Erebus (2 page)

Pursing my lips, we walked through the still-smoldering building. “I presume you’ve set up a perimeter? I have a forensics team coming in and don’t want anything disturbed more than it already has been.”

“Already underway, Inspector.”

I nodded at her. She was a picture of competence, her calm authority reassuring.

“This is where they were locked in.” Phillips pointed at a door that one of her troops had smashed off its heat-blackened hinges in the vain hope of finding someone alive within. As we stepped inside, I could see that the fire damage had opened up the roof, and bright sunlight streamed into the interior. Charred corpses filled the room in tangled heaps; the smell of burnt flesh was nauseating. “Ever since we confirmed there were no survivors, no one has been inside.”

Looking around the room from the door, I admired her optimism in hoping that someone had still been alive. “Good work, Captain. Let’s clear out and leave it to the forensics team.”

Phillips nodded and turned, the servos and motors of her armor quietly whirring. Together, we walked back out onto the dusty car park outside. A small chime rang in my ear, and I accepted the link. I heard Giselle’s voice. “Layton, the team from Cairo is loading up on a hypersonic bounce as we speak. They’ll be down to you in a couple of hours.”

“Good. We should hold off on contacting families until they can confirm IDs on the bodies.”

“Agreed,” Giselle responded. “How are our Australian friends taking it?”

I looked across at Phillips, her lips pressed together in a thin line, the only outward sign of her cold anger. “About as well as can be expected. When we find these guys, I suspect they are going to start regretting their choice of career real quick.”

“Yeah, well I’ve just heard. Canberra has cut Captain Phillips her orders. She has carte blanche to go after them. The Aussies are going unilateral. They want scalps and don’t care who they piss off getting them.”

Phillips had moved away from us, her head cocked in that way many people did when they listened in on their link implants.

“Yeah, looks like she’s getting the news now,” I said. “See what you can do about getting that sat-track done.”

Closing the link, I turned and walked back to our VTOL aircraft. It was sleek and black with its camouflage armor deactivated. Because of its vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, it was well suited to these kinds of third-world environments. It could come and go just about anywhere, whether from an airport or in a desert.

***

Captain Phillips had done a good job of making sure that no one could get near the hospital while Dev and I busied ourselves in the VTOL making a hell of a lot of links. We had a lot of things to sort out, everything from ensuring that the bodies would get repatriated as soon as possible to making sure that my investigation log was updated with our every action. Hopefully we would catch the bad guys who did this at some point and put them before a tribunal. Every
I
needed to be dotted and every
T
crossed.

I heard the chime of a priority link, and my boss’s ID appeared on my HUD. “What’s up, Giselle?”

“We’ve got something from the sat-track on these shits. We think we have one of them.”

Now that piqued my interest. Every inch of Earth’s surface was monitored by satellites twenty-four/seven, but it was mostly a passive thing. The satellites watched, but no one watched the watchers. Giselle had had her staff going through who had what orbiting over Sahelia at the time we knew the hospital had been torched (around two days ago) then getting warrants to access the satellite archives. An image appeared in my eyes as I accepted a request to share information from Giselle.

“We’ve managed to track the group. They used four vehicles, minibuses of some description by the look of them. Twenty bandits in total. They did what they did and then hauled ass back to Er Rahad, a town about fifteen miles due west of your current position.”

“You managed to keep them tagged?”

“Carry on watching. See the guy with the god-awful Mohawk? Keep an eye on him.” I focused on the image, the rest of the world fading from my perception. A circle appeared around the man, a strip of black hair visible on his otherwise bald head.

“They head into Er Rahad,” Giselle continued. “I’m presuming these shits have some kind of awareness of sat-tracks since they drive to the local bazaar, ditch the vehicles, and get under cover. The majority of them seem to have changed clothes, and I lose them all except for Mohawk. This guy clearly doesn’t like a hat messing with his hairdo.”

I watched as Mohawk made his way out from under the cover of a market stall, walked along a bustling street, and entered a building. “That seems to be where he’s staying for the time being. It’s some kind of boardinghouse. He’s in and out of there over the last day. Possibly he’s the group’s fixer. He’s inside now.” On the map, a ping showed his location—places like Er Rahad didn’t exactly have street names.

