The Jungle [ss], Karl Hudgins

When the laws of civilization are allowed to lapse, an older law comes to the fore ...

I came out of the rage slowly; after normalization was complete I rested a few seconds and then looked around the camp. It was bad, but I'd seen worse. I sent an after-action report to headquarters.

The reply came back immediately and in the clear. I was ordered to skip the red tape and report to the ambassador; they were even sending a chopper for me.

The order came through without being coded, that meant it was unofficial; they were sending a helicopter for me, that meant it was important. Put the two facts together, add the ambassador, and you've got the setting for a political favor - the kind of job nobody likes and a lot of people die on.

I switched on the homer and fired up a cigar.

The quiet of the jungle was broken only by the soft, eerie cries of an unseen animal and the crackling of the wooden huts as they burned. The smoke from the huts drifted over the bodies, veiling and unveiling them as the wind twisted it - I guess to a lot of people they would have looked like ghosts.

To me they looked dead.

I shoved a fresh clip into the forty-five and wiped the blood off my knife, then moved upwind of the bodies and relaxed. After ten years of this I took my rest when I could get it.

Twenty minutes later the whine of a helicopter woke me up. The chopper sent the right recognition signal; I replied; thirty seconds later I was climbing a rope ladder.

The pilot apparently didn't want to be tracked by the other side; he made the trip on the deck at five hundred miles per hour. I don't trust anybody, pilots included, but after five minutes of watching trees go by at what seemed just over arm's length I sat back and concentrated on keeping a decent ash on my cigar, despite the excessive ventilation in the passenger compartment.

When the chopper landed, a pink-cheeked second lieutenant on a souped-up golf cart raced up to it and spoke to the pilot for a few minutes. He didn't sign any forms, the chopper's log would show a routine training flight.

He turned as I was squeezing out the hatch - I'm six feet four inches tall and weigh two hundred and forty pounds and they just don't build hatches big enough.

"Hey, you, better put out that ..." He suddenly noticed the patch showing a skull and crossbones.

The emblem is a little melodramatic but it does shorten a lot of arguments; it shortened this one right out of existence. The lieutenant turned pale, swallowed, and didn't say a word for the rest of the trip.

The ambassador met me at the rear entrance, showed me to his office, then started the standard series of opening remarks. I looked around as the meaningless noise poured over me.

It was a nice layout. The room was big and had a plush carpet and luxurious furniture; an alcove off to one side contained a plentifully stocked liquor cabinet and an impressive TV console.

The ambassador was a political appointee, that might have something to do with the extravagant amenities.

I muffled a yawn. I hadn't been able to get any rest last night and it didn't look like I'd be getting any today; high-level plans never seem to allow time for low-level sleep.

The ambassador noticed the yawn and stopped talking. He had the narrow mind typical of so many politicians these days and the yawn was enough to set him off.

"Mr. Vance, I don't understand how somebody so obviously maladjusted could get into your sensitive position. I've done some checking among the people you met at the base; you show no ability to get along with people, you don't even seem to like people."

My psychology wasn't relevant, but if he wanted an explanation, he'd get one:

"You're right. I don't like people. I'm not a well-rounded, well-adjusted human being; I'm a weapon. And at a time and place selected by well-rounded, well-adjusted people, I kill. That's my job, and I'm very good at it."

The directness of my statement put him off balance; out of desperation he finally got to the point: "The civil authorities of the biggest city in my home state have requested assistance. It would be advisable for you to take the job."

"You know I just came in, why don't you pick another mercenary?"

"You work only at the government's request; you can hardly be called a mercenary."

Great. Not only was he a strong supporter of the social graces, he was also a blasted nit-picker on terminology.

"I fight for money, I can hardly be called anything but a mercenary."

"Well, perhaps. In any case, there was no one else available." That meant he hadn't been able to find anybody else. There were no computer files, no government forms for people like me. The government doesn't like to admit we exist and, officially, we don't.

"Will you accept the job?"

That's one of the big disadvantages of my profession: in order to maintain security you're not given any details until after you've accepted a job. The other disadvantage is people like the ambassador.

"I'll take it." What the hell, if I wanted to die of old age and boredom I'd go on welfare.

I spent the next hour trying to squeeze information out of the ambassador. He said that there was a street gang that was getting a little rougher than usual: eleven murders in one month was a little over par, even in the part of town they operated in. I was to pack my white-hat, fly to the specified city, and bring the ruffians to justice.

The ambassador knew a little about how I operate; I was surprised he even bothered to mention words like justice. Probably trying to salve his own conscience.

