The boat was ready to go, its thrusters puffing a mist of ionized reaction mass. The small craft’s hull was armored, but its real protection tonight was the sparkling chaos in the Gendarmery camp. Cooked-off rockets and projectiles lofted by the explosion of their neighbors drew glowing arcs across the sky. Warheads which landed in Dupree City set off secondary blasts among the house and vehicles.
Ambassador Razza jumped into the boat. Wittvogel set his armored hand in the hatchway, unblocking the track only when he and Milligan were aboard also.
Acceleration flung them all to the rear of the compartment. The technician Wittvogel held was moaning with relief.
“Sir,” Milligan said. The hot surface of his armor raised a wisp of haze from the plastic liner of the bulkhead against which he leaned. He was still using laser commo. “Why did you have to cut a lead? The emp would’ve travelled down the conduit sheath itself, wouldn’t it?”
The boat’s rhythmic buffeting implied that the pilot was holding them so close to the deck that the terrain-avoidance system had to boost them to clear trees. Grant Dupree’s air defenses weren’t likely to be a danger, but there was no point in taking chances.
The captain turned so that his helmet-top laser communicator pointed directly at Milligan. “If I hadn’t cut the input lead to the data bank,” Wittvogel said deliberately, “then the scrambler wouldn’t have cleared the main accounts as well as the copy these techs had already made. They could have retrieved it again.”
Wittvogel opened his arms. The technician scrambled free on all fours, sobbing loudly.
“Nothing I could do was going to bring back Porter and Platt,” the captain said. “And anyway, soldiers die.”
Ambassador Razza had opened the faceplate of her helmet. Her skin was white; sweat glittered on her cheekbones and upper lip. Milligan wondered if she realized yet that the scrambler grenade had converted her plans of wealth into electromagnetic garbage.
“But I didn’t think anybody ought to get rich off my people’s death,” Captain Wittvogel added, in a whisper as harsh as a leopard’s cough.
WITH THE SWORD HE MUST BE SLAIN
“If anyone slays with the sword, with the sword he must be slain.”
Revelation 13:10
The Colonel had never met this tasking officer, but he was a Suit and the Colonel figured all Suits were the same. The fact that this particular Suit was part of Hell’s bureaucracy rather than Langley’s didn’t make a lot of difference.
“Good to see you, Colonel,” the Suit said as he studied the folder in front of him. “Please sit down.”
He didn’t get up from behind his desk, and he didn’t offer to shake hands. Probably afraid he’d transfer sweat to the fine wool/silk blend of his garment. This particular Suit fancied English tailoring instead of Italian, but that was pretty standard for the Company boys too. The left half of the Colonel’s lips smiled.
“Yes?” said the Suit.
“I was wondering,” the Colonel said, “whether Hell is a CIA proprietary operation. Or vice versa.”
“I think we’d best use our time to productive ends, Colonel,” the Suit said dismissively. “The schedule is rather tight for jokes.”
There was a look of disdain in his eyes. The Colonel would have liked to put the muzzle of a pistol in the Suit’s mouth and watch those hard black eyes bulge when he pulled the trigger, but he wouldn’t do that.
He’d never done that, much as he’d wanted to, every fucking time. The Suits with their clean hands and clean clothes were all the same. . . .
The Suit frowned again at the red-bordered folder in front of him, then transferred his attention to the Colonel. “What’s your physical condition?” he said. “This says you were—”
“I’m fit,” the Colonel said curtly. His ribs were taped. He’d blocked the obsidian-fanged club, but the blow had driven the flat of his own weapon, a similar club, into his side. Adrenaline had hidden the pain while the Colonel buried the butt of his club in the solar plexus of the squat giant who’d struck him and then broke his neck with the edge of his hand; but the pain was back now, every time he breathed.