The Clone Assassin (27 page)

Silence.

His name had vanished from the registry. Almost all the names had. When Marines die in action, their names disappear to show they are inactive. I remembered him running toward the ledge and pulling the rocket-propelled grenade. Was that when he died?

I called to the men who had entered the mine. Speaking on an open frequency, I said, “This deck is secure. Get your asses down here.”

Then I said to Freeman, “You shot me, you piece of shit.”

The cave was dark except for the glow from his rifle scope. Though he could not see anything, Freeman opened his right eye and stared in my direction. His head remained perfectly still as he said, “I wouldn’t have shot you if you’d reacted the first time I shot. Next time, learn to take a hint.”

Location: Washington, D.C.
Date: July 31, 2519

The soldiers in the First Infantry Division of the 3rd Corps proudly wore
THE BIG RED ONE
as their shoulder patch. They also called themselves “The Fighting First.”

On this mission, however, they had become “The
Finding
First.” MacAvoy had assigned them the task of searching the city for Travis Watson. They hadn’t found him so far, but at 03:00, they located an abandoned car in an unlit alley, in a ritzy downtown district called Mount Vernon Square. The vehicle had extensive body damage. Its front end was partially caved in, several of the windows were shattered, and bullet holes dotted the hood.

The make and the model matched a car that Major Alan Cardston had reported as “stolen from the Pentagon parking complex.” The captain commanding the company wanted to call in the information, but MacAvoy was still sludging the airwaves. He hopped in a jeep and drove to the Pentagon, where he met with the full-bird colonel who was running the show at that late hour.

“Any blood in the vehicle?” asked the colonel.

The captain frowned, and said, “Urine.”

“Say again?”

“Urine.”

“I’m in what?”

“Piss, sir. Somebody pissed in the car.”

“No blood, but those bullet holes must mean something. Search the area,” said the officer in charge,

The company commander saluted and left, hating the forty-five minutes he’d just wasted because he could not call in his findings on the horn.
Specking sludging,
he thought as he drove back to Mount Vernon Square.

And so, at 04:23, with the sky dark and the streets empty, First Infantry 3rd Corps started searching Mount Vernon Square.

 • • • 

At 05:03, a squad of First Infantry soldiers began searching a street lined by luxury apartment complexes. The first cars of morning had just appeared as the sky brightened and the streetlamps faded to darkness. Sunrise reflected on the windows of tall buildings. The morning air felt cool against the soldiers’ arms and faces.

Not realizing they had entered enemy territory, the soldiers let their attention slip. They didn’t walk in formation. They left the safeties engaged on their M27s and traded jokes and stories.

Two women jogged toward them. The women were in their twenties and slender, their tops drenched with sweat. When the soldiers stepped into their path and asked them to look at a photograph, the women stopped, examined it, then shook their heads.

Nobody recognized Watson. He had not been elected; he was a military aide promoted to leadership. The soldiers stopped deliverymen, joggers, and commuters. A few people asked who he was.

The soldiers entered a wide avenue with trees and redbrick walkways and expensive tenements that no enlisted man could ever afford. Fancy sedans passed them on the street. They saw a few more joggers. The traffic remained sparse.

Sensing something out of place, the platoon sergeant led his men across a street. He looked up one side of the block and down the other, moving ahead slowly, releasing the safety on his M27, and allowing his left hand to drift to the compartment that held his grenades.

Two sets of storm drains faced each other on opposite sides of the street. Still not seeing anything, but trusting his instincts, the sergeant turned and aimed his M27 at the seemingly empty storm drain and fired a burst. Someone in the seemingly empty storm drain fired back.

A quick burst of shots, three maybe four, and one of the soldiers fell clutching his bloodied knee. The sergeant responded, snatching a grenade and shucking it side-handed toward the storm drain. He yelled, “Fire in the hole!” followed by “Get your asses off the street!”

His men scattering in every direction, the sergeant dragged his fallen soldier to the sidewalk and ducked behind a car.

