Jack Yeovil - Demon Download

Major R J. "Howling Raul" McAuley was dead in his shower, microneedles peppering his torso. Dr Wilma King, the fort's senior medico, had rotted away from exposure to a source of intense radiation in her surgery. S. M. "Max the Bax" Baxter, a middle-management Op at T-H-R mopping up the paperwork after the joint action, had been put out of commission by everybody's favourite murder weapon, the unidentified blunt instrument. Captains Garnett and Stableford had been napalmed in their bunks— and they'd taken the same precautions Finney had. Top Sergeant Alexander Stewart was crushed under the wheels of a cruiser whose transmission he was supposed to be fixing. And Trooper Charlie Stress, in the guardhouse for mouthing back to Sergeant Quincannon after a twenty-mile forced march through the desert in full pack and gear, was mysteriously gone from his cell leaving only a couple of severed fingers, some cabbalistic symbols traced in blood and a chunk of what had tentatively been identified as a pancreas.

Everybody around the table was looking ill. There were more than enough empty places in the briefing room. Badalamenti was nervously tearing a page of notepaper into animal shapes. Captain Lauderdale and Lieutenant Williford had turned out in combat gear, M-29s and all, obviously assuming that Fort Apache was on a war footing. Lieutenant Colosanto—who had been bunking with Rexroth—was chewing aspirin as if they were mints. Finney was on her third cup of recaff, and she usually couldn't finish her first.

"I have come to a conclusion," Rintoon began.

Everyone grudgingly paid attention.

"This post is under attack."

The disappointment was palpable.

"And I am reasonably certain that I have isolated the culprits."

Everyone perked up again. Lauderdale straightened his rifle on the table in front of him, ready for action.

"I believe…"

Rintoon took a gulp of cold recaff.

"Yes?" said Badalamenti.

Rintoon swallowed. "The Maniax are responsible."

Badalamenti rolled his eyes upwards, and pointed to his head. Rintoon didn't notice, and continued…

"The joint action has hurt them, and this is their last ditch attempt to break the US Cav."

"But…" someone said before catching the glint in Rintoon's red-rimmed eyes.

"It was Baxter's death that tipped their hand. He was materially involved in planning the strategy of the joint action. He must be a prime target for the Grand Exalted Bullmoose and his remaining followers.

"Baxter was a pen-pusher, sir," said Badalamenti. "He was just processing expenses and payments. He never went into the field in his life."

Finney fought to keep her control. The recaff had done its damage. She felt as if she had been punched in the kidneys.

Rintoon smiled at Badalamenti, and Finney felt the ice seep through her veins. The smile widened to a grin, and the eyebrows flared.

Finney realized where she had seen a face like that before. Rintoon was looking more and more like Jack Nicholson in the last scenes of The Shining. The scenes where he goes after his wife and child with an axe.

"The Maniax are guilty, Badalamenti. Guilty, guilty, GUILTY!"

Badalamenti stood up. "The Maniax are finished, sir! We creamed 'em. We broke their central structure. We blew up their munitions dump. We rounded up the chapter heads."

"There's still the Bullmoose!"

"There's no such animal! All the ringleaders, they were all the Bullmoose, sir. It was a floating office. They've admitted as much."

"Sit down and listen, Badalamenti, or I shall be forced to discipline you immediately. I will not tolerate these outbursts. I will not, not, NOT!"

Rintoon thumped the table. Ralystyrene recaff cups jumped. Finney mopped the mess spilling towards her lap up with her sleeve. Badalamenti looked around for support, found none, and slumped back in his chair.

"The Maniax are clever," continued Rintoon. "Yes, they are. They've sustained a killing blow. We can credit ourselves with that. But this is their last mission. They're going kamikaze. They've infiltrated spies into the fort, and subversives and assassins and agents provocateurs. It's the only feasable explanation."

No one said anything. There was a dribble of saliva dangling from Rintoon's mouth, tracking through his stubble.

"The supposed Swiss woman, Juillerat, was one of them. She was there at the original UE, when she influenced the instruments. It was monitor error, as I always insisted…"

All Rintoon needed to complete the picture was a pair of ball-bearings to clack together in his hand.

"And Rexroth was in it too. He was unable to live with the guilt, and shot himself. And Stross, who was killed by his confederates because he was about to talk. I have determined the existence of a conspiracy of treachery on a scale unheard-of since the 1950s."

Colosanto bit down loudly on a pill. Badalamenti shoved his paper animals about on his blotter.

"And I shall not rest until I have rooted out this conspiracy and exterminated it down to its very last member."

Lauderdale was easing his rifle off the table. Was he planning to scrag Rintoon? At this point, he would have won a vote of confidence if he did.

"I believe there are Maniax among us, even in this room."

Everybody sat up and looked at each other. Then, they looked to Rintoon.

"By his words and his actions this morning, he has given himself away. They think they're clever, uiese hophead damfool gangcultists, but the zeroids never reckoned they'd be coming up against Vladek W. Rintoon. No siree. Ole Vladek W. Rintoon has them outfoxed eight ways from sundown." Badalamenti was statue-still now. "Yup, there's a Maniak at this very table." Badalamenti very slowly spread his bands out before him. Rintoon looked at everyone in turn. Finney tried to look away from his shining, moist eyes, but couldn't. He seemed to see clearly right through her, to sense every petty dereliction of duty, every resistance to command, every infraction of the rules, every sinful course carried through or merely considered. Then, his terrible gaze was gone, and it was Colosanto's turn to sweat.

Finally, Rintoon grinned his feral sardonicus grin and almost whispered, "Williford."

The officer sat bolt upright, rifle raised in the present-arms position in front of him.

"Williford," Rintoon cajoled, "Simon says 'take your rifle…"'

He had the gun to his shoulder now, and was standing up. "'…and execute Captain Badalamenti.'"

Chantal spent a few minutes kneeling by the priest's corpse. She seemed to be looking into his dead, open eyes, as if trying to get him to reveal something to her through telepathy. It made Stack feel uncomfortable. Flies were buzzing around the body. In this heat, they would have to get him in the ground quickly. Finally, the woman got up, and gently shut the corpse's eyes. She muttered somethng and crossed herself. She walked around the cruiser, and the wreck of the altar.

"Careful," he said. "It was quiet yesterday, too, but I got a nasty shock."

"Yes, you would have. Don't worry. It's gone now."

She was at the altar now. She had it working.

"It got into the system here, from your cruiser. But how did it get into the cruiser?"

"It?"

She waved him away. "I'm sorry. I was thinking aloud."

Some of the altar's functions were down. The screen flashed green at her. She experimented with several buttons, and finally it turned off. Stack nerved up the courage to approach the cruiser. He touched it. He felt the bullet-scars in the hood. Someone had used pretty major firepower against it.

Chantal was asking a question. "Before the…uh, change…before that, what exactiy was happening to the automobile?"