Kris backed into the woods to face her team. ''Whose laser spotters are bust?'' she asked. A few moments later, four very embarrassed troopers acknowledged that the gear they'd so carefully nursed into operation in the loading bay was now dead weight. Kris's one bit of luck was that both her limper and her sand-yellow were among the laser blind; she'd only have to leave four behind.
''You four are my fire support team.'' That, however, was only the start of Kris's problems. The two-millimeter darts of the M-6 came in two flavors. One left you dead.
The other was Colt Physer's best efforts at a sleepy bullet, a round with nonlethal intent. The M-6 did not have cartridges. Once the range finder established the distance to the target, it automatically squirted an appropriate charge into the chamber. Still, there was a problem with sleepy bullets. If you put too much energy behind a dart, it shattered bone, artery, and brain. At 300 meters, the low-power sleepy dart was very subject to wind drift. The odds of it hitting anything were way past bad.
''Gunny, have the two best marksmen among those four load sleepy darts. The other two load live ammo.'' Gunny handed out firing orders with deft hand signals. ''If things get interesting, Gunny or I will say who and what gets fired.'' Kris told them softly, then decided it was time to make her own pre-fight statement. ''Remember, Marines, we're here as cops. These kidnappers have a right to face a jury of their peers. But Sequim still has the death penalty. We bag ‘em. They hang' em.''
With a happy growl, the marines mounted up. Gunny's fire team led, reduced to him and his tech. Behind him followed in single file his corporal and a shooter. Kris led her squad off, Hanson with his gadgets ahead of her. Corporal Li and a trigger puller brought up the rear.
Gunny's tech went first, using her satchel of magic tricks to tell those following when to step high to avoid laser beams, when to edge right or left away from mines.
Kris eyed one mine as she passed it. Its surface was a perfect match of the tundra surrounding it. At fifteen centimeters across and rising slowly to maybe one centimeter high, it left no shadow. It was, however, developing one telltale.
The summer sun had warmed it. It now sank two or three millimeters into the tundra. Kris looked around. Now that she knew what to look for, she could spot a half dozen. No footprints, though. That was what she'd looked for from orbit; footprints on the fragile tundra. They must have dropped these from a chopper. Again, more expenses. Who was footing the bill for this?
Kris badly felt the need for a shower, some coffee, and someone to talk over what had been thrown at her in the last few hours. There were patterns here, patterns that eluded her.
Eddy didn't need patterns solved. Eddy needed rescuing.
Kris concentrated on the problem at hand. Hunched down, halfway across a 300-meter minefield, she discovered a whole new meaning for naked and vulnerable. She watched her step. She watched the Stoolpigeon's feed for action in the house. She watched the sleeping guards for any hint of wakefulness. Occasionally, she remembered to breathe.
Reentry had taken what seemed like a year. Kris aged centuries crossing the tundra in front of the lodge. When finally she was close, Kris signaled Gunny to take his squad around back; the front door was hers. It gave her a direct run at the central staircase and the upstairs gunman. Kris wanted her battle armor over that terrified child's body ten minutes ago. Whatever happened in the house after Kris got to the kid, harm would come to that little girl through Kris's dead body.
Kris's luck ran out ten meters shy of the lodge. One of the sleeping beauties roused himself for a head visit. In his ambling, he wandered in front of the lodge's one picture window.
''Marines, we got action in the house,'' Kris whispered into her mike as the guy stopped in front of the window to scratch.
''We start this show on my count. Gunny, you take down the back and pacify the downstairs. My squad will take care of the front and the upstairs.'' She paused for questions—just as the thug in the picture window yanked up his gun and went fully automatic at them. ''Fire support, get that guy in the window. Corporal Li, you get the sleeping guard on the front porch before he wakes up. Hanson, blow us a hole.''
''Doing it,'' Hanson whispered, stuffing the end of a line charge into his grenade thrower and taking aim at the front door.
Behind Kris, Corporal Li's private took rounds, full in the chest. The force threw her a good five feet. She landed on a mine and got more air time.
''Fire in the hole,'' Hanson shouted. Kris hit the deck while her tech's grenade launcher went off with a whoosh, lobbing a charge at the front door and draping a line charge between her and said door. The door blew in; then, like failing Christmas tree lights, the charges on the line behind it went off. Most just went pop; three set off mines. Waiting just long enough for the explosives to blow, Kris dashed for the door. She was on it before it finished falling in.
Kris struggled to catch her balance as she hurtled into the living room. The stairs were ahead of her. She could not see the upstairs gunman. Off to her right, one man collapsed under a hail of fire from across the yard, even while another man rolled off the couch, gun coming up.
Kris wanted the upstairs gunman, not this one. The nice thing about keeping company with marines was that one of them was always behind you, always on backup. Ignoring the gunner, Kris raced for the stairs, gun up, magazine switching to sleepy darts. Eddy, I'm here!
Halfway up, the sleeping gunman came in view. The racket was bringing him awake. His eyes popped open wide as he saw Kris's gun aimed right at him. His hands came up. Maybe he was going for his gun. Maybe he was just trying to fend off her fire. It didn't matter. Kris shot.
Darts stitched up the man's chest, throat, and face, knocking him over backward. Kris reached the top of the stairs, did a hard left, and headed for the middle bedroom. Scream after scream came from that room; there was no question where the hostage was.
Kris hit the door and bounced off.
Hanson was right behind her. He slid to his knees at the door, jammed a wad of explosives in the lock, covered it with a flap of armored cloth, and ducked his head.
The door blew open.
Kris was moving before the explosion finished. That wasn't possible, but later she'd swear she did. She flew in with the door, did a quick scan with her rifle to the right and left, then dashed for a tiny figure in torn jeans and a filthy green sweater. The girl was sitting half up in bed, yanking at her restraints and screaming at the top of her six-year-old lungs. All Kris wanted to do was hug the child to her chest, but there were rules in situations like these. She dropped to the floor. Something small and nasty looking was attached by wires to the bottom of the bed. ''Hanson, we got a bomb here.''
Her tech slid to a stop on his knees while Kris did a further check on the room. What looked like a school backpack had been reloaded with clothes and other junk. Kris decided it could be ignored for a moment. Otherwise, the room was as bare as its wooden floor, light green walls, and tan ceiling permitted. No closet. Kris turned back to the howling child just as Hanson finished his examination of the monster under the bed.
''Bomb, rigged to the restraint. I pop them, it goes boom.''
''Disarm it,'' came from Corporal Li as he entered the room, trailed by his trigger puller, much the dirtier but apparently no worse for wear from her encounter with live rounds and mines.
''You okay?'' Kris asked the private.
''She's fine,'' the corporal answered for his gunner. ''Landed on the mine flat on her back. It she'd stepped on it, it would have blown her foot off. As it was, it only tossed her around.''