Checkmate

25

How and when he’d been tagged would have to wait for later. Or would it? he thought, a memory coming back to him. What had Grimsdottir called the encryption program she’d found on the data from the Duroc’s helm console? Another Marcus Greenhorn masterpiece.

Another Marcus Greenhorn masterpiece…

His eyes were drawn to the OPSAT strapped to his wrist. Could it be? He’d used the OPSAT to scan both the Duroc’s helm console and Greenhorn’s USB drive, and so far every encryption or virus they’d come across had been created by Greenhorn to protect whoever had hired him.

Had a Trojan horse hidden inside the OPSAT been piggybacking a tracking beacon on top of his own comm channels? It was possible, he decided. There was one way to find out. The method was decidedly low-tech, but it would do the job.

He took the OPSAT off and laid it at the foot of the tree, then backed away, using the baobab’s trunk as cover until he was at the edge of the grove. He turned and sprinted parallel to the grove until he was certain Sniper Two’s view was blocked by intervening buildings, then turned again and darted into the shadows between a pair of storage huts.

He waited for the teenage guard to pass by, then stepped onto an empty crate and slowly raised his head up until only his eyes showed over the hut’s roof. He raised his binoculars and checked Sniper One. The man hadn’t moved. He was still focused on the baobab tree shielding the OPSAT.

Fisher keyed his subdermal. “Grim, Lambert… You there?”

“We’re here,” replied Lambert.

“Greenhorn’s broken another one of your firewalls and worked his magic again. The OPSAT’s infected.”

“What?” she cried.

Fisher explained and said, “There’s no doubt; they knew where I was headed, and when.”

“I’m sorry, Sam, I’m dumbfounded. Greenhorn is—was—good. Too damned good.”

“No harm done. I’ll bring the OPSAT back, but we have to cook it. Give me ten minutes, then send the self-destruct signal.”

“You’ll be able to operate without it?”

Fisher chuckled. “Grim, I was doing this kind of stuff when phones still had cords. I’ll manage. Lambert, here’s the problem: If they knew I was coming, they probably knew why I was coming and what I was looking for.”

“And did some housekeeping.”

“Right. Best to check, though. You never know.”

“What’s your status?”

“Safe for now, but between them they’ve got the routes to the admin building covered.”

As this mission’s target was a civilian facility, Fisher’s Rules of Engagment had forbidden the use of lethal force. “Gloves are off,” Lambert said. “Weapons free on combatants.”

Fisher signed off. He had to hurry. The snipers wouldn’t watch the OPSAT’s position for long before they recognized the ruse.

He picked his way back along the edge of the grove until he reached its far end, where he again slipped into the shadows between the storage huts. With the binoculars he checked his firing lines. From this spot he had both sniper perches in sight. Both men were still fixed on OPSAT’s baobab.

Behind him he heard the crunch of sandals on gravel. AK-47 slung over his shoulder, the teenage guard strolled past the gap. Sam unsheathed the SC-20, switched the selector to Cottonball, then stepped out of the shadows.

“Psst!”

The boy turned. Fisher fired. The Cottonball struck the boy’s chest. He swayed on his feet for a few seconds, then tipped over. Fisher collected the body and the AK and tucked them both into the shadows, then returned to his position.

He curled himself into a seated firing position, SC-20 cradled in his arms, elbows resting on his knees. Individually, the shots didn’t worry him, but each sniper probably had the other in his peripheral vision. As soon as one went down, the other would instantly know about it.

Fisher chose the one on the admin building’s roof first; the one atop the crane had no easy cover, no quick escape. He zoomed the scope until the crosshair’s reticle was centered on the man’s forehead. He took a breath, held it a moment, then released it slowly. Gently he squeezed the trigger. The SC-20 bucked on his shoulder. In the scope, he saw the man’s head snap back, haloed in a dark mist of blood.

He changed position, reoriented, zoomed in. Atop the crane, the first sniper had in fact seen his partner die and was already moving, rolling right toward the control cab’s ladder. Fisher adjusted his aim, leading him just a hair, then fired. The man jerked once, then went still.

Fisher keyed his subdermal. “Sleepers; two; clean. Moving to the admin building.”

He knew his check of the admin office would likely turn up nothing. If someone had known he was coming, they’d also known why, which meant all traces of both the Sogon and the Trego had probably been removed from Kolobane’s records. Still, he had to be sure. And the truth was, he was also satisfying his stubborn streak. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to kill him, and that grated on his professionalism. Or was it his ego? Either way, he was going to finish the job.

