Backshot (20 page)

Lavager glanced curiously at his defense minister. “I was hoping we could ride together, chat and enjoy a cigar on the trip out.” He shrugged. “But if that’s the way you want it, Locker, you can ride in the second vehicle, but I’m riding up front.”

“Oh, I’ll ride with you, Jorge,” Ollwelen said quickly. “I wouldn’t want to miss one of your cigars,” he added, grinning.

“That’s more like it.” Lavager slapped Ollwelen on the back again and got into the first vehicle. The officer in charge of the security detail cast a questioning glance at al-Rashid, who only shrugged as if to say, “He’s the boss.”

“Put the windscreens down,” Lavager told his driver, “and take it easy. Keep it down to forty kilometers an hour. I want to enjoy the fresh air and the countryside. We’ve got all day to get there.” Lavager produced his travel humidor and extracted two Davidoffs. “You get one when we arrive,” he told his driver, patting the man on the shoulder, “but I don’t want anything to distract you while you’re driving.”

Despite the chances he always took with his personal security, which gave al-Rashid fits, the bodyguards liked being around Lavager. He was a no-nonsense type of person who always considered the comfort of his security detail first. They especially appreciated his late-night rendezvous at places like Ramuncho’s, because he never called them out of their beds to stand watch over him on those occasions. Beyond the city limits, the road wound through endless fields of ripening corn. The plants stood a full two meters high on either side of the road, giving the impression the convoy was driving through a green tunnel. A heavily armed security agent sat in the back of Lavager’s car, monitoring various scanners that would indicate the presence of living things up to one hundred meters to either side of the road. He also had at his fingertips an array of defensive weaponry that could be employed to virtually level the corn within that one hundred meters.

“What’s your name?” Lavager asked, twisting around to look at the security agent.

“Leelanu Lanners, sir.”

“Are you sure you know how to use all those weapons?” Lavager asked, eyeing the man’s laser rifle and sidearm.

Lanners grinned tightly. “Very well, sir. I’m a pretty good shot with just about any personal weapon.”

Lanners faced Lavager and nodded, but his eyes kept moving, watching their surroundings. Lavager noticed Lanners’s constant eye movement. “Were you ever in the army?”

“Yessir, I gave it a try. Twenty-four years. Then I decided I didn’t want to make a career of it.”

“Pity. Another sixteen years and you could have retired.”

Lanners shrugged. “My twenty-four in the army counts toward my time in the security service, so it all works out.”

Lavager nodded; the army and the security service were both armed government services. He looked to the sides of the road and suddenly shouted, “Look lively back there! See all that corn? We’re being ‘stalked’!” He laughed enormously and thumped the driver on his back. The man grinned but kept his eyes on the road. Through his own onboard monitors he could both see and speak to the drivers of the two vehicles behind him; they were also busy scanning the terrain. With al-Rashid monitoring everything in the third vehicle, the other two cars in the convoy contained men totally alert, weapons ready to deliver immediate fire. “I feel young again!” he said suddenly. “Locker, remember that song we used to sing back in the old days? Come on, join me in the chorus,” and he began to sing in a fairly decent tenor voice an old ditty that was popular in the army when he was a young officer:

“To the ladies of our Army our cups shall ever flow, Companions in our exile and our shield ’gainst every woe; May they see their husbands generals, with double pay also, And join us in our choruses at Happy Hour, oh!”

They had been driving for about half an hour when the sensors on Lavager’s car warned his driver of an anomaly in the roadbed just ahead of them. There were no telltale signs from the infrared monitors, just what appeared to be a slight hump in the ferro-asphalt that the computer sensed shouldn’t be there. It was so tiny the car had driven over it before the driver realized what it was.

