Edward D Hoch Computer Investigation Bureau 03 The Fellowship of the HAND

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hydrobomb like they d used on the Federal Medical Center computers.
But now Jazine was gone from his plans, and Graham Axman still
waited behind bars. Axman s trial following the bombing of the computers
had been swift and efficient. He and two lesser HAND members had drawn
twenty-year sentences, and that was the end of it. A few telenewspapers
applauded the verdicts, pointing out the danger of any group opposed to
the machine-dominated culture, but most had simply remained silent. The
affair had passed quickly from the front pages, and to most people Graham
Axman and HAND were only half-remembered disturbances in a constantly
changing world.
Euler Frost had spent the previous month scouting the area around
the Federal Correctional Institute at Kansas City. The prison, opened in
2011 to replace the outmoded facilities at nearby Leavenworth, was a
model of twenty-first-century penology. It was a low, sprawling structure with
unbreakable plastic windows instead of bars, fully air-conditioned, and with
a hologram screen and telenews printer in every cell. The prisoners spent
four hours a day attending classes, and four hours working at a trade.
Progressive and comfortable as it was, the prison was also escapeproof.
Each cell was equipped with a proximity scanner to check on the inmate s
presence day or night. The walls were guarded by a screen of laser beams
that crisscrossed the courtyard, and every vehicle leaving the prison
grounds was X-rayed for stowaways.
Euler Frost learned all this and was not discouraged.
When he d first come from the Venus Colony prison last year,
Graham Axman had taken him in, helped him find a new life, even
transported him to HAND S island headquarters at Plenish in the Indian
Ocean. All this was what Frost remembered, and he knew he could not
allow Axman to remain in prison for the better part of twenty years. He knew
also that if the government made good its threat of exile to the Venus
Colony, Axman would be beyond the help of him or anyone else.
If escape from the Federal Correctional Institute was impossible,
then Frost would just have to see that Axman escaped from outside the
prison.
The talk of shifting the HAND leader to Venus began to play an
important part in the emerging escape plan. It was an easy job to determine
that official messages were sent to the prison via a closed-circuit teleprinter
from Washington. Frost had wanted Earl Jazine to send a false message to
the prison, bouncing it off the comsat satellite. Now that was something
Frost would have to do himself.
On Saturday morning he put his plan into effect, summoning Sam
Venray, the black man who d been at his side during the attack on the
medical center, and who had worn one of the masks when they kidnapped
Jazine. Venray was a small but agile man, with quick, white eyes accented
by the blackness of his skin. In an era when mass intermarriage had all but
ended the race problem, Venray held himself aloof, refusing even to date a
white woman. Frost had asked him once what he was hoping to accomplish
and Venray only replied, I want to keep the blackness in. It was to keep
the blackness in, somehow, that he had joined HAND. Humans Against
Neuter Domination-yeah, man, that sounds like me!
Now, facing him in a Kansas City hotel room, Frost said, Sam, I want
you to get out there and watch the prison. Rent an electric and drive up and
down by the main gate if you have to. My message will request that Axman
be moved from the prison to the Kansas City jetport for transportation to
Washington and then to the Venus Colony.
You sure they ll move him today?
I m requesting it.
They ll check back with Washington to confirm, the black man
pointed out quite logically.
That s why I picked a Saturday. There ll be no one in the Washington
office to confirm or deny, and I m betting they ll go ahead with the transfer.
They ve already received preliminary word of it, so the news won t be any
big surprise.
So, I m watching the main gate. Then what?
They ll bring him out in a prison van. That s where we have to gamble
a bit. We can t be sure he ll be inside, but we ll have to chance it. Frost
unrolled a dimension map. This is the shortest route to the airport. You
follow along. A couple of the boys will be waiting here to laser the tires. I ll
be above, in a rocketcopter, to handle the rest.
What if they kill him?
Euler Frost shrugged. It would be better than twenty years on Venus,
believe me.
The message was sent at noon, and one hour later Frost was riding
above Kansas City at the controls of the rocketcopter. He watched the lines
of electric cars on the expressways below, headed for the countryside and
the nearby man-made lakes on one of the last warm weekends of autumn.
Climate Control had predicted sunshine and there was plenty of it,
reflecting off the cockpit window with such dazzling effect that Frost had to
turn up the polarization.
For the first two hours nothing happened, and he was beginning to
sense failure in the air. Surely the prison director had decided to wait till
Monday, when a check with Washington could be made. Surely he sensed
something wrong.
Then, at a few minutes after three o clock, the radio crackled into life.
Sam Venray s voice came to him. Prison van just pulling out. This looks
like it.
Hang in there, Sam. Any sign of extra guards?
Negative.
Where are they? I can t see them yet.
Van just cleared the laser beams. Heading north on the expressway.
Right! Got it! Frost signaled to the men in the cockpit with him and
dropped the rocketcopter a thousand feet straight down.
That was when he saw the second van leaving the prison gates.
Damn!
What is it? the copilot asked.
But Frost was busy rousing Venray on his pocket radio. Sam, there s
a second van! About a mile behind you!
Oh, oh! That s bad news. Think they re wise?
Maybe. At least they re taking no chances.
What now?
Proceed as planned, and let s see what happens.
He dropped a bit lower and saw the glint of the laser beam shoot out
from the roadside. The first prison van blew all four tires at once and came
to a sudden halt. Armored tires were fine against bullets, but a laser got to
them every time.
Frost saw the smoke bombs hit and dropped lower for the kill. But his
eyes were focused down the road, to see what the second prison van
would do. Almost at once it headed for an expressway down-ramp,
apparently warned by radio of the trouble ahead. He debated only an instant
before going after it. If one of the vans was a decoy, it could only be the
first one. There was no point in sending the decoy along later.
He fired both rear rockets to put him ahead of the van, and then
banked sharply to come down in front of it. Get the tires, he told the man
at his side.
You re sure he s in there?
I m sure.
The laser gun hit the front tires and brought the electric van to a
sudden halt. Frost released a pair of smoke rockets as they landed and
opened the hatch on his side. He was the first one out, running ahead of the
others, using night goggles to see through the blinding smoke that already
covered the roadway.
The door on the side of the van slid open, revealing a uniformed
guard with a laser gun. Frost gave him a quick shot with the stunner and
pushed his body out of the way, climbing into the van before the driver
could react. He hated to use the stunner in the close confines of the van,
but there was no other way. The driver s head bounced back against the
plastic window as the shock wave hit him.
Then Frost pulled the release on the dashboard, opening the rear
door. The others from the rocketcopter had reached the van by now, and
he heard them in the back, heard a scream and the familiar crackle of a
laser gun. He hopped back out of the van in time to see Sam Venray
bending over a fallen guard. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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