The Clone Assassin (15 page)

Location: Guanajuato, New Olympian Territories
Date: July 23, 2519

Freeman watched the U.A. transport as it floated across the sky. It flew like a bumblebee. In space, where gravity and wind currents didn’t exist, transports flew as well as any other craft. In Earth’s atmosphere, dealing with wind shears and air pockets, transports fumbled as they relied on thrusters instead of riding air currents to stay aloft. With their bloated hulls and distended wings, transports were anything but aerodynamic. Cut their thrusters, and they dropped like boulders.

That transport meant more guards. Hiding on a distant ridge, using his powerful rifle scope like a telescope, he counted the troops as they left the ship. Fifteen men. The transport had room for one hundred men.
Maybe the Unifieds are calling off the alert,
he thought.

Freeman took that as a good sign. If the Unifieds had known he was there, they would have sent a full company, one hundred men.

Unlike Pugh, whose organization was attached to a larger population, Petrie had Leone, a vacated mountain city, all to himself. He and his men lived in a relocation camp about two miles south of the abandoned city.

They didn’t only have the city to themselves, they had the entire area. The Enlisted Man’s Empire had sent men and equipment to help reestablish Mazatlán. The Unified Authority might one day do the same for Leone, but it would draw attention if they did that now, so Petrie and his men made camp. From a strategic point of view, they’d picked badly—low ground surrounded by ridges on almost every side. As long as he avoided sentries, Freeman could move around freely, able to observe the camp from nearly every angle. Once the shooting began, he’d have a high-ground advantage, meaning he could hit anywhere in the camp.

As he circled the perimeter, Freeman heard the soft percussion of distant gunfire. It was sporadic—a shot every few seconds with an occasional burst, the rhythm never quite repeating itself. Target practice. Gunfights came in frenetic bursts instead of interludes.

It was midday, and Freeman generally preferred to do recon at night, but he could adjust. The trees and rocks offered good cover. Petrie had the numbers, but Freeman had the high ground. For recon, high ground was better than numbers. But when it came to a fight, numbers were the better advantage.

The day was getting hotter, well over eighty, and the air was dry. Freeman strapped on his backpack and carried his rifle by the forestock. He climbed to the top of a thirty-foot ridge and found a natural nest from which he could observe the camp hidden behind rocks. He settled in, pulled the scope from his rifle, and inspected the camp.

Looking around the facilities, Freeman did not see women or children. He scouted men eating out of aluminum pouches, U.A.-supplied MREs. He saw men driving jeeps and trucks. It was just an estimate, and Freeman placed no faith in uneducated guesses, but he thought Petrie might have somewhere between three and five hundred men.

Freeman left his rifle and backpack in the nest. Using spindly trees for cover, he walked to the crest of the ridge, looked back toward the camp, and saw nothing of interest.

He went back to the nest, retrieved his gear, and continued circling, checking the camp from every visible angle. He found a vantage point from which he could see straight into the heart of the camp, dropped to his stomach, and remained as still as an alligator waiting for prey.

Though he could not see the size of the drop, he could see that the ledge ahead of him ended with a vertical wall—a good spot for sniping or to launch a rocket attack. Using his scope, he peered down into the camp and saw that he was near the motor pool. He counted five jeeps, three trucks, two motorcycles.

Petrie’s fleet was hand-me-downs of the worst variety, outdated military supplies covered with dents and welds. His fuel supply was stored in aboveground tanks, twenty-foot metallic cylinders that no saboteur could ignore. Freeman had rockets and automatic launchers; the depot would definitely go.

A half dozen men guarded the area, all of them carrying M27s. Petrie had his own men here, men who carried their weapons with the casual indifference of the severely untrained. One guy stood leaning against a fence. He held his M27 by its muzzle.

The other men displayed signs of slightly better intelligence. One had his rifle laying flat in the dirt beside him, but he’d had the good sense to point the shooting end away from himself.

Freeman moved on, working slowly, hiding just below the crests of the ridges. The sound of the shooting grew louder. He belly-crawled to the top of a ridge and peered out from between two trees, staying low so that his body was hidden in shadow, his heat signature distorted by sun-heated rocks and mounds.

He spotted a potential point of entry, a dirt road that ran along the edge of the camp, bending and winding around the fence before finally entering. A dry creek bed ran along one side of the road, the banks waist high, offering a measure of concealment. These features had not gone unnoticed. Either Petrie or his benefactors had strung razor wire along the banks of that creek. If the Unifieds placed that wire there, they’d probably electrified it.

