was a very unusual one. 'Sir?' he asked. 'Are you sure that you...'
'I'm positive,' Jackson cut in. 'Do it now. I want all the workers in this building to stay right where they are. No one is to leave their floors or their immediate area until further notice.'
He swallowed a little, trying to process this information. 'May I ask why, sir?' he finally blurted. A legitimate question.
'A security threat against the governor,' Jackson told him. 'There may be some action down in the lobby and I don't want any bystanders blundering into it. I don't have time to explain any further. Now get it done, man before its too late.'
'Right away, General,' he said, signing off.
Less than a minute later the blast door warning alarm sounded from out in the hallway and the solid steel doors, which were spaced every twenty meters on every floor and were designed to hold in air pressure and everything else, came clanging down. The 6400 planetary government employees, including the legislature and the lieutenant governor, were now trapped in their offices.
The four black FLEB vans pulled up in front of the main entrance to the capital building three minutes later, parking in a neat line. Their doors slid open and the armed agents jumped out, their weapons in their hands. Quickly they spread out. One of the teams took up position directly across the street, pushing their way through the throng of curious Martians that had stopped along their way to see what was going on. Three of the pedestrians were shoved with gun butts before the rest decided that this was not a particularly healthy place to be at the moment. They moved off down the street, most shouting angry and profane words at the FLEB agents as they went. Two of the other teams moved off in different directions. One began trotting around the block to take up position in the rear, the other split up and headed for the side entrances. All forty of them were in contact with tactical radio sets.
'Remember,' said Mitchell to everyone on the radio frequency, 'she gets taken alive and unharmed at all costs.'
No one answered him but all heard him.
Once everyone was deployed that left only Mitchell and his nine team members standing before the entrance to the building. They pulled together into a tight bunch and, following behind their leader, headed for the doorway.
The main entrance to the capital building featured two heavy duty sliding doors that were capable of withstanding a direct hit from a heavy machinegun bullet or a close explosion of significant magnitude. An MPG guard dressed in full armor and with an M-24 slung over his shoulder was manning the security booth right between the two doors. He was protected by a layer of the same glass from both the lobby side and the street side and was able to talk to people only through a series of tiny holes in this glass at face level.
Mitchell walked towards him. He noted that the guard was a lieutenant — a rather higher rank than you would expect to see manning the booth — but he dismissed this as an irrelevancy, figuring that the MPG guard detail was probably short staffed. After all, what kind of moron would want to guard that greenie bitch in the first place? He also noted that he was dressed in full battle gear, something that he never recalled seeing in his past visits to this place. Usually they were dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with nothing more than a sidearm strapped to their sides. Was there any meaning to this? He thought about it for about a tenth of a second and finally concluded that there wasn't. The greenie — whose name stencil on his armor identified him as WARREN — probably didn't get to wear his armor very often and was taking his stint on booth duty as an excuse to do so.
Warren looked at him expressionlessly as Mitchell stopped in front of the voice holes. 'Can I help you?' he asked politely, as if he were a normal citizen asking about tours of the building or an appointment with a legislature representative and not a fully armed FLEB agent holding an assault rifle and leading a team of nine others.
This, at the very least, should have put Mitchell on edge. It didn't. 'FLEB,' he said simply, with a certain amount of arrogance in his voice. He flipped open a leather case that displayed his federal credentials. 'We need immediate access to Governor Whiting's office.'
'Oh?' said Warren, raising his eyebrows a tad, only glancing at the shiny badge being shown to him. 'I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment.'
'Make it possible,' Mitchell told him, removing the indictment and the arrest warrant. They were printed in large script on the finest hemp paper available. 'I have a federal indictment and an arrest warrant ordering me to take her into custody.'
'An indictment and an arrest warrant huh?' Warren asked, still with no hint of surprise or alarm in his voice. 'This sounds rather serious. May I take a look at them?'
Mitchell considered threatening him with obstruction for a moment but finally decided it would be easier to just do as he was asked. Besides, that way the greenie would get to see the official proof of the downfall of his governor. Maybe that would put the expression of fear that he craved upon his face. He slid them through the small slot at the bottom of the glass.
Lieutenant Warren picked them up and looked at them, reading through each document carefully, word for word. Neither Mitchell nor any of his men saw him keying the transmission button on his radio pack three times, sending out a pre-arranged, encrypted signal to the other members of the platoon and General Jackson upstairs. It took him more than two minutes to get through everything. Once he was finished he looked up, his expression still carefully polite and neutral. 'Well Agent uh...'
'Mitchell,' he provided, more than a little testily.
'Agent Mitchell. Things do seem to be in order here. This is an official indictment and an official arrest warrant for Governor Whiting.'
'I'm glad you agree,' he said. 'Now are you going to buzz us into the building or are we going to have to force our way in?'
'No need for threats,' Warren told him. He placed his hands upon a panel on his computer screen and the glass doors slid open. 'Come on in. I'll call for the elevator for you.'
Mitchell had the vague thought that things were going just a little too easily. It was a thought that he should have listened to. Instead, excited at the thought of getting this over quickly, he dismissed it. He took a quick glance behind him, seeing that the media vans from the big three, responding to the tip that had been given to them less than an hour ago, were pulling up and positioning themselves across the street. That was good. Soon they would film him leading that troublemaking bitch out in handcuffs. He waved his men forward and into the lobby of the capital building, moving past Warren's security booth and onto the simple Martian red carpet that covered the lobby floor.
The lobby was a huge area, stretching from one end of the building to the other. It was decorated as one might expect a seat of government's lobby to be. Ornate sculptures were located in many places along the walls. Decorative planters and even a working wishing well with benches around it were in the center. It was actually quite a nice place and one that workers in the building and tourists enjoyed lounging about in to eat their lunch or rest their feet. At the moment however, the entire area was completely deserted except for Lieutenant Warren. Or at least that was how it seemed to the FLEB agents as they trooped inside.
Mitchell had never been a soldier before and he wasn't even really a cop with a cop's instincts. He noted the lack of people in the lobby and it did strike him as a bit odd for the beginning of a workday but this failed to trigger any danger signals within him. He never considered for a moment that all of the planters and sculptures, all of the benches and information booths, were ideal places to hide security troops that did not wish to be seen.
The glass doors slid shut behind them, latching with a clank of steel mechanisms coming together.
Mitchell turned to Warren. 'Keep those doors open,' he told him. He wanted his men outside to be able to enter the building in a hurry if it became necessary. He didn't know that it was already necessary.
'I'm afraid not, Agent Mitchell,' Warren said, smiling now. 'You are now sealed into the lobby. Your men outside will be shortly taken into custody. You and all of your men will put your rifles down on the floor and then throw your sidearms down there with them.'
'What?' Mitchell said, his face scrunching into an expression of annoyance. 'Listen to me, greenie. I don't know what you think you're trying to pull here, but I'll advise you that attempting to interfere with a federal arrest is a crime punishable...'
'I'm not
