Solfleet: The Call of Duty (86 page)

“You got it!”

The wounded
imposter raised his head up off the ground and tried to level his weapon at the
old man, but the corporal put a bullet through his head before he could squeeze
off a shot.

The all hell
broke loose. Screaming filled the streets again as someone fired another shot,
this time from somewhere much farther off to the marines’ right, beyond the end
of the wall where the corporal couldn’t see.

“Aw shit!”
the sergeant yelled. “I’m hit!”

The corporal
looked back and saw the sergeant on his back, holding his bleeding right leg
with one hand and dragging the badly wounded and bleeding old man back up the
walkway with the other, using his shoulders and his one good leg to wriggle his
way back toward the doors and leaving a smeared trail of bright red blood
behind them.

“You okay,
Sergeant?”

“I’ll live!
Watch yourself! Don’t worry about me!”

The corporal
rolled to the base of the wall, peered up over it, and almost lost his right
ear as the air cracked beside his head. “Shit!” he exclaimed as he quickly
ducked back down. But he’d done what he needed to do. He’d zeroed the new
target—a long-haired, bare-footed young woman in a short black skirt and a
white blouse that looked like it had been torn open and was falling off her left
shoulder, and a white bra—and assessed its movement. It, or rather she, was running
straight toward him and closing quickly, holding a pistol out in front of her,
ready to fire again.

He fired
twice into the car that, as far as he knew, the second pair of men were still
hiding behind, just to keep them down. Then he rolled once to his left and
sprang up from behind the wall and fired twice more at the woman at almost
point blank range, striking her dead center in the chest with both rounds. She returned
fire as she collapsed, but the single shot she got off went high or wide enough
that he didn’t even hear it whiz by him.

He stood
there for a moment, shaking his head as he gazed down at her lifeless body
laying there on the lawn not more than ten feet in front of him. “Perfectly
good piece of ass gone to waste,” he commented. Then, remembering that the
danger hadn’t yet passed, he crouched, turned back toward the car, and dropped back
behind the protective cover of the tree pot.

Apparently
having decided to abandon his wounded partner in favor of affecting his own escape,
the unwounded attacker behind the car suddenly broke cover and made a run for
it. But he must have realized that he wasn’t going to make it because before
the corporal could safely take a shot he threw his arm around a screaming woman’s
throat from behind and used her to shield himself as he crossed the marine’s
field of fire, he also started firing wildly in the corporal’s general direction
in an obvious effort to pin him down.

The corporal
kept his weapon trained on them, but he couldn’t take the shot. The risk that
he might hit the hostage was too great.

An entire
squad of marines outfitted for combat suddenly poured out of the Federation
Building and fanned out. Then, having quickly assessed the situation, four of
them slung their weapons over their shoulders, grabbed up their wounded comrade
and the old man, and rushed them inside to safety while the rest of them took
cover and cut off the last attacker’s escape route by firing across his path
only a few feet ahead of him.

The hostage
cried out in terror and struggled to escape her captor. The man returned fire
as he doubled back the other way, but the marines cut off that route as well.
He had nowhere to go and he froze, and at that instant one of the marines fired
a single, carefully aimed shot. The back of the man’s head exploded, splattering
bright red blood and brain matter all over the wall behind them.

The hostage
fell with him to the ground, screaming even louder and more frantically, but
was likely otherwise unharmed.

The
immediate threat had been eliminated. The Quick Reaction Force would take care
of the follow-up. The corporal holstered his weapon, jumped up, and ran back
inside.

“Where’d
they take Sergeant McFarland?” he asked one of the security guards.

“To the
infirmary,” the guard answered. “He and the old man both. Doc said there wasn’t
no time to take them to the hospital now.”

“Damn! How
bad are they?”

“I don’t
know, Corporal. I think the sergeant only got it in the leg, but the old man
looked pretty bad.”

“What do you
want to bet he gets his appointment with Chairman MacLeod after this?”

“Maybe so, if
he lives long enough. Either way,” the guard added with an amused grin, “you’ll
still be here writing your statement. Shots fired, personnel down, fatalities.
You’ll be here all night, Corporal.”