As he scouted the area, Freeman finally spotted the shooting range. A dozen men stood near the fence targeting holographic figures of commandos that ran and dodged across the creek. Petrie’s men guarded and trained at the same time—an efficient but worthless use of manpower. They didn’t take either task seriously. Freeman could have performed jumping jacks with yellow flags tied to his arms without their noticing, but their target practice was equally unimpressive. They missed the target most of the time and made jokes about each other’s accuracy like hunters more interested in drinking beer than killing game.

As he watched them, Freeman spotted sensors along the fence, three hundred yards from the fence and hidden behind trees and rocks. Freeman didn’t need to worry about tripping the sensors, but they would detect him long before he could reach the camp.

From this purchase, he could see deep into the camp. Looking between buildings and down alleyways, he could see both the road that led to the motor pool and the one that led out of the camp.

He climbed back up to the crest of the ridge. Beyond this point, there were semibarren fields, some overgrown with grass, some almost bare. He surveyed the peaks and ridges that ran to the horizon. Escape would be impossible in a land like this, but this mountain terrain also meant a single man could fight a small army.

By this time, Freeman had already scraped together the first elements of his plan. He knew where he would attack and how he would distract the enemy. He still needed to find and identify Petrie. Destroying the entire camp would mean nothing if Petrie survived.

And then, as if by magic, the target presented himself. A flock of men walked into view. Freeman tracked them using the scope from his rifle. He sighted the men at the front of the pack, stooges, big men with big muscles and pistols hanging from shoulder holsters.

Most of the men were thugs, but Freeman spotted a team of natural-born soldiers in their shadows. They wore fatigues, not armor, and carried M27s. Freeman counted five of them. He noted the way they ignored the men around them.

In the center of the herd walked a tall man with brown hair, brown eyes, and an angular, narrow face. He had the confident smile of a man who finds himself the center of attention.
Petrie. Not a dangerous man,
Freeman decided.
Not on his own.
Surrounded by armed friends, anyone would be dangerous.

Freeman recognized the man standing beside Petrie—a short man with blond hair and a snigger instead of a smile. The thugs belonged to Petrie, but the soldiers belonged to the other man. Freeman knew this because he knew the man. It was Franklin Nailor.

By reflex, Freeman pulled his rifle and attached the scope. He tripped the safety, becoming aware of himself only as he wrapped his finger across the trigger. He would not fire, not yet.

Freeman targeted Franklin. He trained the crosshairs a few inches ahead of Nailor’s ear. The bullet in the chamber had a hollowed ballistic point filled with enough explosive gel to split an oak tree. A well-aimed shot might flip a jeep. If he hit Nailor, the only parts of the man not destroyed would be below his navel.

Tracing their path, Freeman spotted the waiting transport in the distance. Nailor’s bird had landed deep in the middle of the camp, in an area protected from snipers.

Freeman ran the calculations automatically. He doubted he could shoot Nailor and escape with his life. Which mattered more to him, preserving his own life or ending Nailor’s?

Freeman didn’t cling to life. Fear didn’t enter his calculations.

What would he accomplish by killing Nailor? That Nailor tortured and killed without remorse did not figure into Freeman’s calculations. His concerns were strategic, not moral. If Nailor died, it would take the Unified Authority a long time to find another sadist of Nailor’s caliber. They would find one, though. Sooner or later, they would find one.

In another five steps, they would pass behind a row of buildings, and Freeman would lose his shot.

He had come to kill Petrie. If he arranged things properly, he thought he might be able to kill Petrie and walk away with his life. Survival played a very small part in his calculations, however; success mattered more.

But Freeman admitted to himself that he wanted to kill Nailor, and allowed that desire to figure into his calculations. Nailor was a bastard. Keeping his scope trained on Nailor’s head, Freeman tracked him as he moved toward the transport. The entourage turned a corner and Freeman lost his bead. Buildings blocked his view. Freeman caught one last momentary glimpse of Nailor as he strode up the ramp of his transport.

Still hidden in his blind, Freeman watched the transport rise into the air. Cradling his rifle against his body, he slipped between the rocks and the trees, hiding himself from the pilot’s view as he watched the transport float into the hazy distance.

He would make his move in the early evening, under the cover of night.

Location: Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
Date: July 23, 2519

“Franklin Nailor was here.”

Watson recognized the name and instinctively his pulse jumped. The specter of Nailor lurked like a ghost in his nightmares—both waking and sleeping.

He asked, “Did you shoot him?”

Freeman said, “No.”

“You should have shot that bastard,” said Watson.

“That’s not what I came for.”

“Who cares why you went. Look, Freeman, if you bent down to pick up a nickel and you saw a hundred-dollar bill, you’d grab it. Speck Petrie; Nailor’s the enemy.”