“Thanks, boss. We’re going to go get him.” I turned to Dev, the real world bleeding back into my awareness. “The wheels are in motion, my friend. You up for this?”

Dev looked through the VTOLs window at the smoldering wreckage of the hospital. “Damn right I am.”

Captain Phillips had brought with her a team of enhanced soldiers from the Australian 2nd Commando, a hardened bunch who had fought in every major conflict from the three Gulf Wars through the Second Korean and onto the Siberian Crisis. They were not a bunch to be messed with. They had a lot of skills, counter insurgency, high-tech operations, and the like, but there were still only nine of them, including the captain herself.

To make up numbers, we had met up with another contingent from the international peacekeeping force. These were from the Congolese Defense Force and were led by a Captain Otanga, a bear of a man who had a voice with a deep rumbling resonance that was felt as much as heard.

The CDF unit had a technical support element attached to it. They didn’t exactly have cutting-edge equipment, but more than enough to do this job. We were packed into the company’s armored command carrier, sweat pouring off us even though dusk was falling. They seriously needed to top up the air con on this thing.

I watched the main screen as one of Otanga’s men deftly controlled a mosquito, a tiny recon drone made up to look like its namesake. It was an odd experience; everyone and everything seemed massive on the screen. Doors were monolithic moving buildings, and the odd person still on the street, a gargantuan giant.

Flying in through an open window of the building, we saw that we were in some kind of dingy hotel bar, although, like everything in this war-torn country, that name was generous. It was a dive, low lights, lots of ugly chaps lounging around with prostitutes draped over them. Some of them were not even waiting to go somewhere private to earn their keep.

“There he is,” Otanga said, pointing at the screen. Sure enough, Mohawk was reclining in a seat, feeling the need to wear sunglasses even in the dark room. He cut an imposing figure, a vest top showing off heavily muscled arms, a bullet dangling from a necklace, and lots of scars. Back home, he’d be a total fashion victim. In a place like this, where intimidation was the main currency, he was a rich man. The mosquito settled down next to him just as a gaunt drug-ravaged woman sat up from under the table, wiping her mouth.

“He’s a classy bastard,” I muttered as he threw the hooker’s money on the floor. She scrambled to pick it up as he swiftly knocked back whatever he was drinking in a single gulp. Standing, he zipped himself up and made his way to the stairs.

“Follow him.” The mosquito lifted off and tracked Mohawk as he trudged up the steps and walked down the filthy corridor to a door. The mosquito managed to dart inside with him just before he slammed it shut.

The room was as squalid as the rest of the place: stained sheets, piles of dirty clothes, and just to complete the look, a rifle leaning against the wall, an AK-86S. The damn thing was probably a hundred years old, but they were cheap, and you could buy them almost anywhere.

Mohawk stretched his arms out and gave a gaping yawn before turning and looking straight at the mosquito. With a speed that belied his steroidal size, he slapped it out of the air. The drone spiraled to the floor, the room spinning dizzyingly on the screen before it hit the deck.

The corporal controlling the mosquito tried to get it flying again. He managed to hop it around till it was looking at Mohawk who was staring at his hand in confusion. He seemed to have realized that what he had hit was not the soft body of an insect, but something more solid. A massive knee planted itself down in front of the camera and again the view twisted sickeningly as he lifted it up between his finger and thumb. We were treated to a close-up of a bloodshot eye dilated from some kind of narcotic. Seconds later, the mosquito was under his boot heel.

We’d been made.

We pulled our tactical helmets on. My HUD interfaced with the opaque visor, which allowed me to see the world through the solid battle steel. Dev slid the carrier door open and jumped out. As I followed close behind, I sensed that Phillips was on our heels. Just as we jogged into view of the hotel, I saw a figure crash out of a window onto a neighboring rooftop.

“Get more mosquitos up,” I shouted into the com as we began running along the street parallel to where Mohawk was parkouring. The guy was fast and had scant regard for his own safety as he ran across the shanty-building rooftops. Phillips, behind me, was wearing military-grade battle armor and wasn’t as quick as Dev and me in our peacekeeper scout suits, which were Hague standard issue for deployment. It was still protective; it just didn’t come with all the bells and whistles that Phillips’s did.

