"And then have brought him to Denver," Bailey murmured, thinking hard. If their rogue blackcollar had gone straight into Aegis, the Ryqril were out of luck. But if he'd decided to come to town first to get the rest of the gang, there was still a chance. "Any chance of intercepting them along the way?"
Ramirez shook his head. "We've had spotters run the whole length of the road, and there's nothing's moving on it. If they started at first light, they'd be here already. Of course, we do have a description of the car."
"Which they probably buried the minute they hit town," Bailey said. "But there's only one road that'll take them back home?"
"Uh ..." Ramirez sorted through his papers. "There are actually two possible routes, one somewhat longer than the other," he said. "But that seems to be it."
"Have both of them watched," Bailey ordered. "Spotters are to tag anything headed toward that area. High-flight only—we don't want to spook them."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said uncertainly. "We'll have to clear it through Battle Architect Daasaa first, of course."
"I'll deal with that," Bailey promised. No matter how paranoid the Ryqril might be about attacks on Athena, they would spring for as many men and spotters as he needed once he laid all this in front of them. "You just get the spotter teams organized. I'll get you the authorization."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said again. "Is there some reason you think he'll be going back there?"
"I guarantee he will, Lieutenant," Bailey, favoring the other with a slightly malicious smile. "If the blackcollar came to Denver, he will be going back. The question is how best to turn it to our advantage."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, his voice gone neutral. "With your permission, I'll go organize the spotter teams."
"You do that, Lieutenant," Bailey said, getting to his feet and gathering up the papers. "You do that."
* * *
"I've got the data you asked for," Poirot's voice came over the phone. "I'm afraid it's not good news."
"Let's hear it," Skyler said, his eyes sweeping the busy Denver street scene flowing around him. Security's two options were to trace the call and try to nab him, or else let Poirot continue to lead him on in hopes of setting up a trap somewhere farther down the line. So far, he couldn't tell which way they were planning to jump.
"It looks like Athena's lasers will activate if anything larger than fifteen centimeters shows a projected path over the outer fence. That's way too small for anything useful."
"Oh, I don't know," Skyler said. "You could make a serious bomb smaller than that."
"A bomb would involve explosives and probably a fair amount of metal," Poirot pointed out. "There are other sensors along the top of the fence that would tag anything like that long before the proximity and size sensors kicked in."
"I suppose," Skyler said. "I imagine small quantities of explosives might still be able to slip through the screen, though."
"Maybe, but it couldn't be very much bigger than primer cap size," Poirot warned. "Unless you know some special trick."
Skyler smiled. Poirot was so obvious when he was trolling for information. "I know a few," he said. "What about the laser emplacements themselves?"
"What about them?" Poirot asked, his voice gone suddenly cautious as the change in topic seemed to catch him by surprise.
"Are they guarded by the same sort of sensor screen?" Skyler asked.
"They're run by the Ryqril," Poirot growled. "How do you think they're guarded?"
Skyler chuckled. "Extremely well, I'd assume," he conceded. "Relax—it was just a thought."
"I suggest you leave it that way," Poirot growled. "You've got enough trouble with the Ryqril at the moment. You take on one of their military emplacements and you'll really stir them up. Trust me, you do not want that."
"Agreed," Skyler said. "That just leaves the prisoner transfer, then. Any changes in the schedule?"
"Not so far," Poirot said, sounding relieved to be back on ground he'd presumably already cleared with his Ryqril masters. "We're still planning a seven p.m. departure for Colorado Springs: six vans, one prisoner per."
"Anything tricky about the vans themselves?"
"They've got upgraded engines and some extra armor in strategic places," Poirot said. "They've also got extra-wide sunroofs where someone can pop up, slap a maglock rapid-fire gun onto the roof, and spray the area with paral-darts, flechettes, or laser fire."
"And I presume you'll be planting trackers on each of the prisoners?"
"Actually, we may not bother," Poirot said. "You'll certainly have bug stompers along to block any transmissions anyway, won't you?"
"Definitely," Skyler said. "I guess that's it, then. Let's plan a call for two days from now, same time and place as our contact yesterday."
"You don't want to talk tomorrow?"
"I was thinking your office might be a little busy tomorrow," Skyler said dryly.
There was a short silence, and Skyler could practically hear the other's thoughts. If the blackcollars managed to pull this off, Athena's Security contingent would indeed be busy tomorrow. A number of them, in fact, might be facing summary execution. "Fine," Poirot said grimly. "Two days."
"Talk to you then," Skyler said, and hung up the phone.
He kept alert for trouble as he walked back to the car where Anne was waiting. But it was mostly habit. Clearly, the Ryqril had decided to feed the blackcollars rope in the hope that they would ensnare themselves with it.
Which meant that the prisoner transfer tonight would certainly be a trap. But then, Skyler had never expected it to be otherwise.
He reached the car and got in. "Well?" Anne asked.
