The Tactics Of Mistake

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "You mean," said Eachan, "that deCastries and the Neulanders will be sure that we really meant to invade them?"

  "I mean just the opposite," said Cletus. "There's a great deal of truth to the fact that a liar is always going to suspect you of lying and a thief'll always suspect your honesty. DeCastries is a subtle man, and the weakness of subtle men is to suspect any straightforward action of being a screen for some kind of trick. He'll be sure to have concluded the rumor was leaked specifically for the purpose of causing him—and Neuland—to move a lot of troops into position on a false invasion scare, which would evaporate then and leave them looking foolish. Consequently, being the man he is, he'll have resolved to play along with our game and take advantage of us at the very moment we plan to be chuckling over his embarrassment."

  Eachan frowned. "I don't believe I follow you," he said.

  Cletus nodded at the package of papers. "It's all in the orders, there," he said. "You'll start withdrawing men from the Two Rivers area early tomorrow, a shipload at half hour intervals. As each shipload gets back here and gets sorted out, turn them loose on three-day passes."

  Eachan stared at him, grimly. "And that's it?" Eachan said, at last.

  "That's it—until I give you further orders," said Cletus, getting to his feet. He turned about and headed toward the door.

  "Good night," said Eachan behind him. As Cletus went out the door and turned left to go off down the corridor, he caught a glimpse of Eachan, still standing behind the desk, looking after him.

  Cletus went back to his quarters and to bed. The next morning he allowed himself the unusual luxury of sleeping late. It was 10 A.M. by the time he drifted into the Officers' Club for a late breakfast and just short of noon when he finally arrived at his office. Arvid and the staff Arvid had accumulated there were all diligently at work. Cletus smiled at them like an indulgent father and called them all together.

  "I'm flying up to Two Rivers this afternoon," he said, "to supervise the windup of the Dorsai exercises up there. So there's not much point in your feeding me with a lot of information material that'll go stale between now and Monday morning anyway. I've been working you all above and beyond the call of duty. So take the rest of the day off—all of you, that is, except Arvid"—he smiled at the big young officer—"and I'll see you again at the beginning of next week."

  The staff evaporated like a scattering of raindrops on hot pavement after a tropical shower. Once they were gone, Cletus went carefully around the office, making sure all its security systems were in working order and ready to be put in operation. Then he came back, sat down opposite Arvid's desk and reached over to pick up Arvid's phone. He dialed the number of the Navy base.

  "This is Colonel Cletus Grahame," he told the duty petty officer at the far end. "Would you try to locate Commander Linet for me, and have him call me back? I'm at my office."

  He put the phone back on Arvid's desk and waited. Arvid was watching him curiously. Cletus got up and walked over to his own desk. He picked up his own phone there and brought it back to exchange it for the phone in front of Arvid. Arvid's phone he took back to his own desk.

  He punched out the first two digits of the five-digit number that would connect him with Bat Traynor's office. Then, with the phone activated, but the call incompleted, he pushed the phone from him and looked over at Arvid.

  "Arv," he said, "some time in the next few hours Eachan Khan's going to be calling me. If anyone but Colonel Eachan calls, I've just stepped out and you don't know when I'll be back. But if Colonel Eachan calls, tell him that I'm on the phone to General Traynor at the moment—and I will be. Ask him if you can take a message, or say I'll call him back in a few minutes." Arvid frowned in slight puzzlement—but the frown evaporated almost immediately into his usual agreeable expression.

  "Yes, sir," he said …

  "And now?" he asked, after Cletus had made the call.

  "Now, we wait."

  Wait, they did—for nearly two hours, during which perhaps a dozen unimportant phone calls came in and were neatly fielded by Arvid. Then the phone Cletus had moved from his desk to that of the lieutenant buzzed abruptly and Arvid lifted the receiver.

  "Colonel Grahame's office, Lieutenant Johnson speaking—" Arvid broke off, glancing over at Cletus. "Colonel Khan? Yes, sir … "

  Cletus had already picked up Arvid's phone and was completing the punching of the proper sequence of numbers for contact with Bat's office. In the background he heard Arvid saying that he could take a message. Bat's office answered.

