BattleTech: The Spider Dances: The Proliferation Cycle #6, page 3
She moved her knees apart and smiled.
Nehru was forced to give the man his due. They’d found Reyes standing his assigned guard post, just outside the restricted section of the east wing. He’d shown only the confusion one would expect from a guard pulled off his shift by a group of armed military police. Nehru hadn’t seen any indication that Reyes suspected why they’d picked him up. That either meant there weren’t any indications to see, because Reyes was innocent…
…Or it means you’re not seeing it.
They’d taken Reyes to a detention room in the military wing. His hands were free, although they’d taken his equipment belt. He was watching his own reflection in the one-way glass. Nehru watched him through it. The noteputer in his hand held Reyes’s complete employment history. An analyst was searching the Xanthe net for his records—all of his records.
“How long will you make him wait?” General Bangs asked. The base commander had mobilized his MPs in record time—Nehru had no complaints on that—but he’d remained, intent on watching the interrogation. He was standing to the side, as if Reyes could see him through the mirrored ferroglass.
“Not long,” Nehru said. Was he too calm? Was that what was making the hairs on the back of Nehru’s neck rise? “If for no other reason than if he’s not who we’re looking for, we’re wasting time.”
Two base MPs stood behind Reyes, hands crossed in front of their belts. They wore helmets and body armor, but their only weapons were batons. Unless Nehru sent them out, they’d remain while he spoke to them. What if one of them is a Mask spy?
A rare chuckle escaped his lips. Bangs flinched. He’d been staring at Reyes.
Paranoia is my business. He stepped toward the door, holding the noteputer out to Bangs. The general took it, frowning.
I can’t very well suspect everyone.
Esterhazy rushed toward her. Halle held out her arms, encircling his neck as he slammed into her and the desk together. He grunted with the impact, but his hands were already fumbling with his belt. She squeezed his neck tightly, putting her mouth near his ear. She exhaled.
“Oh, god yes,” he burbled.
“Robert…”
“Yes…”
“You disgust me.” She felt him stiffen and try to pull back. She moved her arms in a certain way, a way she’d been trained in many years ago, and applied the pressure and torque just as she’d been taught. There was a crackle, like a door opened too far for its hinges. Esterhazy collapsed. His feet kicked spastically, and a wet spot appeared on the front of his coveralls.
Halle pushed off the desk and stood over him, looking down. Despite the angle of his shoulder, his face was looking up at her. His mouth opened and closed. His eyes darted frantically back and forth.
She leaned down, again placing her mouth near his ear. “Xiexie,” she whispered. “The Chancellor thanks you.” Then she stood up. His eyes were staring.
She kicked him as hard as she could in the lower back. His head flopped over to face the other direction.
Laughing, she stepped over his corpse and to the console. The datacard from her bra was already in her hand. The software worms knew exactly what files to look for. Halle keyed the card in and looked up at the door. Her mind was already tracing her steps out of the restricted section.
Nehru sat across from Reyes, not speaking. The two men regarded each other. Reyes’s face was earnest, innocent. He was sitting upright, not slouching, with his hands clasped in his lap. Nehru sat the same way. They could have been two men waiting for the tram at the stop.
“Do you remember being on Galveston Avenue in Barter several weeks ago?” Nehru finally asked.
Reyes frowned. “I’m on Galveston Avenue a lot, sir. It’s on my way home, when I get out of here for the weekend.”
“Home?”
“I keep a flat on the west side,” Reyes said. He named the address. “It’s just a little loft, but I like my own space, you know?” He glanced to the side, not far enough to see the guard behind him, but Nehru knew that was what he was looking for. “Sir? Is something happening in Barter? Is that why you’re talking to me?”
“No, Mr. Reyes.” Nehru smiled thinly. “Nothing in Barter.”
Reyes frowned. “Have I done something wrong?”
“Do you think you have?”
