True uses the moment to hook the Triple-Y’s sling with her toe. She jerks it close, crouches to grab it, and ducks out of the passage and out of sight. In the courtyard now, she sprints to the stairs, climbing them two at a time, pivoting at the turn to the next flight, hearing the whine of the ARV’s motor over the concussion of her footfalls and her ragged breathing.
“Heads up, Ripley,” she pants. “Text Lincoln. Enemy on the ground. Send.”
She reaches the balcony on the second level. From there she can see the ARV, already in the courtyard. Its gun barrel faces away from her, but as soon as she moves, its camera will pick her up. She needs to disable the camera before the gun is in position to shoot.
One quick breath. She bounds to the edge of the balcony, jams the barrel of the Triple-Y over the railing, and squeezes the trigger, hammering at the transparent housing that protects the camera. In the enclosed courtyard the concussions are deafening. Bullets ricochet without penetrating the housing, without breaking it, but white scars blossom across its surface. She’s painting it white, blinding the camera. The gun barrel whips around to target her, but partway through its arc, it freezes. A second later, the protective housing gives way and the camera explodes in a spray of glass and plastic.
“Now you got to come find me,” she whispers as she shifts her position, moving farther along the balcony.
Through her TINSL, Colt cautions her, “You just stay out of sight.”
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.” She hopes it’s true. She pauses at a point where she can watch for movement at the mouth of the passage while she swaps out the partly expended magazine. “They sold him out,” she says.
“Nothing you can do about it— Oh, Christ. Three more armed males at the top of the street.”
“Is it Lincoln?” If he didn’t get her text, he could walk right into a firestorm.
“Shit. No. According to the identification tag on this display, it’s Rihab.”
Rihab. Hussam’s little brother who inherited control of Al-Furat, who claimed credit for Renata’s murder, and who holds Shaw responsible for the security failure at Tadmur. The two mercs downstairs, Ian and Farouk, they must have sold Shaw to Rihab.
“Rihab’s going to kill him,” she whispers, just to let Colt know she’s still there.
She shoulders the rifle again as the ARV starts up, but all it does is back out of sight through the passage. No one enters the courtyard—not yet.
“Heads up, Ripley,” she says, moving back along the balcony to the stairs. “Call Lincoln.”
The sun stands high above the confusion in Rabat’s packed streets. Vehicles jam the roads. Those with human drivers have started ignoring the traffic lanes; those driven by AIs advance at a snail’s pace, constrained by an excess of caution. Police hold command over major intersections, leaving the smaller cross streets as jousting grounds for opposing vehicles. Lincoln has already seen two fistfights break out over fender-benders.
The sidewalks, where they exist, are just as crowded. Where they don’t exist, people wade into traffic and make things worse. There’s no dominant direction to the movement. It’s as if everyone in the city, citizens and tourists alike, just wants to get somewhere else.
At least the nerve-grating civil defense sirens have gone silent.
Lincoln has divided his people, sending them on different routes in case of trouble on the way—and also, so they don’t look like a gang. He’s got Miles with him. Rohan is partnered with Felice. He left Khalid with the truck, telling him, “I need you here, in place to deploy the last pair of copters if it comes to that. Go ahead and put the truck on autopilot. Then climb in back and get the starbursts armed. Clear?”
The terms detailed in their Warrant of Capture and Rendition place severe restrictions on their weapons and armed robotics. They are allowed to carry only handguns, and lethal robotics may only be deployed in a hostage situation and under the oversight of the Moroccan police.
Or in an emergency situation, on my authority, Lincoln thinks. He’ll deal with the consequences later. With luck they won’t have to deploy the armed copters, but it’s an option if they need it.
Together, Lincoln and Miles move fast, jogging when they can. Miles is still out of shape from his two-month captivity. He breathes hard, struggling to keep up, but he doesn’t complain.
Their only weapon is Lincoln’s pistol, which he’s carrying in a shoulder holster hidden under his light jacket. His MARC visor links him to the Cloud through the local cell network. Video is impossible, given the emergency load the network is carrying, but he’s got a voice link to the mission command post, where Chris is overseeing their movements, with Tamara backing him up.
Lincoln worried at first that the visor would attract unwelcome attention, but it’s attracted less attention than his face usually does. Also, he’s seen several people narrating the chaos from behind AR screens with active cameras; so far he’s heard no one objecting.
He shoulders through yet another knot of people, following a route that displays as a golden path overlaid on the sidewalk. Miles sticks close behind him. He doesn’t have a visor, but he’s got an audio link.
They shift into a jog as the sidewalk clears. The people they pass look frightened and confused. They’re trying to make sense of what’s happening, asking questions none can answer, continuously checking the screens of their phones in a hunt for updates.
A green light winks on in his display indicating activity in their ad hoc comm network. Chris speaks in a grim but businesslike tone. “True just sent a text. It reads, ‘Enemy on the ground.’ That’s it. No details.”
“Roger that.”
He trades a glance with Miles, who nods, acknowledging the gravity of the news.
He says over comms, “Rohan, Felice, find cover as you approach the target address. Stay down and out of sight until we can assess and coordinate.”
They respond in low voices:
“Got it.”
“Roger that.”
He and Miles are crossing a gridlocked intersection, weaving between trapped cars, when Chris says, “I’m forwarding a call from True.”
The call icon appears on Lincoln’s screen. He uses his data glove to tap the air, accepting it. “Here.”
She speaks in a breathless whisper. “It’s all gone south. He’s badly wounded. Immobile. Helpless. His people have sold him out to Rihab. Rihab is here. He’s holding Shaw responsible for what we did at Tadmur. He’s going to kill him.”
Lincoln listens to this, his anger rising. She speaks as if Shaw’s safety should be his first concern. It’s not. “What’s your status?”
“I’m alone inside the building. They know I’m here but they haven’t come after me. Not yet. Might not be worth it to them. They know I’m armed. I want to take him back, but it’s five of them, one of me, and they’ve got a little ARV.”
He comes down hard on this. “You will take no action on your own. You will stay out of sight until we get there. Is that understood?”
“It’s not that easy. I need to know. Are you here for Shaw? Or are you going to let Rihab have him?”
Lincoln is moving fast. He’s not in a mood to negotiate. He’s not in a situation amenable to discussion. Even so, if he can keep her talking, that might keep her from pulling another crazy stunt. So, between the shallow breaths that fuel his sprint across the district, he lays out a grudging explanation. “I’ve got a warrant for him, based on depositions from Miles and from Ryan Rogers. The warrant doesn’t pay, but it obligates me to bring him back and deliver him into the hands of American authorities.”