The Clone Assassin (35 page)

It was already late in the evening, and, of course, no light shone from the remains of the Pentagon. Those ruins were the opposite of light; they were a black hole, a vortex attempting to ingest the flatlands around them. Streetlamps still shone around the vast parking lot, casting tiny islands of light in a black sea.

As I approached the rear of the transport, two men met me. Both were clones, but I recognized them both.

We traded salutes.

“Lieutenant Nobles,” I said, “if you’re my pilot, this ride could be dangerous.”

Nobles said, “It can’t be worse than the time you had me dodging three battleships in an outer-space graveyard.”

“I don’t know; you’re taking me to meet with an admiral.”

“Am I meeting with the admiral as well?” asked Nobles.

“Nope.”

He smiled, and said, “Sounds like a safe flight to me, sir.” We traded salutes, and he left for the cockpit.

The second man was General Hunter Ritz. He asked, “You always fly with that boy, don’t you.”

I said, “More often than not.”

Ritz looked more regulation than usual. His uniform was pressed, the gigs on his blouse formed ruler-straight rows, and his shoes reflected the dim light that trailed out of the transport.

I said, “You know, you look a lot like an officer I used to know named Ritz, but he never dressed as natty as you.”

Ritz said, “The way I hear it, I may be running the show any day now, Harris.”

I chose to play innocent. I said, “I’m not sure what you mean, General.”

He said, “Admiral Hauser told me you wanted locations for underwater cities.”

We started up the ramp, and Ritz hit the button to close the doors behind us. The motor that moved those heavy iron doors made a loud, grinding noise.

“Sounds like a tall tale,” I said.

“Is he down there, sir? Is that where Nailor is hiding? Are you going after him?” asked Ritz. He was the only person who could have known what I had in mind. I’d told him about Nailor on Mars, and the name came up again when I finally made it out of that specking mine. He’d been with me, too, when Pugh showed me the SCUBA gear. Ritz had put it all together. I hoped he didn’t share his theory with Tom Hauser.

Caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I saw no point to playing innocent any longer. I said, “Something like that.”

“Admiral Hauser doesn’t know about Nailor, but he knows you’re after someone.”

He’d told MacAvoy, too.
Who needs an entourage when I have a public affairs officer like Hauser telling everyone my plans?
I asked myself. My irritation must have shown.

Ritz said, “I did some digging around, and I’ve got good news and bad news for you, Harris. The good news is that Navy Intelligence knows which Cousteau city Nailor is hiding in. The bad news is that Hauser knows I was dicking around with his spooks.”

I kept my expression even as my insides went black.

“I hope you boys are strapped in,” Nobles yelled from the cockpit. “We’re going wheels up.”

Normally, I flew in the cockpit with Nobles. This time, feeling like I had just been kicked in the balls, I remained in the kettle with Ritz. I sat on the bench and looked around the shadowy cabin. I admitted something to myself as I sat there, I admitted that I didn’t want to go to break into a Cousteau city. I had hoped that I would find Nailor in Washington, D.C., maybe even in Sunny’s building.

“One of the undersea cities?” I asked. Suddenly, I saw the reality of going down to those cities. I had to face the reality that I would go to the bottom of the ocean, to the dark heart of the universe I most feared.

Ritz nodded. “Hauser’s boys tracked him down. He knows that I asked his boys for information about Nailor, and he’s got a pretty good idea why you want to kill him.”

“Now that’s bad news,” I said.

“What are you going to tell Hauser?” asked Ritz.

“I’ll make a deal with him,” I said. “I’ll offer him intelligence in exchange for Nailor’s head.”

“How are you going to get down there? Hauser told me he doesn’t have any submarines.”

“Yeah, I thought about that,” I said. “I have a pretty good idea where I can find one.”

“You know, Harris, maybe we can hit the cities with a bomb. It would be just like hitting a ship, right? You can’t survive in space; you can’t survive underwater. Destroy the city, and everyone inside it dies.

“I don’t see why you need to go down after him.”

From a logical standpoint, he was right, of course. I could not think of a single good reason for me to go, but I had some very compelling bad ones. I wanted revenge. I wanted to see the man die, to make sure he died, to know how he had died, and to know that I had done it myself.

As a Marine, I had thousands of enemies and no enemies at all. We were at war with the Unified Authority, making every U.A. sailor, soldier, and Marine my foe. But if the war ended tomorrow, I would never give those sailors, soldiers, and Marines a second thought. They weren’t really my enemies, just citizens of an enemy state.

That wasn’t the case with Nailor.

I started to make up excuses about gathering intelligence, but they were hollow, and Ritz would have seen through them. He knew the same truth I did.

Rather then apologize or make more excuses, I saluted Ritz myself and went to the cockpit to visit with Christian Nobles. He seemed glad enough to see me, and he didn’t ask any questions that made me choose between duty and revenge.

He asked, “Do you ever think about retiring?”

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you feeling old?”

He said, “Not old, just tired. Sometimes I think I’d like to start another life.”

Location: The EMN
Churchill
, orbiting Earth
Date: August 7, 2519

“Kill the head, and the body dies, too,” I said.

