Net Force (1998) Read online

  A small town appeared on both sides of the bayou. A drawbridge linking the halves of the split town loomed ahead of the drifting boat. Downriver, a pair of weathered shrimp boats churned against the slow current toward the bridge. A warning horn blasted from the drawbridge as the center span clamshelled up. Traffic stopped on both sides of the interrupted road, parked behind red-and-white-striped barriers.

  Michaels stood and walked to the pilot's chair inside, on the port side of the houseboat. He cranked the engines, waved at the bridge tender, throttled up and hurried the boat toward the opposite side of the bayou from the boats coming upriver.

  Behind him, Jay said, "Build the bridges kinda low in this scenario, don't they?"

  "He's not raising it for us. It's for the shrimp boats," Michaels said.

  In reality, the passage was a rerouting of a multigigabyte information flow from one node to another server, a switching operation necessary when large amounts of data needed to move in bulk without interruption. The drawbridge was as good an image as any.

  Once they were clear of the bridge and fishing craft, Michaels steered the houseboat toward the center of the bayou, then cut the engines and let it drift. He moved back to the stern. Normally, he'd be paying more attention to the channel around him, but he'd chosen this scenario in part because it didn't require his full attention on the straight and wide sections of the waterway.

  Gridley said, "We're running the signature and looking for matches, but there are hundreds of thousands of professional programmers out there."

  "Assuming he even is a professional and not some gifted amateur," Michaels said.

  Gridley shook his head. "Guy's gotta be a player. Rascals are too clean to be some kid or duffer."

  Michaels nodded. "All right. Keep looking. Anything else I should know?"

  "Not really. We've got rovers everywhere, looking for more trouble. You know Tyrone Howard?"

  "The colonel's son?"

  "Yeah. I talked to him netmail. He's checking with his friends. They spend a lot of time on the air, they might notice something. He and his buddies are even checking out CyberNation."

  "CyberNation?"

  "A new VR abode. Supposed to be a whole country on-line."

  "Interesting. Is this something we need to worry about?"

  "Someday, maybe, but I don't think it has anything to do with our current problems. CyberNation didn't erase the Commander, and I don't think it's them doing rascals on the net."

  "So about our problem . . . ?"

  "Well. If this guy uses the same setup he's been using, we should be on him like ketchup on fries pretty quick."

  "But you don't think he'll use the same setup?"

  "Nah. I wouldn't--and this guy is almost as good as I am."

  Michaels laughed.

  "Hey, it's hard to be humble when you're great," Gridley said. He looked at his watch. "Oops. Better shove off. I have a VR staff meeting in half an hour. Probably take me twice that long to get there using this thing." He waved at the green bateau, then pointed at the bayou with a sideways nod. "Fortunately, I cleverly left my car just around that next bend."

  Michaels cast off the rope as Gridley climbed down into the bateau and started the outboard motor.

  "Bye-bye, you-all!" Gridley yelled.

  Alex watched the young computer genius head toward the nearer shore. A red Viper convertible was parked at a small dock. As Michaels continued to watch, Gridley pulled the boat to the dock and tied it to a piling. He climbed out of the craft, turned and waved at the houseboat, then headed for the car.

  Tuesday, September 21st, 11:50 a.m. Kiev

  The terrorists' meeting was supposed to begin at 1130 hours, but Howard had allowed twenty minutes more for late arrivals. That extra allotment of time was now up. There were eighteen men and three women inside the warehouse, and while none of them had openly carried weapons, several had worn long coats, and at least three had arrived bearing what appeared to be cased musical instruments--a cello, a double bass and some kind of large-belled horn, probably a tuba, to judge from the shapes.

  Howard would be very surprised if those cases contained anything a musician would use onstage. More likely, inside the cases would be pistols, assault rifles and a rocket launcher, maybe even a few grenades or other explosives. Since this was the staging area for the attack on the embassy, there was a distinct possibility there were other armaments already hidden inside when the terrorists arrived.

  The terrorists were in an office on the second floor of a small, and apparently otherwise unoccupied, two-story warehouse. No one was on the ground level, save for a guard at the building's south entrance. Howard's recon team, led by Fernandez, had done a quick scout when they'd arrived, and discovered that same guard just inside the big metal roll-up door on the south side of the building. While the stealthiest of the recon team could have easily slipped into the warehouse at another entrance and installed surveillance gear in the building itself, Howard chose not to risk it. Maybe these yahoos had set up some alarms of their own, and he didn't want to be tripping one of those and scaring them off.

  Instead, he'd had his teams put cams, motion sensors and parabolics outside the building, along with digital radio and IR scanners. Each of the arrivees was photographed as they entered the warehouse, and vidcaps should clear enough to ID anyone who somehow escaped.

  Not that escape was going to be real likely.

  It was tempting to have his troops kick in the upstairs door, toss a few flashbang grenades inside, and then blast anybody not blind and bleeding from the ears stupid enough to go for a gun, but--no. Instead, he had his troops deployed around the warehouse, watching all possible modes of egress. He would prefer not to do any shooting outside; however, he was prepared for such an eventuality.

