Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel Read online

  Confused blinking. "Of course, it's on my personal datacomp ... turning back the way she came, "... if you'll just follow me ..." Ari followed, heart thumping, pushing vision enhancements into multi- light, the corridor turning to a wash of red and gold before him. "... is there some kind of problem? I'd swear I followed all the protocols ... what we're given, actually, is a standard form. CSA issued them to all government departments just last week, I believe, and we're all trying to follow them as closely to the letter as possible ..."

  People passed in the corridor, hotel staff, mostly, and a guest on his way out of the men's bathroom, wiping newly dried hands upon a handkerchief. Ari's hand itched to reach for the gun holster beneath his jacket, but he did not want to start an alarm yet. He monitored his position in the back corridors, passing another smaller function room as they turned into a wider thoroughfare. Big double doors, an electronic noticeboard pronouncing a guest speaker at some earlier hour, attendees still milling around discussing the recent presentation. Adjoining double doors from the next presentation room up ahead, a security man on duty, doors opening to admit another guest from within ...

  "Oh look," said Ms. Chernomirsky, "there's Mr. Carvuto now. He's one of the sublist invitees, perhaps he can help us ... Mr. Carvuto!" Walking eagerly toward him as the dusky, clean cut young man turned to look ... his eyes missed her completely, and locked on An, trailing a step behind. His eyes widened. Ari's did.

  Carvuto ran, with Ari exploding past the startled Chernomirsky in pursuit, ripping the pistol from its holster ... no time for silent formulation ... "Ayako, got one. Track him and watch for responses!" Carvuto slammed a pair of guests screaming to the ground, smashed a stunned security agent with a well placed running elbow and vanished about the next left corner. Ari hurdled bodies and ducked, rolling around the corner ... shots exploded overhead, blasting chunks from the walls, Ari rolling up, pistol tracking as Carvuto kept running, firing back past his side. Security appeared in front, Carvuto changed targets real fast and blew him messily in half. Ari fired from a tight crouch against the wall, three quick shots precisely between the shoulder blades ...

  The explosion blasted him backward, flaming wreckage and shrapnel shredding the hotel walls like paper ... Ari rolled, arms over his face as the secondary explosion decimated the walls further up.

  "Ayako!" he yelled on open channel amid the crackling flames, hissing fire retardant and screeching emergency alarms, "it's fucking suicide rigs. They've got themselves primed to blow! Don't shoot them with people around, the blast'll kill everyone!"

  "Ari!" Frightened and bewildered amid what sounded like the outbreak of mass panic in the ballroom. "Are you okay?"

  "Get the sublist off Chernomirsky's database!" he yelled, rapidly getting drenched by fire retardant as he heaved himself up on one knee, aware of flames crackling dangerously close and noxious fumes in his lungs. "It's on her personal datacomp, rip the codes to pieces if you have to, just get it out. I don't have time! Get anyone who came in with a guy called Carvuto ... it was Hector Iglasio, the fucker recognised me ..

  "Iglasio! That's Vanguard. I bet Yuernan and Christophson are here too ... Wait, I don't need any sublist, I know what the fuckers look like ... "

  "Great, good, go!" He staggered upright, cursing himself for not thinking as straight as Ayako in a crisis. He knew Christian Vanguard's main goons as well as any underworld hack ... Found himself being roughly grabbed by the arms and dragged stumbling around the corner ...

  "You okay?" shouted a man over the noise of alarms and fire ... Not even security, Ari noted-the man holding his arm was a guest. Where the fuck were security? Uplinks rushed in as he accessed, racing across the local network ... oh, of course, that was where they were ... "Sonny, you hearing me? Oh hell, your arm's hurt ..."

  He stared down, and found the jacket sleeve of his left forearm pierced in several places. A considerable amount of blood was seeping out. Human bombs. Shrapnel, ball-bearings. Recalled the wall being decimated beneath a hail of exploding metal ... God only knew how it'd missed him, maybe being set off accidentally had triggered it wrong ... It should have hurt, but of course the enhancements took care of that too.

