Lethal Velocity

  The sounds of crying had ceased, and as she made her way back to the front office, a shroud of deep silence lay over the Security Complex.

  OCEAN: PROFOUNDLY BLUE, deep inviolate azure, troubled only by infrequent flecks of white. It was serenely still, the distant sound of surf rising and falling in an ageless monody: that perfect beach every dreamer knows lies at the antipodes of the earth, ours for the possessing if we could only find it.

  Then Poole’s eyes fluttered into focus and the illusion fled far away.

  For a moment, he was sorry to see it go. There was no tranquil ocean; only the blue-black dome of Utopia, curving away above him, vertices along its bulk shining in the afternoon sun. The call of surf was his own blood, rushing through the portals of his ears. There was no alabaster beach; only the hard ridges of unforgiving sandstone pressing into his back and the hollow of his neck. Instead, there was a fierce, throbbing pain at his temples, and another—deeper, more pervasive—in his gut.

  And then he remembered everything. Abruptly, he tried to sit up.

  Pain lanced through his abdomen like a spear of fire. With a groan, he fell backward again.

  He’d been played for a sucker. A sidearm tucked into the small of the back was the oldest trick in the book. He’d used it himself on more than one occasion. He was getting too old for this game.

  But there was no time to lie around, moping.

  Rising again, Poole crawled backward through the gully, propelling himself with his feet and the palms of his hands. The pain in his belly grew unbearable, and with a sound between a gasp and a sob he threw himself at last between two massive bolts at the base of the dome, beneath the lowest catwalk. A shaped charge had been placed here; nobody would dare shoot him if he could keep himself close enough to it.

  Grasping the catwalk overhead, he pulled himself slowly upward. Black spots danced across his vision, and unconsciousness threatened, but it was critical that he know.

  Leaning against the side of the dome, he glanced around. He saw the dead workman, lying in the gully a few feet away. Beyond the gully, the man in the infrastructure uniform—the one with all the weapons—lay sprawled on his back. Over the projecting brow of the rock, Poole could only see the legs, the outflung right arm. But none of the limbs were moving. He must have hit the demolitions expert as he fell backward from the impact of the shot.

  He tried to think through the fog of pain. There might be others. The first thing he had to do was arm himself. But to do that, he’d have to move.

  Get a visual, he remembered an instructor once saying at an advance camp’s training tent. Learn the extent of the wound. A slide had flashed on the screen: a black-and-white of an old battlefield, soldiers lying in trenches, little hats and funny boots and layers of clothes in disarray. Look at those dead Confederates, the instructor had said. Why do you think their shirts are all torn up like that? It’s not battlefield looters, it’s the grunts themselves, looking for entrance or exit holes. They knew that if they’d been gut-shot, they’d die. Get a visual. Learn the extent of the wound. And take it from there.

  All this went through Poole’s mind in a tenth of a second.

  Taking short, choppy breaths, Poole glanced down. His corduroy jacket seemed untouched save for the gray dust of the mesa top. Then he saw the neat little hole a few inches above the left pocket. Gritting his teeth, he took hold of the jacket and very carefully peeled it away from his body.

  The first thing he saw was blood: lots of blood. It had soaked the lower part of his shirt, and for a moment the sight made him light-headed. He bit down on his lower lip, forcing himself to concentrate. He unbuttoned his shirt, plucked it gently away from his flesh. As he did so, a fresh torrent of blood welled out.

  He could see the wound now, a ragged little hole in the lower left quadrant. It seemed to have missed any vital organs, but it was bleeding freely. The exit wound, he knew, would be much bigger. And it hurt like a sonofabitch: Poole had been trained in gunshots, told what to expect. But he’d never expected such relentless, overwhelming pain.

  His hand fell away from the wound as he slid back to the ground. Once again, he thought back to the field instructor. If you’re in a hot-war situation, he’d said, there’s no lying down and waiting for a medic. You’ve got to work through the pain. Pain is your friend. It means you’re not so far gone that you’re useless. So put your pain into a box. Lock the box, throw away the key. Then you put that box inside a bigger box. Lock that one, too. Throw away the key. Then put that box into a still bigger box. Lock it up, but this time don’t throw away the key. Put it in your pocket. And then put that box aside. You’ll unlock it later, when there’s time.

