Night and Day (Book 3): Bandit's Moon (40 page)

“Zone Four,” she said softly. “Your
target for day one.”

Chapter
Twenty-Five

There were six of us around the
drafting table in Schleu’s apartment at seven that night. Plus the guard in
the corner who sat motionless, as before, watching.

“This is your final briefing,
gentleman,” Schleu said. “We’ll run through the operation from beginning to
end, step by step. Most of you have heard this a dozen times, but I want
you all to pay special attention, not just to your own assignments but to
every part of the operation. If you have questions or concerns, now is the
time to spit it out.”

I’d spent most of the day in the
apartment after we got back to the Floresta that morning. Schleu suggested
that I try to get a little sleep, and I’d tried. Without
success.

When I’d decided that my only
workable option was to kill her, I hadn’t known her plan. Now I did, at
least part of it, and it scared the hell out of me.

There was obviously more to her
plan than what she’s told me, but the uptown part was more than enough. It
wasn’t whether her recruits might succeed, if they might actually kill
thousands of Vees. The very act of trying would bring down the full force
of Area Government. And not just here. All across the country. Because an
uprising was the one thing the Vees wouldn’t tolerate.

Humans had the numbers. It was ten
humans to every Vee in this city, and at least the same everywhere else.
Probably more. Since the war, the only thing that kept humans from taking
advantage of their numerical superiority was fear. Fear that if it came to
a fight, we’d lose again.

That fear was justified. We
couldn’t win.

Sure, we knew more about the Vees
now than we did six years ago. But our ability to fight them, to stop them,
to destroy them hadn’t changed. We kill a thousand today, the Vees turn two
thousand tonight.

Schleu didn’t seem to understand
that. None of them did. The Vees weren’t a finite enemy. Kill them all,
raise a flag and a cheer, the war is over. They were an infinite enemy.
There would always be more.

It looked like I wouldn’t get a
clean shot at Schleu. Which didn’t mean that I couldn’t kill her. Humans
are frail. Killing her was the easy part. Being willing to die with her was
what was hard.

I didn’t want to die. And if I had
to die, I definitely didn’t want it to be for nothing. If killing Schleu
stopped the operation, at least I’d have died for something. But would her
death stop it?

The Humans First Front seemed like
a one-woman show, with Schleu at the top, calling all the shots. If that
was true and I took her out of play, would it become a headless snake? Or
would it lumber on, bring annihilation to everyone? Armageddon.

When Lee came to get me, I still
didn’t have an answer. And the briefing probably wasn’t going to give me
one.

“For those of you who don’t know
him, this is Charlie Welles,” Schleu said. “He’s replacing Shep as the
uptown coordinator.” She looked at me. “You know Lee, of course. He’ll be
working with you on the uptown operation.”

She pointed at a slender guy with a
red beard and bulging eyes. “Barney. He’s the midtown coordinator.” The
short, stocky man next to him. “Hank. He’ll work with Barney in midtown
tomorrow, but his primary assignment is during phase two, on Saturday.” A
young guy with light brown hair to his shoulders and wire-rim glasses.
“Wyatt. He’ll be working uptown as well tomorrow, but he’s not part of your
group.”

Wyatt smiled and nodded to me.
Barney and Hank just stared. I guessed they were the ones who were against
bringing me into the inner circle. The smart ones.

“All right,” she said. “Let’s take
it from the top. At seven tomorrow morning, Charlie’s people hit the street
uptown.” She pointed at the drafting table. The detailed aerial
photo of uptown had been replaced by one that showed the city from midtown
north. “Their target is Zone Four, with a estimated skeeter population of
three to five thousand. Each three-man team will have the addresses and
keys for their assigned buildings.”

I looked up. “Keys?”

She smiled. “Yes, nothing but the
best for uptown residents. The police there provide services above and
beyond the norm to the skeeters. In the Uptown District station, they have
a key to every townhouse and apartment in the district. We’ve spent the
past six months gradually making copies of all of those keys.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard about
their services.” I paused. “So, you’ve decided to go with three-man
teams?”

“As you pointed out last night, our
new recruits are enthusiastic, but inexperienced. Better to have more
people with machetes in each building than not enough.”

She looked back down at the table.
“We estimate that they will complete their assignments by noon or one
o’clock, at which point they will return to their staging area at the
Jenkins Avenue station.”

Schleu looked up at Wyatt. “At the
same time as Charlie’s groups begin, Wyatt will sever telephone service
uptown.”

He smiled.

“How?” I asked.

“Uptown Central Exchange,” Wyatt
said. His voice was high-pitched, almost girlish. “Take it out, no phones
anywhere in uptown.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “I don’t
know about the central exchange in uptown, but I’ve seen the one downtown.
Heavy security. Armed guards. Thick walls. Steel door. And an alarm direct
to Downtown District station.”

“Yeah, it’s the same setup uptown.
Which is why I’m not going after what’s in the building.”

“What does that mean?”

“I used to work for the phone
company,” he said. “You’ve got all that equipment in the central exchange,
but that’s not important. What’s important are the lines. And they come
into the exchange from below. Twenty-two big bundles of fiber optic cable.
All together in a little underground chamber about fifty yards from the
central exchange. Cut them, bye-bye phones.” He paused and smiled again.
“I’ve already set the charges. They’re ready to blow. I could do it right
now actually, from here. Only reason I’m going up there in the morning is
to do one last check before I press the button.”

“So even if a skeeter manages to
get to a phone when they’re being attacked by your people, the line will be
dead,” Schleu said.

