Biowar

48

“We have him! He’s in the subway — the metro. Heitzing — the stop is Heitzing,” said Rockman. “It’s right nearby. He’s coming out.”

“You don’t have to shout,” said Lia, turning to tell the pilot to fly there.

As Dean cleared the turnstile and went outside, he heard the pounding rotors of a nearby helicopter. He started to move along the sidewalk, disoriented by the rush of daylight and the press of the tourist crowd nearby.

People were pointing, saying something.

The helicopter was coming right over the buildings, literally close enough to knock them over.

Dean’s headache instantly returned, and he felt his stomach revolting again. A swatch of green appeared on his right, trees, a massive park.

The chopper was coming for him.

Dean bolted across the street, running. People were staring, shouting.

There was a line of people, a fence, a gate.

Dean’s head swirled. Everyone was looking at the helicopter, which was landing in the park nearby.

“Charlie,” said the voice in his head. “Charlie, we can see you.”

“Rockman?”

“Go to the helicopter. Lia’s there.”

Dean started to run.

Lia opened the helicopter door and leaned out as it came down. She could see someone running on the street toward her.

Charlie?

She lost sight of him as the helicopter descended. She yelled, but of course he couldn’t hear — the engine was too loud and now they were yards and yards away, separated by a small run of trees as well as the metal fence.

She’d have to leave the chopper to get him.

“That van is coming back around,” warned Rockman.

That did it. Lia leaped out, tumbling on the ground as the helicopter roared away. She ran to the park perimeter.

Dean was there, just reaching the fence.

“Get in here! Get over the fence — come on. Come on!”

Dean swung his head around, then started toward her in slow motion. Two men — policemen — were running toward her. Lia pointed toward the street.

“The van!” she yelled in English. “The van!”

Dean grabbed at the fence.

Even if the policemen could have heard her over the roar of the nearby helicopter, there was no van on the street. One of them grabbed her arm and immediately regretted it — Lia flipped him over and spun him back into his companion, both men sprawling in a tumble. Dean climbed the fence, hauling himself up over the pointed bars at the top.

The van skidded to a stop in the street as Lia tossed one of the smoke grenades onto the sidewalk. People began to run — she readied her gun but didn’t fire.

Dean collapsed onto the ground. She ran to him, grabbed his shirt.

“What?” he said.

“What yourself. Come on,” she said, pulling. One of the policemen started to rise but stopped as he caught sight of her Mac 11. Tourists threw themselves down or ran in the opposite direction as Lia and Dean began heading deeper into the grounds. They ran across the paths, cutting momentarily through some of the trees and then to Lia’s left, skirting the large zoo.

“I can’t keep going,” said Dean. “I can’t.”

Lia turned. Dean had stopped running and was walking almost in a daze. His face had flushed red.

“Charlie?”

“I’m okay,” he mumbled.

“You’re burning up,” she said, feeling his face.

“Yeah,” he said.

They walked at a slower pace, making their way toward the Gloriette Monument and then down the large lawn toward the formal gardens at the very bottom. Lia folded the stock on the Mac 11 and held it tight to her body so that it looked almost — almost — like a purse. She could hear police sirens in the distance.

“What’s going on, Rockman?” she asked the runner.

“Just your typical city riot.”

“You getting us out of here or what?”

“Oh, now you want my help. Move on down the hill to the Fasangarten,” said Rockman. “That would be the place with the flowers.”

“You going to give me the history of the place next?”

“I may.”

Dean continued beside her, walking slower and slower but still moving at least.

“What’d they do to you, Charlie?” she asked.

“Nothin’,” he said. “We stopped in some sort of tunnel. They had somebody waiting to grab the car. Hercules is dead.”

“They didn’t drug you or anything?”

“No. I feel like death, though. All that food I ate yesterday.”

“Then how come I’m not sick?”

“You eat like a bird.”

Lia curled her arm tighter around his. They crossed a roadway to the back border of the garden, walking down a tree-lined path. She flinched as something ran out at them from the right.

Two brothers, maybe seven and eight, chasing each other in a game of spy versus spy.

“Rockman,” she hissed.

“Listen for it.”

All she could hear was police sirens.

“Have you told the Austrians we’re on their side?”

“We’re in the process of doing that. Listen for it.”

The air had started to vibrate with the loud rap of rotors. Six Blackhawk helicopters circled out of the northeast. The choppers were dark green American birds.

“Finally,” said Lia when she spotted them.

“I told you we had it under control,” said Rockman. “You have to learn to trust us.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me these guys have been here all along.”

“They’ve been nearby,” said the runner.

“I’ll bet.” Lia stopped at the edge of one of the large garden squares, which was laid out with colored flowers to form a pattern. “We’re almost home, Charlie,” she said.

“Yeah, roger that,” he said, sitting down.

Lia expected the helicopters to land on the grass beyond the tree line they’d come through. But as she took a few steps in that direction, she realized that the two lead Blackhawks were coming toward the gardens. They had their wheels down, ready to land.

“Tell them they’re going to ruin the flowers,” said Lia as grit began to whip around.

“Just stay where you are,” said Rockman.

Dean and Lia turned their backs and huddled together as the sandstorm increased. Finally Lia turned back toward the helicopter to look for her rescuers.

There were a dozen SF troopers, guns ready, fanning out around them. A few were carrying shotguns; the rest had M4s.

But that wasn’t the weird thing.

All of the men had full hazard suits on — they looked like spacemen, bundled up against any contingency.

“What is going on?” asked Lia.

“Put down your weapons and come with us,” said a voice from the helicopter over a loudspeaker.

“Rockman, what’s going on?”

“Do what they say, Lia. It’s for your own good.”

“No way.”

“We will use our weapons if necessary.”

“What the hell?” said Dean.

Before Lia could react, a slug of nonlethal but very painful ammo from one of the troopers with the shotgun took her down at the knees. It was followed by a rain of small plastic pellets and, for good measure, a dose of tear gas.