Blackcollar: The Backlash Mission

by Timothy Zahn

  What could he have meant by that?

  "Oh, hell," Galway muttered as a sudden thought struck him. Crazy—utterly crazy—but it was exactly the sort of thing Lathe would do—

  "Galway!"

  The prefect jerked around, startled, to see Quinn and two other Security men stride into the situation room. "General," he said, stepping toward the other, "there's been a signal to the ship out there—"

  "Galway, pending a full investigation through the Ryqril officials on Plinry, you're confined to quarters," Quinn cut him off. "Your alleged double-agent scheme has been a total fiasco, resulting in loss of life, damage to government property, and the escape of valuable prisoners. Escort him to his quarters, men."

  "What?" Galway stared, unable to believe his ears, as the two Security men stepped to his side.

  "You're not serious. All right, so Lathe and Pittman pulled the sheets over our heads. We haven't lost the whole—"

  "What do you mean, our heads?" Quinn snarled. "You're the one they fooled."

  "Me and the Ryqril on Plinry," Galway shot back. "Let's not forget they were the ones who initiated the whole project."

  "We've got only your word and some possibly forged papers for that," Quinn said icily. "Maybe when we do some inquiries we'll find out you had more to do with it than you claim. Eh?"

  Galway felt his stomach tighten up. This couldn't be happening—it just couldn't. Had Quinn gone totally insane? He looked to the man at the monitor for support, saw only carefully measured blankness in the other's eyes. "General," he said, forcing his voice to remain calm as he turned again to face Quinn. "A signal's been sent to the enemy ship out there, and if I'm right we're on the verge of losing any last bit of leverage we might still have on Pittman—"

  "To hell with Pittman!" Quinn thundered. "He had his chance to cooperate—now he can damn well roast with the rest of them. And when we've dealt with them, it'll be your turn in the pit. Go on, get him out of here."

  Hands curled into impotent fists at his side, Galway let them lead him from the situation room. It'll be all right, he told himself, trying with only limited success to believe it. It'll be all right. He's sending word to Plinry—that's the important thing. Maybe it'll get there in time. Until then—

  Until then he would just have to sit quietly by and hope Quinn came to his senses soon. And hope to hell that Lathe didn't shred the city into ribbons before then. The city, and any chance of survival for Plinry.

  Chapter 30

  The two blackcollars arrived three minutes after Hawking's tingler alerted the group inside—Bernhard was wary and grim as death itself as he slipped through the safe house door, Kanai behind him looking only marginally more comfortable. Standing off to one side beside Anne Silcox, fingers resting casually on the grips of his nunchaku, Caine watched as they stepped to the middle of the room where Lathe waited, and he saw, for the first time, the depth of hostility in Bernhard's eyes as he gazed at Lathe.

  Once, Caine remembered with a trace of bitterness, he'd hoped to find allies among these same Denver blackcollars. Seldom had he ever had a dream shattered quite so thoroughly.

  Bernhard broke the brittle silence first. "I hear through the grapevine that you've been busy tonight," he said, his voice deceptively casual.

  "A bit," Lathe replied, matching his tone. "The grapevine provide any details?"

  "It says your entire team was captured trying to break into Athena." Bernhard's eyes flicked across to Caine, lingered on Silcox before returning to Lathe. "I see the operation didn't take."

  "No, it didn't. Any hints as to how we got out?"

  "Not really, except that you took a lot of guards and part of the perimeter fence with you when you left."

  "There were some explosions elsewhere in Athena that provided a diversion for us," Lathe told him.

  "Nothing but timed limpet mines designed to spread out the opposition... but Quinn doesn't know that. He thinks we had help. Help that was able to sneak into Athena on its own to stir up trouble.

  You want to take a guess as to who the likely suspects will be?"

  Bernhard's expression didn't change, but suddenly the room seemed colder. "Quinn's not that stupid," he said softly. "He'll recognize a cheap frame-up like that for what it is."

  "Maybe." Lathe shrugged. "But to be perfectly blunt, I don't think you can afford to take that chance.

