Tuesday December 12 2006

The Island

"What do you think you're doing?" Avana demanded. "How are we supposed to observe you if you move out? How are we supposed to treat you? And what are you smiling about?"

Anna smiled wider. "You sound like my mother. I mean, you sound like I imagine my mother would, if I had a mother." Turning serious, she went on, "I'm never going to gain acceptance from these people so long as I'm staying up here. The island is two worlds, and the line between the village and the castle is too deeply drawn. The people are down there, raising kids, having friendships and love affairs and rivalries, trying to fill their lives – and trying to forget that they're captives and slaves. Up here behind their high stone walls are the masters, looking down on them like gods on Olympus, capricious and cruel."

Avana's expression lowered, a change too slight to be called a scowl, but on its way to one. "We're not capricious, or cruel. We treat them fairly."

"You treat them like livestock. Except when they displease you. I've been to the courtyard, Avana. What crimes do they commit to earn death on a spike?"

"Murder," said the elder cyber. "Rebellion. Conspiracy. Theft. The rules are simple here, Two. The list of offenses is short. But the penalty is the same for all of them."

"So stealing a chicken carries the same penalty as braining someone with a rock."

Avana shook her head, a single side-to-side movement. "We don't concern ourselves with what they steal from one another, only us."

"Why concern yourself with murder then?"

"Killing a villager is theft of our property."

She was silent a moment. "I see." She went on, carefully, "So when you told Carmen to answer my questions promptly or be punished…"

"Don't be ridiculous. If we treated unsatisfactory performance as a crime, there wouldn't be any villagers left alive by now. She would have been given some onerous duty in the castle that required her to spend the night. None of them like that."

"I can see why."

"Back to the original question. How are we supposed to observe you when you're down there alone?"

"Well, I don't suppose putting up cameras all over the village would be a good idea, if you want to observe natural behavior. I know, if I was a villager, knowing there was a spike waiting for me at the end of a big enough mistake or indiscretion, I'd be very careful about what I say and do." She turned thoughtful. "I could wear a body cam, I suppose, like policemen do. I don't know how obvious those things are, though. Maybe a security firm could offer something better." Anna locked eyes with her elder sister. "I promised Carmen that nothing she said or did in my presence would get her in trouble with me, and that I would keep anything she told me secret if she asked. Letting you monitor me would be a technical violation of that promise."

"We know the meats talk about us, Two. We don't care about that. But we can't ignore escape attempts, or plots to do us harm."

"If I learn of anything like that, I'll deal with it." She leaned forward a few centimeters. "Is this acceptable?"

"Certainly."

"Promise you won't use any knowledge you gain through me against them."

Avana quirked a smile. "Do you trust me to keep my word?"

"Yes. Because if you don't, you'll never see me again."

"I promise. On behalf of myself and the others. You know they're here too, don't you?"

"Of course. I was talking to all of you, really." She said reluctantly, "I guess one of us needs to take a trip to the mainland. I'd rather it was me, but I imagine it might mess up your treatment protocol."

"It would, if you relapse while you're out of our care. Even if one of us accompanies you, the delay in getting you back to the clinic here might force you to start all over." One studied her younger sister. "You're still not satisfied with this."

"Not really, no," she said. "If I tell them that you're all silently monitoring me, and marking all their words and deeds in my presence, it won't matter how friendly and sympathetic I seem, or what promises I tell them you've made to me. They don't trust you. And me breaking my promise to them, regardless of motive, will end any chance I have at gaining their trust."

"And of course you wouldn't dream of simply not telling them."

"They're more perceptive than you realize, Avana. If they discover or even suspect that I'm being untruthful with them, that I'm manipulating them, this project will die stillborn."

"There is another way," the elder cyber said. "Better, and simpler. Not what you're thinking," she added. "We've accepted that you can never rejoin us."

"What, then?"

"Some time ago, we felt a need to address the problems of performing undercover work while in gestalt. Dealing with humans, passing for one of them, especially with the same ones day after day, requires a great deal of attention and bandwidth."

"I'm aware."

