The Clone Assassin (18 page)

Pugh might not have been forthright when I asked about Freeman, but he rose to the occasion when I asked about getting home. He had a couple of lackeys drive me out to the airport at the edge of town, where I found 460 Marines and six transports.

My Marines had built a twenty-foot fence surrounding the airfield. Six Marines in combat armor met our sedan as we approached the gate. They pointed M27s at our windows and told us to get out.

As I climbed out of the car, I looked through the fence and saw three Jackals—particularly agile jeeps with armored turrets and stealth technology for confusing radars and missiles. The Marines manning those turrets had their guns trained on us. Something had happened while I was away.

One of the guards pointed his M27 at the guy next to me, and asked, “What business do you have here?”

I asked, “What’s your name and rank, Marine?”

He answered out of reflex. “Shek, Arthur, Corporal, sir.” The “sir” didn’t necessarily mean that he recognized me.

I said, “Corporal Arthur Shek . . . good to meet you. Who is in charge of this operation?”

He said, “Colonel Ritz.”

“Colonel Ritz,” I said. Ritz and I were old friends. I promoted him to colonel. “Okay, Corporal Shek, why don’t you place a call to Colonel Ritz and tell him that Lieutenant General Wayson Harris is here to see him.”

Shek was wearing armor, Marine armor; that meant he had an interLink connection. The interLink was a local communications network that connected Marines in combat armor. As the man in charge, Ritz wouldn’t only have an interLink connection, he’d have a commandLink that would enable him to look through his men’s visors and listen in on their conversation.

Now that I had identified myself, I had no doubt that Ritz was watching me at that very moment.

Shek said, “Colonel Ritz would like to speak with you.”

“That’s convenient. I would like to speak with him,” I said.

“Sir, you are cleared. He wants the car to return to town immediately.”

“You okay with that?” I asked my driver.

The men shrugged and climbed back in their car. Without a handshake or a good-bye, they drove off without me.

It was a warm day and a particularly bright one. My mouth was dry. Four of the sentries fell in around me as I passed through the gate. I stopped to watch the car back up. It rumbled onto the road and sped away.

Until Ritz or another senior officer cleared me, these clones wouldn’t see me as a superior officer. At this point, I was simply an intruder.

They all wore the dark green camouflaged armor of the Marines. The armor was very light, a full suit weighing about ten pounds. It wasn’t bulletproof or shrapnel-proof, but I couldn’t punch through it. It offered that much protection. Its chief virtue was that it was light, and it didn’t slow your movement. Heat waves rose up on the runway ahead of us, making it look like a puddle had settled on the tarmac, but that wasn’t possible. Six transports sat on the runway.

I had a low-grade headache. A week and a half had passed since I had last stood out in the sun. I didn’t have sunglasses, and the glare hurt my eyes. As I said before, my mouth was dry.

Five more Marines came to join us, four of them wearing complete armor, helmet and all. The fifth had removed his helmet. His face should have been identical to that of any of any other clone, but I recognized him. I always recognized my friends.

Stopping about fifteen feet from me, he said, “I just received orders to shoot you on sight.”

This was Lieutenant Colonel Hunter Ritz. If he’d been meaning to shoot me, he would have done it already. He generally shot first and didn’t bother with the questions.

“Who issued those orders?” I asked.

“They came from the top,” he said.

“What are the charges?” I asked.

Ritz considered the question. He said, “Orders don’t generally come with explanations, sir.”

“So you have orders to shoot me on sight, but no charges?” I asked. “Are they from Cutter?” I asked.

“Admiral Cutter? He’s not exactly issuing orders these days. These orders came from the Pentagon.”

“The Pentagon is a big place,” I said. “Anyone in particular?”

“Come to think of it, I didn’t see any names. Maybe I should ask about that when I head back. I have a meeting there tomorrow morning.”

We stood there a moment longer, Ritz sizing me up, four armed and armored men standing behind him, four more surrounding me. He said, “I came here looking for Ray Freeman. Do you know where he is?”

“He came here looking for me, and you came here looking for him,” I said. “And now you have orders to shoot me. I don’t suppose you have orders to shoot him as well?”