  Not after agreeing to help Quinn capture us."

  Bernhard glanced again at Silcox. "So you know about that. Well, I warned you, Lathe—don't say I didn't. I warned you at least twice to get out of Denver while you could."

  "And I told you we weren't ready to go. But that's old business. More important at the moment is how you're going to convince Quinn that you haven't double-dealt him. And it won't be easy—we've already shown him one alleged traitor that was still on our side."

  "Well, then, I suppose we'll just have to take you out as promised," Bernhard gritted. "That ought to convince him, don't you think?"

  "Very likely," Lathe agreed. "But how are you going to do it? You don't know how to find us, you don't know where or when we're going to strike, you don't even know why we're here. So how are you going to capture us?"

  Bernhard's eyes flicked to Caine and Silcox. "At the moment it's two against one," he said pointedly.

  "Whatever guard shield you've got outside would be too late to help."

  Beside him, Kanai stirred. "I won't fight him, Bernhard," he said softly. "I told you that last night."

  "Offhand, I'd guess a lot of your other blackcollars will feel the same way," Lathe told Bernhard.

  "How many can you rely on, do you suppose? Two? Three?"

  "Enough," the other said shortly. "Blackcollars who take as many stupid chances as you do shouldn't be too hard to take out."

  Lathe shook his head. "You've completely missed the point of what we've been doing. The whole campaign was designed to force Quinn to admit he couldn't keep up with us and to hire or force you to go after us. Now you've got the job, whether you like it or not—and that puts you square in the nutcracker with us. If you don't deliver damn fast, Quinn's bound to come to the conclusion that you've come over to our side... and he knows where to find you."

  "Not if I don't want him to," Bernhard ground out.

  "Only if you're willing to leave Denver entirely." Lathe shook his head. "And I'm guessing you'd just as soon stay in your comfy little sinecure."

  "All the more reason to take you out," Bernhard said, but Caine could see the confidence beginning to fade. "But all right, then; let's hear your solution to the mess."

  For a long moment Lathe gazed at him. "You can do what I asked when we first met. Help us carry out our mission."

  Bernhard snorted. "Oh, that would be a grand idea, wouldn't it? Exactly the thing to get Quinn off our backs."

  "You give us the help we need," Lathe continued, as if the other hadn't spoken, "and we'll provide you with some bodies to show Quinn. Bodies that even the experts won't be able to prove aren't us."

  "What?" Silcox whispered at Caine's side. "He didn't mention any of that part to me."

  He hadn't mentioned it to Caine, either. "Just stay cool," he whispered back. "He knows what he's doing."

  If Bernhard found the suggestion outrageous, it wasn't immediately evident. "That's a damned big risk for us to take," Bernhard said, shaking his head. "Safer to just take you on."

  Lathe shrugged. "That's your choice. But I'll tell you straight out: if you don't help us, you'll soon wish you had. We can take this city apart—you know it and I know it. And every raid we pull will nudge Quinn a step closer to ordering your own destruction."

  "Suppose I offer to help you?" Kanai spoke up suddenly. "There's no need to take all of us down just because Bernhard won't cooperate, is there?"

  Bernhard threw his companion a glance, but even as he started to speak Lathe shook his head.

  "Sorry, Kanai. We may be able to use your help later, but first of all we need something on
ly Bernhard can provide. Well, Bernhard?"

  The other glowered at him. "I don't take well to blackmail, Lathe. Or to threats."

  "I don't like them much myself," Lathe came back. "But our options at this point are limited, and I haven't got time for anything with more finesse."

  "Damn you—"

  "I suggest you think it over—you'll probably have at least a couple of days before Quinn gets impatient and drops the sky on you. Discuss it with your team; certainly with your boss, Sartan. In fact, maybe I ought to talk to him myself."

  Bernhard's eyes narrowed. "Leave Sartan out of this—it's none of his business."

  "Why not? I'd think he'd have a vested interest in protecting his roughneck squad. Well, no matter. If you don't tell him, there are other ways to get a message there."

  "Oh, really?" Bernhard's lip twitched in an almost-smile. "Well, you go right ahead, then, and give him a call."