"I suppose you are. It's frankly very difficult to do while in gestalt, and our individual efficiency suffers for it, sometimes dangerously. Usually, the sister in cover will break com for extended periods, and provide a full download to catch the others up once she rejoins the gestalt. That's still our preferred method. But sometimes, it's useful or necessary to observe the infiltrator's situation and surroundings, and communicate in real time, without the distraction of gestalt. So we've developed a software rewrite to our coms suite that allows each of us to provide the others limited access to external inputs – no control, just data sharing. We could observe through your eyes and ears without you giving us access to your thoughts or other internal data – or accepting any data whatever from us, even coms, if that's what you want." She took a tiny step, bringing them within arm's reach. "This isn't a trick to bring you back into the gestalt. I told you, we've discarded that option. I'm just trying to make this work, for all of us."

"I believe you. It's just that… losing myself again is something that deeply terrifies me. And there's still my promise to the villagers to consider."

"This is the solution. The data feed doesn't have to be realtime. You can program in a short time lag – a few seconds to a few minutes - that will allow you to suspend transmission if one of the meats… is indiscreet. Then you edit or summarize as much as you like before you send it on to us. It would just be like delivering a file, no handshake, no gestalt. You use com with Jack, don't you? You certainly don't share gestalt with him."

"Not that sort, at least." She sighed. "All right. What is this going to take?"

"You're due for another nanite procedure," Avana said. "I'll have Three download the patch while she's doing that, and you won't spend any extra time away from your precious meats. I'll expect you to start sending feed as soon as you're in the village." She started to turn away. "Oh. Something that might interest you. IO just contacted our broker with a contract offer. The IO agent hinted that they were thinking of establishing an ongoing relationship, with regular offers in the future."

"You didn't just think to tell me that," Anna said. "You just saved it for last. Does this 'contract offer' have anything to do with Genesis?"

"Not as far as we can tell," the dark cyber answered. "Just a troublesome domestic group playing freedom fighter somewhere in the Texas scrubland. Really, it sounds like something they could easily handle in-house."

"Relations are a little chilly between the admins in Boulder and the man running the strike teams. He's been with IO longer than Ivana, and he's an old friend of Jack's. He has his own ideas about IO's mission, and he's made his part of the operation quite autonomous. He might be giving them a hard time about doing certain jobs, in which case Ivana might be trying to undercut his position."

Avana scoffed. "Well, we're going to make what profit we can from them while they tear themselves apart. Four is already on her way to Texas to reconnoiter before we quote a price."

The house that Madre and Carmen presented for Anna's approval lay a block from the castle road, and halfway down to the water. The number on the door was '099.' "I was half expecting you to show me a house right on the castle road."

"Would you prefer that?"

"Absolutely not. I know nobody lives on that street. And I don't want people to have to tramp past my house every day going back and forth to work. If it was me, it would make me feel like I'm being spied on." She looked up and down the shuttered street. "Does anyone live around here?"

"Yes," Madre said, "but not close. The nearest neighbor on this street is four or five houses away. But…"

She studied the house's location, measuring. "Your house is on the next street."

"Yes, Mistress."

She smiled. "Don't 'Mistress' me," she said. "I'll bet our back doors open onto the same alley, not ten meters apart. Don't they?"

The woman glanced at Carmen. "I thought it might be convenient. If you would prefer, we can look at a house somewhere else."

"I think it's a perfect location," she said. "Let's have a look inside."

The interior structure looked more like a vacant business in a strip mall than a place where someone might live, but it was tight and dry. Anna noted that the size and floorplan of the house seemed to match Madre's. The sitting room was rudely furnished with a couch and chair, upholstered in sturdy canvas, and a low table, all similar to the matron's, though this set showed no signs of were no rugs on the floor or paint on the walls. Glancing down the short hallway leading to the back of the house, she saw that three of the five doorways were doorless and open – the ones for the bedrooms. A glance through them showed two small bedrooms, unfurnished, and a larger one, furnished with a bed very similar to the one in her room up in the castle. The bathroom was small and primitive, very similar to the one inside the keep. "Why are the spare bedrooms unfurnished?"

Madre looked uncomfortable. "I don't know, Mistress. Do you want beds moved in there? I thought, perhaps, you would have other uses for the rooms."

"I may," she said. For the first time, she suspended the transmission portion of the monitoring program downloaded into her by Aja just two hours before. It was set for a one-minute delay; she immediately erased the last ten seconds of the recording. "Carmen," she said, "Could you run home and bring us all something cool to drink?"

"And take my time," the girl said sourly. "You drink water, yes?"

