When Diplomacy Fails…

CHAPTER 19

A limo was not Jason’s preferred vehicle, even for a trip to the Colonial Liaison Office. Anymore, he wanted the ARPAC every time, even if it was less comfortable.

Highland’s visit covered personal business relative to the election, making official interviews with several press outfits. They weren’t allowed in any military or BuState location, and Alex had refused to certify any private location. The CLO was acceptable to everyone, so all that remained was to track the mileage and time for charging back to her campaign. How many accountants did it take to do all this?

They were out in light but chill rain, on their way back. The trip out wasn’t eventful, but that wasn’t unexpected. The trip back was when everyone would have had time to learn her location, set up OPs and be in position for anything.

Highland and Jessie actually talked in front of them at this point. Though of course, the limo was quieter than the ARPAC.

“So, just about thirty percent, with Cruk down to forty-eight, Hunter at ten and I’m not even going to dignify the rest with recognition,” she said.

Jessie said, “One of the trends has you at thirty-two by week’s end.”

“I can call in at once then,” she said, “or give it time to stabilize and for the public to demand so.”

“I like that better,” Jessie said. “You respond to the electorate.”

“Yes. We’ll need to leak it. Can you do that,” she looked up at Jason, who kept looking out the window, “through one of your secondary feeds?”

“Of course! Angela DuMont is an ardent supporter.”

Jason wondered when Special Service took over. At some point, a candidate become “viable” and protection was extended to them. That should be soon.

Right then Bart braked hard and swerved slightly.

Jason looked forward in a hurry. Alex was shotgun, but he wanted eyes on target. There were three men blocking the street after apparently having jumped out in the rain. He watched as the leftmost one disappeared under the limo.

Bart swore, swerved and braked, though he was taught not to. He was also under orders to protect the stupid to some extent.

The man went under the front of the limo in a double thump, then a bump, and a rev of lost traction.

Highland asked, “What was that?”

Bart said, “The wheelspin? Probably his face. Brains are pretty slippery.”

In the rear inside screen, Highland gagged and Jason grinned. Bart kept his smile very tight.

Jason said, “I really don’t like limos and this is why. We’re obvious as a stripper in church, but not as armored as we should be. Firing angles are limited.”

The car accelerated quickly, and Bart wove between vehicles, first with wide margins, then with near misses, then close enough to catch on protruding edges. Brushing scrapes sounded every few seconds.

Highland screeched, “Slow down! Each of those hits is a vote lost and money that will have to be paid out!”

Bart ignored her totally. His job was to move and maneuver. He took a turn and kept going. He slowed a little, scanning the rear to see if there was pursuit. Alex caught his eye, but gave no indication of objection. He kept driving.

He felt the rumble, then heard it. He kept his eyes ahead, but let them draw images from the screens.

They were being chased by a tank.

More accurately, it appeared to be an old Mod 46 Assault Vehicle, with the articulated plate wheels, but as he was driving a car, that was effectively a tank.

WHAM!

Especially with the 35mm gun on top. He leaned into an evasive turn as the shock wave and projectile cracked overhead.

Alex shouted, “Aramis, up top, target the mechanicals! Elke, we need a disabler! Jason, do we have any rockets?”

“On it.”

“Working.”

“No, BuState operations refused to allow it.”

Alex replied, “Then snipe the vision ports.”

“When I can.”

The passengers said nothing, just whimpered a bit. He couldn’t blame them. Bart accelerated right to the intersection ahead, then brake-turned hard into it. The AV had to scrape to a stop on the pavement, pivot and resume. That slowed it a lot, but Bart had pedestrians and cluttered traffic to deal with. He’d run someone over if he had to, but he’d rather not have to.

Out the roof, Aramis hammered away with the autocannon. It was a big enough gun to need actual cases, and they clattered over the shell of the car, a few bounced inside to ping against each other.

“I’m not going to do anything to him with this,” Aramis said. “The armor’s too heavy.”

Bart took them between two cars, scraping and bumping both aside. Pedestrians jumped, screamed and cursed, but the shrieks spread the message to others, who cleared the route. Except, of course, for rubberneckers. Two, just ahead.

He leaned on the siren, and one jumped back. The other craned in closer, then stood defiantly, and finally jumped, as the car clipped him.

Behind, a car moved to fill the gap in traffic, the driver oblivious, and the AV rolled right over it. Plastic splintered and crushed, and the driver’s arm thrashed out the window before hanging limply from the wreckage.

Someone really wanted the bitch dead.

Elke said, “There will be collaterals.”

“There already are. The AV is crushing its way.”

Alex said, “Do it.”

“Aramis, take this and hit the driver compartment.”

“Got it,” he said, hefted it for weight and stood.

“Fire in the hole,” she said in a lovely voice, as Aramis stood and threw.

It was one of her rugby-ball things. Bart watched it arc back in a perfect spiral, impact right over the compartment, and erupt. If he guessed right, it squashed enough to be a platter charge, and shattered the hatch.

