They were in open cars, that being what the rangers used for these narrow trails, and probably the only vehicles with a wheelbase that could take them — but they were visible targets, and the landing wasn't in a meadow interspersed with trees, or hillside forest, it was down on the flat, in a grassland split by a couple of rocky patches — profoundly eroded and wooded escarpments that ran eighty, ninety kilometers northwest to southeast, with stands of scrub that gave ambushers plenty of cover.
You could see wheel tracks in the grass. They couldn't get there without leaving a trace that small aircraft could spot well enough. Neither they nor the opposition could maneuver in a sea of grass without a trail someone else could track.
"They won't chase us here," he muttered to Jago and Tano. "They don't need to. They know where we're going. At least — close enough."
"Diffuse versus specific," Jago said. She'd said that. He'd not arrived at the same conclusion until then. But that told him at least his security had thought of it.
Then he had a cold and terrible thought.
"Oh, my God. My computer."
Banichi turned around in his seat. Flashed a shimmer of yellow eyes. And a grin. "Right between my feet, paidhi-ji. We didn't forget."
Hormones, he said to himself, his heart settling back to steady work. Damned hormones. Brain fog. A schoolboy mistake. He found himself shivering as the car found a reasonable stretch of meadow grass and ripped along at a reckless bounce. He tried not to nudge against the atevi on either side of him. He didn't want them to feel it.
But he had the hard weight of the gun in his pocket, too, and finally had the wit to ask, "Has anybody got a spare clip of shells?"
He got three, one from Banichi, one from Jago, one from Tano. The driver had his hands occupied, and the paidhi was out of convenient pockets and carrying enough weight.
The rebels had Hanks. "Is there any way —" Figuring to himself that with all of an aiji's resources to draw from, there might be personnel to spare. "— any way —" A pothole. "— Hanks has to be somewhere close." Pothole. "With them. Get into theirterritory. Go get Hanks." Bounce. "Let them worry."
Jago laughed, silent in the growl of the motor and the slap of branches. Grinned, holding on to the side of the car. "Good idea, nand' paidhi."
"You thought of that."
"So will they, unfortunately. I fear they'll move her out."
Damn, he thought. They would. As a strategist he wasn't in the game. "Can't use the airport. Ranger trails, more likely."
"Good, nai-ji."
"A peaceful man hasn't a chance with you," he said, and Tano patted his leg from the other side.
"Paidhi-ji, we listen because you have good ideas. They'd do these things. So are we doing them."
"Then where are we going? Around in circles, to make them crazy?"
"If we can," Jago said. And after a fierce series of bumps and a turn, "There's a classified number of storm shelters, where we can rest about an hour or so, move around again. Tabini's plane's left, or will, very soon now. Just keep them wondering. We hope so, at least."
CHAPTER 22
It was a scary business waiting for two men to find or not find a bomb. Especially when the two were Tano and Algini, who, one came to understand, were good at what they did and had state-of-the-art equipment, at least as good as the potential bomb-placers might have, if someone, however unlikely, had been fast enough to penetrate deep into Taiben Reserve and booby-trap the shelters.
Which no one had, apparently, since Tano and Algini signaled with a double flash of their hand-torch that the way was clear.
So they left the cars, hiked through the brush of the little copse that hid the excavation.
Storm shelters.
Classified storm shelters, with, as they could see when they opened the door, a well-kept interior, electric lights, at least enough to see by, which didn't depend on generators; and some which did.
For legitimate storms, Bren said to himself, not the political ones for which he suspected the aijiin of Shejidan had built such strong concrete bunkers. There were in fact fairly considerable storms, occasionally tornadic, not infrequently with hail, occasionally deep snow, and there were reasons the rangers who served the estate might want to pull in and take shelter, reach medical kits, even take a shower — the place could shelter twenty atevi, had no trouble at all tucking a stray human in. Bren found a quiet corner, pillowed his aching shoulder against a wad of folded blankets, and discovered a degree of comfort that let him shut his eyes and actually sleep a minute or two, to his own mild surprise, perhaps because things werefinally moving in a direction he couldn't do a damned thing about, and people around him werealert, and knew there was harm aimed at them, and were doing everything in their considerable professional skill to stop it.
He'd felt like the only warning and the only fix in the system for so — damned — long. Now everybody knew what he knew, did what they knew how to do, nobody he cared about was going to get caught by surprise, and nothing was going to be his fault if a bomb dropped on them and blew them to hell — he could sleep on that understanding.
But in not long enough there was an alarm, at least enough stir to rouse him out of sleep. He waked with a thump of his heart and an awareness everyone was coming on guard, but Jago patted his arm, saying it was the aiji coming in, go back to sleep.
The eyelids were willing. But nobody slept through Tabini's arrival anywhere. There was a general stirring about, discussion among the Guild, who should go where, and then a decision they should go on, but they should leave the paidhi.
"The paidhi doesn't want to be left," he protested. "Jago?"
"We stay with you," Jago said quietly. "We don't split up"
He felt reassured in that — as the door opened and Tabini and Naidin and his group came in, and all of their group but his own security and the man working communications with Algini went out.
He sat still, wished Tabini a good evening, or morning, or whatever it was in this dim place, and held his shoulder against the ache, wishing he had had the foresight to bring his own first-aid kit.
"Bren-ji," Tabini said, patted him on the ankle in passing his perch on a raised bench.
And then he grew a little uneasy, since Tabini was not as cheerful nor as outgoing as one might look to have him. Tabini was preoccupied and spoke quietly with Naidiri and Banichi, after which Banichi and Naidiri talked with him for some little time, and then went and talked to each other.
"What's wrong?" he asked Jago quietly. "Can you tell?"
Jago got up, apparently wanting that answer herself, squatted down with Banichi and Naidiri, listening, arms on knees, talking with them for no little while.
Then she came back and said, in a low voice, "There's a breakthrough we're relatively sure isn't tourists. We think we have them identified there, but we're betting it's a feint, and that they might have created all this incursion area including the tourists to mask a move more to the south. We're trying to get information from several sources, but we have some feeling that either they weren't totally surprised by a landing at Taiben — or a move against the government has been in preparation for far longer than the Hanks matter."
"How serious?"
"Very. They didn't move after the ship sighting. They had a chance then. Tabini was at Taiben. But they likely expected tight security."