  "I'm okay," he gasped, his lack of breath surprising him as he steadied against the corridor wall. "I'm CSA, you'd all better get out that way." Pointing unfeelingly with his damaged arm. "There're exits on the other side of those rooms ..." His uplink-map showed him so. "... don't try to get out the main doors. There's important senators and stuff that way, security everywhere ... they're the targets, you get me? Keep away from them, the bad guys aren't interested in you, only senators."

  And beat his way clear, off down the thoroughfare, shoving and weaving past screaming, panicking guests emerging from side rooms or looking wildly about for lost friends ... Uplinks showed him the way, a staircase ahead and main corridor leading back to the ballroom on level one. All the security were up here on level two where the senators were, but the underside was vulnerable ...

  "Ayako, see anything?"

  "Nothing, everyone's panicking, there's a mad crush headed for the exits . A brief flash to visual channel, Ayako's overlayed view of the ballroom from the level two balcony. Crowds of running guests swarming toward the main staircase and entrance hall ... "Anyone could be right under me and I couldn't see them, I'm going to get down there ..."

  The staircase descended left and An hurtled down it, leapt the last seven steps and hit the ground running, avoiding major collisions through good luck and agility ... The ballroom doors ahead were ajar, hotel auto-safeties activated for evacuation, and most people were running in the same direction he was. An roughly collided with someone on the point of entering, bounced off breathlessly, staring around the huge, increasingly empty ballroom. Tables overturned, glasses and food platters strewn and broken across the floor, instruments abandoned ...

  Gunfire crackled from out beyond the grand staircase, accompanied by an explosion of warning yells over general frequency ... Secu rity broke and ran across the ballroom, hurdling debris. More yells for help and backup ...

  "Come on!" came Ayako's yell from the right-hand stairway leading up to the balcony above, a small figure in a long-tailed leather jacket pelting down the steps ... Uplinks showed the firefight outside, someone in the gardens by the side exit way, pinned down and spraying fire. Another, they thought, might have gotten in through that exit, though cover was now on the way ...

  "Wait!" he shouted at Ayako as she hit the bottom step. She spun, frustrated, security racing out down the main steps beyond. Ari stared blankly ahead, only marginally sighted on her or the ballroom. Ayako's eyes widened. She recognised that look.

  "What? You think ... ?"

  "Senators are that way." Pointing back and upward to the corridors leading back from the balcony above. "Security just went that way." Pointing out at the main entrance. "That's not right."

  "Shit, how powerful are the bombs?" She strode quickly his way, angular Intel-issue pistol comfortable in her small hand. Ari shook his head, racing full speed through the uplinks, scanning all available hotel schematics and getting way too many blanks ... the blast had taken out half the hardware network. The inner convention centre was effectively network blind.

  "Powerful enough. I'd guess someone's chem-lab plastique, directional shrapnel front and back. It went straight through the walls back there ..."

  "Would it go through floors and ceiling?" And saw at close range "Oh shit, your arm ..."

  "It'll last ten minutes." Distractedly. "I'd be almost as worried about the firearms. He had an Ubek-5, he was taking out whole pieces of wall back there. That's the HE-shells-if someone's got AP mags, he wouldn't even need to blow himself up, he could shoot through the floor." The volume of gunfire from beyond the main entrance had increased to steady, irregular bursts-covering fire, Ari figured from the schematics before his eyes, pinning the infiltrator down while someone moved around for the killshot.

  Another rush-scan throug
h the nearby rooms ... S-3 had only enough personnel for level two, not enough for top and bottom. He determined several signals on S-3 frequency that showed agents in blocking positions about the ballroom level, but there were plenty of gaps, especially with half the network hardware missing ...

  "Take that side," he said to Ayako, pointing across to the other doors in the ballroom's rear wall, beneath the overhead balcony. "I've got this one ... remember if you have to shoot, shoot for the head, these things could be uplink triggered."

  In which case there was no guarantee, he reckoned, as he darted back up the corridor he'd come from, that blowing the bomber's brains out wouldn't also trigger the explosion. Took the first right into a small meeting room. Comfortable chairs set about a central table, doubtless for comfortable covert meetings between various involved persons. His uplinks got no reading on the room through the open doorway beyond. He flattened himself against the side wall, darted a quick look around, then followed, with gun levelled one-handed. Rear corridor, much smaller than the mains. Staffroom down one way, dead-end door with no-admittance notices. Closed. They shouldn't be closed with the auto-emergency systems opening everything for evacuation. He edged sideways down the corridor, pistol trained the opposite way, covering his more vulnerable side. Uplinks gave him nothing beyond the closed staffroom door either.