"Athena's lasers will fire if a football goes over," he told her. "They'll also allegedly fire if any size explosive tries to do the same."
"So that's that?"
"Not necessarily," Skyler said. "We might still be able to do something clever."
Anne shook her head. "One of these days you're going to run out of cleverness," she warned. "I just hope you've got something else in reserve when you do."
"So do I," Skyler said with a grimace. "Let's get back and see if we can postpone that day a little."
Anne had just started the car when Skyler's tingler unexpectedly came to life. "Hold it," he said, pressing the device harder against his wrist and trying to read the dots and dashes.
"What is it?" Anne asked.
"I'm not sure," Skyler said, frowning. The message was strangely garbled, as if coming from somewhere right at the edge of the transmitter's range and critical bits were getting dropped.
Or as if the transmitting blackcollar was unable to control his fingers properly, like he'd been hit with a low-level dose of paral-dart drug. O'Hara? he signaled urgently.
Here, the other's signal came back. Trouble?
You getting any other signals?
Negative.
So it was apparently a distance thing. O'Hara was obviously in clear range, and at the moment Hawking and Kanai shouldn't be in range at all.
Which left Jensen and Flynn. "Get going," he ordered Anne.
"Security?" she asked, glancing back and pulling out into the traffic flow.
"No, I think it may actually be good news for a change," Skyler said, tapping his tingler again. Jensen?
No answer. Apparently, he'd dipped out of range again.
And if O'Hara, running backup further west, wasn't getting anything at all ... "Head east," he told Anne, repeating his tingler message.
"What is it?" Anne persisted. "Come on, Skyler, this is no time to go all secretive on me."
"No secrecy involved," Skyler assured her, smiling tightly. "We're off to find a couple of lost sheep."
* * *
"Aegis Nountain," Daasaa repeated, his dark eyes glittering. "Yae are certain o' this?"
"I'm certain that's what the prisoner said," Bailey told him. "It is, of course, possible that he was lied to. But I don't think so."
Beside Daasaa, Halaak rumbled somethin
g. Daasaa replied, and for a minute the battle architect and khassq warrior conferred. Bailey waited, mentally checking over the details of the plan he had prepared. "Re nust ca'ture the 'lackcollars ali'e," Daasaa said firmly, turning back to Bailey. "Yae rill nake sure o' that."
"I intend to," Bailey said firmly. "To that end, I have an idea I'd like permission to present to you."
Daasaa inclined his head slightly. "Re rill listen."
Bailey braced himself. "We start by accepting General Poirot's plan for sending the prisoners out of Athena by convoy. Somewhere along the way, of course, I expect the blackcollars to attack it."
"And re rill ca'ture they?"
"We'll certainly try," Bailey said. "But it's always harder to capture someone alive than it is to kill him, and it may be that we'll be forced to let the rescue succeed."
"The 'risoners rill not esca'," Halaak snarled. "Re ha' not yet disco'ered all that they know."
"But it's the blackcollars who know what we need most, Your Eminence," Bailey reminded him.
"Yae rill not—"
"Yae ha' nore tae say?" Daasaa cut him off.
Halaak hissed something, his hand dropping to the hilt of his short sword. Clearly, khassq warriors were not used to being interrupted. But Daasaa didn't even bother to look at him, much less apologize. "Yae ha' nore tae say?" he repeated to Bailey.
"Yes, Your Eminences," Bailey said carefully, trying to make it clear he was including Halaak in the conversation. Even a khassq might not be authorized to take out his frustrations on a battle architect, but there was nothing to stop him from doing so on a mere human. "My suggestion is that we add a wild card to the mix, something that Poirot knows nothing about. Namely, we keep one of the prisoners here and replace him with a loyalty-conditioned substitute from Athena."
"Rill the Kheonix leaders not recognize the 'alse run?" Halaak demanded scornfully.
"Certainly, once they get a close look at him in good light," Bailey agreed. "But I'm expecting the blackcollars, not Phoenix, to be the main rescue force. Even if there are other Phoenix leaders there, they won't have time to do a close examination, particularly if we're careful in our choice of a substitute. By the time they get him to someone who realizes he's a fake, they should have arrived at either their hideout or at least a temporary rendezvous spot, places where they may not have escape plans already set up. At that point our man will ignite a cryrex flare for the spotters to lock onto, and we'll move in and grab as many of them as we can. Between the blackcollars and the Phoenix leaders, we should end up with someone who knows the way into Aegis."
"There rill 'e 'asswords," Halaak warned.
"We already have them, Your Eminence," Bailey said. "Our interrogators are very good at their jobs."
"It is a good 'lan," Daasaa said decisively. "Yae rill 'roceed rith it."
"Thank you, Your Eminence," Bailey said, bowing his head.
"Yae rill not 'ail," the battle architect added, an edge of warning to his voice. "Ha' yae 'ound sonerun tae act as su'stitute?"
