Jack Chalker - A War of Shadows

She shook her head. “At least it’s a thick egg-based compound with suspended bacteria in it, all dead. All the way back he kept saying as how it’d kill us anyway, that he couldn’t go through with it. Many years ago he bugged out when our group downed a plane. He just doesn’t have the guts to be a revolutionary.”

They were disturbed. “So? Now what? Do we kill him?”

“No!” she almost shouted, then caught herself and softened. “Look, I’m still in love with him. He’s just too nice for our kind of business. Solid, though. Even when he bugged out on the plane deal he didn’t stop us, and afterwards, when he ran, he never copped or finked. No, he’s just not right on the raid.”

“But what do we do with him, then?” Harry asked. “Hell, it’s only the tenth.”

“So we change things a little,” Suzy said. “I got the word from The Man. We go tonight. We’ll do the transfers of what we can this afternoon. Sam? Well, tie him up so he doesn’t wander off again and leave him here. We’ll be back, let him go, and live happily ever after.”

Miriam was suspicious. “When did you call The Man?”

“From town,” she lied glibly. “I had to report the uneasiness in this unit and the testing. I was told to go at once.” She looked down at Sam, knelt down beside him, and kissed him on the forehead.

“Help me get him inside,” she said.

Alton stood on the stairway, frightened and undecided. His first impulse was simply surrender to overwhelming forces, but he glanced back up toward where Braden’s body lay and knew there was no escape from that. Capture meant death in any case; The Man wouldn’t spare anything to keep him and his agents from talking.

“Head for the boat!” he yelled to the others. “It’s pretty fast—you might still make a getaway in the dark!”

The woman nodded. “What about you?” “Don’t worry about me!” he called back. “Move!”

The three agents made their way out the back. The mini-invasion was still in progress, but troops and FBI field personnel were already on shore. Some Coast Guardsmen made immediately for the boat landing to secure it, while a small cutter broke off and headed for the pier.

The man and the two women, still cloaked in the shadows, saw they’d never make it. They were about to turn back when two shots came at them from behind. They returned fire, attracting the attention of the beach personnel who also opened up.

Alton, who’d fired the shots at them, now made his way to the shrubbery just outside the house and waited silently. When a group of men, a couple of whom had on suits instead of uniforms, ran by, he let them clear, then bolted after them on the run, catching up to them in a matter of seconds. There were so many people running around now that his action wasn’t even noticed.

“There goes one!” he shouted, seeing a form running across from the beach side to a grove of trees. They hesitated, unsure of who was who in the dark, but the figure turned and fired back at the pursuers, and the group Alton had joined poured it into the figure.

It was overkill.

Bob Hartman ran toward the house just behind a phalanx of agents. They entered cautiously, checking out every room on the ground floor first. In the den, a small fire was still going from the phone explosion, but it had failed to ignite much else and was burning itself out. They were able to smother it quickly.

Now Hartman’s squad ran up the stairs. He stopped, by the body of Braden while the others searched the bedrooms on this and the third floor.

Carefully he turned the blood-soaked man over, saw it was Braden, and was surprised to hear a groan of anguish.

“Hey! Get a medical team—quick!” Hartman yelled. “This guy’s still alive!”

Blood was running from Braden’s mouth as well as his wounds. He opened his eyes, tried to speak, and coughed.

“Just take it easy,” Hartman cautioned. “Medical help’s on the way.”

Braden shook his head slowly and with difficulty, coughing some more, but managed to speak in a hoarse, blood-choked whisper.

“Don’t care,” he said. “Sons of bitches shot me. Alton.”

“How many were there here?” Hartman asked. “Six—no, four. Other two… helicopter. Took the Doc…”

Hartman felt triumph slipping out of his grasp with the dying man. Gone! “Where did they take her?”

Braden was having trouble, fading in and out. Hartman had to yell the question to him several times. Finally he got it, coughed again, and said, “Coney Island… 944 Pritchard… 3A…” Again a cough. “Shot her with mitoricine… Told her she had the live germ… S’posed to kill herself…”

The medical people were there now, but Hartman waved them away. Until he got what he needed, he wasn’t going to let Braden go. The younger agent looked up at one of his assistants. “Get that?”

The other agent nodded. “Nine forty-four Pritchard, 3A,” he repeated. “Want me to get on it’?”

Hartman shook his head. “No. Get Edelman up there—fast. He’s the only one she’ll trust now. Move!”

He turned back to the man whose hatred of those who betrayed him was keeping him alive—that, and a possible hatred of himself, too.

“Who’s behind this, Braden?” he pressed. “Give me names.”

Braden seemed to smile strangely. “Dunno… call 1-500-555-2323. Ask The Man who he is…”

Braden collapsed. Hartman let the medics take over, and watched as they worked. “Dead?” he asked.

The Coast Guard medic shook his head. “This guy’s got a constitution like a bull ox. But the odds aren’t good.”

“Do what you can,” he told them, and went downstairs. A Coast Guard captain entered, and he asked, “Captain Grimes! How many did we get?”

“Three,” the commander of the operation told him. “That seems to be all there were.”

Hartman shook his head. “No, Braden said there were four. We’re missing one.”

“Unless he had a hiding hole someplace, I don’t see how,” the commander said.

Hartman thought a minute. “Hmmm… Braden was with the Bureau. This is a Bureau safe house. Makes sense the other four were Bureau, too. If you were with the FBI, Captain, and you were being attacked by your own people, where would you hide? Suppose, say, you were a Coast Guardsman in full uniform.”

Grimes saw what he was getting back. “I’d join the hunters at first opportunity.”

The agent nodded. “Come on. Let’s check out my people.”

It took some time to sound them up. Hartman had them in a semi-military formation, and he knew his count. He had only one name from Braden, but it was the right one.

“All right, people!” he called to them. “Now, we can go through processing, or ugly shootouts, or like that—but why not make it simple? Agent Alton, why not just step forward and save us a lot of trouble?”

Alton, several rows back, felt a shock go through him at the mention of his name. Everything seemed to just drain out of him; it was all over now. There was no more use.

He pushed through the crowd and walked to Bob Hartman. “I’m Alton,” he said softly.

“Who’d you work for, Alton?” Hartman asked him, an almost casual tone in his voice.

The renegade agent shrugged. “We never knew. Somebody big. Somebody who had access to all the computer files. Somebody who knew where all the bodies were buried on people like me.”

Hartman nodded. “Blackmail, huh? Well, Alton, it’s all over now.” He turned to the Coast Guardsmen. “Take him.”

Sandra O’Connell awoke and looked around. She knew the feelings she had now; she’d awakened much like this once before.

It took considerable effort to get up and sit on the edge of the bed. Yes, it was a bed. It was a little efficiency apartment, old, with a lot of roaches and bad smells. Outside, all around, came the sounds of people, children mostly.