James Knapp - The Silent Army

“But she had them raided?”

“Sure, but no one made Fawkes blow them up. What is this, our fault now?”

“If she has the resources to track those sites down, then why get me involved?”

She shrugged. “Because you kill Fawkes. She told you that. You’re part of it. Ai saw all this. All I know is that the destruction of the ship is tied to you, and that’s what we really care about. You verified the location when you found your friend’s message.”

“You’ve known all of this?”

“We knew they bombed Concrete Falls to steal something from Heinlein; someone on the inside confirmed that. They ran a search on their own, but they never tracked it down. Whatever it was, it has them real nervous. Nervous enough to talk to you.”

She took a pull off a long-necked bottle sitting on the edge of the hot tub. The clear liquid inside sloshed as she put it back down.

“You’re going to meet with Ai and tell her what you talked about when you were over there. If you know anything about what was taken from Concrete Falls, you’re going to tell her that too. Forget about your little trip to the boat.”

“You—”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You were totally right about Buckster. We knew he’d take Flax, but we didn’t know what the connection to you was until near the end.”

“Take her where? What do you mean, take her?”

“She gets taken,” she said. “That was seen—not as a certainty, but a high probability. We were sure he’d hand her over to Fawkes like the other hobos. We just didn’t know you’d hand her to him.”

I started to say something, but stopped. I wanted say it wasn’t true, but it was. Cal thought she knew what she was getting into, but she didn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

She raised her eyebrows. “Because we knew you’d pull her out of there.”

“I could have gone in.”

“That’s not how it happens. She goes. She was the last of the five—that’s why I got assigned to her. Thanks to you, she bumped back into Zoe here.”

“I made her forget me back then….” Zoe said.

“…and I made her remember when she got back,” Penny continued.“So you arrest Buckster and put Zoe on him. Zoe gets into Buckster’s head. Calliope and Buckster compare notes. Buckster decides to take her right to ground zero, right to the ship. Game, set, match.”

“How?”

“She doesn’t know it, but she’s been busy since she got back. She’s going to take care of them for us.”

The room in her apartment, the one hidden behind the hanging flag, it had nothing to do with Buckster. It had nothing to do with Fawkes.

“You were set up in her place,” I said. “What did you do to her?”

“Forget about her, Nico. It’s a done deal.”

“No.”

“Look, it’s an honor,” she said. “Destroying that ship will be the most significant thing a slum rat like her could ever do. She’s going to change history.”

“Destroy the …”

It hit me then. The case, with its twelve small pay-loads, each designed to be small enough to smuggle even inside the body of a revivor. Eleven had been stolen, but one of them had been taken away by Takanawa. Takanawa worked for Ai. Ai believed that Calliope would be taken by Buckster and processed along with the others. Her body would be taken and placed with the rest of the revivor army he was building. She was going to use Calliope to destroy the others.

“The nuke,” I said. The medical equipment, the lingering radiation signature …they planted it inside her. Takanawa was a test run. Cal was going to carry the payload. Penny smiled.

“It’s done,” she said. “Come on, Ai’s looking for you. She wants to know what you found out at Heinlein.”

“Leave Calliope alone, and I’ll tell her what she wants to know.”

“You don’t want to play that game with her. The ship goes down; that wasn’t a certainty until just recently, but it is now. The ship goes down.”

“I—”

“The ship goes down,” she said again, raising her voice a little. “The ship goes down, and she is on it, and you are not, and that’s how it happens. You don’t make it to the ship.”

“It’s true,” Zoe said.

“You knew about this?”

“Just what they told—”

“You knew about this and you didn’t tell me?”

“Hey, I’m not your little lapdog, okay?” she slurred, glaring up through the steam.

“She’s going to die, Zoe!”

“So she dies,” she said. “She dies, Karen dies, Ted dies …everybody dies …I didn’t know you knew her. You can’t do anything about it anyway.”

“Wait. Karen is dead?” I hadn’t known that, but from the look on her face, I could tell it was true.

“Just never mind,” she said. “It’s not your problem.”

Karen was a lifeline for Zoe. If she was dead …

“Zoe, something’s not right here. These people want you for something.”

“They accept me, Nico. They accept me and they like me, which is more than I can say for you. I don’t need your help anymore or your little jobs at the FBI or any of it.”

“People don’t offer this kind of incentive unless they want something, Zoe. Ask yourself why they’re doing it.”

“They’re doing it because I’m one of them! They’re doing it because they like me!”

Penny hung back, one arm draped over the edge of the tub. She didn’t chime in. She just looked at me smugly and smiled from behind Zoe’s back.

“That boat is going down no matter who’s on it,” Penny said. “Fawkes’s little army is going to the bottom of the ocean, and he’ll be switched off any minute.”

“If she’s dead—”

“She is dead.”

Alice, this is Wachalowski. How long until MSST can mobilize?

Twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes. I could still make it.

“I’m going,” I said. “When I get back—”

Someone grabbed me from behind. His arms were like a vise around my rib cage, pinning my arms to my sides. Penny grinned.

“I told you. You don’t make it to the ship.”

There wasn’t time to mess around. I fired one of the stims and the adrenaline surged through my body. I stomped my right heel down onto one of the boots behind me and a voice yelled out in my ear. When the arms loosened, I slipped down through and fired one elbow back into his crotch.

I turned to see a guy in uniform stagger back, his face dark and twisted in pain. There were two others with him.

Before the first one could recover, I smashed his nose under the heel of my shoe. Blood squirted out in a gob as he went down on his back and into the wall. Zoe screamed. By then one of the remaining two was on me. He ducked my punch and landed a mean hook into my ribs. Pain shot up my side and the breath went out of me.

If it hadn’t been for the stim, it might have knocked me down for good. I fell into the side of the hot tub and grabbed the first bottle I could reach. I swung it by the neck, but he got his forearm up in time. The glass smashed against it, and blood began to bloom through the sleeve.

He attacked again, spraying drops of blood from the ends of his fingers. When he came in close, I grabbed his head and slammed my knee into the side of his face. Pain shot down my leg as a piece of tooth spun through the air. The other guy crashed into me and knocked me back. As we staggered, I grabbed his belt and swung him around, broken glass squealing on the hardwood floor under my shoes.

I slipped and went down with him on top of me. The other one was back up, moving toward us. Zoe was screaming, while Penny barked orders at the men. My window to get to the boat—and Calliope—was closing.

I put my hand in my jacket and pulled out my gun. I fired, and knocked the guy’s leg out from under him. He went down as the one on top of me reached for his own weapon.