“And, Old One? ‘Sealed over’ means exactly that. I had to chop through a subbasement wall to gain access. You’ll need drills, poppers, thermastics…”
Gidula patted him gently on the shoulder. “If you could exit, we can enter.”
Shadows and their magpies gathered that evening in shenmats and wearing the tools of their profession. They had tuned the skins to black in honor of the night. At the entrance of each tunnel, they pinged a fix off the satellite, then inside the tunnels where the positioning network was inaccessible they tracked their pathways by dead reckoning off micro-gyros. By superimposing the D/R traces over ground-level maps, they determined that two of the six tunnels led under the Secret City. Donovan and Pyati scouted up each one. Oschous and his own Number One went with him.
The first one was it. But Donovan withheld judgment until checking the second. Then he went back to double-check the first, proceeding uphill until the party came to an ancient flight of stone steps off the tunnel-side, blocked at the top by a deadfall of rubble. Donovan lowered himself on the second step. Pyati went a little farther up-tunnel while Black Horse One kept watch on their backtrail, creating a bracket within which their masters could talk.
Oschous sat beside him on the step, and stroked the fur on his protruding chin. “So. Is this the place?”
“We broke a hole through a subbasement wall. I suppose when they brought the building down the rubble plugged the hole.”
Oschous examined the tumbled avalanche of stone and tile. Then he studied the dead reckoning map. “Officially, there was never a building above here. They leveled the site and infilled with dirt. If we dug through, we’d emerge in a park and frighten some late-night lovers. But now that we have a second fix we can figure out where the tunnel system abuts the Residences.” He clapped Donovan on the shoulder. “Well done, Gesh!”
Donovan shrugged.
“What ho! Why so glum, comrade?”
“Because my usefulness to Gidula is now at an end.”
Oschous made a Brotherhood sign with his left hand. “But not thy usefulness to us.”
Donovan no longer believed Oschous a Brotherhood member, or that the Brotherhood this side of the Rift was not utterly compromised. But neither did Donovan believe that Oschous was ready to dispose of him. The young man in the chlamys thought “the Fox” planned to use him against Gidula—which was fair enough, considering. Donovan leaned toward Oschous. “Be thou not too sanguine that thy battle plan and the Old One’s intentions wend the same path.”
Oschous flicked his hand, as against a fly. “Gidula doth hold but one vote of three. Yea, a wise counselor, but Dawshoo’s voice and mine count for more.”
Was Oschous serious? A dazer could fire twelve pulses between rechargings. Those were votes enough. “Remember that this play did hatch from his egg, and it doth place our leadership in places of Gidula’s desiring.”
Oschous said nothing for a moment, then tapped his positioner and stood. He dropped the Tongue. “Let’s return to the others.”
They calibrated their dead reckoners just inside the tunnel entrance and sent teams out to map the tunnel network. “To maintain surprise,” Oschous told them, “our kill teams must emerge simultaneously at their strike points. Targets must not be given time to spread word. Find exit points closest to—preferably directly into—the Residences.”
“Not the Offices?” asked Domino Tight.
“No,” said Gidula, “for in the morning we will have a problem.”
“In the morning?” one of the magpies asked.
“Surely. When the Confederation awakes, she will need a government. We do not want to wreck the machinery, only replace the operators. The Names have grown indolent. You will find them at home, wrapped in luxuries, not pulling night shift in the Offices. I’ve marked the Residences on the overmaps.”
“You haven’t marked all of them,” Manlius Metataxis complained. “Where is the Technical Name? Or the Second Name? Where is the Masked One?”
“Yes,” said Donovan. “I should have thought the Secret Name would head the list.”
“This is the list provided us by Domino Tight’s source within the Secret City. Some Names favor our struggle. Those we may spare—and later control. So, stick to your target lists.”
Donovan did not miss the silent exchanges among the Shadows. In for a fenny, in for a yoon. Why spare any Names?
“We will take two hours to expedite target acquisition,” said Dawshoo. “Leave repeaters at all tunnel intersections. If you cannot find direct access to a Residence, pick a nearby site with reasonable ground access and we will shift the tempo to give you time to enter your kill zones. Remember: you may encounter Protectors. Is that understood?”
“No, Grandmother,” piped Little Jacques. “What was that part about sucking eggs, again?” The others laughed.
“Eglay,” said Gidula, “by me. Pyati, do you go with Manlius. Gesh, wait you here. Too valuable you are to hazard on mere reconnaissance.”
Pyati glanced at Donovan, who brushed his lips and flashed two fingers for an instant where Gidula could not see. Pyati relayed the signal to the other four Padaborn magpies. Eglay Portion came over to him and embraced him. “Don’t kiss me,” Donovan warned. “It’s been done before.”
Gidula, hearing the comment, frowned in incomprehension, but Eglay Portion understood. “Which,” he whispered.
“Watch,” Donovan replied. “Play Two.”
Gidula turned. “Do you, good Domino, sit sentry then with our bold Padaborn. Take care of him, that we shall call on him as needed.”
The man with the lyre brassard was the only senior conspirator Donovan had not met before. He nodded. “Yes, Deadly One.”
After the recon teams had departed, Donovan and the other Shadow squatted in the dark, visible to one another only as ghostly images on night-vision goggles. By all accounts, Tight had done yeoman’s work at the warehouse and was a friend of Ravn Olafsdottr; but right now, Donovan was not feeling especially friendly toward Ravn.
After a long silence, Donovan with his shy-side hand unfastenend the loop on the knife scabbard at the back of his belt. “Do you think you can?” he said.
“Can what?”
“Take care of me?”
“Oh.” Domino Tight made a great show of placing both his hands in plain sight. “Let me put it this way. Gidula gave the same instructions to Khembold Darling to ‘take care of’ your daughter.”
Donovan’s heart froze over, and he half-rose from his squat. “Khembold would not…!”
“Would. Tried. Failed.”
Donovan drew a breath and eased back down. “What … happened?”
“Your daughter strangled him with a harp string and Ravn Olafsdottr shot him in the head, so he is a twice-dead man.”
Donovan smiled as a wolf smiles, but not without a little relief. “That’s my girl…” Ravn had been playing her own game. But … “How can you know what happened on Terra?”
While Domino Tight summarized the events at the Forks, the scarred man consulted the young man in the chlamys, who responded that while body language was difficult to read in night vision, voice-stress analysis showed sincerity. Of course, pathological liars could also sound sincere. Nevertheless, Donovan refastened the knife-loop. “Your inability to describe the philosopher’s assistant convinces me,” Donovan said. “I know the Man That No One Sees. And I knew Gwillgi to be nearby—and that the harper’s mother would come. I had not thought she would bring friends. So, she is safe now, Méarana is?”