Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (42 page)
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Authors: Evil Triumphant
middle of the afternoon while the digital display correctly listed the time as 3:05 a.m.
Crowley and Mickey joined me on the platform, and we left the facility in silence. Once back in the car
and headed toward Mercury, 1 looked over at Crowley. "So, any theories about what that gate was back there?"
The occultist frowned. "1 saw what you saw, and I have a guess. It's basically this: Those crystals either co-exist in two dimensions—which would require an incredible amount of energy, and 1 saw no evidence
of that being pumped in there—or they have identical lattices. In effect, they would be clones of each
other. When energy is pumped into them, it creates a link that bridges the gap between the two. Going
through there did not feel like it normally does. I've heard rumors out there of such special gates, but this is the first I've seen of them."
"Mickey, that was the bad place?"
"CJh-huh."
"Good. All we have to do now is get in, bring Fiddleback in, and let him eliminate Pygmalion."
Crowley smiled wryly. "Kind of like scuttling a ship to get rid of rats."
"It is that, but when a rat is promoting himself to captain of the ship, almost any solution that will work is viable."
Crowley asked me what I had said to the security man. "I told him we were working security for the
person who was financing the project. I told him I'd fax him a pass-word-and-challenge system so he
could have it in place by next Thursday, when we return."
"Ah, the fox instructing the chickens how to guard the henhouse."
I nodded. "Something like that."
"Think he bought it?"
"I don't know, but I hope so." I gave Crowley a sly smile. "If he does what we ask, it becomes an easy job to break in again and do what we need to do. If not..."
Mickey leaned forward from the back seat. "We play rough."
"Very, very rough, Mickey. Very rough."
The Peregrine landed on top of the Lorica tower just before dawn. I dictated instructions for Lilith, then caught four hours of sleep. I would have preferred it to be dreamless, but visions of Mart's death played through my head again and again. I wrestled control of the dreams away from my unconscious mind and
directed them toward the happier, passionate moments we had known together, but whenever I got caught up
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in eroticis
m, the dreams melted away, leaving me skeletal nightmares.
The person 1 had been for the vast majority of my life wouldhave ignored the dreams, but I had changed. I didn't know if 1 had truly loved Marit—I don't know if I was capable of love before knowing compassion—
but the new person 1 had become demanded I re-examine her death and my part in it. Had I a choice in doing what I did? Did she really have to die?
I knew better than to fall into a guilt trap. Marit had betrayed Coyote, me and the rest. She had allied herself with the creature Fiddleback had molded into Nerys Loring. She had sent other friends to their deaths, and she had almost had me killed on at least one occasion. That she deserved to die was not a question. What 1 did want to know was if there was any way I could have dealt with her treason without killing her.
The fact that I had been trained as an assassin meant I had an understanding of almost all the antipersonnel devices that had ever been created. I had manufactured the thing that killed Marit. Examining the alternatives, I
could find nothing that would have been 100% certain to neutralize her as a threat. Anything less effective could not be trusted, nor could she.
She had given me no choice. She had gambled everything against a promise of immortality and eternal youth.
1 fulfilled half that bargain, for she never got any older. I would have preferred it to be otherwise, but in connecting the dots, I created a picture that excluded her.
I climbed out of bed, showered and dressed in sports slacks, a polo shirt baggy enough to hide the vest I wore, and some running shoes. I placed a quick call to Bat, got a grunt of assent in return for my requests, and called Ulith. She reported that she had begun to procure what I needed from her and that all would be ready by dusk.
My call to Bat, among other things, had caused him to set up an appointment for me at noon in a tiny Eclipse pawn shop that huddled up against the bulk of City Center. When I walked in, it looked to me as if nothing at all had changed since my first visit there months ago. The teenager behind the fenced-in counter chuckled slightly as he read from
A Night in the Lonesome Octoberby
Roger Zelazny. 1 smiled slightly as he looked up and started to share something with me, but he just mumbled, "Snuff is a killer," and went back to his reading.
I threaded my way through shelves and shelves of the dust-laden detritus of civilization. I saw a whole host of appliances that had been manufactured in the United States only a dozen years before, but ignorance of how to affect the little repairs they might need meant that they rusted away to nothing while people made do with inferior products from the Russian Commonwealth or Mexico. People, by their reluctance to leam how to
make changes, just grew used to accepting less and less in their lives.
1 reached a gateway in the back, and the kid behind the counter buzzed me through. Beyond it, down a narrow corridor that went left and back right, put me in front of a steel door. A periscope built into the panel above it swiveled around to study me, then the door slid open. Beyond it, I descended a spiral staircase
and entered a low ceiling's bunker that bristled with a wide selection of weapons.
A dwarf slapped the handles on the periscope up and it descended into the floor. "Good afternoon. I
believe you were Tycho Caine when I met you last, but the television said you were Michael Loring
when you were all but killed a few weeks ago."
