Agent Violin Ch. 2

Zeng placed the little missile into the chamber of the launcher. Taking careful aim through the launcher’s scope, Zeng fired.

The launch was practically soundless - Zeng could barely hear it himself - and so fast was the dart’s flight that launch and impact were virtually simultaneous.

The little firefly went dark.

Smiling, Sergeant Zeng replaced his camo-veil, rose, and silently moved forward again.

ERIKO AWOKE WHEN she heard the little electronic chirp. After a moment or two of grogginess, her brain directed her attention to the little monitor screen by her head. Her eyes widened.

One of the sensors was gone, no longer functioning.

She sat up, wide awake, grabbing the screen to recheck her blurry eyes.

"Captain," she whispered urgently. "Captain-" she turned to nudge her sleeping partner awake -

The sleeping bag beside her was empty.

Eriko’s blood froze.

She sat there, riveted, her ears desperately probing the dead-silence all around her…

There was a sound outside - or she thought she heard one - a footfall?

Tanner?

She considered calling out to him softly -

But if it wasn’t…

Her trembling hand cast desperately around in the darkness for her pistol. She pulled her pistol belt to her and grasped the holster. It was soft - it was empty.

Desperate, she tore aside the cover of the bag and rose to her knees, frantically touching everything within reach in search of her vanished weapon. Her hand touched a flashlight, and she gripped it gratefully, her thumb instinctively moving to switch it on - before she stopped. The light would give her away, big-time.

She dropped the flashlight, unlit, and resumed patting around the tent’s floor.

Another sound for out there - she was sure of it this time. She stopped moving; stopped breathing…

The door of the tent parted.

Eriko spun around on her knees - and looked Death in the face.

IT WORE A veil below eyes made insectile by night vision glasses. There were no patches on its uniform, no insignia, no rank - but Eriko knew exactly what it was. She had heard of Hunter-Killers, more kindly called ‘Mountain Men.’ They were the brutal, efficient and merciless guardians of the passes in an out of People’s Republic.

The veil crinkled into what must have been a smile, hideous, inhuman...

Eriko knelt there, her eyes and mouth frozen open, too frightened even to tremble.

The veiled beast slowly raised his rifle - long, black and wicked-looking. A bloody beam shot out from it, playing across her eyes before settling to a deadly point at the center of her forehead.

Eriko wanted to cry out, but couldn’t.

Then the thing behind the rifle spoke: She could barely hear it.

Her Mandarin was far from perfect, but she thought she heard "Nighty-nite, sweet child…"

The black-gloved finger tighten on the trigger.

Eriko closed her eyes.

"Nighty-nite, yourself…"

She heard a choking gurgle, then a long, tired exhalation.

Then nothing. Silence.

She slowly opened her eyes.

The masked thing knelt there, strangely rigid, his arms hanging carelessly, like a scarecrow… The rifle it held clattered to the floor of the tent, the laser beam going dark. Blood ran from beneath its veil... It crouched like that for a moment, before, as a puppet cut from its strings, it slowly descended to the floor, leaving another figure to fill the doorway.

"Some people really should phone before dropping by, don’t you think?" Tanner said in impressive Mandarin.

Kneeling, he pulled one of the dead Hunter’s arms to him, using the sleeve to wipe the blood from his black dagger before replacing the thing in his boot.

Eriko just crouched there and stared, beginning to breath again.

"Well," Tanner went on in English, "his buddies won’t be far behind. Get dressed, grab your pack, and let’s go. We’ll leave everything else."

Eriko grabbed her fatigue shirt and put it on, then her boots.

"How did you -?"

"Sneaking out of women’s beds is an old talent, kid. Move."

The girl received that line with contempt as she grabbed her fatigue jacket, then her pistol belt.

"I can’t find…" she began.

"Oh," Tanner said. "Here." He pulled the little Walther from his belt and tossed it to her.

Eriko caught the pistol, stared at it opened-mouthed, her eyes changing from disbelief to glaring anger.

"You bastard…" she hissed.

"If he had seen that in your hands," Tanner informed her with an infuriating matter-of-factness, "he would have killed you on sight."

"You used me as… bait?"

"I was hoping not to have to wake you at all. The little prick got in front of me. Sorry."

"You son of a bitch…"

Tanner roughly tossed the girl her back pack.

