Halo: The Cole Protocol (10 page)

PART II

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

HABITAT EL CUIDAD, INNER RUBBLE, 23 LIBRAE

The moment Delgado stepped out of the airlock he knew something was wrong. Five very burly men stood waiting for him. Their shaved heads gleamed in the artificial lights of the inner asteroid, and they wore expensive, well-tailored suits. Delgado also noticed the telltale bulges of holsters just underneath their left armpits.

“Ignatio Delgado?” one of them asked.

“Yes, that’s me.” Delgado stared into the eyes of the nearest heavy. He didn’t see any way to get out of this. The five men had covered all degrees of escape. He was hemmed in.

“There’s someone that would like to see you.”

They led him across the open expanse of hangar and into the back of a roomy, plush, tube car that waited at the lip of the docking tube leading out from the asteroid.

Inside sat a thin, sparse-looking man with jet-black hair and dark green eyes. He set down the computer pad that he had been reading, folded his arms on his lap, and swiveled slightly to regard Delgado.

“Mr. Delgado,” he finally said after a long pause, no doubt calculated to make Delgado somewhat uncomfortable. “You would not believe how hard you are to track down.”

Delgado blinked. He’d been hard to find because he hadn’t been around. The Rubble Security Council had asked him to move the navigation data once more.

“I had sensitive business to take care of,” Delgado said. The door to the tube car shut behind him. The tube car moved over and gripped a long sliver of track that led down and away from the hangar asteroid where Delgado had docked the
Distancia.

“I know that,” said the man. “I was one of the members who voted to send you out to secure the navigation data today.”

“I’m sorry?” Delgado frowned.

“No, no,” the man waved in the air. “Entirely my fault.” He reached out a hand.

Delgado reached over and shook it tentatively.

“I am Peter Bonifacio, and I hear you’ve been asking about me, Mr. Delgado.”

Delgado stared into the eyes of the man who, most likely, had caused Melko’s death. He bit his lip. “I don’t think so. You must be mistaken. I’ve been far too busy with the Security Council’s orders. As you must know.”

If Bonifacio, this short, intense-looking man, was really desperate to get his hands on the navigation data, he was hiding it pretty well at the moment, Delgado thought.

Bonifacio lit a cigar. A Sweet William, Delgado realized with a kick in his stomach. “No, it’s certainly you, Delgado,” Bonifacio said. “Asking all sorts of very interesting questions. So I thought, maybe it’s time I asked some questions of
my own
.”

Delgado watched Bonifacio inhale a long drag of the Sweet William, and then let it out into the tiny, cramped interior of the bubble car. A haze of smoke lingered around them.

Bonifacio leaned forward. “What do you know about the Exodus project?”

The tube car moved on past pedestrians floating their way to and from asteroids.

“The what?” Delgado asked.

It felt like Bonifacio was studying every pore on Delgado’s face. “What about the Kig-Yar—why are you asking about them?”

Delgado shook his head, pulling back from Bonifacio, offended. “I have my reasons.”

“Mmm,” Bonifacio grunted. “It’s a strange coincidence that the Kig-Yar attacked a place that only the nine Council members knew about… and you.”

“You’re accusing me of selling that information?” Delgado leaned back in. “I was
shot
protecting the data. My copilot
was killed.
How dare you suggest I gave anything to them?”

Bonifacio looked out the window at the depths of space passing them by. Ahead, the tube pierced the center of another asteroid habitat. They passed into the heart of it, curved green farmland stretching up on all sides around them.

“We are all innocent until proven guilty, of course, Mr. Delgado,” he said. “But in your case, this is such a sensitive matter that a few Council members and I have decided that for the safety of the Rubble, you will have to be detained while we investigate certain concerns regarding your loyalties.”

Delgado clenched a fist. “My loyalties are to the Rubble.”

Bonifacio chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure you’re just a living, breathing patriot. So I’ve heard. But the Council would like to hand over security of the data to me now.

“So where is it, Delgado?”

“Lodged deep, deep up your ass, Bonifacio.” Delgado grinned.

Bonifacio’s face steeled. “There was no call for that,” he said.

Delgado shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “If we’re playing games, I might as well have some fun too,” he said.

Bonifacio quickly hauled back and punched him in the stomach, not even an inch away from a still-healing plasma wound. Delgado felt like he’d been stabbed, and the pain doubled him over.

“It’s such a shame,” Bonifacio hissed. “We started off on a nice foot, and then you had to go do that.”

“You’re such a charmer,” Delgado grunted, holding onto his stomach and leaning against the seat in front of him. “You like this on all your first dates?”

“You’re in a lot of trouble,” Bonifacio said. “Because as of this moment, you’re under arrest for suspicion of leaking the location of the navigation data.”

“The Council will not stand for that,” Delgado said. “They all worked hard with me to keep that data safe when we realized it was being destroyed.”

“For all we know you could be part of some conspiracy to destroy the data. You and your friend Diego. Who incidentally, did most of the exhorting us to ‘trust’ you.” The tube car slowed, and Bonifacio leaned back. “And the Council signed the warrant.” Bonifacio pulled up his pad.

