Outriders (27 page)

The guard swept his flashlight around the room cursorily, obviously irritated, though he didn’t seem to be looking for anything in particular. The room itself was sparse; the bed, a small table laden with Prakoso’s equipment. A chair.

“Sixty seconds,” Thumper said.

“You’re not doin’ anything stupid in here, are ya?” the guard said.

Prakoso didn’t answer. The guard shone his light back on the small man on the bed, and in the movement opened the door a little wider, just enough to make bare contact with the muzzle of Lincoln’s gun.

“Huh?”

“Meditating,” Prakoso answered, quietly. The same tone of voice he’d used with Lincoln moments before.

“Meditating, huh?”

The guard just stood there for a span, and Lincoln wondered if that had been some kind of code between Prakoso and the guard that something was wrong. His finger tightened on the trigger.

“You should sleep,” the guard said finally, then added, almost to himself, “Wish I could.” He lingered a moment longer, and then the door receded from Lincoln and closed again.

Lincoln kept his pistol trained on the door until the brackets identifying the guard had descended to the floor below. He turned back to Prakoso and switched his light on again. The fact that Prakoso apparently hadn’t tried to signal the guard in any way was a good sign.

“Thirty seconds,” Thumper said.

“We’re going to get you out of here,” Lincoln repeated. “Is there anything you absolutely
must
take with you? If so, grab it, and let’s go.”

Prakoso didn’t answer and didn’t move. He didn’t seem to be afraid at all, or anxious. He almost seemed bored.

“We’ve been trying to find you for a long time, Yayan,” Lincoln said.

“Someone is always trying to find me.”

The man remained in place, neither resisting nor complying. Lincoln was just about to lower his weapon when he heard a puff from his right. Prakoso’s head jerked back with a wet slap and he flopped backwards onto the bed, limp like an empty pile of clothes. Lincoln looked sharply at Wright. She was already holstering her pistol.

“He had his chance,” she said. “You cover, I’ll carry.” There wasn’t time to argue. Lincoln turned back to the door and kept watch while Wright moved over and wrestled Prakoso up and across her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. She came up close behind him, touched his shoulder. Lincoln switched off his light. The light intensification of his lenses was enough for him to see by, and Prakoso certainly didn’t need to see where he was going now.

“Gemini has VIP secure,” Lincoln said. “We’re on the way out. Give us another ninety seconds on power.”

“Roger that, reset to ninety seconds,” she said. “Everyone’s still busy downstairs, you should be good to exit to roof.”

“Copy, Gemini moving to roof.”

“Gemini moving to roof, copy,” Thumper confirmed.

Lincoln eased the door open, scanned the hall before committing. Clear. He moved forward and turned right, led the way to the end of the hall and the door facing them there. It was narrower than the others, only about three-quarters the width of a normal entry. Lincoln tried the handle. Locked.

“Of course,” he whispered. Wright turned and backed up to the wall next to him, drew her pistol and covered the hallway. Lincoln crouched and pulled a slender black device off his belt. With it, he scanned the locking mechanism. A moment later, the device pulsed twice in his hand, and the lock clicked. Good. An easy one. Lincoln returned the device to his belt, and eased the door open before coming out of his crouch.

“Sixty seconds,” Thumper said.

The room inside was roughly the size of a closet. The walls were bare concrete, and the only feature was a ladder going straight up to a hatch in the ceiling. The hatch was square, and looked just big enough for Lincoln to get through without scraping his shoulders on either side. He glanced over at Wright, with Prakoso dangling across her shoulders.

“Great,” he said.

“Problem?” Wright whispered.

He pointed into the room, up at the hatch. Wright leaned around the door frame to take a peek.

“Great,” she said.

“Taking the roof might have been stupid,” Lincoln said.

“If it works, it ain’t stupid.”

“
If.
”

Lincoln holstered his weapon and started up the ladder. The hatch was also locked.

“Thirty seconds,” Thumper said.

Wright backed into the tiny room as far as she could but didn’t have enough space to get around the door to close it behind her. Lincoln took the unlocker off his belt again, but held off on activating it.

“Ten seconds,” Thumper said, and she counted down from there. As she reached zero, the power in the building buzzed back on to half strength. “You’re good to exit.”