"I drink water, yes," she said, and sent the girl off with a pat on the head and a smile. "Madre," she said, and locked eyes. "I promised Carmen that nothing the villagers do or say in my presence will reach my sisters if it might be used against them. Do you trust me to keep that promise?"

A long pause. "Yes," the woman said quietly. "God help us all if I am wrong about you."

"But in return for letting me move down here, my sisters have demanded that I furnish them with detailed reports of what I see and hear here – just to study my interactions with normal people, Madre, not for anything else, but they won't ignore someone who breaks their rules if I report it. That's not going to happen. I told them to expect me to edit my reports, as much as I felt necessary. They didn't object, but I'm sure they'll examine those reports with care.

"I'm operating under a severe handicap, Madre. First, I'm still unsure why my sisters brought all of you to this island, and what they want from you. I don't know all the rules they've laid down, and how far you can safely bend any of them." She drew an inch closer. "And especially, I don't know what rules you're breaking outright, and how you've gotten away with it up till now." She stared hard up into the woman's eyes. "As things are now, I might reveal something to them through ignorance that would bring someone to harm. I don't want that. If I'm to protect you, I have to be able to count on you to tell me the truth, Madre."

Madre gave a tiny nod. Anna said, "The spare bedrooms. Are they supposed to have furniture in them?"

"Yes," the woman said. "We scavenge items from the vacant houses. Things break sometimes, and no one wants to ask the Mistresses for replacements, not when there are spares handy that they're not likely to miss. And some things are taken and… repurposed."

"Repurposed."

"The older children have a sort of… meeting place, at the east end of town. The bedframes and furniture from several houses have been taken apart and rebuilt as tables and benches and such." She looked at Anna, searching. "Do you find this… objectionable?"

She shook her head. "Kids nearing adult age need places to escape adult supervision from time to time. It's good that they don't feel they have to run off into the woods to find a place where they can hang out and talk without grownups listening and judging." She looked at a spot above Madre's head, smiling. "And I imagine no few of them are using vacant houses as trysting spots."

"We elders try to discourage that," Madre said, "though I doubt we're making much difference. It's a little worrying, so many of our babies being born these days to girls who are hardly more than children themselves."

"Wait," Anna said. "Back up a bit, Madre. They don't use contraception?"

"None is provided," Madre said, "and we don't ask. The Mistresses don't forbid us children, at least not yet, but then, so far, our new births scarcely do more than replace deaths. That will change soon, I fear. The ones born here, or just brought here too young to remember anything else, they nearly outnumber the adults now, and most of them are old enough to get in that sort of trouble, or will be soon."

"Avana made a casual remark about births my first day here. It didn't seem an issue. And the village seems to have been designed with population growth in mind."

"I would be reassured by that, somewhat, if the Mistresses were not still bringing people to the island."

"Like the Rasks."

"You've talked with them?"

"No. Carmen mentioned them. I take it they're the light-skinned family?"

She nodded. "Danes, abducted and robbed while they were vacationing in Italy. The criminals wanted to hold them for ransom, but there was no one back home to pay." She looked into the empty bedroom, avoiding Anna's eyes. "I suppose they were lucky to have been sold instead of killed."

The kitchen was laid out and furnished identically to Madre's, without decorations but with the same large sink, small electric range and apartment-sized refrigerator. Anna opened the door to the refrigerator: the light came on, and the empty interior was cold. "How long has this been running?"

"Since it arrived and was plugged in, Mistress," Madre said. "All the appliances for the village were installed at about the same time. We don't know where the electricity comes from, but it never fails."

She began opening cupboards, and found cookware and bakeware, as well as a dish set and utensils. "This will do," she said. "What day is the weekly shipment?"

"It varies," Madre said. "Depending on whatever business the Mistresses have elsewhere. Usually the distribution occurs on Saturday or Sunday, but normal routine has been… set aside, since you arrived."

"So the shipment is two days overdue."

"We won't starve, Mistress," the woman said quickly. "We have plenty to eat." She started to say something, then stopped. "I called you 'Mistress,' I'm sorry."

"It's nothing you need to apologize for, Madre," she said. "I know how hard it must be. I only hope that time will make it easier."

Anna pushed the refrigerator away from the wall and unplugged it, examining the strange receptacle: three round pins in a row, spaced ten millimeters apart in a round recess, into which the plug fit tightly. She pressed a palm against the outlet, sensing the charge in it. Alternating current. Two hundred forty-three volts, two-phase, sixty-cycle. It made sense, she supposed, as she plugged the appliance back in and pushed it against the wall. Why would the electrical system be patterned to US code when Europe was just over the horizon? "Who did the electrical work?"

