The MP shoved me a second time. I spun on my right heel, sweeping the barrel of the pistol away from me with my right hand and slamming the edge of my left hand into the man’s neck. The strike to his neck stunned him and stopped his breathing. I kept my hand on his neck to control him as I slammed my knee into his groin, knocking the wind and fight out him. Then I slid my hand from his neck to his shoulder and guided him down to the ground. Low and out of sight, I snapped the man’s neck.
It was an easy kill. It happened so fast that my combat reflex did not kick in.
I would have liked to have borrowed his gun. I even toyed with the idea of switching uniforms, but ended up playing the game safe. I rolled the MP into the magnetic slot through which the trains ran, gun and all. The electricity flowing through that track would not hurt the body but with any luck, the next train would smash him and run over the leftovers before more commuters arrived. Whatever was left behind would not be worth the cost of the autopsy.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Somewhere not too far from the train station, somebody set off a bomb. The reverberation of the explosion rushed through the buildings like a flood. Several columns of black smoke rose high into the air. The percussion was powerful, but the black color of the smoke and narrowness of the plumes suggested very little damage had been done.
All around me, men in green, blue, and tan officers’ uniforms ran out of the various buildings and headed toward the explosion. Women in uniforms joined the queue. They formed a steady stream of humanity that funneled down the streetlike tributaries gathering into a river. I followed. As we got closer to the blast site, the crowd grew thicker. By the time I turned a corner and saw ground zero, I stood in a crowd of thousands.
No one paid any attention to me. All they cared about was the bombing. So the Morgan Atkins Believers had a terrorist among them, and I had a pretty good idea who that terrorist might be.
The smoke came from a row of cars that now lay on their sides with flames bursting out of the chassis. Because the air inside the cavernous settlement had a pleasant chill, I could feel the heat from the burning cars two hundred feet away.
“That’s every day this week,” a man complained. He shook his head. “I’d love to catch them myself…specking murderers.”
“Every day this month,” another officer corrected.
“Not again,” a man said to no one in particular.
“Can’t they catch the bastards?” asked a woman who stood behind me.
Up ahead, a team of emergency techs sprayed foam on the smoldering automobiles to douse the flames. The techs wore yellow soft-shelled armor. They had red foam tanks on their backs. A blast that topples cars should damage buildings as well. This one did not. As the smoke cleared, I saw that the buildings around the explosion looked untouched. Perhaps the terrorist wanted to assassinate the drivers.
I did not look for long. I squared myself to the center of the explosion, then turned and walked away. Threading my way through the crowd, I formed a compass in my head and set a heading for 110 degrees. I headed west, southwest, pushing my way through a growing tide of people.
I found Illych standing in the middle of a crowd, craning his neck with all the other people to get a look at what had happened. He was shorter than the men around him, shorter than some of the women, too. He wore the uniform of a Mogat Marine. He wore leather gloves that hid his sharp-ended fingers, but nothing hid that ugly ridge of bone that ran above his eyes. The ridge gave him a caveman forehead.
“I hope they catch that bastard and wring his nuts,” I said as I approached Illych.
“Yes, sir. Security has really gone to pot around here.”
“Gone to pot,” I thought. Not “specked beyond repair,” or “for shit.” The man had just left a bomb that blew up cars and presumably drivers, but heaven help us if he swore.
Illych looked at me, and the smile of recognition crossed his lips. “Clever disguise, sir. Coming to a Mogat planet masquerading as a Liberator carrying a big suspicious box. I would never have thought of that one.”
“Shall we get back to work, Sergeant,” I said. He had a sergeant’s uniform.
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant,” Illych said. “The sooner we get you under wraps, the better.”
“Get me under wraps?” I asked. “I’m not the terrorist here.”
“I knew you would come,” he added as we walked away. “I knew you would come.”
“What made you think a stupid thing like that?” I asked.
“You had to come. It’s in your programming.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s SEAL programming.” We were walking past hundreds of people, and no one noticed us. Anyone within earshot could hear what we said, but that did not matter. No one looked in our direction. We were just a Navy lieutenant and a Marine sergeant comparing notes about this latest terrorist attack.
Behind us, the emergency team had doused the cars, and a truck came to carry the wreckage away. The show had ended. The rest of the crowd would soon head back to work.
“How many more of you are there?” Illych asked.
“Just me. I came alone.”
Illych looked at me and nodded. “This is a switch,” he said. “Now you’re in the Navy, and I’m the grunt Marine.”
“Is there anyplace we can talk?” I asked.
“Sure,” Illych said. “I’ll show you my new digs.”
“What happened?” A man in an army uniform came jogging toward us.
“Another bomb,” Illych said.
“Did they get anything?”
“Couple of cars.” Illych laughed. “I don’t know why those bastards bother.” There was a bitter edge to his voice.
“Damn. I hope they get that guy,” the man said.
“Yeah, don’t we all,” Illych agreed.
“Why cars?” I asked, as the army man walked past us to gawk at the latest terrorist attack.
“Harris, I attached the bomb to the building behind the cars. You cannot hurt these buildings.
“Remember when you said that the Mogats lowered the shields on that battleship? They have the same thing going on down here. Bombs and mines don’t hurt these buildings. I’ve tried particle beams. I’ve tried grenades. I’ve tried rockets. The buildings have some kind of shield on their outer walls. Nothing gets through.”
Illych led me several miles across the military sector. We left the admin area far behind, entering a neighborhood of warehouses and motor pools. He gave me a running commentary as if he had lived in the city all his life. He knew which motor pool had the latest equipment and which ones had lazy mechanics.
“How do you know all of this?” I asked.
“Word gets around” is all he would say.
The phosphorus layer in the sky was turning dark by the time we reached Illych’s “digs.” He’d found himself a small armory with enough weapons to wage a tribal war. He had rifles, rocket launchers, Jeeps, and a particle-beam cannon.
“How in the world did you secure these premises?” I asked, trying to talk Marine-colonel talk.
“I killed the former occupants,” he said.
“No one comes looking for them?” I asked.
“An MP came by. I told him that the guys never showed for work.”
“And that was it? The Marines never followed up?”
“Harris, as far as the Marines are concerned, the old guys went AWOL and everything else is running right. I work the desk. If someone wants to requisition a Jeep or a tractor, I give them the paperwork and issue the equipment.” He handed me the inventory chart. Over the weeks that he had been here, Illych received shipments of uniforms, machine parts, and munitions. He logged everything.
“Very thorough,” I said. “You expecting an inspection?”
“Luck favors the prepared, sir,” Illych said.
“Lose the ‘sir,’” I said. “They busted me back down to master sergeant.”
“How does it feel to be back among the ranks of the enlisted?” Illych asked.