  Poole remained still a moment, panting. Then he raised his right hand, checked his watch: 4:27.

  Grasping the catwalk again, he pulled himself first to his knees and then, with a supreme effort, to his feet. The world tilted around him dangerously, and he closed his eyes, grasping the catwalk tightly, waiting for things to steady. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes again.

  Here in the shadow of the dome, the hollows and ridges of the mesa top seemed shallow labyrinths of brown and gray. He looked for his pistol, but all he could spot in the monochromatic landscape was the M24 sniper rifle, lying where he’d told the man to drop it. Twisting his neck to the right, he could see, maybe fifty feet farther along the curve of the dome, the small square shape of the control box he’d seen earlier, just before discovering the corpse in the gully.

  He took a step forward, then another, closing his eyes once again to steady himself as the world reeled. Slowly, like an old man, he knelt to retrieve the rifle. The pain bent him double, and he bit down hard on the involuntary cry of pain. Blackness threatened to wash over him again and he waited, in the shadow of the gully, for it to pass. Then he rose unsteadily to his feet and, rifle at the ready, approached the man in the infrastructure uniform.

  He lay spreadeagled, right arm flung wide, left arm across his chest. There was no sign of any wound. For a moment, Poole wondered if this was all some weird figment of his imagination: if in fact he was the one still lying in the gully, dying, reality long since fled far, far away.

  And then he noticed the red-rimmed hole where the man’s right eye had been; noticed the small dark stain ponding beneath the head, flowing into the dry fissures of stone.

  Poole turned away, his breath coming short and shallow, trying hard to lock the pain away. He knew he was still bleeding freely, but there was no time to worry about it. The rifle was heavy, useless in his hand. What he really needed was to deactivate that control box.

  He moved slowly back to the base of the dome. Grasping the rail of the lowest catwalk, he pulled himself forward, one agonizing step after the other, following the line of det cord as it snaked its way toward the box. Directly ahead of him now, about thirty yards from the base of the dome, he could see the top of the rear wall of Utopia. Behind it, a long, flat, concrete roof swept from one edge of the canyon to the other. Ventilation tubes, smokestacks, display launching platforms, elevator housings, and aerial masts pocked its surface, creating a man-made forest of spars and booms. Beyond the rear edge, and perhaps two hundred feet below, lay the cast parking lot. And, farther still, the access road that curved its way down the desolate high-desert plains toward Highway 95.

  Poole gave all this merely a cursory glance. His eyes were on the control box, now just a few feet ahead. He tried not to think about the time; about the fact that, at any moment, the armored car would emerge from the Underground, John Doe or one of his cohorts would activate the transmitter, and people would be picking up little pieces of Angus Poole for a long, long time. If he could just get to the control box, neutralize it, they might have a chance.

  The unit was fastened securely to the lower rail of the catwalk, delicate fingers of det cord streaming away in several directions. Poole tried to kneel beside it, but a fresh whiplash of pain sent both him and the rifle sprawling in the dust. He pulled himself up
, willing the agony away just long enough to reach up, pluck out the receiver, and deactivate the infernal device.

  His fingers pawed uselessly over a slick, smooth surface. Forcing his eyes into focus, he looked more closely at the box.

  It was not a receiver, at all. It was merely a relay box, a splitting junction for the leg wires.

  Poole blinked, numbed by surprise and disbelief.

  A few feet away, an access ladder had been bolted above the catwalk. A line of thinner wire led away from the relay and curled upward along one of the ladder’s rails. Poole’s eye followed the wire, traveling slowly up the dome…And there, leering down at him, sat the receiver he’d been searching for. The demolitions expert had strapped it to the underside of a second catwalk, circling the dome some fifty feet above the first, ensuring a clear line of sight for John Doe’s transmitter.

  Poole’s knees gave way and he fell back onto the rocky ground. “Christ,” he moaned. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

  Fifty feet up the ladder, but it might as well have been five thousand. There was no way he could climb. He closed his eyes. It was too late: too late to reach the receiver, too late to defuse the triggering mechanism, too late to attain safe distance. Too late, in fact, for anything.

