"You can't use robots in this kind of country. Whatever they do, the sand always fucks 'em up."
"You sound pleased."
"I'm working."
The scan was now feeding from the outermost cluster of sensors. There was still nothing doing.
"We could go around the perimeter."
Debbie shrugged. "I don't know. It was probably nothing."
"Hold it."
There were four yellow smudges. Five, six, there were nine yellow smudges rapidly getting bigger.
"Faces. They give out more heat. Here come the bodies."
There were nine… no, ten of them, moving toward the house.
"Put up the audio."
Vickers pushed up a fader. The room was filled with the soft crunch of feet and the superamplified rustle of clothing. There was a quiet curse. Gomez picked up the phone.
"Streicher… yeah, right. Yeah, but listen, we've got a bunch of people out on the perimeter and moving this way; you'd better get down here."
He hung up. Debbie tapped the screen with a long, tangerine-flake fingernail. "What do we do about this?"
Gomez brought in the redscope. Ten figures were trudging across the desert. They appeared footsore.
"For the moment, we watch. Streicher's on his way down."
Vickers was thoughtful. He regarded the screen in front of him.
"If I were going to take a place like this, this is exactly the way I'd do it."
"Oh yeah?"
"The only other way would be to come in by air, but they'd have to figure that we've the capability to take out an unauthorized chopper."
Debbie was also staring into the screen.
"Why not just stand off and flatten the place with some kind of missile?"
"I don't see how it could be that kind of an emergency unless there's something that Streicher's really not telling us. You need a hell of a lot of justification before you start rocketing another corporation's real estate."
"They could just be lost. Massacring civilians is hardly encouraged."
Vickers grinned at Gomez. "That's why I'm glad I'm only offering advice and not making the decisions."
"And what advice would you offer, Mort?"
The three swivelled in their chairs as Streicher came in.
"If I was you, I'd play the odds and grease them right away but, then again, I'm not you."
Streicher scowled. "And that's a fact." He glanced at Gomez. "Try metal on them. See if they've got any weapons."
The presence of metal was indicated by a violet glow on the thermal screen.
"Three guys carrying frame packs that contain metal objects. I can't tell if they're cans of food or weapons. One other guy's got a pistol and the rest are clean."
"It all looks innocent."
"Or they could be trying to confuse you by loading all the weapons into three packs."
"Perhaps you should ease up on the advice, Vickers."
"We should have hit a fucking road by now."
The muttered comment boomed and reverberated through the red room, blown out of proportion by the speakers.
"We got to take a break."
First one figure and then another flopped to the ground. There was no mistaking their seeming exhaustion. Streicher was still undecided. One of the figures was rummaging in his pack. He continued poking through it for a full minute more. Gomez shook his head.
"This isn't right."
"Drop a flare on them."
The main screen changed to real image as the flare floated down and lit up the desert. The people on the ground were all dressed in identical black coveralls and stocking caps. Their faces were smeared with black makeup.
"They ain't the survivors of no plane crash."
Streicher nodded. "Hit them."
At that exact moment, the red room went haywire. The LEDs blinked frenziedly as though the system was in pain. Some screens blanked out, others froze and a couple exploded in abstract, psychedelic effects.
"They've hacked in."
"That's what that bastard was doing with the pack. He was tapping into one of our landlines."
"They're damned good."
Streicher nodded.
"Hit them with five minutes of everything in a random pattern. They've probably figured a way to neutralize the traps and weapons around them but it'll still shake them."
Gomez hit the weapon control keys. Streicher pressed the general alarm.
"You stay here, Gomez, and try and get control back. You other two, come with me."
The entire perimeter was lit up like the Fourth of July. Tracers, flares, magnesium, smoke, balls of red and green fire boiled into the sky. Swivelling miniguns made the earth smoke; starshells burst in flashes of blinding light. The noise blurred into a continuous booming shriek. Vickers, Fenton and Bronce watched the spectacle crouched in the shelter of the kitchen door, looking out across the patio.
"Pretty damn awesome."
"I'd hate to be down there even if I was hooked into the control system."
"The guy doing the hacking can always fuck up."
Bronce glanced at his watch. "It should stop at any moment."
"We move out after the firing stops."
Bronce nodded. He was still looking at his watch. It was like he could hardly wait to get going.
"Any second now."
The firing stopped like it had been switched off. The last two flares drifted to earth, the only things that now marked the perimeter were smoke and scattered pools of still burning, green liquid fire.
"They'll be coming in as fast as they can."
"So what are we waiting for?"
"Go ahead, we're right behind you."
Bronce took off like a hare out of the trap, crouching low and zigzagging across the patio. Fenton and Vickers found themselves staring at each other. Neither had made a move to follow him. For a moment there was a tense discomfort and then Fenton grinned.
"Let some other asshole get shot up."
"Right. He was begging for it."
Bronce was halfway across the patio and still running. There was a crackle of automatic fire from over on the right.
"Shit!"
Bronce was down and screaming. The screaming faded to sobs.
"Did you see where that came from?"
"No."
"This could turn into a mess. There are too many of us blundering about in the dark."
Almost in answer, a floodlight came on. There was a burst of multiple fire and the light was dead again. Bronce seemed to be trying to cry out something. Vickers ignored him. There were more bloodcurdling screams from another direction. These weren't the sound of mortal pain, though. It was shrieking, crazy rage. Eggy came round the corner of the house at a dead run, an old fashioined MT in one hand and a machete in the other. His teeth were bared in a howling grimace that was hardly human. He was stripped to the waist and his mass of neck chains flew and flailed behind him. He failed totally to see either Vickers or Fenton as he raced across the patio and back into the darkness. The howl turned into semi-articulate curses punctuated by bursts of wild firing.
"Unstable little fucker, isn't he."
"Maybe he just enjoys his vocation."
"Let's work our way around the outside of the house." Fenton looked amused. "You want me to go first."
"You're nearest.'.'
"If you're not behind me, I'll come back for you." Fenton edged forward, keeping close to the cover of the wall. Vickers followed right behind. There was more firing and what sounded like the explosion of a grenade over by the heart-shaped pool. Vickers and Fenton paused and then hurried forward. They stopped again. Two figures came over the edge of the patio at a dead run on silent soles. Both Vickers and Fenton froze in the shadows. There was no mistake: black clothes, blacked-out faces. They were the opposition beyond a doubt. Vickers couldn't feel a thing about them. It was simply an exercise. They were no more human to him than the flip-ups on the training course. Both he and Fenton let the pair go right past them. They'd almost reached the living room windows before they cut them down. As soon as they'd fired, both men ran and finally hurled themselves down. Someone was shooting at them.