The AV veered to the left, high-centered over another car, and stopped.

Alex said, “Keep moving, evade and evacuate this area.”

“Rolling,” he agreed, the tension in him easing a little. There were more bodies to deal with now.

Alex said, “Good thing we’re on our way home.”

Aramis said, “The events seem to be providing intel to people, and it’s usually pre-scheduled events.”

Alex said, “Discuss later. Roll, eyes open.” He sounded forceful.

“Rolling,” Bart reiterated.

Behind, Alex spoke into his phone. “Captain Das, we were attacked by what looks like a Mod 46… Yes I am serious. Driver tried to run us down, ran over several civilian vehicles and pedestrians in the meantime… that’s about our grid, so yes, that would be it… You should move fast. There could be evidence and we don’t want it to go missing. Excellent. Sorry to bear bad news. Marlow out.”

Jason wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep doing this. At some level, people should figure out Ripple Creek would stomp on any opposition. But, they kept getting bigger, more dangerous taskings. There wasn’t much room for error.

Alex was tied up with lawyers, BuState, the military and the ambassador.

It was interesting that the ambassador had no problems with them. He was technically under Highland, and then under the SecGen. His word would have them off planet at once. But either Highland wanted them for deniable cover, or she approved, or the SecGen was insisting they stay there.

Was her boss worried about her, worried about what would happen if she died, or trying to embarrass her?

That was one set of questions of many.

Two minutes later, Alex burst into the suite with Das.

“Jackpot,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Got this from the remains of the driver that Elke and Aramis liquefied.” He held up an armored data stick.

Jason took it carefully. It appeared to be intact.

“Anything on it you’ve found?”

“Just the arrival time written on the outside.”

“Yeah, that narrows it down to a few people. Let’s see what’s on it.”

“I’ll help,” Elke said.

“Absolutely.”

He stuck it into his system, let Elke remote in, and they went at it.

Everyone stared at them, but in a few minutes, Elke snorted in disgust and said, “This isn’t even grammar school encryption.”

“No?” prompted Aramis.

“Oh, some of the files are better than others, but I’m getting partial hits already. Sloppy.”

“Here’s tables,” Jason said.

“Not just tables,” Elke said in wonder. “Let me throw this up. Hold on.”

A moment later an image scrolled on the screens.

Jason said, “Wow.”

Alex asked, “Wow.”

Jason pointed with a finger.

“This actually has her movements, all past, known future, and a grid. It has summaries of ranges and timeframes. I can’t think of any way to look at this except as intent to assassinate.”

Alex said, “Okay. Elke?”

“I concur. There’s no other way to consider it. This graph is drawn up as a predictive syllogism. When they fill in one of these boxes, they can move to be in the same place and get a free shot, and likely not even hurt us in the process.”

“Yeah, that would eliminate her and destroy us professionally. We’ve never lost one. But lose the wrong one…”

“Or,” Elke muttered, “if they miss her, they can try for us.”

“That depends. Do they want to embarrass us or kill us?”

“Some would go for either.”

Alex held up a hand, and said, “Captain Das, I need to politely evict you at this point. Elke, cut him an copy of the stick.”

Das said, “I really need to take the original.”

“I know you do, sir, but we need to cover our legal ass. I’m holding onto it. Do please file with your legal office. That will help track its existence, and then we can let you have it in a day or so.”

Das looked uncomfortable.

“I officially have to refuse your request, take it with me, and I’m afraid I can’t leave without it.” He looked sad, stubborn and irritated.

“I understand your position perfectly, sir,” Alex said. “Bart, carefully throw him out.” He clicked his phone. “Cady, Captain Das must be escorted off the premises. Gently.”

Das let Bart drag him to the door and shove him into the waiting arms of two of the Facilities detail.

Once it was closed and Bart sat back down, Elke and Jason both ran scans again, nodded, and continued.

Jason said, “The point is, this is clear evidence of a current lethal threat, in process, against our principal, at any event off this installation or not in a facility we control. Even on the latter, I’d be wary.”

“Yes. So we need to pull the plug.”

“Where? We can’t take her back to Earth. That’s obviously a nonstarter. She won’t hear it, and any threat will be ready for it. We can’t hide out until the election’s over.”

“Can we hide out until she can’t win?”

Shaman said, “That would mean entire days. We’d have to kidnap her. In which case, we face criminal charges ourselves, and of course, that would boost her popularity, in which case they’d want to arrange an Elke-sized accident for her.”

“So what options do we have? Face known threats? Admit we know about the threats and hope to evade them, with the added danger of them knowing our awareness?”

Aramis said, “I have a suggestion, but it’s extreme.”

“So are the circumstances. Go.”

“We take her, skip out, leave some hints, make some calls, and try to orchestrate everyone to dogpile. Once they’re all coming down on us, we take out the internal threats, evade the minor ones, and return here triumphantly.”

Jason said, “Hell, man, that gives her the election.” Is that what they had to do?

