Kuhl crouched behind his vehicle, the sounds of gunfire surrounding him, helicopters whirring overhead. His expression was rigid with thought, almost brooding, as if he were oblivious to it all.
In fact he was keenly attuned to his situation, his mind distilling and evaluating its every aspect. Up until now the mission had been a success. His men had met almost every objective set out for them, and in some cases done better than expected. But the stage at which events could be orchestrated was past, and sustaining further losses was unacceptable. It was necessary to recognize that the balance had shifted toward his opposition. If he continued, his force might be so badly weakened it would be unable to retreat. And he was not one to bait chance.
He turned to his driver, who was huddled beside him. “We’re pulling out,” he said, and motioned toward the jeep. “Radio the others to let them know.”
Manuel was sitting on the ground nearby, leaning back against the door of the vehicle. His untreated wound had sapped him and he was breathing in short, labored gasps.
“We can’t.” He nodded toward the interior of the compound. “Yellow Team is still in there.”
“They knew the risks,” Kuhl said. “We’ve waited as long as we can.”
Manuel slid himself up along the side of the door, wincing with the effort.
“They haven’t had enough time,” he croaked.
“I’ve given my order. You can stay behind, if you wish.” There was anger in Kuhl’s eyes. “Decide quickly.”
Manuel looked at him for a long moment, bent his head to stare at the ground, then slowly looked back at him with resignation.
“I’ll need some help getting into the jeep,” he said at last.
Outside the warehouse complex, a group of ten Sword ops raced on foot toward the service door through which Thibodeau had pursued the invaders. The team was composed of men who had been pulled from dispositions around the compound’s residential and office buildings.
They came to where the murdered guard lay on the ground, stopped, gazed down at him. The knife wound in his back was still bleeding out.
One of them mouthed an oath, his right hand making the sign of the cross on his forehead and chest.
“Bryce,” he said. “Ah, shit, poor guy.”
Another member of the ad hoc team grabbed his arm.
“No use standing here,” he said.
The two of them looked at each other. The first man started to say something in response, but then simply cleared his throat and nodded.
Turning from the body, they ran into the open service door, the rest of the team pouring into the warehouse behind them.
Thibodeau could feel the world slipping away. He was trying to hold onto it, trying desperately, but it was loose and runny around the edges, made of soft taffy, and out beyond where it waned off into formlessness, he could sense a black mass waiting to swallow it all up. He knew what was happening to him, no brain flash needed on that score. It was blood loss, it was traumatic shock, it was how it felt to be dying from a large-caliber bullet hole in your gut. The world was slipping away, and though he would have preferred it didn’t, the choice didn’t seem to be within his making.
Thibodeau breathed hard through his mouth, coughed. It was a thick, liquidy sound that admittedly frightened him a little, and the air felt cold entering his lungs, but there wasn’t much pain, and things seemed to get more distinct afterward. He saw the two invaders who’d been shooting at him emerge from the blurred comers of his vision, one behind the other, hurrying up the stairs to the catwalk. He had held them off as long as he could, firing his gun until its magazine was exhausted. Now he wasn’t even sure whether or not the weapon was still in his hand.
The invader who had led the way up was standing over him, pointing his rifle straight down at his head.
Thibodeau took another breath, managed to lift his cheek off the catwalk’s bloody runner. Its grooves had marked his cheek with smears of his own blood.
“Get it done,” he said weakly.
The invader stood over him. If he had any expression beneath his face mask, Thibodeau had no way of knowing what it might be.
“Come on,” Thibodeau said. “Get it done.”
And still standing there looking down at him, the invader lowered the rifle’s bore to his temple.
Felix rolled out onto the catwalk from the same elevator Thibodeau had taken minutes earlier.
High above the payload storage bay, the ’hog went swiftly toward him, its navigational sonar mapping its surroundings in layered echo patterns.
This was a built-in redundancy to prevent accidental collision, for Jezoirski now wielded full command of its operation from the monitoring room. Having donned virtual-reality glasses, he could see three-dimensional graphic representations of everything the ’hog “saw” with its optical array. At the same time, the joystick controls on his console were now directing its robotic mobility systems, allowing him to guide and determine its every turn and action.
Biting his lips, Jezoirski rushed the ’hog over the catwalk. Like a sorcerer possessing an entity from afar — using technology instead of talismans, and algorithms instead of incantations — he had extended himself into the hedgehog’s physical space and was, in effect, in two locations at once.
Felix glided around a curve, its wheels whispering softly, the immense room’s recessed fluorescents reflecting twinkles of pale blue light off the poker-chip sensors on its turret.
Then, all at once, it came to a halt.
Was
Panic sweeping through him like a whiteout blizzard, wiping all his training from his mind, Jezoirski had frozen at the remote controls. A hundred feet above him in another building, yet right in front of his eyes, Rollie Thibodeau was about to die.
And Jezoirski suddenly didn’t know what to do about it.
“What’s wrong?” Cody asked.
Jezoirski’s heart bumped in his chest. His eyes were wide under the VR wraparounds.
He gripped Felix’s controls, blinded by indecision, knowing his slightest error or miscalculation would mean Thibodeau’s end.
“I asked what the hell’s
Jezoirski inhaled, felt his muscles unclamp. Cody’s demanding, excited tone had jolted him from his momentary paralysis.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he muttered quickly, as much to himself as his superior.
Taking another breath through gritted teeth, he resumed working the controls.
Thibodeau’s glazed eyes widened with surprise as Felix came speeding toward him from the right, its wheels swishing over the catwalk’s runner, its gripper arm extending straight out in front of it.
Startled by the sound of its advance, the invader standing over Thibodeau whirled toward the ‘hog, bringing his rifle up from Thibodeau’s head. But the ’hog’s side-mounted shotgun discharged with a belch of smoke and flame while he was still bringing the rifle around to fire at it.
The invader spun back against rail of the catwalk, his rifle flying from his hands. The advancing robot tracked his movement, angled its gun, and fired another shot at nearly point-blank range, hitting him hard enough to lift him off his feet. Shrieking and clutching at the air, the invader went sailing over the guardrail and plummeted to the floor of the storage bay, his body landing with a heavy crash.
The roar of its shotgun still echoing in the air, Felix hurtled toward the second invader, who triggered his own