He crouched beside the outer wall of the admin building and inspected the door. Despite the peeling paint and dilapidated appearance, the lock was an industrial-grade drop bolt with a reinforced jamb. Tough but not invincible. More often than not a lock was a lock, and this one too surrendered to his picks in thirty seconds.

He opened the door a crack and did a quick NV/IR scan with the flexi-cam. Seeing nothing, he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. The building was long and narrow, two hundred feet by one hundred feet, with a vaulted ceiling and skylights through which a sliver of pale moon showed. The floor was dominated by wooden storage units that rose to the rafters and were filled with dry goods ranging from rice and cornmeal to beans and coffee. This was also the shipyard’s grocery store, a place for passing ships to resupply.

Directly ahead at the far end of the warehouse was the glassed-in administrative office. It sat on stilts above the floor, accessible only by a set of steps running up the wall.

Lovely place for an ambush, Fisher thought.

He turned right, sticking to the shadows and following the course of the wall until finally he’d circumnavigated the entire warehouse and was beneath the office.

He switched his goggles to IR and studied the floor above. He saw no man-shaped hot spots. He switched to EM, or Electro-Magnetic. In the swirling blue-black image, two objects immediately caught his eye, each pulsing with its own EM signature. One was attached to the inside of the office door, the other opposite it, on a filing cabinet. There was no mistaking what he was seeing: a laser-beam trigger and some kind of shaped explosive charge. Open the door, the beam is severed, the charge detonates.

He considered his options. Defeating the wall mine was possible, but iffy. The windows were out as well. Anyone sophisticated enough to employ this type of booby trap would also have the windows covered.

But…

He looked up at the ceiling. Maybe.

He backtracked along the wall, then darted across the floor and mounted one of the ladders affixed to the side of the shelving. He climbed to the top and then sidestepped along the shelf until he could reach up and grab the ceiling joist. He let his legs swing out, then used the momentum to lever himself atop the joist.

He crept down the joist until he was directly over the office roof, then tied a line to the beam and rappelled down. He walked to the nearest skylight; it was locked by a simple hook latch, which slid free using the tip of his knife.

A click-clack echoed through the building.

Sam dropped flat, switched to IR.

Crouched outside the door was a man. Fisher switched back to NV in time to see the door slowly swing inward. Move, Sam! Feet-first, he slid through the skylight, dropped to the floor in a crouch. The office was narrow, with one wall dominated by shoulder-high filing cabinets and the other by three battered, gray steel desks.

He switched to EM. As he’d guessed, there was a second trigger beam across the windows. He then went back to NV and slowly peeked up to window level.

The man, dressed all in black, his face covered by a balaclava, was running hunched over toward the office stairs. Fisher crossed the room, ducked under the trigger beam, and flattened himself against the wall. He drew the Sykes.

Footsteps padded up the stairs, then stopped. There was a soft double beep. Fisher switched to EM; the trigger beam was gone. He switched back to NV. The door swung inward. With the lightest of touches, Fisher palmed the knob, stopping the door’s swing.

For a long five seconds nothing moved; then the man appeared, stepping cautiously.

Fisher would never know what had prompted the move — peripheral vision, intuition, something else — but the man suddenly spun around and lunged toward him, a knife in his hand. Fisher caught the man’s wrist with his left hand and twisted hard while sweeping the ankle with his foot. As the man fell, Fisher stepped behind him, grabbed the man’s chin, and lashed out with the Sykes. The dagger plunged into the hollow beside the man’s collarbone, instantly severing the carotid artery, the subclavian, and the jugular. The man gasped, jerked once, then went still. Fisher eased him to the floor and swung the door shut.

He frisked the body. Unsurprisingly, the man carried nothing on him.

“Sleeper; clean,” Fisher radioed.

He pulled off the man’s balaclava. He was black.

Local talent, Fisher thought. Hired by whom, though?

His search took only minutes. None of the filing cabinets contained anything regarding either the Trego or the Sogon.

He keyed his subdermal. “Lambert, there’s nothing here.”

“Not surprised. Come on home.”

Fisher turned to leave. Then he stopped. Turned back.

Sitting on top of one of the cabinets was an ancient microfiche reader. Fisher chuckled to himself. Kolobane’s record-keeping methods might be lagging behind those of the cyber world, but they weren’t entirely backward.

He searched the cabinets again without luck, then turned his attention to the desks. In the bottom drawer of the first one he found an accordian folder filled with microfiche transparencies. Bingo.

“Lambert?”

“I’m here.”

“Disregard my last. We just caught a break.”