The Clone Assassin (20 page)

Location: Washington, D.C.
Date: July 30, 2519

The transports flew in before dawn.

Having been left to his own devices, General Pernell “Perry” MacAvoy decided to deal with the search and the Pentagon “the Army way.” He flew in the 3rd Corps, complete with its armor, cavalry, and two infantry divisions.

At 05:00, one thousand transports and dozens of larger, cargo-hauling aircraft appeared in the skies over Washington, D.C. The transports landed in metro-area spaceports, parking lots, military installations, civilian shopping malls, with a few stragglers touching down in public parks.

Forty landed on the expansive ground-level parking areas surrounding the Pentagon. MacAvoy waited in the first transport, watching as his officers deployed men and equipment under the steel-colored skies of dawn.

Each transport had room for one hundred men, or ten jeeps, or some combination. Twenty of MacAvoy’s transports carried infantry—men, rifles, and the occasional jeep. Ten of his transports carried heavy armor—two tanks and two crews. Five of his transports carried cavalry. MacAvoy preferred jeeps to Jackals. They were slower and not as well armored, but MacAvoy believed that men in jeeps remained alert while men in Jackals enjoyed the ride.

“General, I have an incoming message,” said the pilot.

“Put it on the squawk,” said MacAvoy. He leaned back in the copilot’s chair, pulled a cigar from his pocket, and lit it. He said, “MacAvoy here.”

“General, this is Major Alan Cardston from Pentagon Security.”

“Yes, Major. We spoke yesterday,” MacAvoy said.

“General, what exactly are you doing, sir?” asked Cardston. His face remained calm, but he raised his voice. “Why exactly have you landed an invasion force outside the Pentagon?”

MacAvoy pulled the cigar from his mouth. He blew out a long stream of smoke that formed into curling ribbons in the air around him. He waved the cigar in the air and admired the glowing orange ember of its tip. “Major,” he said, “I am declaring martial law in this burg. As of this moment, Washington, D.C. is officially under Army control.”

Cardston looked like he might have a heart attack. He said, “Martial law! Martial law! General, how the speck can you declare martial law? This is the Pentagon . . . we’re the military!”

“You know, son, I don’t see it that way,” said MacAvoy. “The way I see it, you’ve changed sides. Now if you were to produce President Watson, I’d be willing to listen to his side of the story.”

“General, as the head of Pentagon Security—” said Cardston.

“See now, you’re not listening, son. Last I heard, you were only a major. Did someone give you a promotion last night?”

“No, sir.”

“That right? So you’re still just a major in a building filled with colonels and generals and an acting president. I don’t know why I always end up chatting with you, Major. The head of building security . . .” He laughed. “Next time, they’ll give me the head of the Janitorial Squad.”

“General, my duties extend to EME Intelligence. I am . . .

MacAvoy interrupted him. He asked, “Does the Pentagon use civilian janitors?”

“Look, sir, I’ll come out, and we can discuss this . . .”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said MacAvoy. “I have sharpshooters trained on every door of that building, son. They won’t care if you come out carrying a white flag, a nuclear bomb, or a bowl of wonton soup; anyone leaving that building will be shot. Even if my sharpshooters miss you, my tanks sure as shit won’t. They have orders to clean up anything that gets past my sharpshooters, Major. Step out that door, and they’ll juice you into a puddle of blood.”

“General, you’re making a colossal mistake. Have you spoken to Admiral . . .”

MacAvoy interrupted him again. “See now, son, they probably don’t talk about these things in security school, but in infantry terms, this here is what we call a ‘siege.’ You might want to learn that term. A siege is where we surround your building and cut off your food and support.”

“Unless we surrender,” said Cardston.

“Damn it, son! What the speck happened to your esprit de corps? You’re supposed to be a soldier. Haven’t you ever heard of holding out to the last man? You don’t just give up and surrender; you don’t ever surrender, and you sure as elephant speck don’t surrender before we make our demands.

“What did you do after basic training, son? Did you specialize in butterfly catching or bird watching?”

