Burn (27 page)

“I’ll drive,” she said, “you shoot.”

“We’ve got to get Marte,” he said. “Step on it; maybe we can catch them before the airport.”

When Sonja slid through the airport’s side gate off the frontage road, Harry saw that nobody was going anywhere from this airport. Two planes blazed in the center of the runway, and various security forces fought a mob that tried to get to the small private planes tied down on the parkway. Sonja slammed on the brakes and they screeched to a stop about a dozen meters behind the car that held Marte Chang. The car was on fire. Both front doors were open and the Pan-Pacific men were sprinting for a Lancer on the taxiway. Harry saw, with horror, that the fire came from a small, disintegrating figure in the back seat, her black hair swirling with the greasy smoke and her hand held out as though she’d just blown him a kiss.

Chapter 40

You get angry about a lot of things and you, yourself, dying uselessly is one of them.

—Ernest Hemingway, “Night Before Battle”

Rico watched in brittle silence as the images of Mexico City’s destruction flashed across Spook’s high-class displays. Action in the street below had escalated into full-scale combat, and Spook’s people frantically scrambled to get disks, cubes and other portables into dufflebags. They worked in near-silence, well organized, as though they’d abandoned their quarters before. None, including Father Free, carried a weapon.

Rico’s real fears lay with Harry, Sonja and Marte Chang. He had to find a way to get to them and get them out. Slipping his two-bit security guard a couple of times had been a joke. But taking on a whole contingent, even a mere contingent, was a grossly different matter. In Rico’s condition, his next best bet was to find somebody who could get through security for him. Somebody like Father Free. Rico allowed himself a grunt of approval when Father Free lifted the colorful rug and showed him the escape shaft. The lights failed as Spook’s team pulled batteries out of their slots and slid them into backpacks.

“Used to be a laundry chute,” Father Free said. “We just took some liberties.”

Rico looked through the open hatchway and knew that he could not force his battered body down that three-story ladder. Even if he could stand the pain, he didn’t have the dexterity to make it, and he would only slow up the others. Shooting started at the front of the building. Rico didn’t say anything, but helped Scholz drag a full duffle to the edge of the shaft. That alone took most of his strength.

“Can you make it?” Scholz whispered.

Rico didn’t answer, but remained bent over his cane as he tried to calm the thousand little fires burning his skin.

“Move your butts, boys and girls,” Father Free mumbled to no one.

Through the two-way mirror, Rico saw one of the patrons collapse out in the bar. He tapped Scholz’s shoulder, and by the time she swung around for a look, the rest of the patrons were already scrambling for the doors. That familiar smell of hot gangrene wafted through the doorway.

“Hand me that extinguisher, Scholz,” he said. “We don’t need this place burning up around us.”

She pulled it out of the case on the wall and handed it to him. He didn’t have the strength to hold onto it, and the heavy cylinder crashed to the floor. Everyone looked up from their work, startled, and Rico waved his hand toward the smoke already filling the bar.

“I’ll take care of this one,” he said. “Just get moving.”

Rico pulled the fat fire extinguisher behind him like a child’s wagon. This man was someone that Rico used to know, but he couldn’t remember his name. Most of the fire was concentrated around the man’s trunk. He lay face down, the bones of his hands frozen in supplication. Rico pulled the pin and slathered the astringent foam over the bubbling body. The floor was scorched, but the fire was out. He tottered into Spook’s office in time to see the top of Susanna’s head disappear down the shaft. Scholz waited for him, a backpack of batteries slung over each shoulder.

Scholz’s Sidekick interrupted with its urgent tone. She took the message in her earpiece, and her tan seemed suddenly sickly pale.

“What now?” Rico asked, gasping.

“The kids,” she said. “State Department sent some Pan-Pacifics to pick them up and get them to the airport.”

“Back to the U.S.?”

She shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “The kids beat them up, took their weapons and their cars, and made it to the airport on their own.”

“He’s his daddy’s boy,” Father Free mumbled.

He lowered the last duffle by rope down the shaft. The three of them were the only ones left, so Father Free unlocked the closet door that held the Pan-Pacific security team. They were still unconscious.

Rico felt hopeful for the first time in days.

“Did the kids get a plane out?”

“No.” Scholz shook her head. “Airport’s a mess—fires and debris on the runway. Mobs trying to steal planes that they can’t fly, and our people have orders to shoot them down anyway.”

Rico was grateful that she didn’t stress the fact that the standing orders to shoot them down were cut by one Colonel Rico Toledo.

“How can we get to them now?”