She looked over at Barney. “The
midtown operation will start at nine tomorrow morning. A sixty-man strike
team will attack and take the City Barracks. Thanks to a friend in the
police department, we know that we’ll be facing a Security Force company of
approximately two hundred skeeters, who’ll be asleep. The facility itself
will be guarded by a handful of human Security Force troopers.
Approximately a dozen. The strike force will take out the guards silently,
then kill the skeeters in their sleep.”

I wasn’t sure who the ‘friend’ in
the police department was, but friend isn’t the word I would use. The
information was wrong. For the strike team, catastrophically wrong
.

I’ve worked with the Security
Force. They keep four companies of troopers stationed in the City Barracks,
unless area government is conducting an operation in town and needs
manpower. Two Vee companies, two human companies. A little fewer than 800
troopers.

It was true that the Vee troopers
would be asleep on Christmas morning. But the human troopers would be
awake. And they’d slaughter the strike team.

 “In the motor pool at the
City Barracks are six Stryker armored fighting vehicles, as well as Humvees
and other military transport,” Schleu continued. “Those, and the stores of
weapons and ammunition at the Barracks are our primary focus. The strike
team will take the vehicles and weapon stores and be clear of the area by
ten tomorrow morning. The vehicles will be taken to the warehouse on Harper
Avenue and stage there for the second phase of the operation on
Saturday.”

Actually there were only two
Strykers at the City Barracks, but the number wasn’t important. Schleu’s
midtown strike team wouldn’t get anywhere near the motor pool. It was
unlikely that any of them would still be alive by nine-fifteen.

“That’s phase one of the Lexington
Project,” Schleu said. “Any questions, comments or concerns?”

She glanced at me. I was the
obvious one to have something to say about it. Her breakdown of phase one
would be old news to the rest of them.

I shook my head and said nothing.
No point in bringing them all down with a dose of cold reality.

“Right,” she said. “On to phase
two, Saturday morning. As with phase one, the uptown recruits will move to
the Ryer Avenue station at approximately seven a.m. and go to their
appointed buildings. Their targets are in Zone Three.”

She paused, threw me a look, and
smiled. “Now, as Charlie pointed out last night, after the events of the
previous day, uptown will be loaded with cops. Which is exactly what we
want.”

Schleu nodded to Barney. “At
six-forty five, the strike team will leave Harper Avenue in the
commandeered vehicles and drive uptown, where they will engage the police
on the streets of uptown. When the streets are clear, Charlie’s people will
begin their work in Zone Three. The strike team will then assault and take
the Uptown District police station. We anticipate that the majority of
available uptown officers will have been on the street and killed in the
initial attack, so the police station will be lightly guarded.”

“It will take them at least three
days to restore phone service uptown,” Wyatt said. “So outgoing telephone
communications will not be an issue.”

“What about radio communications?”
I asked.

“We have no way to stop the Uptown
station from contacting other police stations for assistance,” Schleu said.
“However, we anticipate a large proportion of available Central District
officers will have already been sent uptown because of phase one. They’ll
have been killed in the initial attack that morning. Reinforcements from
Westside, Downtown and Eastside District stations will eventually arrive,
but they’ll be slow in coming.” She paused. “At this stage of the
operation, we also anticipate that the Area Operations Center will be
notified of the situation and will send Security Force assets. It will take
them approximately three hours to get here. By then, the uptown recruits
will have completed their assignment and returned to the Jenkins Avenue
station, and the strike team will abandon the police station and return to
Harper Avenue.”

She seemed to have forgotten that there would be a Security Force response after the attack on City Barracks the day before. A serious response. But maybe she thought nobody would notice.

She smiled at Hank. “While all of
this is going on, Hank’s strike team goes into action. He and his ten men
will attack and seize the WMBA broadcast center on Third Street. Once
there, they will broadcast a call to arms.”

During the two and a half years
that humans were in internment camps, the Vees had simplified broadcast
media and newspapers as they had other aspects of city life. One police
station was enough for each district. One radio and television station and
one newspaper was enough for the city.

Hank would have no trouble taking
the midtown studios of WMBA. I’d never been inside their broadcast center,
but I didn’t think it was heavily guarded. And whatever was broadcast, on
TV or radio, would be heard. WMBA was the only game in town.

But I had serious doubts that a
call to arms would convince the humans in the city to rise up, as Schleu
believed.

“By noon on Saturday, the city will
be in chaos,” Schleu said. “Through our example, we will show our human
brothers and sisters that they do not need to live under the skeeter’s
thumb. They will respond. The third phase will be an continuing operation
to support the uprising and kill skeeters wherever they are.”

She took a deep breath. “So, there
you have it.” She looked at me. “Do you still have concerns,
Charlie?”

The only concern I had was for the
mental stability of every person at that table. None of them seemed
particularly stupid. Yet they all seemed on-board with a plan that clearly
wasn’t going to work.

But that wasn’t what Schleu was
asking.

I shook my head. “No, I think
you’ve covered everything I was concerned about.”

Schleu smiled. “Good. Now, I
suggest that you all go back to your apartments and get some sleep. Someone
will be around to get you at five a.m. and everyone should be in place with
their people by six.”

The guys around the table headed
for the door without a word. As I moved to follow, Schleu said, “Charlie.
Stay a moment.”

I stopped and went back to the
drafting table. Schleu watched the others leave. When the door closed, she
smiled. “Drink?”

“Sure.”

She went to the roll-top desk next
to the mattress and opened it, returning with a green bottle and a couple
of glasses. A couple of fingers of liquor went into each one. She picked up
a glass and walked to the couch behind the table.