The more I heard about the job the less I liked it. Being told I'm on the side of the angels always makes me feel like a sucker; it's amazing how often that feeling turns out to be right.

After the ambassador finished his verbal briefing he gave me a top-secret, eyes-only, burn-after-reading summary of the situation, including short biographies of the people I was likely to meet I read the documents, burned them and left.

The government uses people like me, professional fighters, whenever small-scale, unconventional violence is called for. I understand the practice started when the army became so tied up in red tape it could only fight large wars efficiently.

At first the government hired only foreign mercenaries; then, very unofficially, it started using people among its own citizens who would fight, and kill, for money. Mostly people who weren't adjusted to modern society, mostly criminals.

Slowly techniques were developed to tap the misanthropy that seemed to be a part of the character of most mercenaries. With special hypnotic conditioning a man could become temporarily insane and fight with the strength and ferocity of a maniac, but still remember and use his combat training.

That's the basis of the system I work for. Like most systems involving people it has its faults, the main one being that it's easy for people with connections to use it for their own purposes.

Not that it makes any difference to me. I just like to fight.

An hour after leaving the ambassador's office I was on a jet headed east. I had time to get an expensive civilian suit and a couple of rare steaks; with a few hours' sleep I'd have been in good shape. I didn't get it. By the time I was all settled in and relaxed we were in darkness, and I didn't find the red glow from the leading edges of the wings at all restful.

When I got off the plane a city cop picked me up in his ground car. As we rolled into the darkness outside the airport perimeter he punched a button on his control panel; steel plates crashed over the windows.

That was unusual. Most drivers put their shields up only when they expected to be fired on. I asked the cop if he expected trouble.

He shrugged. "There's a couple units hit by rocks every day, sometimes bullets. A friend of mine caught a slug in the shoulder last week so I'm pretty careful. Do you want the shields down?"

"No. I didn't realize it was that bad." I should have thought, the printed briefing had been detailed enough. Thirty hours without sleep never did help my thought processes. "Why do they do it?"

"Kicks." The cop seemed contemptuous rather than angry. "A guy will be standing around with time on his hands; he sees a police car, throws a rock. We don't even bother to pick them up unless there's a casualty, every NWC in the city has rocked a unit at one time or another."

"NWC?"

"Non-Working Citizen. It's a name they came up with themselves." He reached forward and unshielded the passenger-side periscope. "Take a look, most of the city is like this."

The 'scope had a good light-intensifier, the apartment buildings showed up almost as bright as day.

They had a superficial variety gained by stacking the modules in different sequences, but inside the apartments were all the same. From any objective description they would sound like heaven on earth: automatic appliances, built-ins up to color TV, everything.

Actually they were a subtle form of hell. The people in them did nothing, accomplished nothing. They went through the motions of living and watched TV fourteen hours a day, but that was all. They might as well have been animals in a zoo.

About half the people in the city couldn't work and therefore were bored; many of them caused trouble. Because of this, and because the law was so complex it was almost unenforceable, the police had only marginal control over the city. They kept the working population fairly safe and acted on major crimes in the NWC area, but that was all.

Everybody knew it was a dangerous, unstable situation, but nobody had been able to come up with a permanent solution. Somebody had come up with a solution for this particular problem: me.

The precinct station was about forty yards on a side, three stories tall, gray, and windowless. It was in the middle of a crowded NWC area, but there were no buildings near it; nothing but grass and flowers for a hundred yards on all sides.

They probably called it a park, to me it looked more like a carefully designed field of fire.

I was still thinking about that when the cop drove past armored doors and into an underground garage. He waited until the big doors closed, then said it was all right to get out.

There was a guard behind a plate of armor-glass set in the wall. He opened the door to the station interior as we walked toward it. The guard seemed wide-awake and alert, unusual for the night shift.

The offices we walked through didn't feel like part of a police station. The air of slightly corrupt bureaucracy was the same, there was the same touch of clubbiness that any behind-the-scenes outfit has, but there was an overlay of tension.

I had been in rear echelon offices when a terrorist group was in the area, they had felt the same way. It was obvious the situation had become much worse since the last time I'd been here.

On the elevator up to the top floor I lit a cigar. A psychologist once told me that smoking was a retreat to infantilism, with the cigar a substitute for a pacifier. I hoped he was right, because if these politicians ran true to form I was going to need one heck of a lot of pacifying.

When we got off the elevator the cop showed me to the door of the captain's office. I thanked him and walked in.

