I moved through the frames.
The rest of the worms came around the curve. We fled through the park. There-we came out on the opposite side and turned around to attack the worms from the rear.
There. I blew a worm to pieces against my house.
There. The worms dashed into the park, flowed over Jack and Dove.
There. We followed.
The worms were lost in the park. I couldn't see all of what happened.
I saw the explosion that killed Little Ivy. I saw the Jeep come barrelling out of the park. It turned north toward the hiking ridge. There-I saw two worms come out of the park and flow up the slope. There were people running with them.
There. The Jeep took its position. Where was the last worm?
There was still one worm on the peninsula. Three worms had dashed into the park. Two had come out.
My God.
It had been on the peninsula with us all afternoon long. Maybe it was still there.
I reached for the phone. No, wait.
I moved forward in time. There was B-Jay getting into the Jeep. There was the Jeep moving off.
And there was the last worm and one human being moving across the road and up the slope.
The whole time I'd been sitting there, they'd been in the park watching me. Jason and Orrie.
They could have killed me.
No, they couldn't. I'd been sitting there with the torch in my lap, ready to fire.
It had been a standoff. I'd cut off their escape and hadn't known it. Shit.
But I knew something now. I knew they'd been on the peninsula until sunset. That meant they couldn't be far.
I moved back in time until the Jeep appeared to back away from its position. There were two bright red smears moving across the road. There were people with the worms too. I began moving forward in time again, this time following them up the slope and over it. I moved northward on the peninsula with them, one frame at a time.
They moved down the opposite side of the hiking ridge, across the wide plateau, through the rough and crumbled area, and across the rocks to the coast highway. I followed them from above. They couldn't know I was watching from sixteen hundred kilometers above and six hours away.
They moved northward on the road for a half-kilometer to a place where it bordered a wide field. They went inland then, two worms and thirteen humans. They were still moving on foot. Where were their vehicles?
Once they were out of sight of the highway, they turned north again. I flashed through the frames and watched them jump from moment to moment; the effect was of a strobed and jerky movement. The meadow they were on ended at a belt of trees bordering a narrow canyon road. They turned up the canyon road. And then they were gone.
The slopes of the canyon were heavily forested. The road showed through only in patches.
I moved forward in time and widened the angle. No, they hadn't come out at the bottom end of the road where it met the main highway.
I superimposed a state map on the frame and followed the road inland. No, nothing here.
They were gone. "Shit."
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the screen in front of me. It was an industrial high-resolution monitor, with 5,000 real lines of video information and another 5,000 lines of extrapolated data, all repeated 120 times a second. There were 25 million pixels of data per frame. The system could be used for anything from the most sophisticated kind of military reconnaissance to finding lost golf balls.
But I couldn't find two worms in a leafy canyon.
If they couldn't be seen from the sky, they couldn't be tracked. I leaned forward again. I typed in a search program. I ID'd one of the worms as the target and set parameters. A ten-kilometer radius, from this moment until dusk. I hit ENTER and let the program scan through the frames for me.
Nothing.
The computer couldn't find them either.
All right. So that was that. They weren't visible from the air, not as worms.
I went back to the moment where I'd lost them at the canyon road.
I followed the road north and east as it wound upward through the canyon. It came out on the crest of a ridge and joined up with a ridge road that headed mostly north.
If they were traveling by truck, it would be dusk before they got this far. They wouldn't show up on the video.
All right. No problem.
I moved back through the frames, back in time to the moment of attack. I saw the worms-four of them now-coming down the slope with their human companions. I followed them backward across the same course, up the hiking ridge, across the plateau, across the rocks, up the road, across the field, and into the trees. And of course, they disappeared.
Now, I had the time. They had been moving into position at the very same moment I had been arguing with B-Jay.
I moved to the place where the canyon road met the ridge road and scanned backward in time. No traffic up here-until a convoy hacked out of the canyon road. Three motorcycles, three trucks, and two vans.
Bingo.
I tracked with them, moving backward through the day.
The ridge road wound northward for miles. A couple of times I lust them in the foliage, but I just moved farther north and waited for them to show up again on the frames. There they were. I followed them backward until morning.
I almost missed the turnoff. I thought I'd missed them and kept going north, but then I hit Interstate 5 and I knew I'd gone too far.
Jason didn't like to use the Interstates. Too much traffic. And certainly not during the day.
I moved back to the ridge road to the first moment that the trucks appeared on it. Ahh, I see. They turned onto it from this side canyon. I followed them back up the side canyon. It dead-ended.
A narrow road wound up a hill to . . .
There. Some kind of base. No, that long building was a row of motel rooms. That had to be a lodge. That was a corral and a barn opposite. Yes. Jason liked to find little lost places like this. This looked like some kind of a ranch. Smart.
So now I knew where they had come from. But they were safe there.
So why had they attacked Family?
It didn't make sense. Family was too vulnerable. Today's attack proved that. Jason wouldn't put his people in a vulnerable place. Unless there were something about Family that required his special attention.