For a moment, he found himself under fire. Men with rifles fired at him. Bullets riddled the cars around him. His grenade exploded, a loud and percussive clap of thunder that spit smoke out of one storm drain and water from another. A manhole cover flipped askew but remained mostly in place. Screaming, yelling, and wailing echoed from the storm drains.

“Call HQ! Call HQ!” the sergeant shouted as he lowered his wounded soldier to the ground. “We need B Company here rapid, quick, and pronto!”

MacAvoy’s sludging had closed down the airwaves around the Pentagon and southwest suburbs, but interLink communications remained alive and well in the city itself.

The soldier the sergeant had rescued had twin wounds in his right thigh. He lay on his back squirming and groaning, his eyes closed tight against the pain. He cursed quietly, then let out a scream of frustration. “Specking hurts!” he moaned.

The sergeant counted the manholes along the street. Between the street and sidewalks, there were twelve manholes. A block away, there were another twelve from which a pack of U.A. soldiers slowly emerged. The sergeant yelled, “In the buildings. Move! Move!”

 • • • 

Ignoring the injured clone’s screams, the sergeant slung the man over his shoulder a second time. He fired two bursts down the street and loped into the nearest doorway.

“Thompson, get to the top floor. Tell me what you see!

“Martin, call this in! We need support. Tell Battalion Command the Unifieds are in the sewers! Tell them it’s the specking all-naturals.

“You, Galloway, make sure there’s no side entrance into the building. Gopher, Marks, cover the rear door.

“Martin, what do you see?”

A civilian, a chubby woman in a bathrobe and slippers, came shambling down the stairs. She gazed at the sergeant, saw the squirming, bleeding soldier, and screamed.

The sergeant yelled, “Get to your room, ma’am. We’re under attack.”

She showed no sign of hearing the soldier over her shrieks.

Bullets and shards of glass flew in from the front window of the building. One of the soldiers stood, fired his gun, and took a bullet in the forehead. His helmet flew off, so did the top of his head. Blood splashed all over the carpet behind him. He dropped to a knee, then to the ground, his M27 still in his hands.

The woman screamed and ran. The sound of doors slamming rang through the halls.

A U.A. soldier neared the window. Seeing the grenade in his hand, the sergeant sprang from behind the couch he’d been using for cover. He shot the soldier in the arm, chest, and head, and that was how he died, with the grenade still in his hand. When it exploded, the force of the blast caused the front of the building to cave in.

News of this attack did not reach MacAvoy until the following day. By that time, the war had begun.

The destroyer entered the solar system unnoticed, broadcasting in two hundred and fifty million miles away, on the opposite side of the sun.

She had a stealth generator, an experimental prototype that had never been tested in battle, the only one of its kind. As long as she did not fire weapons or send messages, the destroyer would remain invisible. The moment she fired her weapons, the “sleeping clones” would be able to track her, and the fun would begin.

None of the EMN ships detected her as she glided silently into their net.

Invisible to their radar and tracking equipment, she slid into an orbit that placed her directly above Washington, D.C. Working quickly and efficiently, the crew selected their targets—Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, the Archive Building, and the Pentagon. The destroyer was a lone ship in an enemy stronghold; she wouldn’t survive in a battle, so her captain charged her broadcast engine before powering her weapons.

She fired at all three targets simultaneously, then she broadcasted out.

 • • • 

The Unified Authority assault began with instantaneous and successful bombardment.

At 05:30, three missiles struck Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. The first struck the hangars, dissolving them in flames. The second missile hit the fuel supplies, creating a fireball that spiraled three hundred feet in the air. The third missile destroyed the communications building.

The first and third had been unnecessary. The force and heat from the burning fuel killed every man on base and destroyed every building.

In the heart of the capital, a missile struck the Archive Building, eradicating brick and mortar and classified files all at the same time. A security mechanism dropped the few computers that survived that first assault into an underground vault designed to withstand earthquakes. The destroyer hit the ruins with particle-beam cannons, obliterating the vault.

Across the Potomac from Anacostia-Bolling, a single missile struck the Pentagon. MacAvoy caught a glimpse of it as it dropped through the clouds. Standing with a group of junior officers at the outer edge of the parking lot, he glanced up and saw what looked like the finger of God bearing down on humanity, and said, “Shit, now they’ve gone and done it.”

