Lone Wolf Read online

  BLOOD AND MAGIC...

  rage in the streets of Seattle. The shifting of turf by a few blocks costs lives, innocent and guilty, silenced forever and then forgotten in the city's deepest shadows. Lone Star, Seattle's contracted police force, fights a losing battle against Seattle's newest conquerors—the gangs. From his years of undercover work for Lone Star, Rick Larson thinks he knows the score. The gangs rule their territories by guns and spells, force and intimidation, and it's the most capricious of balances that keeps things from exploding into all-out warfare. Inside the Cutters, one of the cities most dangerous gangs, Larson is in a prime position to watch the balance, react to it, and report to his superiors. But when the balance begins to shift unexpectedly, Larson finds himself not only on the wrong side of the fight but on the wrong side of the law as well.

  SHADOWRUN - LONE WOLF

  GANG OF WAR

  My H&K’s ready, and the wire’s humming, ready to pop anything that threatens me. I carefully push open the lounge door and scan the room. Drek everywhere—chip carriers, empty flash-pak food containers, beer cans, the usual—piled on the two low tables and the handful of chairs. On the couch is a figure—and it’s so bundled up in coats, stained blankets, and the lounge’s curtains that I can’t even tell what sex it is. And it’s snoring, but it sounds more like someone trying to breathe through scuba gear clogged with porridge, I feel smothered just hearing it.

  I move across the room using the H&K’s flash-suppressor, I push the fold of curtain back from the figure’s head so I can see the face. It’s Paco, and he looks like drek. His skin’s not so much white as a faint tinge of blue, and his lips are cracked and peeling, showing fissures here and there so deep they’re down to pink meat. There’s thick, yellow-white mucus trailing from his nose. I know why his breathing’s got that underwater sound to it—his lungs must be full of the drek.

  His puffy eyes blink, then slowly open. They’re so bloodshot I can barely see any white at all. They roll blindly for a moment then settle on my face.

  “Help me,” he says, and his voice is a tortured, horrible, bubbling thing. “I got the bug, ’mano. I think I’m gonna die.”

  SHADOWRUN : 12

  LONE WOLF

  Nigel D. Findley

  To Fred,

  my favorite (as yet) unpublished novelist

  Live with wolves, howl like a wolf.

  —Russian proverb

  Book One

  1

  Another fragging raid. And, typically, at the worst possible time.

  We’re in one of the warehouses owned by the Cutters— the small one way the hell and gone out east of Lake Meridian—loading crates of Czech assault rifles into the back of a GMC Bulldog truck for transshipment to points south. I’m not supposed to know the rifles’ final destination, but I make it my business to know what I’m not supposed to. Call it fragging survival. So, anyway, this shipment’s earmarked for some hotheads down in Sioux Nation who apparently have some minor bitch with the local government that they think only high-velocity ammunition will solve. Just the kind of drek that’s business as usual for the Cutters. And, as far as I can figure, it always has been, even from their early days as just a local gang in Los Angeles back eighty years or so. The Cutters don’t do high-volume in the arms biz (you want to outfit an army, you go see the Mafia, the yaks, or some friendly government), but they do pride themselves on quality. Take the crated assault rifles that are doing such a number on my lower back: top quality vz 88Vs that fell off the back of a truck in Brno, or some fragging place, and somehow found their way to 144th Avenue Southeast. Of course, the Cutters are into hundreds of other kinds of biz as well—from drugs and chips to kidnapping and extortion to (I drek you not) freelance security work for the occasional corp. And that, of course, is why I am where I am.

  Which, at the moment, happens to be grunting and wrestling with eighty-plus kilos of ordnance in a wooden crate apparently tailor-made to send stiletto-sized slivers right through the palms and fingers of my work gloves. The slag holding up the other end of my crate—Fraser, a malnourished ork with ratty dreadlocks—doesn’t seem to mind, but mainly because he’s under the wire. His midbrain is constantly hooked to a signal from a simsense deck, but it’s one set for the lowest possible intensity. Not enough to cut him off entirely from reality, but definitely enough to color his every perception of the real world. Hell, for all I know, the same slivers that are driving me crazy could be making his hands feel like he’s got a good hold on Honey Brighton’s luscious yams.

