Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (29 page)

He was driving not after one of the motorcades starting to scroll away from the palace, but after both of them. He ran right for the middle to see what they did.

Minnie and Ayala watched as Hektor ran, the occasional bullet starting to ring off his sides as he closed on the two convoys.

Ayala:
‘there. that one. see how the other is staying closer to you than it is.’

Minnie:

Ayala:
‘yes it is. go, hektor.’

Hektor:
‘on my way.’

He veered significantly and obviously. He wanted them to know. I am coming for you, he wanted to say.

And they reacted as Ayala had hoped. Changing courses, speeds. One accelerating, the other faltering. Faltering as the real motorcade never would have.

Phalanxes of troops converged on the line of cars now, closing to defend it, pulling from all quarters. They came at Hektor and in turn he came down upon them with relish, a thunderclap of militant intent. He wanted this. He wanted it more than he was willing to admit. He wanted to hurt them.

As they closed it got ugly.

Chapter 28: On the Run

Jim sat facing an otherwise placid group. Placid until a sudden shift in mood started spreading out from a far corner of the room. Whoever it was that was standing there, whoever it was that had stepped forward and whispered lightly in another’s ear, they were the source of some information. Information that Jim clearly did not have.

He remained outwardly calm, even as he queried Minnie and Neal.

Jim:
‘¿what’s going on, guys? something has happened. the assembly representatives are getting an update on something.’

The three had turned, as one, to another man, giving a quiet report.

Neal:
‘yes, jim. something is happening. we are not sure how, but the iranian forces found one of our spezialists. they found him and they killed him.’

Jim’s eyes widened. He couldn’t help it. The lead representative saw it and his eyes narrowed in turn. As Neal continued to speak into Jim’s head, the representative of the Assembly of Experts raised his hands, silencing his colleagues, and began to lean forward.

Neal:
‘i am afraid the iranians are reacting, jim. and they are reacting rather badly.’

Jim watched as the representative opened his mouth to speak, taking his time, admonition and anger building in his eyes.

Jim:
‘neal, i am so close. ¿what the hell happened? What … wait … they are about to say something.’

Neal:
‘i am afraid the time for talks is passed, my friend. there are troops inbound on your position now. minnie has activated the phase elevens.’

Jim:
‘no … no! wait!’

But it was done. As the Iranian finally formed his words, Jim saw that his chance was, indeed, lost, a wisp of hope vanishing in a building gale.

“You have betrayed our trust, Mr. Hacker. You do not come in peace. You come to our country with all the guile of the devil you are.” The words came as a translated voice in Jim’s inner-ear, still sound on some level, and distinguishable from Neal and Minnie’s ethereal voices, but just as distant now.

Suddenly Jim felt very alone, and the next few minutes passed as in a haze. He was only admonished by the Iranian man for a short while before that man’s own guards began reacting, pulling him and the other clerics and administrators from the room.

As soldiers began to outweigh politicians in the broad conference space, Jim felt the mood shift. Testosterone, fueled by the presence of loaded guns and an enemy, a known enemy of the state, began filling the soldiers with martial purpose, and murder began to show in their eyes.

Jim watched them. He was not afraid, not really. Not that he doubted the very real danger he was in, it was just that his disappointment was so great. It covered him like a heavy cloak, weighing down his shoulders and bowing his head, like he was soaked in his regret for this lost opportunity.

He had been on the bridge, they had been coming to join him. And as he looked now into the eyes of the soldiers wishing him harm, he longed to see some spark of that same hope, or even disappointment in their eyes.

But there was none. Only anger. Anger and bloodthirst.

Then there was the briefest moment of fear and confusion as they sensed a coming tide.

Suddenly the entire room was awash with noise. Shockwaves buffeted Jim as masonry exploded from three different directions. Dust filled his eyes and lungs as three of the Phase Elevens burst through the walls into the space, severing and smashing its other occupants as they came.