Hauser listened and smiled. He said, “Isn’t that backward? I always thought the saying went, ‘Kill the body, and the head will die.’”

We sat in his office on the
Churchill
. This space had belonged to the late Don Cutter before Hauser inherited it. This was the room in which Cutter had died. I remembered the way Cutter had organized this room; I’d spent a good deal of time in here. Hauser had changed some things around. He’d brought in a newer desk, a different chair, and placed new bookshelves along the wall behind the desk. Nothing else seemed to have changed.

I remembered hearing that the man who killed Cutter had shot him while he sat at his desk. I scanned the distance from the hatch to the desk—twelve feet, maybe, fairly close range—and hit with a shotgun. Perhaps the changes in interior decoration had more to do with necessity than taste. Cutter’s desk and everything behind it must have been shredded and covered with blood.

I said, “It works both ways. When was the last time you saw a body walking around without a head?”

“What about MacAvoy?” asked Hauser.

“He has a head.”

“Yes, I suppose it’s just his brain that’s missing.”

“You might want to give him a little credit,” I said. “He’s doing a hell of a job defending Washington, D.C. The Unifieds don’t know what to do with him.”

“Maybe so,” said Hauser, reluctantly conceding the point. He didn’t like MacAvoy, but he didn’t have a good reason for disliking him. I wondered if Hauser ever questioned himself about being a snob.

He said, “This guy, Nailor, he was the one who shot you on Mars. Ritz says you ran into him in the Territories.”

“He killed a lot of my men there,” I said.

“Yes. Yes, that’s what Ritz said as well. Look, Harris, you can’t turn this into your own personal war. That’s not a good course, not for you or the Enlisted Man’s Empire.

“I hear you’re a reading man, Harris. Have you ever read
Moby-Dick
?”

I’d read the novel, but I didn’t feel like giving Hauser the satisfaction. I didn’t answer the question.

He said, “Your job, General, is to win the war, not kill your own personal white whale.”

I left my seat and walked over to the desk. I stood over Hauser, not intentionally menacing him, but I communicated a certain amount of threat simply by standing so close. I said, “If you think I’m getting in the way, I’m happy to resign my commission, Admiral. I can do this on my own.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he said, then he thought about my offer, and asked, “Would you really resign your commission over a vendetta?”

“Hell, I’ve been ready to give up my commission since day one. I didn’t want to be a sergeant when they made me a sergeant. I didn’t want to be an officer when they bumped me to lieutenant. I hate this officer shit. I wasn’t designed for it.

“Killing Nailor, that’s another story. I’d cut off my hands and my nuts for a shot at that bastard.”

Hauser gave me a malicious smile as he asked, “Your hands and your nuts? You wouldn’t be much of a Marine . . . Oh well, lose one set, and I suppose the other’s worthless.”

“You think I’m joking?” I asked.

Calm, even though I had raised my voice, Hauser said, “No. I know you’re serious. You’re also narcissistic and vindictive. I know, he shot you on Mars, then he buried you in the Territories. He’s going to die if we sink those cities, General. I question the wisdom of committing so much effort to killing a single individual.”

“It depends on the individual,” I said.

“The Enlisted Man’s Empire needs you, Harris, and you’re talking about retirement and personal vendettas. I find that pretty sad. Maybe all those clones have overestimated you.”

I said, “Once I settle things with Nailor, I’ll get back to work.”

“Do you think so?” asked Hauser.

“Look, Admiral, I need to get him out of my system. Once I kill the bastard, I’ll have my head on straight.”

“Do you think so?” Hauser repeated in the exact same tone of voice.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“About Franklin Nailor? He isn’t worth this much effort. If that was Tobias Andropov down there, well, to capture the former head of the Linear Committee I’d be willing to do whatever it took. For Nailor? I wouldn’t hijack a submarine and dive to the bottom of the sea for a high-profile thug like him.”

“Andropov’s never shot me,” I muttered.

“Harris, this fight has become personal to you. It’s clouding your judgment. What do you really know about Nailor?”

I said, “I’ve read his file. He’s not a military man. He worked for the U.A.I.A.”

That was the Unified Authority Intelligence Agency. He was a spook, not a soldier.

“Do you know what he did at the agency?” asked Hauser.

I didn’t. All of his records had been deleted.

Hauser said, “He might have been a janitor for all we know.”

“What do you want to bet he did interrogations?” I asked.

“Maybe so. That would make him a bastard, but it also leaves him low in the chain of command,” Hauser pointed out. “I’m not ready to commit my fleet to settle your vendetta. You may not have noticed, General Harris, but we have a full-blown war on our hands, one I’m not convinced we’re winning.

“They marched right up to Sheridan and took back their war criminals. They killed our highest-ranking officer. They took over the Pentagon, and when we tried to stop them, they blew it up.”

Hauser and I glared at each other, neither of us willing to give the other what he wanted. I wanted an assassination; he wanted me to turn the other cheek.

