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  She sniffed. “Call it what you will, I saw you.”

  Daly didn’t confront Dwan further, but slid his feet forward a few centimeters and straightened his back until his elbows were inside his knees. The position felt odd.

  “Now try it.”

  He steadied himself and aimed. The dot moved more than it had when he was prone, but not as much as the first time he tried prone.

  “That’s better, big boy,” Dwan said, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep practicing.” Then she moved on.

  By the end of the day, Daly had spent two hours in each of the three firing positions used for qualifying with the maser. Dwan declared him good enough to qualify as Marksman, the lowest of the three noncompetition qualification rankings. By the end of the week his proficiency had improved to the point where he was able to qualify as Sharpshooter with the M14A5 maser—he missed Expert by only two points out of two hundred. The weapon Sergeant Jak Daly found most interesting the next week was the M111 sabot rifle with 10X

  optical sight. Unlike the M14A5 maser, the M111 had stabilizers in its forestock that the barrel rested on. The M111 was designed for long-range sniping: It fired a fin-stabilized 8-mm projectile, with a maximum effective range of one kilometer and a kill range several times that—even though a hit at three klicks would be due as much to luck as to skill, a hit in a vital spot would still kill at that distance.

  “Never, never snipe with the M111 at less than five hundred meters!” Staff Sergeant Athon cautioned.

  “It makes a loud boom and has a fairly large muzzle-blast fireball. A sniper using the M111 needs that five hundred meters to have a chance of escaping whoever—or whatever—comes for him after he fires. A full klick is better: The rifle’s report probably won’t be heard at that distance, and the fireball won’t be seen by anybody who isn’t looking in the shooter’s direction.”

  Daly qualified Expert with the M111. He chose not to fire the M2Z mid-range projectile rifle for qualification; two new qualifications were enough for now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ramuncho’s Restaurant, New Granum, Union of Margelan, Atlas

  For Jorge Lavager, the Union of Margelan’s leader and a representative to the Atlas League of Nations, dining at Ramuncho’s in New Granum during work hours could be an ordeal, because everywhere he went the press was sure to follow. And in these times when the nations of Atlas seemed on the verge of a war that many commentators and politicians claimed would threaten the precious trade routes of the Confederation of Human Worlds in the Atlas Sector, reporters swarmed like bees about a honeycomb whenever Lavager appeared in public. So he dined during the off hours or late at night when business kept him in town, often in a back room reserved for his use, and always with friends. To the great consternation of Franklin al-Rashid, his Chief of Security, Lavager had dismissed his bodyguards that night. “I can take care of myself,” the old soldier told his security officer, patting the sidearm he always carried beneath his tunic.

  “Sir, one of these times—” al-Rashid began. Lavager was a security chief’s worst nightmare, always taking chances and never listening to sound advice.

  “Not tonight, Franklin. Now go home, leave us to our dinner and cards.”

  After that night’s dinner, cards consisted of some hands at the ancient game of Hearts. Since they were lieutenants together, Lavager and his Army Chief of Staff, General Locksley “Locker” Ollwelen, had enjoyed a friendly competition seeing who could lay the queen of spades on the other. Just then, Lavager had the two of clubs in this hand, so it was his lead. On the deal he had not gotten the right suits to take all the points to “shoot the moon” and pile twenty-six points on the other players’ scores, so he had deliberately shorted himself in clubs to break hearts first chance and maybe get away without taking any points at all. Henri Parrot, the Minister of Finance, had passed him the queen and the two of spades and the jack of hearts. He glanced sharply at the minister, who grinned behind his hand. The dreaded queen and two were the only spades in Lavager’s hand!

  Locksley shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, folded his cards into the palm of one hand and slowly rearranged them.

  Lavager led the two of clubs. Locksley regarded his hand carefully before following suit, then took the first trick with the ace of clubs. He then led the ten of spades. Lavager played the two. He hoped someone besides Locksley would take the trick and then lead clubs, so he could drop the queen, but the old General took that hand as well. Lavager felt a sinking sensation in his stomach because he knew Locksley would lead a spade next, fishing for the queen and hoping he could make one of the others eat her and take the thirteen points that would add to their score. Grinning evilly, Locksley next led the jack of spades. “Goddamn you, Locker!” Lavager shouted, slapping down the queen because he had no more spades and, according to the rules of the game, had to follow suit. Subsequently he took twenty of the twenty-six points that made the hand.

