"We'll manage. Jer?" Tremayne located Jeremiah Dan and gestured toward Nmura. "Jer, see the commander about billeting for his men. Lathe, we'll need to talk about the next step."
The meeting was clearly over, and as pockets of conversation began to form around the room, Caine felt Kwon touch his arm. "Let's head back upstairs," the massive blackcollar said. "Lathe can handle things here."
Caine nodded absently, his thoughts elsewhere. From the hostility of a day or two ago Tremayne had become a model of cooperation with surprising speed. Suspicious speed, perhaps. At best it was politics, an effort to appear united in front of the vets. At worst... Lathe's earlier prediction about the government's reaction lurked at the base of his mind. It was an unfair thought, he knew—Tremayne had probably done his about-face simply because he now understood the mission's importance.
But if Lathe was right, someone else in Radix also understood things now... and if the government chose to go for a draw instead of a win, Mordecai and Kwon were going to start earning their keep the hard way. Shivering slightly, he increased his pace.
CHAPTER 26
"Incredible," Colonel Eakins murmured, staring into his mug and shaking his head slowly. "Sitting out there right under our noses. Do you suppose they're still operational?"
"Probably." Galway felt cold inside; his own mug sat ignored on the desk in front of him. You'll find out some day, Lathe had said to him at the Plinry 'port, and from that he'd assumed the blackcollars were on the trail of something big. But not something like this. "With all their systems off or on low/standby, all that could go wrong would be fuel or air leakage or slow interior corrosion—and that last will be negligible if they were left unpressurized."
"You seem to know a lot about the subject," Apostoleris commented as he hung up the phone he'd been talking on.
"My father was in the Star Force," Galway explained briefly. "Jensen still holding out?"
Apostoleris nodded. "We'll break him, though."
"Why bother? Your spies have already given you everything he's likely to know. Why not just kill him and get it over with?"
"Dead bait doesn't attract any fish," the other countered. "Or are you forgetting Skyler and Novak?"
"They wouldn't know he was dead until it was too late."
Eakins looked up from his mug. "You keep implying they might actually get that far," he said, sounding a little annoyed. "This is not like Cerbe, Galway—we're on top of them this time."
Tired, Galway rubbed his forehead. "I know. I just don't want to underestimate them again."
"We won't." Apostoleris was grimly confident. "You're right about Jensen—I don't think he knows anything useful. But Skyler and Novak have been with Lathe this whole time; they're bound to know more about his plans."
"Your spies in Radix have a better chance of getting that information," Galway insisted.
Apostoleris snorted and shook his head in disgust. "You just don't have the stomach for this, do you?" he said bluntly. "Maybe that's why they got away with all their crap on Plinry. Hey?"
Galway didn't answer. Belatedly, he realized that Apostoleris was taking the blackcollars' operation on an intensely personal level, almost as if he were engaged in a private duel with Lathe. It was a dangerous trap to fall into—the Security prefect could easily lose sight of the war even as he concentrated on winning minor skirmishes. In many ways Apostoleris was behaving like an amateur chess player, equating board strength with number of pieces taken.
Sighing, Galway looked down at his watch. Forty minutes to sunset, the earliest Skyler was likely to move. The blackcollars had their explosives and false IDs, and latest reports indicated Apostoleris's three-level trap was ready. It would work... and would surely cost a great deal of human life. Perhaps Apostoleris was right, he thought; perhaps he didn't have the stomach for unnecessary death. But then, life on Plinry forced a somewhat more frugal view of one's resources.
Shifting in his chair, Galway picked up his mug and sipped at the cooling drink. Thirty-eight minutes to sunset.
CHAPTER 27
"Ten minutes to sundown," Valentine reported from the front seat of their parked car.
Skyler nodded, willing to take his word for it. The thick overcast was still in place above Millaire, the sun completely invisible behind it. Already the city's streetlights had come on, and Skyler judged it was almost dark enough to move.
"When do we leave?" Novak asked, craning his neck to look back at Skyler.
"Half an hour, I think. We'll take another hour to set the explosives, and by then it'll be dark enough to start." As he spoke, he glanced around, taking a quick survey of the area. No one was visible; he'd picked a commercial-type street in the midst of rush hour to park on an hour ago, and now the block was essentially deserted. Pursing his lips over clenched jaws, he slid his nunchaku silently out of its sheath. Taking a deep breath, he swung the sticks in a hard, short arc, striking Valentine at the base of the skull.
Even as the Argentian slumped forward, Novak was twisting around in his seat, his own nunchaku coming reflexively to hand. "What—"
Skyler cut him off with a sharp shake of his head, gave him four quick hand signals. Frowning, Novak put his nunchaku down and reached under the dashboard, coming up a moment later with two freshly disconnected wires. Taking the portable bug stomper Skyler handed him, he connected the wires to it and flipped it on. The device came to life; a green light flashed briefly as it did so.
"No bugs," Skyler muttered. "They're cockier than I expected."
"Who, the collies?" Novak still looked confused.
"Yeah. I guess they figured their spy had us covered well enough."
Novak glanced at Valentine's crumpled figure and then looked back at Skyler, his eyes demanding explanation.
Skyler sighed. "You heard his slip yourself. Remember earlier, when he suggested a soft penetration? He said we could do the same thing Lathe and O'Hara had done. How did he know it was O'Hara who hit Cerbe Prison?"
Novak frowned. "He supposedly got that from Radix contacts—" he began slowly.
"Right. But how would they know which blackcollars were involved? Lathe wouldn't have given that out, and it certainly isn't public knowledge yet. That leaves exactly one source."
Novak shook his head. "This is pretty flimsy evidence to hang a man on."
"I'm not done yet." Skyler dug his new Security ID from his pocket. "What were you going to ask him when he first mentioned this forger of his?"
"When you cut me off? I wanted to know why anybody would bother forging something that could damn you that quickly."
"Good question. Mine was why Tremayne had never mentioned these supposed Radix forgers." Skyler slanted the ID toward the fading light. "Beautiful work. I studied it for ten straight minutes earlier and didn't see a single error anywhere."
Novak was gazing thoughtfully at Valentine. "Lathe said he got into the Strip with a simple visual check," he mused. "You'd think the collies would be more thorough if there were false IDs known to be in circulation." Reaching over, he picked up Valentine's right hand. A dragonhead ring glinted there; with some effort Novak got it off. "A hunch," he said, squinting at the ring in the faint glow of his shielded penlight. "If he's a collie spy his ring will be a fake... hmm. It's got the Centauri A logo behind the crest." He drew one point of the crest along the steel roof brace, examined both the point and the scratch it made. "And it's genuine hullmetal," he said with a sigh, handing the ring and penlight across to Skyler.