The young
Marine glared at the guard. As if paperwork was the first thing on his mind
right now.

The
perpetually lingering and always familiar scents of hospital sterility—alcohol
and ammonia was it?—hit Chairman MacLeod square in the face the second the
elevator doors opened onto the second floor, making his eyes water and
triggering a short sneezing fit. Had he been brought in blindfolded and
unconscious he still would have known he was in a hospital. Fortunately, his
fit only lasted for a few moments and it only took a few quick blinks to clear
his eyes afterwards. By the time his personal security detail—they were an always
well dressed but stone-faced brother and sister team who’d been assigned to him
ever since that nearly successful attempt on his life a few years ago—allowed him
to step off the elevator into the hallway, he’d recovered.

Of course,
the smell hadn’t affected either one of them at all. Sometimes he wondered if
they were even human.

He spotted
the nurse’s station a short distance up the hall to the right and headed for
it. “Excuse me,” he said as he stepped up to the off-white, L-shaped counter.

The plump
and pleasant looking gray-haired older woman in nurse’s uniform sitting behind the
counter looked up from her computer screen through big brown eyes and flashed
the obligatory smile, which quickly disappeared when she saw the bodyguards flanking
him. “Um... How may I help you, sir?” she asked, obviously at a loss as to what
to think about them.

“Good
evening, nurse,” he greeted her with friendly smile, hoping to quell her
apparent discomfort and put her at ease. “I’m looking for the patient who was
shot outside the Federation Building this morning. I was told he’s in this ward.”

“Are you a family
member, sir?”

“No, ma’am,
I’m not,” he answered honestly. “My name is Brian MacLeod, chairman of the
Earth Security Council, and I need to talk to the patient immediately about an
extremely important matter.”

“Oh, you’re
with the government.”

“Yes. That’s
right.”

“Well, I
guess it’s okay then. May I see your identification, please?”

“Certainly.”
MacLeod reached into his inside coat pocket, withdrew his identicard, and
handed it to her. “There you are.”

“Thank you,”
she said as she took it. She gazed at it for a moment, compared the small
holophoto to the face in front of her, then swiped it through a scanner on her
desk, which verified its authenticity. Then she handed it back.

“The patient
you want is in room two ten, sir.” She pointed down the hall to MacLeod’s
right. “Left around the corner, then third door on the right.”

He glanced
in the direction she was pointing as he put his identicard away, then nodded
politely and said, “Thank you,” and then headed for the room.

“You’re
welcome, sir,” the nurse answered to his back.

One
bodyguard, the sister, stepped ahead of MacLeod and led the way while her
brother stayed close behind him and didn’t take his eyes off the nurse until
they rounded the corner. When they reached room 210, MacLeod knocked lightly on
the door and paused to listen for a response. The door opened almost
immediately and MacLeod found himself standing face to chest—until he looked up—with
a very large, very dark-skinned uniformed Federation police officer. It was a wonder
they’d found a uniform big enough to fit the man.

“Chairman
MacLeod,” the officer said in a deep bass voice. “Good evening, sir.”

Seeing three
chevrons on the large officer’s sleeve, MacLeod replied, “Good evening,
Sergeant.” Then he asked, “Is he awake?”

“I’m not real
sure, sir,” the policeman replied. “Seems like he’s in and out. He mutters a
little sometimes.”

“I need to
try to talk to him. You can wait out here with...”

“You can
talk to him if you like, sir, but my orders are not to leave this room under
any circumstances until I’m properly relieved by another officer.”

“I’ll only
be a few minutes,” MacLeod advised him. The sergeant folded his massive arms
across his equally massive chest, cocked his head slightly to one side and
glared down at him defiantly. “And apparently, you’ll be in there with me the
whole time.”

The sergeant
dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back, out of the way.

MacLeod
turned to his bodyguards and told them, “Wait out here by the door. I suspect I’ll
be well protected.”

“Yes, sir,”
the brother said.