“Nope.”

I said, “That’s ‘No, sir.’”

Ritz’s crooked smile started on one corner of his mouth and worked its way to the other. He said, “General Harris, sir, it’s a specking pleasure to have you back. We have a lot to talk about.”

Then he turned to his posse, and said, “That will be all.” Then he added, “Get this man some armor, some bullets, and some MREs. He looks like he could use a bad meal.”

 • • • 

According to Ritz, the acting commandant of the Marines, the world had changed in my absence. Never realizing that the promotion would place him in line to command the Corps, I had promoted Ritz to lieutenant colonel. He was smart and resourceful, a good leader in battle, but he didn’t have a reverent bone in his body.

If I’d been thinking, I would have made him a general a long time ago. Hell, I should have given him all three of my stars.

We sat alone in the kettle of a transport—the cargo area. Transports were winged warehouses with badly clipped wings at that. They had a cathedral-like cargo hold called a kettle—“kettle” because it was all metal except for the wooden bench that ran along its outer walls. The kettle had no windows and no comforts, just harnesses for standing passengers, a wooden bench, and a head so small that men in combat armor could not use it.

I sat on the bench. Ritz stood.

Like the old-fashioned teakettles from which these holds took their name, they were dark as a cave on the inside. It was broad daylight outside. There were plenty of lights in the cockpit. In the kettle, there were red lights for night operations but no white lights.

The rear hatch was open. A blade of light shone on the gray metal wall.

I said, “Freeman is supposed to be here, somewhere. He came looking for me.”

“Yeah, I came down here looking for him. Last I heard, he was going to kick some anthill filled with Martian gangsters, then the Unifieds showed up.” Ritz used more derisive names than any other Marine I ever knew. He referred to the New Olympians as “Martians.” Other Marines referred to reprogrammed Marines as “converts.” He called them “Repromen.”

“Did Admiral Cutter send him?” I asked.

“General, sir, a lot has happened over the last two weeks.”

“What kinds of things?” I asked.

“Classified things,” said Ritz.

“Such as?”

Ritz looked around the kettle as if checking for eavesdroppers. There were none, of course. He stared down the deck and out the hatch. “Cutter is dead. He was assassinated the same day they hit you.

“And they didn’t stop with you and Cutter. They attacked the Pentagon and some prison called Sheridan.”

I’d heard of Sheridan and knew who’d been held there. A sinking feeling in my gut, I asked, “Who’s running the empire?”

“Travis Watson. He’s temporary. Once Hauser and MacAvoy see that you’re still around, I bet Watson’s back to playing secretary.”

“Watson running the clone empire,” I said. “We live in an age of wonders.”

Watson running the Enlisted Man’s Empire,
I thought. I liked the sound of it.

“He’s an interim leader, I assume,” I said.

Ritz nodded.

“Isn’t Tom Hauser next in line?” I asked.

“Actually, General MacAvoy was next in line. He didn’t want it.”

“What about Hauser?” I asked.

“Same.”

“With me out of the way, weren’t you . . .”

“You don’t really consider me a good candidate to rule the world?

“Watson was MacAvoy’s idea. He wanted a political figurehead, somebody more acceptable for the natural-borns. Now that you’re back, I guess you’re king. That ought to give the natural-borns a boner.”

“Thanks,” I said. I had always ducked when people talked about
playing king
. I didn’t like commanding troops, and I really dislike politics, especially politics involving civilians. I said, “I think I prefer the standing arrangement.”

Ritz said, “It may not be standing much longer.”

I was about to ask about the attack on the Pentagon, but his last comment placed that on hold. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Watson is missing.”

“Missing?” I asked. “Missing like I was missing?”

“That remains to be seen. He could be dead, he could be in hiding, or maybe he just needs a new phone,” said Ritz. “I can’t reach him.”

“But he called a summit?” I asked.

“Yeah. Cardston called us in, but he said it was Watson’s idea.”

“Alan Cardston? Last time I checked, he was still a major.” Okay, when it came to chain of command, the Enlisted Man’s Empire was no more predictable than a well-shuffled deck of cards. The ranks were filled by clones who’d been programmed to take orders, not give them. Some clones rose to the challenge, most fell far short of the mark.