  “Locker, how the hell did you know I was short on spades?” Lavager asked, shuffling for the next hand. He glanced at the score pad. He had eighty-seven points, Locksley none, Henri three, and Attorney General Fitz Cennedry, ten. Thirteen more points and Jorge Lavager would be out and Locksley would be the winner.

  “I didn’t. I’ve just been doing that for the past thirty years, just like you short yourself in a suit so you can unload points on me.” Ollwelen grinned, puffing contentedly on his cigar. Often in their games neither Locksley nor Lavager won because their main concentration was on screwing each other, not winning the game, even though they played for money—a credit a point.

  “Locker, I ought to put your ass back in the grass, remind you what’s important in this life.”

  “Did you hear that?” Locksley turned to the attorney general. “Just another example of how power goes to the heads of politicians in this nation of ours—send a man off to war just so he can win at cards.”

  “War? Did I hear someone say ‘war’? May I quote you on that?”

  All heads snapped toward the door to the main dining room. There stood grinning none other than Gus Gustafferson, Galactic News Network’s chief correspondent on Atlas.

  “How the hell did you get in here?” Lavager asked. “Why aren’t you in bed with some animal at this hour?”

  Gustafferson made an airy gesture with one hand. “Ramuncho’s gone home and I gave a note to a waiter.” He waved a wad of credits in one hand and stepped unbidden into the room, making a show of waving the cigar smoke away from his face.

  “Gutsy,” Lavager said, “you could very easily get yourself shot busting in here like this.” The reporter’s nickname, one he hated but one Lavager delighted using, was “Gutsy Goofy,” bestowed on him because he’d do anything to get a story and because his big ears and huge nose made him look stupid. He wasn’t. What he was was an insistent, argumentative, opinionated interviewer who never allowed the facts of an issue to override his preconceived ideas.

  “You can’t shoot me, sir, members of the media are immune to assassination.”

  “Yeah, just like you’re ‘immune’ to the truth,” Attorney General Cennedry commented sourly.

  “How many billions of people have you misinformed this week, Gutsy?” Locksley asked. Gustafferson grimaced. “Touché, General. What’s this I hear about you going to war?” He made a show of activating his personal comp.

  “Turn that damned thing off!” Cennedry snapped. Gustafferson made a show of deactivating his comp and putting it away. “I have a good enough memory,” he murmured. “Statement?” he asked aloud, looking inquiringly at each of the officials, holding out a fist as if it were a microphone, coming back to Lavager and smiling. “Anybody care to talk about the imminent failure of your Five-Year Plan?” He bowed toward the Minister of Finance, who scowled.

  “What’s going on out at that place near Spondu?” The question was delivered like a cannonball, and it was instantly clear why Gustafferson was there at that hour. Despite himse
lf, Lavager stiffened. The facility called the “Cabbage Patch” was a high-security research center in the mountains near the town of Spondu, about forty kilometers northeast of New Granum.

  “That’s a top secret government facility, Gutsy. No comment. You know that.”

  “But Excellency,” Gustafferson shifted now into his falsely obsequious mode, “Everyone’s talking about a new superweapon you’re developing out there. One you’re going to deploy to propel Atlas into the Confederation’s economy.”

  “Only because you’ve been feeding everyone that crap for the past six months, Gutsy,” Perrot replied.

  “What we have at Spondu is an agricultural research center.”

  “Uh huh. Sure it is. It just used to be a weapons research facility.”

  “Things change, Gutsy,” Lavager said as calmly as he could. “You know that. Hell, you change facts all the time in your stories.”

  Gustafferson ignored the jibe. “Come on, Jorge, an interview? Just fifteen minutes of your time?”

  Lavager was not the kind of man who insisted on etiquette in his relationships with people, but the way Gustafferson used his first name was intended to insinuate a close personal relationship that didn’t exist.

