“I’m not a politician, sir,” Huber said. He was trembling, not with fear—he was beyond fear—but with hope. “I don’t know what would happen afterward.”
“Not a politician?” Steuben’s voice sneered while his eyes laughed with anticipation. “You were about to carry out a political act, weren’t you? You do understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes sir, I do understand,” Huber said. The four trucks that surrounded Fencing Master had turned off their lights, though their diesel engines rattled at idle. The jeep’s headlights fell on Huber and his men, then reflected from the combat car’s iridium armor; they stood in almost shadowless illumination.
“Is there anything you want to say before I decide what I’m going to do with you, Lieutenant?” Steuben said with a lilt like the curve of a cat’s tongue.
“Sir,” Huber said. His muscles were trembling and his mind hung outside his body, watching what was going on with detached interest. “I’d like to accompany you and your troops on the operation you’ve planned. It may not be necessary to discipline me afterward.”
“You mean it won’t be possible to discipline you if you get your head blown off,” the major said. He laughed again with a terrible humor that had nothing human in it. “Yes, that’s a point.”
“El-Tee?” said Learoyd. “Where are you going? Can I come?”
Huber looked toward the trooper. “They’re carrying non-issue weapons, Learoyd,” he said. He didn’t know if he was explaining to Deseau and Tranter at the same time. “Probably the hardware we captured at Rhodesville. They’re going to take out Graciano just like we planned, but they’re going to do it in a way that doesn’t point straight back at the Regiment.”
“I shot off my mouth when I shouldn’t’ve, Major,” Deseau said. “I do that a lot. I’m sorry.”
Huber blinked. He couldn’t have been more surprised if his sergeant had started chanting nursery rhymes.
Deseau cleared his throat and added, “Ah, Major? We carried an EM slugthrower in the car for a while till we ran out of ammo for it. The penetration was handy sometimes. Anyway, we’re checked out on hardware like what I see there in the back of your jeep.”
“So,” Steuben said very softly. “You understand the situation, gentlemen, but do you also understand the rules of an operation like this? There will be no prisoners, and there will be no survivors in the target location.”
“I understand,” Huber said; because he did.
“Works for me,” said Deseau. Learoyd knuckled his skull again; he probably didn’t realize he’d been asked a question.
“We’re going to kill everybody in the senator’s house, Learoyd,” Huber said, leaning forward to catch the trooper’s eyes.
“Right,” said Learoyd. He put his helmet back on.
“Caxton,” Major Steuben said to his driver, “issue slug-throwers to these three troopers. Sergeant Tranter?”
Tranter stiffened to attention.
“You’ll drive the combat car here back to Central Repair,” Steuben said. “And forget completely about what’s happened tonight.”
“Sir!” said Tranter. His eyes were focused into the empty night past Steuben’s pistol holster. “I can drive a truck, and I guess you got people here—”
He nodded to the truck beside him, its bed lined with blank-faced troopers.
“—who can drive Fencing Master. Sir, I deserve to be in on this!”
Joachim Steuben giggled again. “Deserve?” he said. “The only thing any of us deserve, Sergeant, is to die; which I’m sure we all will before long.”
He looked toward the cab of an idling truck and said in a whip-crack voice, “Gieseking, Sergeant Tranter here is going to drive your vehicle. Take the combat car back to Central Repair and wait there for someone to pick you up.”
Huber took the weapon Steuben’s driver handed him. It was a sub-machine gun, lighter than its powergun equivalent but longer as well. It’d do for the job, though.
And so would Arne Huber.
Major Steuben’s jeep led two trucks down the street at the speed of a fast walk. Their lights were out, and sound of their idling engines was slight enough to be lost in the breeze to those sleeping in the houses to either side.
Huber and the men from Fencing Master rode in the bed of the first truck; Sergeant Tranter was driving. The only difference between the line troopers and the White Mice around them was that the latter wore no insignia; Huber, Deseau, and Learoyd had rank and branch buttons on the collars. Everyone’s faceshield was down and opaque.
In this wealthy suburb, the individual structures—houses and outbuildings—were of the same tall, narrow design as those of lesser districts, but these were grouped within compounds. Road transport in Benjamin was almost completely limited to delivery vehicles, so the two-meter walls were for privacy rather than protection. Most were wooden, but the one surrounding the residence of Patroklos Graciano was brick on a stone foundation like the main house.
Huber muttered a command to the AI in his helmet, cueing the situation map in a fifty percent overlay. He could still see—or aim—through the faceshield on which terrain features and icons of the forty-six men in the combat team were projected.
The other two trucks had gone around to the back street—not really parallel, the way things were laid out in Benjamin, but still a route that permitted those squads to approach the compound from the rear. They were already in position, waiting for anybody who tried to escape in that direction. The squads in front would carry out the assault by themselves unless something went badly wrong.
Few lights were on in the houses the trucks crawled past; the Graciano compound was an exception. The whole fourth floor of the main building was bright, and the separate structure where the servants lived had many lighted windows as well.
The gate to the Graciano compound was of steel or wrought iron, three meters high and wide enough to pass even trucks the size of those carrying the assault force if the leaves were open. As they very shortly would be …
An alert flashed red at the upper right-hand corner of Huber’s visor; the truck braked to a gentle halt. The light went green.
Huber and all but three of the troopers ducked, leaning the tops of their helmets against the side of the truck. The three still standing launched buzzbombs with snarling roars that ended with white flashes. The hollow bangs would’ve been deafening were it not for the helmets’ damping. Gusts of hot exhaust buffeted the kneeling men, but they were out of the direct backblast. The second truck loosed a similar volley.
Two missiles hit the gate pillars, shattering them into clouds of mortar and pulverized brick. The leaves dangled crazily, their weight barely supported by the lowest of the three sets of hinges on either side. Tranter cramped his steering wheel and accelerated as hard as the truck’s big diesel would allow.
The rest of the buzzbombs had gone through lighted windows of both structures and exploded within. The servants’ quarters were wood. A gush of red flames followed the initial blast at the ground floor, a sign that the fuel for the oven in the kitchen had ignited.
Tranter hit the leaning gates and smashed them down. He roared into the courtyard, knocking over a fountain on the way, and pulled up screeching in front of the ornamental porch.
The truck’s tailgate was already open. Huber was the first man out, leaping to the gravel with Deseau beside him and Learoyd following with the first of the squad of White Mice. The ground glittered with shards of glass blown from all the windows.
A buzzbomb had hit the front door; the missile must’ve been fired moments after the initial volley or the gate would’ve been in the way. The doorpanel was wood veneer over a steel core, but a shaped-charge warhead designed to punch through a tank’s turret had blown it off its hinges.