  "This is Colonel Grahame," Cletus said into the phone. "I'd like to talk to General Traynor right away—in fact, immediately. It's red emergency."

  He waited. There was a fractional delay at the other end of the line. Arvid, meanwhile, had hung up. There was silence in the office. Cletus could see out of the corner of his eye how Arvid was standing, watching him.

  "Grahame?" Bat's voice exploded suddenly against Cletus' ear. "What's all this?"

  "Sir," said Cletus, "I discovered something, and I think I ought to talk to you about it right away—privately. I can't tell you over the phone. It's got to do with the Coalition and it involves not only us, here on Kultis, but the whole Alliance. I'm at my office. I've given my staff the rest of the day off. Could you make some excuse to leave your office and come over here so that we could talk privately?"

  "Talk? What is all this—" Bat broke off. Cletus heard the other's voice, suddenly withdrawn from the mouthpiece of the phone, speaking distantly to someone else. "Joe, go get me that file on … the plans for the new military district south of town."

  There were a few more seconds of pause, and then Bat's voice came back close to the phone but muted and cold in tone.

  "Now you can tell me," he said.

  "I'm sorry, sir," said Cletus.

  "Sorry? You mean you don't even trust the phone circuits to my office?"

  "I didn't say that, sir," answered Cletus evenly. "I only suggested that you make some excuse to get out of your office and meet me privately over here at mine."

  His voice was almost wooden in its lack of expression. There was a long pause at the other end of the phone circuit. Then Cletus heard Bat's indrawn breath hiss sharply.

  "All right, Grahame," said Bat, "but this better be as serious as you're making it sound."

  "Sir," said Cletus seriously, "without exaggeration, it concerns not only the highest Coalition personnel presently on the planet, but members of our own Alliance command here in Bakhalla as well."

  "See you in fifteen minutes," said Bat. The phone circuit clicked in Cletus' ear, and then went dead. Cletus put the phone down and turned to look at Arvid, who was staring at him. "Eachan's message?" Cletus prompted gently. With a start, Arvid came out of his trance.

  "Sir, the Neulanders are attacking Two Rivers!" he burst out. "Colonel Khan says they're coming in both by air and through the pass—and there's less than three companies of Dorsais left in Two Rivers, not counting a few scouts still out in the jungle who'll have been captured or bypassed by the Neulander troops by this time."

  Cletus picked up the phone and punched for Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Dodds at the landing field by the Dorsai military area.

  "Colonel Dodds—sir?" said the lean, quiet face of Eachan's second-in-command, appearing in the small phone screen.

  "Have you heard about the Neulander attack at Two Rivers?"

  Cletus asked.

  "Yes, sir," Dodds answered. "Colonel Khan just messaged us to stop all release of men. We're starting to get them turned around now."

  "Good," said Cletus. "I'll join you shortly."

  He broke the circuit, put the phone down and crossed the room to an arms cabinet. Unlocking it, he took out a pistol belt and sidearm. He turned and tossed these to Arvid. Arvid put out one hand automatically and caught them.

  "Sir?" he said, puzzled, "the Neulanders aren't attacking in the city, here, are they?"

  Cletus laughed, reclosing and locking the arms ca
binet. "No, Arv," he said, turning back to the tall lieutenant, "but the Neulanders have started to move up at Two Rivers, and Dow deCastries is the kind of man to want to take out insurance, even when he has a sure thing. I'd look a little strange wearing a sidearm, but you can wear it for me." He turned back to his desk phone and punched for the Navy base.

  "This is Colonel Grahame," he said. "A little while ago I put in an important call for Commander Linet … "

  "Yes, sir," said the voice of the ensign who had answered the phone. "The commander's been trying to get you sir, but your circuits were busy just now. Just a minute, sir … "

  Wefer's voice broke in on the line. "Cletus! What's up?"

