When Diplomacy Fails…

CHAPTER 10

“What now?” Aramis asked.

“How are you at cooking?”

“Um…”

In minutes he was very carefully monitoring four double boilers heating over the induction coils of the range. Elke had several tubs full of goo, which seemed to be plasticizing. Aramis wasn’t an expert on explosive, but he knew that hexamine, nitrates, phosphates, acids and ionized metals led to stuff that went boom.

“How is the soap and chlorate?” she asked.

He carefully drew a spatula from each and gauged the runoff. “Fully liquid,” he said.

“Good, I’ll take them.”

One tub was a gray mess of ammonium nitrate and some liquid booster. One was a translucent greenish mess. One was white.

“Dare I ask?”

She indicated without flicking the gray stuff off her gloved hands. “Low-order plastique of potassium chlorate and petroleum gelatin. Improvised but unstable dynamite of nitroglycerin in ammonium nitrate base, which I will entube. The semi-crystalline stuff is RDX. You’re going to help me take rifle cartridges apart and place them in the copper tubing, using the propellant and chlorate mix, as priming caps.”

“How unstable is ‘unstable’?”

“Just don’t get in an accident on the way back, and don’t inhale the fumes.”

They’d shopped most of the day, and cooked most of the night, with the kitchen curtained off and the outside windows curtained as well. There was enough light leakage to indicate occupation, and Jason had set controllers to cycle the lights on a randomized but standard schedule to indicate habitation. There was not enough visibility for anyone to spy on them.

Aramis realized how tired he was.

“Money and determination,” he muttered.

“What? Oh, yes,” she said, obviously distracted. “I need explosives for my part of the mission. I will have them. These will suffice until I can find better materials. I’m quite sure a construction site will have what I need.”

“Are we actually resting before we leave?”

“Do you need to?” she asked, quite seriously. “Return trip should be under an hour.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. He squinted through the curtains. “I just wanted to confirm. It looks dawnish out there.”

“Yes, so it does,” she said, and glanced at her watch. “Oh five twenty-seven. Highland has a movement in four hours. I suppose I have what I need for now. I’ll destroy some of the partials and stow the rest, tragic as it is to waste material.”

“You can buy more. Money’s not an issue.”

“Money is not the issue,” she said as she carried the first tub into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. “Wasting material is the issue. Explosives are supposed to detonate, not flush down the drain.” She sighed as she turned on a trickle of water.

In five minutes, she had a large box neatly filled with devices and claylike blocks, and a bag of the improvised caps, including some with electrical leads for remote or keyed detonation.

There was no traffic on the stairs, though sounds and smells indicated residents awake and preparing for work. Aramis smelled tea, coffee, pastries, some meat that was probably not pork, given the cultures here. There was occasional music and news chatter. All in all it was quite homey and reminiscent of a century long passed. Earth buildings had much tighter soundproofing and seals, and audio was always focused or through personal devices.

He led outside, since Elke was hindered with the box. A couple of backpacks would have been easier, but far less discreet.

Elke placed the box carefully in back, and slipped in with it. Aramis ignited the turbine and pulled slowly out into the rising traffic.

They were two kilometers down the road when his phone chimed.

“Musketeer,” he said.

Alex said, “Are you carrying smelly stuff?”

“Uh, maybe?” he looked back at Elke, who said, “Fumes are outgassing, yes.”

Jason cut in on the other end. “Their sniffers have it, reporting a threat, and they’re responding.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“The official mil types.”

“Response?”

“We’re calling Das. We’ll try to clear it. Stand by and out.”

“Will travel and stand by, out, waiting.” He twitched his eyebrows, felt a flush and said, “That’s not good,” to Elke.

“They have better sensors than I anticipated. I should have triple wrapped and sealed.”

“They’d find it sooner or later.”

“Car coming up fast behind,” she said. He heard her fumble with weapons.

“Pursuit? Police?” He glanced at the rear screen.

“Armored sedan, looks semi-official,” she said. “I wonder if they’re plugged into the milnet.”

“Not good. Evading.” He swung the wheel to send them straight down a side street, thankful there were no zone controls to worry about here.

However, that sedan braking hard in front of them wasn’t in his plans.

“Entrapment,” he said, amazed at how cool he sounded. There was an alley on the left just past. He flung the car into a turn, gunned it, fishtailed twice and went down what was apparently a service lane, slaloming through trash and pallets.

Elke said, “I’m loaded, tell me if you need support.”

“I expect so, soon. Call for backup.”

Mild precombat nausea gripped him, and fatigue didn’t help. He was out the alley, back onto a street, but it was crowded and slow.

Elke said, “Hostiles attempting to herd us. Request backup soonest.”

“Working. We have your location, keep your line open.”

