Brain Storm (US Edition) (27 page)

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"Sir, we detected a link between Grosset's home computer terminal and the one belonging to Fox. At almost the same time someone using Grosset's terminal accessed a search engine to search for information on Brainstorm."

"It has to be them. Send backup for the retrieval unit and warn them to be careful. These are dangerous women."

"Yes, sir."

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The doctor's confession. Could he have wanted to make his confession in person and been preparing the written copy as some sort of backup. Since there was nothing else to try it was worth  looking into. Sara left the computer terminal and went back to the communication's one. This time she made a more thorough check. Instead of just looking in the inbox she opened the doctor's outbox. There was one message. The date stamp showed that it had been recorded on the day of his death. Sara hit the control to start the message playing back then took a step back to put her beside Carla.

Karl Grosset's head and upper body filled most of the screen. In the background was the same scene that was just behind the two women. Where they were standing was almost the exact same spot that the doctor had recorded this message. Just off to the side of the screen there was an orange flickering glow that played light on the back wall of the study that Sara took to be the fire he had had going in the waste bin.

"Carla, let me start by saying how sorry I am for everything that you have been through."

Sara flicked her eyes to the side to check out Carla's reaction to the revelation that this message had been recorded for her. The younger woman's expression didn't change but it was because her face had frozen. Sara left her too it and put her eyes back on the screen.

"I am sorry for more than you know. Not just for having to put you through this recent upheaval. Everything will be explained later on in this message but I wanted you to know how truly sorry I am from the off. I would request that you forward the rest of this message to as many police and security services as you can as well as to all of the major news agencies throughout the Confederation."

The doctor paused as he composed himself. Sara took the opportunity to have another glance at Carla seeing if she would react now that it was clear that Grosset had prepared this message for her as a contingency plan for his death. The younger woman's expression remained the same but a solitary tear escaped the corner of her eye and traced a course down over her cheekbone.

The doctor went on. "I am Karl Grosset. I no longer feel worthy to call myself by the title doctor because so much of my life has been spent harming individuals rather than helping them. In the beginning my intentions were good. But I was naïve and I continued on with the work even when I understood the full magnitude of what it was I was involved with.

"This message is not intended to absolve me of any of the guilt for my actions. I fully accept all responsibility for my part in the horrors I am about to reveal. This message is intended as a warning to the Confederation and as a means of bringing to task all those others who were involved."

The doctor turned his face to the ground took a deep breath and then raised his head to continue. "I have been involved in work for the Omnitech corporation performing-"

There was the sound of breaking glass and cracks coming from the front and back doors. Bodies charged in through the new entrances. There was another bang and a crack and a bullet embedded itself in the doctor's forehead. The screen fizzled and went dark, spider web cracks spreading out from the bullet hole.

"Now you're dead again."

The voice was almost drowned out by a wail of grief from Carla. 

The bungalow's internal alarm system that should have been blaring out and bringing even the less that attentive hawk-eye security officers down on them had been taken off-line by the two women earlier.

Sara's hand was in her pocket reaching for the pistol even as she turned around to face the man behind the voice. She already knew that she was too late to draw the weapon. The look on the man's face as she finally turned around far enough to see him, the look on his face showed that he knew the same.

"Not this time, bitch." The tattooed leader of the Legion of Doom looked over at the four other men he had brought in with him. Two held sawn-off off shotguns, the other two and the leader had small, single-handed automatic weapons.

"Unless you think you're faster than a bullet your hand had better come out of there empty." That elicited a laugh from the other four gang members. The leader smiled and glanced around at them, soaking it up, then he shushed them and looked at Sara waiting.

She pulled her hand out of her pocket empty. She kept the movements slow and gradual not wanting to be killed because of some nervous gang member's itchy trigger finger. If there had been less barrels pointing in her direction, or if she had been alone, she might have risked trying to shoot and evade. As it was that would get Carla killed and by rights should be suicide for her as well. So her hand came out clear.

"Good girl." He motioned one of the shotguns forwards to take her weapon.

Sara didn't take her eyes from the leader as the other man shoved his hand in her jacket pocket and came out with her weapon. He stepped away, passing the weapon on to the leader before returning to his previous position.

"Well, well, well," the leader said moving into full on cockerel mode, pushing his chest out and strutting around the room. "It seems as though the situation is reversed from our last meeting."

His strutting brought him in closer to Sara. The other four men in the room moved so that they were further spaced out and each had a clear line of fire. If Sara went for the leader's weapon she might get two of the other men before she was gunned down, but she
would
be gunned down. Sara kept on analyzing her options while the leader continued to come closer.

The leader looked her up and down. "The last time we met you left me trussed up like some shrink wrapped meal and locked me in the toilet." He watched Sara for a response but got none. He shrugged and continued. "Now you must understand that I'm not used to that kind of treatment. If I let someone do that and get away with it I don't deserve to be a member of the Legion let alone  the leader of it. So I wondered to myself, where I could find you two to get even. Then I remembered about your interest in the late Dr. Grosset." He looked around and waved his arms to encompass their surroundings. "And here we are."

Sara still hadn't reacted at any point in the speech. Carla's first wail had died down to a quiet sob.