  "You offered me the use of four of your Mark V's," Cletus said. "I need only three of them. But they have to move upriver between here and the town of Two Rivers, at the confluence of the Blue and the Whey. That's nearly two hundred and thirty miles of river travel. Do you think they could make it between now and, say, an hour before dawn tomorrow?"

  "Two hundred and thirty miles? Between now and an hour to dawn? Nothing to it!" shouted Wefer over the phone circuit. "What's up?"

  "The Neulanders have moved regular troops across the border at fitter's Pass," said Cletus, in a level voice. "They'll be attacking Two Rivers shortly after sunup tomorrow. I'll give you the details of what I want you for later. But can you move your Mark V's to within a mile downstream of where the two rivers come together and hold them there without being seen?"

  "You know I can!" said Wefer. "But you'll be in touch?"

  "I'll be contacting you before dawn tomorrow," said Cletus.

  "Right! We're on our way!" The phone clicked dead at Wefer's end.

  "Go ahead, Arv," said Cletus. "Wait for me outside at the car. I'll be along in a minute."

  Arv stared. "We're leaving?" he said. "But, sir, isn't the general due … "

  His voice ran down into silence as Cletus stood patiently waiting. "Yes, sir," he said.

  He went out.

  Cletus put the phone in his hand back down on the desk by which he was standing. He glanced at his watch. Some eight minutes had gone by since he had spoken to Bat, and Bat had said he would be here in fifteen minutes. Cletus made a last tour of the office to make sure all the security devices were in order. Then he let himself out the front door, pulling the door to, but leaving it slightly unlatched, with the trap spring activated. The next person to walk through that door would find it closing automatically behind him, locking him into an area from which escape was not easily possible.

  Cletus turned and went out to his staff car, where Arvid waited. They drove off toward the BOQ.

  13

  As Cletus' command car tilted on its air cushion and slid around the corner into the short street leading toward the BOQ, Cletus saw the parking lot before the BOQ half-filled with parked cars, clustered before the main entrance of the building in two rows with a narrow aisle in between.

  Both ends of the parking lot were empty; the building itself, with those other buildings of the officers' compound beyond it, seemed to slumber emptily under the afternoon sun. The BOQ's occupants for the most part would now be either at work, having a late lunch, or asleep within. As the staff car slid on its air cushion toward the entrance to the parking lot, Cletus raised his eyes and caught the glint of sunlight on something metallic just below the ridge of the roof over the BOQ's main entrance.

  Cletus looked at the empty-windowed double row of cars sitting flat on the cement of the parking lot, with their air cushions turned off. His lips thinned. At that moment, as they turned into the aisle between the two rows of cars, there were sizzling sounds like the noise of enormous slices of bacon frying above them, followed by several licking dragons' breaths of superheated air, as energy weapons sliced into the metal sides and roof of his command car like the flames of acetylene torches into thin tinfoil. Arvid fell heavily against Cletus, his uniform jacket black and smoking on the upper right side, and the staff car careened out of control, to its right, into two empty parking spaces between cars, where it wedged itself, still on its air cushion between the grounded vehicles.

  A bleak fury exploded inside Cletus. He turned, jerked the side-arm from its holster at Arvid's side, ducked down and punched open the door on his side of the staff car. He dove through it into the space between his car and the grounded one on the right. He rolled back under his own floating car and crawled rapidly to the back end of the grounded car on his left. Lying flat, he peered around its end. There was a man on his feet, energy rifle in hand, coming toward him between the two rows of parked vehicles at a run. Cletus snapped a shot from the sidearm and the man went tumbling, head over heels. Cletus ducked around the car to his right and into the next space between it and the car farther on.

  The charge weapons now were silent. From memory of the sound and damage to the command car, Cletus guessed no more than three gunmen were involved. That left two to deal with. Glancing out, Cletus could see the man he had shot sprawled, lying still on the pavement, his energy weapon rolled out of his grasp, its transparent, rifle-like barrel reflecting the sunlight. Cletus backed up, opened the near door of the car on his right and crawled in. Lying flat on its floorboards, he raised it on its air cushion and set it backing out in reverse.

