The Last Good Man

Friends

From the street outside, a youthful male voice with a British accent shouts, “Jon! If you’re still breathing, tell your friend to put the gun down and back away.”

“Do it,” Shaw warns her.

She eyes the ARV, wondering how many shots it would take to damage the thing. “Is it autonomous?” she asks.

“Of course.”

It would take just one bullet to lay her out, and with no human in the kill chain the shot would come without hesitation.

“Okay,” she says, mouthing the word for the benefit of the ARV’s camera. But she doesn’t put the gun down right away. Still on one knee, she edges back, holding on to the Triple-Y but with her hand nowhere near the trigger. The ARV adjusts the direction of its weapon to track her movement.

“Gun on the ground!” the voice insists. “I won’t ask you again.”

She’s a few feet from Shaw now, so she sets it down at her side, almost behind her. She holds her hands half up, palms out, rising from her crouch. Still moving slowly backward, almost at the mouth of the passage. Just a harmless old lady. The sling of the Triple-Y is only inches from her feet.

“Take the visor off too!”

She does it, folding it, sliding it into her pocket. She’s still wearing her TINSL.

Out in the street, two well-muscled, athletic young men come into sight. Both are dressed in neat trousers and button-down shirts, but True is sure that beneath their shirts they’re wearing protective vests, and they move with the crisp discipline of highly trained soldiers.

They pause behind the ARV. The shorter one wears a shoulder holster, empty now, because he’s holding his pistol in a two-handed grip—muzzle down, for the moment. He has a dark-brown complexion, unruly black hair, and heavy black eyebrows just visible above the nearly opaque screen of an AR visor.

The second man is taller, with deep black skin. Black sunglasses hide his eyes. He too carries a pistol though he’s more relaxed, his gun held casually in one hand. “We all friends here?” he asks in that same British voice she heard before.

True would love to think so but it’s hard to answer in the affirmative, given that the ARV still has its gun trained on her. So she says nothing. But Shaw speaks, his voice a low, hoarse whisper. “Stop fucking around, Ian. We got to move out now.”

The tall man, Ian, makes a show of looking down at Guiying’s blasted corpse. “Jesus fuck, Jon,” he says, stepping over it to enter the passage. “That’s fucking impressive.”

True nudges the sling of the Triple-Y with her toe as she eases to one side, a shift that puts Ian between herself and the robotic vehicle. She is very conscious of the weight of the pistol in her pocket. Also of the weight of the second man’s gaze as he repositions himself to maintain a clean line of sight.

Ian gives her a casual look-over before frowning down at Shaw, taking in the massive wound dressing already stained with blood and yellow fluids. “Got to say it, brother. It looks like you’re having a bad day.”

All friends here, huh?

Shaw said these were his people, but True is not sensing the love. “That’s what a laser can do,” she says cautiously. “One strike. Killed her. Burned him down to the bone.”

“Fucking shit.” He crouches beside Shaw. “No worries, Jon. I’ll get you out of here.”

“You need to get him to a hospital,” True says. She eyes the Triple-Y on the floor, and the ARV… and the man in the street, who is eyeing her.

“Fuck that,” Shaw growls.

“No,” Ian says. “The lady’s got it right.”

“Don’t shit me.” To True’s astonishment, Shaw manages to roll onto his uninjured arm. He starts to push himself up. But Ian puts a hand on his wounded shoulder and shoves him down. “God,” Shaw gasps, back arching in pain.

“Come on, Jon,” Ian says. “Don’t be an ass. You’re in bad shape and that puts me in a bad position. You need to give me access. Give me the keys. Because if you go, Variant Forces goes with you. Money disappears, and I’ve got nothing.”

“You worked that out?” Shaw breathes. “You got to figure, that’s on purpose.”

“Two years I’ve had your back. Kept you alive.”

“That’s your job. Still is. You’re paid damn well for it.”

Ian looks up, making brief eye contact with his partner. “Farouk predicted you’d do this. That when it came time, you’d leave us on the street. I did not want to believe it, but you’ve been a stranger since that cock-up with Al-Furat. When you disappeared yesterday, I had concerns. Farouk agreed. We needed an exit plan.”

Shaw relaxes a little, he closes his eyes. “So you two been talking to someone? Got a new contract?”

“It’s not too late,” Ian assures him. “We can put this back together, mate, but I need to be on the inside this time. A trusted partner. Farouk too.”

“Fuck you,” Shaw spits.

The man outside—Farouk—shifts his focus from True to Ian. “We won’t get anything from him,” he says bitterly, speaking in Arabic-accented English.

True uses the moment to hook the Triple-Y’s sling with her toe. She jerks it close, crouches to grab it, and ducks out of the passage and out of sight. In the courtyard now, she sprints to the stairs, climbing them two at a time, pivoting at the turn to the next flight, hearing the whine of the ARV’s motor over the concussion of her footfalls and her ragged breathing.

