Shadow of Freedom

“I presume you have some sort of demands to make. Why don’t you go ahead and make them so we can get it over with?”

“My demands are pretty simple, actually. You turn loose all of the innocent men and women you’ve arrested over the last two or three T-weeks and provide us with an air car, and Ms. Guernicke takes a little trip with us. You fulfill your side of the bargain, and we turn her loose alive and unharmed. You screw around with us, and Lombroso gets to explain to Trifecta why it’s going to need a new system operations manager here in Mobius.”

“No fucking way.” Yardley’s voice was even flatter than before. “You harm Ms. Guernicke in any way, and I promise you’ll take a long time dying.”

“That would suppose you managed to take any of this alive,” the leader responded. “Which isn’t going to happen. Mind you, we’d rather get out of this in one piece, but we’re okay with it either way. Your fucking Presidential Guard made sure of that last month. You know what I’ve got left to lose, General Yardley? Last month it would have been a wife, a teenaged daughter, and a ten-year-old son. Today? Well, I’ll let you guess.”

There was silence for a moment, and the leader heard Guernicke whimpering in terror as she crouched in a corner with a pistol barrel pressed to the side of her head. Once upon a time, his heart might have felt at least some pity for her, but that had been then, and this was now.

“Should I assume the rest of your murdering little band feels the same way?” Yardley asked finally.

“I’ve got you on speakerphone, General,” he replied, looking up to meet the others’ eyes. “You hear anybody disagreeing with me?”

“It’s still not going to happen,” Yardley shot back. “I let you go with Ms. Guernicke, and you’re not going to turn her loose. You’re going to hang onto her, and you’re going to keep on making demands that get steeper and steeper until there’s no way in hell you’re going to get what you ask for. And then you kill her anyway, and you blame it on us. I don’t think we’re going to play that game.”

“Up to you, General. But before you make up your mind—”

He beckoned to the woman holding the gun to Guernicke’s head, and she jerked the Trifecta executive to her feet and half-dragged, half-led her across to the desk. The leader looked at Guernicke for a moment, then pointed at the com terminal.

“For God’s sake, Yardley!” Guernicke screamed into the mike. “What the fuck are you thinking? Give these people whatever the hell they want!”

The leader nodded, and Guernicke was hauled back to her corner and shoved back onto her knees. He waited another moment, then turned back to the com himself.

“There you go—your mistress’ voice has spoken, General. Now you know she’s still alive, and you’ve got your marching orders. What’re you going to do? I don’t think Trifecta’s going to be very happy with you and Lombroso if she ends up dead in a firefight now that she’s told you what you’re supposed to do.”

The silence from the other end of the com link was profound.

* * *

“Jesus, General!” Colonel Tyler Braddock exclaimed. Colonel Braddock, who was very fond of his self-assigned callsign “Tiger,” was a good ten centimeters taller and far broader across the shoulders than Olivia Yardley. At the moment, his swarthy complexion was pale and sweat beaded his hairline. “They’ve really got Guernicke in there. What the fuck do we do now?!”

“Shut up, Colonel,” Yardley said in a flat, dangerous voice. Her hazel eyes were hard as she glared up at the taller Braddock. It was his Scorpions which had opened fire last month and touched off the May Riots, and she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable where he was concerned at the moment.

He looked down at her, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again and nodded, and she snorted. At least the idiot had some sense of self-preservation.

“What we’re not going to do,” she told him then, “is let these bastards panic to us into promising them what they want. Not unless I can figure out a way to make it look like they’re actually getting it right up to the second we shoot them all in the head. If we let them out of that tower with Guernicke, this shit is just getting started. At the moment, we’ve got them penned up in there, and I want to make damned sure they aren’t going anywhere, so start moving your goddamned troops into position. And try not to kill anybody you don’t have to, this time!”

Braddock flushed angrily, but he kept his mouth shut, nodded, and climbed out of Yardley’s command vehicle. He stalked down the frozen slide-walk towards his own command post, and Yardley watched him go.

I suppose it’s too much to hope for that the bastards on the other side will manage to kill him for me, she reflected. I can always dream, though.