Reyes shrugged. “I don’t think so. I mean, I traded Johansson his shift today, but he said he wanted the late shift and—” he smiled “—well, I’ve got a date tonight, sir.”
“Are you usually assigned to the post you were holding today?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know what’s on the other side of that door?”
“Sir?”
Nehru squeezed his hands together, beneath the level of the table. “Do you know what goes on in the restricted section?”
Reyes leaned back. “I’m not cleared to go in, sir,” he said. “No, sir. The scuttlebutt—” His eyes widened, and his mouth closed.
“‘Scuttlebutt’?”
Reyes swallowed. “Rumor has it it’s ’Mechs, sir.” He twisted to look at the guard behind him on his left, but the guard might have been made of stone for all the reaction he showed. “It’s just a rumor, you know? What the guys talk about in the break room when we’re not talking about women?” He laughed—it only sounded half-forced. “Heck, sir—you know how it is. Some days you hear the Captain-General himself is behind the bulkhead.”
Nehru smiled thinly and nodded.
“Sir?” Reyes slid his hands up on the table, holding them together. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
Nehru stared at him. He opened his mouth to answer—and then he saw it.
The corner of Reyes’s mouth twitched. It might have been a tic—it might have been a trick of the light. But Nehru saw it. And something about the tiniest of movements made his mind go click. He knew what the micro-expression he might have seen was.
The tiniest of smirks. As if Reyes knew what he was suspected of. As if he knew there was no way Nehru was going to make him. As if Reyes had won.
Nehru spread his palms flat on the table.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “about the Maskirovka.”
Reyes was gone.
Halle had the data. She had it, on the datacard in her bra. The worms had done their work and downloaded the files they’d been sent for. It was a library of information. The datacard was the size of her thumbnail. No one would see it unless they peeled her out of her lingerie. She giggled. That hadn’t turned out so well for Esterhazy.
But Reyes was gone.
The armored door out of the restricted section had opened when she was walking toward it. If all had been going to plan she’d have found Reyes waiting outside. He wouldn’t have commented on her lack of security pass to be inside. She’d have moved to the next part of the plan, and no one would be the wiser until they found Esterhazy’s body.
Instead, she saw the black-armored shoulder of a military policeman. He was standing in Reyes’ place, but he didn’t appear to be checking IDs. Of course, the mousy-looking man who’d just entered had known the keycode. There’d be no reason to check his security. But a woman who obviously wasn’t a scientist coming out? That would be something to pay attention to.
Halle glanced back the way she’d come. She could go back, palm Esterhazy’s ID. That wouldn’t do her any good if the guard was at all paying attention, and she’d only need it if he were doing so.
The man who’d entered nodded at her and moved in the other direction. The door slid closed.
What to do…
She could trip the diversion. Her finger caressed the slim rectangle of her communicator. Quinn’s little surprise would get the whole complex’s attention—but if she used it now she wouldn’t have any way to get out of the front gate. The entire plan depended on her getting the datacard out of Happen and to Barter. It was Danilov and the others’ responsibility to get it off Xanthe.
Shit.
She couldn’t trigger the diversion yet. Halle stepped toward the door.
Luck was with her. The door slid open as she walked closer. Another lab-coated scientist was returning from his morning break. Halle stepped more quickly, angling to slide through the door at the same time as the man was trying to come through. He flinched and stepped to the side, gesturing her out before him.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling brightly. She reached out and touched the scientist’s shoulder briefly before turning and walking down the corridor away from the MP. Her steps were sure and even. She held her shoulders level and put a bit of sway into her stride. If the guard was looking at her, she wanted him looking at her ass and thinking damn, not looking at her back and thinking did she have a badge?
Every step toward the corner was an ocean of time. Halle’s heart thudded in her chest, and she felt her face flush despite her best efforts to remain calm. When her left leg moved forward she felt the strap of her bra pull and the fabric atop the datacard shift micrometrically.
She turned the corner.
She smiled. Now for the hard part.