  He spun and kicked in one smooth motion, pistol searching as the door smashed open ... there were lockers, cabinets and drawers for various staff things in rows, narrow aisles between for access. No sound, beyond the echoing wail of emergency sirens, and the background crackle of reports, gunfire and schematic audio in his ear. The room smelt slightly stale, telling of less than perfect ventilation, and too much shoe polish and body spray ... and something else.

  He crept forward, darting a quick look into each aisle between the big storage rows ... and was little surprised by the dark-suited body lying face down in the third aisle, head bent around at an unnatural angle. S-3 monitored each other's vitals, was his immediate thought. But the network was chaotic, damaged, and various encryption channels weren't working at all. A quick attention to his uplink schematics showed where the next obvious hole in the perimeter would be.

  He turned and walked, briskly, weapon ready. Running was too dangerous now. In this proximity, he needed time to react. Down the narrow corridor into the broader thoroughfare and turned right where the main traffic would continue straight ahead-that was carpeted, with wall signs pointing toward convention rooms. The way right was bare floor, and the open doors down the end revealed wide steel benches for food preparation.

  An entered the kitchen sideways, back to one side door, weapon ready. Switched quickly across to the other side. The kitchen was broad, divided by several long aisles, benches, microwaves and other kitchen stuff between ... Ari didn't know, he preferred takeaway most nights. He rolled quickly behind the near benches, and crawled.

  Heard muffled activity, close by, like someone rearranging gear. A clatter that could have been a weapon on a steel counter. Whoever it was was in a hurry. He reached the end of the bench and rolled fast to his feet, pistol levelled. "Don't move."

  The man froze. He'd been standing on a counter, out of sight of the main kitchen entrance behind the tall storage units, now side-on to Ari's position. Attempting to stuff something into the space between the big storage cupboards and the ceiling. He was wearing formal pants and shoes like any number of guests, Ari noted, but his jacket was lying on the counter alongside his feet, and his plain shirt bore crease marks in unusual places. The bundle he was attempting to stuff into the gap between cupboard and ceiling dangled harness straps, close-fitting, low-intensity magneto locks, undetectable on basic secu rity scan. God knew how they'd gotten the charge past the detectors, though.

  "Hello, Claude," Ari said. The pistol fixed an unwavering sight upon the blond-haired young man's left eardrum. That was where the uplink transmission would come from. With his own systems at fullmax, Ari reckoned he'd detect anything serious in time. Human encrypt formulations weren't exactly millisecond fast, and personal bombs would require serious encryption to avoid them going off in random traffic. "Change your mind about the "suicide" bit, did you?"

  "Ariel." With jaw-tight frustration. "I might have known. Did you kill Hector?"

  "Hector killed himself. His death was pointless and achieved nothing. Yours will be too unless you deactivate that stupid thing and step down here. You can't penetrate the floor with that explosive, anyway, it's too thick."

  A blatant lie ... at least he had no real idea of the truth. But Claude had the position spot on, directly beneath the room now holding the senators. He'd done his homework. And, at this range, Claude had enough uplink capability to detect if An made a transmission to warn them. Ari knew he had that capability, it was on file-a file he himself had written. If Claude tried the trigger, Ari knew he'd have to shoot to kill. And Ari wanted a live interrogation. This much of a security breach warranted some serious analysis.

  "Hector's death was not pointless," Claude retorted, clenched jaw trembling. Not looking Ari's way. "He has gone to a far better place. As will I. You, however, Ariel, are in question in this regard."

  "You're running around the city blowing people up, and you question my Godly virtue?" Damn these guys were funny. His arm was suddenly throbbing. "That's ... that's creative, Claude, really."

  "Ariel ... Ariel, in the Lord's name," Claude burst out in frustration, glaring with wide, trembling eyes in his direction, "you're a smart man, can't you see? Can't you see what's going on? This ... this is lunacy!" Waving a hand about, encompassing the kitchen, the hotel, the entire teeming city of 57 million.