"Listen, Sugarlumps, we don’t have time for a family squabble. Get moving. Azimuth - three-four-nine degrees," he said. "Go. I’ll catch up."

Eriko just knelt there holding her pack, burning.

"Go." he repeated. "Lieutenant."

Shooting daggers, Eriko laced her boots, then, pulling her pack along beside her, crawled out of the tent, following his orders.

Alone now, Tanner looked down upon the corpse he’d made.

"Up and at ’em, Sir Daisy Lad," Tanner grunted as he lifted and pulled the Hunter’s body along to the sleeping bag.

There was a hand grenade on the dead man’s belt.

"Now, you really shouldn’t play with these things," he quietly admonished the cadaver, pulling the grenade from its loop. "You could put somebody’s eye out."

He saw the flashlight Eriko had dropped and picked that up, too.

THEY FOUND THE tent easily: There was a light coming from it, and it was quickly surrounded.

They hadn’t been able to raise Sergeant Zeng and, assuming the worst, they approached with redoubled caution.

At a signal from his Section Leader, a young Senior Corporal carefully parted the cloth flaps of the door and, rifle ready, peered inside.

The corporal froze, his face paling. He turned away from the door, choking back vomit.

His Section Leader, a scar-faced Junior Sergeant looked away from the corporal and approached the tent, kneeling to look inside.

The sergeant blanched slightly, before his face blackened with anger. He backed out of the tent, turning away, shaken, cursing under his breath, vowing revenge.

"What is it, Sergeant?" asked a voice from the darkness. It was their commanding officer.

"It’s Zeng, Lieutenant," the Junior Sergeant replied as the man approached. "He’s… in there…"

The lieutenant had a look, then cursed as well.

"I told him to wait…" the officer growled into the cold air. Then he addressed the Junior Sergeant again: "Have Second and Third Sections scout up ahead. Cautiously. See what they can find. I want regular reports."

"Yes, sir."

The Junior Sergeant headed off, shepherding his men along with him.

Turning to a young private who stood, gawking, nearby, the officer ordered: "Get him out of there."

The look on the private’s face conveyed his enthusiasm for the task but, new to the little Hunter-Killer Team, he was quite eager to prove himself in the eyes of his new peers. Perhaps too eager - eagerness and carelessness are best buds.

Slinging his rifle over his back, the private carefully crawled into the tent.

THE FIRST THING he noticed was the flashlight, set on its base, casting a beam upwards to the ceiling of the tent, effusing the little space in a harsh, whitish glow.

Senior Sergeant Zeng’s right hand was beneath his head, propping his body up on an elbow in a casual, relaxed pose; his black, lifeless eyes gazed darkly downward upon his left hand, which was planted on something small, white.

The tent was empty otherwise.

The private crawled slowly closer, trying to avoid the dead man’s eyes; trying not to look at the blood sluggishly dribbling down his neck, which lightly steamed in the cold mountain air. Coming alongside the body, the private furrowed his brow: The thing beneath its hand was a small, folded piece of note paper; a dead index finger was planted forward on the page - the whole effect a sick joke, giving the corpse the appearance of reading.

Trying to control his breath, and sickened by the act, the young man slowly reached out and slipped the paper from between the Senior Sergeant’s stiffening finger.

-which upset the delicate balance of the corpse -

He opened the note.

- which rolled over onto its back -

He saw the elegant Chinese script.

- which exposed the hand grenade under its armpit -

GREETINGS, WEARY TRAVELER

- which released the safety lever -

YOU’RE DEAD

- which activated the grenade.

THE EXPLOSION BLEW the private’s body through the roof of the tent, shredding and scorching the fabric that remained, its force throwing the lieutenant face-first through the air to land eight feet away from what hand been the tent’s door, bringing an instant of dawn to the mountainside.

The remainder of the Section dropped to the hard ground with the instincts of veterans, as parts of the private’s body and equipment landed in a thudding rain around them.

"Lieutenant?" the Junior Sergeant rolled up off his back and ran to the fallen officer. "Lieutenant!"

The lieutenant groaned softly as the sergeant knelt beside him, placing his hands on the fallen man’s shoulders. The back of his jacket was burnt, but there didn’t seem to be any blood.

"Are you all right, sir?" the sergeant asked.

"Get off me, Sergeant," the officer growled, rolling over onto his butt. "Son of a bitch!" he spat.

The Junior Sergeant helped the lieutenant to his feet.

