Psion Omega (Psion series Book 5) (35 page)

She leaned over him
to peer out the windows, giving him a good smell of her perfume mingled with
the scent of a stale body stuck in a car for almost eight hours. Brickert
didn’t mind it much, especially since he smelled worse. Her black hair brushed
his nose, making him sniff and itch. She’d dyed it black after Li died. It was
her way of dealing with the loss. Kawai, on the other hand, hadn’t spoken a
word since the bombing. No tears. No words. Nothing. She had completely shut
down. Brickert wasn’t sure if she blamed him or Sammy, or everyone. She
wouldn’t say.

“Yeah,” Natalia
said. “I see—I see two sniper nests up on the roofs southwest and
northwest of the blockade corners. No one in them, though. Drone gun mounts and
cover towers have been set up. I’m tagging the locations for you.”

“This blockade
looks legit, I tell you,” Brickert said into his com. “Concrete molds are three
… four meters high. Rifle towers, I’d guess. Armored cars and tanks going
thirty to forty meters back. Not necessarily a run and gun situation. It would
take a huge offensive on foot to break through it. Swarms of bodies … Normandy style.
If we can’t dismantle their defenses before the masses reach the blockades,
thousands of people will die trying to get to the White House and Capitol
Building.”

“I’m seeing the
same thing over here,” said Lorenzo Winters, an older man who’d journeyed with
Sammy and Kawai through the Amazon jungles several months ago. “These bastards
aren’t playing nice at all.”

“Any sign of
anti-aircraft towers in your area, Brickert?” Thomas asked.

Brickert looked to
Natalia, who shook her head. “Not yet.”

“So we’ve got major
blockades going up at six points around the government sector and the Mall,”
Justice said, making marks on the map projected from his holo-tablet. “Armed
explosives on the bridges crossing the Potomac. Smaller choke points with drone
guns set up around the narrower streets.”

“It’s a war zone,”
Thomas muttered over the com. He was back in Hagerstown with the remaining
members of the resistance who had survived the bio-bomb. “D.C. has become a
battlefield.”

“And we need a
battle plan,” Justice said. “If Sammy and Commander Byron don’t come
through—if they’re delayed even a half hour—it’s going to get
ugly.”

“We can’t win with
a ragtag team of a few hundred,” Thomas said, “but I’ll be damned if I don’t
try.”

“People will come,”
Natalia said. “I believe it.”

“So do I,” said
Thomas, “But how many? Sitting here watching the news … it doesn’t look good.
They’re scaring people away. Warning after warning about lethal responses to
any signs of uprising, mayhem, or disorder. Polls and experts showing the movement
has no support. Constant reminders that the resistance is decimated.”

“They’re lies,”
Justice spat. “Don’t believe it.”

“What if they
aren’t?” Thomas asked.

“Then it will be a
short battle,” Justice said grimly. “What’s the final word on our firepower?
How much were we able to recover from our stores?”

“Four or five
hundred kilos of Class A and B explosives. Enough to level a few city blocks.”

“How many cars do
we have at our disposal?”

“I’m not sure about
that … three or four dozen.”

“Any convertibles?”
Justice asked.

“I’d have to look,”
Brickert remarked. “Sounds like you have some ideas.”

“That I do. A real
wild one if I may say so myself. We use the cars as battering rams. Pack ‘em
full of explosives and drive them at the barricades. If we do it in a
coordinated manner, we can obliterate their defenses. Ultras can take out the
snipers while Psions man the hoods of the cars using blast shields to make sure
nothing sets off the explosives early. They can use jump-blasts to bail out of
the cars before the
boom
.”

“NWG’s cruisers can
provide air support,” Thomas suggested.

“They’re going to
have their hands full,” Brickert said. “Less than a hundred cruisers is all
they have left. The CAG has five times that.”

“Think big,
gentlemen,” Justice said. “If people turn out, we’ll send them over water,
through buildings, and any other way we can to get them to the White House and
the Capitol Building.

“The CAG will be
laid low,” Thomas said. “The President, Congress, Supreme Court … all of it.”

“You don’t honestly
think the President and other elected officials are going to be anywhere near
D.C., do you?” Justice asked. “They’ll be hiding underground or far away.
Probably evacuated days ago. Right after your speech.”

“Taking the White
House will be a symbol,” Brickert said. “The Capitol Building, the Supreme
Court … all of them will be overrun.”

“Why don’t we
destroy them?” Natalia asked.

“The goal is to
incite change, not anarchy,” Thomas said. “If we’re successful, we’ll follow
the manifesto posted on the website. Return power to the people. Amend the
laws. Repair the damage done from years of apathy through a process to be
determined by the people.”

“And then we’ll
ride unicorns into the sunset on a road paved with rainbows,” Justice
concluded.

“Why do you say
that?” Thomas asked.

“Because you’re
living a dream if you think things change so easily. The people who will
determine the manner and depth of change in the CAG are those with money and
influence. They’ll insert themselves into the process to shape the events in
ways that benefit them.”

“Then we will
maintain a presence to insure that doesn’t happen,” Thomas said.

Justice merely gave
a long, “Mmm hmm,” and said no more.

* * * * *

The Queen drove her motorcycle past
the neighborhood sign that read “Maple Squares,” an appropriate name for a
gated community of two and three story homes surrounded by lush maple and oak
trees. The trees were especially beautiful in the autumn, explosions of orange,
red, and yellow everywhere she looked, and the heavy, earthy scent of fall in
the evening was thick and sweet. The Queen couldn’t remember the last time
she’d pondered on such things or even appreciated the atmosphere around her.
Her com told her she was almost at her destination.
This has to be the place. It has to be
.