“Heads up, Ripley,” she pants. “Text Lincoln. Enemy on the ground. Send.”

She reaches the balcony on the second level. From there she can see the ARV, already in the courtyard. Its gun barrel faces away from her, but as soon as she moves, its camera will pick her up. She needs to disable the camera before the gun is in position to shoot.

One quick breath. She bounds to the edge of the balcony, jams the barrel of the Triple-Y over the railing, and squeezes the trigger, hammering at the transparent housing that protects the camera. In the enclosed courtyard the concussions are deafening. Bullets ricochet without penetrating the housing, without breaking it, but white scars blossom across its surface. She’s painting it white, blinding the camera. The gun barrel whips around to target her, but partway through its arc, it freezes. A second later, the protective housing gives way and the camera explodes in a spray of glass and plastic.

“Now you got to come find me,” she whispers as she shifts her position, moving farther along the balcony.

Through her TINSL, Colt cautions her, “You just stay out of sight.”

“Yeah, I’ll be okay.” She hopes it’s true. She pauses at a point where she can watch for movement at the mouth of the passage while she swaps out the partly expended magazine. “They sold him out,” she says.

“Nothing you can do about it— Oh, Christ. Three more armed males at the top of the street.”

“Is it Lincoln?” If he didn’t get her text, he could walk right into a firestorm.

“Shit. No. According to the identification tag on this display, it’s Rihab.”

Rihab. Hussam’s little brother who inherited control of Al-Furat, who claimed credit for Renata’s murder, and who holds Shaw responsible for the security failure at Tadmur. The two mercs downstairs, Ian and Farouk, they must have sold Shaw to Rihab.

“Rihab’s going to kill him,” she whispers, just to let Colt know she’s still there.

She shoulders the rifle again as the ARV starts up, but all it does is back out of sight through the passage. No one enters the courtyard—not yet.

“Heads up, Ripley,” she says, moving back along the balcony to the stairs. “Call Lincoln.”

The sun stands high above the confusion in Rabat’s packed streets. Vehicles jam the roads. Those with human drivers have started ignoring the traffic lanes; those driven by AIs advance at a snail’s pace, constrained by an excess of caution. Police hold command over major intersections, leaving the smaller cross streets as jousting grounds for opposing vehicles. Lincoln has already seen two fistfights break out over fender-benders.

The sidewalks, where they exist, are just as crowded. Where they don’t exist, people wade into traffic and make things worse. There’s no dominant direction to the movement. It’s as if everyone in the city, citizens and tourists alike, just wants to get somewhere else.

At least the nerve-grating civil defense sirens have gone silent.

Lincoln has divided his people, sending them on different routes in case of trouble on the way—and also, so they don’t look like a gang. He’s got Miles with him. Rohan is partnered with Felice. He left Khalid with the truck, telling him, “I need you here, in place to deploy the last pair of copters if it comes to that. Go ahead and put the truck on autopilot. Then climb in back and get the starbursts armed. Clear?”

The terms detailed in their Warrant of Capture and Rendition place severe restrictions on their weapons and armed robotics. They are allowed to carry only handguns, and lethal robotics may only be deployed in a hostage situation and under the oversight of the Moroccan police.

Or in an emergency situation, on my authority, Lincoln thinks. He’ll deal with the consequences later. With luck they won’t have to deploy the armed copters, but it’s an option if they need it.

Together, Lincoln and Miles move fast, jogging when they can. Miles is still out of shape from his two-month captivity. He breathes hard, struggling to keep up, but he doesn’t complain.

Their only weapon is Lincoln’s pistol, which he’s carrying in a shoulder holster hidden under his light jacket. His MARC visor links him to the Cloud through the local cell network. Video is impossible, given the emergency load the network is carrying, but he’s got a voice link to the mission command post, where Chris is overseeing their movements, with Tamara backing him up.

Lincoln worried at first that the visor would attract unwelcome attention, but it’s attracted less attention than his face usually does. Also, he’s seen several people narrating the chaos from behind AR screens with active cameras; so far he’s heard no one objecting.

He shoulders through yet another knot of people, following a route that displays as a golden path overlaid on the sidewalk. Miles sticks close behind him. He doesn’t have a visor, but he’s got an audio link.

They shift into a jog as the sidewalk clears. The people they pass look frightened and confused. They’re trying to make sense of what’s happening, asking questions none can answer, continuously checking the screens of their phones in a hunt for updates.

A green light winks on in his display indicating activity in their ad hoc comm network. Chris speaks in a grim but businesslike tone. “True just sent a text. It reads, ‘Enemy on the ground.’ That’s it. No details.”

