Shadow of Freedom-eARC (40 page)

He pressed a second button.

* * *

“Tiger” Braddock was astonished he was still alive. His position had been just deep enough inside the parking garage for its sturdy walls to intercept the shrapnel which had butchered his infantry. One moment, the next best thing to three hundred of his elite troops had been sweeping across Trifecta Boulevard towards their objective. The next moment, at least two hundred of them were dead and a lot more were dying. He stumbled to the garage entrance, head ringing from the force of the explosion, and peered out in horror at hell’s own landscape as men and women with no legs tried to drag themselves out of the charnel house of the boulevard on their elbows and forearms. He saw another rocking on his knees while he tried to stuff his own intestines back inside his ruptured body. Another stumbled helplessly about, hands clasped over the blind, red ruin of what had been a human face only moments before. Still others only lay there, unable to drag their mangled bodies anywhere, shrieking amid the motionless dead.

He was still trying to comprehend the enormity of what had just happened when the third van—the one parked in the garage which the strike leader had recognized just as clearly as Braddock was the perfect place to stash the Guard’s armored vehicles—exploded.

It was a much larger bomb this time, and the driver had carefully parked it directly beside the central support pillar of the garage’s entire structure.

A huge sheet of flame shot out both open sides of the garage. Fresh flame billowed as the fuel tanks of parked vehicles fireballed, joining the fury of the original explosion. Braddock flung himself down on his belly, covering his helmeted head with his arms in instinctive self-preservation. For an instant all he was aware of was the terrible, concussive force of the explosion. Then his stunned ears heard another sound—a grating, grinding rumble—and he had one more second to realize his instincts had played him false.

If he’d run out into the body-strewn nightmare of Trifecta Boulevard, he might have survived after all.

The entire parking garage came down, puffing out concentric rings of smoke and dust as its floors collapsed, one by one, into the roaring inferno which had engulfed “Tiger” Braddock’s entire regiment.

* * *

“Looks like you need another régiment, General,” the icy voice on Olivia Yardley’s com observed.

“Pity about that.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I don’t need this kind of shit, General,” Svein Lombroso said unpleasantly. “I could go out and fuck everything up by the numbers myself without paying you and the rest of the Guard such obscene amounts of money! Hell, I could probably even have gotten Guernicke killed without you, if I’d really tried!”

“Would you rather I’d let the bastards walk away after taking out Braddock’s entire régiment?” General Olivier Yardley’s tone was rather pointed, Lombroso thought. Which probably had something to do with the fact that she knew she was irreplaceable…at least for now. “It was a no-win situation from the outset, Mister President. Once they got in and had Guernicke in their possession, we either gave them what they wanted, or we lost her. And you told me
not
to give them what they wanted.” She shrugged. “So I didn’t.”

“Goddamn it!” Lombroso snarled. “This makes what happened last month look like a frigging
picnic!
And when Trifecta’s home office hears about this…!”

“We didn’t move in until Frolov personally okayed it,” Yardley pointed out, and Lombroso’s jaw muscles clenched.

He started to tell her exactly what he thought of that threadbare excuse, then stopped. First, because it wouldn’t do any good. He could chew her ass out all he wanted, and it wouldn’t pour the blood back into Tyler Braddock’s slaughtered men or put Georgina Guernicke’s shattered head back together again. And, second, because she had a point. The standoff had lasted for over three T-days before Christianos Frolov, the
assistant
planetary operations manager for Mobius, had—as Yardley put it—“okayed” the assault. In fact, he’d effectively
ordered
the assault in a demonstration of manly determination that would probably go down well with his corporate superiors after he got done spinning his report properly.

And which just happened to put his ass in Guernicke’s chair
, the president thought grimly.
Well, she always was a pain in
my
ass, anyway. And we’ve got Frolov on chip telling us the standoff was costing Trifecta millions of credits every day and that it was time we got in there and took the Tower back. If somebody back on Old Terra wants to chew me out over that one, I’ll just dump it on their own golden boy
.

Who knew, it might even do some good. And it might not, either.

“All right,” he grated in a marginally calmer voice. “I’ll give you that one. But I still want to know how the
hell
this happened in the first place. You and Braddock got fucking reamed. How?”