Freeman said, “Nailor flew here in a transport. I need to know if our satellites tracked the transport and where they first detected it.”

“It had to have come in from space,” said Watson. “The Unifieds have spy ships. They probably broadcasted in a few million miles out, crept up to the atmosphere, and released the transport.”

“That’s one possibility,” said Freeman.

“Do you have another?” asked Watson.

Freeman didn’t answer the question. Instead, he said, “Does Naval Intelligence have tracking data on the gunship that attacked the jail in Oregon?”

“I’m sure they do,” said Watson. “That’s Cardston’s area; I don’t have much to do with it.”

Freeman said, “Have him find out where that gunship first appeared and tell him to keep a watch on the area. Traffic could pick up once I make my move.”

Irritated that Freeman was giving him orders, Watson, the acting president of the Enlisted Man’s Empire, asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Ask Tasman about clone factions,” said Freeman.

He’d asked the question as a sarcastic jab meant to put Freeman in his place, but the jab had gone unnoticed. Now, hating himself for acting like an office assistant, Watson switched on his pad and jotted notes. “Clone factions? Anything else?”

“Yes,” said Freeman. “Once I hit Petrie, things might get hot down here. I’ll make a run for my plane, but I might not make it.”

“I can have Ritz send some Marines,” Watson offered.

“Not yet. I don’t want to draw attention until I make my move.”

“I’ll have him send them to Mazatlán. They’ll be close by, armed and waiting for your call,” said Watson.

“That will work,” said Freeman.

Watson nodded to himself, and repeated his message, “They’ll be ready.”

 • • • 

Watson called Colonel Ritz. He said, “How soon can you get men to the New Olympian Territories?”

“Down to Mars? Depends how many and what you need ’em for.”

Frustrated by Ritz’s attitude, Watson said, “They might need to fight.”

“Fight who?” asked Ritz. “Are we talking Unifieds or Martians?”

“I don’t know,” said Watson. Ritz was beginning to irritate him. The worst part about him was that he seemed to enjoy getting under other people’s skins.

“When you say ‘the Territories,’ which part are we talking about? It’s a big place.”

“Do you have a map in front of you?”

“I do.”

“Why don’t you stage in Mazatlán?”

“Isn’t that where Harris disappeared?”

“Yes,” said Watson.

“Does this have anything to do with Harris?” asked Ritz.

“Indirectly. It has more to do with a man named Ray Freeman.”

“Freeman? I know him,” said Ritz.

“So how quickly can you get men down there?”

“That depends. Do you want me to send a squad, a platoon, or a division?”

“How many men are in a squad?” asked Watson.

“Twelve.”

“Not enough.”

“Next step up is a platoon.”

“How many men is that?”

“That’s three squads plus a few additional hands.”

“More. You’re going to need more men.”

“A company? That’s three platoons.”

“How many men?”

“A hundred men more or less,” said Ritz.

“Anything bigger?”

“I can send a battalion. That’s three companies.”

“Three hundred men?”

“Now see, that depends on their element. I have companies with over five hundred men.”

“How soon can you get a battalion down to the Territories?” asked Watson.

“What kind of battalion are you looking for? I have battalions that specialize in everything from heavy artillery to dental hygiene. It just so happens that the Second Dental Battalion is on alert right here in Camp Lejeune as we speak. If the problem down there is gingivitis, I got the perfect battalion.”

Watson felt himself losing his temper and went silent. He took a deep breath and reined himself in. Speaking in a stiff voice, he said, “I’m not interested in the dental situation of your Marines, Colonel.”

Ritz said, “President, I got recon battalions, tank battalions, armor battalions, and a whole lot of infantry. What is the mission, sir? You tell me what you want us to do, and I’ll tell you who I think we should send.”

“Freeman is about to attack . . .”

“You have a civilian leading a Marine assault?” asked Ritz. “The Second Dental maybe . . .”

“Do you consider Freeman a civilian?” Watson asked. The notion surprised him.

Ritz stopped to consider the question. “Is he attacking a Unified Authority location?”

“New Olympian, but there are . . .”

“You know, sir, them boys in the Second Dental do have combat experience, Mr. Watson.”

“Freeman says the Unifieds are guarding it.”

“There must be a bunch of them if Freeman is calling for backup.”

“What kind of troops would you use?” asked Watson.

“Infantry . . . maybe light armor,” said Ritz, “but I’d hold some tanks and fighters in reserve.”

“Tanks and fighters? Are you serious?” asked Watson.

“Mr. Watson, those bastards nearly beat us on Mars. If we’re really talking about the Unified Authority, we might want a fleet of fighter carriers in ready reserve.”