Jerome Preisler: Net Force--Attack Protocol

The hand didn’t budge.

“I’ll be a fine version of you, Steve,” his own voice said behind him. “Promise.”

Gelfland felt something hard and circular press into the nape of his neck and immediately knew what it was. Before he heard the click of the pistol’s hammer, he knew.

Then it discharged twice. Two muted pops, two bullets in his brain, and he thought and felt nothing more.

4

Baneasa/Satu Mare District, Romania

At first, Howard didn’t know who or where he was. Didn’t know if he was upright or horizontal. Didn’t even know which way was up or down.

Then sensation slowly began to return. He realized he was down on his right side.

He lay still, his senses flooding back to him. Identified his own ragged breaths. Felt his elbow underneath him, bent uncomfortably under his upper body and the floor. He wondered why the floor was so cold and what was pecking at him. After a moment, he remembered Abrams in the entryway, the bright flash of light, the explosion.

The blast must have knocked him off his feet.

Then what?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know.

Why was everything so goddamned cold?

A hand fell on his left arm. It was a big, strong hand. He could feel its strength. He jerked reflexively.

“Easy, sir.”

A hushed voice. Howard recognized it.

He turned his head a little and saw Sergeant Julio Fernandez’s broad, square face looking down at him. Specks of white swirled around it, dusting his hair and beard.

Snowflakes.

He felt confused.

“Julio,” he said, “where the hell am I?”

Howard shifted his weight so he could half roll and half flop over onto his back. His side hurt. His neck hurt. His face was burned and throbbing. He blinked the snow from his eyes. He was outside in the night, Sergeant Fernandez squatting beside him, looking down at him, wearing a charcoal-gray service uniform with the Net Force patch on its right breast pocket. A ruggedized mini tablet was strapped over his shoulder.

“Sir, take it slow...”

Fuck slow , he thought . He pushed his hands and elbows against the hard, icy ground, managed to sit up, then tried getting to his feet. The sergeant’s big, strong hand went to his chest, fingers outspread. His tattooed forearm applying a counterforce to hold him down.

“Just give it a second,” Fernandez said. His palm firm against his chest. “I pulled you out. Got you over here. I think you’ll be okay, but—”

“For the second time, where’s here ?”

“Behind headquarters. Janus Heights.”

Howard looked up at him. Blinked again in the falling snow. “Thought I ordered you off to bed, Sergeant.”

“Good thing I didn’t hear you, Colonel.”

Howard said nothing. Janus Heights. The north field between HQ and the compound’s long-vacated original barracks.

“Abrams?” he said.

“He’s gone. Berra, too. Ops took a direct hit.”

Howard brought up his head some more and saw Private Wasserman standing about a yard behind Fernandez. The sergeant caught the look at once.

“Wassy was downstairs with me,” he said. “Getting coffee. We heard the blast, came up right away, found you in the hallway.”

“What the hell happened?”

“It’s the ’hogs.”

“What?”

“The hedgehogs. They’ve been compromised. All of them.”

“How?”

“Not sure. Yet. They’re set on Cocked Pistol attack protocol. Free-roaming lethal defense of the base. I think they’ve been fooled into recognizing base personnel as hostiles.”

Howard sat processing that a minute. “The rest of the base,” he said. “What’s the damage?”

“The mess was hit hard—”

“Casualties?”

“We don’t know. The whole kitchen staff would’ve been on tonight. Thanksgiving prep.”

Howard grabbed the sergeant’s wrist.

“Help me up off my ass,” he said.

“Sir—”

“ Now , Sergeant.”

Fernandez shot Wasserman a glance and went around to his right side, the private stepping over to his left. They took hold of his arms and helped him up, Fernandez with a bracing hand on his lower back.

Howard took two deep breaths, a third, as he steadied himself on the dry, crisp, frozen grass. Then he touched his fingertips to his face, taking a damage assessment. There were cuts and scratches. His cheeks felt singed. One eyelid was swelling up. He turned toward the blazing headquarters building with just the slightest wobble in his legs. Its windows were blown out, and he could see tongues of flame lapping and curling inside through jags of broken glass.

“Any clue where the ’hog went, Julio?” he said. Not looking at the sergeant, still staring across the shriveled brown grass at the fire.

“No,” Fernandez said. “It’s on the prowl.”

“For targets of opportunity.”

“Yes.”

Howard finally turned to him. “The west barracks. You hear from anyone there?”

“It was quite a few minutes ago, but the situation could’ve changed,” Fernandez said. “I ordered radio silence. The ’hogs can scan and intercept our communications.”

“ All of them?”

“I can answer your question, sir,” Wasserman said. “We’ve been testing out a spread-spectrum system for emergencies. It transmits across a wide range of frequencies to—”

Howard looked at him. “English,” he said.

“The message hides in the bandwidth noise that’s always clogging the air. A needle in a stack of needles. But two cell phones with a proprietary app can code and decode it.”

“And nobody told me about this shit?”

Wasserman cleared his throat.

“Sir, I did. Last month.”

“And?”

“You told me you didn’t want to hear about it again till we finished our tests,” Wasserman said. “Which we haven’t.”

Howard frowned. “All right, go on.”

“Some of our personnel have the required app on their phones as part of the trials,” Wasserman said. “And there are wireless boosters in the underground shelters. So theoretically we do have an open channel.”

Howard thought for a minute. With two-thirds of his personnel out on Scalpel, the barracks were partly deserted. That meant there were fewer defenders—and they would be at a severe disadvantage. As base commander, he had exercised his prerogative to loosen the standard military outpost/gun-free-zone rule at Janus. But that only went for sidearms and carbines. The ’hogs were loaded up with rockets and grenades and heavy machine guns.

No contest.

“How about the vehicles? Their AI network?” he said. “If somebody’s hacked into it...”

“I’m betting they’re all clean, Colonel,” Fernandez said.

“How much you ready to put down on the table?”

“The whole bank. They use Argos. Adrian Soto’s firewall. The same encryption that bucked the Hekate virus.”

“And the ’hogs?”

“Their upgrades are pending.”

Howard automatically reached down for his pipe roll. Pending. While the Washington pols went playing games with Quickdraw’s operating budget.

“We have to get ourselves mobile,” he said. “And we’ll need firepower.”

Fernandez nodded. “The trucks give us both if we can reach them. Onboard weapons, rifles, grenade launchers. And with Argos, a protected AHEF channel so we can get messages out.”

Howard regarded him for a long moment. He unsnapped the roll, felt for his Savinelli, and realized it wasn’t there. Then he remembered dropping it in the explosion and let his empty hand fall to his side. The vehicle depot was near the southern perimeter. Opposite HQ and across the ’Burbs, or south field—three hundred fifty yards of open ground, the equivalent of almost four football fields. But he was unarmed. The same for Wasserman. And he could see that Fernandez was only carrying his service pistol. If they tried to reach the vehicles on foot, they would be easy targets for the ’hogs. The idea was a nonstarter.