Sword of Minerva (The Guild Wars Book 10) by Mark Wandrey (great books for teens TXT) 📕

gun battles. Instead, one of the gangsters handed the pilot a duffel bag, and they shook hands warmly.

“Is this the extra cargo?” the gangster with the bag asked, gesturing at Rick and Sato.

“Yes,” the pilot said. “Don Gutierrez would be most grateful if you would see them on their way.”

“Certainly,” the gangster said and walked over to Rick. “My, but you’re a strange one. What’s under that armor?”

“You don’t want to know,” Rick said without emotion.

“And you?” he asked Sato.

“Just a tourist,” Sato replied.

The man threw back his head and roared with laughter. “I don’t know if you’re spies, on the run, or just nuts. But I like you.” He held out a pair of keys and gestured to the newest of the four vehicles. It was a hybrid hydrogen fuel cell powered SUV, not unlike the ones the Colombians drove, except this one was dark blue. “It has a full tank, and it’s current on routine maintenance. With our compliments.”

Rick took the keys and nodded. The gangster turned toward the pilot. “Please let Don Gutierrez know Tatiana Enkh sends her regards, and the colonel will expect some favor in kind at some future time.”

The pilot nodded his understanding. Meanwhile the men had loaded the pallet of drugs and were now carrying Dakkar’s support tank to the SUV. It fit neatly in the back, and the loadmaster handed Rick their duffel bags.

“Thus we part,” the pilot said and held out a hand. “Best of luck.”

Rick shook the hand and glanced at the many more pallets of Sparkle. “I’d wish you the same, but it goes against my better judgement.”

“Boy Scout, eh?” The pilot laughed. “Sure, I get it. Never got your armored hands dirty?”

“You really don’t want to know that, either.”

The pilot grunted and offered his hand to Sato. “I’d shake the octopus’ hand, but I don’t know if I believe the stories I’ve heard. If the Don is happy, I’m good with this.”

“Thanks for an interesting ride,” Sato said and gave the pilot’s hand a quick shake. “Hope we never meet again.”

The pilot winked and headed up the ramp. In the meantime, the gangsters had piled into the three other vehicles and peeled out, leaving long tears in the freshly mowed sod. Rick and Sato walked quickly to their new vehicle; the dropship was already spinning up its engines. Moments later, the screaming drives lifted it straight up a hundred meters, the housing tilted, rotating the Phoenix in place, then it angled backwards, and the power gained in intensity. With startling speed, the old dropship shot away and was out of sight in less than a minute.

“Do we report the smuggling operation?” Sato asked.

“Not for another million credits,” Rick said. “Didn’t you catch the name the gangster dropped?”

“Enkh?” Sato said. Rick nodded. “Wait…Enkh?”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “You don’t grab a viper by the tail if you don’t want the fangs in your hand. We move on and forget the whole fuckin’ thing.” He walked to the driver’s door of the SUV. “Come on,” he said. Sato shook his head and looked at him. “We don’t know if some observant air traffic guy spotted any of this. We aren’t exactly here legally, either.”

Sato nodded and got in. The SUV started with a hum, and Rick drove away from the old airport, leaving the grass to once again grow over the wheel ruts and blast marks. Only insect sounds were left in their absence.

* * * * *

Part II

When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Chapter One

Sato was impressed with the vehicle, and what it said about the respect Don Gutierrez garnered from his ‘business partners.’ They could have rolled through any old used car lot and grabbed whatever came to hand. The car they’d been given was brand new, with some glue still on one of the windows.

“Nice car,” Rick said as he drove them off the field and onto a little two-lane affair called Applewhite Road. Only a few hundred feet later, they came to an interchange for a larger highway that went east/west.

Sato opened the glove compartment and found a note. “Enjoy the car. When you’re done with it, park it, lock the door, and dial 666 on the enclosed satphone. Regards, SE.”

He found the phone and opened it. It seemed to act like it was unprogrammed, but he was sure it would work. SE—Sansar Enkh. Don Gutierrez did indeed have powerful friends.

“Where to?”

“Houston,” Sato said without hesitation.

“You sure? From what I read on the Aethernet, all hell broke loose there.”

“Exactly. It’s not as bad as Sao Paulo was, though. Hopefully just enough carnage to let us slip into the startown and update our Yacks.”

Rick nodded and navigated them eastward. Sato figured the underground in Houston would be just as developed as the one on Karma, only with more Humans. They didn’t need new Yacks, someone just needed to hack into the planetary database and show the pair had arrived on Earth legally. Being smuggled in on a ship to Brazil wouldn’t help; the first time he slid his card into a reader, it would immediately flag them as illegally on-planet.

He’d known it would be a problem, but he’d determined it was easier to get forged documents on Karma. They were available on Earth, but at a much lower quality, and less likely to pass Union scrutiny. He didn’t know how he knew this as a fact. It was profoundly frustrating.

The drive to Houston was just under three hours. Sato noted Rick kept their speed to within five miles-per-hour of the limit, even though