“You know, I always heard that there were only three underwater cities; turns out there are eleven of them.” Hauser fiddled with a couple of buttons on his desktop, bringing up a three-dimensional globe with red dots marking the eleven locations. He said, “Now that we know where they’re hiding and how they’re communicating, we’ve been able to intercept their messages. That’s how we know that Nailor is here, he’s in this city,” Hauser said as he pointed to a city near the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. “The water around that city is several miles deep. Do you have a submarine that can take you down that far?”

“No,” I admitted. “I know where I can get one.”

“Really?” asked Hauser.

I nodded. “They have everything I need right here,” I said, giving the globe a controlled spin and pointing to another dot on the map, one in the Pacific Ocean, about an inch off the shores of the New Olympian Territories.

Hauser said, “Unless I am mistaken, that is another underwater city, which means that it is also on the bottom of the ocean. How do you plan to get to it?”

I said, “Ah, now, that’s the beautiful thing. We don’t need to go down to that city. They’ll send their submarines up to us.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Hauser.

I said, “Because we’re going to drop some bombs on their doorstep. They’re either going to need to surface or go down with their ship.” Trying to lighten the mood, I said, “Think of it as
drowntown
, instead of
downtown
.

He didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile. He said, “So you plan on dropping bombs to force them to the surface. What’s going to prevent them from sending a distress signal? What’s stopping them from warning all the other cities?

“Right now we have an advantage. We know where they are, and they don’t know we know it. We have the element of surprise on our side.”

When I pressed my finger to the red dot, the name of the city appeared. I looked at it, recognized it as gibberish, and tried to ignore it. I said, “This city is unique. This is the one Cousteau city that won’t warn the others. This one is at war with everybody else.”

Hauser looked at the dot, then looked at the name and sounded it out. A dubious expression on his face, he said, “What’s so special about Quetzalcoatl?”

“Is that how you pronounce it?” I asked. He spoke French. Maybe “Quetzalcoatl” was a French word.

“General Harris, you were about to explain to me why the people in that city won’t warn the other cities when we attack.”

I said, “Because the people in Ketsaalcoddle . . . in that city are no longer affiliated with the Unified Authority. The people in that city are reprogrammed clones.”

 • • • 

The man who had assassinated Admiral Cutter stood five feet ten inches tall. He had brown hair and brown eyes, but he wasn’t a clone. He looked like a clone at first glance, and he blended in with the crowd on the
Churchill
, but he had been a natural-born, as was Lenny Herman, the man who blew himself up in the Pentagon.

The men who attacked Sheridan were natural-borns as well. We didn’t have any blood samples because the guards had not so much as nicked a single one of them, but we had the security feed. The men who entered the penitentiary were Unified Authority Marines in glowing orange uniforms. Ritz called them “glowboys.” A lot of officers did.

The Marines that went after Freeman in the New Olympian Territories had been U.A. Marines as well.

In every attack, the assailants were natural-borns, but there was one exception—the men who came after me. They were clones; we had the corpses to prove it.

While confessing his many sins, Brandon Pugh told me that the clones who had come to kill me were looking for an alliance. Nailor and his friends had formed an alliance with Ryan Petrie and his mountain tribe, so Pugh and his gang looked for friends in the sea. They turned to clones, clones who wanted to fight both us and the Unified Authority.

The Unifieds had converted our clones, but, apparently they hadn’t been able to keep them in the fold. Travis Watson wasn’t the only natural-born working at the Pentagon, maybe not even the most important; Howard Tasman worked in the big black cube as well. MacAvoy’s intelligence group said that he had probably escaped with Watson. I hoped he did. I wanted to ask him how converted clones could have turned on the Unified Authority.

I explained what little I knew to Hauser. I pointed out that the attacks on the Pentagon, Sheridan Penitentiary, and Cutter were all carried out by natural-borns. I finished by saying, “The clones who attacked me entered the hotel five minutes after the other attacks. They were five minutes late.”

“Maybe they ran into traffic,” Hauser joked.

“I think they knew that the other attacks were coming. I think they waited to make sure the Unified Authority was committed, and only then did they make their move.”

“But you don’t know anything,” said Hauser.

“I know that all of the other attacks were carried out by natural-borns,” I said, then added, “and that the Unifieds typically dump their dirty jobs on clones. If their clone-recruiting efforts were going so well, why didn’t they send clones to attack Sheridan? Ketzu . . . Ketzaqual . . . this city is the closest Cousteau city to the penitentiary, so why not send clones?”

“It’s a theory. It sounds good, but it’s still a theory,” Hauser said. His words were skeptical, but I could tell by his expression and the tone of his voice that he wanted me to make the sell.

“Fair enough,” I said, “It’s a theory, and let’s put it to the test. If I’m right, we capture an underwater city, a fleet of submarines, and we might just find a way to rehabilitate several thousand reprogrammed clones. If I’m wrong, what do we lose?”

Hauser said, “We lose the element of surprise.”

I said, “Now weigh that against what we get if I’m right about this. We get submarines. If we can take Kezukotal in one piece, we might recover some significant intelligence. Hell, we might learn enough to win the war.”

Hauser said, “I’ll make a deal with you, Harris. You want to go down for an assassination; that seems like an unnecessary risk to me. Add an intelligence angle to your operation, and I’m in.”