“It’s Watson’s show,” said Ritz. “Cardston is just sending out the invitations.”

“So Cardston is in communication with Watson?” I asked.

“That’s what he says.”

“Have you asked him to put you through to Watson?” I asked.

“I have. He says Watson isn’t available.”

“Has he said why?”

Ritz shook his head. He said, “I’ve tried calling Watson on his private line, too. No one answers.”

“That summit has a bad smell about it,” I said.

I thought about calling Emily Hughes, Watson’s financée. If he was in trouble, she’d know about it. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t. What if someone called Sunny to ask about me? I hoped that they didn’t call Sunny. What a speck-up that would be.

I said, “I don’t suppose you can reach Hauser from here.”

“No, sir,” said Ritz.

I hadn’t thought he would have that ability. Transports sometimes came equipped for planetwide communications—if the signal could tap into a satellite network, that is.

Back in the day, the Unified Authority had three fleets in every arm of the galaxy—some of them a full hundred thousand light-years away. The Unifieds also had a working broadcast system that enabled instantaneous communications and travel. Using the network, I could communicate with officers on the other side of the Milky Way as easily as I could speak to people in the room next to me.

Now, all our ships patrolled between Earth and Mars, few of them ever straying farther than eighty million miles from home, but communications moved at the speed of a game of chess. It took several minutes for messages to cross the chasm from Earth to Mars. I would speak my piece, wait five to ten minutes, then the person on the other end would hear it and answer, and his answer would take five to ten minutes to reach me.

Watson missing, Freeman lost somewhere in the Territories, Cardston calling a summit on behalf of the missing president, a prison escape at Sheridan, and Cutter murdered . . . I realized that I had left an important piece out of the mix: Three clones had tried to kill me.

“So we can’t reach Hauser, but we can sure as speck chat with MacAvoy,” I said.

“I’ve called him,” said Ritz.

That was Ritz, a competent officer who didn’t care whether or not people credited him for his competence. He was glad to be an officer, but he hadn’t kissed any asses to arrange the promotion.

“What does he think about all of this?”

“He thinks the summit is a trap, but he says the only way to expose the trap is to step into it. You know MacAvoy—doesn’t bust his hump looking for alternatives.”

I’d seen the way MacAvoy ran his troops. He didn’t bust his hump looking for alternatives in battle, either. He was a “run ’em up their asses” type of officer whose columns marched straight and true.

MacAvoy was stationed at Fort Benning, our largest operational Army base, a site that would certainly have the equipment we needed to reach Admiral Hauser.

I wanted to find Freeman, but that would need to wait. The first thing on my agenda was holding a summit of my own.

Location: Guanajuato, New Olympian Territories
Date: July 27, 2519

The men tracking Freeman had sealed their own fate when they brought the dogs.

Twelve men with five dogs had followed Freeman into the valley. They hiked slowly, methodically, the dogs smelling for clues, the men looking for footprints. Watching them through the scope of his rifle, Freeman decided they were better trackers than hunters.

The Unifieds had sent a gunship as well, and that was the problem. Freeman could pick off the tracking team easily enough, but then the gunship would come. At this point, the Unifieds weren’t sure which route Freeman had taken. They’d sent ground teams across three different ridges; who knew how far and wide the gunship had searched.

Once Freeman shot the dogs and their handlers, the Unifieds would know his route. Shooting the dogs would buy him a little time, but it was a fool’s trade. That gunship would follow him like a cat shadowing a mouse.

There would be caves in the bare rock ledges ahead, though, places in which a man could hide from gunships. Even killing the dogs and escaping the gunship might not be enough. Given another two days, water would become a problem. Freeman could go days without food. He might get lucky and catch a snake, a rat, or a rabbit. If he found the right cave, he could build a fire and cook any dogs the Unifieds sent in after him. He’d wind up killing the dogs either way, it seemed a shame to waste their meat on coyotes.

The late-afternoon sun hung low and bright. The air was warm and thin. Freeman found himself breathing heavily, taking in mouthfuls of air instead of breathing through his nose. He knelt on the rocky soil, hiding behind thin brush.

