Root of Unity (14 page)

A megaphone squawked outside. We all stopped. The guns in the bad guys’ hands twitched upward—

“Federal agents,”
came an echoing voice.
“We have you surrounded. Put your weapons down and come outside with your hands in the air.”

Oh,
fuck.

I didn’t know if the DHS had tracked me or if they’d been following the bad guys, but reflexes kicked in—when a meet’s blown, make sure everyone knows you’re not the one who blew it, or you might not live to be arrested. “Fucking Straczynski sold me out!” I yelled righteously before I could think about it, using the fake name of my business contact. One of the goons grabbed me by my jacket collar and I let him wrestle me into their midst.

And then a shout came from in front of the diner—something about freedom—and someone started firing. Several someones. The acoustic calculations resolved themselves instantly—people shooting away from the diner, bad guys firing at the Feds. A split second later, the Feds started firing back, and just like that, I was in the middle of a shootout.

The priority of staying alive swept everything else out of my head—the blown meet, the bad guys, Sonya Halliday. I had to get out of here. I tried to listen, but there were too many Feds, too many angles—the math couldn’t map a safe path for me. As if to prove it, a bullet tore through the wall and tagged the guy next to me in the gut. He yelled and staggered, and one of his friends helped him down and pushed hard on the wound.

The rest of them rushed to defensive positions by the windows, where they could peer out and presumably help their colleagues outside. I hunkered down by the counter, making myself as small a target as possible. What the math
could
tell me was an estimate of how many Feds were out there, and the answer was: too damn many. The men in here might not know it, but they were dead.

And I was going to be dead with them if I didn’t do something.

I glanced at the guys at the windows—they were all facing away—and then whipped my hand forward to slam the would-be medic’s head against the corner of the counter. He slumped on top of his gut-shot friend. The friend didn’t twitch, already unconscious from blood loss.

I stole a nice little bullpup AK off the guy I’d just killed and helped myself to whatever spare magazines I could grab easily from their pockets. Then, keeping my head down, I scooted for the swinging door of the kitchen like the hounds of hell were after me.

The crumbling kitchen had a back hallway that probably led outside, but I was one hundred percent sure the Feds had people covering that exit. Instead, I turned to the side and peeked out a window to confirm what I thought I’d remembered: the wooden decking that used to be outdoor seating abutted this building and led in meandering verandas and stairs up to the next one.

I opened the rotting cabinets against the wall, checked that the AK was on full auto—it was,
idiots
—and fired.

The magazine emptied itself in less than three seconds. I reloaded and repeated. In short order, I’d perforated myself a very nice little hole in the base of the wall.

I kicked out the remaining plaster and wood and then ducked down and jammed my head through. The firefight muffled itself momentarily as I pushed through the dense screen of plant growth that had crept to life in the crack of sunlight against the wall before I burst through under the decking. It was cool under there, dark and musty-smelling with narrow white slats of light striping the dirt. I wormed the rest of my body out and through, dragging the AK with me just in case.

There was still a chance I’d be hit by a stray bullet under here, but much less, considering the Feds would be concentrating on the main building. The space wasn’t tall enough for me to crawl, but I managed a reasonably fast belly-and-elbows squirm.

I reached the far end of the first patio and wriggled my way over to the stairs. Unfortunately, they’d been built over a rocky bit, and I peered upward in the dimness—nope, I wouldn’t be able to fit underneath.

Which gave me two choices: risk breaking cover, or hunker here and hope that when the DHS took the building they wouldn’t find my escape hole. Well, there was next to no chance of
that
happening. If I didn’t want to be taken by the Feds, I had to clear out entirely.

The thrum of a helicopter rose on the edge of my hearing, mixed with the deafening staccato of the gunfire. Better to go now than after the bird was above me. Fortunately, the place had become so overgrown that I’d be camouflaged by untamed bushes and stunted half-grown trees in my dash up to the next patio.

