Caine stared at him, unable to believe his ears. "Lathe, we're not talking about blackcollars here, or even soldiers who went into action knowing the risks. These are civilians—people who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. We can't just abandon them."
"We have no choice," Lathe said flatly.
For a long moment the two men locked eyes. Then, blinking sudden moisture from his eyes, Caine turned away. He couldn't, in all honesty, argue with the logic, but that didn't make the decision easier to bear.
The blackcollar forces are the elite warriors of this upcoming conflict.... The ancient words echoed in his mind, sounding more than ever like a hollow mockery.
It was Silcox who eventually broke the silence. "Well?"
"I suppose you've made your point," Lathe said dryly. The annoyance of civilians caught in the grinder was obviously already forgotten. "All right. Temporarily, anyway, you're hired. You can still use this house as HQ; we'll drop by periodically to get whatever information you've picked up."
Her eyes were steady on him. "You won't just walk off and forget me, will you?"
Lathe shook his head. "We'll be in touch. In the meantime..." He shifted his eyes to Kanai. "The night's still young, and we haven't had our talk with Bernhard. Shall we go?"
Chapter 21
The sounds of the riot south of the Hub had faded out of Haven's hearing nearly an hour previously, and he finally felt safe in taking a cautious look outside his rooftop hideaway. There was, unfortunately, no direct way to know whether or not Kelly O'Hara had made it inside the Hub safely—using even tinglers this close to the Ryqril Enclave would likely be a quick form of suicide.
But there might be a more indirect method available....
There were no aircraft flitting around the night sky as he took a careful look outside the elevator shed. Stepping out onto the roof, he moved to the corner of the structure and raised his light-amp binoculars for a leisurely sweep of the surrounding rooftops. Nothing moved anywhere.
Still, that wasn't unexpected. O'Hara might have arrived ahead of their loose schedule and have already battened down for the night, or he might still be on his way. Easing his face around the corner, Haven focused on the Chimney, concentrating on the area by the nearest laser as he jumped the binoculars to full power.
Five of the distorted pellets were visible there, clustered tightly together beneath the laser mount: four of his own and one more courtesy of Tardy Spadafora a couple of buildings down. Over at the Chimney's next corner, he knew, Spadafora would have put three more pellets on top of the laser's electronics, too. O'Hara would also be concentrating on that weapon when and if he made it through.
Haven's stomach growled, reminding him that he'd been on short rations for nearly a week now and hadn't eaten even that much yet today. For a moment he debated whether or not to go ahead and shoot tonight's pellet over at the Chimney, as long as he was out here anyway, or whether he should go back inside and eat first. Hunger, and common sense, won out; the kind of hairbreadth marksmanship this type of shooting required could be seriously affected by rumbles from the gut.
Easing back around the edge of the shed, he went back inside and behind his false wall.
Chapter 22
The night breezes whispered through the pines crowding together on the slopes, sending a faintly tangy aroma wafting through the air. Shifting his grip on his snub-nosed laser rifle, Miro Marcovich sniffed at the odors as he pushed up his infrared goggles and sent a lingering look at the stars blazing down between the shadowy trees. The night sky was never visible like this from Athena or Denver, with all that background light washing it out, and more than once tonight he'd found himself wishing he could just settle back against a tree trunk and enjoy the view. But he was on duty, and neither his loyalty-conditioning nor his pride as a Security officer would let him shirk that responsibility.
Sliding the goggles back into place, he continued scanning the dimly lit forest for intruders.
Intruders that almost certainly weren't there. Prefect Galway's theory had been thoroughly hashed around by the guards hustled onto duty out here, and the general consensus was that no one in his right mind would travel eight parsecs just to assassinate an old, retired Security prefect.
Though Marcovich had to admit that if anyone was going to do something that crazy, Trendor was certainly the target to go for. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about the stories of Trendor's activities in Denver at the end of the war. Most of the tales he discounted, knowing full well the characteristic growth/mutation curve for rumors. But some of those stories were tied to his own family history, and those he knew to be true to the last detail. His own presence in the Security force, in fact, was due entirely to Trendor's warped sense of values—not satisfied with merely interrogating and executing those rebels he managed to take alive, the prefect had also insisted on loyaltyconditioning all of their children. Taking from the rebels, in effect, the last thing they could call their own.
Marcovich could still remember his father's face the morning after his own conditioning had been completed—the look of horror that had grown there as Trendor explained with macabre satisfaction what had been done to his five-year-old boy. It was the last time Marcovich had seen his father before the execution, and in the years since then he'd often lain awake at night trying in vain to find a better memory of him to cling to. For a long time he'd tried to hate Trendor, even after he'd learned just how futile such a mental exercise was. On an intellectual level, he could easily list reasons for such hatred, but the emotions that could turn that logic into concrete action were simply not there.
And were impossible to invoke.
And it had taken him years longer to come to grips with the fact that that impossibility—as well as the accompanying inability to hate himself for such apparent weakness—wasn't anything he should blame himself for.
Off to the side something moved among the dead leaves.
Someone trying to sneak in past him? Marcovich took a careful breath, pretending he hadn't heard the sound. All he had to do was continue on, and the invader would go safely by, and within minutes Trendor would be dead.
He spun abruptly, swinging his laser up into position as the slaved infrared floodlight fastened to a branch a dozen meters away turned with him. The squeeze of a switch on his rifle and the landscape beyond his goggles lit up like day.
In the center of the view, a squirrel poked around for nuts, oblivious of both the invisible light and the lethal weapon aimed at him.
Marcovich snorted with both released tension and amusement and shut off the flood. Almost immediately the calls began coming in on his earphone from the other perimeter guards, all of whom would have seen the sudden light. Marcovich calmed them down, and within a few minutes the watchful silence had again descended on the area. For men who don't believe anyone's coming, he thought wryly, they're sure jumpy enough.
But then, staying a bit jumpy was how one remained alive in this business.
And so Marcovich would stay jumpy, too. Drawbacks and all, life was still reasonably worth living...
and besides, it would be a damned shame to get himself killed on such a glorious night.
Throwing one last look at the stars, he continued on his rounds.
—
"I trust," Lathe commented dryly, glancing around the comfortable living room, "that this place is more secure than the last one we tried talking in."
Bernhard didn't bother to smile. "It's safe enough," he said, eyes flicking briefly to Caine. "More of your team?"
"Allen Caine," Lathe introduced him. "In charge of a separate commando team, temporarily under my command." This was no time to split hairs, especially when Bernhard didn't need the details in the first place. "You have a list for me?"