“Because no one saw it coming,” Yardley told him frankly. She glanced at Friedemann Mátyás. “
We
didn’t, and neither did the MSP.”

“Friedemann?” Lombroso gave the commander of his secret police a rather harder glance than Yardley had, and Mátyás frowned.

“Olivia’s right; we
didn’t
see it coming,” he confessed. “We’re still trying to get someone inside the MLF. So far we’ve
almost
pulled it off three times, and I’m running short of volunteers, given what happened each of those times.” He showed his teeth briefly. “The problem, Mister President, is that this is the best organized opposition group we’ve faced yet. They’re good.” He shrugged. “I don’t like admitting it, but they are. And so far they’ve always been smart enough to avoid high-profile challenges like this one. Our estimate at MSP—and I think from Olivia’s people, as well—is that they’re really still in the infrastructure building stages. They’re building membership, laying in caches of weapons, and setting up their communication chains.”

He raised his eyebrows at Yardley, who—despite their long-standing rivalry—nodded sharply.

“That’s been our impression in the Guard,” she agreed. “It’s one of the reasons we’ve both been arguing that we needed to nip these people in the bud, before they get themselves fully organized, Mister President.”

“Well, if they’re so damned smart and if they’re still so unprepared for major operations, what the hell was this all about?” Lombroso demanded. “I can’t think of a more ‘high-profile challenge’ than murdering Guernicke in her own office! And how the hell did they get inside in the first place?”

“We’ve identified what was left of the body of the guy we’re pretty sure was the mastermind,” Yardley told him. “His name was Kazuyoshi Brewster, and he was telling the truth. He lost his entire family in the May Riots.” She shrugged again. “We’ve only been able to identify six other members of his team. Five of them lost their entire families or at least their closest family members the same time he did. Obviously, Brewster was a damned good planner, but what really made the difference was that all of them had apparently decided they had nothing left to lose. They just wanted to do as much damage as they could before they went down, and I have to admit they did a damned good job.”

“‘A damned good job,’” Lombroso repeated, glaring at her.

“Well, they did,” she responded. “And the fact that they didn’t care whether they got out or not meant they were prepared to take chances nobody except a bunch of suicidal nut cases would’ve considered for a moment. That’s why we never saw it coming—this time, at least. We’ve beefed up security across the board on off-world corporate offices.”

Lombroso glared at her for a moment, remembering an ancient cliché about locked barn doors and missing horses. Or was it cows?

He brushed off the irrelevant thought and inhaled deeply.

“So tell me how this changes our situation,” he commanded. “You first, Olivia.”

“Well, after examining Brewster’s equipment, it’s obvious someone’s managed to stockpile even more off-world weapons than we thought. Given all of the deep cover informants we’ve got out there, that says more than I want to hear about how good the MLF’s security is. I know Friedemann’s just pointed out that we haven’t managed to get anyone inside the MLF itself, but we damned well ought to have enough surveillance system and human intelligence sources out there to at least be able to spot modern weapons moving in quantities like this.” She shrugged. “We didn’t.”

Lombroso suppressed a desire to throttle her. Strong as the temptation was, he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, what she’d just said was self-evidently true, and at least she’d had the nerve to say it.

“Friedemann?” he said, looking at Mátyás.

“Olivia’s right. We’ve always known they were better than anyone else who’s come along, but I’m beginning to think we’ve underestimated them for some time, anyway.”

Lombroso jaw muscles clenched as he glared at the two of them. They were his senior security officers. It wasn’t a case of “we’ve underestimated” the MLF; it was a case of
the two of
them
underestimating
the terrorist bastards, and he considered pointing that out. Unfortunately, it would have accomplished exactly nothing.

“All right,” he said once he was certain he had his voice under control. “So you’ve underestimated them.” He emphasized the personal pronoun only very slightly, but Yardley’s hazel eyes glinted with anger anyway. Mátyás had better control than that, probably because he wasn’t the one in the primary line of fire at the moment. “Obviously, it’s time you stopped doing that. So how bad does the situation look
now?
”

Yardley’s eyes didn’t soften. For a moment, she seemed to hover on the brink of something rash, but apparently she realized no one was genuinely irreplaceable when it came down to it.

