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old-fashioned way and walk home."
"Just what I was looking forward too, a leisurely traipse through the
jungle at night," Coop said, glancing nervously around him at the thick
underbrush surrounding them.
Jersey quietly reached out and took his hand as they walked. She idly
rubbed at the spot on her chest where the BW had stained her shirt. Her
skin was already beginning to itch, but she thought that was probably
just her imagination.
Mingo Higgins's head lolled on his chest, blood dripping from his
shattered nose onto the concrete floor between bis bare feet. His hands
were tied behind the back of the chair he was sitting on.
Bruno Bottger stood before him, his eyes glittering hate as he
questioned the mere. "Who sent you here?" he shouted, slapping Higgins
awake again.
Higgins answered through swollen, split lips. "No one," he said, his
voice barely intelligible.
"Why did you break into my lab?"
Higgins shook his head, the movement making him wince as waves of pain
shot through every part of his body. "I already told you, I don't know
what you're talking about."
Bottger scowled and stepped back, allowing Sergeant Herman Bundt to step
forward. Bundt's hands were covered with padded black gloves, and he
delivered two quick blows to Higgins's face, snapping his head back and
shattering his two front teeth.
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Bottger took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped away blood that
splattered onto his boots.
"I think it is time for the chemicals," he said.
"But, Herr Bottger," Sergei Bergman said, "they will turn his mind to
mush. He will be useless to us afterwards."
Bottger cut his eyes to Bergman. "He is already useless. Do you think I
would trust him again? Do whatever you have to and make him talk!"
Bergman nodded his head at Bundt, and the sergeant picked a syringe up
off a nearby table and filled it with a colorless liquid from a vial. He
bent next to Higgins and jabbed the needle into his arm vein, depressing
the plunger and sending the liquid coursing through Higgins's body.
As his eyes clouded over under the influence of the truth serum, Higgins
began to mumble and laugh to himself, as if he were sharing a private
joke in the recesses of his mind.
Again, Bottger put the question to him. "Who sent you here to spy on me?"
Higgins's eyes rolled back in his head as he tried to focus on the man
standing in front of him.
"No one sent me. I came on my own to find work," he answered, his voice
slurred as if he were drunk.
After another fifteen minutes of this, Bundt finally said, "It is of no
use, Herr Bottger. Either he is innocent, or he is so well trained we
will never get the truth out of him."
Bottger threw his bloodied handkerchief into the wastebas-ket.
"You want me to have him shot?" Rudolf Hessner asked.
"No, send him to the lab. The scientists can always use another subject
for their experiments."
He hesitated, thinking of what to do next. "And while you are there,
tell them to conduct another search of the lab to make sure nothing is
missing."
"Yes, sir," Hessner said as he bent to untie Higgins's hands and help
him to his feet.
"Rudolf," Bottger said.
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"Yes, sir?"
"When you're finished at the lab, go with Sergei and Sergeant Bundt and
have all of the trainees assembled in the squad yard. It's time to find
out just who is loyal and who isn't."
"Yes, sir," Hessner said.
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111
Mike Post knocked and entered Ben Raines's office just after breakfast.
"Hey, Ben," he said, as he took his usual seat opposite Ben's desk.
"Mornin', Mike," Ben said over the brim of his coffee cup. "What've you
heard about Osterman and her current plans?"
Mike looked at a sheaf of papers in his hand. "Lot of reports of troop
movements to the north. Nothing on a large scale, but lots of small
units seem to be on the move, and all of them are heading south."
"You think she's getting her troops in position to make a move against us?"
Mike nodded. "That'd be my first guess. That, combined with the intel
from Harley Reno's group saying the meres in South America are gearing
up for an offensive within one month, suggests that she's planning on
hitting us from the north simultaneously with the offensive from the
south in Mexico."
Ben smiled. "I guess she thinks she can keep us so busy defending
ourselves here we won't be able to help the Mexican Army stand off Perro
Loco and whoever is fronting the meres from South America."
"Yeah, and I've gotta say it's not a bad idea. It's gonna be real hard
to manage a war on two fronts."
Ben's face grew reflective. "She's certainly studied her history. No
major power has ever been able to do it successfully."
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"What do you think our chances are?" Mike asked, stuffing the papers
back in his briefcase.
"If you mean keeping Mexico free as well as fighting off Osterman from
the north, I'd say about fifty-fifty."
"That low?" Mike asked, his expression becoming worried as he
contemplated the idea of the SUSA losing a war.
Ben nodded. "In fact, if we expended a major effort to save Mexico City,
the odds would be even lower than that."
"So, what do you plan to do?"
"Since the president of Mexico is being so stubborn about accepting our
help before the fact of an invasion, I think we're gonna have to let him
do it his way and defend his capital city on his own."
"You think he can pull it off?"
Ben shook his head. "Not a chance," he said. "The man is a complete
imbecile where modern warfare is concerned. Mexico City is far too large
and spread out to defend in the usual manner, and Perro Loco has too
much sophisticated weaponry to be held off the way the Mexican president
wants to."
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"So, you think Mexico City is doomed?"
"Yeah, sooner or later, and probably sooner, Loco with the help of the
meres will take the city."
"Then what?" Mike asked.
"Mexico City is five to seven hundred miles from our southern border,
which we control. I'm going to send a couple of battalions down there to
beef up our forces there, as well as sending in as many scout teams as I
can spare to the northern parts of Mexico. I'm going to make Loco and
his meres fight for every inch of territory between Mexico City and our
southern borders. It's going to be a war of attrition so devastating
that Loco may have to be content with having Mexico City." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]