MacLeod
stepped into the relative darkness and the sergeant closed the door behind him.
“Sir?” he called softly. The patient didn’t answer. “Sir?” he repeated,
slightly louder this time. “Can you hear me?”

Across the
room the life-support unit’s indicator lights cast a soft, ghostly rainbow glow
over the man’s face. That, combined with the steady, rhythmic whisper of the
respirator that helped him breathe and the heart/pulse monitor’s faint, pulsing
tones, filled the room with an eerie, haunted air. Despite its uncomfortably
humid warmth, an icy chill washed over him as if an unseen phantom had just passed
directly through his body. He could literally feel Death’s presence, could
almost see the Grim Reaper itself—the tall, black-cloaked skeleton, sickle held
tightly in its bony hand of dry rotted flesh—standing watch over the helpless
old man, waiting patiently for him to die.

MacLeod
cleared his throat and tried to shake it off. “Can you hear me, sir?” he
repeated again. But the elderly man still did not respond.

He grabbed
the only chair in the room, a well padded office chair on casters, and rolled
it over to the head of the bed, then sat on its leading edge and leaned
forward. He placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder and shook him gently. “Can
you hear me?” This time, finally, the old man responded. Just a slight, quiet moan,
but a response nonetheless. “It’s Chairman MacLeod, Earth Security Council. Can
you hear me?”

“Chairman
Mac...” the old man whispered weakly.

“Yes, that’s
right. Brian MacLeod, chairman of the Earth Security Council. I’m told you were
trying desperately to see me when you were hurt earlier today.”

“Hurt?” he
questioned, his voice still very weak but his speech at least a little clearer
than it had been the moment before. “I was...hurt?”

“Yes. You
were shot and badly wounded just outside Manhattan’s Federation Building. Do
you remember that?”

“I was... I
was shot.” His voice seemed to be growing slowly but steadily stronger, but
forming intelligible words still appeared to be a struggle.

“That’s
right. You ran inside the Federation Building and demanded to see me, but the
guards stopped you. They dragged you back outside and you were shot by someone
who’d apparently been chasing you through the city. Two men, posing as New York
City police detectives. Do you remember any of that?”

For a moment
he didn’t answer, but then, nodding slightly, he said, “I remember.”

“Good. That’s
good. So I came to see you, to find out who you are and why you were so
desperate to see me this morning.”

“Where... Where
am I?”

“You’re in
the intensive care unit at Manhattan Memorial Trauma Center.”

“Then...I’m
alive.”

MacLeod
grinned. “Yes. You’re alive.”

“I feel like...like
I’m floating.”

“That’s to
be expected,” MacLeod explained. “You underwent emergency surgery again a few
hours ago. It’ll probably take a while for the anesthesia to wear off completely.
But if you feel up to it, I’d like some answers right now.”

“Answers?”

“That’s
right.”

“Wh... What...”

“Well, for
starters, just tell me who you are and why you were so desperate to see me.”

The old man
turned his head slightly and slowly opened his eyes, squinting and blinking
several times as he tried to focus on the chairman’s face. “Chairman MacLeod?”
he asked, as if he were just realizing who it was he’d been talking to. “Is that
you?”

“Yes, it’s
me. Brian MacLeod.”

“I need to...talk
to you.”

“That’s why
I’m here.”

“Are we
alone?”

MacLeod
started to look back over his shoulder, but nothing he might say was going to
convince that police sergeant to leave the room, so he didn’t bother to try.
Instead, he simply told the old man, “Yes, we’re all alone. You can speak
freely.”

It clearly
took some effort, but with the ventilator’s help he managed to draw a deep and
obviously painful breath, which he then released very slowly. “All right,” he
finally said. “But take heed...Mister Chairman. You can...trust no one with...with
what I’m about to tell you.”

“I
understand,” MacLeod assured him with a nod.

“There’s a
handcomp...sewn into the lining of my suit jacket...wherever that is. All my
notes...summaries of my theories. Everything you need to know is...is there.”

“In the
handcomp, sewn into your jacket.”

“Yes,” the
old man confirmed.

“What’s
going on?” MacLeod asked impatiently. “What’s on that handcomp you want me to
see?”