Oh, my God.
They'd been after me.
In fact, I'd even told them where Family was. That afternoon with Marcie and the puppies.
No-I hadn't told them where Family was. I'd only suggested one of the new peninsulas as a good place to relocate. That was part of the information I'd dumped for Jason. He'd picked up the disk and studied it.
Oh, God. This was even worse. Family was still listed as a private-access area. B-Jay had refused to list it as open-access because she didn't want refugees moving in.
And I'd told Jason to look for a private-access area. But why this peninsula?
Oh. Now I knew.
We had an extensive network of underground service tunnels and facilities. The worms could be hidden from the sky. The aboveground uses of the village would look perfectly normal.
Jason hadn't been after me at all. And yet it was exactly as he had said over and over: There are no accidents in this game. He'd found me after all. And he'd been right. I regretted it bitterly.
I was still staring at the screen.
Jason's camp was three hours away. At least. At night, driving with the lights low, the trucks might take four or more hours. They were probably still on their way.
My guess was that they would have waited for Jason and Orrie for as long as they could.
Let's see-yes, there they were. All the vehicles except one truck and one van were moving back toward the camp. I looked at my watch. They'd left around five. They should be arriving there any moment.
But they were paralyzed without Jason. What was he going to do?
Even if he followed them as soon as he got to
the last two vehicles hidden in the canyon road, he couldn't be back at his camp before midnight.
A thought occurred to me. It probably wasn't possible. But it was worth a try.
I picked up the phone and punched for the Santa Cruz District Military Governor. A woman answered the phone.
"This is Major Duke Anderson, Special Forces. I need to speak with the governor."
"I'm sorry, she's not available."
"Perhaps you didn't hear me. I said I'm Special Forces."
"I heard you. Colonel Wright is not available."
"Who am I speaking to?" I asked.
"Lieutenant Gail Beeker."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. I have a message for your Colonel. If she doesn't get it tonight, you may end up as Private Gail Beeker. Does the name 'Uncle Ira' mean anything to you?"
"Uh-stand by."
A moment later, another voice came on the phone. "This is Colonel Wright. Who am I speaking to?"
"This is Major Duke Anderson. Special Forces. I'm investigating the worm infestation in this area. I saw the attack on the peninsula this afternoon, and I've located the renegades' base camp. We have very little time, Colonel. We have to hit them tonight. I know this group. They're Revelationists. They'll be on the road before morning if they think their cover's been compromised. Can you mount a night mission?"
"Major," Colonel Wright said, "my troops are not trained for this kind of operation."
Right. A desk battalion. Leftovers from the Teamwork Army. They make the software run on time.
"Do you have pilots? Do you have choppers? Do you have men and women who can hold a weapon and point it in the right direction?"
"I have three teams that are used primarily for rescue operations."
"They'll do. Scramble them, please."
"Major, I appreciate the urgency . . ."
"No, Colonel, you don't. These people have taken children as hostages. What you don't know is that when they break camp, they don't take their hostages with them. They feed them to their worms, so the worms can go a week before their next meal. These are the children from the peninsula. There may be a chance to save them, but only if we act now. All I ask from you is that you ask the men and women in your command if there are any volunteers for this particular rescue mission. Let them know that there may be some shooting involved. In fact, you can count on it. I'll personally assume responsibility for the planning and execution of the operation. And I'll lead it too."
There was silence from the phone for a moment. Then Colonel Wright said, "I'll assume the responsibility, Major. But you can lead the mission. Where are you? I'll have a car pick you up."
"Don't bother. I have a Jeep. Just have someone meet me at the gate of the airfield with a clean jumpsuit."
"I'll meet you myself," she said. And switched off. The lady was okay. Regular Army always delivered.
I hit the keyboard and dumped to disk. I'd need this for the briefing. While the drive whirred, I picked up the phone and called B-Jay.
I had a hunch there might be something she'd want to do tonight too.
There was an old prune name of Ginty
who only ate muffins and thin tea.
Thinking of sex
gave her the blecchs,
and left her all dried up and squinty.
44
Duke's Revenge
"The best thing about war is that it makes it all right to hate."
- SOLOMON SHORT
Colonel Wright was a small lady with long black hair and a mean expression. She looked at me disapprovingly as I pulled up to the gate.
"I don't like this," she said. She handed me the jumpsuit. I started pulling it on over my clothes. There were major's bars on the sleeve. "Thanks," I said. And prayed that I'd have a chance to kill Delandro before anyone found out the truth.
"I'm not doing it for you," she said. "I'm doing it for my people here."
"I know. So am I."
"You're younger than I expected," she said. "You look too young to have served in Pakistan."
Oops.
I shrugged. "You looked up my record."
She nodded. "I looked up somebody's record." She said, "I don't think it's yours."
I stopped in the act of pulling on the jumpsuit. I waited for her to go on.