  There was still just the one guard watching the only unlocked entrance to the building.

  "Sarge."

  "Sir.">

  "Do you suppose somebody in this unit of tripfoots might manage to take out the guard without raising the dead?" This was a rhetorical question. Howard already knew who had the assignment.

  "Why, yes, sir, I believe that might be possible."

  "Then make it so, Sergeant Fernandez."

  "On my way, sir."

  "You? You're going? A moth-eaten, tired old man like you?"

  The two men grinned at each other.

  Howard watched from his vantage point in the building across the alley from the south entrance as Fernandez approached the closed roll-up door. Fernandez did not wear any obvious weaponry, just dark and greasy coveralls and a battered yellow hardhat, and he carried an old metal lunch pail he must have scrounged from somewhere.

  The parabolics picked up the sound of Fernandez whistling something as he arrived at the door. Sounded like something from Swan Lake. Nice touch, that.

  Fernandez banged on the door with his free hand.

  After a moment, he hammered on the door again. The door accordioned up about six feet. The guard, unarmed, stepped into view and rattled off something Howard didn't understand, but in a questioning and somewhat irritated tone of voice.

  Fernandez said something in return, and it had a familiar ring to it.

  Howard grinned. If he wasn't mistaken, Fernandez had just asked the guard where the men's room was. Before the man could respond, Fernandez said something else, and pointed behind the guard. The man turned to look, puzzled.

  A tactical error on the guard's part.

  Fernandez swung the lunch pail and slammed it into the guard's right temple. The man dropped as if his legs had suddenly vanished. Fernandez put the lunch pail down, grabbed the obviously unconscious man, and dragged him into the warehouse. After a moment, the sarge reappeared, and waved: Come on in.

  "A and B teams, go!" Howard said into the LOSIR tactical com unit he wore. He grabbed his H&K assault rifle and sprinted for the door.

  Tuesday, September 21st, 11:53 a.m. Kiev

  From the time Julio Fernandez knocked the
guard cold until the two assault teams were in place inside the warehouse had taken slightly less than forty-five seconds. Not a glitch.

  Now, they waited.

  There was an elevator, but the circuit breaker working the lift had been tripped; it wasn't going to move. The only way down from the second floor consisted of two sets of stairs. The exit door on one set of those stairs was pad-locked from the outside--wouldn't that be lovely during a fire? Howard left two men watching that door anyhow, along with men outside watching the windows. Nobody was sneaking out of here.

  The other set of stairs was wide and straight, the door unlocked. This was how they'd gone up, and this was how they would come down.

  Howard deployed his men so they weren't visible from the base of the stairs. Everybody was to stay hidden until he gave the word.

  Howard himself would have put on the unconscious guard's coveralls to stand by the front entrance--until the sarge reminded him it wouldn't be enough of a disguise--not unless these guys were really color-blind.

  "Fine, fine, you do it. By the way, what was in that lunch box you hit that guy with?"

  "Twelve pounds of lead shot, sir. Packed into a nice tight leather bag. Sometimes low-tech stuff is still the best way."

  Thus it was that Fernandez wore the guard's coveralls, his face in shadow, so when the party broke up and the terrorists made to leave, they'd see that things were still fine downstairs.

  Howard found a spot behind a stack of wooden crates in which to hide. There was enough of a gap between the boxes so he could see the base of the stairs. He could smell the pine-like scent of the unfinished wood, and the lube from the machine parts in the boxes. He could also smell his own nervous sweat.

  Once most of the plotters were down, they'd move on them. He reasoned that the plotters wouldn't be showing weapons, since they were about to go out into public view, and unless they were real fast on the draw, they wouldn't have time to get their weapons out without getting cooked for their efforts. They'd see they were caught and that resistance was unwise. That was how he reasoned it. If he could take them all alive, that would be the best thing. Let the interrogators at them.

  The sound of voices talking in Russian or Ukrainian drifted down the stairs, along with the clump of boots. This was it. He took a deep breath.

  Don't screw this up, John--

  Tuesday, September 21st, 12:53 a.m. San Diego

  Ruzhyo sat upright in bed, heart pounding rapidly. Despite the motel's air-conditioning, he was clammy with sweat, the covers tangled in a knot around his feet.

  He kicked the covers off, swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. The room was dark, save for a thin shaft of light from around the edges of the almost-closed bathroom door. He padded in that direction, scratching at his damp chest hair. It was not fear of the night's gloom that caused Ruzhyo to leave a light on there, but practicality: The nightmare woke him frequently, and often in a room in which he had never slept before. Switching on a bright lamp with its hard glare to find his disoriented way to the toilet seemed . . . excessive. Over the years of cheap rooms and fast moves, he had learned the lesson: Leave a lamp burning near the toilet, close the door so only a gap remained, and relief was always in the direction of the light. Had he been a religious man, he would have perhaps considered some metaphorical significance in that, but faith in an Almighty Being was not in Ruzhyo's soul, if indeed he had such a thing.