Delgado looked down at it. Then back up. “How?”

“A nice benefit of being a trusted, elected Security Council member. Now, I want the location of that navigation data, Delgado.”

“And how long will you be able to get away with this? Eventually the Council will realize it’s not a normal arrest when I don’t actually show up in a proper holding facility, Bonifacio.”

The smuggler sighed. “True, but we have enough time for what I need.”

“Until the
Kestrel
gets in?” Delgado ventured.

Bonifacio quirked a small smile. “And to keep you from spreading that damn name around.”

“It’s coming in from Charybdis IX, right?” Delgado said, trying to prod more information out of the man. “I hear the UNSC Navy is sewing everything up, so it’s obviously a last-hurrah smuggle. A ship full of luxuries that soon people will pay a premium for… and then you no longer need the navigation data. Right?”

Bonifacio said nothing, but looked out the window.

Delgado nodded. The silence said a lot. “So you’ll sell us out to the Kig-Yar? Give them the data?” Delgado growled.

“Are you some weepy Earth sympathizer?” Bonifacio snapped, suddenly irritated. “Because you seem really hung up on this idea that I’m trying to steal the data to sell it to the Kig-Yar. Even if I am, who the hell cares what happens to Earth? They could care less about us.”

Delgado shook his head. Bonifacio hadn’t come straight out and admitted anything yet, but at least he was getting chatty. He pressed the issue some more. “The Kig-Yar will attack the moment we sell that data. They’re just here to scavenge it.”

Bonifacio shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. They’re risking a lot to be here, to help us build these asteroids. And they will reward us. They think of this as home just as much as we do.”

“How do you think they will reward us?”

Bonifacio smiled. “Don’t you worry yourself about that right now.” Delgado gritted his teeth. The smuggler had now all but admitted he was working with the Kig-Yar. That he was the leak in the Council.

The tube car slowed near an industrial looking section of the asteroid, where metals were being processed from the raw slag forwarded by other mining companies still operating in the outskirts of the Rubble.

They stopped in front of a large warehouse half dug into the ground. Bonifacio leaned forward as one of his men snapped a pair of handcuffs on Delgado. “Welcome to your new home for the next few days.”

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

SCYLLION WAREHOUSE DISTRICT, CHARYBDIS IX

Keyes stared at the faces of the rioters, reading the rage and the desperation of the crowd’s mood. So far they were just watching the ONI survivors. The trucks and trailers the ONI team and Keyes crawled out of lay broken across the road, burning from the RPG hits. The asphalt had melted underneath them in some places, and the warehouse windows reflected the dancing flames.

“Behind us.” Hansen whirled around and shot at the corner of the burning trailer. Someone ducked back behind it.

“We need to get out,” Watanabe told Keyes.

The crowd muttered, and triumphant shouts increased in the distance as several of them dragged an ONI agent out from the remains of a trailer. The man struggled, but the ten people holding him were too strong.

They shoved him to the ground and started kicking him. They could hear his screams.

“Can’t we do anything?” Keyes asked.

“It’s just the three of us, and hundreds of them over there,” Hansen said. “I can’t even get a shot clear, there’re too many of them.”

“Damn it.” Keyes turned so that he could glance back and forth between the crowd and the trailer. “Pelican 019, this is Lieutenant Keyes.” He pulled his side arm out of the holster, but didn’t point it in either direction, just kept at his side.

“I take it you’re ONI?” The Insurrectionist on the other side of the trailer yelled at them. It sounded like Kincaide. “You think you’re so smart, sneaking around. But we have you now! We’ll beat you down like your friend over there.”

The screams from the ONI agent had stopped. The crowd moved away from the limp, broken body. Keyes felt sick, then nervous as the mob screamed in his direction.

Hansen dropped a magazine out of her gun. It hit the asphalt at the same time as a new one clicked home. She didn’t respond to Kincaide’s rants.

“Jeffries here, sir,” crackled the voice in Keyes’ earpiece.

“Can you get a read on my location?” Keyes tried to keep his voice calm. Something about the pent up rage of the crowd unnerved him.

“Yessir.”

Hansen pointed at a nearby door to another warehouse. They backed over to it.

Keyes held his hand up to his ear. “Get ready for a hot pickup. We’re coming up to the roof. Got a mob after us, and we lost the Insurrectionists we were after. They were using RPGs on us, so come in fast and low and keep your eyes open.”

An Insurrectionist peered around the corner, and ducked back again as Watanabe fired at him. “These are company agents,” Kincaide shouted into the air. “Any one of you grab them I’ll give you weapons. Free guns.”

A pair of rioters heard that and ran down the street at the trio. Watanabe and Hansen shot in unison, and the two men pitched forward into the road.

Hansen turned around and shot the doorknob several times, then kicked the door in. “Inside.”

They moved in, Watanabe and Hansen staying by the door as Keyes looked around for a way up. A few more gunshots cracked out—they convinced the mob to stay back. Meanwhile, Kincaide was screaming at the mob to attack.