"I have, Your Eminence," Bailey said, a brief shiver running up his back. "He's a financial analyst in the hospital administration, an extremely close match to one of the young men we have in custody upstairs. A new haircut and a couple of small moles added to his cheeks and he'll be nearly perfect."
"Yae rill sho' us," Daasaa ordered, standing up.
"As you command, Your Eminence," Bailey said, getting to his feet. "I've taken the liberty of bringing him here for your examination. If you'll follow me ...?"
He led the way out of the conference room, ignoring the surreptitious stares of the techs at the monitor stations, a warm glow of satisfaction flowing through him. General Poirot they couldn't trust, and Ramirez was still a question mark.
But Bailey's own loyalty was crystal clear ... and when this scheme succeeded, he would have proved it to the Ryqril. Proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt.
* * *
Flynn finished his report, and for a long minute the room was silent. "I'm sorry," Flynn said, the words sounding wholly inadequate. "I should have tried harder to stop him."
Standing beside the door, O'Hara stirred. "You'd have gotten your face broken," he said. "Don't blame yourself, Flynn. There's nothing you could have done."
"Not with Jensen," Skyler agreed heavily. "Not once he's made up his mind."
"The question is, should we try to stop him?" the other blackcollar, Kanai, asked. "You said his ribs were only cracked?"
"That's what the doctor said," Flynn confirmed, eyeing him curiously. He'd heard about Kanai from Skyler on the flight from Plinry, but the man wasn't at all what he'd expected. Too quiet, maybe, as if he were still carrying some baggage from the war. Or maybe, given Skyler's story, the baggage was from the aftermath of the war. "And he did get some Calcron to help with the healing process."
"In that case, he'll probably make it all the way in," Skyler concluded. "Damn."
"It seems to me you're overreacting a little," an older man who'd been introduced to Flynn as Manx Reger commented from a corner armchair. "You make it sound like denying the Ryqril access means putting the whole mountain into orbit."
"You may not be far off," Kanai warned. "We know that at least the command level and entrance tunnel are heavily doomsdayed. Some of the other areas may be rigged as well."
"The previous owners were very determined to keep the base out of Ryqril hands," Hawking added.
"Sounds like Jensen is following right along that same line of reasoning," Reger said coolly.
"Yes," Flynn said with a grimace. "He also asked that we make as much noise and fury here in Denver as we can. I think he's hoping to make it look like a full-fledged military uprising."
"Lovely idea," Skyler growled. "Problem is, we're going to be pretty well tapped out in the noise and fury department after tonight. I doubt we'll have enough left to mount even a decent Chinese New Year."
"So what do we do?" Hawking asked.
"We seem to have two options," Kanai said. "We can either stay with the plan to free Anne's people, or we can go to Aegis and try to talk Jensen out of this lunatic plan."
"Actually, I'm not so sure it's so lunatic," Flynn said reluctantly. "That base they've got at the entrance is a lot bigger now than the one Caine described. They're putting forth some serious effort to get into the mountain."
"If all that's left in there are booby traps, why not let them?" Reger asked.
"Because we don't know that's all that's left," Skyler told him. "Regardless, it's not a decision Jensen should be making on his own."
"And he definitely shouldn't be going in there and pulling the plug personally," O'Hara added. "If we decide to wreck the base, there have to be ways of doing it by remote control."
"Perhaps that's what he intends," Kanai suggested.
"I don't think so," Skyler said with a sigh. "He's been ... well, never mind."
"He's gotten it into his head that he owes the universe a huge debt," Hawking said. "He's spent the last two years looking for a way to pay it off."
Across the room, Anne Silcox stirred. "Then you'd better go and try to stop him, hadn't you?" she said quietly.
"What about your people?" Skyler asked.
"What about them?" she retorted, an edge of bitterness in her voice. "You said yourself the whole convoy will be one gigantic trap."
"True, but even the best traps don't always work," O'Hara pointed out. "And frankly, with the Ryqril taking a personal hand, I'm not expecting this to be one of the best."
"Besides, Jensen's not planning his move until tomorrow night," Hawking said. "We can head up there tomorrow."
"That's cutting things a little close," Flynn warned.
"No way around it," Skyler said firmly, his tone making it clear that he'd made his decision. "As Hawking said, we've got till tomorrow to get to Jensen. Anne's people are being moved tonight. Ergo, we continue the operation as planned."
"If for no other reason than to keep them thin
king we still trust Poirot?" Reger asked.
"That's another reason, yes," Skyler agreed. "What's happening with the small explosives you said you could get?"
"Draper has them ready," Reger said. "He's got the tankers you wanted, too."
"Excellent," Skyler said. "Anne, you'll rendezvous with Draper and move the explosives to Site Three. The wind's still predicted to be coming from the north this evening?"
"That's what they say," O'Hara confirmed.