Freedom TM

under cover of the screams and engines. Branches hit his face as he pushed through the thick of it and soon he emerged into a golf cart lane flanked by soft landscape lighting and dense tropical shrubbery. In his peripheral vision he caught the movement of men in black tactical gear pointing his way. Although he didn’t hear gunshots, he heard projectiles whine past his head as he plunged into the bushes on the far side of the path. He fired two shots to get them ducking and kept cover as motorcycle engines kept pace with him out on the lawns and driveways beyond the decorative jungle.
    The Major ran headlong into a rough-hewn beam railing, but without missing a beat he clambered over it, collapsing onto a tiled walkway between resort buildings. It was brightly lit. He glanced right and left and could see fire strobes flashing in the interior corridors. He suddenly noticed the warning Klaxons sounding. Someone had tripped a fire alarm. Good.
    He crawled across the tiled floor on his belly and peered through the gap between the handrail and the wall on the far side. He could see more shrubs and a small parking lot behind the reception building.
    The Major rolled over the railing and into the bushes on the far side. He was quickly out to the parking lot and trying car doors. Locked. Locked.
    He tried to remember how to hot-wire a car, and then it occurred to him that cars had utterly changed since his days of twisting wires in the dark in Belize City. They were computer-controlled now—in fact the damned things had lately become smart enough to hunt
him
.
    Motorcycle engines trolled the grounds out in the darkness. Lights were coming on in the guest room windows. Shouts echoed across the grounds.
    “Call the police! Someone call the police!”
    It suddenly occurred to him that he still had his phone. He pulled it out of his jacket pocket and hurled it as far as possible across the parking lot, where it shattered against something hard in the dark. For all he knew, that’s how the Daemon tracked him here. It was an untraceable phone. He’d only had it for a few days. How had they found him? He started thinking of possible vectors but decided he’d have time to worry about it later if he survived the night.
    He saw car headlights approaching from the direction of the clubhouse and peered down the lane from behind a nearby car tire.
    A well-dressed man in his seventies was behind the wheel of a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. It was doing about ten miles per hour.
    The Major hid the pistol behind his leg and affected a stiff limp, rushing to block the road. He held up his free hand and did his best to look panicked. The car slowed and came to a stop. The Major limped over to the door as the driver lowered his window.
    “What’s the problem, son?”
    “My wife and I were hit by a drunk driver coming back from the club. I need someone to call an ambulance.”
    “My god, that’s horrible.” The old man put the car into park and searched for his phone.
    Putting the car into park was crucial.
    By the time the driver looked up again The Major had the pistol pointed at his head. The Major fired a shot into the old man’s forehead at close range. The ivory leather interior spattered with blood.
    Messy. Unprofessional.
    Small caliber pistols were better for this sort of thing. The bullet wouldn’t go out the back of the head.
    Suddenly The Major heard a razorback turn a corner a hundredyards behind them. He looked away quickly, knowing that they carried blinding weapons. He’d read Dr. Philips’s after-action report.
    A green laser played across The Major and the Bentley’s mirrors in a brilliant light show. He could hear the bike roaring in his direction. The Major dove headfirst through the open driver’s window and climbed across the still-twitching corpse of the old man. As The Major turned right-side up in the passenger seat he reached his leg over the console hump to get his foot onto the accelerator. He could hear more razorbacks converging on the site from nearby. Suddenly a razor-sharp katana-like blade shot into the old man’s neck through the open window. A second slash took the old man’s head clean off.
    The Major fired three shots into the motorized gimbal that held the sword, deforming the mount and causing the bike to eject the blade and pull away from the car, swinging around to aim its beam weapons. The Major ducked his head down and dropped the pistol as the cabin filled with green laser