He was out the door almost before the others could stand up. With a reassuring smile, Eakins followed his boss out, leaving Galway alone with the pile of reports.
Frowning, Galway looked at the stack. It seemed so reasonable... and yet, there was something about it he didn't like at all. The prison raid, perhaps. It seemed obvious that Lathe had badly underestimated Henslowe's strength; but somehow Galway couldn't see the blackcollar making mistakes like that. But if the raid hadn't been for information, then what had it been for? He had no answer for that. Yet.
Sliding the first tape into the reader, he hunched over and got to work.
For nine of Argent's ten months the riverside community of Split was just one of dozens of small towns dotting the eastern regions of the Rumelian Mountains, its residents maintaining a quiet existence unnoticed by anyone except the loggers working upriver. The tenth month was just the opposite, as for five weeks daredevils from as far away as Calarand descended on the region to ride the spring-swollen Hemoth River. The income that brought in was usually enough to finance the town for the rest of the year. It was an arrangement everyone seemed happy with, and it hadn't changed in years. Until now.
Now, suddenly, the mountains had become a beehive. Patrol boats dotted the skies off to the north, and military-style vehicles were driving through town at least once a day. No one was talking much, but rumor had it someone had broken jail and Security wanted him back.
The latest convoy—two vehicles with maybe four men in each—roared past San's Supplies, headed south. Sandor Gree looked up briefly, then returned to his inventory list and order forms. Business had undergone a boomlet recently, and there were several items he would have to reorder. The trick was in not ordering too much, of course. Swearing genially at the mixed blessings that had fallen upon him, he made a mark on one of the forms.
The front door opened with a squeak and Gree looked up again as a man in Security gray-green walked in. "Afternoon," he nodded. "What can I do for you?"
"I need some low-bulk foods that my team can carry into the mountains," the Security man said.
"Sure thing." Gree came from behind the counter and led the way to one of the shelves. "Thought you folks had your own stuff," he commented, hoping the other would speak again.
"We ran out and are having trouble getting resupplied."
"Ah." He'd been right; the Security man had a slight accent. One he couldn't place. "Well, here's what we've got. They're all pretty much the same, far as nutrition goes. Just a matter of taste."
The other picked up one of the packages and studied the nutrition listings, and as he did so Gree gave him a surreptitious once-over. The young side of middle age, perhaps, but in excellent physical condition. His uniform was reasonably clean but curiously rumpled, and he noticed a slight odor. The uniform, it appeared, was cleaner than the man wearing it.
"I'll take these," the other said, jostling Gree's train of thought. He held a stack of ten packages.
"Yes, sir." Gree took them and returned to the counter. "Cash or on the plate?"
"Cash."
Gree had expected that. "All right. Ten at two marks each is twenty; plus tax—" Impulsively, almost of its own accord, Gree's finger pushed a button on his register. "Plus tax, twenty-two," he announced through suddenly dry lips.
The Security man had several crumpled bills out already. Extracting two tens and two ones, he handed them over and in the same smooth motion picked up the packages. "Thank you," he said.
"Do you want a sack?" Gree asked as he turned toward the door.
"No, thank you," the other threw back over his shoulder. "I'm being picked up."
And then he was gone. "Sure you are," Gree muttered, his knees beginning to tremble with reaction. A big risk, but it had paid off. A real Security man would have gone through the roof if he'd been charged luxury-item tax on food. The penalty for fraud—but never mind that. He'd been right; that had been the elusive blackcollar Jensen. In full Security uniform, yet, and with the gall to just stroll into town for supplies. No wonder they hadn't caught him yet.
Reaching under the counter, Gree found his phone and began punching numbers. The connection was made, and he let it ring twice before hanging up. Thirty seconds later he repeated the procedure, checking his watch carefully as he disconnected. Exactly two minutes and forty seconds and he would call one final time, and the phone would be answered on the eleventh ring. Presumably.
Involuntarily, he glanced at his front door. He'd had a grace Gree had never before seen, a sort of submerged feline power that almost made the grapevine reports about the man believable. And if his rads were anything like him, maybe the vague rumors coming out of Calarand this morning weren't as exaggerated as he'd thought, either.
Almost time. Gree punched in all but the last number, watching his old Army chrono and waiting for the exact second to complete the connection. As he did so, the half-completed order forms on the counter caught his eye, and he smiled.
He'd best not swell his inventory too much more. He had an idea that the activity around Split would be breaking off very soon.
CHAPTER 19
The tension in the conference room was thick enough to slice up and make into sandwiches. Gazing around the table, Caine saw nothing but hostility; from Bakshi's icy expression to his blackcollars' more open contempt to Jeremiah Dan's steepled fingers with their white nails. Salli Quinlan and Miles Cameron had the look of lions awaiting their turn in the arena, and even Faye Picciano was unnaturally silent as she worked on Lathe's burns. And Ral Tremayne, standing behind his chair, was as mad as Caine had ever seen a man get.
"Soft probe. A look at the prison. Really cute." Tremayne's eyes bored into Lathe like twin antiarmor lasers. "What the hell did you expect to accomplish by that half-assed play?"
"I got in and back out alive," Lathe answered, wincing as Faye spread salve on his shoulder.
"Hold still," she chided. "This stuffs expensive—we can't afford to waste it on healthy skin."
"Or on stupid grandstanders. Put it away, Faye," Tremayne ordered. "Save it for Radix people injured in the line of duty. You haven't answered my question, Lathe."
"What are you griping about, Tremayne?" the comsquare said as Faye capped her tube of burn salve and began to bandage the skin already treated. "I don't need your permission to take action as long as it doesn't involve your people or equipment."
"What about the van you lost?" Cameron growled. "That was our equipment." He glanced over irritably as Novak passed by along the nearby wall. "Will you two sit down, damn it?"
Neither Mordecai nor Novak paid any attention, but continued their quiet wanderings. "They aren't hurting anything," Lathe told the intelligence chief. "And as for the van—"
"I'd rather they sat.
"All right, enough," Tremayne snapped. "Forget the van. The issue—"
"No, let's not forget the van," Lathe interrupted. His tone was suddenly hard. "We lost it because we were ambushed. And that means we were betrayed—by one of you."
"I've heard Commando Fuess's report," Tremayne said. "There's no conclusive evidence of that."
Lathe glanced at Fuess, and Caine thought he saw the Argentian squirm a bit. "Did Commando Fuess mention they were on to us ten blocks from the Strip? And that they had their roadblocks all set up—complete with heavy mag-lock shackles, which I'm told are not standard patrol car equipment? How much evidence do you want?"