Hardbingers

8

Jack sat at the MV monitoring console in the warehouse and went over his list. He'd given all three floors a close inspection in a hunt for ways to deal with the yenigeri who'd be sent after him. He'd found a number of possibilities, but wanted a couple more as backup.

He rose and wandered back to the bunk/lounge area at the right rear. He'd already given it the twice over but it might yield something. The old TV offered possibilities. And the lockers, though they'd been swept clean, might trigger inspiration. He started there.

A couple of dozen or so stood against the wall, all their doors agape. He closed one and stepped back. Its incongruity might trigger curiosity, which wouldn't be a bad thing—for Jack, at least.

He dropped to his hands and knees and checked out the two-inch gap between the locker bottom and the floor for a place to hide a surprise. Nothing but dust bunnies and—

Something metallic gleamed a dull yellow behind one of the bunnies. He snaked his hand under and grasped it between his fingertips. He identified it on contact: ammo.

He pulled it out and dropped it into his palm. A hollow point with a long, slim cartridge. The hollow was filled and sealed. And the caliber… it looked like a .223 Remington, but a closer look told him it was a 5.56mm NATO round.

Jack leaned against the lockers as his heart went into overdrive.

The killers in the LaGuardia Massacre had used cyanide-tipped 5.56 NATOs.

His mind raced to a barely justified conclusion: The killers hadn't been Arab terrorists. Joey Castles's last words had hinted that LaGuardia was bigger than the Arabs he and Jack had shot up, that something else was going on.

Not Arabs… yenigeri. Had the Ally showed them what to do, and they'd done it? Killed more than fifty people in order to kill one: his father?

Dad had been a branch… and a spear has no branches.

The Lady's words came back to him.

That's the way the Ally views us: as natural resources, as raw materials. There's no evil there, just pragmatism.

No evil unless you were on the receiving end.

He drew up his knees and rested his forehead against them.

Okay, we're natural resources to the Ally. It can't show compassion because it has none. It can't be held to human moral standards because it makes its own rules and answers only to itself.

But none of that exonerated the yeniceri from following through with the "Alarms" it sent—not when it involved the slaughter of innocent lives, especially lives close to him.

"I was just following orders"… or… "I was doing it for the greater good of humanity"… that bullshit carried no weight here.

Sick and disgusted, Jack pushed himself to his feet and pocketed the round. He had work to do.

Time to adjust the calendar.

Judgment Day would be arriving early for the yeniceri.