Possibly. It would make sense for the pilots to take the earliest shuttle, even at the cost of a private jitney. That way they'd have Templeton's ship ready for departure when Templeton arrived.
But why wouldn't Templeton himself go with them? Why was he remaining with the large group? From Thandi's observations of the man, he struck her as the type who was very much insistent on command prerogatives. She found it hard to imagine someone who was, after all, a known and wanted terrorist throughout the Manticoran Alliance subjecting himself to the inconvenience-and potential exposure-of a trip in a crowded, start-and-stop mag-train. Not when he could have enjoyed the relative comfort and security of a jitney and made the entire trip in one uninterrupted bound.
Unless…
"No." Unthinkingly, she spoke the word aloud with the throat mike still activated.
" 'No' what, kaja? You don't want us to keep tracking them?"
"Sorry. I was thinking to myself. Keep them under observation, Hanna. But I think you're right-so don't bother trying to follow them through the subway. Too much risk of being spotted. Just assume they're all going to the shuttle grounds and get there ahead of them. Take jitneys yourselves."
"It's your expense account. What about the three in the restaurant?"
"Leave Inge to cover them. And Lara."
"Poor bastards. Flairty's trio, I mean."
Thandi understood the harsh wisecrack, and smiled thinly. Inge and Lara were perhaps the two most murderous in her team-and the whole team was a murderous bunch. But that was, indeed, why she was leaving them there.
Leaving them behind, rather. Thandi was the most murderous of them all, and she'd be leading the rest of the operation.
She'd made up her mind, and sprang to her feet. She was now convinced that, whatever the reason, Templeton was leaving the planet. If so, that gave her the best possible opportunity to finish the job.
Perhaps not herself, of course. At the moment, she could see no straightforward way to kill Templeton on a shuttle, much less all the others. But it hardly mattered. Rozsak had prepared for the possibility that Templeton might try to leave Erewhon. That was why he'd instructed two of the destroyers in his orbiting flotilla to do whatever Thandi told them to do. Both of them were War Harvest-class ships, as large and powerful as many a light cruiser, too. Templeton's ship, for all its artfully concealed weaponry, would never have been a match for even one of them, far less both.
Quickly, she stripped off her robe and put on what she thought of as her civilian war gear. It was expensive stuff, provided for her by Rozsak, designed as much as possible to provide the same protection and assets as a Marine skinsuit while still being able to pass as a civilian outfit. It wasn't quite as well armored as a skinny, since it had to make do with anti-ballistic fabric rather than hard-skin anti-kinetic armor. And it certainly couldn't function as an all-up vac suit. But she could walk right through almost any sensor net without tripping any "Marine Armed to the Canines!" alarms, and it was more than adequate for fending off most civilian-grade weaponry.
Dressed, she opened the locker where she kept her weapons. Then, after hesitating a moment, simply closed it and reset the combination lock. Her weapons, like those carried by her team, were military-grade hardware. There was no possibility that she'd be able to smuggle them through the notoriously rigorous security measures maintained by Erewhon's authorities when it came to public transport. All she'd accomplish by attempting to do so would be to get detained and questioned for hours, at the very least. And time was now at a premium.
She'd have to take a jitney herself, in fact, if she was going to reach the shuttle grounds at the same time as her team. One of the express jitneys, to boot. The cost of which, for a single person, made her wince even though none of it was coming out of her own pocket. But not even her realization of Rozsak's seemingly bottomless war chest could overcome the ingrained habits of a childhood spent in abject poverty.
"I'm leaving now," she said, as she passed through the door into the hotel corridor.
"We're already in a jitney ourselves. Two of them, actually. What orders for Inge and Lara?"
"They're to keep observing Flairty's group until I tell them otherwise."
"You won't be able to reach them once we're in orbit."
Thandi was already chewing on that problem as she moved down the corridor as fast as she could, without making it obvious that she was racing. Fortunately, with her long legs, a brisk stride covered ground quickly.
"I know that. We'll just have to play it by ear for the moment. Until we're sure that the rest of them are all leaving the planet, I don't want to precipitate any action."
"Understood. Inge and Lara are going to grumble."
"They can grumble all they want, so long as they follow orders."
"Not to worry. Lara says her arm still hurts, even though the doctor swears the bone's healed."
"I broke it pretty good. She irked me."
Thandi was going out the hotel's front door now, waving over one of the jitneys lined up at the curb. The imperious hand gesture, coupled with the grin on her face, got her instant service.
The gesture was the product of her impatience. The grin, the product of Hanna's response.
"Great kaja, you are. Orders will be obeyed."
That much, she had accomplished. Given their origins and the peculiar subculture they'd developed in the long centuries after the Final War, the Scrags had nothing resembling normal human families. Their social organizationwas more like that of certain pack predators. The term "kaja" was slang, and hard to translate directly. It carried some of the connotations of "mother," though more those of "big sister." But Thandi thought the closest equivalent was probably the status of the biggest, toughest, meanest she-wolf in a pack.
Great Alpha Female, as it were.
"Orders will be obeyed," she muttered.
She'd forgotten the pick-up mikes in the jitney. The driver gave her an aggrieved look in the rearview screen.
"I heard you the first time, lady. I'm pushing the express limit as it is. Any faster and we'll get shut down by central traffic." He pointed a finger at the speed indicator. "They'll do it in a heartbeat too, don't think they won't."
"Sorry. Wasn't talking to you."
Scowling a little, Thandi pondered one of the universe's small mysteries. How did it happen that a planet founded by gangsters had the inhabited galaxy's strictest traffic laws?
Halfway to the shuttle grounds, she remembered something.
Damn. I was looking forward to it, too.
She reached out and flicked off the cab's pick-up mikes, to give herself privacy. Then, quickly murmured the connection she needed. A moment later, a pleasant male voice came into her ear.
"Victor Cachat, here. I assume that's you, Thandi. Nobody else I know is twitchy enough about security to scramble an incoming number."
"Sorry. I didn't even realize the scrambler was on. It's set for default. Look, Victor, I won't be able to make our lunch date. Something's come up."
The pleasant tone in the voice faded a bit. "So you spotted Templeton moving too, huh? I'd ask why that requires you to move quickly, but… never mind. I can make at least three guesses, and all of them lead me to the conclusion that I'll be meeting you on The Wages of Sin. Perhaps for dinner, eh?"
Cachat's quick thoughts had left Thandi behind. "Why The Wages of Sin? All I know-" She hesitated, then decided that playing security games with Victor Cachat bore too close a resemblance to a mouse trying to play tag with a cat.