Rich Man's War (16 page)

The next building did not open so easily, as its security systems remained online, but the apartments were built only to keep out casual trespassers and not determined
soldiers. A pair of shots from Sanjay’s rifle brought down one of the transparent plastic panels that made up the exterior wall, and though this resulted in an internal alarm and flashing lights, nothing further barred them from entry. The three men rushed through the hallways and the lobby of the apartment building.

Crossing the courtyard between the side exit and the next tower, though, they exercised greater care. All three of them made sure to look before they leaped, pointedly casting their eyes skyward lest a grenade or some other danger drop down on them from above. This apartment building, fancier and more modern than the last, was their destination.

Tanner stayed on point. The clear glass doors slid open as soon as he stepped forward. He snapped up his rifle and almost shot the lobby greeting hologram when the image of a man behind a desk appeared and started speaking to him pleasantly in Arabic. Once more, his helmet optics quickly translated the signs and labels within the lobby.

He waved the other two men forward. “I figured some sort of alarm would go off when we came in here with guns,” he said. “This seems like a pretty modern building.”

“Well, there’s already a sniper here,” Booker considered, “so he may have already taken care of the security systems.”

“True enough,” shrugged Sanjay. “Okay. We’re here. How do we do this? Any idea which floor we should start on?”

“He has to have at least good enough elevation to see across the roof of the consulate,” Tanner thought aloud, “so that means, what? Fifth floor at least?”

“Seems like. Plenty of floors above that, though. And we’d be idiots to use the lifts. Looks like the stairwells are that way. Welcome to the infantry, I guess,” muttered Booker.

* * *

Complications arose with the first few apartments
the team checked. Though they found no civilians in their sweep—something Tanner considered a priceless blessing—most of the apartments were locked. The bumper unit coaxed most computerized locks open, but in a few instances they had to resort to naked force. Furniture, differing configurations of apartment rooms and the occasionally still-active holographic appliance offered a great many advantages for anyone trying to hide. In most of the apartments, home environmental control programs activated as soon as they entered, turning on lights and sometimes offering a greeting in Arabic, which only served to keep their nerves on edge.

Tanner never liked playing hide and seek, nor did he particularly enjoy being “it.” The expectation that this particular game would end with gunfire made it
worse.

They came to a corner apartment, sliding up along the walls and looking down the hallways for any signs of movement. Booker took one side of the door. Sanjay took the other, with Tanner right beside him. The one hopeful sign Tanner took from their search was that Booker quickly caught on to the tactics that the two crewmen had learned in basic. Before they’d finished with the fifth floor, it seemed Booker had the techniques down. By the time they cleared the sixth, the disparity in training felt all but erased and the XO was solidly in charge again.

Sanjay tried the door controls and found them locked. He grabbed the small, shoebox-sized bumper unit hanging from his belt and held it against the panel. The bumper unit promptly overloaded the door controls with so many garbage data signals in a single high-powered pulse that it essentially forced the security system to reverse its default “lockdown” condition.

Tanner swung around Sanjay with his rifle up and ready, covering the left of the entryway while Booker cover
ed the arc to the right. Inside, they found a spacious, clean living room nicer than the others they’d seen. The lights didn’t activate as they moved in. A spiral staircase at the far end of the living room led up to the second floor, making this the first two-level residence they’d found. Beyond the living room, tall, clear windows offered a corner view overlooking the consulate building.

They moved in cautiously, identifying and clearing corners and furniture large enough for a body to hide behind. As with the other apartments, they found no
one on this level. Tanner cleared the small dining area and kitchen, rounding it and coming back to the living room to focus his attention on the stairs. He made it to the bottom step, but soon realized that he didn’t have anyone ready to follow him.

Moving to the other side of the living room, Sanjay looked out toward the consulate. “Aw, shit!” he hissed. “XO! You’d better look!”

Booker moved to join Sanjay and let out a stressful groan. “Oh, son of a bitch.”

Tanner kept his weapon and his eyes trained up the stairs toward the second floor. He thought he saw a steady, smooth shift in the shadows on the ceiling above, perhaps from the ripple of a curtain. Wanting to see it again with his vision unaffected by the lenses of his helmet, Tanner raised his faceplate and watched.

“
Joan of Arc
,” said the XO, trying to keep his voice low, “this is Booker. We have tanks moving into place around the consulate with troops in support. Do you copy?”

“
Ssshhh,” Tanner warned, waving one hand, but if the others listened, he couldn’t tell. He dared not look away. The ripple of shadow against the second floor ceiling happened again, but that didn’t bother him nearly as much as the strong, unpleasant smell he detected now that his faceplate was up.

“Dammit, I think the jamming signals are still active,” he heard Booker grumble, but his voice drifted further away. Tanner’s feet began slowly carrying him up the stairs
, keeping him close to the edges lest some creaky board give him away.

H
is head and the barrel of his weapon crested the opening to the second floor, where he found a hallway leading to rooms in each direction. Slowly, he turned in place, getting a full circular view of the hallway… and feeling the breeze on his face as he looked back toward what must be the master bedroom.

The door lay open. Natural sunlight illuminated the room. Shadows moved along the ceiling. He’d found the room with the open window, and the source of the smell.

The woman lay on the bedroom floor with her eyes staring lifelessly at him. Beyond her, he saw a shattered mirror over a dresser and personal items in obvious disarray: an overturned glass, a hairbrush on the floor, a broken statuette. She must have put up a struggle.

Tanner heard Booker’s voice again from downstairs and in the earpiece inside his helmet, but it seemed overlaid with another. He realized the second voice came from the bedroom. He couldn’t make out what the other voice said, but like Booker’s it seemed a bit hushed. He took another slow, careful step up the stairs, and then another. He had the elevation then to see the blood pooled around the dead woman, staining the carpet. A third step gave him the chance to see the bloody holes in
the back of her dress left by gunshots.