He mourned them, those soldiers. They had not been wrong in their anger, not wrong in their sense of betrayal. He had betrayed them. He had dared hope that this could be resolved peacefully. That cooler heads could prevail. He had been a fool, and he was limp with lack of care as a robotic hand enclosed his face and then pulled him in, turning and snaking around him as it wound him close to its big black chest.

As his world went black, he felt cool air on his face, a flow of filtered air coming through the machine’s hand somehow, feeding him as he was lifted and carried out of room’s exploded carcass, through its exposed ribs of plaster and wood, through gaping holes in the walls beyond, back along the trail of destruction that had been the Phase Elevens’ meteoric path to his location.

He could not see where they were taking him. He could not see what they were doing to keep him safe as they extracted him from the depths of the office complex he had worked so hard to get permission to enter. He could only feel the power of his protector’s embrace as he was saved, as his life was protected at the expense of so many others.

It sickened him and he stayed limp, almost hoping for a stray bullet to hit him and end this madness. To put a stop to the killing.

But it did not come, and deep down he knew that even if it did, the bloodshed would not end with his death.

- - -

Processing. Targeting mix assessed and prioritized. Engaging now.

The Phase Elevens worked well, thought Minnie, but without the purer speed of Hektor.

It was not a lack of impetus. Such things were irrelevant. Desire only drove ambition, it did not enable the reaching of whatever goal the emotion set, quite the opposite. Once the journey was begun, desire only filtered and obscured the destination, and her machine warriors had no time for it.

But neither did Hektor. He was beyond decision. This was not personal, it was primal. His mind moved at a base level, instinct and reflex pulsing through him as his conscious mind watched, almost an outsider, prompting himself to action at intervals, this direction, that target, then his true self ran with that thought, executing.

Any relish he took in the chaos he was wreaking across the streets of Tehran was merely an afterthought.

He leapt clear from one side of a street to another as he cleared another roadblock. He took out knees and shoulders, and blew out tires, sometimes causing more profound damage to either machine or man, depending on angle, and not a little on chance. He was not here for them. They were collateral. He was here for the man calling the shots. He was looking for the boss man. He wanted to have a word with him.

Those that crossed his path did not feel any sense of reprieve, though. For them it was only wrenching and screaming. Pounding noise cut with fire and light. The soldiers saw him only as a rolling, tumbling, leaping meteor, blurred lines of destruction firing off from it as it dervished through their midst.

And then he was gone, a gaping hole left in their line where he had blazed his trail, and a scar left on their minds like the throbbing echo of a brightness on a retina, their breath caught in their throats.

But some were tracking him. Some were mapping the macro nature of his movements as he raced after the motorcade. As bright minds on both sides analyzed the units moving about the city, strategic decisions continued to be made. And now, as Hektor closed on the stream of cars they believed held a fleeing Supreme Leader, his opponents played another card.

Minnie:

Hektor:
‘i will be there in about twenty seconds.’

Minnie:

The statement was a surprise, and Hektor even chuckled momentarily as he breathed heavily within his suit, his machine legs pounding at pavement and his arms unleashing quick bursts of fire as he came upon pockets of resistance.

Hektor:
‘i would imagine they are running because they are afraid of me, minnie. ¿you don’t think they should be?’

Minnie:

Hektor ran on, closing on the parking lot now. She was right. It had been a huge mistake on their part. Had they really thought that by killing Niels they had ended the threat? Ayala piped up, her mind’s voice level and cold.

Ayala:
‘they thought niels was just a tracker. they think we are there to kill the grand jurist, and they think we mean to send in banu to destroy the palace. they hoped that by moving him they could avoid our wrath.’

Hektor allowed the thought to turn over in his mind for a second. It was, in the end, irrelevant, he supposed. They were fleeing. TASC had hoped to draw their quarry out and, albeit inadvertently, they had done so.

Now it was his job to get at the bastard.

