“But what if Transport gets to him first?” Jeff Wainwright asked. “This is a three-way race, after all.”
“Then we’ll have a fight on our hands,” Pook answered soberly. “Jed, you’ll have to really sell this thing,” he added.
“What does that mean?” Jed said, as he pushed the coin deep into the pocket of his broadfall pants.
“That means you’ll have to do a little bit of acting. You’ll have to be confident and assertive, and the longer you can stall and delay whoever it is that’s gotten to you first—especially if it’s the salvagers—the better the chances are that we’ll be able to get to you and secure your freedom.”
Jed nodded his head. He still wasn’t sure exactly what was expected from him, but he felt like he didn’t have any other options other than to play it the way Pook had designed it.
“There’ll be a race to get to you, Jed, once the airbus is electronically forced down in the rural zone. Worst case scenario, salvagers get you. If that happens, delay, delay, delay. Got it?”
“I think so. Why won’t Transport just recall the airbus and fly it back over the bridge?” Jed asked. “Why force it down in what you call ‘ungovernable’ territory?”
“They used to do that,” Pook said, but years ago the unaffiliated gangs and salvagers found ways to launch homemade sticky bombs that would adhere to the exterior of the buses. They’d rig the bombs with timing devices, and Transport would fly the buses right into the Transport station and then the bombs would go off. So they don’t do that anymore. Now, if they know they have a high-value target on an airbus, they just bring the bus down and send a team to go and search the bus while it’s still outside the City. It minimizes the terrorists’ ability to attack Transport facilities.
“The problem now is that the salvagers and the gangs are so highly organized, they can often get to the buses and extract whatever’s valuable before Transport can get to them. Transport hasn’t come up with another protocol yet, so for now it’s really just a race to any bus that’s forced down.
“So you’ll need to sell what it is you’re doing, Jed. By that I mean that you need to be who you really are—a harmless young Amish boy trying to get home.”
“Amish man,” Dawn said. “He’s not a boy, Pook, or a kid. Why don’t we start treating him with the respect he deserves?”
Jerry nodded his head at Dawn approvingly.
“Whatever you say, cousin,” Pook said dismissively. “Jed, you’ll need to tell whoever gets to you first that you need them to take you to the Amish Zone, and take your time telling them about the gold coin. Depending on who captures you, you might find them to be tremendously helpful—”
“—or tremendously unhelpful,” Dawn interjected.
“Yeah,” Ducky said, “they might cut you up and cook you in their stew.”
This made the rest of the team laugh, but Pook cut the joking short with a wave of his hand.
“We’re all going to have to improvise and adapt. The rest of us are going to be crossing the river the old-fashioned way.” Pook saw Jed’s confused look and explained. “That means we’ll be swimming over, Jed. That’s the easiest way for anyone who is un-chipped to get into or out of the City on the western side. Transport believes they have the river sealed, but that has never been true. Now, just because I say it’s the easiest way, don’t take that to mean that it’s easy. It isn’t. We’ve got our points of ingress and egress, but we’ve got to be careful.”
Pook turned to face Jerry. “Jerry, you’ve never done this river crossing before. Don’t go improvising. You need to listen closely and do exactly what we tell you to do, or you’ll mess this up for all of us.”
Jerry narrowed his eyes coldly at Pook, but he nodded.
Pook went on. “We’ll all form up once we’re in the rural zone and try to locate the airbus before Transport can get there.”
“How’re we going to locate the bus?” Dawn asked.
“The same way that Transport will find it: by tracking the locating beacon on the bus. We’re always stealing their technology, and we’ve developed a pretty good system of tracking Transport… almost as good as their system of tracking us.”
“But he could be ten miles past the bridge when Transport brings him down.”
“Right. We’ll have to hustle.”
The conversation went on like this for several more minutes, but Jed noticed that Dawn was growing increasingly agitated. He wasn’t surprised, then, when she pushed out her chair and, interrupting the briefing, stood up and addressed Pook directly.
“I am not comfortable with this plan. I was given strict instructions from the SOMA that I was never to lose operational control of the subject. This plan requires me to relinquish control of Jed to Hugh Conrad. No offense, Hugh, but that isn’t in my brief.”
Hugh shrugged as if no offense was taken.
“I understand your concerns, Dawn, and they are duly noted, but there is no way we can get you on that bus,” Pook replied. “You have no tracking chip, and we don’t have time or, really, the ability to achieve that kind of hack in the time that we have. The forged transport papers may get you into the AZ once you arrive there, but we both know they’re worthless as far as getting you on that airbus.”
“I’m not saying we get me on the airbus. I’m saying that we get Jed into the rural zone the same way I’m getting into the rural zone… via the river.”
“No way, Dawn,” Ducky said. He slapped his hand down on the table, as if this was where he would definitely take a stand. “It’s hard enough getting trained soldiers across that river safely, much less a farmer boy—er, farmer man. The current is so strong, and there are all kinds of sensors, even under the water. Getting Jerry across is going to be tough enough, and he seems to have had a little training. There is virtually a zero percent probability of Jed making it across that river without bringing all of Transport down on our heads.”
“I’ll take full responsibility for him,” Dawn said.
“No you won’t, Dawn,” Pook said. “I understand that you have your orders, but your orders—even if they come from SOMA—are based on the overriding principle of operational security. If your orders guarantee failure, then they must be altered to allow for success.”
“I formally protest this decision, Pook.”
As Dawn sat down, her hand found Jed’s under the table and she clasped it tightly and held on to it. Jed felt his face flush, and for some reason he looked over at Billy, but Billy couldn’t see that Dawn was holding his hand. Jed felt Dawn exhale deeply, and he gave her hand a slight squeeze. Dawn squeezed back, and Jed saw her force a smile, as if she’d accepted the fact that her petition had failed. Jed didn’t know how he felt about Dawn holding his hand, but he was convinced that she did have his best interests in mind.
“Protest noted,” Pook said, “but overruled. Now, let’s get to work.”
(13
CROSSING
The airbus lifted silently from the Transport bay until it reached twenty feet of altitude, and it was at this height that it crossed over the bridge that spanned the rushing green-blue waters of the river. The bridge itself was an ancient relic of a bygone time, and strictly speaking it hadn’t been necessary ever since private transport had been abolished, but the stone and steel span marked the “safe portal” or air gate, by which the airbuses could officially enter or exit the city. If the Transport vehicle was too high, or if it tried to cross the river anywhere other than at the bridge, the City’s air defenses would be engaged to bring down the wayward aircraft.