The missile struck the building. It bored into the Pentagon like a bullet to the head, and the building exploded, spraying glass, cement, steel, bits of furniture, wood, and pipe a full half mile in every direction. A whirlwind of dust rose from the wreckage.

The explosion sent a shock wave across the parking lot that flipped cars, trucks, and tanks with the same ease.

 • • • 

MacAvoy rose from the ground and dug a finger into his right ear, which had gone deaf and numb. Rivulets of blood poured down his cheeks and the side of his nose. When he looked at the finger he’d placed in his ear, he saw blood.

The first person he saw was a corporal with a communications insignia. He said, “No point sludging the airwaves now, not anymore.”

The corporal said, “No, sir.”

The bones in the boy’s right shin were badly broken and no longer formed a straight line. One side of that broken line must have punctured the skin; his shoes were covered with blood.

In a soft voice, MacAvoy asked, “You all right, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you need a ride to the dustoff?” The term “dustoff” referred to the medical evacuation center.

The soldier said, “No, sir. No, sir. I belong right here.”

“Good boy,” MacAvoy said, sounding tender. “We’ve been sludging their communications, but I don’t think they’re communicating with much of anybody now. Think you can clear the airwaves, son?”

“Yes, sir,” said the corporal. He hopped to the mobile communications trailer, sat on the stairs, and pulled himself in, his injured leg dangling down the stairs.

“Once you got communications up, report to the dustoff, son. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

MacAvoy watched the corporal with a measure of satisfaction. He walked over to a major who lay squirming on the ground, slapped him hard across the face, and asked, “Son, are you still alive?”

The major blinked and stared up at MacAvoy. Seeing he was conscious, but not necessarily lucid, the general slapped him a second time and said, “Get your ass in that jeep. You hear me, Major?

“There is an injured corporal in that communications nest over there. When that boy comes out, you load him in this jeep, then the two of you report to the nearest hospital. Do you read me, son?”

The fear and confusion in the major’s eyes resolved into recognition and MacAvoy helped him climb to his feet.

A handful of good Samaritans headed to the Pentagon to look for survivors. MacAvoy caught their attention by firing a machine gun at their feet. He walked over, bawling, “Which specking, shit-for-brains fool officer gave you permission to approach my building?”

“Sir? We just . . .”

MacAvoy pointed his machine gun at the soldier to shut him up. He said, “You, Private, take that jeep and drive around the building.” The soldier ran to the jeep and hopped behind the wheel. He was a lieutenant, not a private, and he hoped he could keep his commission.

MacAvoy said, “Private, you take a lap around the building. If you see any more morons trying to enter the building, you stop ’em. Yell at ’em to stop. If they don’t stop, shoot ’em.

“You see any converts trying to get out, you shoot them, too. Do you read me, son?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to the officers who had been walking with the lieutenant, and said, “You boys follow the private. If you see him do anything stupid, you shoot him. You got that?”

He sent the men to a truck with only half a salute.

The soldiers stumbled over to a jeep that lay on its side. Watching them, MacAvoy muttered, “Damn, son, did you lose your brains or your testicles?” Raising his voice, he shouted, “What’s the matter with you boys! That jeep ain’t going nowhere. Take that truck over there!” He pointed at a troop carrier that had remained on its wheels.

Watching the truck drive away, MacAvoy muttered, “We need a better class of clone.”

An aide carrying a mobile communications rig ran over to MacAvoy. He said, “General, reports are coming in. They hit Bolling.”

“No shit, son! I can see the smoke from here,” said MacAvoy. He pointed south and east. Three miles away and across the Potomac, the joint base wasn’t visible from the parking lot of the Pentagon.

The missile attack on the Pentagon had been clean, sending up dust and a winding plume of white smoke. The hit on Bolling had been another story. Thick ropes of black smoke rose into the air, forming a knot that looked like a storm cloud. A veteran of many battles, MacAvoy read the smoke and knew it came from burning fuel. He asked, “What’s the damage?”