It was hopeless. The kids were lost, the whole goddamn human race was probably lost.

“Hodge is out there now,” she said.

“Hodge? What the hell . . . ?”

“He’s the one who called in from the airport. He didn’t trust the Pan-Pacific goons, so he drove out there and saw the whole thing.”

“And you believe it was coincidence?” Father Free interrupted. “I think he’s been after them all along. Look at the preparations he made on the
Kamui.
Three supply trips in one day. He’s got plans for leaving, and he’s not leaving alone.”

Rico nodded.

“He’s had control of the kids all along,” Rico said. “He ordered the isolation, then the quarantine at Casa Canada.”

“And the one time they’re out of his command, he happens to run into them at the airport in time to save their skins,” Father Free added.

“Hodge is an idiot,” Scholz said. “He’s a self-centered little maggot who . . .”

“Who got command of this station,” Rico reminded her, “even though you were next in line. Even though you got promoted over him.” Rico took a deep breath, squeezed his aching temples. “And in that data that Harry recovered from ViraVax, there was something that bothered me, but I couldn’t place it.”

“And?”

“It wasn’t something, it was the lack of something,” Rico said. “There were detailed files on all of us. You, me, Grace and the kids. Even Spook, here.”

Scholz’s blue eyes widened as she saw where he was headed.

“But nothing on Hodge.”

“Not a word,” Rico said.

“Well, well,” Father Free said. “Solaris’s little garden had a mole, after all.”

Scholz’s Sidekick toned again. This time she didn’t bother with the earpiece, and Rico heard Hodge’s whine loud and clear.

“The embassy and the airport’s lost,” he said. “We’ll have to evacuate from the harbor. Meet at C-dock. Would you confirm that, and confirm Colonel Toledo’s presence with you?”

Scholz’s eyebrows lifted with curiosity.

“Roger that, Major,” Scholz said. “The Colonel is here, and we can meet you at C-dock.”

Rico pulled her sleeve.

“The kids?” he rasped.

“What about Harry and Sonja?” she asked. “And Marte?”

“The kids are fine,” Hodge said. “Harry’s holding a pistol on me right now. Marte Chang burned up here at the airport. Harry wants to talk to his father.”

Scratching sounds came across the airways as Hodge handed over his Sidekick.

“Dad?”

“Here,” Rico croaked. “Do what he says. Get to the harbor.”

“What about you?”

“We’re already there,” Rico said. “A boat is the safest place to be right now. Get here with or without Hodge.”

One of the Pan-Pacifics in the closet started to slump off his bones.

“Looks like we’re in some kind of second stage of this bug,” he said. “Get your butt down here and let’s get gone. Keep that gun on Hodge; I’ll explain later.”

“Good luck, Dad.”

“Good luck, son.”

One more glance towards the closet, and Rico knew he’d make it down that ladder or die trying. If he was going to die, it would be with his own people, not with some pissant, tinhorn, rent-a-gun security team.

Father Free was already over the edge and halfway down the ladder.

“Let’s
go
up there!” he hollered, sounding more like the old Spook and less like a parish priest.

“Go ahead, Scholz,” Rico said. “I’ll try not to fall on you.”

Boot heels clattered up the stairwell out in the bar, and Rico checked the loads on his airgun.

“Go!” he shouted at Scholz, and gave her a shove.

The army squad burst through the doorway, and the first one through snapped off a quick burst from his Bullpup that stitched the peel-and-peek behind Rico. Rico’s stitches didn’t slow his reflexes any. He felt, more than heard, the satisfying
putt-putt-putt
of the briefcase compressor as it coughed out a withering stream of pellets. The two men in the doorway went down immediately. The other four looked at the Meltdown in the bar, at their buddies twitching on the floor, and scrambled back downstairs without a fight.

Rico abandoned the heavy compressor, stepped down the first few rungs of the ladder and slid the trapdoor back into place overhead. He was sweating so hard his eyes stung, and he couldn’t catch his breath. Scholz hung onto the ladder about five meters below him.

“Rico, can I help you?”

He summoned all of his breath and growled, “Get your sweet ass out of my way, Scholz. I might be coming down hard.”

He heard her climbing towards him.

“Scholz, goddammit, you can’t
carry
me down, for Chrissake!”

She was already working her shoulder into his belly. She grabbed his knees and said, “You’ve got to trust me; now let go.”

By that time, Rico didn’t have a choice. He collapsed across Scholz’s shoulder, and was barely aware that his head and feet scraped the walls of the shaft as she worked her way down the ladder.

“This is how I like my men, Colonel.”