I pulled myself to the edge of the deck and out into the shrubbery, pushing off into a hunched run up the five strides to my next cover. I was two steps in when the building behind me blew up.

A cascade of reactions flew through my thoughts before the blast had completed itself, starting with
What the hell
and
How many explosives do these people carry anyway
and
Sounds like that went wrong for them
and diving immediately into
Who gives a shit, it’s a perfect distraction, keep moving keep moving—

And then my knees hit the rocks and my face bounced off the branches and twigs and I couldn’t move.

Pain blossomed in my left side, answering the question I hadn’t gathered my wits to ask yet. Something—a bit of debris, a chunk of shrapnel,
something
sharp and jagged and ugly—had driven itself into me, something slingshotted by the blast, some woefully unlucky projectile that hadn’t even been aimed at me.

Oh Jesus
fuck
that hurt.

Whatever it was had ripped through just below my left kidney, and was still in there, a massive rod of fire piercing my abdomen, tearing all the way through to the front and then lodging itself. I tried to move, and my muscles twitched unresponsively. Breathing was shallow and a colossal effort, as if my insides had been scrambled so much that I no longer had any room for air.

I had to be bleeding a lot. I tried to push myself onto my elbows. The brush underneath me was sticky and red.

Shouts and movement echoed from the woods around the diner.

The stairs I was next to led to a walkway that wound around the next building to open into another veranda. If I could get to the building, maybe I could take cover somewhere inside. Find something to patch myself up. Maybe.

I pawed at the plants and the ground and managed to lurch into a crawl. By the time I made it up onto the walkway to the door, my vision was darkening around the edges, and my side was a ball of fire. I reached up and pushed the door open, vaguely noting the scarlet smears and handprints I was leaving behind.

I slumped against the wall just inside the door and concentrated on breathing. My right hand had dug in to press against the front side of the wound, and it felt like it was drowning in blood.

I reached my left hand up and found the edge of a table—this building still had them, dusty and defunct—and heaved. The world tilted and the floor almost went out from under me, but somehow I got myself upright, standing—okay, leaning heavily—against the wall.

Getting captured by the DHS was not an option. Checker had broken me out of local police custody before, but I wasn’t going to bet on his skills when up against national security resources. Not to mention that I wasn’t convinced this level of federal agency would feel inclined to let me go even if Checker hacked enough files to make it seem like I was the Pope.

And if the DHS connected me with any of my other not-at-all-legal activities, or, worse, if the NSA found out about my math abilities…

They wouldn’t just throw me in a hole. They’d throw me in a lab.

I still had a small but finite opportunity for escape. The back of this building was up against the wooded slope of the mountain. The Feds had to be moving in their perimeter now, concentrating on whatever had happened in the exploded building. If I went out a back window, I had a chance of being able to scale the slope while they were distracted and slip their net without being seen, or fight my way through surprised agents. A slim chance, but a chance.

I pushed off the wall and limped toward the back of what had been this building’s eating area. My legs almost buckled, but I forced them to support me.

I got to the back wall—well, lurched against it. I fumbled with the latch on one of the windows with my left hand, but the thing was rusted shut and my fingers were slick with blood. I’d lost the AK at some point, but I pulled out my knife and bashed the hilt against the pane. Large shards cascaded down. I started using the blade to break off any jagged bits remaining in the bottom of the frame; I had no desire to be cut up more than I already was.

“Hands in the air,” said a quiet voice behind me.

I turned slightly.

The
same fucking DHS agent
from before stood across the room, her tall silhouette backlit in the door. Aiming a gun at me.
Again.

“I thought it was you,” she said evenly. “Hands in the air. You’re coming in this time.”

Still, she was only
one
DHS agent. And she had a gun aimed at me, but all I needed was a split-second distraction…

Under normal circumstances,
the mathematics reminded me.

That was the bad thing about mathematics: it wasn’t going to be swayed by what I wanted reality to be. Usually it told me how I could win, but this time…this time the escape avenues shriveled and curdled away, stricken down by disinterested logic. My weakened state shortened the possibilities, made it so every move I could make, the agent could counter.