He crept up out of the stairs. She wore her hair in a braid secured at the back of her head. Perhaps the fabric dangling from her dresser was her hijab, if she wore one. Perhaps she didn’t. Even if it were a common practice for her, she didn’t need to wear it in her own home. She lay with one arm stretched out to another doorway beyond, perhaps the bathroom. He couldn’t see yet.

Tanner rounded the bannister and slowly advanced on the door. He heard more of the voice inside the bedroom and less of Booker or Sanjay. He worried that his shipmates would notice his absence and call out, giving him away to whoever occupied the bedroom.

From his vantage point, Tanner guessed the bedroom was big. This woman either made a very good living, or was part of a wealthy family, or maybe both. She couldn’t be from a world of guns and bombs. Tanner steadily put one foot in front of the other.

At the edge of the door, he saw another pool of blood on the floor of the bathroom. He saw a small shoe attached to a small, blood-stained leg. The rest of the child’s body lay inside the bathroom. He didn’t look further.

“
Joan of Arc
, this is Booker,” repeated the voice in his earpiece. It snapped him out of his focus on the room and the bodies. “We have tanks and troops right outside the consulate, do you copy?”

Tanner silenced his holocom and swallowed hard. He heard the man inside—he knew for sure it was a man’s voice now—say something in Arabic, though he could only make out a couple of the words. The man didn’t sound upset or distraught. He sounded controlled. Calm. Steady.

Steadier than Tanner. The body on the floor stared at his feet now, rather than at his eyes, which he closed to gather himself. The man had to be talking on a comm system, given the way no second voice responded. Someone knew he was up here. If he was speaking to the tanks and the soldiers below, they’d know he was here, but not necessarily that he wasn’t alone. Nothing in his voice spoke of a concern for intruders.

His eyes opened again. The dead woman stared at his feet. The plea in her eyes seemed obvious. He was too late to answer it… which only made him angrier.

At the doorway, Tanner glanced around for reflective surfaces to get a sense of the room before stepping in. He found a man with a rifle sitting on an open windowsill, partly covered by one curtain. The other curtain billowed in the wind behind him. He a bandoleer full of ammunition pouches. A small backpack and a jacket with an urban camouflage pattern sat on the bed. His missile launcher sat there, too, but Tanner saw no ammunition for it. Apparently he’d run out.

No one else in the room still drew breath, let alone spoke. Tanner didn’t see any holo screens or a hand unit. The sniper had to be talking over an earpiece.

Tanner paused for one last moment to think. He needed to make sure he got the conjugation right.

His mind set, Tanner slipped into the room and cut a path around the large bed toward the man in the window. He cared less for stealth than speed now. He couldn’t afford hesitation. Just as he came
within arm’s reach, the man sensed his presence and turned.

Tanner mercilessly slammed the butt of his rifle into the man’s throat
. Then he dropped his rifle and seized the sniper. Tanner yelled out a single phrase in a high-pitched, almost panicked voice: “
Alanzaliq! An alanzaliq
!”

The man tried to cry out through his
spasming throat. He managed it just after Tanner shoved him out of the window.

“Oh shit!” Sanjay fairly shrieked from downstairs when the sniper tumbled right past the living room window.

Shifting to a spot behind the curtains, Tanner risked a peek down at the street below. It allowed his first look at the infantrymen arranging themselves behind various bits of cover outside the consulate. He saw a single large tank taking up much of the street leading to the gate. Other tanks moved into position at each of the nearby perpendicular streets.

He lingered for only a second, two at the most, verifying that several of the troops rushed to check on the dead sniper now laying on the sidewalk below. Then he turned from the window and nearly jumped when he found someone standing in the bedroom doorway. His mind
processed the sight while he dove behind the bed for cover. Vanessa Rios had her pistol pointed up to the ceiling rather than at him.

“Sorry about the surprise,” she said. “I came up behind you and didn’t want to spoil your approach.”

“Tanner?” called out Booker. He and Sanjay quickly rushed up the stairs. Vanessa held her hands up in a gesture of peace, watching to make sure they didn’t mistake her for a threat.

“How’d you get here?”
Tanner asked as he stood back up.

“Your exit made for a good distraction
. I figured you might need the help.” She caught the obvious doubt on Tanner’s face and added, “It was either that or hide in the consulate. This seemed more important. I don’t have any responsibilities there.”

Booker looked from her to Tanner. “You should’ve gotten us before coming up here,” he said, moving into the room past Vanessa.

“Sorry, sir,” Tanner nodded. “You were distracted with whatever’s going on downstairs. I saw movement and kinda got tunnel vision.” He took Booker’s lack of response as acceptance; the XO seemed more focused on checking the sniper’s gear than dwelling on Tanner’s decisions.

Vanessa tilt
ed her head curiously as she gestured toward the window. “’I slipped?’” she translated. “Is that what you shouted?”

“That was you?” asked Sanjay.

“I… yeah,” Tanner swallowed. “If those guys down there know someone took him out, they might send people up to investigate. If they think he had an accident, maybe they won’t bother.”

Both Sanjay and Vanessa blinked, though the young man’s surprise was a bit more pronounced than hers. “Wow, man,” Sanjay huffed with obvious approval. “That’s dirty pool.”

“Not what I’d have expected,” murmured Vanessa, “but I’m not throwing stones.”

“Here. He had a jamming unit,” said Booker. He pulled the large electronic device from the pack, revealing its active lights and status readouts. “This thing looks pretty sharp. Might be the only one they needed to drown out every signal for a few blocks.”