Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

“Neither,” Callahan said, the swagger back in his smile. “He’s one of yours. I guess patriotism isn’t his bag. Know what I mean?”

“He’s a punk like you?” I asked.

Callahan’s smile brightened. “Oh, he’s much bigger than me. You might say he has his own army.”

“I thought you had one, too?” I said.

“I do,” Callahan said, “but it’s not as good as Batt’s. He’s got a lot more clout around here than me. He knows everything and everybody.”

“Great,” I said throwing my hands up in frustration. “Only we can’t find Batt. We just evacuated the planet.” Players like that vanish into the woodwork the moment you look the other way.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.” Now Callahan sounded almost gleeful. “He’s still in Safe Harbor. He’s just up the road. He’s the commander at the Army base.”

“Let me get this straight,” Lieutenant Colonel Bernie Phillips said. “Your prisoner claims that Colonel Wingate is selling supplies to the Confederates?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Bullshit.”

We sat in an observation room in the brig. Behind Phillips, the video screens showed the room in which Callahan and his bodyguards sat idly waiting for me. I could only hope that the colonel did not glance at the screen. At the moment, Callahan was flexing his biceps and kissing them. Silent Tommy responded with a hand-gesture that meant “go speck yourself.” This only encouraged Callahan. He responded by flexing both arms at once.

“How well do you know Wingate?” I asked.

“I’ve known Batt three years now,” Phillips said. “Ever since I transferred in.”

“So you’re friends?” I asked, knowing that I could always play the Che Huang trump card if the need arose.

“I can’t stand the son of a bitch,” Phillips said, his expression dower. “He thinks he’s king of the goddamned planet just because he has a bigger base. Command airlifts our supplies in through his base. The prick makes me fill out so many forms to get my stuff you’d think he owned it. He’s always showing off. He must come from a rich family. He lives like a friggin’ king.”

“Let’s see here. Your supplies come through his base and he acts like he owns them. Is that right?” I asked. Phillips nodded. “And he lives like a king, but you don’t think he’s selling?”

Phillips’s expression brightened. “Bust Batt Wingate? Think we could shoot him for this?”

“Once this is over, I’ll hand you the gun,” I said. “For now I need him alive. If my hunch is right, Wingate might be able to lead me to the Confederate Fleet.”

“Just remember, I get to shoot him when you’re done with him,” Colonel Phillips said.

“Deal,” I said.

“What’s our first step?”

It was late at night and the sky over the city was still black. I crept through the alley behind a row of restaurants until I could see the roadblock. Arc lights filled the street around the barricade with senseless glare. The light shined on the soldiers, blinding them to any enemies lurking nearby while making them well-lit targets for any snipers who happened to pass.

These boys did not have anything to worry about from me. I didn’t want the pack. I wanted the stray. I hid in the alley, using garbage pails and food crates as cover. I hoped my fall guy would come soon. There was so much rot in the cans around me that the air smelled like vomit.

My target came in the form of a sergeant who was touring roadblocks to keep the men alert. He drove a jeep. He drove alone. Approaching the roadblock, he stormed out of his vehicle and started screaming and cussing the moment his feet hit the ground. He was kind enough to line the men up at attention in just the right angle so that neither he nor they were facing in my direction. Then he paced back and forth in front of the line like a caged animal, screaming something about always being alert. I did not listen to what he said or how they responded.

“Phillips, I found our guy,” I called over a comLink stem in my glove.

The colonel had volunteered to direct this operation himself. He and five of his men hid a few blocks away, waiting for me to locate and mark a target. They had two special jeeps that had been decked out for night operations. Unlike other jeeps, these units had absolutely silent engines that could only be detected with sound equipment. These stealth jeeps were black with special nonreflective glass. Their chassis were not painted. They were covered with a nonreflecting flat coat of black porcelain that resisted radar detections. Sophisticated radar equipment would spot them in a heartbeat, but the cheap radar used in ground vehicles such as tanks and all-terrain vehicles would turn a blind eye. Even trackers, those sniper robots so loved by the enemy, had trouble spotting these vehicles.

Since these jeeps were also made for night operations, they had night-for-day scanning built into their windshields. They had discreet lights and searchlights, but with that night-for-day scanning, you could drive stealth jeeps black.

“What you got?” Phillips voice came over the discreet ear piece.

“A single passenger in a stealth bug.”

“Officer or enlisted man?” Phillips asked.

“Does it matter? You’re in either way, right?” I asked. We were going to kidnap the man and use his ID and vehicle to break into Fort Clinton. If Callahan gave us good information, a medal of valor awaited Phillips for his part in this. If Callahan had lied …even a Secessionist attack would not save him from a court martial, assuming he survived.

“If we have to knock somebody up, I’d rather hit a synthetic,” Phillips said.

“He’s a sergeant.”

“Perfect. Can you mark him?”

Hiding in the darkness of the alley behind some trash cans and a stack of crates, I shined a laser pointer on one of the rear tires of the jeep. It had stopped raining in Safe Harbor, but the air was humid and heavy. Puddles dotted the ground and the alley was grimy with dirt and slop.

My laser pointer cast a red beam that was as thin as a sewing needle. It illuminated a tiny red spot no bigger than a mouse’s eye on the side of the tire. I kept the light steady for twenty seconds as the sergeant berated his men.

“How the speck do you plan on catching criminals? Are you on guard duty or vacation?” Then, without a pause, “I asked you a question!”

“Guard duty!” the men yelled.

“Guard duty. That must be why you ladies are not wearing bathing suits,” the sergeant continued yelling. He made me nostalgic for my old drill sergeants back in basic, though those sergeants used far more creative profanity than this fellow. They also cuffed us alongside the head at every opportunity.

“You got him?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s marked,” Phillips said.

“Now if he would just shut up and drive,” I said.

But the sergeant continued to pace back and forth and berate his men. “So you ladies think you can keep this block safe? I’m not sure who I would bet on if it comes down to you five speck-suckers against a gang of kindergarteners.

“You need to be alert. Do you hear me soldiers? Alert! A! L! E! R! T!”

I could not help myself. I painted the laser across the sergeant’s A-L-E-R-T ass. His soldiers were too busy looking him in the eye to see a filament-wide laser beam shining on his butt.

“You marking another jeep?” Phillips radioed me. “I’m getting another signal.”

“Sorry,” I said as I slipped the pointer back into my clothes.

The sergeant inspected each man’s weapon, wasting another five minutes, leaving me in that fetid alley smelling of rotten food. I saw a rat scurry among some distant crates. I would even the score with that sergeant for making me wait, I told myself, and I felt better.