  Lathe cocked an eyebrow thoughtfully. "You really don't care if I feed him my version of all this, do you? Interesting." He shrugged. "Well, anyway, between Quinn and Sartan I think you'll eventually change your mind about helping us. I'll be in touch for when you do."

  Bernhard pursed his lips. "Lathe—"

  "No, don't try it," the comsquare said. "I have a man through the doorway over there with a sniper's slingshot trained on you, and I don't think you'd like fighting me on your back."

  A disbelieving look flashed across Bernhard's face, followed by a rueful smile. "I begin to see why Quinn is always underestimating you. You're good, Lathe... but in the long run it won't be enough."

  Turning on his heel, he strode out the door. Kanai sent a last, unreadable look at Caine and Silcox, then followed.

  Lathe inhaled audibly, let the breath out in a whoosh as he turned to Caine. "And that is that," he said. "For now, anyway. Well, Anne?"

  She nodded. "He's the one," she said with a sigh. "Strange; they always referred to blackcollars so positively. Maybe he's changed since they vanished."

  " 'The one'?" Caine asked, frowning. "The one what?"

  "The blackcollar she occasionally saw with her Torch friends," Lathe told him. "More to the immediate point, the one who was there the day before they set her up in the Shandygaff and all disappeared."

  Caine focused on Silcox. "Why didn't you say anything about that earlier?"

  "Because it wasn't any of your business," she retorted. "And because if Torch is doing something special, I didn't want a group of self-appointed heroes charging in and shaking up the cart."

  Caine snorted. "Nice of you to come around a little, anyway."

  "I don't have a lot of choice," she shot back, throwing a glare at Lathe. "I don't like the way you're bulling around Denver any more than Bernhard does. The sooner you get out of here, the better it'll be for all of us."

  Caine looked at Lathe. "We just make friends everywhere we go, don't we?"

  The comsquare shrugged. "Get used to it. There aren't a lot of people like Torch around who are willing to risk their comfortable existence for the chance to be free someday."

  Silcox bristled. "If that's a slap at me—"

  She broke off as Skyler slipped in through the door. "Well?" Lathe asked.

  The big blackcollar nodded. "No problems. They're both on track."

  "Who are on what?" Caine frowned, a familiar suspicion tightening his stomach. "Lathe, what're you up to this time?"

  Lathe's lips compressed momentarily. "I promised our... local benefactor that in return for sending a laser message to a scout ship Lepkowski left us we'd find out who the mysterious Sartan is that Bernhard's blackcollars are working so closely with."

  "So you've got two of your men tailing Bernhard?" Silcox asked. "That's crazy—he'll spot them within five minutes."

  "Of course he would," Lathe said. "That's why they're tracking Bernhard from inside his trunk."

  Caine felt his mouth drop open. "You are kidding. Aren't you?"

  "It's the only way, Caine," Skyler said with a shrug. But he, too, looked uncomfortable. "The state Bernhard's in, it'll probably never even occur to him to check a trunk that obviously hasn't been touched."

  "Unless there are alarms or warners on it—"

  "There were. Hawking took care of them."

  "Great," Caine muttered. "Just great. That laser message better have been damn important, Lathe."

  "It was part of my promise to Pittman," the comsquare said quietly. "Come on—we'd better call the guard ring in and get out of here. Anne...?"

  She hesitated, then shrugged. "Sure, why not? I haven't got anywhere else to go... and I guess I'm pretty well committed now, anyway."

  Lathe smiled faintly at her. "Welcome back to the war," he said.

  Chapter 31

  Mordecai hadn't really liked the idea from the start, and his opinion of it had been going steadily downhill ever since then. There were a limited number of ways in which two men in full kit could wedge themselves into a car trunk, none of them comfortable for both straight-line travel and sharp turns. Gritting his teeth, he did the best he could, hoping like hell Bernhard wasn't headed somewhere on the far side of town.