“Roger that.”

He trades a glance with Miles, who nods, acknowledging the gravity of the news.

He says over comms, “Rohan, Felice, find cover as you approach the target address. Stay down and out of sight until we can assess and coordinate.”

They respond in low voices:

“Got it.”

“Roger that.”

He and Miles are crossing a gridlocked intersection, weaving between trapped cars, when Chris says, “I’m forwarding a call from True.”

The call icon appears on Lincoln’s screen. He uses his data glove to tap the air, accepting it. “Here.”

She speaks in a breathless whisper. “It’s all gone south. He’s badly wounded. Immobile. Helpless. His people have sold him out to Rihab. Rihab is here. He’s holding Shaw responsible for what we did at Tadmur. He’s going to kill him.”

Lincoln listens to this, his anger rising. She speaks as if Shaw’s safety should be his first concern. It’s not. “What’s your status?”

“I’m alone inside the building. They know I’m here but they haven’t come after me. Not yet. Might not be worth it to them. They know I’m armed. I want to take him back, but it’s five of them, one of me, and they’ve got a little ARV.”

He comes down hard on this. “You will take no action on your own. You will stay out of sight until we get there. Is that understood?”

“It’s not that easy. I need to know. Are you here for Shaw? Or are you going to let Rihab have him?”

Lincoln is moving fast. He’s not in a mood to negotiate. He’s not in a situation amenable to discussion. Even so, if he can keep her talking, that might keep her from pulling another crazy stunt. So, between the shallow breaths that fuel his sprint across the district, he lays out a grudging explanation. “I’ve got a warrant for him, based on depositions from Miles and from Ryan Rogers. The warrant doesn’t pay, but it obligates me to bring him back and deliver him into the hands of American authorities.”

“Then what?”

“Not my problem. Not your problem.”

“I know he cannot be left to go on the way he’s been doing since Nungsan. I know that. But it would be fucking ironic if he ends up in a black-site prison and no one knows he’s still alive.”

“There’s no way to make it right, True.”

“You need to get here soon.”

“I’m coming.”

“I think they’re going to take him somewhere.”

“I’m coming. Stay out of sight. Wait for me. Promise me, True.”

She hesitates, but then says, “I’ll do what I can.”

She ends the call.

“You will stay out of sight,” Colt orders in his deepest command voice. “They’re waiting for you, True. They’re expecting you to show.”

She has crept downstairs until she’s just a few steps from the bottom. Male voices reverberate in the passageway, speaking rapid-fire Arabic that she doesn’t have the skill to follow. “Tell me their positions,” she whispers to Colt.

“They’re positioned to kill you. Put your head around that corner and you’re—”

Shaw screams, a drawn-out animal roar of agony.

True’s eyes go wide. It’s all she can do to hold her position when instinct is telling her to go to him, to help, to do what she can. His scream fades out, and to her horror, nervous laughter follows. “What are they doing to him?”

“Not sure,” Colt says. “This goddamn worm! I can’t see. No, wait. Wait. I think they picked him up. They’re moving out. Yeah. One of the new guys has him over his shoulders. Taking him up the street. I think he’s fainted. Or he’s dead. Either way, they’re leaving. The ARV too.”

“Are they all leaving?”

He hesitates. “I think so. I can’t tell for sure. No one’s in the passage. Stay where you are. You’ll be okay.”

That’s one option, but is it right action? Here, now, Rihab only has four soldiers with him. There won’t be a better time, a better place to confront him, to take Shaw back. But Lincoln is not here, while Rihab and his crew will be gone in just a couple of minutes.

She is the only one who can slow them down.

She makes her decision. She’ll do what she can, but she’ll do it from the high ground. Colt’s protests are loud and virulent in her ear as she turns and sprints up the stairs, back to the second level, then to the roof.

The stairs come out beneath the covered end of the terrace. She arrives, chest heaving, heart thumping hard. The fixed roof casts heavy shade across the upholstered furniture of the sitting area—a sharp contrast to the bright white, sunlit walls out under the open sky.

As she moves from shade to sunlight, her shoulder brushes a curtain tied back against a supporting column, setting it swaying. “Shit,” she whispers. Extraneous motion is distracting, and it’s a giveaway, but at least she’s alone.

She holds the Triple-Y at her shoulder as she advances cautiously, moving closer to the edge of the terrace. She needs to get just close enough to look into the street. A glimpse, seen past the gun sight:

Shaw. His body is draped over the shoulders of a man who’s moving quickly up the street on the heels of two more men. Another is already at the top of the street. That one, she thinks, is Farouk. He looks back at her. He’s got a tablet in his hand.

Ah! The fucking ARV.