I drew my sidearm, a Viking 20 Dual, and set it to incapacitation rounds, or incaps. I sighted toward Mohawk as he ran, my eye implants automatically interfacing with the gun. I led him with my aim and squeezed the trigger just as he vaulted over a low rooftop wall out of site. A blue flash sparked on the wall. “Damn,” I muttered; a clean miss.

My HUD tactical map showed an alley where Mohawk must have landed. Dev sprinted ahead of me to its mouth between two decrepit buildings. I heard trash bins being knocked over as I got to the dark entrance. A stream of bullets hissed by. I slammed against the wall, taking cover. Dev did the same on the other side.

“You okay?” I called to my partner.

“Yeah,” he answered, his own sidearm out and pointed down.

Swapping my gun to my left hand, I eased it round the corner and used my HUD to interface with the camera on the barrel. Mohawk was climbing over a fence at the end of the alley. “Otanga, where are your men? We were supposed to have this place locked down.”

“It’s a rabbit warren,” his voice came over my link. “I’m sending my men to head him off. The mosquito is heading for you.”

I looked back and saw Phillips running up the street, still some distance behind. Her suit was more like a personal tank than our own more agile kit.

“Let’s go,” Dev said, setting off down the alleyway. I dashed after him. Dev vaulted the fence like an Olympic athlete; I hauled myself over and crashed down on the other side. A snarling dog turned from snapping at my partner’s heels and charged at me. I scrambled back. The beast reached the end of its chain and was yanked back, barking and drooling in fury. Christ, I hate dogs.
Idiot!
I thought as I remembered that I was wearing scout armor
.
Let the bloody mutt break his teeth on my leg if it wants to.
Still, I skirted it a little wider than I had to.

By the time I started running after Dev, Mohawk had charged out of the alley and turned right. Dev was hot on his heels. I heard an almighty crash behind me, and I glanced back. Phillips had decided to take the less subtle approach of charging through the fence, an easy task for someone in servo-assisted battle armor. Even the dog knew better than to give her any grief; it backed away, whimpering.

As I rounded the corner after Mohawk, he turned and gave a wild burst of gunfire at us. He hit potluck; a round smashed into my chest, knocking me on my arse. It had no chance of penetrating my peacekeeper armor, but still, it felt like someone had slammed a sledge hammer into my chest. Picking myself up, I grabbed my gun from where it had fallen and aimed it again. Too late; he had turned another corner. Dev jumped out from behind the cover of a car and sprinted after him. Wincing from the shot, I set off again.

I heard a buzz and saw the blip of a mosquito on my HUD as it raced past me. The tiny drone was equipped with a tranquilizer “bite.” As long as the operator got it to him, he should be able to take Mohawk down.

Mohawk ran up the street just as one of Otanga’s military carriers screeched to a halt in front of him. The sound of shouting came from it as soldiers began to pour out of it. Mohawk skidded to a stop and looked around. Dev stopped, bringing his gun up. Mohawk dashed for another alley, and Dev abandoned the shot. Too many troops were in the line of fire. Mohawk dashed into a dark alley. Dev and I raced after him.

As I entered the alley, I could see Dev ahead. My eye implants tried to gain a fix on where Mohawk was but drew a blank. There was a lot of crap in the alleyway—bins, crates, piles of rubbish, and the stink of stale piss. My nose twitched, and I gave a mental command, amping up the filtration system on my helmet. The wall at the other end looked too high to easily get over. We had him cornered. The mosquito hovered, its own limited sensors probing the hiding places.

“Got him?” I called.

“No. He’s in here somewhere, though,” Dev panted back.

“Fine, let’s withdraw, cover the entrances, and wait for the cav—”

A light blared in the sky, washing the darkness from the alleyway, creating a burning contrast. A loud crackle came over my link implant and my vision skewed crazily as my retinal implants fired spurious signals straight into my visual cortex. A cascade of random images and letters appeared in my vision. The outside world went black as the visor completely shut down, blinding me as it turned opaque. I ripped the helmet off my head, still dazzled by my malfunctioning HUD. I closed my eyes, trying to find the mental command to reboot my implants.