“Helpless?”

“No.” She paused, shifted his weight. “Trusting.”

“I . . . didn’t know . . . you liked men . . . Scholz.”

“Only one so far, Colonel.”

They were more than halfway down, and Rico tried to help her balance by holding onto her waist. His face hung only a hand’s-breadth from her solid rear, and for the first time he realized how incredibly strong she was.

“Nice butt, Scholz.”

“About time you noticed.”

And then they were down, gasping like dead fish on a heavy plank floor that smelled of creosote and iodine. The slap of waves underneath told him that it was a pier. Rico felt no pain now, but all of his will wasn’t enough to get his legs under him.

The city overhead sounded like it was coming apart—screams and explosions were punctuated by small-arms fire, and already the air smelled of spoiled meat.

“Couldn’t have worked better if we’d planned it that way,” Father Free said.

He chuckled through a well-chewed Havana, then lifted Rico under the armpits and steered him towards the fishing boat that he rented out to tourists. Scholz followed, covering them with the Hornet.

“Love your toys,” Rico said, nodding at the freshly painted boat.

“Worked hard for ‘em,” Father Free said. “Welcome to the
St. Elias.
I’ve got Wally on standby, in case we have to do a pickup on the kids.”

Rico sat on the deck as Scholz slipped down the hatch.

“Who’s Wally?” he asked.

“Wally’s not a who, he’s a what. Go ahead and get below.”

Rico slipped his legs over the lip of the hatch, grasped the ladder weakly and tumbled in a heap onto the cabin deck. Father Free slid down the ladder behind him, and didn’t miss a beat as he helped Rico to a chair beside the controls.

“Wally’s a relic,” Father Free said. “It’s an old Coast Guard Sikorsky that I did some barter for a few years back. Runs like a dream—a loud dream. It’s slow, but it’ll make good backup if the kids get stuck. As Scholz pointed out, they’re shooting down anything that goes up right now, and I don’t want to lose this bird.”

Susanna and Melissa had the screens up, and once again they tuned into the devastation that used to be Mexico City. Everyone was quiet now as Father Free dogged the hatch. All ten people aboard had friends in Mexico City.

Colored overlays labeled “EMP Range” and “Biological Perimeter” clicked into place and far exceeded the blast site. Rico knew what it was before the calculations on the peel told him.

“Neutron device,” he said. “Looks like a steamer trunk from Operation Trojan Horse. Deployed by rail to industrial centers or by ship to key ports. Kills people, leaves most of the goods intact. Solaris’s idea.”

“But does it kill viruses?” Spook asked.

Rico shook his head.

“Don’t know. Chang would know. From what she told me, it could have already dispersed on the steam and smoke from the earthquake.”

“There’s probably a device here in La Libertad somewhere, right?” Father Free asked.

“Right,” Scholz said. “In a shipping container, aboard the
Comet.”

“That derelict?” Spook laughed. “I wondered why anybody bothered to keep it afloat. So what’s to keep The Man from setting off this one, too?”

“The Woman doesn’t have to,” Scholz said. “Solaris had the codes for every device in his region, and discretionary power to detonate. It’s a hands-on action, though. A suicide mission. He can’t do it by remote.”

“Father,” the redhead Melissa interrupted. “Wally, command line.”

“Unscramble,” Father Free said. “Speaker. Go, Wally.”

“Targets secure,” the voice said. Even the computer couldn’t filter out the background noise of the old Sikorsky. “For your information, I had to launch. I’ll set down as quick as I can. Big trouble out here.”

Father Free rolled his eyes and spoke through teeth clenched tight to his unlit cigar.

“Go.”

“Embassy’s gone. I count six villages on fire, four more smoking and gone. A squad of Costa Brava regulars tried to grab my bird. Is there a war out here you didn’t tell me about?”

“What villages?” Rico asked. He stood too quickly, and all the little mouths of the hundreds of wounds on his body screamed at him. He had to have confirmed what his gut already feared. “Where, exactly?”

“That string from the highway up to the Jaguars. Hold on, going up . . . yeah, hey, looks like a lot of smoke coming from your way, too. In town. Want me to check it out?”

Spook glanced at Rico, and Rico shook his head.

“Stand by targets. Watch out for bogies; they mean business.”

“Roger,” Wally said. “Targets moving your way, ETA ten minutes. Will stand by.”

Father Free turned to the redhead, who had mounted her visor as well as her gloveware.

“Melissa?”

“On it, Father. Fire frequency shows more calls than units available in Zones Nine and Twelve. . . .”