by Timothy Zahn
"And they obviously know it," Lathe said. "I see they've got a complete double wall around it."
"With plenty of room between the layers for pressurized gas traps, antipersonnel explosives, or even a few roaming khassq if they feel so inclined," Shaw said grimly. "You can also bet they've got more autotarget lasers set up outside the doors, ready to turn the last five or ten meters of corridor into a killing zone."
"Only three doors into the place, too," Judas commented. "What about these three narrow rooms wrapped around the big central one?"
"One of them will be the base's main security monitor room," Shaw said. "This one, probably, from the number of secure display conduits we saw them putting in the walls. The other two are probably a guard room and a lounge for the command officers."
"Seems horribly inefficient," Judas said, studying the three wide corridors that led from the perimeter corridor to the central circle and its wraparound rooms and the five sets of cross corridors cutting across them. "With an octagonal shape, wouldn't it make more sense to parallel that design on the inside? Or at the very least to go with a four-sided corridor/room pattern instead of a triangular one?"
"They probably borrowed it from one of their victims," Lathe said. "They borrow everyone else's technology. Why not their architecture, too?"
"Anyway, that's the overview," Shaw said. "We've also got a little more detail on some of the areas—"
"Why the first floor?" Mordecai interrupted, gazing at the diagram.
"Excuse me?" Shaw asked.
"Probably because the second floor's more exposed to air attacks," Judas explained, frowning. Even to him that one seemed obvious.
"I meant why on the surface at all?" Mordecai said. "Why not put it underground? We know the ground can be dug into—they've got tunnels leading to the fence bunkers."
"He's got a point," Lathe agreed, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "For that matter, why not put the whole base underground?"
"For starters, underground facilities take a lot longer to build," Shaw pointed out. But he, too, was frowning down at the paper.
"Or the place may not be as valuable as they want us to believe," Mordecai said.
There was another silence, a longer one this time. Surreptitiously, Judas looked at each of the others in turn, his heart pounding uncomfortably. If they gave up now, this whole thing would have been for nothing.
And if that happened, there was no telling what might happen to his family back in Interlaken. Galway had promised them safety and security, but the unspoken condition was that Galway would continue to be in a position where he could make good on that guarantee. If the mission failed, the Plinry prefect wasn't likely to remain in the Ryqril's good graces for long.
To his relief, Lathe shook his head. "No," he said. "Haberdae must have deduced by now that Khorstron is the reason we're here. If they didn't care whether or not we got in, they wouldn't have tried to take us out of the game last night."
Judas breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "Besides, as you said earlier, Lepkowski's already gone to tell the Chryselli about it," he added. "We have to get inside."
"Right," Lathe agreed. "So let's quit worrying about why Ryqril do things the way they do and concentrate on how we're going to get in there. Tactor?"
"Okay," Shaw said, selecting another roll of paper. "This one's a closer look at the west door area...."
* * *
Neatly framed in the center of the display was a wide rectangular post, a meshwork pattern extending out from it on both sides. "It's one of the Khorstron fence posts," Haberdae identified it. "So?"
"Just keep watching," Galway told him. "Especially the upper third."
"Galway, I don't have time for gam—"
He broke off in midword as a gray projectile suddenly shot in from the edge of the display and slapped into the upper part of the fence post, the impact flattening it into a misshapen blob. "What the hell?"
Haberdae muttered.
"You were wondering earlier where Spadafora had disappeared to?" Galway gestured to the display.
"There you go."
"There I go where?" Haberdae growled. "What the hell is that?"
"A small piece of plutonium embedded in a putty-like substance, delivered via slingshot by a blackcollar sharpshooter," Galway told him. "That was the fifteenth he's landed on the post since dawn. The fifteenth we've noticed, anyway—he might have sent in more of them before we caught on. You can see how well the putty matches the color of the post."
"And this is in aid of what?" Haberdae asked. "I trust you're not going to suggest there's enough radiation in there to decrystalize the metal of the post and bring it down."
