BETA - Project Avatar, page 20
The policemen began methodically emptying their weapons into the side and rear of the black van as it spun its wheels loudly, aiming at a narrow gap among the cars ahead to make its getaway. They stopped shooting only when the van dodged around some cars and into the jammed intersection.
The intersection lay in a state of stunned silence, with not a sound but the quiet idling of engines. Most of the cars looked abandoned because their passengers were hiding on the floor.
Dee, who had been trying to stay low during the gunfire, peeped up over the back of her seat. The side of the black van looked like pumice or a termite-eaten slab of wood. Silvery bullet holes riddled the black enamel, and the side window was an opaque white mat of shatter lines. But it appeared that not one bullet had actually penetrated into the passenger space, for the van began advancing across the intersection, heading straight for her.
“Beta!”
“Yes, Karen.”
“They’re coming! What should I do?”
“Increase speed. Or abandon the vehicle immediately.”
The cars lined up in front of Dee were not going anywhere. She could see people’s heads peeking up over the seats in some of them now, but the sound of gunfire seemed to have shut down all activity for blocks around.
She put the Audi in reverse, backed off a couple of yards, then revved the engine and gunned the Audi over the curb and onto the sidewalk. A series of outdoor cafés fronted the street, with seating areas covered in awnings and separated from each other by low, ornate fences. The sidewalk, wide as a lane of traffic, was covered with delicate chairs and little tables sporting colorful tablecloths, carafes of water, and silverware, but not a customer in sight—everyone had fled inside.
Dee drove straight up the block along the sidewalk, leaving an impressive trail of ruin behind her. By the time she made it to the corner, she was shoving a bent section of metal fence before her and snow-plowing a great heap of smashed tables and chairs. She dumped it all over the curb and into a gutter, then backed up a few feet to get clear, and drove off the curb into the empty intersection.
“Proceed forward into the old quarter,” Beta instructed her. “Advance with maximum haste.”
Maximum haste on the crowded cobblestone streets of Geneva’s Vieille Ville neighborhood turned out not to be very fast. Beta led her into the mazelike interior of the old quarter, aiming her into a succession of progressively smaller streets. Soon she was rumbling up tiny alleys with no sidewalks, fronted on both sides by beautiful medieval masonry. Many of these buildings were so old, they seemed to be leaning over. Busts of ancient notables, carved into the stonework above doorways hundreds of years before, gazed down disapprovingly at the passing sports car.
It soon became obvious that, if not for Beta’s instructions, she would long since have cornered herself at one dead end or another. The district was full of cul-de-sacs, and half the streets seemed to be chained off as pedestrian walkways. She knew that the black van was behind her somewhere, but she was beginning to feel confident that if she could just get to the other side of this maze and out on the open road again, she would have a huge head start on her pursuers.
“Turn right,” Beta said.
“But . . . but I can’t.” Dee stopped the car. She was in a small cobblestone circle beside a tiny public fountain, surrounded by tall villas from the time of Shakespeare. A street headed off to the right, but it had been temporarily chained off and was filled with festive commerce. Under bright awnings and tarps, live music was playing, food was grilling, and handmade goods were out on display.
“There’s some kind of a street fair going on,” she said. “I can’t drive up that street. Give me another route.”
Beta was silent for a few seconds. “Abandon the vehicle. Proceed on foot.”
“Are you kidding? Beta, give me another route!”
“All alternative pathways involve backtracking. Do not backtrack. Repeat, do not backtrack. Abandon the vehicle. Proceed on foot.”
“Oh, God. Abe is going to kill me.”
“I don’t understand the command. Would you like to hear a menu?”
With nowhere to park on any of these tiny streets, Dee just shut off the Audi right there in the middle of the circle and grabbed her things.
“Do I have to . . . you know, clean off the fingerprints?”
“No. Advance with maximum haste. Abandon the vehicle. Proceed on foot.”
“Yes, okay. I’ve got it.”
She stood up in the street, her knees feeling shaky. Only then did she realize how much attention she was attracting. A line of at least a dozen people had formed at the mouth of the closed street, their backs to the fair, looking at her car with open fascination. She glanced down at it and realized that it was indeed one of the strangest-looking vehicles she had ever seen. In the past half hour, it had been transformed from a masterpiece of automotive engineering to a rolling wreck. A deep gash ran the full length of the driver’s side, all the front lights were smashed out, and the rear bumper was gone. Every panel of the body looked as if it had been worked over with a sledgehammer.
“Advance with maximum haste,” Beta encouraged her.
Dee walked straight into the line of spectators. As she shouldered between them, she couldn’t resist asking, “Anyone want a used car?”
By the time she made the cover of the first awning, she was damp and cold from the evening drizzle. She began to jog up the street, weaving among tourists in bright plastic ponchos, and well-dressed local denizens under big gray umbrellas.
Brakes screeched behind her, and she turned to see the black van, stopped right behind her smashed yellow car. Its bullet-pocked passenger side faced the street fair. The sliding door opened a few inches, jammed on its damaged runners, and groaned as it was forced open another foot or so.