  There are four other guys humping crates with us: Piers and Lucas, Paco and En. (I don’t envy Paco, having to keep up with En, who pops methamphetamines for breakfast.) All but Fraser are humans, which means we’re struggling with the limitations of human muscle (except for En, who either doesn’t know or care). Why didn’t the big bosses send along a couple of trolls to help out? The huge trog everyone calls Box could have tucked a crate under each arm and then fragging run to the truck.

  The six of us in the grunt squad aren’t the only ones sent to the warehouse, of course. We’ve got three spotters out, plus Katrina, our driver. She leaning against the Bulldog’s front end, staring off at nothingness and looking much too scrawny to carry the rack that fills out her kevlar T-shirt. A real space-case, that Katrina.

  Of course, it isn’t nothingness she’s staring at. A fiberoptic line as thin as one of her greasy hairs runs from her datajack to the truck’s comm panel, where some repeaters are pulling in signals from the warehouse’s surveillance cameras. When Ranger and the others assigned us out here to pick up the ordnance, they gave us the spotters plus our own eyes, and that was it. But once I got aboard and realized what the Bulldog’s onboard electronics were capable of, I felt smug as hell as I set Katrina to watching out for our sorry asses. Great idea.

  Too bad it didn’t work worth a frag.

  One moment everything’s chill, then the next there’s gunfire from outside, and Katrina’s down like she’s been pole-axed.

  Panic stations. I drop my end of the crate—not worrying about Fraser on the other end—and sprint toward Katrina. Nothing personal there, but knowing what took her down might make a big difference in the minutes to come.

  She’s flat out, maybe dead, but still in one piece. No holes, no missing meat, no blood Either somebody sent something nasty through the circuits to her datajack or else there’s a mage kicking around. If it’s a mage, we’re hosed big-time because we don’t have any magic of our own to fight back with. If it’s something technological, it’s probably a “tingler” sending enough of an overvoltage through the surveillance systems to overload Katrina’s filters—and maybe Katrina too.

  And then everyone’s running around like a fragging elven fire drill. Fraser’s hopping around on one foot screaming a blue streak while everyone else is hauling out their weapons and looking for cover.

  As for me, I just hunker down next to Katrina and scope things out. If you don’t know where the threat’s coming from, running like a spooked rat is as likely to take you straight into the guns of the bad guys as it is to save your hoop. Besides, I want to see if I can figure out who’s hitting us.

  There are plenty of candidates. Neither the Mafia nor the yaks would bother to harass the Cutters, but we’re always butting heads against some of the Seoulpa rings. The Cutters are tougher than the other local gangs—except for the Ancients, maybe—which scares off some, but makes others occasionally want to take their shots at the biggest kid on the block. So it could be any of a dozen interested parties.

  More gunfire from around the back of the warehouse, and the other boys of the grunt squad are suddenly finding new cover. I don’t bother: the Bulldog will cover me from a number of angles, and if push comes to frag, I can always hide under
it, or inside it.

  Another burst of fire, this time from yet another angle and accompanied by a scream. Somebody’s down, and from the direction of the sound, I’d guess it’s one of our spotters. Cursing almost as fiercely as Fraser, I pull out my SMG. The feather-touch of the wire in my brain tells me the skillwires are pulling data from the skillsoft plugged into the socket at the back of my neck. My palm tingles, and some normally unused part of my brain lights up as the gun’s circuitry synchs up with the tech in my head. Instead of merely holding a gun, I now feel like the weapon’s a living part of me. Like, at last my arm is whole again, or some such drek. Data floods into my mind as the smartgun and my skillsoft do their digital handshaking. Heckler & Koch 227-S, recoil-suppression active, silencer at nominal one hundred percent effectiveness—as if it matters—twenty-eight rounds in the clip, one in the pipe.

  And that’s the problem. I’ve got one spare clip and that’s it. Same with Fraser and the rest of the boys: maybe a hundred and fifty rounds between us. Hell, we’re not supposed to get into a scrap; that’s what the muscleboys outside are for. If anything, we’re overarmed to handle the one or two leakers we thought we might run into. Well, that’s all changed now, for fragging sure. Another frantic burst of firing, another howl—this one wailing on for a while before cutting off sharply. Sounds like the hardboys are taking a pasting. I look around at my “command,” which is what these sorry scroffs have suddenly become. They’re all hunkered down with ordnance out, the red dots of sighting lasers tracking everywhere, even over each other. It's just getting better and better.