"No, of course, not," Galway said. "But if you place the pellets over critical sensor or sonic net electronics—and all fifteen of them are over such places—there's more than enough radiation to begin slowly degrading them. Fairly unnoticeable, too, since the diagnostic sensors are being scrambled at the same time."
Haberdae looked sharply at Galway, then back at the display, then a little less truculently at Galway.
"How slow are we talking about?"
"I don't know yet," Galway said. "Hours, or a low number of days. The techs are researching that now.
The point is that they've actively started their plan."
"I guess so," Haberdae said, scratching his chin. "So where is he?"
"We're not sure about that, either." Galway gestured to the tech, who tapped his control board. With dizzying speed, the view on the display pulled back from the fence post and settled down into an overall view of the southwest quadrant of the Khorstron area. "Here's the affected post," he said, touching a spot on the southwest part of the fence. "We're guessing he's in a camouflage setup in or near one of the trees over here to the south of the base." He ran a hand over a thirty-degree arc through the forested area outside the fence. "There's also this abandoned shack over here, along with this shed, either of which he could also be using."
"He'd have to shoot a hundred meters from either of those buildings," Haberdae objected. "And through that whole patch of forest on top of it."
"As I said, he's a sharpshooter," Galway reminded him. "Which is why he's here instead of one of the others. Neither Lathe nor Mordecai has anywhere near the necessary skill with a slingshot."
"But a hundred meters?"
"Actually, I don't think he's that far away," Galway said. "I'm guessing he's somewhere in the woods.
Unfortunately, no one saw him get in there and set up shop, and the pellets themselves are too small to get a decent trajectory vector from. And we certainly don't want to send in a team that might spook him."
"No, of course not," Haberdae said darkly. "We want them to feel nice and safe for their little raid."
"Actually, yes, we do."
"That's what I said," Haberdae insisted. "Did you think I was being sarcastic?"
Actually, Galway wasn't sure what kind of tone that had been. But there'd been something there, something nasty lurking beneath the surface. "No, of course not."
"Good." Haberdae nodded toward the display. "Let me know as soon as you have an idea how long it'll take for them to wreck the sensor system. I want to know when they'll be ready to move."
* * *
The public phone Skyler had specified was on a busy corner squarely in the middle of downtown lunchtime traffic. Poirot arrived two minutes early and stood to the side, watching the passing pedestrians and cars and feeling decidedly uncomfortable in his civilian clothing.
The phone rang, and Poirot scooped up the handset. "Yes?"
"You alone?" Skyler's voice came back.
With an effort, Poirot forced himself not to look at the van parked half a block away where Bailey and his tech team were monitoring the call. "I'm on a street corner in Denver," he countered instead. "How alone can I be?"
There was a soft chuckle. "Point taken," Skyler said. "What have you got for me?"
Poirot took a deep breath. This was it. "I'v
e persuaded them to let me move the prisoners tomorrow night," he said. "They'll be—"
"Who's this them you had to persuade?" Skyler interrupted. "I thought you were the head of Security here."
"I am," Poirot said, and it took no acting at all to add a bitter edge to his voice. "The Ryqril are taking a personal interest in this. It seems your missing blackcollar killed one of their sentries last night."
There was a long moment of silence. "Really," Skyler said at last, his voice giving no hint as to what he was thinking.
"Yes, really," Poirot said. "I hope to hell whatever he's doing is worth the trouble he's stirred up."
"I hope so, too," Skyler said evenly. "Tomorrow night, you said?"
"Yes," Poirot confirmed. "They'll be loaded aboard a group of vans which will leave Athena at seven o'clock and head for Colorado Springs."
"That's when city traffic will be at its minimum, I presume?"
"Correct," Poirot said. "It's lightest between six-thirty and seven-thirty. That'll make it easier to spot any tails. They'll also have five or six spotters at high cover, and probably an armed patrol boat or two ready in case they need extra firepower."