The aide, a lieutenant, hadn’t noticed the smoke until MacAvoy pointed to it. He stood staring, hypnotized.

“Son! Son, I need you to stay with me here,” said MacAvoy, his patience thinning. “What . . . is . . . the . . . specking . . . damage . . . at . . . Bolling?”

“Third Corps sent in the cavalry to investigate.”

“What . . . did . . . we . . . lose?” MacAvoy shouted, his patience worn out.

“Everything, sir.”

“Everything? What the specking hell is that supposed to mean! Bolling is a big base. It’s got jets. It’s got helicopters. It’s got a post exchange and more latrines than a beer factory. Bolling Field has its own specking shit-treatment facility, son. Now, you get on the squawk and tell me which of those things are missing.”

The lieutenant turned white as MacAvoy berated him. He gulped in air, nodded, and said, “General, they’ve all been destroyed. The base is a total loss.”

“That so?” asked MacAvoy, suddenly sounding contrite.

The lieutenant knew better than to answer.

MacAvoy said, “Lieutenant, see if you can reach Admiral Hauser on the
Churchill
.” He knew already that communications with the fleet had been disrupted, but he had the lieutenant try just the same. The Pentagon and Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling housed all the equipment for signaling space in the area. That equipment no longer existed.

A moment later, when the lieutenant said communications were down, MacAvoy told him, “Son, find a way to reach Hauser. I don’t care if you have to run a kite string all the way to his ship, find a way to reach Hauser and inform him of the attack.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant answered, sounding confused.

MacAvoy said, “That will be all,” and turned to walk away. He pretended not to notice when the lieutenant saluted.

MacAvoy went to one of his colonels, and said, “Get on the horn. Tell every last soldier in Third Corps to be on alert, Colonel. You let them know we are under attack.”

“Do you want me to call them in, sir?” asked the colonel.

MacAvoy didn’t mind giving orders, but he didn’t like discussing them. He said, “Colonel, pick up your gun and report to the farthest security post you can find from here.”

“Yes, sir,” the colonel said, and he ran, glad to escape with his life. MacAvoy’s tirades were legend among his men.

The general pointed to the next closest officer, and said, “You, get over here. Yes, I mean you. Do we really need this discussion? If my nose is pointed at you and my eyes are staring at you, who the speck would I be talking to except for you, Major?”

He pointed to the mobile communications center, and said, “Major, do you know how to use the horn?”

“No, sir.”

“How hard can it be? I’ve seen privates do this fresh out of basic. Listen here, you walk right up to the console and you find the button marked ‘
speak
,’ then you put your face in front of the screen and talk. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well hallelujah, son, the age of miracles has not ceased. Now listen up. You get on that horn and you tell every officer in Third Corps that we are under attack.”

“Yes, sir. Do you mean the attack here at the Pentagon, sir?”

“SPECK! Listen to me, son. If you’re too damn stupid to grasp this, I may just shoot you to put you out of my misery. Ah, shit, never mind. Get out of my way.”

MacAvoy pushed past the major and entered his mobile communications center—an armored trailer covered with an array of antennae. He stomped up the stairs, shoved the hobbled corporal with the broken leg out of the chair, and spoke into the screen. He said, “Third Corps, dig in, prepare for attack. That’ll be all.”

Looking back at no one in particular, he asked, “Now how specking hard was that?”

 • • • 

Later that afternoon, MacAvoy held a conference that reached every military base on the planet. As officers started to appear on the screen, he said, “This is General Pernell MacAvoy. If you have any questions, keep ’em to yourself.

“I’m in Washington, D.C., with Third Corps, and we are under attack. I want men. I want machinery. I want every specking base in this man’s Army placed on alert.

“You, General Glover, relay my situation to Admiral Hauser. You got that? Tell him Third Corps is under attack . . .
Under attack
, you got that? Good. While you’re at it, ask him, ‘Who the speck shot at us?’ and ‘How’d they get through his specked-up excuse of a blockade?’

“I don’t know what the U.A.’s got planned for us, but it’s going to be big.”