Reyes blinked. “The Maskirovka?”
“How long have you been on Xanthe?”
Reyes stared at Nehru, shaking his head slowly. “I think there’s been some kind of mistake,” he said. “I’m from Loyalty.”
Nehru tapped his index finger against the tabletop, once per half second. When he spoke, he bit the words out at the same rate, as if his fingertip were punctuating. “You are part of a Maskirovka cell. You were on Galveston Avenue because you were coming from, or going to, the safehouse we raided three weeks ago. You have accomplices here in Happen, and likely other operatives in Barter.” He leaned forward. “You. Will not. Succeed.”
Reyes frowned. He blinked. He shook his head. He looked every centimeter the innocent, confused man accused of a horrible crime he hadn’t committed.
Then he moved.
The table and the bench Reyes sat on were both stainless steel. Both were bolted to the floor, and both had rounded edges. Reyes’s hands were free. He stood up quickly. Nehru jerked back. The two guards behind Reyes lurched into motion like stone gargoyles shedding the day’s skin. They weren’t fast enough.
Reyes hopped like a man might a jump rope. He pulled his feet up and then slammed them down against the back side of the bench he’d been sitting on. That launched him backward toward the right-side guard like a man-sized rocket. He ducked his head forward, hitting the guard in the chest and slamming him back against the wall. Even with his body armor, Nehru heard the air whoosh out of the large man’s chest. The two of them collapsed, Reyes atop the paralyzed guard.
Even as he fell, Reyes’s arm snapped out, catching the second guard near the collar rim of his body armor. The arm recoiled, using its muscle and the momentum of the two men falling to pull the second guard down atop of him.
Nehru stood, his hands flat on the tabletop. His shoulders and forearms tensed as he prepared to fling himself over the table.
Reyes’s arm snaked around the second guard’s neck even as that man slammed his hands down to try pushing back. Nehru saw the corded muscles in Reyes’s forearm bunch and flex—he heard a pop—and the guard flinched and went limp. Nehru leapt over the table.
It had been maybe three seconds—maybe less—since Reyes moved.
By the time Nehru’s boots struck the floor Reyes had shoved the corpse of the second guard off him and thrust himself back, using his legs and the wall as a fulcrum to shove himself upright. He was grinning like a madman, his eyes wild. Nehru’s left foot swept back, looking for balance as he prepared to kick.
Reyes’s foot flashed up and then back, driving his boot heel into the diaphragm of the first guard. The man wheezed, a high-pitched sound that didn’t sound like it could have come from a man, and retched down the front of his body armor. Reyes chuckled.
He blocked Nehru’s kick with his hands, directing the colonel’s foot away from his stomach even as Nehru tried to withdraw it. For an instant he thought Reyes would hold on, to try twisting his leg and popping his knee. He set himself to jump and twist, to keep the spy from finding the necessary torque to break the joint, but his foot came back down to the floor beside him.
“Not enough,” Reyes said. “Come on, Inspector.”
Nehru snarled. The door to the interrogation room burst open and more guards crowded the door.
Reyes looked that way, eyes narrowing. His upper lip curled into the beginnings of a sneer. Nehru sucked in a breath, searching for balance. The first guard shoved through the door, stun baton held high and ready.
Reyes grunted. He brought his hands together in front of his chest. Nehru recognized the move—he was going to sweep the guard’s chin with the sharp, hard bones of his elbow. Reyes moved fast enough; he’d get inside the guard’s reach before the big man could bring his arm down. And his elbow, with Reyes’s obvious muscle behind it, would kill the guard if he struck in the right spot.
Damn it!
Nehru stepped away from the door and away from Reyes. His hand dipped to the small of his back even as Reyes drove his shoulder into the guard’s downward-moving arm. The impact deflected the baton’s blow away from Reyes’s head and down his back. It would hurt—the baton’s voltage would hurt no matter where it struck—but it wouldn’t drop him. Nehru’s fingers closed on the butt of the small hold-out pistol nestled there. He drew it as quickly as he could.