 • • • 

By midafternoon, MacAvoy had surrounded the Pentagon with twenty-five hundred soldiers, thirty tanks, and forty jeeps, a daring move. More than seventeen thousand trained soldiers, sailors, and Marines worked in the building. Assuming the Unifieds had converted every man in the building, he was outnumbered but not outgunned. Only security personnel carried arms in the building.

MacAvoy had three additional battalions in the vicinity. If he needed support, he would have it in ten minutes. He also had another entire corps on deck. When the shooting started, MacAvoy could call in forty thousand additional troops; their equipment had already been loaded onto transports.

Sitting in a mobile nerve center, the general watched with satisfaction the way his men scrambled into position. “That’s some erection they got going on,” he mumbled as he watched men in BDUs set up gun nests, barricades, and a command post. They erected security stops at the entrances of every road leading into the parking lots.

A few hundred yards away, a team of soldiers sealed the ramps that led into the underground parking structure. They stretched razor wire across the ground, aimed laser barriers across the ramps, and assembled bulletproof barricades in which guards could sit. The men worked quickly.

At the top of the food chain, their main guns aimed at the Pentagon, two Schwarzkopf tanks oversaw the operation.

MacAvoy wanted the Schwarzkopfs front and center; they were the key. Minted at the very end of the war, Schwarzkopfs were the finest tanks ever built. Designed for optimal performance at speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour, they had superb antiaircraft capabilities and hardened armor that was impervious to missiles, mines, and radiation. With their powerful engines and oxygen-regeneration systems, they could plow through water twenty feet deep. They could even hide underwater.

When they see those Schwarzkopfs,
MacAvoy thought,
they’ll know that I came to win.

God bless the man who invented those specking tanks,
MacAvoy thought with warm, generous satisfaction.
I hope he wasn’t an asshole.
With disappointment, MacAvoy realized that he must have been working for the Unified Authority and decided he probably was.

A captain appeared on one of the communications consoles. He said, “General, sir, there are converts forming an unauthorized congregation inside the west entrance.”

“Damn straight it’s unauthorized, son. I told them specifically to keep their arms, legs, and asses inside the bus,” said MacAvoy.

“Yes, sir.”

“West entrance, you say?” asked MacAvoy.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the matter with you, boy? There’s a screen right in front of you. Punch in the code and let’s have a look.”

The screen showed the lobby and the west entrance. As MacAvoy watched, the camera zoomed in, showing men wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, carrying shields and M27s. Men from every branch—they wore blue, green, tan, and white uniforms under black protective vests. All of the men were clones.

“General MacAvoy, sir, it appears that they want to challenge your quarantine order, sir,” said a colonel as he stepped into the picture on the screen.

Unlike Marines, who wore visors with cameras and interLink signals, only MacAvoy’s radiomen carried mikes and cameras. Many of his officers acted like mediaLink reporters, posing in front of cameras so that their faces would appear in the action. At the moment, the camera was on the colonel and not on the lobby. He asked, “Do you want me to send them a warning?”

“We already warned them,” said MacAvoy. “Any more warning would be a waste of breath.”

Another monitor winked to life, this one showing a ramp to the underground parking area. “Sir, there are cars coming up the ramp,” said the colonel in command of the area. His radioman had his camera pointed down the ramp. MacAvoy didn’t see any cars, but he heard tires squealing.

Whenever he led his men into combat situations, MacAvoy carried a lit cigar. He’d once swore that he’d keep a cigar lit until his last man returned to base. It was a rash vow and not always convenient to keep. He’d been involved in the siege of Safe Harbor, a twelve-week battle in which his fingers went numb and his lungs turned black.

MacAvoy still preferred to wade into battle with a cigar in his mouth, but since Safe Harbor, he’d smoked for pleasure, not to make a point. He took a long drag from his cigar, and said, “Boys, it appears that they want to test our resolve.”

The colonel at the south entrance asked, “Permission to engage?”

MacAvoy laughed, and said, “Son, the engagement began the moment we landed on their parking lot.”

The colonel said, “Yes, sir. Do I have permission to fire at them?”

MacAvoy said, “Hell yes. This is a military engagement, son. That’s how we engage folks in the Army; we shoot at them.”