CHAPTER TWENTY

On the New Granum Road, Northeast of New Granum, Atlas

A command-detonated mine exploded under the second vehicle with a tremendous
craaak
! The concussion threw everyone in Lavager’s vehicle forward in their seats while the force of the explosion lifted the second heavy armored car a full two meters into the air before it came crashing down in flames to bounce off the road and plow into the corn. When its fuel cells ignited, the explosion threw a fireball and a greasy column of smoke high into the air. Pieces of ferro-asphalt and parts from the destroyed vehicle fell to earth in lazy arcs, bouncing, smoking, and skittering over the roadway. The driver in the third vehicle whipped around the gaping crater that appeared in front of his vehicle.

“Floor it!” al-Rashid yelled over the comm. Ambushers who had lain hidden along the left side of the road then opened fire with lasers and rocket-propelled grenades. Instead of trying to outrun the fire, Lavager’s driver turned his vehicle straight into the corn at maximum acceleration, bouncing one of the assailants off his hood and over the roof of the car. Laser beams hit the car, but most were harmlessly bled off into the earth by its armor. One lanced through the window and took the driver’s head off in a spray of blood and shredded skull fragments. The dead man’s hand remained grasping the accelerator lever. Lavager reached over, pried the lifeless fingers loose, unfastened his seat belt, released the door mechanism, and shoved the corpse out into the corn, which was making a thud-thud-thunking sound as the vehicle rammed across the rows. Clutching the steering column, Lavager slewed the vehicle around. Huge gouts of rich, dark earth spouted up from beneath the roaring vehicle. He applied the brakes and the car plowed to a stop. Suddenly it was quiet.

“Where are they?” Lavager asked as he released the catch to the onboard shotrifle. He checked the magazine, inserted a round in the chamber, took the safety off.

“One hundred and fifty meters to our rear,” Lanners answered. “I make out—Good God!—a dozen!

No, more! Coming this way.” A huge explosion from the road marked the destruction of the third vehicle, the one al-Rashid had been in.

“Arm yourself,” Lavager told Ollwelen, who had been sitting stiffly in his seat all the time. “Are you hit, Locker?” he asked when the man didn’t move.

“N-No—I don’t have a weapon!”

Lavager ignored Ollwelen. “How about your onboard weapons system? Can you use it?”

Lanners swore. “A bolt must’ve taken the damned thing out, sir! We’ll have to use our personal weapons.” Grenades began ripping through the corn over their heads and exploding behind them.

“They’re ranging on us!”

“Franklin!” Lavager was on the communications set now. “Report!” There was no answer. Lavager didn’t expect one, because a second column of greasy, black smoke was now curling up from the road. It spoke volumes about al-Rashid’s fate. And if that wasn’t all, the cornfield, which was very dry, was catching fire.

“They’re coming!” Ollwelen shouted. Sure enough, from a short distance ahead they could hear the sound of men crashing through the corn. Without even considering flight, Lavager prepared to fight. “Dismount! We’ll form a firing line, use this car as cover, come on, move it, Locker! Get your ass in gear! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

Before Ollwelen could answer, Lavager was outside in the corn using the hood of the vehicle as a brace as he sighted the shotrifle in the direction of the oncoming attackers. Lanners, a laser rifle in his hands, took up a position on the opposite side of the car.

“No!” Ollwelen suddenly shouted as he jumped away from the car. “Look! The fuel cell has ruptured!

Get away from here!”

“Into the corn! Run!” Lavager shouted and the three crashed through the rows of stalks, putting as much distance between them and the damaged land car as they could. It exploded in a huge ball of flame. The concussion knocked all three men headlong to the ground. Now fires were starting everywhere around where the trio lay, gasping and panting in the hot, still air.

“What’s on the other side of this field?” Lavager wheezed.

“I think it’s another road, sir,” Lanners answered. “It’s about a kilometer over that way,” he pointed behind them, “I think. Damn, where are they?” he asked, meaning the ambushers.