There were three people in the old, sparsely furnished room; the overflowing ash trays and the litter of disposable coffee cups showed that they had been there for several hours. I wasn't paid to be a detective, so I took my mind off the deductions.

As I met the men I matched names against information from the confidential biography forms. The man behind the battered desk was Captain Jones, an old-line cop; he had probably been the one who asked for help. He was the only other pro involved.

Jones introduced me to Polasko, a city councilman; he was an organization man, but fairly honest.

The other man in the room was in a different class entirely: Bremas, head of the NWC Party. He was ambitious, smart and dangerous. His only interest in life was power. There were indications Bremas was planning to be the next mayor; the computer gave him a forty percent chance of winning an honest election. According to the ambassador he was using the street gangs to improve the odds.

Bremas started talking as soon as he was introduced. "Mister Vance, exactly what are you doing here? It's true the police haven't been able to apprehend these youngsters, but that hardly explains calling in the army to help solve a strictly civilian problem. I'd hate to think what might have happened if I hadn't discovered what was being planned."

"Those youngsters killed eleven people last month," the captain said. "The only reason we haven't been able to nail them is we've never had an eyewitness who was willing to testify. And the reason for that is everybody knows you'd have those punks out in a couple of days anyway."

"That still doesn't explain the presence of an army officer. I repeat: what is he going to do?"

This was a fairly typical wrangle. Since nobody admitted our existence there was no set doctrine for getting us on a job. The locals had to work it out for themselves every time they needed one of us.

There was one good point to the argument: I had learned that Bremas' source of information wasn't perfect; he thought I was a member of the army. But I couldn't get too happy about that one small error, the fact of the matter was that our little secret had sprung a big fat leak and that meant I was in big trouble. Broken security is the most common route to an early grave.

The argument went on for ten minutes without getting anywhere. I finally decided to give it a subtle push by answering Bremas' original question: "Mr. Bremas, my job here is quite simple; I'm going to walk through that gang's territory until they jump me."

"But you could get killed!"

"I've had training that reduces that risk. That's why I'm taking this job instead of one of the captain's regular men." Like hell, I was taking it because that two-bit ambassador wanted to make points back home.

Bremas was starting to understand; he remained silent, presumably thinking. Polasko was lost and was trying to catch up. "Let me get this straight, you intend to invite attack on yourself and then have the police rescue you and capture the attackers."

Bremas jumped on that. "Entrapment, pure and simple. You'd never get a conviction."

"Mr. Bremas," the captain said, "I can assure you that we will be careful to act within the law at all times. We have had the district attorney look into the matter and he has assured us that there is no..."

I couldn't take much more of this. "I am just going to walk down the blasted street. How in hell can that be entrapment? And what do you care anyway? Does the gang have you on retainer?"

"Really, Mr. Vance." Polasko sounded shocked. "There is no reason to use that tone of voice. Mr. Bremas is entirely justified in his concern for the rights of the citizens. If we are to - "

At that point I left. They could figure things out for themselves: If I went, fine; if I didn't, fine. I just didn't care enough either way to put up with any more babbling. I sure as hell wasn't going to try to sell them on a job I didn't like much myself.

As I waited in the gray, musty lobby I couldn't help feeling there was something going on I just didn't understand. There had been a very faint, but definite smell of a double-cross in the captain's office. The captain had been a cop for a long time; he should know how to maintain security. How had Bremas known about the operation?

People who place a lot of trust in their fellow man tend to die rather young in my business, but intrigue is out of my line and with just my instincts to go on I couldn't back out, not this late in the game. I finally decided to chalk up my uneasiness to the unfamiliar area of operation.

Half an hour later I got the go-ahead; we were rolling in five minutes. I had the same cop as a driver, and he knew what had happened. "You took a big chance walking out like that. Those guys swing a lot of weight in this town, when they lean on you, you'd better smile and take it."

"One of the good points of my job is I don't have to smile and take it, not from anybody."

The cop had left the shields down. I kept track of our position as we rolled to the starting point. I didn't have to stay oriented on this assignment but it made me feel better; I would have traded this job, police support, fancy radio and all for a simple one-man locate-eliminate in the jungle.

The car came to a smooth stop. I felt the tightness that was always there before the start of the hunt. If that sidewalk had been a dirt trail I'd have kissed it.

The cop said, "What kind of gun do you want? I've got a new sonic that - "

"No guns." The people in my profession are not noted for their self-control, and a gun would offer too much temptation to end minor problems immediately and permanently.

The cop hadn't expected a negative reply. "You're out of your mind. If we don't get to you in time you've had it. On some of the guys they worked over we needed fingerprints to get an ID. Hardly enough left for the relatives to cry over."