The gang leader wasn't finished. "And now that I have you two I need to think up a suitable punishment. Perhaps I will wrap you up and leave you in the toilet. Of
course you will be dead at that time but still it does seem appropriate." He started to run the point of his weapon over her body. He started at her cheek then traced it down her neck and around her breasts. From there he moved on to her lower body, her thighs and rear and then finally up the inside of her thighs and between her legs. "And there are some other things we can be going on with until then."

Still Sara didn't give him the satisfaction of a response. She remained as still as a statue until the windows and doors of the bungalow were blown completely in. Until the thunderous explosion when the room was filled with light and smoke and noise.

Chapter
Twenty-two

The newer group crashed into the room in the midst of all the confusion caused by their disorientation weapons. The gang members panicked and started shooting,  their fire was directed away from the two women at the half-glimpsed black shadows but was erratic enough to be a danger to anyone in the room. Bullets cut the air and sent chips flying from the walls, floor and ceiling. The screen of the communications unit was hit a couple more times and the touch-responsive display screen of the computer terminal took a trio of hits in a diagonal line over its surface. The books on the shelves as well as the shelving unit itself took damage, and the vase holding slightly wilted flowers was shattered by a projectile spilling water over the carpet.

The new arrivals were the better trained by far. They were firing precisely in three or five-round bursts, depending on the type of weapon,
centering each burst of fire on the body mass of a gang member. These had to be either the same group or another one trained and controlled by the same people as the group who had attacked Sara in her apartment building. The flash of light when the stun munitions first went off had temporarily blinded Sara, red spots still floated around before her eyes. Combined with the acrid smoke that filled the room, and was only being added to by the gunfire, that made her eyes water and her vision start to blur, she that she couldn't tell if they were made up exactly as that group had been, but it was a good bet that they were.

When this secondary assault started the leader of the Legion of Doom had panicked even worse than the others. He didn't have the presence of mind to turn around and started shooting. He  just froze
where he was keeping the barrel of his weapon pressed up against Sara's crotch. As his people started going down leaving the new attackers with fewer targets Sara made her move. She pushed her hand down on top of the weapon to keep the barrel pointed away from her. She twisted her body to push the gang leader away as she used her other hand to take the weapon away from him. Once she had the weapon in her hand and out of his she no longer needed to use a hand to keep the weapon away from herself instead she used it to shove the leader backwards into the middle of the storm of bullets. He didn't even seem to react to this although Sara didn't spend overly long watching him.

Carla had similarly frozen up when the bullets started to fly but at least she had had the sense to drop to the floor and curl up to present a smaller target before doing so. Sara wasn't sure if that had been a conscious decision on the part of the younger woman or whether it was purely instinctive, some unconscious desire to reclaim the feeling of safety associated with being in the womb. Sara fired out randomly, but more controlled than the gang members had, to provide them with some cover. With her free hand she reached down and grabbed Carla around the top of her arm. There was no time to be gentle and Carla let out a yelp of pain when Sara fingers dug into her flesh.

Sara pulled Carla up and half dragged her along in her wake, still firing behind then in an attempt to discourage anyone from shooting at them. As she did so her eyes were scanning the room through the smoke and her tears searching for a way to get them out of there. Carla was crying out now in equal parts pain and confusion. The gunfire was still going on around them and there were screams as one of the black-clad invaders took a burst of fire in the legs. It didn't matter how well trained you were, if you got hit with a bullet it hurt like hell.

Sara immediately seized the opportunity and altered direction to take them towards the exit the downed operative had been covering. The other man who had entered the same way and had been covering that exit with him reached out and pulled him back to cover to check his wounds. His head came back up from his
wounded comrade too late. Sara fired a burst into his chest and kept it up along the central line. She stopped firing after her bullets shattered the goggles he had over his eyes providing an augmentation for his vision. She didn't have to bother with the other man. He had been hit in both legs just above the knees. His skin and flesh had been torn away by the passage of the bullets exposing ragged bloody muscle and in places bone that had been died pink with blood. Blood was flowing freely from both limbs and pooling around his body. He might live if he got medical treatment soon but he was in no position to stop Sara and Carla. Sara kicked his weapon out of his reach as they ran passed.

It must have been obvious that they were escaping because the fire became focused in their direction. Holes appeared in the walls behind them but then they got into the shelter on the hall and out of direct line of sight with the people in the room. Shouts came from behind them, possibly a team leader giving instructions.

The front door had been taken completely off its hinges. Sara went out through the frame first diving to the side to avoid a burst of fire coming from just to the side of the door. She went completely over the porch steps rotating in mid-air to bring her gun in line with the attacker and firing at him. He took the hits in the middle of his face being thrown back against the side of the house. Sara hit the lawn on her back skidding a few centimeters on the short grass. The attacker’s body slumped down the wall leaving a trail of blood. Once it came to a seated position it slipped over sideways away from the hole in the wall that had once contained a door.

Sara flipped herself back up to her feet without changing position. Her eyes scanned the darkened garden for more attackers then she ran back up to the house to get Carla. On her way she  noticed that the reason the front garden wasn't lit up like a football pitch was because the bulb had been smashed in the lighting units.

"Come on." She grabbed Carla by the arm again and they ran across the garden together. Back in the bungalow they seemed to be getting their act together. The firing had stopped which meant the gang members were all dead or otherwise subdued and the black-clad attackers could concentrate on coming after the two women.