"I know who you are," she said. Urk.
"You used the name 'Uncle Ira.' That tells me that you're a worm-killer-and that's all that I need to know. You burn worms. That's probably all you do. I suppose you're very good at it. But I want you to know something: there's a lot more to this army than just burning worms. I know you probably have a low opinion of those of us who sit at desks and coordinate logistics. That's usually the way of the military. But if it weren't for me keeping the Santa Cruz and San Jose districts operating, you wouldn't be able to do your job."
"Colonel," I said. I straightened, zipped up the suit and saluted her. "I don't know what kind of a bug you've got up your ass, but I think you really need to deliver this speech to the person you're pissed at. I know that it takes twenty-three support personnel to put one man in the field. I've never yet gone on a mission without praying that all those support people have done their job right. To the good credit of the United States Armed Services, I've yet to be let down. You know how I know? I'm still alive. That's how I know. So I truly appreciate that you've marshalled your resources on such short notice. I promise to take the best care of them."
"I'm coming with," she said.
"All due respects, ma'am-if you insist, I won't argue. But it isn't going to be very nice."
"I know. As I said, I've read your record. I assume that some of it actually represents your own experience. Let's go."
To give the colonel credit, the choppers were warming up on the field. "Through here," she pointed. We stepped into a briefing room. Forty men and women were just settling into their seats.
"Ten-hut!" someone shouted. The colonel waved them back into their seats. "Major Anderson will brief you."
I slid the disk into the terminal and punched up the appropriate frames. I put them on the overhead screen. I took them through the entire sequence of frames. I showed them the attack on Family. I described it in the most graphic detail possible, every death, every child.
I glanced up a couple of times. Their faces were gray. Good. It was working. I wanted them to know what they were up against. I went on. I showed them what I'd discovered about the base camp of the renegades. "See here-that's me, sitting in this Jeep. Now, watch. When I leave, this worm crosses the road and goes up the hill. Notice, there's a human being riding on its back. That's the Tribe leader.
"Now, here-if we backtrack from this morning, you can see where their camp is. I have my own suspicions why they attacked the peninsula, but we won't know until we interrogate. My guesstimate is that the trucks carrying the attack party won't get back to their base until sometime between midnight and one. Even if some of their trucks went ahead, the last one--the one that would have certainly waited for this worm here--can't possibly get there before then. We have just a little less than two hours to get into position.
"What I want to do is put the choppers down here-on this field about five miles away. We'll split the team into two parties. One team will circle around and come in from the north, the other will come up from the east. I want to put a Jeep with a torch here on this road to the south, and that should box them in neatly. Squad leaders, you'll fly with me. We'll go over details in the air."
I looked up, and realized these men and women were terrified. I'd done my job a little too well. I needed to bring them back now. "How many of you have ever seen a worm first hand?"
A few of them raised their hands, not many.
"How many of you have seen a worm in combat?"
Two hands.
"All right, look-I'm going to tell you some things you need to know. First of all, you have the advantage. You'll know what's going on. They won't. There's going to be a lot of confusion out there tonight, but
you'll have the night goggles, so you'll be able to see clearly. You'll have the torches and the AM-280's and the grenade launchers. Any one of those alone would be enough to do this job. I know. I've killed worms using all three of those weapons.
"Next, I want to tell you something about this particular tribe of renegades. They're terrified of the United States Army. I know. I was with them for almost a year." That sounded wrong. "Under cover," I added. "I needed to find out how they tamed their worms. And I found out. What I also found is that they did the job a little too well. Their so-called tame worms are also afraid of battle. They'll run from you.
"Now-who's terrified?" I looked out over the room.
Three hands.
"Bullshit. I know there are more of you than that who're shitting in your pants. Let's see some hands."
Four-no, five more hands went up.
"Good. Thanks for being honest. All right, now-who wanted to raise his hand but was afraid to look like a fool?"
More hands went up.
"Who isn't sure if they should raise their hand or not?"
Some more hands went up. More than half the people in the room.
"Good. Okay, now those of you who still haven't raised your hands, all those of you who should have raised your hands and haven't?"
A few more hands. We were getting there. There were some smiles now. Good. They were starting to relax.
"Now all the rest of you who haven't raised your hands-who's lying about being afraid?"
Two more hands popped up.
"If you haven't raised your hand yet, raise your hand." The last four hands went up.
"Good. Look around." I raised my hand. Colonel Wright raised hers. "Everyone with their hand raised is terrified. You're supposed to be terrified tonight. If you're not, you shouldn't be going on this mission. I don't want your death on my conscience.
"Listen up: I don't want you to be brave. I don't want you to be heroes. I want you to do your job. It'll be very easy, if you follow instructions.
"So here's the mission objective: burn the worms.
"That's the job. The worms must die. Now, I know there's probably some value in capturing a tame worm. What I want you to know is that I'm not interested in capturing these tame worms. These worms are to be burned, no matter what.
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