"Just get there in a hurry when I push the button. Is the setup still working?"

The cop flipped a switch on his control panel; a map of this part of the city lit up. On it, a cross was superimposed on a green dot. I put my hand in my pocket, pushed the button on the radio; the dot blazed red.

"It's O.K."

I got out and shut the car door. "So long." The car's shields crashed up as it moved away.

I looked around, trying to get the feel of the street - it had been a long time. This was an entertainment area for one section of NWC buildings; I'd spent a lot of time in one just like it back before I was recruited.

There weren't any outward indications it was a slum. The buildings were in good shape, simple neglect couldn't damage modern polymers. It didn't have rats or garbage in the streets; biochemists had eliminated the rats and engineers had developed a foolproof disposal system.

It was the feeling of hopelessness that gave it away. The people in it had no place in modem society and they knew it. They were given everything because they could earn nothing; every welfare check was a statement that confirmed their uselessness.

Thirty or forty years ago many people were unemployed because of racial discrimination. That was no longer true, the economy just couldn't afford the waste of talent. The people in the NWC area were there simply because they were of no value to society - and they knew it.

The depression in the air was contagious. I shook it off and started moving. I was starting the day over again; it was just past midnight.

The pattern was familiar - it hadn't changed much since I was on the streets myself. The only people outside were the restless ones, the troublemakers, the wolves who couldn't be turned into sheep.

As I walked I watched for any sign that I had been spotted. The cop car had dropped me outside the target area, but that was no reason to relax. Besides, I was jumpy.

The streets, the buildings, the people got on my nerves. The people were telling themselves that they were cool, hip, on top of the world. But under layers of sophistication they knew that they were nothing.

Despite the government's best efforts to tell them that they were happy, they had a gut feeling, a very old, very deep instinct that a man should work for his money. Most of them smothered that feeling in televised fantasy or drowned it in cheap booze. Some of them, the wolves, got their feeling of accomplishment by killing. The kids I was after were in the latter class.

So was I.

It was a summer night. There was a feeling in the air that yesterday had been a scorcher and tomorrow would be worse. There were small groups of people every ten or twenty yards, usually in front of a bar, sometimes on a street corner.

The groups looked at me as I passed, but they weren't interested, or even curious, looks. A man would hear footsteps, his head would turn to identify the source, he would look away; it seemed that the brain wasn't involved at all.

Every few minutes a group drifted out of one of the dingy bars and another went in. That was a new one on me. I discovered the reason when I went into a bar myself; they charged both by the drink and by the minute.

I kept moving, trying to look like a tourist. My suit stood out in this crowd and I flashed a fair-sized roll in each of the bars I entered; I could only hope that my size wouldn't make the gang nervous.

I had been walking for about two hours when I picked up a tail - five, all young. They moved with a trace of discipline that was out of place on the street. The ambassador's theory about Bremas using the gangs was looking better all the time.

I kept walking as if I hadn't noticed anything. When I came to a street that was dark and empty they broke into a trot and surrounded me. They pushed me up against a wall; I reached for the panic button - the radio wasn't there.

I swore at myself. I should have realized that the emergency call was the weakest part of the plan and compensated for it. I just hadn't thought of the possibility of a pickpocket in the gang.

The comments of the gang members indicated that they were enjoying themselves:

"Hey, look what we got here."

"What you want, cop?"

"You ought to know better than to come into this neighborhood."

"Guess we'll have to teach him."

There was a full moon. Its light glinted off their weapons - knives, pipes, one had a sonic set on "lethal."

The gang had attacked the previous victims bare-handed, I had planned to let them use the same technique on me for the thirty seconds it would take the cops to arrive. It takes an expert to do much damage with his fists; I wasn't worried about flabby muscles guided by untaught minds.

The weapons changed the situation radically. I tried to talk them out of it. "That radio was from the cops, you know that. They're near here expecting a call; you don't have a chance."

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wad of bills, threw it on the sidewalk. "Here, take this."

They ignored me. They had been working up to this too long, it was too close now, logic was no match for blood lust. They started to move in.

I hadn't liked it from the start, now the whole operation had gone sour. They edged closer. It started to happen; my vision fogged, I froze a second, then trembled.

"Get him!"

They attacked. The rage hit. I dodged, chopped, grabbed a pipe out of the air and threw it; the man with the sonic went down.

The others kept coming. They hadn't had time to adjust to the new situation. Normally I would have backed off, given them time to change their minds and run. But mercy is a civilized emotion and was no longer functioning.