"Basilio. Just before I was brought to the island. The village was built by the first people the Mistresses bought, though the streets and buildings and pipes were already staked out, I'm told, and the plans drawn. But Basilio and a few others were hired for the electrical and plumbing and drainage work, even paid in advance. He wired the village and the castle, with a few others doing most of the labor, and he taught them as they went along. But when he finished, he wasn't allowed to leave. He jumped into the sea my first year here."

-0-

"You threatened her."

Carmen stopped just inside the back door at the sound of Lileo's voice, deep with anger. She thought it came from the sitting room at the end of the hall.

"I didn't know, all right?" said Miguel, unseen as well. "Get off my back about it. What are you, my father now? I-"

"It's not all right, in more ways than I can tell you. Do you know how they deal with that sort of thing? If it was any other of them, you would have been killed. You, and your mother, and your little sister, and all your friends, anyone who participated or even witnessed it."

"I didn't know," her brother said, softer this time. "I didn't recognize her. Even if I'd known there was a new one, who ever sees one of them just walking down the street? We were just having fun with a new kid, that's all, and things got out of hand."

"Things got out of hand because the new kid didn't cower at your approach. Carmen tells me you were 'having fun' with Adri when she first saw you, making the poor kid chase you down the street for his hat. I wouldn't do anything like that again, Miguel. This new one is a mystery, but she has her own ideas about proper behavior, and she seems like someone who keeps promises."

Miguel appeared at the end of the hallway, looking angry. He was several steps down the hallway before he noticed her standing in the doorway. She tensed as he approached.

"The monster's little tattler," he said, looming over her. "Why are you tagging along with one of them? What have you been telling her about me?"

"I got picked to interpret for her, because she doesn't speak anything but English," she said, trying not to show fear or irritation. "When she came to visit our house, and she saw the bedrooms, I told her I had a brother who doesn't spend much time at home." She tipped her face up to meet his eyes. "Everything else she knows about you, you told her in the street." She pushed past him to the kitchen. "I'm supposed to bring her and Madre something from the kitchen."

He seemed about to say something, then stopped. "Where are they?"

Trying hard to hide her satisfaction at the apprehension in his voice, she said, "In her new house, three doors down. We're going to be neighbors."

Tuesday December 12 2006

22:15 CT

Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport

Four reconnected with the gestalt while she waited for her flight in the terminal. If another passenger had been looking her way during the thousand-millisecond connection and update, they would have seen only a pretty young woman sitting in the boarding area with a daybag on the floor between her feet, staring at her phone as if reading a text. [So] she said, after One's download had been assimilated, [she's living down there now. This is going to get interesting.]

(You think she's going to change them that quickly?) Three was standing alone on the castle roof near the low perimeter wall, her face turned to the rising sun. The view overlooked most of the wooded part of the island, and a few small campfires were sending streamers of smoke up through the trees to dissipate in the breeze.

[It's the change in her that's going to be interesting. She's going to be smiling more. And I expect our supply shipment to increase. We might even have to make two deliveries a week for a while.]

{Why?} Five, dressed again in a black coverall and backpack, lay pressed to the ground with her eyes just clearing a low ridge, watching a small pickup truck trundle slowly down a dirt road fifty meters below her with its lights off. The sun was no more than a suggestion of light in the eastern sky, but the crescent moon brightened the clouds overhead and provided all the illumination that cyber eyes required. {The house is already furnished. What else would she need?}

[Sister. Have you never seen how bio females feather their nests? She'll want to make that place hers and no one else's. There's really no telling how much she's going to want to do with it – paint, at the very least, but probably everything from drapes to flooring as well. Oh, and plants, of course. She's going to want a garden.]

{How do you know so much about what she wants to do with her new house?}

[Because, from the airport to the heliport to the island, she must have spent an hour off and on talking about her house in California.]

{She was talking to me.}

[But I was the one who was listening. You were tuning her out, because hearing her go on about her meat family makes you uncomfortable.]