“Line open, roger.”

No good. They were penned in by traffic, and there were men getting out of a car thirty meters back. He wasn’t going to find an opening.

“Proceed on foot, we need a bughole,” he said.

Elke was out the door in a second, wearing her backpack and with the box looking a bit lighter. Good woman. A moment later a sharp bang accompanied a brilliant flash and a directional cloud of smoke. She pulled alongside him.

“Did you secure the car?”

“I did not boobytrap it but it is locked. The burst was just distraction.”

“Hostiles?”

“Delayed, but there are some ahead.”

“I see them,” he said. “Move into a building.”

“This one.”

It was a closed office that hopefully had a rear exit, or a roof, or some way to barricade themselves while backup arrived. Aramis reached the door at a sprint and kicked it. The latches shattered and they were in.

“That wouldn’t work in a more modern world,” he said, as they dodged between dividing walls.

“Two distractions behind us, set for vibration.”

“Not lethal?”

“Allies may come.”

“Roger. No upstairs access I can see. Out the back.”

There was clattering behind them, then a bang, and another.

Elke stepped aside and let him take the lead. He flipped the latch, kicked the door open and slipped through, raising his pistol.

His brain exploded inside his skull and he went down.

Bart drove, though usually he was in a limo, not a Grumbly. The rotary-diesel was turning fast enough to have a smooth hum, not a grumbling lope. They were in a hurry.

As he understood it, they were also in violation of contract.

Their mission was Highland’s safety. Cady’s mission was compound security. Recovery of missing personnel was properly the military’s tasking. However, that would take time, and they knew Aramis’s and Elke’s location now.

Elke’s voice came through the channel. “Musketeer is down, probably captured.”

Bart felt chills. That was bad. Peripherally, he saw the others swapping glances.

Alex asked, “Understood. Are you covered?”

“I have created a safe zone.”

That sounded bad, too.

“We’re arriving in six minutes.”

“I can hold- BANG!” her voice cut off with an explosion, but the signal was still live. “Do hurry, though.”

Another voice came through, “Alex, this is Das.”

Alex said, “Alex here, go.”

“We have an extraction team en route. Fifteen minutes will get them there.”

“That’s ten minutes behind us.”

“Understood. I must advise you that you are not on military contract and do not have engagement privileges.”

“Meaning we will observe as long as feasible, or the lawyers will have lots of work to do.”

Das sounded tense but sympathetic. “I understand your concern but there will be trouble if you breech status of forces.”

Bart cursed. Yes, rules existed for a reason, but this was not a military engagement, it was a criminal incident. It was probably even harder to find a political agreement regarding that.

Before Alex could reply, Elke said, “Hostiles are gone.”

“Retreated?”

“Yes. They have Musketeer, as far as I can tell.”

“Shit.”

Bart’s chills turned to burns. This was unprecedented.

“Arriving in two minutes,” he said, as calmly as he could.

Alex said, “Babs, can you meet at your reported location?”

“I am two hundred meters from there and prefer to meet at this location. Advise when you need directions.”

Bart nodded, and said, “Tell me in twenty seconds, which turn to take.”

Elke coolly guided him in to a stop next to an alley. She darted out with a box and ruck and was aboard at once.

She heaved for breath and there was a chemical stink of explosive over the perspiration. Her hair was greased with sweat, she was scuffed and dusty, but alive and intact.

“Reporting,” she said. “We were corralled by four vehicles at the same time you reported notice of us. Either the military has a leak or the hostiles have similar sensors. We entered the building ahead, where the traffic jam and dust is. I left a distraction device outside, two inside. There was no good barricade or roof, and pursuers triggered the devices. We attempted to leave out the back. Aramis was hit with a combination of two heavy stunners and an impact projectile. I shot and hit two hostiles, outcome unknown, then shot and blasted through the wall into the crawl alley to the south. I made a short chimney ascent, entered a first floor window, exited the rear behind the hostiles. I covered in a trash abutment and held them with fire. I made my report, then they departed, presumably with Aramis.”

That was so precise it was frightening, Bart thought, but not as much as Aramis’s abduction.

“Can we trace him with that stuff?” Alex asked.

“He will have residue, yes. His clothes especially will be impregnated.”

“They’ll probably ditch those if they smell them. Channel, Das, sir, what’s the recovery unit ETA?”

“Three minutes.”

“This is our location,” he said, and pinged it through. “We need to search the contact site.”

“They see you and are arriving.”

Aramis awoke nauseated, in throbbing pain, stripped to underwear, wrapped in cargo tape restraints at wrist and ankle, sitting on a cold floor. He could vaguely identify others. Two people were in front of him, well-built, probably military. One lurked behind. Two? others were off to the left.

Ohshitohshitohshit. It kept tumbling through his brain.