Lincoln fired up the unlocker. Five seconds. Ten.

“Got a mover,” Mike said. “Friend from earlier, looks like he changed his mind. He’s headed back upstairs.”

“Gemini, you’re covered,” Thumper said. “You can pop the hatch.”

“Working on it,” Lincoln answered.

Fifteen seconds. Whatever kind of lock they’d used for the hatch wasn’t friendly. Wright shifted back, tried to work the door shut, but there just wasn’t room enough.

“He’s on the second floor now,” Mike said. “Sahil, you might want to start the car.”

Twenty-five seconds. The unlocker pulsed, the hatch unsealed. Lincoln pushed it open, scrambled through to the roof as quickly as he dared. A quick check to confirm no one else was up there, and then he was on his belly stretching his arms back down to Wright.

“He’s on the stairs,” Mike said.

Wright stepped up on the ladder, but there was no way she was going to get Prakoso through like that.

“Take him, take him,” Wright whispered, and Lincoln tried to grab hold of the limp man on her back. He managed to get a grip on Prakoso’s belt, and a tenuous hold of an arm. A moment later, Wright moved out from under, leaving Prakoso dangling in midair, and Lincoln bearing the dead weight that threatened to drag him headfirst back through the hatch. She closed the door smoothly, holding the handle so the mechanism didn’t click shut.

“Tango’s on your floor,” Mike said.

Lincoln shut his eyes with the effort. Prakoso probably only weighed about fifty to sixty kilos, but Lincoln was in such an awkward position he couldn’t do much more than just try to hold on. Wright sure was taking her sweet time.

“He’s in the hall,” said Mike. “Not sure what he’s doing. He’s kind of just standing there.”

Lincoln opened his eyes. Wright was still at the door, her hand still on the handle. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to move, for fear of the latch making some noise that might draw attention. But that wasn’t going to be nearly as noticeable as the sound it was going to make when he lost his grip and dropped Prakoso on top of her. He crushed his grip closed as tightly as he could.

“He’s back in his room now,” Mike said. “Door’s still open though.”

A moment later, Prakoso magically lightened. Wright was back underneath him again, taking some of the load. Lincoln let go with his right hand to shake it out, letting Prakoso’s arm flop back down. When it fell, it made a thunking sound and Wright exhaled sharply.

It took a minute or so for the two of them to work out getting Prakoso’s limp form up and onto the roof. Lincoln dragged the man through and laid him beside the hatch. By the time he’d gotten Prakoso situated and turned back, Wright was already up and closing the hatch. After she’d secured it, she stayed next to it, crouched on one knee. They were both a little out of breath, probably as much from the close call as from the effort. When she noticed he was watching her, she looked over at him.

“Coming up on the roof was probably stupid,” she said. Lincoln chuckled.

“Gemini’s on the roof with the VIP,” Lincoln said. “Moving to bridge.”

“Copy, Gemini,” Thumper said. “Watch your step.”

Lincoln left Prakoso and moved over to the edge of the roof on the southern side, where the closest neighboring building stood. Its roof was maybe four meters away. Lincoln pulled the bundle off his back, and went to work setting it up.

“You sure no one’s going to see this?” he asked.

“No,” Thumper said. “Sky’s still dark enough you shouldn’t get silhouetted too bad, and the streetlights will make it hard for anyone to see you from the ground. But I wouldn’t hang around up there for too long.”

From the bundle, Lincoln drew out two small domes, each a little larger than his hand, connected by a nearly transparent polymer ribbon. These he placed next to each other on the lip that marked the roof edge, about two feet apart. When he activated them, four legs unfolded from both and clamped down on the synthetic concrete of the ledge. Lincoln pulled out two more similar devices and rigged them up to the first. Miniature drones with whisper-quiet operation.

“You set yet?” Wright asked from behind.

“Just about,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw she already had Prakoso up on her shoulders again. “You want me to carry him across?”

“Nah. You just make sure there’s nobody over there to greet us.”

Lincoln activated the drones, and they flew in tight formation across the gap, spooling out a net of the flexible polymer behind them as they went. Once they’d reached the other rooftop, they settled down on the ledge and automatically locked their clamps on.

