Dale Brown - Puppet Master

Be calm for the kids.

The building was a small shed, barely large enough for a tractor; it was completely empty, save for some empty seed bags on the floor. There were two windows, both partially boarded, one on the left and one at the back.

The children ran to the back window.

“No, no, get away from it,” she said, going over to them. “Get back!”

Both boys pointed outside. There was another child outside.

“Is he all right?” she asked the children inside with her. But they didn’t understand. She waved her arms at the child outside, trying to get him to duck; he just stared at her, dumbfounded by everything that was happening.

I have to tell the others where I am, she realized. She reached for her radio, then realized that the earbuds weren’t there. She’d lost the headset back near the van somewhere; without it, the radio was useless.

Break the window and escape.

It was very narrow, too narrow even for her.

The smaller of the two kids might make it, though, if she broke the glass.

She put her elbow next to the bottom of the pane and smacked it through. The glass was surprisingly thick and stubborn — it took three blows before she broke it.

Hands up, Tolevi moved reluctantly to the door.

“If we go out there now, we’ll get caught in the cross fire,” he told the butcher. “And we don’t want that, right?”

“Open the door and let’s go.”

Chelsea boosted the first boy up. He wiggled into the space, pushing himself back and forth, but he was just too big, and the window was too small. They finally gave up; he slid to the ground.

“We need your friend to go get Peter,” she told him. “Just the controls, I mean, I dropped it. Can you tell him?”

The boy gestured apologetically with his hands. He had no clue what she was saying. She tried miming it out, but that was useless as well.

Translation app, she thought.

Great idea if she had one.

“Video game,” she tried. “Control.”

The boy hesitated a moment. “ Videohra? ”

Close enough, she decided. “Controls.” She gestured with her hands. “Back there.”

The boy went to the window and said something to the kid outside. He disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, far too soon to have gotten the controller.

But he passed something inside.

A cell phone.

This is no good to me, Chelsea thought.

Call Smart Metal. Have them get a translator.

She started to dial. How long would it take them?

Borya can speak Ukrainian. And she’s a kid; I can give her the phone and have them talk to her.

Chelsea hit the Kill button, then punched the country code for the U.S., hoping she remembered Borya’s cell number correctly.

Borya looked at her cell phone, vibrating on the kitchen table as she did her homework.

A strange number came up on the ID. It looked very odd.

Probably someone trying to sell her a credit card.

She spun the phone around on the table. Homework sucked. She needed a break.

“Yes?” she said in a funny voice, answering the phone.

“Borya, this is Chelsea. I dropped the controls to Peter by my van, and I need you to tell these kids to get it.”

“What? Chelsea? Where are you?”

“I dropped the controls to Peter and need these kids to run and get it,” said Chelsea. She was out of breath. “Can you tell them?”

“Um… OK.”

“You have to do it in Ukrainian.”

“OK.”

“Do you remember what the controller looked like?”

“I think so.”

“Do it! Try! Please!”

Medved checked the address. Tolevi lived in a damn nice house, far nicer than he deserved.

He was a slime. Clearly, Stratowich was right about him squealing to the FBI — that’s why Stratowich was in jail right now.

They’d get Stratowich next. The foreign service didn’t like to take risks, which was why they used him in the first place.

His car was in the driveway. So he was home.

“Ready?” Medved asked the man alongside him.

“Just about,” he said, screwing a silencer onto his gun.

“We get the information first. And my money.”

“Talk to him all you want. Just as long as he’s mine in the end. No witnesses.”

“No shit.”

The kids thought it was a game.

That was one way to deal with it, thought Chelsea as they giggled, passing the phone back and forth. Then the smaller of the two, the one who’d gotten stuck in the window, tiptoed to it and told his friend outside to go get the controller.

“And tell him not to get caught,” said Chelsea.

Outside the house, Tolevi slid to the ground, next to the commando who’d been watching the house. The commando still thought he was on his side.

And apparently he trusted the butcher. None of this was making a lot of sense. Tolevi expected it to implode any minute.

“They’re coming in the front,” he told the Russian. “Watch this one,” he added, pointing to the butcher. “He’s nuts.”

The commando waved at him, then turned his attention down the hill, firing at something moving in the brush.

Tolevi glanced around, trying to find some sort of weapon. But it was too late; the butcher dashed across the yard, sliding next to him.

“говно!” yelled the Russian. “Shit, holy shit! What is that?”

It was one of the little bots, the Groucho, walking on six legs toward them.

The commando took aim.

Tolevi jerked around. “Duck!” he yelled to the butcher.

Massina saw the soldier taking aim at the mech.

“OK, now,” he said as he pressed the button, detonating the device at the rear of the robot.

The screen blanked with the explosion. Massina looked over at the sitrep. None of the men near the truck moved.

He directed the UAV to fly closer to the front of the house, then keyed the command for Groucho 1, directing the bot toward the rear of the Russian position there.

“Tell them help is coming,” Massina told Johansen.

The wounded Russian heard the crashing noise at the back of the shed over the din of the gunfire up the hill. It surprised him — he wouldn’t have thought a girl and two little boys could break the damn thing down.

He struggled to get to his feet. He was supposed to kill them if they escaped. Truth be told, he didn’t want to. But orders were orders.

His legs were wobbly. He’d been struck by two bullets. One had merely squashed itself against his bulletproof vest; it had given him a bruise but not much else. The other had gone into his thigh. He’d lost a decent amount of blood, though the injury didn’t figure to be life threatening.

Damn Ukrainian bastards. Damn Putin for sending us here.

An odd contraption turned the corner as he approached. It was metal, alien, something from outer space? It had claws.

The soldier raised his gun and fired. His first bullet missed. His second hit it square in the body.

The thing didn’t stop. It sped full into him, claws like spears digging into his chest.

Falling backward, he lost his rifle.

Chelsea charged after Peter as the bot pushed its “hand” down on the Russian’s chest. The kids ran in front of her and started kicking him.