  "You're damn right it is." Thinking furiously. He couldn't patchand-disable Claude's uplink trigger by remote, Claude could mistake it for a warning transmission and blow them both to pieces. He needed to knock him out cold, but carried no stunner. Dammit. Last time he made that oversight.

  "Ariel, I know about you ... most of my friends know about you. Opinion is divided but I, I, Ariel, I alone believe you to be a decent person. But you serve the wrong side, why don't you see that? These ... these people, Ariel, they believe in ungodly things, they would vote for things that would forever warp and ... and distort all of humanity in evil ways, and they would use this vote in the houses of power, Ariel, and life for all God's children would never be the same again!"

  "Claude," An said, with what he thought was commendable calmness, "I respect your beliefs." Holding up a placating free hand. The arm was definitely throbbing now. It made concentration difficult. And holding one's temper. "I respect your beliefs, and I respect your right to hold them-and to voice them to whoever may choose to listen. But there are other ways to voice your beliefs than to go about killing people ... "thou shalt not kill," Claude, does that ring a bell?"

  "Like they're killing us?" Eyes blazing. "Like they're wanting to turn us all into some ... some damn synthetic machines for their profits and their portfolios and their grand corporate empires!? Like they're wanting to kill our souls, Ariel? Dammit, man, how can you be so naive? You know better than anyone how the system works, you're a part of it! You know the politicians are in the corporate executives' pockets! And you're protecting them, you're protecting the whole, twisted, immoral system!"

  Like it was such a horrible, sinful thing to do. Well, Ari'd heard that one before. And from saner people than Claude Christophson. He pursed his lips in exasperation.

  "You know, Claude ... you've nearly convinced me. Really. Why don't you put that explosive vest away, and rather than blowing yourself and all your very convincing rhetoric into very small pieces, you can live on, and stay here in Tanusha ... You'll get a trial, it'll probably be public, with all the civil rights attorneys who'll no doubt do your case for free because of the publicity ... You'll get a planet-wide broadcast podium, everyone will be listening, and then you can tell them all what you've just told me and everyone will believe, and then everything will all be right
again. What d'you say?"

  Too sarcastic, was his immediate thought. It was his usual flaw. But Claude actually hesitated. Ari could see it in his eyes, the faint uncertainty, the pause for thought. And maybe, just perhaps, that little voice of self preservation whispering in the background, looking for excuses, reasons to be listened to. Religious loonies always believed their truths were universal. That there was such a thing as truth itself. It was their weakness.

  A blue flash lit the air. Claude jerked and convulsed, then fell from the bench.

  Reflex overcoming initial surprise, Ari leapt forward, awkwardly catching the falling body one-armed, the other ready in case the vest tumbled from its hiding spot ... it didn't. He dumped the young man's limp body upon the floor between stainless steel benches and checked his vitals. Racing heartbeat, but he was still breathing.

  "CSA give you that too?" he asked, searching Claude's pockets.

  "Of course," said Ayako, coming down the aisle and repocketing her stunner. "You can get them through the underground, of course, but they're too expensive."

  An found the sidearm, an Ubek-5 again, and plenty powerful for a concealed weapon.

  "That Claude?"

  "Yeah ... I think he's the last. There's at least two outside. Four's the absolute limit I'd have thought could get in. The rest of it looks pretty well covered."

  "And you left someone alive to question this time." Ayako sounded impressed. "You're evolving as a CSA operative, Am"

  "First guy who gave me a choice," An replied, finishing with one leg, then the other. There was a light thump as Ayako leapt onto the counter behind, and started to gingerly remove the explosive vest from up against the ceiling. "You know," he added, "I always picked Claude for a nutter, but suicide vests are just a bit extreme."

  "The future of the human race is something that tends to make them a bit upset." After disarming the vest, Ayako pulled it down. A simple contraption, a basic vest with flat, body-hugging pockets, a few wires and a trigger switch. Too slim to be visible under an evening jacket. "You know, if this keeps up, you're going to lose all your lunatic friends very shortly."