
coverage of the zone, and even an HVM inside the southern house—which obviously
ain’t no house, feel me?”

“Where’s the nearest autocannon?” Jericho asked as he worked
through the situational breakdown in his mind.

“Ain’t gonna happen, dawg,” Benton replied promptly. “
Them
shits is controlled from an isolated system located
inside the compound—ain’t no manual control to be had.”

Jericho swore under his breath. If he tried to sneak into
the safe house the detection grid would reveal him, and if he tried to shoot
his way in the autocannons would cut him down before he got his third shot off.

He hated using one of his only remaining aces, but decided
it was worth the potential reward. “As far as entry goes, she is one frigid
bitch,” Jericho muttered before taking the plunge, “maybe we can loosen her
up?”

“Thought you’d never ask, dawg,” Benton replied
enthusiastically, and Jericho could almost see the grin on the big guy’s face
even though he was two thousand kilometers away. “Let me crunch this out for a
second,” he said before severing the audio feed.

He sat there as the sun set over the horizon and considered
the distances between each of the points marked on his tactical overlay of the
surprisingly well-fortified installation.

Just as he had arrived at a timetable for each potential
entry point, Benton’s voice crackled in his earpiece, “According to our
readings, we be lookin’ at some stiff shielding on most of the central
components so we can’t knock them off. But,” he added just as Jericho felt his
stomach tighten at the news, “I
do
think we can give you a window to get
into the house without tippin’ off the guards by spikin’ the relays between the
central control system and the field or turrets. After that, you be on your
own.”

“How long can you give me?” Jericho asked as he rolled his
head around, cracking his neck as he did so in a long-practiced warm-up routine.

“We’ve got enough juice to drop the detection grid for
twenty one seconds,” Benton replied promptly, before adding, “but the
autocannon’s automatic reset cycle is only fourteen seconds, and without more
info on their system’s setup that’s what we need to work with.”

Jericho glanced down at his data pad’s tactical overlay and
considered his options. Of the nine reasonable approaches he had devised, six
of them were out entirely because each would have taken more than twenty six
seconds even if everything went perfectly. He considered the autocannons’
firing arcs, and eliminated yet another approach since he would still be within
both of their fields for at least four seconds longer than the window would
provide.

“You goin’ high or low?”
Benton
asked, apparently having deduced the options as Jericho had done.

“What do you suggest?” Jericho asked blandly, unable to
decide between them. The first option would see him exit the overlapping fields
of the autocannons and reach the house with one second to spare, while the
other would only leave him in the field of one autocannon—but he would be in
its field of coverage for at least
three
seconds.

“Hang on,” Benton said before once again severing the link.
He returned after a few seconds and said, “We be thinkin’ you should take the
low.”

Jericho nodded to himself slowly as he considered Benton’s
advice to enter the single autocannon’s field for more time rather than
entering the multiple autocannons’ fields for less. Then he caught something
Benton had said and rolled his eyes, “’We’? Don’t tell me you’re asking the
sexbot for tactical advice.”

“I heard that, Jericho,” Eve’s voice cut in over the line.
“You take that back this very instant!”

“He didn’t mean nothin’ by it, baby,” Benton tried to assure
her. “He just
be
under a lot of stress…you know how it
is: humans be humans. We can’t be perfect angels like you.”

“Well…” Eve said as though considering the matter at great
length, “all right. But you need to get me something nice when you come back or
I’ll never forgive you!”

“Sure thing, Eve,” Jericho said as he rummaged through the
duffel and considered which gear to bring, “but I think I’m going high. One
autocannon’s more than enough to turn me into pudding if it locks on, so
minimizing exposure is
key
.”

He looked long and hard at the bullpup slug-thrower he had
brought, which could be reconfigured for medium-range sniping, before deciding
against bringing it. He had a smaller, muffled scattergun, which had been
loaded with explosive rounds that would be absolutely devastating in closed
quarters, and concluded that it would pay to have a short-range weapon once he
made it into the house.