“They’ve got those fires to contend with,” Lavager grunted. As if confirming this statement someone began screaming from somewhere behind them. “Burn, you bastard, burn!” Lavager growled. “Let’s get out of here. Come on.” He tapped Ollwelen on the shoulder and the three resumed their dash across the corn rows. It was very difficult running because they stumbled over piping at intervals between the rows, the farmer’s irrigation system. Obviously, the farmer wasn’t aware yet that his corn was on fire—or that the irrigation system had been sabotaged. They had gone only about two hundred meters farther when they stumbled out into a grassy pathway about twenty meters wide running the entire length of the field parallel to the rows of corn. “We’ll make our stand on the other side,” Lavager said. He sprinted across and took up a prone firing position behind a corn row on the other side. Ollwelen and Lanners flopped down beside him. The three lay there panting, their bodies running with perspiration and the air was now so full of smoke from the fires that breathing was becoming difficult. From back the way they had come they heard many voices. “We may not stop them all, but we’ll slow them down,” Lavager said. “They’re between the fires and us. We’ll really screw them over when they step out into that cleared space.” He grinned at the other two, then his grin vanished.

“Where the hell’s your weapon, Locker?”

“I-I didn’t have a chance to get one,” Ollwelen gasped. Lavager shook his head. “Get ready,” he told Lanners, then coughed when a gust of wind swept the increasing smoke into his face. “We’ll be asphyxiated if we don’t burn to death first,” he said when his throat cleared. “When we get out of here I’ve got a job for you, Leelanu Lanners. So shoot like you voted for me in the last election—straight and often.”

The voices of the pursuing assassins drew nearer and nearer. Many men were crashing through the corn.

“They’ve got to be crazy, coming after us like this,” Lanners whispered.

“Not crazy, Lee, desperate. They are going to kill us or die in the attempt. Let them all get out into the open so we’ve got clear shots. Shoot when I do. Damnit, Locker, why didn’t you pick up—?”

The first ambusher stepped out from between two stalks of corn about twenty meters from where the trio had crossed the cleared space. He carried a shotrifle in the low-ready position, the weapon angled at about 45 degrees to his body, finger off the firing lever. He stepped cautiously onto the grassy area and held up a hand for the men behind him to stay there. Slowly, he advanced to the middle of the pathway, glancing from side to side, looking for a sign to tell him where the three had crossed. The wind began to blow. It blew toward them, from the direction of the road where the ambush had taken place. The corn was dry. A
whoosh
ing roar began to make itself heard. Lavager’s heart quickened. The ambushers were between two fires now!

“Coom,” the man said. Eight or ten more men—Lavager didn’t bother to count them—all heavily armed, stepped out into the cleared area.

The first shot Lavager fired was a fléchette round. It hit the first man squarely in the middle of his chest, shredding his torso and knocking him over backward. Now Lavager and Lanners pumped rounds into the men as quickly as they could work their weapons’ actions. The ambushers began firing back, their first shots high, cutting off the tops of the cornstalks, but as they got control of the situation their shots began to hit all around the two, who rolled into new firing positions—but in the few seconds it took them to reacquire targets, at least five more men emerged from the other side of the path and began sending accurate fire into their old positions. The remaining men began advancing, firing every step of the way. Lavager’s shotrifle was empty. He drew his sidearm and, using both hands to steady the weapon, pumped shots into the oncoming men, but they were wearing protective armor or were hopped up because none went down!

Suddenly, from about a hundred meters to the right of where the two lay, rifle fire began lancing into the advancing line of assassins and they began to falter. Lavager glanced over his shoulder. It was al-Rashid!

He was walking calmly toward them, firing from the hip. The surviving attackers, about five of them, had enough. They turned and ran back into the corn, but moments later they began screaming as the fire got to them. One managed to stumble back out into the pathway, his body engulfed in flames. He whirled in agony, every inch of him aflame. Lavager shot him in the head.

“Franklin!” Lavager embraced his chief of security. “Ugly as you are, I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight!”

Lanners came up and started thumping al-Rashid on the back.