"That last part could be unpleasant," Skyler said. "Any chance of getting it cancelled?"
"I doubt it," Poirot said. "It was the Ryqril's idea."
"Well, if we can't ground them, we'll just have to work around them. How many vans will you be using?"
"The current plan is to have six," Poirot said. "One prisoner per van, with a driver and a couple of guards along. Of course, bear in mind that the Ryqril could come in at any time and change any or all of that."
"I understand," Skyler said. "What about Reger's people, the ones you picked up after we crashed your party at his estate?"
"Crashed rather literally," Poirot growled, rubbing the side of his neck in memory. "Don't worry about them. We've established that none of them know anything about Reger's connection with Phoenix, and we've got more urgent things to do right now than bother with minor flight and resisting-arrest violations. They're all being released, probably this afternoon."
"That should make Reger happy," Skyler said. "Then I guess we're set."
"I hope so," Poirot said, and meant it. If this worked, and if they were able to capture even one of the blackcollars, it would go a long way toward convincing Bailey and the Ryqril that he was still loyal.
"Anything else you need?"
"I don't think so," Skyler said. "Oh, wait—there was one other thing. What's the threshold size for Athena's defense lasers?"
Poirot blinked. "The what?"
"The size something has to be to trigger those big Green Mountain autotarget lasers that guard Athena's outer fence," Skyler said. "Is it basketball size, baseball size—what?"
A cold chill ran up Poirot's back. Could Daasaa have been right about Skyler planning to attack Athena?
"I don't have that number off the top of my head," he said through stiff lips. "I'll have to look it up."
"Do that," Skyler said. "Let me know tomorrow when you call to confirm the final details for the transfer."
"Look, I can't keep leaving my post at odd times and coming out here this way," Poirot insisted.
"Someone's bound to get suspicious."
"Since when is lunch an odd time to be coming and going?" Skyler countered.
"Since most government workers eat in Athena, not out in the city," Poirot said with strained patience.
"Okay, fine," Skyler said reasonably. "Give me a time that wouldn't be odd. You must come out to make your rounds or pick up your laundry or something."
Poirot grimaced. He didn't want to come out here again—every contact with Skyler just increased the chances that he'd make some sort of slip. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a plausible reason to decline. "Let's make it midmorning," he said reluctantly. "I can tell them I'm checking with one of my informers. Say, ten-thirty?"
"Ten-thirty it is," Skyler confirmed. "Here's your new rendezvous." He read off a street corner halfway across town. "Talk to you then."
The phone went dead. With a curse, Poirot hung up and headed back to his car. The van would be making its own return to Athena along an entirely different route and timetable, but in an hour or so he and Bailey should be able to sit down and discuss this new twist.
If, that is, Bailey wanted to discuss it with him. If Bailey was interested in helping Poirot clear himself, rather than just trying to keep his own nose clean as far as the Ryqril were concerned.
If Bailey wasn't actually after Poirot's job.
He shook his head in annoyance at the absurdity of that thought. Bailey was ambitious, but not enough to stab his superior in the back. Not even with this damned Whiplash thing giving him the perfect excuse to do so.
At least, he hoped not.
He shook his head tiredly. With loyalty-conditioning, the thought once again flicked through his mind, a man always knew who he could trust.
Without it, how could anyone know anything?
* * *
Skyler hung up the phone and glanced around at the pedestrians and cars moving along the streets and walkways around him, wondering if Security could have traced the call and gotten a team here this quickly. Unlikely, he decided. Taking a quick look at the cloudy sky above him, he headed down the street to where Anne and the car were waiting.
He'd gone five steps when his tingler came on. Tracker confirmed, O'Hara reported. White van with surveillance equipment.
Skyler slid his fingers to his own tingler. Subject aware of tracker?
There was a pause as O'Hara mulled at the question, running his observations through the filter of his blackcollar instincts. Probably.