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1 shr
ugged and shook his hand. "You cannot believe everything you hear on the television, I gues
s, Mr.
"No." Bronislaw Joniak climbed up on a stool behind a counter. "Luckily for you, Bat said you were also known as Coyote. You don't look like the Coyote I knew, but you'd not be wearing that name if it had not
been assigned to you. What do you need?"
I looked around the dimly lit room, peeking at objects half hidden by the railroad tie pillars that held the ceiling up. A Chrysler Combat Exoskeleton stood guard over the back half of the room, preventing
anyone from moving in toward the confusion of crates nestled there. Off to my right, in what passed for
theclient waiting area, Joniak had a number of sample weapons mounted on a pegboard, and 1 studied it
before 1 began to place my order.
"This will be very expensive, and 1 will need some trustworthy personnel to fill out my ranks."
Joniak made a note on the pad he held in his lap. "1 have contacts with an ex-Ranger company that
maintains a survivalist community near New River. They're clean and experienced. They're also
expensive."
"Fine, contact them. One weeks' work, with an option to extend for two more. Standard compensation
with signing bonuses and completion payments. I only want
those who are night-combat trained, and I have a special screening they will have to go through at the
Sunburst Foundation. If they wash out during the screening, they still keep their signing bonus and will be on reserve in case we need them."
The dwarf smiled as he made notes, "How many men?"
That was a very telling question. What was left of the Japanese Imperial Defense Cadre had remained in Japan to recover. While I had no doubt the emperor would give us the men we needed, desert warfare was not their forte. 1 decided to leave them out of this assault and hope, if we failed fully or in part, they might be able to form the core of a resistance movement to whichever Dark Lord did win.
"Minimum is an even hundred, max is one-fifty, with a minimum reserve of 50. This is going to be wet work.
I will pay extra for anyone who can work as a gunner on a Peregrine. Make the rates and bonuses 50% higher than usual, 100% for the gunners."
"Are you planning a war, Coyote?"
"Hoping to prevent one, actually." I gnawed my lower lip for a second. "I need military-class body armor for 250 people. I want assault rifles for that many as well, with 1000 rounds of armor-piercing ammo for each.
Half of that should be in clips, the rest loose. Nightvision goggles for everyone as well. 1 will also need four M2 heavy machineguns, one for each of two Peregrines. I want 4000 rounds of high-explosive, incendiary
ammo for each of those guns. I already have techs working on installing the fire-control systems. Can you get me Sidewinder missiles?"
Joniak pressed his lips into a flat line as he thought for a second. "Yes, but 1 can't get mounting pods for your Peregrines. When Lorica bought them, they should have gone for the military version and just pulled the
weapons."
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I nodde
d. "I concur, but that was not my decision to
make. I will need troop transports. The Peregrines will carry my advance party and 14 of the Rangers. Get me trucks enough to move the rest."
"Would you like some Bradleys? 1 can get you a half-dozen fairly cheaply."
I hesitated. The armored personnel carriers would give me added firepower with their TOW rockets and chain guns. On one hand, they would mean nothing in the battle with Pygmalion, but on the other, they could help hold the base against any influx of help from our side of the gates. "Okay, the reserves will use them."
I stepped over to the peg board. "I want 50 LAW rockets, 400 concussion grenades, 400 fragmentation
grenades and 500 pounds of Semitek. I'll be rigging that into a truck bomb, so be sure to get me some sort of vehicle that can be directed by remote control from one of the Peregrines." I purposely made it sound like 1
meant to use that to get in to wherever we were going, but I really wanted it to blow the facility if we could not defeat Pygmalion.
The dwarf shook his head. "There are Central American countries that don't have what you're asking me to get."
"Does that mean you can't deliver?"
Joniak shook his head confidently. "I can deliver. How soon you want it all?"
"Two days? We go soon, the faster the better."
"Rush job, notaproblem. I'11 just have to bring things in from the warehouse." He looked up at me. "Is there anything else?"
A remark he had made during my last visit popped into my brain. "You suggested tactical air support was available if we were operating outside Eclipse. Was that smoke or were you serious?"
"Serious as death itself." The dwarf poked his pencil at
a binder full of plastic sheet protectors lying on the counter. "Check it out. If you see anything you like, let me know."
I flipped past pictures of a Hind helicopter and an A-10 Warthog, then stopped. As I looked up, I saw Joniak smile appreciatively. "You can get me one of these, fully loaded?"
The dwarf nodded. "You have excellent taste. That's my own personal bird. I'll be flying it."
"That's not necessary."
"Ah, but it is." The dwarf put down his notepad. "First of all, you now owe me about 17 million dolmarks, and I'm interested in protecting my investment. More importantly, though, I have
a
debt." He gave me a smile.
"And, as per terms of the contract, it's time for me to pay forward."