No way out. Not a chance. The restraints wouldn’t yield, and he was quite sure the one at the back would happily shoot anyone he tried to grab as a shield. Assuming he could see anything. He wasn’t sure how he knew the man behind had a gun, but he knew.

His wrists ached, his head had that burning pain that felt as if it were bleeding from trauma, but often meant only a concussion.

A voice from the left said, “He’s awake, get to it.”

Another voice, in front, said, “I need her movements.”

He understood that was addressed to him, and replied, “They’re chosen at random, even when there is a schedule, and I am not told until we are en route.”

A tremendous slap rocked his cheek and jaw, like fiery gravel. He’d been hit with some kind of heavy glove.

“Ridiculous. You have to know.”

He sweated and teared up through the bursting pain, which was triggering his pulped skull again. “The Agent in Charge knows, or his deputy. The rest of us do as we’re told.”

He stood there. He knew what was coming, and it terrified him. Combat was one thing. To be bound helplessly and…

The blow felt as if a car hit him in the cheek. He grunted, convulsed and lay out on the floor, trying to get into a fetal position to protect himself. His ears rang, eyes blurred, he thought his cheek probably broken. The pain was a lance, and then a suffusing pulse of agony, fading slowly to a burning sting.

Someone hauled him to his feet, and he tried to clench his abs, just in time for a massive punch that paralyzed his diaphragm. He gaped like a fish and did nothing for what felt like hours while boots and sticks thudded and cracked his ear, shoulder, spine, all over. The pain was warm and sharp.

Then he was hauled to his feet again.

“What is tomorrow’s schedule?”

He was angry and hurt. He cried and sobbed. “Dammit, I don’t know. Even if I did, it would have changed by now. This is fucking stupid.”

The pain, the disorientation, the fear was beyond anything he’d ever felt. Nausea collided with anger, terror, and he hyperventilated. They helped him with that, with plastic over his face until he passed out watching purple blotches as he surged against it in panic. He’d stayed still to conserve oxygen as long as he could, but there were limits, and his left cheek was stabbing agony…

He woke upright, his hands now bound on an overhead rail, helpless to protect his torso from crashing impacts. Blindfold off, he saw a stick line up and was too restrained and hurt to cringe. He watched in slow motion as it arced full force up toward his crotch.

He didn’t pass out, but he did throw up. A heated rush flooded his brain as his panicking body tried to compensate.

It was terrifying and surreal, like falling off a cliff.

It didn’t end with that, and he never got past it all feeling like a dream, an hallucination, an unreality that he couldn’t wake up from and desperately wanted to.

He took a full look at each of the three attackers. They were local, muscular and southern European in ancestry. That might make them Christian or Muslim, no way to tell. He memorized their faces. Then…

Got to leave, he thought. Not physically. He couldn’t. That sensation, though, that crazy, mind-warping sensation, he’d felt that before and it hadn’t been bad.

Sticks smashed under his armpits and across his shoulders. He passed out again.

He woke slightly and heard, “Shit, I think this pervert enjoys it,” accompanied by a thumping blow to his groin. He grunted out breath. Yeah, he actually was erect. Apparently the distraction worked.

I probably shouldn’t tell Caron about that, he thought.

He settled for keeping his eyes closed, easy through the bruises, and breathing slowly and steadily, tough to do through his battered nose and painful as the air flowed over his wounded teeth. Apart from that, his whole body was a quivering nerve, aware of every current of air, every gradation of temperature, every bruise, fracture, laceration and contusion. He found he wasn’t worried about getting hit again; that was just part of this reality. He’d ride the wave of pain and appreciate the surreal sensation, and let that take his brain back to Caron and Ayisha, their full, painted lips colliding around him, with each other, tongues swirling…

Yes, someone had hit him, he vaguely realized. He’d blacked out from the pain. Pain, shooting up his spine, just like that sensation when he looked over to see Caron, mouth open and tongue probing, curiously and nervously…

The intense jolt made him scream, the pain was in his hip, his muscles cramping up in gripping waves, tight under his balls, and..

“I swear this sick fucker is getting off on being hit. Either I kill him or we stop.”

“He’s not really of use. Hit harder.”

The next blow broke his focus. Ohshitfuckmebitch that hurt. Shooting hand. Writing hand. Hand I used on Caron to… to…

A rain of blows with a hammer started at his feet, ankles and shins, working toward his knees. He could feel tears streaming down his face. He wanted release even if it meant death, because he knew he was crippled, probably going to be emasculated, and left in a heap in a gutter, probably set on fire to twitch and scream, and these fuckers called him a pervert. He was going beyond anything he’d ever imagined, and this wasn’t real, except it was, and Caron’s ass was amazingly toned and taut and…