Reyes’s arm snapped around, as if he were punching himself in the chest. His elbow took the guard along the side of the neck. There was a wet crackle and the guard collapsed, hands grasping at his throat. Reyes stamped his foot down on the guard’s knee. A hoarse, choked-off scream whispered through the room.
“Reyes!”
The Maskirovka agent’s head snapped around.
Nehru fired.
The bullet entered Reyes’s head through his right eye and punched through the thin bone behind it. The caliber was too low and the round too slow for the bullet to exit. Reyes’s other eye bulged as the hydrostatic shock increased the pressure inside his head for a moment. Then he collapsed.
“Damn it,” Nehru whispered. He lowered the gun. More guards crowded the room. The first pair knelt beside the wounded man in the doorway. His fingers, still clutching at his swollen throat, were growing feebler.
Reyes’s body shuddered as its bowels released. The stench of shit and blood filled the small room. It combined with the burned-gunpowder taint to scratch at Nehru’s sinuses. He watched the stain of urine spread across the corpse’s pants.
I was right. He slid the small gun back into his holster.
They are here.
The medic’s uniform was hidden where Reyes had said it would be. Halle pulled it on after taking her communicator out of her pocket and setting in on the seat of the ambulance. The keycard was in the front seat, and the engine caught on the first try. Halle left the ambulance in park and picked up her communicator, thumbing through her contact list until she found the one she was looking for.
Emergency.
She entered a series of numbers and pressed send.
Nehru watched as the orderlies lifted Reyes’s body onto the gurney. General Bangs stepped past them, one hand covering his nose. He watched the body as he moved, as if afraid it was going to come back to life and attack him. Nehru watched him set his shoulders as he turned to face the Inspectorate officer.
“Are you all right?” Bangs asked.
“We need to get back to the security room,” Nehru said. “I need to know everyone Reyes has been in contact with in the last three weeks.”
“But—”
“But nothing. He’s dead.”
Bangs stared. “I know he’s dead. You killed him.”
Nehru closed his eyes. Despite every effort, his mind showed him the fantasy of actually asking who tied Bangs’s shoes for him in the morning. How anyone so inanely thick could rise to general’s rank—and be put in charge of this base, of all of them—Nehru opened his eyes. He reined in his thoughts.
“There will be more than one,” he finally said.
“But—”
“But nothing! God damn it, General—” Nehru stopped. He closed his mouth. His fingertips were tingling. He wondered if that was leftover adrenaline from the fight or new adrenaline from the instant’s fantasy he’d just played out in his mind where he shot Bangs, too.
A muffled thump echoed through the wall. Nehru felt the floor shake in a minuscule tremor through his boots. Alarms screamed to life. Nehru looked at the ceiling, ordering himself to calm down.
“There’s been an explosion!” one of the guards said. He was holding his hand over his earbud. “Near the motor pool—a petrol tank.”
“An attack?” Bangs asked. He was watching the ceiling, as if afraid it was going to fall. “But he’s dead!”
“More than one,” Nehru repeated. Bangs looked at him. Then he twisted around to look at Reyes’s body.
“You think—?” Bangs looked back and forth between the gurney and Nehru. Nehru watched him.
Nehru said, “General, perhaps it is best if I continue with General Vocaine. You must see to your base.”
“What?” Bangs blinked and focused on him. “Yes, of course. Vocaine can help you with the security feeds.”
Nehru nodded and stepped past him. The hallway was crowded with guards and medicos; all of them were standing around, looking at the walls and each other. This is what passes for emergency response on Xanthe, Nehru thought. The loiterers spread out of his way like he was a plague-carrier despite their distraction.
More than one, he thought. Then he stopped. An explosion. Nehru spun, reaching for the nearest radio on a guard, shouting that the gates be sealed.
They were here.