Bart said, “That is what her opponents are trying to stop.”

“True.”

Elke said, “It also exposes us to a lot of fire.”

Alex looked at her and replied, “If we pursue that tactic, you may of course use all the explosive you need.”

She smiled faintly. “Then I approve of it.”

Jason said, “Do we need to move now? Let’s get this clear.”

Alex pulled up a connection.

“Cady here.”

“Jace, Alex. Come down. We need advice and may need backup.”

“Arriving.”

She was at the door thirty seconds later.

Once it was closed, Alex said, “We’re discussing Plan E.” Evasion.

Jason said, “So, this Huble character is a friend of hers. He knows all her official movements, and he knows some of the campaign ones, but not the most random ones.”

“The random ones get nuisance attacks. The scheduled ones get more serious attacks.”

Cady said, “That is to be expected anyway.” She seated herself on the edge of a table.

“Yes, but these are significant attacks, escalating. They’re not massive enough to take her out, but are major enough to provoke a response from us.”

“Embarrassment?”

Alex said, “It fits. And Huble is a known bastard. This is not a surprise.”

“But he’s in her party,” Cady observed, and stared at her fingers.

“And she’s a questionable candidate-it’s very up in the air as to who might win, and she’s got a lot of baggage. But Cruk has little background. That means no dirt as well, and he’s photogenic and a good speaker, and has the incumbent edge.”

“You think they’re trying to off her to push him?”

“Sympathy vote. Remember Champion died in a ship crash a decade ago, and his son took the vote? Reginald, the son, was trailing by thirty points, but sympathy and a clean slate pushed him over the top.”

“So you think they’re deliberately looking for that?”

Aramis said, “It fits. She’s talking to a friend and relaying her movements, and they have that damned JessieM for fire correction once they’re close.”

Alex said, “I think they’re trying to either get a lucky kill or cause us to hurt her and ourselves politically.”

Jason said, “And they get to try to blame us if they set it up right, or at least decry our ‘incompetence.’ Or even eliminate us in the process, if they get lucky enough.”

Bart asked, “Do you think any of our past enemies are involved?”

Alex said, “Who knows? There are so many. None of them would mourn us. Would many of them invest money or time in it? Likely not. It’s bad for existing business. A couple of them are completely out of the field, too, and not players.”

Alex sighed.

Shaman spoke up. “The problem is, we aren’t investigators and have limited resources. We can’t depose anyone or go digging too deeply. So we’re doing this based on available raw intelligence and our own problem-solving ability. We’re good, but this is not our field. What we need to stick to is how urgent and significant we think a threat is, and go from there.”

That was a clear summation.

Jason said, “It’s clear the threats and tactics are escalating. It’s not a case of if they’ll reach critical, but when. We need to pull her out before then.” He stared at the screened charts, hoping for enlightenment.

Bart said, “I’d do so now. It registers as unholdable. What is the word?”

“Untenable,” Aramis said. “Whether or not we can, I agree we certainly should. I have my own reasons, of course.” His jaw clenched as he spoke.

Shaman asked, “What else can we tell, though? Who? Who have they hired?”

Jason said, “They’re increasingly good. My guess is they’re not amateurs, but are playing it. An obvious pro hit would be bad. An accident or faction split would be beneficial to the campaign.”

Aramis said, “Wait, there could be some interest in a faction, too.”

Alex nodded. “Yes, but I don’t think we have time to figure out all those connections. We should try, of course, but that’s secondary to the power behind it.”

“Still, they escalate until they succeed, and blame whichever group is nearest, most likely, most interested at that moment, had a previous interest, doesn’t really matter.”

Elke said, “They are going to try to take us out, too. They can either then play the ‘We’re all allies’ card or the ‘mercenary bastards had it coming’ card. Which means they’ll be better placed for any followup against her.”

Cady offered, “They might also try for us as a secondary target, getting them closer to her.”

Alex grinned. “That sounds almost vid. Would any of their people trust them?”

“They’d bring in second stringers,” Aramis said. “Other agents borrowed under the exigencies of the situation, from some bureau they don’t like as well.”

Jason remembered something from a year past and said, “Like the Nutrition and Medication people caught in that payoff scandal.”

Alex sounded unimpressed. “That would almost be obvious.”

Aramis shrugged. “Not to the typical vid watcher.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. But it doesn’t matter who at this point. They’re not our concern, and in that particular case, the bastards have it coming.”

Cady said, “Right. Our concern is keeping us alive, her alive, and disabling their attack. That’s all tied for first. Anything else is second.”

Shaman said, “Assuming we do positively ID the threat, we cannot tell her. Nor discuss it meantime. Between her and her friend, and JessieM, we might as well flash a bulletin to the enemy directly.”

“Concur.”

“So we’re going to string along until almost the last minute, and try to bail before the hit happens, close enough that the attempt is made so we’re provably right.”

Elke said, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Alex said, “She’ll refuse to believe me. I’ll put fifty on it.”

“No bet,” she said, sounding sad.