  But, hold the phone, you say. What about all those dandy Czech assault rifles? Well, maybe it’s true that we’ve got three or four ARs each, but bullets we ain’t got. The ammo that was supposed to be the other half of the Sioux shipment is stored somewhere else. (Don’t ask me why; some perverted extension of “range safety,” I guess.) So unless we feel like using the rifles as clubs, all those crates full of ARs don’t mean squat.

  To my right, Piers sprays a long burst into the shadows just under the roof at the far end of the warehouse. Bullets spatter and spark off all the metal up there, and I think for a moment he’s seeing things. But fragged if there isn’t a squawk and then a dark shape tumbling from the catwalk to crash-splat into some cargo boxes below. Lucas—a few ticks late, as usual—hoses down the spot where the figure isn’t anymore.

  So they’re up top, too, whoever they are. When I heard the first shots, I figured some other gang. When Katrina went down, I upped the ante to someone serious, a first-tier gang. Possibly the Ancients or a squad of Seoul men. Now I’m not so sure. Whoever they are, their tactics are good, and they’re showing more discipline than the typical gang. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.

  Sudden panic. I can see all the boys, all five of them. That means they’re all on the same side of the Bulldog as me. Which means . . .

  Staying low, with my head down at about knee-level, I duck around the front of the truck. Someone sees the movement. Muzzle-flashes flare in the dark corner, and bullets tear into the truck’s bodywork. I respond with a controlled, three-round burst, but it’s more an attempt at suppression fire to keep their heads down than in hopes of hitting anything. Meanwhile the tech in my head is predicting impact points, recording ammunition expended, and measuring wear and tear on the silencer. Then I duck back as the Bulldog undergoes more drastic depreciation.

  Frag, things are definitely not looking good. And then they suddenly look even worse as Fraser goes over sideways, his throat torn away. Lucas pops up like he’s on springs and fires back in the direction of the incoming mail. I hear a grunt of pain from the shadows. It doesn’t sound like a kill, but maybe somebody got slowed down.

  I scramble to the rear of the truck for a look around that way. All I can see are shadows every fragging where among the crates and shipping cases and piles of odds and sods. There are lights, of course, hanging from the girders and catwalks near the roof, but not many, not enough. For about the hundredth time, I wish I’d gone for the full-meal deal and had my eyes enhanced while the surgeon already had me opened up installing the skillwires. Thermo, or even just low-light, would be a lifesaver at the moment. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if the thing that got me killed right now was a little queasiness over eye surgery?

  Muzzle-flashes from the darkness, and then I’m sucking dust on the floor. The Bulldog gets remodeled again as I roll under it. I cap off another three-round burst, blind, into the darkness. A figure moves, and for the first time I can see who we’re up against.

  Blue combat armor with yellow trim, helmet with semimirrored macroplast face-shield, matte-black shock gloves. Stun baton on the web belt, bandolier with extra clips, and an H & K submachine gun in the mitts. A Lone Star Fast Response Team trooper. Oh boy, just fragging marvelous.

  Bullets chew up the cargo case next to the FRTer, then whoever’s shooting at him walks the burst into his chest. The trooper’s armor stops the light rounds, but by pure luck a ricochet tags the visor release on his helmet. Up snaps the macroplast shield, and for an instant I can see the slag’s face. Then there’s no face anymore, just a spray of red.

  Down he goes, and I send three more rounds over the top of his body. “Got one!” I yell, just in case any of the boys are listening. Then I scrabble back out the other side of the Bulldog.

  Lone Star. Fragging wonderful. Whatever happened to interdepartmental communication, tell me that? Some parts of the Star know not to dick with certain Cutters operations, and why. But why didn’t Officer Friendly—may he rest in peace—and his little friends get the word? Probably some kind of internecine rivalry between the Organized Crime (Gang) task force and some other little personal empire within the corporation. That drek happens all the time within the Cutters, so why should the Star be any different?

  Now the Bulldog rocks under the impact of another kind of report—a full-throated boom this time rather than the high-pitched ripping of SMG fire. I know enough about Lone Star equipment and tactics to know what it is. If this is a typical FRT squad, there’s one guy out there with a Mossberg CMDT combat auto-shotgun; if it’s a double squad, there are two of those beauties roaming around.