She might make a mistake—but then again, she might not. And even if I got past her, there were still all her friends out there. If anyone spotted me running, I was liable to get shot, and even if I knew I was being targeted, right now I probably had no better than a forty percent chance of being able to avoid it.

Mathematical expectation—the probability of being shot by her or one of her colleagues if I tried to get past her, multiplied by the truly awful outcome of dying…

The answer didn’t even have the grace to be close. Fucking math.

I raised my free hand in the air, the one that wasn’t stopping me from bleeding out, and let the knife tumble to the floor. I meant to say I surrendered, but the words stuck in my throat.

“Face down on the ground,” said the woman, taking a step forward. “Hands on your head.”

I didn’t want to do what she said—I wanted to give her a snappy comeback instead. But the ground came up to meet me anyway. Maybe it was the adrenaline flooding out of me. I crumpled to my knees, then to the grimy diner floor.

I’d lost hold of my injury in the front. I felt an awful sort of pressure release along with a paralyzing jolt of pain. I tried to evaluate the injury the way I always did, but for some reason I didn’t feel capable.

Something like fear bit at the edges of my thoughts. My hands didn’t seem to be working very well, but I managed to touch the back of my head. “Hurry,” I mumbled against the dusty tile.

I could hear the woman—the DHS agent—approaching slowly. Probably waiting for backup.

“I’m bleeding,” I mustered the energy to say. I meant to say it loudly, but I was lucky the syllables came out at all. “A lot. In fact…I think I’m going to pass out in about twenty seconds.” My self-evaluation wasn’t telling me much at the moment, but the math of the blood loss wavered through the mess. One final vestige of intelligent self-preservation prompted me to add: “Don’t let me die; I have the proof you want.”

She hesitated, and then I heard her calling for paramedics on her radio.

“Ten,” I said woozily. “Nine…”

Her footsteps hurried toward me. “No sudden moves.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” I said, and passed out.

Chapter 14

I woke
up in a hospital room, handcuffed to the bed rail. I was a little muzzy-headed, but the numbers sang to me about how easy it would be to break my thumb and slip the cuffs.

My brain caught up: I must be feeling better. I did a quick internal survey—my left side was still torn up, but someone had put everything back in the right places and sewn it all together, and it would heal up nicely if I didn’t strain it. My various other cuts and scrapes had also been cleaned and bandaged.

It had been nice of the DHS to patch me up, but I had to get out of here. I slitted my eyes open and flicked my gaze around the room. White and bright and a tall figure standing by the door in an approximation of parade rest.

“Welcome back to the world,” said the DHS agent who had taken me in. She wasn’t smiling.

I blinked my eyes all the way open, giving up any pretense at still being out. “Hi.”

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

“Me? I’m nobody,” I said, testing my right hand against the cuff. “I’m just a middleman.”

“For Sonya Halliday.”

“Maybe. What do you want with her?”

She snorted. I guess she was right: their interest was obvious.

“DHS,” I said, feeling things out. I couldn’t remember exactly how the various Homeland Security branches fell out, but…“Secret Service?” They were responsible for financial crimes and protecting the U.S. economy, from what I could remember.

The agent didn’t answer. “You said you had the proof. I think you were lying. You’re trying to track it down the same way we are.”

I didn’t have to answer—I could stay quiet. Of course, if I did, they’d probably assume I was after the proof for nefarious world-destroying purposes. “I’m not after the proof. I’m trying to save the professor.”

“Of course you are.” The sentence was heavy with irony. “You’ve been meeting with her for months. Were you working to find a buyer for her work? Did the buy go wrong?”

I was jarred for a minute.
Months?
Holy crap, they must have found the trail Checker had set for the Lancer.

Should I set her straight? Was there any way to turn this to my advantage?

“I’m not trying to help her sell the proof,” I said, dragging out the words. Stalling.

“Then what? People like you don’t visit with math professors for no reason. What were you discussing?”