Through the gap, single-file, emerged three hooded commandos with automatic weapons in hand. The crowd of gawkers screamed as the soldiers ran into their midst.
Dee ducked low and began dodging her way up the street, through the crowd, trying to keep behind shoppers and revelers, moving fast and staying out of sight. She could hear her breath coming in quick gasps. She told herself harshly, “Keep it together.”
“I don’t understand the command. Would you like to hear a menu?”
“They’re after me, Beta! Where do I go?”
“Please confirm. Are you being pursued on foot?”
“Yes!”
“Advance rapidly to the next corner, and turn right.”
Behind her, she heard a deep, furious voice shout: “Get down! Everybody!”
Then she heard the sharp report of a single gunshot. The sound was extended into a long staccato as it echoed off the tall stone buildings lining both sides of the narrow street.
Dee’s knee buckled involuntarily, and she found herself down with both hands and one knee on the wet cobbled street. All around her, people had fallen to the ground, many of them spread-eagled on their bellies. The confused crowd was emitting a quiet collective moan of mass terror.
She looked back over her shoulder. Almost the only people standing were the three soldiers. Their black forms stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the darkness, silhouetted by street lamps behind them. The one in the middle was still holding a handgun high in the air, and now he holstered it and returned both hands to his submachine gun.
All three began moving forward methodically, studying each person on the ground as they passed. Sometimes they nudged a body with the toe of a boot to get a better look at the face.
“Do not attempt to seek concealment in this location,” Beta warned her. “Continue advancing rapidly but with caution.”
Dee was utterly terrified by this point, and really didn’t want to stand up and run. But she ducked her head under the strap of her shoulder bag and placed the bag flat across her back. Her hands were shaking again. She took a deep breath, sprang to her feet, and sprinted up the street as fast as she could.
The five or six seconds it took to cover the short distance to the mouth of the alleyway on the right seemed to drag on forever. It felt like running uphill through knee-deep tar. She had enough time to formulate the thought that this was the sort of time-dilation that must happen when people were falling off a bridge or building, and their entire life passed before their eyes.
Dee felt the impact of the bullet between her shoulder blades before she heard the dull tock of a silenced weapon being fired. She lost her footing and fell against the far side of the alleyway wall, her shoulder slamming into the brickwork. She fell onto one knee on the cobbled street. Under her breath, she thanked John for convincing her to wear the jacket. Behind her she heard a couple more bullets smack into the wall. She caught her breath and struggled to her feet, her knee and shoulder throbbing painfully. She was in an empty alleyway with a shadowy colonnade along one wall. It ended at an elbow turn, not far ahead.
“Try all doors and windows,” Beta instructed her. “Seek a point of entry into any building.”
“What?”
“There is no street exit ahead. Seek a point of entry into any building.”
“No exit!” This wasn’t the first time that she had felt betrayed by a piece of trusted software, but it was certainly the most calamitous.
A door stood right beside her, and she paused to jiggle the doorknob as she passed. The stone columns provided a little bit of cover, but not much. Her three pursuers were going to appear at the head of the alley within a few seconds.
“Beta, there’s no time!” She jiggled a window, then another. Everything was locked.
“Advance rapidly but with caution. Seek a point of entry into any building.”
She ran up the shadowy cover of the colonnade to the last building on the block. She was just yanking at its doorknob when the first commando dashed into the alleyway, twenty yards behind her. It was too dark to tell which one it was.
She gasped and slipped behind a column. The stone pillar was just big enough to conceal her.
“Do not seek concealment in this location,” Beta reminded her.
“But they’re here . . . they’re already in the alley,” Dee whispered in a trembling voice.
“GPS analysis of the current tactical situation shows very low probability of success.”
She clenched her sweating palms. She was only two steps, three at the most, from the corner. But she had no idea what was behind her.
She leaped out of hiding and immediately lost her footing on the slippery white marble. It was all she could do to avoid sprawling headlong. Her shoes made loud slapping noises on the wet stone as she ran in place, catching herself. Then she found some traction and scuttled around the corner, into an unlit street.
As she passed around the stone corner, she heard a strange sound just behind her ear. It was like the splashing of a viscous fluid, but with an odd crunching undertone. As she ran, it occurred to her that it had been the sound of bullets hitting the stonework just behind her head. Silenced small-arms fire splattering against smooth-faced stone.
“You are under fire,” Beta commented. “Advance with maximum haste. Seek a point of entry into any building.”
“There aren’t any doors!” she wailed.
On reaching the end of the dark alley, it was clear that she had nowhere to go. She looked around frantically for an escape route.
To her right stood a wrought-iron porte cochere: a massive double gate of inch-thick bars to block the world out of this wealth family’s roofed courtyard. It had been built large enough that, when opened, it could admit a coach drawn by a half-dozen horses. Closed, it was intended to resist a large rabble or a small army. The ironwork went all the way up to the thick stone wall above.
For lack of any other option, Dee leaped onto the gate and began scrambling upward. It was ornate and easily climbed, with nothing above it but smooth stone. It was plain enough that climbing was futile, but she couldn’t just stand with her back to the bars and wait to be shot or dragged off to some unspeakable fate.