  IN THE DRIVER’S seat of the armored car, Candyman had one hand pressed against his headset. There was a puzzled expression on his face. After a few moments, he dropped his hand and shook his head slowly.

  “What is it?” asked Earl Crowe, sitting behind him.

  “I don’t know. I could have sworn I heard somebody laugh.”

  Crowe exchanged glances with Hardball and Cracker Jack, then shrugged dismissively.

  Sitting alone at the rear of the payload compartment, John Doe had removed one of the countless stacks of currency and was making origami cranes from the contents. The infrared transmitter lay ready at his side. He glanced at his watch.

  “Still no word from Water Buffalo?”

  Candyman shook his head.

  “We’ll give him sixty seconds more.”

  A silence settled over the interior of the armored car. John Doe finished folding the crane, put it carefully to one side, pulled a second note free, and folded another. A minute ticked by. Then he glanced forward.

  “All right, let’s move,” he said. “Water Buffalo can walk back to Vegas.”

  Candyman adjusted his headset, spoke into it. “Utopia Central, this is Nine Echo Bravo. Problem resolved. Repeat, problem resolved. Rolling now.”

  “Utopia Central confirms,” came the responding crackle. “About time. Report when you’re in the 95 driveline. Over and out.”

  Reaching overhead, Candyman turned on the high- and low-band police scanners. Then he glanced toward a panel to his right, pressed a yellow switch marked load manager. The truck went into high idle, bringing additional electrical power to bear. He disengaged the parking brake and gave another look back.

  “We’re rolling, gentlemen,” he said.

  —

  THE SOUND OF the diesel changed just as Warne and Peccam were running back toward Smythe. It grew lower, throatier. Air brakes chuffed and hissed; there was a protesting squeal. A clutch released, gears knocked their way through a transmission. Warne and Peccam exchanged quick glances.

  For a moment, the only sounds were the roar of the engine and Peccam’s noisy breathing.

  “Are we really going to do this?” the video tech asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess so.” Warne turned to Smythe. “So how do we fire?”

  Smythe’s mouth was working, but the words were inaudible. Warne leaned closer.

  “No supply tender,” Smythe was saying to himself, shaking his head. “No fire suppression equipment. No loading personnel. No spotters, no monitors.” He seemed to be counting something on his fingers; perhaps it was all the local, state, and federal regulations that were about to be broken.

  The entire corridor seemed alive with the rumble of the approaching vehicle. Any minute and the armored car would come into view.

  “Smythe! Show me how!”

  Smythe looked at him, startled. “You remove the protective cap from the quickmatch.”

  Warne tore the perforated ends away from the fuses trailing below the mortars.

  “You light the fuse with a portfire. At full-arm extension. There’s a very short delay, perhaps a half second, so be sure to get well away. Turn away from the glare. It’s likely to blind you—”

  “You light the fuse with a what?”

  “A portfire.” Smythe waved his hand at a bundle of small, red, flarelike objects. Warne grabbed one, turned it over in his hands.

  “It’s not lit,” he said stupidly.

  Smythe blinked at him.

  “It’s not lit!” Warne cried over the growing roar.

  “Of course not. You wouldn’t light the portfire until you’re ready to launch a shell, would you?”

  “Then give me the matches. I’ll light it myself.”

  Smythe looked at him blankly.

  A sudden, terrible fear came over Warne. “The matches, Mr. Smythe.”

  Smythe blinked again. He spread his hands as if to say, Why should I be carrying matches?

  Warne went cold. Oh, God. After all this…

  He slumped back against the concrete. His vision seemed to dim. And then he felt something being placed in his hand.

  It was a plastic cigarette lighter.

  He looked over to see Peccam, withdrawing back into position beside Wingnut. The video tech shrugged, laughed nervously. “I like the occasional cigar,” he said.

  Warne crouched over the end of the portfire, holding it just above the lighter’s small flame. The portfire came to instant life, sparking and flickering with an angry hiss. He tossed the lighter to Peccam, turned back to the line of mortars just as the nose of the armored car came into view.