  As it reached the center space between the two rows of parked cars, he dived out the opposite door, just as two beams cut into the other side and the roof of the car behind him. He snatched up the fallen charge weapon and, carrying it, scuttled behind the screen of the still-moving car until it slammed into the opposite row of cars. Then he ducked into the closest available space there, turned about and looked back around the nearest car end.

  The other two gunmen were visible, standing out in the open now, back to back, by the car Cletus had last sent smashing into the ones opposite. One was facing Cletus' direction, the other in the opposite direction, both with their charge weapons up and scanning the spaces between the vehicles for any sign of movement.

  Cletus pulled back, cradled the charge weapon in his left elbow and lobbed his sidearm in a high arc over the heads of the two standing men to fall with a clatter by Cletus' own cut-up command car.

  Both of the gunmen spun about to face in the direction of the noise. Cletus, standing up and stepping out from between his two parked cars, cut them down with the energy weapon he still held in his hands.

  Breathing heavily, Cletus leaned for a second against the back of the car by which he had emerged. Then, throwing aside the energy weapon, he limped hastily back toward the staff car in which Arvid still lay.

  The lieutenant was conscious when Cletus arrived. He had taken a bad burn through the upper part of his chest and shoulder on the right side, but energy-weapon wounds were self-cauterizing; the wound was ugly, but there was no bleeding. Cletus eased him down onto the grass and went into the BOQ to call for medical aid from an astounded military hospital unit.

  "Guerrillas!" Cletus said briefly, in answer to their questions. "There're three of them—all dead. But my aide's wounded. Get over here as soon as you can." He cut the connection and went back out to see how Arvid was doing.

  "How … " whispered Arvid, when Cletus bent over him.

  "I told you deCastries would like insurance," said Cletus. "Lie still now, and don't talk."

  The ambulance unit from the military hospital swooped down then, its shadow falling across them like the shadow of some hawk from the skies just before it landed softly on the grass beside them. White-uniformed medics personnel tumbled out, and Cletus got to his feet.

  "This is Lieutenant Johnson, my aide," said Cletus. "Take good care of him. The three guerrillas out in the parking lot are all dead. I'll write up a full report on this later—but right now I've got to get going. You can handle things?"

  "Yes, sir," said the medic in charge. He was a senior, with the gold and black bars of a warrant officer on his collar. "We'll take care of him."

  "Good," said Cletus.

  With
out stopping to say anything further to Arvid, he turned and went up into the BOQ and down the hall to his own quarters. Swiftly, he changed into combat overalls and the straps for battle gear. When he came out, Arvid had already been taken away to the hospital and the three dead gunmen had been brought up and laid on the grass. Their clothes were the ordinary sort of civilian outfits normally seen on the streets of Bakhalla, but the lower part of the faces of each was pale in contrast to the tan of their foreheads, showing where heavy Neulander beards had been shaved off recently.

  Cletus tried his command car, found it operable, and slid off in the direction of the Dorsai area.

  When he arrived there, he found most of the returned Dorsai troops already marshaled by units on the exercise ground—armed, equipped and ready to be enshipped back to Two Rivers. Cletus went directly to the temporary Headquarters unit set up at one side of the field and found Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Dodds there.

  "You haven't sent any shiploads back up yet, have you?" Cletus demanded the moment Dodds saw him.

  "No, Colonel," answered the tall, lean man. "But we should probably be thinking about moving men back up soon. If we try to have troops jump into Two Rivers after dark, three out of four of them are going to land in the rivers. And by daylight tomorrow, those Neulander troops will probably be in position in both river valleys above the town. They'd have a field day picking off our jump troops if we send men in then."

  "Don't worry about it," Cletus said brusquely. "We aren't going to jump into the town in any case."

  Marc Dodds' eyebrows raised La his narrow, brown face. "You're not going to support—"

  "We'll support. But not that way," said Cletus. "How many of the men that were sent back and turned loose on pass are still out?"