Fire With Fire

once: from Syrtis Major to Isidus Planitia, twenty-kph winds, steady from the west, a relatively constant -12 degrees Celsius. By Martian standards, a calm and balmy day. But that’s not how it was shaping up for Trevor Corcoran, and the disguised SEAL officer was not pleased with the discrepancy.

He heard the airlock door squeak and sigh and he turned-to find himself looking down the barrel of a ten- millimeter Sig Sauer caseless handgun. Okay, their equipment isn’t top-shelf, but it’s not all antiques, either.

He raised his hands. The figure-wearing a generic spacesuit that was the same model as his own-gestured him to approach. He did, keeping his hands high. The figure stepped to the left, motioned him past-and slammed him forward against the inner airlock door, the pistol pressed into the side of his helmet. The figure’s free hand roved and snatched at his spacesuit, tugged open the thigh pockets, then pulled him about-face by the shoulder. With the gun now snugged up against his neck, his chest pockets and utility pouches were subjected to the same hasty inspection. Then the spacesuited figure stepped back and, gun steady, reached back with his free hand to pull the outer airlock door closed. A moment later, the hatch autodogged and a rising hiss indicated that atmosphere was being pumped in.

So far, so good. There had always been a chance that they would shoot him down the moment they saw him. But that was one of the many operational hazards that there had been no way to avoid.

The inner airlock door swung open-and he found himself staring into yet another muzzle. This one was an antique: a nine-millimeter parabellum MP-5 machine pistol. Almost a century out of date. Okay, they’re definitely not the A-team.

Pushed roughly from behind, he staggered forward and-knowing that they’d have his helmet off in seconds- reasoned that this was the last moment he could conduct a visual assessment without looking like he was doing just that.

And he liked what he saw. The three in the main room were ethnically diverse. None over twenty-seven. All male. All had tattoos, piercings, long-and in one case, grotesquely unwashed-hair. Complete heterogeneity of weapons. The central table was an overcrowded parking lot for used coffee mugs and pots. Several dozen ration- pack wrappers had been discarded on the floor, as well as other trash and-was that a pair of dirty socks under a chair? One of them-the big, sleepy-looking guy with the greasy hair-clearly had track marks on his left forearm. T- shirts, several sporting the logos of Slaverock bands. In short, nothing to imply or even hint at the kind of discipline imparted by any formal training in operations. Terrorists? He smiled. Or gang-bangers?

The “terrorist” behind him grabbed his helmet, popped the side clamp and ripped it off.

The smell of unwashed bodies and stale air almost made him gag.

“You’ve got five seconds to tell me who you are and why you’re here. You give me an answer I don’t like, and you’re meat.”

“My name is-hell, it isn’t important. Call me Trev. I’m just a guy hired by the girl’s family. And I’ve brought money to pay for her release.”

“What the-what the hell are you talking about?”

“Look: I know you’ve got the girl. And all these guns prove it.”

“Yeah-and you’d better prove you’ve come alone or this conversation is going to end. Real soon.”

“You can send a man out to see. You’ll find a pressurized buggy three hundred meters due east. There’s no one in it. But before you send someone to check it, you might want to pick up the aluminum attache case just outside the door.”

“Why?”

“Because the payment is inside.”

The kidnapper with the machine pistol turned to give an order to the man in the spacesuit. “Scan him.” He turned back. “Now, how do I know you’re not just the inside man for an assault team?”

“Because when you send your man out, you’re going to find that there’s no one in sight-which means by the time anyone could join me here, I’d be dead. Right?”

The one with the machine pistol spent a moment thinking, then his eyes flicked over toward his man with the RF scanner.

Who shrugged. “He’s clean; no signals coming off him.”

“And none will. Take his helmet off. Check for a backup radio. Take his gloves off, too.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Trev looked around while they spoke. The interior was exactly what he’d expected from the schematic: large primary dome, centered on the “storm room”-a shielded core that provided refuge during solar flares and other radiological anomalies. There was one opening off to the right that led to the installation’s single reinforced corridor, which was the spine to which all the other, smaller expansion domes were attached. No change from the original layout-and no sign of the meteorological and geological monitoring teams that were supposedly stationed here. The last was not a good sign-but, sadly, not a surprise, either.

The one in the spacesuit was finished, handed Trev’s gloves back to him. “He’s clean.”

“Fine. Tape him up.”

Trevor’s hands were pulled out in front of him and wound with four wraps of three-inch reflective duct tape. Standard, even amongst amateurs.

The terrorist with the machine pistol waved him over to one of the three chairs at the room’s only table, then waved one of his flunkies toward the storm room.

Who asked: “Whaddya want me to do?”

“Just-check her. See if she’s-I dunno: expecting something, or someone. Christ, do I have to think of everything?”

Back to Trevor: “So you’re here to give me money. That’s very nice of you-and I’ll check into that right away,”-he waved the spacesuited one back outside-“but there’s just one thing that still puzzles me.”

“What’s that?”

“I didn’t ask for any money. As a matter of fact, no one should even know I’m here. So you’d better start shedding some light on your arrival, or I’ll be looking at daylight through the holes I put in you.”

Lines straight from the late-late show. You’re too into the role to remember that you’re just doing a job, huh? Bad for you; good for me.

Trevor made sure to never maintain eye contact very long, to appear moderately nervous. “I figured you were here-”

“You figured?”

“Yes-because when the family called me and reported her missing, I started looking for anything strange outside of Syrtis City.”

“Oh? Why outside?”

“For the reason I’m guessing you left. Pressurized cities-they’re too tight: behind every wall, there’s another room, a corridor, a ventilation shaft. There’s no safe ground. And there’s too much surveillance: the cameras you can see, the fiber-optic peekers that you can’t. You could think you’re safe and sound and well-hidden-and the next thing you know, a SWAT team is blowing a hole in the wall right behind you.”

“Smart boy. Go on.”

“So I figured you’d be heading out-getting distance. You’d want something small, easy to grab, easy to control. Something without a lot of traffic. So I started checking the science outposts-and sure enough, this one was overdue for its commo check. But, since no one else knows the girl is missing, no one knew to think that might mean something more than a malfunction or a downed antenna.”

“But you knew. Because the family called about their pretty, pretty-but not too young-baby.”

“Uh-yeah.”

“And who are you?”

“I do-jobs-for people.”

“Oh?” The gun came up. “What kind of jobs?”

“Please, don’t-no, not those kinds of jobs. Not with guns. But rich families get in trouble sometimes-more than most people realize. And I–I take care of those problems for them.”

The gun went down. “They must be paying you a lot to come out here on your own, not knowing if we were gonna let you in or let you have it.”