Minnie:

Yes they are, thought Hektor as he came powering down on the main exit from the lot. Cars were still filing out. He stopped them the quickest way he knew how: by slagging the engines of the first two and then ramming into the next, his momentum sending it careening sideways to wedge itself into the far pillar of the entrance, completing his roadblock. Return fire was quick coming, and not lacking sting. He set to silencing it before delving deeper into the building.

Hektor:
‘i will vet the structure and see if he is still in here. ayala, may i suggest you mobilize bohdan to focus on the cars that have already left.’

Ayala:
‘bohdan is entering play now. as are others.’

Others. The Phase Elevens. Jim was safely back aboard the StratoJet now, which had taken to the air, but had not departed. It was staying low, sweeping left and right, defending itself with its own onboard weaponry as it waited for the rest of its complement to return. For it had left its five gorilloid automatons on the ground, and now they joined the hunt.

It was becoming a spectacle. No, it had been a spectacle long since. It was becoming a debacle. And the world was reacting.

- - -

“I’m not sure what I can say, Neal.” Wislawa was shaking her head as she watched the footage coming out of Tehran.

“Say that we are working to extract a peaceful diplomatic mission after a brutal attempt on their lives,” said Neal.

She looked at him. She did not try to disguise her skepticism, no, cynicism. This was not an extraction, that much was clear given what she was seeing. He held her stare for a moment, then faltered under the unrelenting maternal truth of her piercing eyes. She would not be stared down, and he looked at his papers for a moment to gather himself.

When he looked up once more it was with more determination, not looking to sway her now, but to push forward in spite of her. Or replace her, if need be.

“How about this, Wislawa, tell them we are looking to stop a misguided dictator from derailing a mission to save all of their damn lives. Then tell them what
you,
you personally, would be willing to do to save the world, and then let them judge
you
.” He paused, and her expression did, indeed, falter a little.

Just as firmly, he went on, “
Or
… tell them we are working to extract a peaceful diplomatic mission after a brutal attempt on their lives.”

Now the stares were more evenly matched, though hers was becoming imbalanced by a clearly rising anger. She had not signed up for this. But then she’d made no stipulations against it either. She considered demanding to know exactly what was really happening in Iran’s burning capital, but only for a moment.

Then the desire passed. Plausible deniability. A dirty term, but one she found herself finally succumbing to. She nodded, though with enough resentment in her eyes that Neal was left in no doubt as to her thoughts on the matter. He would not get many more of these passes from her.

Though, if things went to plan today, hopefully he would not need them.

- - -

The chase now became one of attrition. As Hektor vetted the parking lot and its surrounding structures with no little prejudice, five machine hunters and one man tracked down the eight cars that had gotten out of the lot before Hektor so effectively shut it down.

In the end, it was Bohdan who finished it. The car rounded on him and accelerated with clear purpose. The driver clearly hoped to ram him and Bohdan did not stop the man, leaping at the last moment, not away, but backward so that he could land on the car’s hood as the car slid by under him. As he began to tumble over the top of the car, he slammed his machine fingers into the thick plate metal of the car’s roof.

Finding the purchase he needed, he dug in. Not just to hold on, but to pull, to rend, to open the car like a tin can. Once he had a big enough gap, he rammed his head through, his sensors quickly assessing and identifying the car’s occupants by facial recognition.

Bohdan:
‘i have him.’

The faces came through the link like a paparazzi shoot, four men, clearly shaken with terror, reeling from the man assessing them.

Two voices came into Bohdan’s head simultaneously.

Ayala:
‘release the device.’

Minnie:
‘car is swerving, collision likely.’

The driver was not looking. His head was ducked as low as the poor man could get it. The car was turning, Bohdan felt it to. Well, we couldn’t risk an accident, could we? Not with the leader of this soon-to-be ally aboard. Even as his one hand came back to grasp a cylinder attached to his side, he was ripping a wider hole in the roof with his other, then pushing his torso through the broader gap and grasping the wheel to center the car once more.