He also strapped a pair of gas-powered needle-launchers to
his forearms, each of which had been loaded with a high-powered tranquilizer
dart. The darts were fairly ingenious—and absolutely illegal—in that they not
only administered the requisite chemical restraints into the target’s body but
they also produced an electrical surge which would instantly stun the target
and persist until the chemicals had taken effect. If any of the guards were
augmented, or even extensively modified genetically, they would likely be
capable of resisting the darts long enough to sound an alarm—but Jericho was
betting his life that they were far from super soldiers.

In addition to the ranged weapons, he had brought along
Captain Sasaki’s tanto since it had been superior to the other blades he might
have acquired. The window Benton would provide him would make it impossible to
neutralize all of the guards before an alarm went up, so he needed to sneak
into the safe house rather than shoot his way in. He also brought a small
satchel of pre-filled syringes, most of which had enough veterinary
tranquilizers to knock an ordinary person out for twelve hours—or an athletic
specimen like Jericho for three to four hours. He had a growing suspicion that
parts of this Adjustment were not what they appeared, and he was therefore
unwilling to cause unnecessary collateral damage.

“You just give the word and I’ll give you a sixty second count,”
Benton said, and Jericho could hear uncharacteristic tension in the other man’s
voice. “But we only be gettin’ one shot at this, feel me?”

Jericho donned a bandolier with two dozen explosive shotgun
rounds, and attached the sheathed tanto to his belt and ran through the
scenario in his mind’s eye several times, trying to visualize his approach and
subsequent entry to the house.

It appeared there was a vehicle inside the house’s attached
garage. He suspected he would be able to use it to create a diversion once he
was inside the house and, hopefully, that the diversion would allow him to slip
away before he was cut down.

“How many inside the house?” he asked as he checked his
gear. He had worn an energy weapon-resistant bodyglove underneath a thin, carbon
fiber vest which would provide protection from at least a few rounds of small
arms fire before failing. Jericho could have brought heavier protection, but he
knew that this particular Adjustment was one he could not make without relying
primarily on speed and stealth.

“Includin’ the target…” Benton hesitated, “four. You need to
slip past the two guards shown as blue icons on your way to the house,” he
explained in a more serious tone and Jericho glanced at the data link to
confirm that they were on the same page tactically. “Then it
be
up to you, boss man.”

“Sounds good,” Jericho replied before closing his eyes and
carefully stretching his legs. He needed to move a hundred sixty yards closer
to the safe house before Benton made his move. “You’re sure they won’t realize
you’ve pinched them?”

“Nah,” Benton replied confidently, “I got the tech specs on
all that gear; this shot
be
tailor-made to knock out
the field and the autocannon’s targeting computers. Even them plasma pistols
will be affected,” he said before adding contemplatively, “but only for about
five seconds.”

“I knew it couldn’t be
that
easy,” Jericho said dryly, but he had already assumed as much.

He carefully moved his way to the perimeter of the
compound—which appeared to be nothing but a farm house in the middle of a vast
sea of grassy, rolling hills—and when he was in position he stopped to collect
his wits. He needed every step to be precisely made, and he had to put every
ounce of power he had into each stride or he would be unable to close the
distance in time.

When he had inspected his chosen path to the safe house, and
concluded that there was no more preparation to be made—and the nearest guard
had turned her back—he said, “Start the clock.”

“Clock is hot,” Benton replied, “in ten seconds we’ll be cut
off until you can get a new link. Six…five…four…three…two…one…she’s hot—good
luck!”

There was the barest blip of static in his earpiece and
Jericho immediately took off at a sprint along his chosen route. He made visual
contact with one of the guards and saw that the guard’s back was still turned
as he cleared her primary field of view and sprinted past a small outbuilding.
After four seconds of full-speed sprinting, he saw the second guard he would
need to evade—but this guard was facing in his direction and situated on the
top floor of a nearby barn-like structure.