“They got our car,” al-Rashid gasped, “rocket-propelled grenade, I think. I was thrown out by the initial blast. They got all my men, all of them,” he sobbed. He’d been wounded. The bleeding from cuts on his face and neck had stopped and his left arm, although he could still use it, was peppered with shell fragments. He sat down heavily. The fire raged in the corn just a few meters away. “When the hell is the farmer going to turn on the water?”

Lavager helped al-Rashid to his feet. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Lee says there’s a road on the other side of this field. Uh, where’s Ollwelen?” He looked around. He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen the general.

“I saw him running southwest, toward the city,” Lanners answered with a shrug. Lavager swore. “Let’s find that road, it’s getting too hot in here.”

They had made their way only a few hundred yards farther when the irrigation system suddenly sprang to life. “Allah!” al-Rashid shouted, extending his arms toward heaven. “You exist after all!” They threw themselves into the streams that spurted up from the pipes and drank in the cool liquid. “Is this water drinkable?” al-Rashid asked between gulps.

“Who cares, Chief?” Lanners answered. “We have medical insurance!”

“Lee,” Lavager said, “I was going to give you Franklin’s job, until he upset my plans by miraculously reappearing from the dead, but don’t worry, I’ve got plans for anybody who’s got guts like you,” and he filled al-Rashid in on what had happened to them.

“Where do you think Ollwelen got off to, sir?” al-Rashid asked. Lavager didn’t answer immediately. “Maybe he went for help?” his voice dripped with sarcasm. Al-Rashid didn’t reply. He knew how close the two old soldiers were, but could see something had come between them. He didn’t want to get involved, but he sensed that he would. They reached the road at noon. It stretched away in both directions. Nothing stirred on it. “How far are we from the Cabbage Patch?” Lavager asked.

“I’m not sure, sir. Twenty kilometers, maybe less. I think we were more than halfway there when the ambush hit.” He shook his head and staggered a step or two. “I-I’m not sure whether this road runs parallel to our route or at an angle to it or even if it joins up with the main highway. I-I think it does but my memory’s a little fuzzy just now—”

Lavager sat down along the shoulder and the other two joined him there. “How long will it take for us to walk there?”

Lanners shrugged. “In our condition? I don’t know. Hours anyway.”

“I can make it,” al-Rashid protested, but he knew that Lanners hedged his estimate because it was obvious that his wounds would slow them down.

“We’ll make it,” Lavager assured them. “That guy back there, that scout, the first one to come out of the corn? Lee, did you recognize his accent?”

“Yessir. South Solanum. That’s the way they talk down there. ‘Coom’ for ‘come.’ Unmistakable. He was from South Solanum.”

“Yes.” Lavager nodded. “Those rotten bastards. You know what they were, don’t you?”

“Yessir. They were there to ambush any relief column that might have come down the highway. Someone’s attacking the Cabbage Patch, sir.” He thought for a moment and then: “Or, it was prearranged to get you. Someone must have known you’d be coming.”

Lavager didn’t reply at once because that dark thought had already occurred to him. “Right. Maybe. And here we are. No communications, no transportation. Franklin? Franklin?” he turned to al-Rashid but his security chief had passed out.

On the New Granum Road, Midway Between New Granum and Spondu

By the time General Locksley Ollwelen reached the road he was exhausted. He collapsed on the shoulder, gasping for breath. It had all gone wrong, terribly wrong! That bastard, Germanian, had double-crossed him! Worse, Lavager was still alive, or had been when Ollwelen had disappeared among the corn rows. Now, behind him, the fire raged. He got unsteadily to his feet and staggered along the road back in the direction of the city. Eventually he would run into someone on the road, or reach one of the farms where he could find transportation. He could not show up at the home of the farmer who owned the cornfield. Too close to the scene of the crime and if Lavager had survived, he’d head there himself. The next nearest farmstead was some kilometers from where the ambush had taken place. If no vehicles came along he would just have to walk there. Then, once back in the city, he’d gather his loyal generals and start the coup he knew he’d have to undertake to survive after what had just happened. He’d find that Germanian person too, and talk about the trials of Job! He’d “Job” that sonofabitch!