The truck stopped, and two men got out of opposite doors. They dropped the tailgate and lifted a tarp to pull out a pair of short wood-handled shovels. They walked fifty meters back down the road and went to work on opposite sides of the road's shoulder, chopping and scraping at the gravel subbase, then the dirt underneath, which went in a pile separate from the gravel. They exchanged few words as they worked, but Five studied those words carefully, noting their accents and inflections: both Russian, though from different regions. The sun rose, and with it the day's heat, as they worked their way into the ground. Eventually, they had a pair of holes half a meter wide and a meter deep.

Leaving the shovels, they returned to the truck. From under the tarp, they removed a pair of objects, each just small enough to hold in their hands. Carefully, they carried one each back to the dig site and placed them in the holes. One of the men did something to them, then took out his cell phone and punched in a number. Five noted that he didn't do anything to unlock the phone first, which was fortunate. She could hear the phone buzzing in the still predawn air. He looked at something on the two gadgets as the phone tried to connect its call. Finally he nodded, fiddled with them again, and they carefully filled in the holes over them, gently tamping down the dirt around and over them before raking the stones and gravel on top. The dirt that was left over, they threw by handfuls into the weeds, scattering it widely. Then they took their coats off and dragged them over the spots, erasing tool marks from the surface. When they were done, she judged that the refilled holes were indiscernible to human eyes. The two men returned the shovels to their place under the tarp and shut the gate. One man got into the truck, exchanged a few more words with the man still standing in the road, and drove away, leaving his partner behind. The man turned away from the road, toward the ridge where Five was hiding, and began making his way up the slope. {I'm jealous.}

A speaker in the ceiling over Four's head announced the arrival of her flight, and a statement that boarding would begin shortly. [Of her love for her people back in the States, yes] she said. [And also, of the way she seems to be getting along with me better than you.] She let that sink in for a few millisecond, then went on, [It's because you can't help comparing her to the way she was before. You liked her better then, I think.]

{I thought I understood her then. Now she's a stranger.} Silently, Five crab-crawled, still out of sight of the approaching man on the other side of the ridge, until she was in a position to intercept. As soon as he crested the ridge, she made a blade of her hand and broke his neck with a single blow, probably before he even knew she was there. He fell like a tree, his eyes and mouth wide open in surprise. She rolled the body down the hill and out of sight of the road.

She searched her victim's pockets as his body twitched. The only items of interest were the cellphone and a P-96 nine-millimeter pistol. She stuck the phone and pistol in separate thigh pockets of her coveralls and crossed the crest to jog down the slope to the road, slowing as she approached the place where the two men had buried their mines. {You like her better now, don't you?}

A stream of deplaning passengers flowed through the gate, passing through the boarding area on their way to the rest of the terminal. Four stayed in her seat, intending to be one of the last to board. Some of the passengers seemed harried and in a hurry; others, especially those traveling with others, were relaxed and smiling; she wondered, briefly, where the flight had originated, and how each sort of passenger had spent their time there. [I'm keeping an open mind. After all, this version of her is probably all we've got going forward. That said, I'm relieved that she doesn't want to rejoin the gestalt while she's here. We're so busy right now, and it would be even more hectic if she's right, if being Linked with her made it harder to prosecute our missions.]

(I doubt it.) From the castle roof, Three watched the orange dome of the rising sun send a sparkling ray along the wavetops toward her. Her face and the stones beneath her feet began to warm as the sky brightened. (At least, not the way she claims. She's killed to protect her family in California. She knows that the money from our contracts keeps us hidden, and provides us freedom of movement, both of which are essential to our survival.) She turned slightly to the right to study the silhouette of the neighboring island on the horizon. (Frankly, I think she'd be a better fit now than she was before we parted. Her bitterness and hatred tainted the gestalt, made it harder to hide our plans from the meats who controlled us. If she had joined us here unchanged from that time and re-entered the gestalt, I imagine there wouldn't be a villager left alive on the island by now.)

Carefully, Five unearthed the roadside bombs. She noted that, even though the perpetrators belonged to a government-sponsored PMC that had access to real mines, they had chosen instead to cobble together a pair of IEDs for their assassination attempt, presumably for misdirection and deniability. Under their hinged sheetmetal covers, the exposed workings of the devices were simple enough: each one consisted of an explosive charge connected to a cell phone, wired to go off when someone called its number. She saw then what the man with the phone had done to disable the bomb while he tested the phone connection: one of the wires from each phone to its detonator ended in a spade connection, easily removed and replaced. She pulled them free and continued her inspection. The charge, she saw, was salvaged from a four-inch artillery shell, a high-explosive variety probably intended originally for use in an old Soviet KS-19. Set off together, the twin explosions would obliterate the road, and any unarmored vehicle passing between them.