Down in the street, on the edge of her vision, something moves. Her brain registers it as a gun barrel rising from behind a parked car and before conscious thought kicks in, she drops to her knees, collapses to her side. A fusillade of heavy-caliber slugs slams into the terrace wall, sending concrete and plaster chips flying over her. She’s sure Farouk can’t see her anymore but the shots keep coming. It’s like he’s trying to chew down the wall.

Then it stops.

Colt is swearing: a long low stream of profanities.

“I’m still here,” she whispers to him.

Staying low, she rolls to her knees—and motion draws her eye. At first she thinks it’s the swaying curtain, but her visor picks out a point deeper in the shadow of the sheltering roof, a point at the top of the stairs, and highlights it.

Her mind flashes on the math: four enemy in the street, one more whose location is unknown. She fires a single shot at the point her visor has marked, then dives to the side and rolls. Concrete chips from the terrace’s shattered wall grind into her hip and shoulder and tear at her shirt. She hisses at the pain but doesn’t slow down. Scrambling, she gets behind an empty hip-high terracotta planter just as a flash-bang grenade goes off. She hunches, shading her eyes with her arm as a second one follows.

Ian, she thinks, grateful that she’s still thinking. Bright sparks dazzle her eyes and her ears are ringing. It could have been so much worse, but she got lucky. The blasts dissipated across the open rooftop and she caught only the edge.

She peers past the terracotta pot. The shade under the roof and the stunned state of her vision make it hard to see, but her visor finds a target for her. It throws a new highlight: Ian, his lanky athletic figure half hidden behind the wall enclosing the stairs. He’s leaning out just a little, looking for her, his pistol held in a two-handed grip.

She thinks, Now he has to gamble. He has to ask himself if the flash-bang put her on the ground, somewhere out of sight. If so, he has to hurry, because she won’t be down for long. If not, when he moves he makes himself a target.

He darts out of the stairwell, crosses to the shelter of a column that holds up the roof. No curtain on this column. He pivots around it, swinging the pistol to cover the span of the rooftop. “Stay down and you won’t get hurt!” he shouts.

She bides her time, a half-second, waiting until his chest is exposed. And then she leans out from behind the terracotta pot and fires off two shots that hit over his heart. There’s no blood. His vest has caught the slugs, but he goes down anyway. The shock has probably put a temporary stop to his heartbeat.

She runs to secure him. Well, she hobbles really, as her right calf threatens to seize up, but she gets there. She kicks his pistol out of reach. He’s groaning, trying to push himself up, so she kicks him in the head. “Stay down and you won’t get hurt,” she tells him.

She still has Shaw’s multitool. Its blade is sharp. She uses it to cut a tasseled rope from the nearest curtain.

“Ian’s buddy is coming to check on him,” Colt says.

“Fuck.” Another kick convinces Ian to be still while she secures his arms behind his back. While he’s still woozy, she ties his ankles together. Then she pats him down. The only interesting things she finds are a phone and an electronic car key. She takes them both, but powers down the phone.

“Okay, where’s Farouk?” she asks Colt as she moves to the stairs.

“He’s coming in through the passage. Alone.”

She heads down as quickly and quietly as she can manage. “With or without the ARV?”

“No ARV. He wants his man cred.”

“Man cred,” she scoffs. “That’s your generation. He’s only coming in because it’s too hard to steer the ARV without the camera.”

She stops on the second level, peering out from behind the wall that encloses the stairwell. The position allows her to see over the balcony and down the length of the courtyard to the small citrus trees and the fountain, the two chairs and the bench beyond. The overturned table.

How long since Guiying first walked into the courtyard? Thirty minutes? Less?

She turns her gaze to the passage. She can see its mouth, but she can’t see into it—and she can’t see Farouk. He’s probably in the courtyard, hidden beneath the balcony or at the bottom of the stairwell.

Her MARC flashes a red highlight at the top of her visor. She looks up, targeting the highlight with her Triple-Y before recognition sparks: A sparrow. A mechanical sparrow descending from the roof terrace, dropping toward the courtyard in a swift spiral. Not her sparrow—the laser destroyed hers—but the same design.

Lincoln?

Her finger is still floating above the trigger when a shot goes off—it sounds like it’s right below her. The sparrow bursts apart as the shot reechoes off the walls.

As the echoes fade, she hears Farouk. He’s running, bounding up the stairs. She gives him two seconds, long enough to finish the first half-flight. Then she pivots, aiming the Triple-Y down the stairwell as he comes into sight, his pistol in one hand. He gets off a shot. It cracks past her ear. But she’s already hammering him, five slugs to the chest.

He drops like a dead man, sliding down with his back against the wall. She wonders if he is dead. It takes him a few seconds to decide—then he starts to wheeze.

“Heads up, Ripley,” she says, “call Lincoln.”