  “See my Director of Public Affairs and take your place in line, Gutsy. When your number comes up, sure, fifteen minutes. Now get out of here. This is a private gathering and it’s late.”

  “You don’t have a private life, Excellency,” Gustafferson said, grinning, but he turned to the door and left the room.

  “Jorge, if you’d kept your security team on duty he’d never have gotten in here,” the Attorney General said.

  “Yeah, well,” Lavager stared after Gustafferson, momentarily lost in thought, “those guys have a hard enough job as it is without me keeping them up all night to watch over our game. Gentlemen, we’ve got to find out who’s leaking information about the Cabbage Patch. If that guy knows we’re developing something up there, who else knows about it?”

  Office of the Director, Central Intelligence Organization, Hunter, Earth

  “So, Palmer, my dear fellow, tell us. What is going on in, what is it, the Cucumber Patch . . . ?”

  “Cabbage Patch, not ‘cucumber.’ ”

  “Quaint name. Speaking of cucumbers, try some of these sautéed Vagarian cucumbers with a slice of this excellent Ciricussian bread. Delicious, I assure you.” He twittered. “That’s probably why I had cucumbers on my mind.”

  Palmer Quincy Lowell, Deputy Director for Intelligence, helped himself to the sliced cucumbers so generously offered by J. “Jay” Murchison Adams, Director of the Central Intelligence Organization and ignored the question of the Cabbage Patch while he enjoyed the cool taste of the succulent gourd.

  “This wine is exquisite!” Somervell P. “Summy” Amesbury exclaimed. Amesbury functioned as Lowell’s Chief of Staff. The three often lunched together in Lowell’s office at CIO headquarters in the Fargo suburb of Hunter.

  “That wine, my dear Somervell, is a specially imported vintage of Katzenwasser ’48, which I received only last week. I was sure you’d appreciate it.” Lowell smiled. He helped himself to a bread-and-cucumber sandwich, delicately wiping his fingers on the monogrammed napkins that were a staple feature on the table at the luncheon gatherings. “Gentlemen, do not overdo it,” Lowell held up a well-manicured forefinger, “we have—I know you’ll simply love this, Palmer!—creme d’collon soup with sherobie crotons as the main course!”

  Palmer Quincy Lowell grunted with the pleasure of anticipation: Creme d’collon soup and especially sherobie crotons were a favorite of his and one of the reasons he weighed 170 kilos.

  “And for dessert I have the most wonderful sherbet,” J. Murchison Adams announced, taking another bite of his cucumber sandwich. He wiped his lips delicately and sighed. “But now, to business! I have a meeting with the Confederation Security Council tomorrow and I’m sure this business involving Atlas is going to come up. What is going on out there, Palmer? Who’re your sources? And what in Human Space is this ‘Cucumber Patch’ place?”

  “Ah, ‘Cabbage Patch,’ old boy. Our source is the chief of the trade delegation on Atlas, of course. He’s a very experienced operative and has spread around quite a bit of money to develop his own stable of reliable informants. You might recall, Jay, a line item in this fiscal year’s budget, quite a sizeable sum—”

  Adams waved the comment off impatiently. Budgetary matters, especially contingency funds for agent payments, were of little interest to him. His concept of what the Director of the CIO was to focus on was strategic intelligence, not the mundane day-to-day business of administering a government instrumentality. He left those details to his small army of accountants and clerks.

  “Is Atlas and this impossible man, um—?” he turned to Amesbury.

  “Jorge Liberec Lavager, Jay.”

  “—this Lavager fellow any real danger to our trade routes in the Atlas sector? That is what the President will wish to know tomorrow.”

  Someone buzzed. “Yes?”

  “The soup course, sir,” Adams’s secretary announced.

  “Aha! Send it in! Send it in!”

  A functionary dressed in white from the CIO cafeteria wheeled in a cart with three steaming bowls of soup and deftly served them. The three officers sat silently until the man had departed. Then individually they sampled their soup, smacking their lips, wheezing in satisfaction, and grunting with pleasure; for a brief moment each was in his own little world of pure gustatory ecstasy.