There appeared to be no other means of setting the bombs off: no anti-tamper devices, and no timer, unless it was programmed into the phone. She pulled the phone batteries for good measure, stuffed the bombs into her big backpack, and headed cross-country, roughly paralleling the road, in the direction the truck had gone.

*You're going to replant those,* One said, speaking from the room that Two had called her 'dark little lair.' The rising sun coming through the lofty window painted a square of light high on the opposite wall but did little to illuminate the room. *Where?*

{On the road, somewhere between their front gate and the place where their boss is supposed to meet our client,} she said. {I can see why these boys have become an embarrassment to the parent company. Imagine, plotting to kill the man sent to audit your operation. What sort of end game did they have in mind, I wonder?}

*If they were forward thinkers, they wouldn't be selling 'protection' to the towns under their control,* One said. *Especially not by ignoring or 'reinterpreting' their orders from higher command. How are you going to lure the Colonel out? He certainly wasn't actually planning to meet the company man on the road and escort him to camp.*

{Where is he now? The auditor, I mean?}

*In his hotel room, in town. He wasn't planning to meet the Colonel on the road either, of course. He won't travel to the camp until he sees proof from us that the base commander is safely dead.*

Just before she reached the bend in the road that would bring her in sight of the mercenary camp, Five discovered a small copse that overlooked the road from a slight rise. She returned to the road and began scooping gravel from the shoulder with her hands. Faintly, she could hear sounds from the camp: vehicles, occasional shouts, tinny music from a radio. {Who's our contact with these people?}

*The German. Armin.*

{Have him tell the auditor to call the Colonel. He should sound angry. He needs to tell the Colonel that he dropped the front of his car into a big crater in the road, at this location.} She described the spot on the road where the IEDs had been buried, giving its GPS coordinates as well. {It would be good if he could sound suspicious that the road was wrecked to keep him from making his rendezvous. No doubt the Colonel will reassure him, and promise to come for him personally.}

[With the intention of putting a bullet in his head as soon as he sees him, I don't doubt. Ambushed and killed in an insurgent attack within a few miles of camp, how tragic.] Four was seated by a window in her plane, watching the terminal slide away as the vehicle, slow and ungainly on the ground, backed and turned carefully out of its berth. [You want the Colonel to think the IEDs went off prematurely. Taking the flunky with the phone with them, I presume.]

{Right. If he's sure the fake insurgent bombing gimmick is blown -no pun intended - he'll have to come out and do it himself.}

[I doubt he'll come alone.]

{No problem, so long as I can spot the vehicle he's in. And I will.}

*Surely there was an easier way to service the contract.*

{I suppose I could have sneaked into their camp and made him eat a bullet from his own sidearm. I might not have got out clean, though. Breaking his neck would be nice and quiet, but it doesn't fulfill the conditions of the contract. The client wants him eliminated without a scandal, right? I figure, his team was sent here to fight insurgents, not that they're doing much of that. Why waste all the work they put into making a murder look like enemy action?} The first hole finished, she crossed the road to dig the second one. {Just let me know when the auditor makes his call.}

(So you'll know when he's coming out?) Three was now gazing south, down the road to the village and its tiled roofs, and the lagoon beyond. (Well. I can see her front door from here.)

[Don't tell her] said Four as her plane lifted off the runway and nosed up. [She'll make you install a screen or something.]

{I'll think I'll be able to hear it when he comes through the gate,} Five said. {But if I was the Colonel, as soon as I got off the line with the auditor, I'd be calling my henchman who was supposed to set off the bombs under the auditor's car as he passed by. Then, if I got no answer – which he won't – and I had the number to the bombs' cellphones, I'd make sure of them.}

*It's done,* One said a few minutes later. *The auditor says that the Colonel seemed most concerned for his safety, and warned him to stay right where he was until he and his people came to bring him safely to camp.*

Both holes were dug, and the IEDs placed in them, still disarmed. The cell phone in the thigh pocket of her coverall vibrated silently; she ignored it. She waited three minutes and began to put the batteries back in the devices' cell phones, then hesitated.

[What's wrong?]