Still, even rioters didn’t want to charge head on into gunfire.

Keyes could see that through the shattered windows of the door. They were holding back as the two ONI agents shot just above their heads.

Looking the other way, Keyes spotted a service elevator.

“Sir, I’m a minute away,” Jeffries called in. “Get to the rooftop.”

“To the roof,” Keyes shouted.

They ran to the elevator, pulling the cage shut. It lurched up, just as the door they’d come through shattered, rioters pouring through, Kincaide with them.

He raised a Covenant plasma rifle, and as the elevator rose to the next floor, a burst of plasma hit the elevator doors beneath them, blowing them out into the shaft.

Smoke rose up with them as they climbed toward the top floor.

The elevator lurched to a halt, and once the doors opened Hansen shot the control panel several times. The foyer led to a doorway out onto the roof, and past the stairs leading down the warehouse’s floors.

They could hear murmuring and footsteps farther down the stairwell as they passed it to kick open the door.

As Keyes ran onto the flat roof, he saw the running lights of the approaching Pelican wink off. The craft swooped by, blinding them with a sudden glare of a spotlight that then shut off almost as quickly as it had been flicked on.

“That you coming out on the roof, sir?” Jeffries asked.

“Better believe it,” Keyes grunted, sprinting away from the stairwell.

“Coming back around for the land, deploying the ramp,” Jeffries reported.

The Pelican banked and disappeared off into the night. Then it appeared again. Jeffries was throwing it full speed right toward the top of the building, skimming just over the rooftops in a near suicidal dash.

Keyes had to admire the skill.

From the street level the bright flash of a rocket launch lit up an alleyway and a rocket streaked for the Pelican.

“RPG!” Keyes shouted, but Jeffries had already kicked the tail of the Pelican out, crabbing it around in midair to face the rocket and present a smaller profile.

The rocket streaked by, missing but bathing the Pelican in an eerie orange light.

A second rocket flashed and leapt up from underneath the Pelican. It slammed into the belly of the craft, gutting it. Debris rained down out of the Pelican, and a second explosion inside rippled throughout the craft’s body.

It hung in the air, engines wailing, but not moving.

The third rocket slammed into its tail, and the Pelican dropped out of the air into the street below, sinking from eye level in an inferno of boiling metal and parts.

Keyes threw himself at the ledge of building, firing his sidearm into the street, but the Insurrectionists had already melted back into the shadows.

The flaming wreckage burned itself against the back of Keyes’ eyes as he waited for some movement, any movement, near the ruins of the Pelican.

“Lieutenant,” Watanabe grabbed him and yanked him back from the edge.

Chips of concrete stung Keyes in the face as gunfire hit the lip of the building. Watanabe locked his eyes. Keyes stood in front of Watanabe, frozen, as Watanabe grabbed him by the face to look right at him. “There’s nothing you could have done, Keyes.”

Keyes numbly ejected the spent magazine from his sidearm and slid in another. “I’m the one who transferred him aboard the
Midsummer Night
.”

“He was a good soldier and a good man. Jefferson flew hard, and now he’s down and we need to focus.”

Keyes stared at the ONI spook. Jefferson? What the hell was that? Watanabe was supposed to be a man of details, observant. But Jeffries hadn’t rated his attention, apparently. But then, that was a spook versus enlisted. They didn’t care about the man standing next to you. They had their own agendas.

“Keyes, you listening? Can you raise the ship?”

“I can try,” Keyes said.

By the stairwell Hansen fired three shots, and someone screamed.

Keyes moved away from the lip of the wall and closed his eyes. He flipped frequencies on the earpiece, and then looked up at the stars in the night sky. One of them was the
Midsummer Night,
parked in geosynchronous orbit. It hung directly over the city.

“
Midsummer Night,
this is Keyes.” He waited a moment, then repeated it.

A response came through, crackly and faded. “Keyes, this is Kirtley. Glad to hear your voice. What’s your situation?”

“Pinned on a roof,” Keyes reported. “Jeffries was hit by RPG fire; the Pelican is down. We’ve got Insurrectionists and a mob ready to tear our throats out.”

“Listen, hold tight,” Kirtley said. “There are ODSTs on their way.”

“They won’t get here in time,” Keyes said.

“Major Faison had it out with the captain, said you guys needed boots on the ground for support if a mob was moving in. They left early, before you called Jeffries. You need to hold out twenty minutes. Copy that? Twenty minutes?”

Twenty minutes. Might as well have been an eternity.

But it was a chance. “Tell them to space out and watch out for rockets,” Keyes said.

“Will do. Good luck, Lieutenant.”

Keyes ran over to Watanabe and Hansen. “ODSTs are on their way. Twenty minutes.”

Watanabe and Hansen glanced at each other. Watanabe held up his side arm. “Last mag.”

“Same here. Keyes?”

“I’m on my last mag too.”

The three of them looked down the empty stairwell.

“Twenty minutes, huh?” Hansen said.

“Twenty,” Keyes repeated.

“Well, I’m game to try it,” the ONI agent said, and steadied herself against the wall for a better shot.