"Remind me, Sergeant," the officer went on more slowly, brushing himself off and looking back to the charred remains of the tent, "to schedule a little more training on the detection of booby-traps when we return to camp. Now, get a status report on 2 and 3 sections. Tell them to keep moving. I want these pigs found. Go!"

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY," Tanner murmured as the echoes of the explosion died down behind him.

He paused on a little rise between two trees, raising his night-glasses to scan down the way behind him. Nothing, yet.

The sky was reddening to the east. The sun would be up before long.

Tanner rechecked his bearings on his wrist compass: He was not traveling on the azimuth he had given Violin, but one which took him at and angle further eastwards. He was also making himself deliberately easy to track.

He could only hope that it worked - that they would follow him and not the girl.

From his belt, he pulled a small, black cylinder, fitted on one side with a tiny, metal spike, on the other a pull-ring. Tanner pressed the spike end against the base of one tree, and it drilled itself into the bark with a little whine. Then he gripped the ring, pulling it away from the cylinder, unwinding a micro-thin, barely visible trip wire, which he attached to the tree opposite.

He looked back down the slope.

He could see them now, barely. They were closing.

Excellent timing.

From his pocket, Tanner pulled a silver coin. He placed it on the ground a few feet east of the wire. Then, hoisting his SMG, he rose and ran off again.

ERIKO WHIRLED TOWARD the sound, pointing her pistol down the mountain.

It came in echoes, from beyond a ridge to the south, from back the way she had come. It seemed far away - but you can’t tell in the mountains.

Eriko caught her breath. She squinted down the mountain slope, her ears straining past the dying reverberations of the explosion.

There was nothing.

The cold landscape was slowly, almost unnoticeably, lightening around her. Although she had no love for the dark, the coming of day frightened her more: There were fewer places to hide.

Where was Tanner?

She had been careful to stay on the azimuth Tanner had given her, but he hadn’t said how far to go on that line.

What if he was gone? she wondered. Captured? Dead? What would she do? She needed his expertise to get out of this high, rocky hell. She had no shelter, now, and only a little food. She knew the general direction which led to the Freeside - to the Republic, but she also knew that there were many, many variables in getting there. There were guard posts, patrols, surveillance devices… Without knowing what you were doing, capture was a near-certainty.

It was still getting lighter.

She couldn’t just stand there frozen by uncertainty. She had to act. To move.

She looked up the mountain. In the coming dawn, she could make out some high rocks, fallen boulders. They would provide cover and a good view. In a snap decision, she began to climb toward them.

IT WAS THE Junior Sergeant who spotted it: Small, silvery. He pointed it out to his companion, the Junior Corporal, who nodded.

"Looks like they dropped something," the sergeant whispered into his collar mic.

"What is it?" the lieutenant asked via radio.

"One moment."

The sergeant signaled the corporal to cover him. The corporal moved up and knelt next to a tree, rifle ready, as the sergeant moved toward the shiny little object.

Then the corporal spotted it, about six-inches from his face - small, black…

"Wait!" he yelled -

Too late.

The corporal’s upper body disintegrated in the same instant as the blast severed the sergeants legs below the knees.

TANNER HAD ALWAYS thought that Mountain Men were over-rated. Hearing the second blast helped to confirm that notion in his mind.

"Fucking morons," he muttered with contempt as he made his way along the south-eastern rim of the mountain.

He dodged behind a tree, knelt and looked behind him.

He was willing to bet they were pissed-off morons now: He had made it personal.

Which was good: They would be less cautious, more willing to take chances to get him. He hoped.

He was where he had wanted to be - on a high shoulder which protruded from the side of the mountain - just as the maps he had memorized had shown him.

The cliff was just ahead. He moved forward until he reached the tree line which fringed the cliff’s edge.

In the early dawn’s light, he spotted an evergreen branch, distinguished by its length: it reached nearly to the cliff’s rim.

He grabbed it and pulled it down to him. Then he took a small reel of tripwire from his pocket and began tying the loose end around the branch.

THEY CAME ABOUT ten minutes later, spread out, rifles ready, appearing out of the wood-line with quiet caution.

At the lieutenant’s quiet direction, two of them moved forward until they reached the cliff and peered over the side.

Both then turned back, giving the All-Clear signal.

"Section 2:" the officer quietly ordered via radio, "scout up the path. Section 3 - cover them."

