“What the goddamned hell are you doing here?” he roared at her.
She took down a guard to Anish’s right, nailing him, center of mass. “Saving your goddamned backside! Get to work, soldier!”
“Secure the cell blocks,” Anish shouted into his command-comm. “Don’t give ’em time to slaughter the prisoners. Blow doors if you have to, but get in there!”
Kafari’s forward fire team made short work of the door that separated the public reception area from the private offices and cell blocks beyond. A concussion shook the room as they blew that door, as well. The smoke that bellied up concealed their movements as they scuttled through. Kafari motioned her second team through and motioned Anish and his teams forward, as well, in deference to Anish’s desire to keep her in the realm of the living. Red Wolf stayed glued to her back, shooting at anything wearing a POPPA uniform and covering their rear from potential attack if anyone still outside developed a hankering to protest what was happening in here.
They moved out on the heels of Anish’s last team, following them into a long corridor with offices — whole suites of offices — branching off from it. The teams ahead of her were hard-pressed to sweep for potential ambushes in those rooms while attempting to reach the cell blocks before a massacre could ensue. Kafari and Red Wolf moved at a crouch, keeping their heads below the level of the windows set into various doors and moving cautiously from one doorway to the next.
They were halfway down the corridor when gunfire erupted, cutting them off from Anish’s rear-most fire teams. Kafari ate the floor — then found herself under Red Wolf. He tackled her and sent them skidding into another office, out of the line of fire. Kafari cursed as they fetched up hard against somebody’s desk. For one brain-rattled moment, she was in a Klameth Canyon basement, again, with the Deng shooting at them through the stairs and Abe Lendan’s bodyguard tackling and sliding with him into the wall. No wonder the president had yelled — being body-slammed hurt.
Kafari shook her head to clear it, then twisted around, trying to see where the shots were coming from. Muzzle flashes from an office farther along the corridor gave her the location. The placard on the door said Commandant’s Office.
Kafari crawled forward on elbows and knees. Red Wolf checked her, interposing himself between her and the door. “No way, sir,” he muttered. “Use the radio and keep your damn-fool head down.”
Kafari ground her teeth and spat into her command-comm. “Alpha One to Beta One, we are pinned. Repeat, pinned. We are taking fire from the commandant’s office. Might be a useful bird if he knows how to sing.”
“Roger. Stay put.”
Seven seconds later, a barrage of covering fire erupted in the corridor. Live rounds created a grey canopy at waist height, forcing the occupant or occupants of the commandant’s office to duck for their lives. Red Wolf slid through the open doorway of their shelter, motioning Kafari to stay where she was, and eased forward under that canopy. Kafari was nearly bouncing with frustration when she remembered that she wore a command helmet. Swearing at her own greenhorn stupidity, she fumbled with exterior controls until the video system came online, giving her thumbnail views from each of the button-size, fish-eye cameras on her field team’s helmets.
She zeroed in on Red Wolf’s signal and watched, distracted and fascinated by the eerie sensation, as “they” crawled forward under covering fire. Red Wolf reached the commandant’s open doorway, while one of Anish’s team members approached from the other side. They crawled through together, peeling left and right as they slid into the room. Kafari could see boots under the desk ahead of Red Wolf.
Whoever was doing the shooting, he or she didn’t like the hail of live rounds tearing into the office. The person was shooting wildly, reaching up with one hand to fire in the general direction of the hall, while staying behind the interposing desk. Within seconds, with the pistol shot dry, an empty magazine bounced onto the floor and slid toward Red Wolf. An instant later, their quarry started swearing a blue streak.
“He’s fumbled the reload!” Kafari shouted.
Red Wolf hurled himself forward and skidded around the end of the desk. The gunman was still trying to ram the magazine home when Red Wolf took him off at the knees. He screamed and went down. Blood soaked into his trousers from a pair of nicely shattered kneecaps.
Red Wolf searched him for weapons. “He’s clean, sir.”
Kafari crossed the corridor at a run and reached the other office without drawing any more fire. Their prisoner was, indeed, the commandant of Nineveh Base.
“You’ll fry for this!” he snarled. Hatred and pain had twisted his face into a malevolent mask.
Red Wolf gave him a cold laugh. “I’m so scared, you got me pissing in my boots.” He ripped a wire loose from the computer console and twisted the commandant’s wrists behind him. “He’s all yours, sir,” Red Wolf said, giving Kafari a salute.
She beckoned Anish’s fire team in from the hall. “Get him outta here,” she said, dropping her voice into its lowest registers and putting a Port Town swagger into it. “Put him in my truck. I wanna chat with this som-bitch.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
They hoisted Nineveh’s commandant and carried him out, ignoring the string of invectives ripping loose. Kafari and Red Wolf scrambled after the rest of the penetration team, which had leapfrogged ahead to reach the cell blocks. They found Anish Balin at the cell block’s control console, using the master computer to unlock rank after rank of prison doors. Several uniformed officers were down, both in the control room and in the corridor between the cells, sprawled obscenely in pools of their own blood. Dazed prisoners were stumbling past, some of them so badly injured, they couldn’t walk without help. A few had to be carried.
One man’s face had been nearly obliterated by savage beatings. The wreckage was purple-black, a face made of squashed plums. The ghastly, swollen bruises and crusted blood had nearly closed both eyes. It looked like there was broken bone, under the bruises. The coffee-toned skin of his hands, ears, and neck had turned a shade more grey than brown. His clothing was ripped, revealing more bruises. He’d actually staggered past before Kafari realized who he was. She turned sharply, queasy from the shock, and strode after him. Speaking in a low whisper, she asked, “Do Asali bees still have stingers?”
He slewed around, squinting through crusted, swollen eyes, unable to see her face through the biochem mask and command helmet. “I’d hate to get caught in a swarm,” he said cautiously, the words slurred and drunken as he struggled to move muscles too stiff and battered to shape the sounds. Even so, those few words confirmed his identity. Dinny Ghamal swayed on his feet and sweat broke out across his battered face. “Asali bees can get mean,” he added, waiting for her response.
“Oh, yes,” Kafari agreed. “It’s a good idea to have a bolt-hole handy, if you run Asali bees. Cheese rooms work pretty well.”
She saw realization spread itself across his ruined face, tugging at the edges of his eyes and battered mouth. Then Dinny grippped her free hand — the one without a gun in it — with both of his own. Crusted blood around his eyes softened and ran red.
“You came back for us,” he choked out. “They told us you were dead. Showed us pictures of your aircar, wrecked and full of bullet holes. But you came back, just for us…”