He sensed something and lowered his rifle. A scorpion scuttled across the ground, its pincers up and its tail curled. Not knowing if the creature was posturing or ready to attack, he pulled his knife from his knee scabbard and slashed it in half with a motion so smooth that the scorpion reacted only in death, its tail lashing at empty air.

Guessing how long he had before nightfall, Freeman thought maybe four hours. Four hours to find a cave and hide. If he located it quickly, he’d have time enough to strike. He was two miles ahead of the hunting party. He could hit them from this distance, but he’d waste a lot of shots. He’d hit the first target, that would be the gimme. After that, one in three shots at best.

They wouldn’t spot him from this distance, though. He was well out of the range of their heat vision. The sun was behind him, shining down on them. He didn’t need to worry about light reflecting off the lens of his scope.

He watched the hounds loping and pulling, straining against the electronic leashes that kept them within a one-hundred-foot orbit of their handlers. The handlers should have trusted them more. Even if they gave the dogs free rein, they could have summoned them back using the impulses in their collars.

Freeman could see that the dogs had picked up his scent. He had walked and slept on rock shelves when possible and had left few footprints and no trash behind. The dogs still found him.

Freeman carried his rifle strapped to his back. He stood, chose a path that would leave minimal prints and evidence, and continued along the ridge. In two hours, he would reach the rock wall and hunt for caves.

He had to be careful. Freeman was no naturalist, but he’d had some training. He knew that bats lived in caves, a dangerous situation. He knew about coyotes and that some snakes slept in caves during the day to avoid the heated ground.

He climbed higher, finding it harder and harder to breathe as he went. The men in the hunting party would have the same problem. The dogs might, too, but they’d be too excited to notice.

Freeman hated dogs. He admired their ability to track, but he’d always preferred robot trackers.

A rock slid from under Freeman’s foot. He started to fall but caught himself, twisting his ankle in the process. For a moment, just a moment, he thought he’d dodged a bullet, then he felt the familiar ache around the top of his foot. The sprain didn’t hurt, but the ankle would seize during the night.

The cliffs hadn’t moved, but now they were farther just the same. He glanced back down the ridge, but without his scope, he couldn’t find the party. Freeman moved on.

He smelled the air as he breathed it, searching for smoke and fumes. He listened for the wind to carry sounds, the thud of helicopter rotors, the rumble of gunfire, even the shriek of a hawk. Two miles back, the dogs probably yapped and whined, but he couldn’t hear them.

He pushed ahead, less mobile now. He stepped on the twisted right foot, placed weight on it, testing the joint. It wasn’t a sharp pain yet, but soon the foot would swell. He stepped quickly, shifting his weight to his left foot, leaving a blurred footprint in his wake. Knowing he no longer had the ability to cover his tracks, he moved on.

The sun slipped lower in the sky. To the east, hidden by the mountains, the sky had turned red. Darkness would follow.

Freeman had goggles that let him see in the dark. Night would favor Freeman.

Two more hours passed before he reached the stone wall that rose out of the ridge. The ground was rocky here, and lifeless. There were no plants, not even brush.

The side of the peak was rough and covered with indentations but no caves. Freeman moved on, stepping with his left foot, planting his right and rolling over it, aware that his breathing had become labored. His ankle hurt. When he stood, he placed his weight on his left foot and balanced with the ball of his right.

Somewhere below him, hidden by the mountain, the hunting party would stop for the night. Freeman wondered if they had found his footprints. If so, he hoped they didn’t report them. He didn’t know how he could deal with that gunship.

He needed to find a place to hide. Peering through the scope on his rifle, he counted the heads in the hunting party. Twelve men. Five dogs. He might be able pick them off as they climbed the next steep ridge, but then the gunship would follow.
How fast?
he wondered.
How fast could it get here?

Freeman found a five-foot-deep alcove in the side of the wall. He crawled into it and unslung his backpack. He fumbled through until he found his water bottle, and then he took three deep pulls from the water in slow succession. He drank, held the water in his mouth until his throat absorbed it, then took another, and, finally, a third.

He would not remove his boot that night. If he did, he would not be able to put it on again in the morning.