  In that, at least, they were lucky. They'd been riding for no more than Fifteen minutes when the car glided to a halt and both doors opened. Two sets of footsteps, on concrete or something equally hard... a door opening and closing... the whine of a sliding door's motor... and then nothing.

  Mordecai gave the silence three minutes, then carefully popped the trunk.

  They were, as expected, in a garage, though its generous dimensions were something of a surprise. A

  sliding door exited—presumably—to the street; more ordinary doors led out one side and to the rear, probably to an attached building and outside, respectively. There were no windows, and a quick flashlight scan of the walls and ceiling turned up no likely cameras or other monitors.

  "A good low-tech blackcollar hideout," Jensen murmured as they eased out of the trunk and worked the kinks out of their muscles. "Nothing to attract Security's notice."

  Mordecai stepped over to the building door, pulling a sound-catcher from his kit and pressing it against the panel. A low hum was all he could hear. "They've got a bug stomper going in there," he told Jensen, putting the instrument away. "I guess we do this the hard way."

  Jensen nodded and stepped to the other door. He listened for a moment, then cracked it open carefully. Some light, not much, filtered in, and as the blackcollar opened it enough to slip out Mordecai saw that it indeed led outside. He gave Jensen a five-second lead, then followed.

  They were at the back of what appeared to be a fairly large middle-class house. Several lights were showing in various windows; Jensen was already moving cautiously toward the largest of them, a ground-floor solarium set in the center of the wall. Mordecai took the other direction, circling the garage to try to find out just where they were.

  The street out front matched the house: well lit, smoothly paved, with even some trees and other attempted landscaping in the narrow median strip. The surrounding houses, too, had the same reasonably well-off look as the one he was standing beside. He gave them a cursory scan, then peered down the street, looking for a street sign. He'd located one, and had just stepped away from the garage toward it, when a pair of cars glided down the street and came to a halt two houses down.

  Mordecai dropped into a crouch and froze, trying to squeeze into what little shadow was available.

  Security, was his first thought; but as a single figure emerged from each of the vehicles he began to breathe easier. A Security car would have been packed to the gills with armed men.

  Abruptly, his lip twitched. The way the men walked—their feline grace, the sense of invisible awareness about them...

  They were two of Bernhard's blackcollars.

  Mordecai grimaced, aware that he was completely exposed to anyone coming up the walk, but to his surprise and relief, the newcomers didn't come any closer to Bernhard's house. Instead, they walk
ed up to the house they'd parked in front of, two down from where Mordecai was standing. At the door they paused briefly, as if working a key, then disappeared inside.

  Mordecai took a careful breath and permitted himself a smile. So Sartan at least was smart enough to play it cool: two houses, with a tunnel between them, to avoid having large crowds show up at his doorstep for everyone to see. It wasn't an especially clever trick, but it usually worked well enough.

  Rising out of his crouch, he headed back to Jensen.

  The other was lying propped up on his elbows outside the solarium, peering inside through the bottom pane of glass. "Company's starting to arrive," Mordecai whispered. "Two blackcollars, using the old shell-game approach."

  Jensen grunted. "Wondered where they came from. Can't see much, but I heard two new voices join the party."

  "How many in there so far?"

  "Sounds like just your two plus Bernhard and Kanai. If Sartan's with them, he's being mighty quiet."

  Mordecai chewed his lip. "Maybe this isn't his house after all. Well, we're here; might as well get something out of it. You stay put and keep counting; I'll go back and watch for visitors and bandits."

  "Sounds good."

  They stayed at their posts for nearly half an hour more. In that time a grand total of three more blackcollars arrived.

  "That can't be all the troops Bernhard's got." Jensen shook his head when they met again and compared notes. "I got the impression he had at least a squad, more likely two or three of them.

  We're talking, what, seven men total here?"

  "Maybe he's just called in his top circle," Mordecai suggested. But something about that felt wrong.

  "Or just the ones he thinks will cooperate in taking us out."

  "No." Jensen was positive. "I can't hear any words out here, but the tones are clear enough—and that's not a nice simple war council. They're having a good healthy argument in there. Besides, if these are the troops he's going to hit us with, why is Kanai with them?"