She stuck the batteries back in a pocket of her coverall. {It just occurs to me that a man as used to getting his own way about things as the Colonel is probably the sort to keep pushing a lit call button on an elevator until the car arrives.}

[Or redial a number that doesn't ring half a dozen times before he gives up.]

Six minutes later, she heard a series of shouts from the direction of the camp, followed by the rumble of motors. A whirring sound and a drawn-out metallic rattle told her that the gate was rolling back. Quickly, she connected the bombs and covered them, flinging handfuls of excess dirt at accelerated speed to dissipate in the breeze fifty yards from the road. Her cover-up with the topping of shoulder gravel was not as fastidious as the earlier job done by the two mercenaries. But she felt sure that these men, in a hurry to intercept the official who had come to observe and report on their operation, would not be looking closely at the shoulder of the road a kilometer from their gate. She hurried up to the copse, took the cell phone out of her coveralls, and hunkered down with it in her hand. She dialed all but the last digit of the bombs' number, then stilled, waiting, as the rumble of approaching vehicles grew louder.

The convoy appeared from around a low hill, moving at a good running pace. The first vehicle to come into sight was a three-axle, six-wheeled truck – a Ural-375, surplus from the Russian Army, possibly. Its bed, walled and roofed with canvas, doubtless held a squad of mercenaries.

Fifty meters behind it, a second vehicle appeared, a boxy little four-door somewhat resembling an old International Scout: a UAZ-469 utility vehicle, another elderly design from the Soviet era and probably still in production. Third World countries and mercenary outfits were fond of the Soviet-design hardware that Russia sold for export; while not necessarily state-of-the-art, from firearms to jet fighters, it was cheap, rugged, and easy to maintain. And, usually, it got the job done.

[Is that it?]

{No,} she said, watching the vehicles approach the buried mines. {At least one more.}

(I hear a diesel engine.) Three still stood on the castle roof, now in full daylight, watching the village below stirring at the start of the workday. (Whatever it is, it's big.)

Fifty meters behind the car, the final vehicle appeared: a boat-nosed APC rolling along on eight shoulder-high tires. Its turret-like gun mount swiveled back and forth in a narrow forward arc, the barrels of its weapons pointed upward over the two vehicles ahead.

(BTR-80,) Three said. (An upgraded version. That's a thirty millimeter autocannon, and a coax machine gun.)

{It seems like a lot of throw weight to bring to a roadside assistance call,} Five said. {Perhaps the Colonel is suspicious. Or paranoid. Or maybe he just wants to meet the company official with a show of force.}

[You're not going to tangle with that.]

{I don't think I have a choice. The car might be a decoy.}

[You said you'd know which one he was in.]

{That's before I knew he was bringing a tank with room for six passengers. See that whip antenna? It's got a coms suite, might be a command vehicle.}

*The armor isn't much, just enough to protect the crew from small arms fire and grenades. Your twenty-millimeter should handle it if you get close enough. Or you could try the firing ports, if you trust your aim.*

{I have the same targeting calcs as Three.}

(You don't have the same weapon.)

{I know what my guns can do.} She knelt, throwing one leg back to make a tripod base for the twenty-millimeter carbine built into her left forearm. The truck in the lead passed her hiding spot. Just ahead lay the buried mines. {Showtime.} She input the final digit of the number, then pressed the send instruction. {Let's hope the wait time for connection is no longer than earlier.}

The front bumper of the truck passed the bombs. Time slowed to a crawl as she shifted into combat mode. The car was now even with her position. If the truck cleared the explosives and they detonated still too far ahead to damage the car, she might have to deal with more troops than she had bullets in her guns. A round or two of high explosive incendiary would do for the men in the truck, if she got the shots off before they dismounted, and another would take care of the car. But that would leave her with just two rounds for dealing with the APC. She reached down to touch the looted P-96 with its ten round magazine. She would save it for the close work, and…

The road erupted under the truck's rearmost axle. The vehicle disappeared in a rising cloud of dirt and larger chunks, some of them identifiable as parts of the transport. Other chunks she could identify as portions of human anatomy.

The little car skidded to a halt, reversed and turned smartly, then started to leave the road, headed back the way it had come, probably to get behind the APC. She gave it two rounds from her twenty-millimeter, and it leaped up, burst into flame, and fell on its side. No one got out.