Nodding, the men moved to comply, Section 2 moving in tactical formation along the lip of the abyss, Section 3 covering them from within the tree-line, until Section 2 finally reached the top of the shoulder.

From there, they radioed as much back to their officer: Nothing.

"Very well," the lieutenant transmitted. "Come on back."

Silently cursing, the officer watched from behind cover as his men made their way back along the edge.

"Pick up the pace," he ordered into his mic. "They might circle around." They had a lot of ground to cover, and he would be damned if he was going back to his superiors empty-handed - especially after loosing four men…

Pepping up into a half-jog in order to keep pace with his fellows, the Junior Corporal made his way down the rocky slope, carelessly kicking aside a small rock which lay in his path.

Something snapped.

The corporal whirled to the sound - just in time to see it coming.

The size of a horse’s thigh, the evergreen branch caught him full in the face, flattening his nose and sending him reeling backward over the edge and into eternity.

On the ledge, the world froze, everyone staring dumbfounded at the empty spot which their friend had occupied an instant before, as his dying wail soared up to them from the abyss.

TANNER COULD HAVE touched him as he sailed past, if his perilous perch had allowed a free hand. As it was, he needed both just to keep from following the poor bastard into the chasm.

He sneaked a look down, but couldn’t see where his victim landed: It was a long, long way down, though, and the only indication of the end was when the terrified scream finally ceased.

Grateful for the silence, Tanner turned his ears upward. A lot of cursing, howls of rage… That, he expected.

What he was waiting for was the sound which indicated that they were leaving: His hands were getting tired.

Finally - finally - he heard what he wanted: a stern voice commanding them to silence, strong words to soothe their fury and, at last, an order to regroup. Their officer must still be alive, Tanner decided.

Pity.

But there’s always tomorrow.

Tanner waited for ten minutes after he heard the last of them before slowly making his way back up toward the edge.

THE CLIMB WAS farther than it looked from below.

It took nearly half-an-hour for Eriko to reach the rocks, pausing only took seek the source of a second, more distant explosion. She was nearly exhausted by the effort.

The sun had just broken the eastern sky as the girl pulled herself up and into the crotch formed by two high boulders. She sat down there, resting her back against one boulder, propping her boots up against the other. She could see a lot from up there, but nothing that gave her any hope.

No sign of Tanner…

But, then, no sign of the hunters, either.

A morning breeze began to sweep the face of the mountain, cold, from the north. Eriko hunkered down in her black fatigue jacket, holding her pistol in her hands, her hands between her thighs, her dark eyes anxiously searching the mountain’s face below, for friend or foe, both in vain.

The first, reluctant rays of the sun began to warm the side of her face. Eriko accepted the little gift gratefully, fighting the urge to turn her whole body into the rising light, and thereby turning away from the danger below.

She also resisted the steady, numbing urge to close her eyes. They hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, maybe two hours; and that, together with the hard, long run she had made, were beginning to strain her alertness.

She forced herself to sit straighter, not to become comfortable; to keep her eyes moving, and accept the cold morning breeze which fought the sun as a friend which defended her against the deadly lure of calm.

But, mightily as she fought against it, it wasn’t many minutes before the slow, faithful rise of the sun and the sinister sense of security it brought took its toll on the artificial habilitations of discipline and training…

And Eriko closed her eyes.

CAPTAIN TANNER WAS well-pleased with the souvenir he had taken from that hunter in the tent: He loved these things.

It had been his weapon of choice in his younger days, when he had hopped the globe with Saint Bartholomew’s Group - the barracks room nickname for a (now defunct) band of freewheeling assassins and saboteurs.

Even now, hefting the little hypersonic dart gun in his gloved hand, Tanner couldn’t resist a small, wistful smile… Those were the days, goddamnit, those were the days…

He crept forward, silently making his way down the little slope. He froze, kneeling behind an evergreen, and raising a tiny pair of binoculars to his eyes.

After pulling his body up from the abyss, Tanner had, in effect, turned the board around on his pursuers. He was now tracking his trackers, creeping along behind them with a wolf-like agility, shadowing them.

They were about two-hundred feet ahead, spread out among the trees, making their way north toward the summit, in the general direction he had sent Violin.

That wouldn’t do.

Tanner tried to make out their officer, but he couldn’t tell for sure - Mountain Men wore no rank. He took a half-educated guess, picking a short Caucasian who walked near the center of the trailing squad.