I moved on instinct and training and they never had a chance. The man who had swung the pipe was dead before he hit the ground. The next one moved fairly well, he came from behind and nearly connected with a knife. I decked him, kicked him in the head to make sure, then wiped out the other two. The whole fight was over in twenty seconds.

The transition back to normal was rougher than usual, probably a reaction to the slaughter of essentially helpless human beings. When I recovered I forced myself to check the bodies. It wouldn't do to kill without even knowing who I killed.

I must have been more tired than I thought. Three of them were still alive. I found the transmitter and pushed the button, then started giving first aid.

On the ride back to the station I had a chance to think. The conclusions I reached didn't make me at all happy.

The same people were in the captain's office when I came back. Polasko looked tired, Bremas and the captain were wide awake. Night people.

"Mr. Vance! What happened?"

"They knew I was coming, who told them?"

"What do you mean?"

"They knew about the radio and they were armed. If they weren't, I could have taken it easy on them, but they didn't give me any choice. Now two are dead and the rest are in the hospital. It was you, wasn't it Bremas?"

"I resent - "

"Shut up." I took a deep breath and held onto my temper with both hands. You can't go around killing politicians just because they're crooked: before too long there wouldn't be any left.

"You needed the gang's support and wanted to keep them out of jail. You told them I was coming and explained about the radio, then you told them to get out their hardware and eliminate me. Probably figured that would discourage anybody else from going back in. Right?"

The expression on Bremas' face confirmed everything I said. He got up and walked out. Polasko seemed happy. He left right after Bremas, mumbling something about informing the mayor.

I sat down, held my head in my hands. I kept thinking of those kids. They might have deserved jail or worse, but to just slaughter them on the street ... And they never had a chance.

Eventually I looked up at the captain. "It's a shame I can't prove anything I said about Bremas."

He smiled. "Don't worry, we can. We had a tap on the phone the gang uses, we got a beautiful recording of Bremas' voice. Not admissible, of course, but when the right people hear it Bremas will be out of business for a couple of years."

I just looked at him for a few seconds while everything came together in my mind. I had thought that I was ready for a double-cross from anybody, but no matter how hard you try, you can't help liking and trusting some people.

"Frame from the start, right? The mayor wanted to knock down Bremas, you told him about your trouble with the gang. You came up with a plan: set up a trap, leak the information to Bremas, get the gang and Bremas at the same time. The mayor called his friend the ambassador to get some bait and here I am, doing everybody's dirty work."

I looked at him speculatively.

"But why did you call in a mercenary? You expected the bait to die, didn't you? And you didn't want to set up one of your own men."

The captain didn't bother to deny what I said, didn't even seem upset by it. "We have to keep the city together any way we can. You saw how bad it's getting out there."

He leaned back in his chair, secure in his bureaucratic niche, not a worry in the world. "By the way, how did you survive?"

The jungle was starting to look positively inviting; a nice, honest cobra would be a refreshing change of pace from people.

"I've been trained to go into a state of temporary nonsanity when necessary. When I am in that state all normal thoughts, all emotions are blocked. I kill until I run out of targets."

The captain had stopped smiling. He was reaching for a call button.

"Don't worry, the state of rage is keyed to the survival instinct, just being mad isn't enough."

The captain said, "You'd better leave."

"Just one more thing. One of those kids has a fractured skull. If he lives, have him call this number." I handed him a card.

The captain looked at it. It contained a phone number, nothing else. He looked up at me.

"You want to recruit him? Scum like that?"

"Not scum, just somebody who doesn't fit in as he is and is too tough to be bent. He showed real talent on the street, I'd like to put it to use."

"Is this one of the standard ways you have of getting recruits?"

"It's the only way."

The captain started to ask something, then looked at me closely. The plastic surgeons had done a good job and the old mug shots weren't much good anyway. He showed no sign of recognition.

He thought for a few seconds, tapping the card on his desk, then said, "I don't think that I can in good conscience further that practice."

He started to put the card down the waste chute. I had the card in one hand and his neck in the other before he knew what was happening.

The anger rose in me; I let it take control and pounded the words at him. "You need us, Captain, you don't like to admit it, but you need us. You can't do the job within the rules, you haven't got the guts to break the rules, so you need us. Nobody likes us, you don't even admit that we exist, but when things get tight and the rules don't work, you need us."

I let go of his neck, gently laid the card on his desk, and walked out the door.

An hour later I was on a jet flying away from the city. Away from civilization. Back to my own territory.

Back to the jungle.