  No God worthy of the name would have ever let Anna die so young.

  In addition to the one over the sink, there were mirrors across from, and next to, the toilet--a stupid place to put such things--who wants to watch himself urinate or defecate? The mirrors reflected his external image, which always came as something of a surprise, since he did not spend too much time looking at himself. To hear the mirrors tell it, he was a fit man, muscular, but not overly so, his brown hair now cut short, going gray at the temples. He looked at least his age of forty, perhaps a bit more, and his eyes, though bleary from the night's touch, were all too cold and knowing. Those eyes had seen many die. They belonged to a man who had caused more than a few of those deaths. But at least his method was quick. He did not leave the wounded to suffer slowly, in pain.

  When Anna had been alive, he had not been so introspective. There had been no need. She had asked the deep questions, and often, she had answered them, too. It had been enough for him to listen, to smile and nod, to let her speak of such matters. For a time after she was gone, he had been completely shut down, had done nothing other than the barest survival motions, not wanting to remember, to think, to feel. It was only later, after the wound had slowed from a torrent to a slow but steady trickle, only then had he spent any time inside his own head. He had gone back to doing what he knew best and he was still good at it--but he no longer took any joy in the work. His pride at being able to deal death with expertise was greatly diminished. It was simply what he did. What he would continue to do until someone better did it to him.

  He finished pissing, closed the toilet's lid without flushing and returned to his rented bed. He lay in the dark for a long time, but sleep did not want him back. Finally, he got up and turned on a light. He stretched, sat on the floor and began to do crunches, working his abdominal muscles. He would do a hundred of these, then push-ups, a hundred of those, then another set of crunches and push-ups, and another, until he could not do even one more exercise. Sometimes that helped. Sometimes he would be tired enough to fall back into exhausted slumber.

  Sometimes it merely left him exhausted, but still awake. Those were not the best of times.

  Nor, unfortunately, were they the worst of times.

  Tuesday, September 21st, 11:54 a.m. Kiev

  "Now!" Howard said into his mouthpiece. As he spoke, he stepped out from behind his cover and raised the assault rifle to a hip point. "Don't move!" he yelled, using the Ukrainian phrase Fernandez had taught him.

  For a heartbeat no one did. The terrorists, most on the warehouse floor, two still on the stairs, froze, startled no doubt by the sight of more than a dozen armed men in coveralls stepping or rolling out of concealment to point weapons at them.

  Then one of the terrorists screamed something, certainly a curse, even if Howard didn't understand the words. The screamer dug his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small chrome-plated pistol--

  Somebody cooked off a double-tap--pop! pop!--and dropped the pistoleer.

  It all went south. Most of the other terrorists tried to get their guns out.

  One of them saw how stupid this was, yelled "Nyet! Nyet!" but too late.

  Howard's orders to his troops had been clear--take them alive if possible, but if somebody is going to get shot, do not let it be you.

  Time stalled, stretched, and Howard saw part of it in his suddenly tunneled vision, as if it were a movie being run in slow motion and he was in the front row. His vision narrowed, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing: Even amidst all the gunfire, obscenely loud in the enclosed warehouse, he distinctly heard the sound of men yelling, actions cycling, chunk-chunk! and brass clinking on the concrete floor, tink, tink, clink--

  --a big bearded man pulled what looked like a World War I Luger from his belt and swung it up, only to catch several rounds from a submachine gun in a neat horizontal row across the center of his mass--

  --the man yelling "Nyet!" dropped to the floor, covered his head with his hands, curled into a fetal position, still repeating his panicked yell--

  --the men on the stairs turned to flee back the way they had come--

  --a thin, balding man missing a front tooth came up with a sawed-off bolt-action rifle, a .22 maybe, and thrust it toward Howard. So keen was his vision that Howard noticed a ring on the man's right forefinger as he wrapped the digit around the trigger--

  No time to raise the assault rifle to aim. Howard point-indexed the thin man, stabbed the weapon at him as if it were a bayonet and pulled the trigger. The big weapon bucked, once--twice--three times! and recoil
lifted the muzzle with the second and third rounds. The first bullet struck at high solar-plexus level, the second the base of the throat, the third at the top of the receding hairline. Howard saw the spray of the head's exit wound, a balloon full of dark red fluid bursting--

  One would have been enough. That was the thing with a .30-caliber rifle, a good solid body hit was a one-hundred-percent-fight-stopper. No handgun could claim that, but a 7.62mm, yeah--

  The thin man fell, already dead, taking nearly forever to reach the floor. Land masses rose and sank, life came and went, time wore away mountains. . . .

  By the time the dead man lay flat on the concrete, the battle was over.

  Howard noticed his ears were ringing, and the stink of burned gunpowder filled his nostrils. Jesus!