“Ladies first?” Lincoln said. Wright kicked him in the rump. Lincoln tapped one of the domes twice, and it clicked. A moment later, the drooping net tightened up and went rigid as steel. Lincoln tested it with his foot before he fully committed. As many times as he’d used these things, he’d never had one break. And yet still, every time, he had to convince his brain he wasn’t stepping out on a thin layer of ice or glass. The surface held firm; Lincoln drew his weapon and quickly made his way across. Wright followed, not quite as quickly. He couldn’t blame her for taking her time on that narrow bridge, especially with the awkward dead weight of Prakoso on her shoulders.

Once Wright reached him, Lincoln tapped one of the domes again, and the process reversed. The bridge went slack, the two drones on the opposite side spun up and flew over to him, retracting the netting as they came. He gathered the four up, and took them across to another edge.

Using the drone bridgelayers, Lincoln and Wright zigzagged their way across the rooftops until they’d put good distance between themselves and Puck. The buildings weren’t quite clustered enough for them to make it all the way out of what they knew was Apsis-controlled territory, but it was close enough to the perimeter that they felt like they could risk extracting from there. As they reached the final building, Lincoln checked in with the rest of the team.

“Gemini’s good for pickup at primary,” he said, as he stashed the drones back in their pack.

“Primary looks clear, Gemini,” Thumper answered.

“Copy that,” Sahil answered. “On my way to primary.”

“I’m gonna pack up too,” Mike said. “Not sure how long it’ll be before they notice their man’s missing, but so far it looks good.”

“Glad to hear to it,” Lincoln said. “See you at home.”

“Stash is in between two heat exchangers,” Thumper said. “I’ll mark it for you.”

A pip appeared in Lincoln’s vision, marking a location on the rooftop. He made his way to it, found a small duffel bag on the ground between two large heat exchange units. The gap was narrow, and he had to twist sideways to get his hand on it, but he managed to pull it free. Thumper had used a drone to drop the bag in earlier that night; in it were two sets of street clothes, loose enough to conceal the gear that he and Wright were hauling around. He took the duffel over to where Wright was waiting for him by the roof exit, and they quickly donned the clothes over their other outfits.

“I’m one mike out,” Sahil said.

Getting down from the roof was a bit trickier than Lincoln had anticipated; he knew better than to
expect
that Prakoso would come quietly, and eagerly, but he realized now, from his level of disappointment, just how much he’d been hoping for it. They still had to get to the ground floor without attracting any attention, which was going to be tougher with Prakoso draped over Wright’s shoulders like a trophy kill. The apartment building they’d chosen to exit through wasn’t strictly Apsis-held, but there was no way to guarantee there weren’t watchers in it.

In the end, they decided to play drunk. Lincoln draped one of Prakoso’s arms over his shoulder and hauled on the little man’s belt; Wright followed suit, her arm crossed over Lincoln’s. Prakoso dangled between them like a dead man, his feet dragging and bumping the whole way down.

Thankfully the stairway ran from top to bottom in a switchback, so the only hallway they had to pass through was on the ground floor. Sahil was already waiting out front when they exited the building, and though there were a couple of people on the street, no one seemed to be paying any more than casual attention to the drunken trio trying to load their passed-out friend into the back of an old, beat-up car.

Back at the temporary HQ, the team got Prakoso moved upstairs and onto one of the beds through the hole in the wall. To be safe, they secured his wrists together with quick cuffs made of a hard plastic material. Thumper had already started tearing the gear down; the thin-skin in their planning room was packed up, as were a number of other terminals. Veronica was still up and running, though, keeping track of the Apsis personnel and undoubtedly set to alert everyone if anything looked like trouble.

“Self’s got a clean team on the way over,” Thumper said. “Just pack up your personal gear, they’ll handle the rest.”

“What’s our out?” Lincoln asked.

“United Cargo,” she answered. “NID’s prepping a box for us as we speak.”

It was a relatively well-kept secret that certain units within the armed services maintained relationships with certain shipping corporations, in order to move personnel around into places that might otherwise be inaccessible. Lincoln had only used that method of transport a handful of times before, and while it wasn’t necessarily a comfortable way to travel, it usually beat flying commercial. He’d never lost a bag that way, anyway.