Rogue(128)

He tried gamely to play. “How many injuries have you taken doing this? How much money? It seems you used an awful lot of resources for one man. I’m thinking I probably should have killed your girlfriend. She is, isn’t she? An unrequited passion? You had Deni. I know you had a sweat for Tyler. Attractive female troops are a weakness for you, Ken.”

It was a pretty good attempt, and it did hurt, but he was in part correct, I was highly pissed, and more worried about my daughter, so it didn’t have the effect he wanted. Still, if he wanted to talk about that, fine. I just needed an opening before I died from toxicity and overload. Just one moment.

In my ears I heard whhiinnnne, “testing” clearly this time, and I got it.

Implant transceiver. Silver had hacked into it. I didn’t twitch, but went ahead with my response.

“Yeah, steamy chicks make great cover. You ever figure out I’m a voyeur? Watching guys twitch at the thought of me with hot young stuff they can’t touch is rather sweet. She’s also a volunteer and really into the role, so I got to prong her and call it business. You really got the short end of the stick, so to speak. It’s a perk we don’t talk about much in the teams, but an awesome one.” I wasn’t worried about how Silver would take that; it was psyops. I did want her to figure out why I was doing it.

He believed me, and he looked pissed. I’d broken his brain and his psyche, and we were almost there. But I was dying. My brain raced, my heart galloped in syncopation, my breathing and temperature were elevated. I had a high-grade fever, oxygen toxicity in my muscles, near drunkenness from O2 and sugar levels in the brain. I shivered and felt my extremities numbing. I had no other options myself, but he hadn’t figured that out yet.

Six.

He trembled a bit. I had him emotionally bent. He’d thrown everything he had, and I was laughing at him. He should have known me well enough to catch the act, but we were both wrung out. His gun hand started twitching in tiny, tense tremors.

A moment. I only needed a moment . . .

Silver’s voice said, “Stand by, keep stalling,” in my head. Then there was a disruption crack and things went quiet. Had she done it? I heard distant, muffled shots and a bang up above.

Silver’s voice said, “Go.”

She’d hacked it.

“I’ve had enough of this,” Chel said and stepped just barely to the side, perhaps two centimeters.

He put a hand on her shoulder. It was a mistake borne of familiarity.

My daughter, the person I love more than life itself, for whom I’d go to any lengths and have, did exactly the right thing. Her arm came up almost casually, slapped over his wrist and she gripped and twisted, one foot forward and one back for balance, dropping down and aside my shooting plane.

In that moment, he was off balance, eyes wide in surprise and mouth making that shape that presages a yelp as the nerves in the wrist are pinched.

His eyes met mine, and he tried to maneuver his pistol around between the two of us. It was perfect. He had just long enough, perhaps one tenth of a second, to know he was dead. In that frozen moment, he dropped the gun.

I shot him before it hit the floor. The first round went through his left eye, as Chelsea dropped and rolled clear. Second round was center of mass. Third was the right eye. Then I poured out the magazine into torso and head, because I was not taking any chances on him getting up again. His body thrashed and convulsed and bent in angles impossible for a living being, then thrummed and twitched and stopped.

There was no explosion.

I let my awareness check around for threats, and then ran forward to hug Chelsea, because she was such a good girl, a perfect daughter, who’d done just what she should have done, and I was crying.

I made it two steps and staggered down toward the floor.





CHAPTER 27





I woke in a hospital. My entire body ached, even my eyelashes. I was stiff, as if I’d overdone it with every fiber in my body. Yes, Ken, you did, I thought. You’re an old man by military standards.

“Dad!”

It was Chelsea, with huge bags under her red eyes from drugs, fatigue hormones and worry. But her grin was all I needed. She leapt from the chair to hug me, and I tensed. That made me convulse in agony. She got the hint and stopped, settling for laying a hand on mine. I now knew what too much CNS felt like, though. It felt as if someone had beaten every muscle in my body with a gravel-covered bat. I wouldn’t be moving for days.

“I’m alive,” I said. “So are you. It’s all good.”

I passed out again, but I’ve never felt so warm and happy about it.

I wasn’t happy when I woke up. Chel wasn’t there. Naumann was. His goon stood in the corner.