“I’m not really certain,” she admitted levelly. “Things are clearly escalating since the riots last month. My best estimate is that the MLF leadership doesn’t
want
to escalate, though.”

“What?” Lombroso interrupted. He stared at her in disbelief. “They just fucking wrecked Trifecta Tower and killed Guernicke! Nobody’s
ever
done that kind of damage to use before!”

“Brewster and his team did,” Yardley acknowledged. “But there was no MLF statement about the attack until it was all over. And even then, their ‘Commandant Alpha,’ whoever the hell he is, didn’t claim direct credit for it.” She shook her head. “I think Brewster and the others put this together on their own. They were obviously MLF, because nobody else’s that good, and as far as we know, nobody else has the kind of off-world weapons support they seem to have. But I don’t think Commandant Alpha or the rest of his cadre knew anything about it before
we
did. And I don’t think they’d have okayed Brewster’s plan if he’d asked them to authorize it, either.”

Lombroso shook his head.

“I’d think those bastards would be getting behind and pushing for all they’re worth!” he said. “What the hell makes you think they aren’t?”

“Because they’re not ready,” Yardley said flatly. “That’s what Friedemann and I have been talking about. They’ve got
some
modern weapons on-planet, yes, but not anywhere near as many as they want. We’ve confiscated around a hundred pulsers—total—so far. Most of them aren’t new, but they’re all in first-class condition; it looks like they’ve been refurbished as needed by some very competent armorers. But we’ve been picking them up in ones and twos. Frankly, most of them got grabbed because someone just pretty much stumbled over them, and Brewster’s team is the first one we’ve seen armed entirely with military-grade pulse rifles. I think they’ve got more of them than we thought they had, but we’re still picking up substantially greater quantities of old-fashioned chemical-powered firearms. So they’ve made an off-world connection somewhere, but they still don’t have enough modern weapons to go around. And without more modern firepower, they’re going to be at a significant tactical disadvantage in any confrontation with us, much less any Solly intervention battalions. They know that.” She shrugged again. “That being the case, my analysts say the leadership cadre can’t be in favor of opening the dance this early.”

“Then what the fuck is going on?” Lombroso demanded. “We’ve got transit bombings, ambushes of isolated security forces, and more acts of minor sabotage and cyber attacks than I even want to think about. All in addition to what happened to Guernicke, of course!”

“I think Olivia’s right, Mister President,” Mátyás said unexpectedly, and Lombroso looked at him sharply. “I think what we’re seeing here is primarily a more or less spontaneous reaction to the May Riots, not a planned campaign by the MLF,” the secret policeman continued. “It certainly was in Brewster’s case, and I don’t see any reason to assume it’s not for the rest of these people, either. And it would explain why we’re seeing this now, when all indications are that the MLF is still in the building stage.”

“The short version is that they feel provoked,” Yardley said in a flat voice, meeting Lombroso’s eyes levelly. She’d recommended relying solely on infantry for crowd control during the protests, but the president, irked by the challenge coming at him from some of the senior ranks of his own political party, had wanted a more visible and more intimidating deterrent. Well, he’d gotten
that
, hadn’t he?

He looked back at her for several seconds, then he grimaced angrily and strode across his office to look out the window at downtown Landing.

All right,
he admitted to himself.
So maybe the Guard overreacted when it started taking fire. Hell, no ‘
maybe’
about it, Svein, and you damned well know it! They got out of hand, but it’s hard to blame them for wanting to make an example out of the bastards who’d opened fire on them.
Not
the kind of behavior you want to encourage, is it?

Maybe not, yet the better part of three thousand casualties, two thirds of them fatal, hadn’t gone down well with the régime’s opponents. And the Trifecta Tower attack had obviously enheartened the people already furious over the “May Day Massacre.” It might be unlikely that there were any more Brewsters out there, prepared to make what amounted to suicide runs against high visibility targets, but that wasn’t keeping a hell of a lot of other people from striking back in less spectacular fashion wherever and whenever they could, and their efforts were gaining momentum.