  Against the backdrop of the tunnel it seemed impossibly huge, elephantine, invulnerable. Bands of heavy, red-painted steel surrounded the wheel wells and gunports, the transparent armor of the windows. Tall steel rods, topped with white, rose from the reinforced bumper. Amber lights on its roof, the roar of its engine, drenched the corridor in light and sound. Warne stared, portfire dangling from his hand. The driver’s compartment appeared, reflecting green in the fluorescent lights. Warne held his breath, waiting. Now the entire intersection was filled by the truck’s bulk. For a moment, he was afraid something had gone wrong; that the truck would keep going. But then, with a shrill protest of brakes, it ground to a halt and sat, idling, the entire frame shaking.

  “Shall I light?” Peccam yelled from behind Wingnut.

  Warne glanced over. Wingnut held the real charge: four huge cakes of black powder. He’d had to guess at the fuse length; for all he knew, it might well go off too early. But there was no time to worry about that now. He nodded, watched as Peccam lit the fuse, then pushed the button on Wingnut’s processing panel. The head of the robot panned around, searching for the echolocator’s signal. Then it froze, aimed directly at the armored car.

  Warne watched it. Despite everything, he felt a pang of regret and guilt that he had to sacrifice the robot like this. “Good-bye, Wingnut,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

  For a moment, Wingnut remained still, head assembly pointed at the armored car. Warne had the strange thought that perhaps it knew what was about to happen; that at some deep, atavistic level it would refuse to obey a command tantamount to suicide. And then, with the deep purr of its powerful motors, it shot forward, heading for the distant bumper.

  And, just as quickly, it came to a stop again, the fuse still spiking and sputtering behind it.

  Warne stared at the robot in horror, trying to determine what had gone wrong. Was it possible that he was right? That Wingnut would refuse to follow his programming? And then—as he lifted his gaze to the end of the corridor—he understood.

  Beneath the rear end of the shuddering truck, something that looked like a huge plastic watch lay on t
he concrete floor, broken into pieces. The shaking of the vehicle had jarred the echolocator loose. It had shattered in the fall. And now Wingnut was stranded in the corridor, ten pounds of heavy explosive on his back, with no instructions on how to carry out his directive.

  —

  “WHAT IS IT?” John Doe asked from the rear compartment. Leaning back against a metal locker, he threw his arms behind his head. As he did so, his suit jacket draped open to reveal an elegant silk lining, the holster snugged beneath one arm.

  “There’s somebody up ahead in the corridor,” the driver replied. “He came into view as I rounded the bend.”

  “Well, give him a minute, he’ll get out of the way.”

  “He’s not moving.”

  “Give him a bit of the horn.”

  Candyman complied. “Still there. He just doesn’t want to move.”

  John Doe let his arms drop to his sides and leaned forward. “Is he deaf?”

  “The guy’s looking right at us.”

  “Is he a guard?”

  “No. Just some civilian in a suit.”

  John Doe frowned at this. “Is it possible, even conceivable, that—” He rose and, holding an overhead rail for support, peered forward, out through the windshield.

  “I’ve seen that man before,” he murmured. And then, suddenly, his features contorted with anger and surprise.

  “It’s Warne!” he cried. “Step on it! Run him down, now, now!”

  —

  AS THE ENGINE revved and the driver threw the truck into gear again, Warne dropped his eyes from Wingnut to the canisters propped on the ground before him. He leaned his portfire toward the fuse of the golden willow. With Wingnut frozen, lacking instructions, he knew what he had to do: fire a shell at the truck himself. And yet, a strange lassitude filled his limbs. For a moment, time hung suspended.

  A parade of images flashed through his head, an accelerated magic-lantern show: Norman Pepper on the monorail, gesturing expansively, smile impossibly broad as he rubbed his hands together. Sarah, wide-eyed, in the hall of mirrors. Terri Bonifacio, sobbing against his shoulder in the Security Complex. Georgia standing in Metamorphoses, staring at the magically aged image of herself. And then, later, in the recovery bay in Medical…