  Time to leave. Right now. The shotgun blast came from the right side of the truck, the passenger side. So I scramble out from under the driver’s side. Fire comes from above, hosing down the ground in front of me. Trideo shows to the contrary, it’s surprisingly difficult to fire accurately from a higher elevation. I return fire in the rough direction of the muzzle-flashes. Little chance of actually hitting anything, which is fine by me, but there’s nothing more disruptive to a gunman’s concentration than a bullet past the ear. When Katrina went down, she fell against the driver’s side door, shutting it. The cargo door’s still open, though—with a crate of ARs half-in half-out—so that’s the way I dive into the Bulldog.

  The CMDT shotgun put a hole big enough to stick my head through in the truck’s right side, and individual pellets have punched finger-size holes in the other side. SMG rounds continue to clatter and spang off the vehicle’s exterior as I scramble over three crates of useless ordnance into the driver's compartment. Another burst stars and frosts the windshield while I’m tearing Katrina’s fiber cable out of the control panel to enable the conventional controls.

  “Mount up!” I scream, hitting the starter and hoping the boys can hear me over the gunfire.

  The engine lights up instantly, thank the gods; this is no time to have to call the Motor Club. I slip the automatic transmission into gear, tramping on the brake with my left foot while pushing the gas pedal to the floor. Hardware complains, and the torque of the big turbocharged engine tilts the truck a couple of degrees to the left. More rounds spatter off the armor. Ducking down low, I slap at the row of switches for the lights. Lots of lights, and big lights, all over the Bulldog. Christ knows how many millions of candlepower or lumen-feet or whatever, but enough to light up an area the size of a football field brighte
r than noon. Anyone looking even near the truck is going to be flash-dazzled inside this dimly lit warehouse. Don’t quote me on this, but I think the lighting rig kicks out enough photons to overload even flare compensation in cybereyes.

  Weapons open up all around the warehouse, a continuous burst of reflex fire, but nothing so much as grazes the truck. Trying to fire into the lights must be a bitch, but I’d say the effort doesn’t seem to be worth squat.

  I can smell something start to cook—it’s not a great idea to hold a brake-stand for very long even if your engine isn’t turbocharged—but I’ve got to give the boys at least a few more seconds. Even with my eyes streaming from the almost blinding reflection of the Bulldog’s fragging lights, I can see movement among the cargo boxes. In one of my mirrors I spot little Piers on his feet and sprinting for the truck. Then there’s a triple boom, and he doesn’t so much go down as rupture when a three-round burst from the auto-shotgun slams into him.

  En and Paco are on the move too. I don’t see Lucas at all, and I sure as frag don’t have time to send out a search party. Paco’s got his head down and he’s hauling hoop for the Bulldog’s open door. Running into the truck’s lights has got to be blinding him, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Bullets chew up the concrete floor around him, but I don’t think anything scores.

  En’s halfway to the truck too, but the drugs in his system don’t seem to understand about self-preservation. He puts on the brakes, turns and empties his SMG in one long burst— god knows at what. Answering fire comes back from all over. His head snaps back, something sprays out the back of his neck, and that’s the end of En.

  I hear Paco slam into the back of the truck, and then I hear him scrambling in. “Go, Larson!” he croaks.

  I go. I know I’m leaving friendlies behind—Katrina’s still alive, I think, and who knows what happened to Lucas?— but I don’t have much choice. I release the brakes, and we’re off, fast and wild. I’m hoping whatever it is that just fell out the back of the truck is the crate of rifles and not Paco, but I’m too busy fighting the wheel as the truck fishtails wildly and almost gets away from me. I aim the Bulldog roughly down one of the lanes between high stacks of crates, but don’t quite get it right, and I almost go out the side window as we sideswipe something. Bullets are thudding into the bodywork all around, but not much is getting through. Then the truck bucks like it got butted in the rear by a juggernaut, and the lower rear-right corner of the cargo bay is just fragging gone. The CMDT scores again. I don’t know if it was just a lucky shot, or if the fragger with the combat gun is going for the tires. If so, we’re in trouble. The Bulldog’s got runflat tires, but run-shredded they’re not.