  “Lavager is an animal, Jay,” Lowell replied at last, leaning back and patting his lips. “A military man, and you know the mindset of those little boys.” They all chuckled. “He is developing some sort of superweapon.” Lowell leaned forward as if to speak in total confidence. “We’re not sure of its capabilities just yet, but we are certain he’s going to use it to conquer Atlas and then start imposing demands on us based on his strategic position vis-à-vis our trade lanes with the outward worlds in that sector of Human Space. He is a dangerous man, Jay.”

  “One of your agents out there is that rather slick newsman Gustafferson, I believe? The GNN man?”

  Amesbury asked.

  “He’s developed some very reliable intelligence, Summy. He knows how to dig up a story. But he’s one of several sources on the scene.”

  “And this ‘Cucumber Patch’ or whatever they call it is this Lavager’s secret weapons lab?”

  “ ‘Cabbage Patch.’ Yes, it is, Jay. We haven’t penetrated it yet but we will, we will.”

  “What do your analysts say about this info?”

  “Oh, they evaluate this information as highly reliable.” Lowell paused. “The desk officer, on the other hand, is not so sure,” he said, carefully.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Anya Smiler. She knows that area well,” he added quickly, “she was there as an agent a few years back.”

  “God,” Adams let out his breath, “it’s been forty years since I was in the field, more power to the woman! But you know how these analysts are.” He shrugged and raised a spoonful of soup to his lips.

  “Yes, we’ve had our derrieres in the reeds, and the young are welcome to the field jobs,” Amesbury laughed.

  “Yes, yes,” Lowell agreed quickly, “they sometimes do tend to go native on us, but I assure you Ms. Smiler is a very dedicated analyst. Hers is the minority opinion, I must add.”

  “And that is?”

  “Jorge Lavager is a George Washington,” Lowell answered, shrugging and tasting his own soup.

  “Oh, come on! Are you joking? Palmer!”

  “She thinks the man is no threat to the Confederation or to his neighbors on Atlas.”

  “Well,” Amesbury turned to Adams, “we can discount that opinion! And the majority?”

  “Lavager must be neutralized.”

  “Palmer, you’ll come with me tomorrow. Bring copies of your full report for the other members of the Council. Now, gentlemen, we sh
all enjoy that sherbet and tomorrow—well, tomorrow, we shall propose picking somebody’s cabbages.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Apartment 1F, 4816 Hale Boulevard, Hunter, Earth

  “Anya, are you listening to me?”

  Anya Smiler looked slowly away from the window. A fierce storm was raging outside but that was not what she had been watching. “We’ll have a meter of snow by midnight, if this keeps up,” she said, just to say something. Her mind was on the meeting in the morning. “If it snows hard enough maybe they’ll call it off and I can . . .” Her voice trailed off. She shook her head and turned away from the window.

  “Anya, I was saying there’s an opera Saturday night and I have tickets for us. It’s Mozart’s Idomeneo with Carmaggilo singing the lead role.”

  “That fat slob?”

  “Anya!” Tim Omix snorted in exasperation. “What’s gotten into you? You’ve been somewhere else all evening. If it wasn’t snowing so heavily out there I’d go on home. It’s something in that damn job of yours, isn’t it? Don’t you know it’s not healthy to bring problems home from work?” He offered Anya a refill, and when she shook her head, he poured more wine into his own glass. He gulped it down and covered a satisfied burp with one hand. By Buddha’s balls, he thought, I may as well get drunk, there won’t be anything else here for me tonight. Tim and Anya had been lovers for a long time, were in fact on the verge of marriage, but Tim knew from past experience there’d be no romance between them that night, not with Anya so preoccupied. He also knew she wouldn’t tell him what was on her mind because her work as an analyst at the Central Intelligence Organization was highly classified. He poured himself another glass of wine. “I guess I’ll just get drunk and sleep on the couch, then,” he groused. Anya sat down beside Tim on the couch and took the wineglass he offered her. “I wish I could tell you about it, Tim.”

  “Well, tell me. Just put blanks in for the classified stuff.” Anya laughed and kissed him. “Ah, you’re all right, babe.” He put his arm around her. “You haven’t washed your hair today, have you? It smells good when it’s dirty. In fact, I like you most when you’re dirty and smelly and . . .” his right hand began to wander.