Skyler grimaced. But it was hardly an unexpected development. If the lower-level government workers Phoenix had freed from their loyalty-conditioning weren't interested in risking their comfortable jobs, there had always been little hope that the head of Security himself would be willing to do so.
But Skyler had a secret streak of optimism, and he'd quietly nurtured that hope. Still, now they knew for sure. Return home, he told O'Hara. Watch your backtrack.
Acknowledged.
So they would have to do this the hard way. Moreover, they would have to do it shorthanded.
He scowled. Blast you anyway, Jensen, he growled silently toward the distant mountain peaks. He'd wondered if the other had had some private agenda when he'd volunteered so quickly to stay with Flynn and his damaged hang glider. Possibly an agenda involving that observer he claimed to have seen when they'd entered Aegis Mountain on their last trip to the area. Skyler hadn't known about that at the time, but Mordecai had clued in him and Lathe afterward.
And now, if Poirot was to be believed, he was out there killing Ryqril.
Lathe had warned him not to bring Jensen along. Skyler, of course, had known better. Now look where it had gotten him.
Above the sound of the traffic came the faint but distinctive whine of a spotter. Instinctively, Skyler lowered his head to make his face harder to see, while simultaneously craning an eye upward toward the incoming vehicle.
It turned out not to be a single spotter but a pair of them, flying low and slow a dozen meters apart with a wide, flat sensor disk strung on cables between them. Not a visual scanner, as Skyler might have expected, but rather the kind of microradar and materials echo-sensors designed to look for particular metals and compounds, plus power sources and other forms of radiation.
The blackcollars' own equipment, of course, didn't have enough metal to lift them out of the background clutter, and aside from tinglers and short-range radios they used no power sources at all. That was the whole reason they'd adopted such low-tech weapons in the first place.
Which meant those spotters weren't hunting for Skyler's team. So what were they hunting?
And then it clicked, and he smiled tightly to himself. Of course: his throwaway comment to Poirot about Phoenix's secret cache of weapons. He'd dropped the line mainly to make
the rebel forces look bigger and more powerful than they really were, trying to make them look more like the probable winning side.
Apparently, the general had taken the line seriously.
Which was fine with Skyler. The more men and vehicles Security wasted on useless searches for huge organizations and nonexistent weapons dumps, the fewer they would have available for actually tracking down the real threat.
He reached the car and got in. "Well?" Anne asked.
"You were right," Skyler admitted. "He's still on their side."
"I told you," Anne said. "So what now?"
"We play them like they're trying to play us," Skyler said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
This tactics stuff really wasn't his strong point.
"Meaning we go ahead with the plan?"
"Unless you want to let them keep your people."
"The people who would be leading their normal lives right now if you hadn't shown up?"
"We'll get them back," Skyler assured her. "Let's head home."
Reaching down, Anne started the car. "I talked to my contact in Boulder this morning while you and O'Hara were reconnoitering the area," she said as she pulled out into the traffic flow. "She isn't happy about it, but she's agreed to get us the rolling scramble-freq radio system Security's spotters use and a couple of the general authorization codes. That's all she'll do, though."
"It'll be enough," Skyler said. "Don't worry—this is going to work."
Anne didn't answer.
* * *
"And you're absolutely sure you weren't followed?" Poirot asked as he and Bailey walked together across the situation room.
"I'm sure," Bailey said, trying hard to hold onto his temper. It had been a highly unproductive and frustrating morning, and having Poirot asking different versions of the same question over and over wasn't helping. "Trust me, General, we do know what we're doing."
Poirot made as if to speak again, seemed to think better of it, and fell silent.
The two Ryqril were waiting for them in the conference room, poring over maps and sifting through pages from a stack of reports. "Sit," Battle Architect Daasaa said without preamble, pointing the two humans to seats across from them. "Khassq Rarrior Halaak and I are not 'leased rith yaer re'ort."