At the top of the gate was a loop in the ornamental ironwork. It was big enough to put her head through, so she did. She was surprised to find that she could wriggle her wet shoulders through as well.
The sound of boots slapping into the alley’s mouth echoed around the walls. She heard the bolt being drawn and snapped into place on somebody’s submachine gun—a loud and definitive clack in that small stone space. Dee gripped the iron on the other side just as she heard bullets ricochet off the metalwork and against the far wall of the alley. Then came swearing and shouts—they were having trouble seeing her from the other end of the alley. She drew her hips through and let her feet swing out over empty space. They were running toward her now, their footfalls echoing off the walls of the alley.
Dee pulled her bag through behind her, let go of the gate, and dropped to the ground.
Two steps later, she was vanishing into the shadows at the back of the courtyard.
She crouched low and crawled under a brick archway not more than four feet high, her heart hammering and her breath escaping in short convulsive bursts. Slowly and carefully, she crept past a couple of trash cans, working her way deeper into the shadows. She was in a crawlway that opened up on its other side into some sort of drive under the main building. She could see the dull gleam of automobiles parked down there.
“Beta!” she hissed. “Where should I go?”
“Seek concealment,” Beta advised. “You now have multiple routes of exit. Please confirm or deny: are you currently under pursuit?”
Dee didn’t reply. She squashed herself into the shadows and hugged her knees, trying to make herself small. Her chest was heaving, and her clothes were soaked through from the drizzling rain. Soon she would be cold again.
After a few seconds, she peeped around the garbage cans.
The three commandos were clearly visible just a few yards away, outside the porte cochere. The tall one was climbing the gate, heading for the ornamental loop near the top. The other two were watching him, whispering to him that he should hurry.
Holtz, who had removed his hood, took out a long black flashlight and began sweeping its narrow, powerful beam over the shadows in the courtyard. Pulling back out of his line of sight, Dee continued watching the climbing man.
“Confirm or deny: are you currently under pursuit?”
“Give me a second,” she whispered. “I’m not sure yet.”
The tall commando stuck his head through the loop and pushed. His shoulders wouldn’t go through.
“God damn it!” the red-haired one hissed. “Come on, Stoddard! Go, go!”
“I think I’m stuck,” the tall one whispered. He managed to pull his head back out of the ironwork with difficulty. “No, there, I’m clear. But there’s no way I’m getting through that.”
“Shit! Get down off of there. Let me give it a try.”
Holtz continued playing the beam of his flashlight over each shadow in the courtyard, tracking the beam with the barrel of his weapon, “Give it up, Bishop,” he muttered. “Stoddard’s skinnier than either of us. If he can’t make it through, then neither can we.”
Bishop, who was hanging from the ironwork now by one hand and one foot, stopped climbing and let himself drop to the ground. “We’ll have to blow the gate,” he said. “Stoddard, get back to the van on the double and bring up the C-4.”
Holtz turned off his flashlight and made a humorless chuckling sound. Dee leaned out another inch so she could see him. “Give it up,” he said. “She’s long gone.”
The one called Bishop spun around and grabbed Holtz by the throat, shoving him back against the metal bars with a dull clank.
“You shut the hell up, Holtz! You’ve done nothing but drag your feet since this operation started. Next time, you stay in the van, understand?”
The two men made silent, unblinking eye contact for a few seconds. Holtz didn’t look at all alarmed; indeed, he looked to Dee as if he was calculating his next move.
Bishop let go and took a quick, tactical step back. “This is complete bullshit!” he said. He looked up at the big gate, then turned away and swore and kicked at the wet cobblestones.
“I guess I’d better go secure the van,” Stoddard suggested. He took a step away and paused, awaiting orders.
Bishop pointed an accusing finger at Holtz’s face. “My missions never go sour! This isn’t how we do things. I told the old man we shouldn’t bring you along. I’m not a goddamn babysitter.”
Holtz watched him impassively.
“Well, listen,” Bishop said. “You’re elected to be the one who explains to him that the bitch got away again. Let’s just see how that goes for you.”
Holtz shrugged. “Sure,” he said in neutral tones. “I’m happy to tell him how you fucked up your mission. After all, I’m just along for the ride.”
For several seconds, the two men, both holding submachine guns strapped across their chests, looked on the verge of blasting each other to pieces. Then Bishop turned away with a dismissive gesture of his left hand. “This is just bullshit,” he said again. “Let’s move. Back to the van. Mission’s not over yet.”
The three of them headed back up the alley.
“Confirm or deny,” Beta repeated again. “Are you currently under pursuit?”
“No. They’re leaving.”
She watched the three men disappear around the corner of the alley, leaving her shivering in the dark under the brick arch. She put her face in her hands and began to sob dryly.
“Oh, God,” she rasped hoarsely. “Oh, God.”
“Proceed to the street front on the opposite side of the building,” Beta advised her. “You are one block from a tram stop. A tram is scheduled to arrive in two minutes and ten seconds, bound for the southeastern suburbs of Geneva. Approach the tram stop with caution and stay under cover until you have visual confirmation of the tram’s arrival.”