Hoping that his entire command staff was listening, he said, “Now hear this! This is General Pernell MacAvoy. I have given the enemy strict instructions to remain in the building. You have my complete and unquestioned permission to dispatch any and every clone, dog, and civilian that sticks his, her, or its head, arms, or ass out a specking door. I want their mudholes muddied and their pieholes on pikes.

“Are there any questions?”

MacAvoy’s men knew better than to respond.

Unaware that he was on a live mike, the colonel in charge of the underground parking area said, “Damn, I love it when he talks dirty.”

“General, where are you going?” asked one of the staff officers as MacAvoy climbed out of his chair.

The general turned and smiled, but surprise showed in his eyes. He said, “The shooting’s about to start. You don’t honestly think I’m going to sit this dance out. We’re about to send these converts back to their maker.”

“To God?” asked a particularly brown-nosing major.

“They’re clones, son. God never had anything to do with them.”

He put on his cover, grabbed an M27, and trotted out of the transport. With the cigar hanging from his mouth, he held his weapon in his left hand and pressed down his hat with his right. Most of his twenty-man staff followed in a line behind him, though a few stayed back to keep the nerve center alive.

They jogged down the metal ramp and onto the asphalt. It was still early morning, with only a few traces of sunlight breaking up the eastern sky. Cars with lit headlights buzzed along on distant roadways. Traffic would slow as the cars reached town; MacAvoy’s 3rd Corps had the city in lockdown.

Old, but still in fighting shape, MacAvoy cantered across the parking lot to the west entrance into the Pentagon. Surrounded by acres and acres of asphalt, the squat black building looked like the silhouette of a giant mesa against the morning sky.

Streetlamps lit up small patches of parking lot. Jeeps buzzed back and forth, their headlights no more significant than fireflies from a distance. MacAvoy watched men scurrying into position.

Inside the Pentagon lobby, lights blazed, revealing the men and furnishings normally hidden behind the walls of heavily tinted glass. As he approached his troops, MacAvoy slowed to a walk. He ambled behind the barricade, breathing in Washington’s languid morning air.

Fifty soldiers guarded this position, with a few hundred more manning positions nearby. The general mood was tense, ready for a fight. One of MacAvoy’s staff officers handed him a pair of binoculars. He took them without a word and surveyed the lobby.

The lights in the lobby were bright but muted by the black glass exterior of the building. From this distance, the men inside the building looked small and indistinct.

“General, are you sure you want to be here?” asked the captain in charge of the company.

“Here?” he asked. “Do you mean the Pentagon or the front line of the fighting?”

“On the front line?” asked the captain.

“Hell yes, son,” said MacAvoy. “This is precisely where I want to be.” He pulled out his cigar, examined it, and placed it back in his mouth.

Ten minutes passed before the shooting started. The entrance doors slid open, then men rushed out of the building.

The sharpshooters went to work. The crack of sniper rifles echoed across the parking lot. Single shots rang out, shattering the morning silence. It was a symphony of kettledrums played a single note at a time.

Ten men ran out of the doorway. Not one of them reached the sidewalk. The first clone darted out like an Olympic sprinter. A heartbeat later, he toppled backward as if his feet were slipping on ice. He fell on his ass, and his feet were the last part of his body to hit the ground.

He’d been wearing a bulletproof helmet, but MacAvoy’s snipers fired bullets made specifically for penetrating body armor. A hardened pin in the bullet’s tip penetrated armor plating, and a dab of explosive jelly detonated behind the pin.

“More bullets than brains,” muttered MacAvoy.

One of MacAvoy’s officers heard this, and added, “That last boy doesn’t have any brains at all. Not anymore.”

Reports came in about other escape attempts around the building. When a car had come careening up one of the underground parking ramps, one of the Schwarzkopfs fired, sending the smoldering wreckage skittering back down the ramp in a cloud of sparks and concrete.

MacAvoy tossed his old cigar away and pulled another from his pocket. He turned to one of his aides, and barked, “You, get Cardston on the horn.”

“Yes, sir, General, sir. Sir, you won’t have a visual . . .”

“I don’t need a damned video feed, son. I already know what he looks like. He’s a clone. He’s five-ten, has brown hair and brown eyes, sound familiar?”

“Yes, sir.” A moment later the man passed MacAvoy a handheld.