After weeks of
work, the Queen believed she knew who aided the fox in his escape: Jeffrey
Markorian. With all her other responsibilities acting as the fox, the narrowing
of the list had not been easy. She had studied phone and bank records, emails,
private messages, package delivery scans. She had monitored homes with drones
and satellites. Now it was time to capitalize on her time and energy spent.

Hunting down
Markorian reminded her of the old days, being sent on search and destroy
missions by the fox. She was a woman of action—a predator—not meant
to be sitting in board meetings and debating matters with hand-wringing council
members.

By the time she
reached Dogwood Trail, where Markorian lived, the sun was low in its arc while
a light breeze made the leaves twirl on the lawns and streets. When the Queen
saw Markorian’s house, she pulled over and watched it until the sun went down.
Using thermal goggles, she checked the home for signs of activity, booby traps,
and any other signs of potential danger. Her scanners told her the house was
clear and empty, an odd thing considering she had confirmed he was still at
home earlier that morning.

He knew. Somehow he knew I was coming.

“Jeffrey
Markorian,” she told her com. “Trace call.”

When he answered,
she assumed the voice of the fox and said, “It’s me. Where are you?”

“Have you seen the
news?” Markorian asked.

The Queen paused.
That question. I’ve heard it before.
Diego.
Diego had asked her the exact
same thing when she’d spoken to him pretending to be the fox.

“I haven’t seen
the—”

Markorian
terminated the call. The Queen smirked.

“Location,” she
told her com.

“Current location
of caller is westbound on I-20 in Territory of Texas,” answered the robotic
voice.

“Trace the GPS
signal.”

“GPS has been
deactivated—”

The Queen swore.
Her next call was to Chad. She skipped the pleasantries. “Run face-recognition
software on traffic cameras on I-20 westbound for Jeffrey Markorian. Once you
have him, track him, and patch his location to my com.”

One thing the Queen
could not fault the fox for was the width and breadth of his net, capable of
closing in on any target in suburban and urban areas with astonishing speed. If
Project Orwell was ever completed, the net would be inescapable.

She got back on her
bike and headed for her cruiser. Once airborn, she turned her sights west and
waited for Chad to call back. He did so less than a half hour later with
Markorian’s exact position.

“Also,” Chad continued,
“I have a report on the Rio situation. The man sent down to investigate never
responded. I gave him my number to call me directly, but nothing. Nor has he
returned any of my messages.”

The Queen’s mind
churned out data like a well-oiled machine.
Something
is going on, but what?
“What can be gained in those sewers? Is there some
sort of entrance into the Tower? Could this be some remnant of the resistance
trying to destroy another clone production site?”

“Nothing that I can
see.”

The Queen pondered
a moment longer. “Dispatch a small Aegis unit. I want to hear their report the
instant they have it.”

“Consider it done.”

Two hours later,
she had a visual on Markorian’s vehicle heading west on the freeway toward a
bridge. Putting her cruiser on autopilot, she dropped the back hatch and drove
out on her motorcycle, then cut up the road until she was directly behind him.
Slipping one hand to her holster, she removed her gun, aimed, and blew out the
rear driver’s side tire. Even through her helmet, she heard the sounds of
children screaming.

Children
… None of the records she’d read on
Markorian said anything about a wife or kids. Revulsion swelled in her gut and
tightened her chest with an overwhelming sense of wrongness. Then Markorian’s
car swerved and screeched to a halt. The Queen got off her bike, gun still in
hand. Jeffery Markorian was in the driver’s seat yelling to his family to stay
calm. His wife unbuckled her seat belt and climbed to the back to cover her
children, two little girls and a boy, but the Queen acted quickly, killing one
of the girls with a single shot. The old sense of satisfaction and triumph
returned, roaring like a dragon inside her chest. But along with it came a
terrible pain in her left breast and a dull ache in her head.

After blasting
apart the window, she grabbed Markorian and yanked him off his seat. “Where is
he?”

“I—I—I—”

The Queen shot his
wife next, and more screams came from the car. Several other vehicles came to a
stop around them. Other cars weren’t prepared for this and slammed into those
that had stopped. She pointed her gun at another child, this time the son. “Who
dies next, Jeffery?” she yelled at him. “Your boy?”

“He’s in Quito!
Quito! He has an apartment there. Stop!”

The Queen dropped
Jeffery back in his seat. For a moment, she considered just shooting him and
leaving the other two children alive. Part of her wanted to do it, wanted to do
it desperately. She heard their cries faintly, the sounds drowned out by the
Queen’s memory of another girl screaming as the Queen had beaten her to death.

Weakness
.
Pain
is weakness
.

The Queen shuddered
as though snapping out of a dream, tossed a grenade into the car, and jogged
back to her motorcycle. The explosion was a pleasant warmth on such a crisp
fall day. She used her com to order a clean-up crew for large incidentals, then
signaled her cruiser to return and retrieve her.

She flew the
cruiser back to Orlando where she spent the rest of the night researching the
fox’s apartment in Quito. Over the last several weeks, she had checked all of
the fox’s residences, some as many as three times. All of them had turned up
empty.
Why would he go there now? How did
he get there? Who is there with him?

Satellite feeds and
drones were no help. Like many of the areas where the fox had residences,
scramblers had been placed to cause interference with surveillance. Thermal
imaging was blocked and from the available schematics, all she could find was
that the structure was heavily reinforced to withstand many different kinds of
attacks. She left early the next afternoon to check it out herself.

The cruiser took
her to Quito, but dropped her off several kilometers from the fox’s residence.
She made the rest of the trip on her bike. Knowing that Markorian could not
have warned the fox of her knowledge of his whereabouts, the Queen wasted no
time approaching the tall apartment building, stacked with balconies jutting
out like building blocks in a child’s poorly made castle. When she reached a
spot with a good view, she waited and observed.