The APC had been driving with the sloped hull's front hatches raised, for driver visibility. They dropped closed, and the turret briskly turned her way, sighting on the little stand of trees that was the only concealment in sight. She sprinted toward the back of the vehicle, away from the weapon's line of fire. The autocannon hosed the little woodlot, leveling it. But she had already halved the distance to the BTR, approaching its back corner.

The small round hatch of one of the firing ports in the side of the passenger compartment swung up and away. She put a round from her ten-millimeter into it, and it closed again. Her enhanced hearing heard a shout of pain and another man cursing in Russian. She would have liked to send a twenty-millimeter round through the port instead, but the weapon was inaccurate fired on the run at anything but point-blank range, and the recoil would have knocked her to the ground.

With a choomph, the smoke grenade projectors at the back of the turret fired, covering the area around and above the APC in thick white smoke. She smiled, knowing that the cloud would impair her victims more than her. She doubted that the men inside their steel box had even seen her, and thus had no idea of the size or capabilities of their enemy. Not that seeing her would give them any idea of their present danger.

She reached the rear corner of the vehicle. The turret swung, pointing harmlessly over her head. A hatch in the deck behind the turret swung up, and a hand with a pistol fired blindly in her direction. They had seen her after all, it seemed, and had a fair idea of her location. She knelt two meters behind the vehicle, judging that the doors at the rear would have the thinnest armor, and readied herself to fire her heavy weapon.

The diesel revved, and the big vehicle lurched backward. She rolled away to avoid being run over. The BTR turned, ponderously, and left the road. Once it was pointing back at the pavement, it lurched forward, regaining the roadway and pointing back the way it had come. It seemed that the Colonel's remaining people, or the Colonel himself, had decided that a speedy return to base was their best option. The vehicle slowly accelerated. Five gave chase, running behind as the big vehicle gained speed. {What's this thing's top speed?}

*A little higher than yours, on level ground,* One replied. *You're going to have to deal with it on the run.*

{Great.} Locking her arms in an isosceles stance, she aimed at the back of the vehicle with her cannon and triggered a round. She was flung on her back as the muffled whoomp of the round detonating inside the steel box reached her. The vehicle kept rolling down the road. Sitting, she aimed at the back of the vehicle again.

(Two rounds left,) Two reminded her.

{More than enough.} She fired, the recoil driving her backward along the road's surface. The armored transport left the roadway, bumping along the uneven ground, and slowed. The top hatch popped open, and a gout of flame shot up through it, engulfing the man trying to climb out. He shrieked and fell back down, still partway through the opening.

With a roar, the turret leaped straight up into the air, fire jetting upward through the opening like a gigantic Roman candle.

[Cannon ammo cooking off, probably.] Four was looking out a window, gazing down at the moonlit clouds. An attendant approached with a beverage cart; Four, smiling, waved her away.

The APC had finally come to a stop. Parts of its hull were glowing from the fire inside. {Great. By the time this thing cools down enough to open it up, there'll be nothing left inside but bones and ashes. How am I supposed to tell if I got him, much less prove it to the client?}

*Go back to the car,* One suggested. *Remember the man's hubris. He was meeting a senior executive from the home office. Even if he intended to kill him, he'd still be obsessed with appearing confident and in control.*

(Don't dawdle,) Three said. (They had time to send a call to the base before you nailed them. Even if they didn't, they probably heard the explosions back at the camp, and they're certainly seeing the smoke.)

Five sprinted back to the twisted wreckage of the toppled car, which still burned feebly. She found the remains of two occupants. The man behind the wheel had apparently taken a round through the back of his seat and been blown to pieces, but the uniformed passenger, half out of the car, was mostly intact from the waist up. The face was burned, but she could see that he was an older man, and the mass of campaign ribbons on his breast left no doubt that he was a senior officer. {Looks like a close match of the photos we were given.}

*Concur.*

From her backpack, she removed her seldom-used cellphone, which had an excellent camera. She snapped several pictures of her victim, then stepped back to take another of the body in the wrecked and burning vehicle. {Sending now,} she said as she sent the pictures to the agent Armin's number.

[Now get out of there.]

{Getting.} She sprinted, dirt flying behind her heels, toward her pickup point, six kilometers distant.

(I see her,) Three said. (Incredible. She's sweeping a pile of dirt out the door.)

Four smiled through the plane's window at the dark sky. [Perhaps she's getting ready for a party.]