Fire With Fire

Meyerson was coiled to go, Caine-for once-ready to follow his lead, when Little Guy’s hand came down on his left bicep. “No, we wait for the signal.”

“Which is?”

But Little Guy was watching the vertibird through narrowed eyes. The craft seemed to roll lazily toward the left side of the roof, turning slightly as it did so. A ready door gunner rotated into view; the chin-mounted autocannon swiveled in the opposite direction.

Meyerson fidgeted. “What’s taking-?”

Little Guy made a harsh noise. “Something’s wrong.”

The VTOL stopped for a second, then danced quickly to the right, thrusters swiveling sharply into lateral flight mode. It started picking up speed, swinging back out over the street-

From somewhere off to the left, a sharp, growling cough gave birth to another sound-that of a severed pressure hose, which up-dopplered sharply. A flash of motion from behind them-and then the object was past, the sound down-dopplering. Caine identified it as a missile just before it hit the VTOL a meter behind the cockpit.

The explosion was ferocious: the sudden blast of flame and heat whited out his goggles’ thermal imaging circuits, blinding Caine just as the shockwave knocked him back several feet. Something heavy and hot-he couldn’t tell what-went crashing past him.

The goggles faded back in: burning wreckage, a madman’s arabesque of twisted metal.

“Jesus Christ!” shouted Meyerson.

“Stow that, or I’ll kick your ass when-if-we get back to the shack.” Little Guy scanned to the left, took off his goggles, stared intently, then put them back on and signaled to Meyerson.

“What’s up, Petty?”

“Target, adjoining rooftop. Wearing a cold suit-probably running a chill can, so no IR signature: that’s why the bird didn’t see him at first. He won’t be alone.”

“I’m on it.” Meyerson went past, running a jack from his goggles into the scope of his gun.

Caine felt himself being tugged in the other direction: Little Guy was moving low and fast to the center of the roof, into a cluster of fan cowlings, ventilators, and elevator access sheds. The master key appeared in his hand as they drew abreast of a waist-high tool and materials locker. He opened it, raised the lid. “In you go.”

“In there?”

“Now. No time for arguments.”

“Wait a minute; I can help you wi-”

The stunning blow-a palm heel strike to Caine’s chin-was so fast and unexpected that he didn’t even see Little Guy unleash it. Didn’t even feel himself fall into the locker backwards. Caine was dimly aware of Little Guy’s voice. “You’re a stand-up guy, but you’re a newb-and you’re the package we’re here to protect.”

As Caine started swimming up out of his unsteady fog, he heard Meyerson’s rifle stutter off into the night. The lid of the locker banged shut over him and the key turned in the lock. Damn it…

Meyerson’s fire went on-a sustained raucous ripping sound that lasted three or four seconds: he had emptied his magazine in one long blast of fire. A moment of silence, another-and then, even through the metal sides of the locker, Caine heard a roaring response that sounded like a horrible mix between a calliope and an immense, high- speed chainsaw. A rotary machine gun of some kind: good Christ. After a brief pause, it roared again-but was swiftly counterpointed by a whispering rush that ended in a sharp blast. The rotary gun abruptly fell silent, did not speak again.

Caine couldn’t follow much after that, as sporadic bursts of fire alternated with long stretches of silence. Eventually, the thin metal walls of the locker started to hum with the approach of something airborne and powerful-just before the lid lifted up and a hand came in to help him out. Again, Little Guy. Caine clambered out, saw another VTOL swing past, firing single rounds down at a nearby roof, although not the one from which the missile had been launched. He turned to Little Guy. “Where’s Meyerson?”

Little Guy shook his head. “He didn’t make it. Come on.” Yet another VTOL-a troop carrier-was skimming across the rooftops, approaching swiftly. Little Guy led the way back toward the elevator access doorway, put down another UV beacon. Again, the sudden shrill blast of thrusters as the VTOL rotated them into the vertical mode-so loud that the pair almost didn’t hear the faint scrabbling in the doorway behind them.

Caine rolled to the side; Little Guy spun, gun up so fast that it didn’t look like a human action at all. It was as though he went from cradling the gun to having it ready and aimed without any intervening motion of his arms or body.

A gasped “Hold…your fire!” stayed his trigger finger long enough to reveal that it wasn’t an assassin emerging from the shaft behind them. Not unless one of the assassins had disguised herself as a young woman in a drenched and clinging hospital gown, with blood staining the back.

Caine, doubled over to run low, reached her and helped her out onto the roof. The blood was not just a stain on the back of her shift: a steady trickle ran down the back of her right leg.

He uttered what he knew to be an idiocy: “You’re hurt.”

Her eyes followed his to the blood, and she smiled. “Hell, I think I was dead.”

She was going to add something, but just then the VTOL came down-loud, massive, ominous. Her almond- shaped eyes grew large and round. Little Guy whistled: Caine looked over. “You’re clear. And sorry about clipping you earlier.”

Caine grinned. “No problem. I’m probably alive because you did.” He started helping Opal over to the VTOL, looked back at Little Guy. “What about you?”

“I stay here, mind the store. See you safely on your way. We don’t want any more surprises. Go.”

Caine nodded and obeyed, helping the shivering woman up toward the hands reaching down from the passenger section of the vertibird.

As he climbed in next to her, finding and securing her belt, then his, he noticed that she was looking around, dazed and uncertain.

“Where are we?”

Good question, Caine thought. The thrusters roared: they swooped off the roof and swung upwards into the night sky. They could see more clearly now; off to their right were the unmistakable moonlit coils and windings of the Potomac. In a town always making news, Caine had the strange feeling that this just might make the morning edition.

“We’re near DC,” he said.

The young woman nodded, eyes now locked on a distant and immense white cubist finger that was accusing the sky, brightly lit by floodlights: the Washington Monument. Then, her pecan-brown eyes slid sideways, seeking Caine’s. “And when?”

Caine, not sure he had heard her, leaned closer, shouted over the thrusters, “I’m sorry: say again?”

She closed her eyes; when they opened, they were bright with tears. He felt his chest constrict as she repeated: “I asked you ‘when’: when are we?”

Unable to speak-silenced by seeing his own loss in her eyes-Caine reached out without thinking, placed his palm softly along her left cheek.

She smiled, eyes brighter and more liquid still, and held his hand there. Tightly.

Chapter Fourteen

ODYSSEUS

The perfect blue of it, Caine thought, watching the flawless surface of the Mediterranean dapple beneath the approaching security delta. It banked hard right until it came about, then its jets burned bright cobalt. The delta powered back out over deeper water, its small weapons blister rotating away from the Doric columns, which partitioned Caine’s view into a succession of eight tall, sequential seascapes.

In the center of the fourth seascape, framed between two columns, was a silver-haired man facing away from him. He was still in good shape, but there was a telltale thickening of the body, loss of muscle mass in the shoulders and neck. His posture-straight-backed and vital-almost concealed the physical changes, inviting an