"Thomas... You can't hide from me forever."
"I can try, Admiral. I can sure as hell try."
"Thomas, I'm going to have your balls for breakfast... Shit!" He was talking to himself. McClennon was gone.
He hurled a half-finished mug of coffee across his office. The brown liquid dribbled down the wall, onto a stack of memos that had accumulated while he worried.
Someone knocked.
"Enter."
Major Damon stepped in. "We triangulated the call, sir. No luck. He wired a standard Navy comm into a public box and made the call from a public box somewhere else."
"I told you we're dealing with professionals. But let's consider the bright side. It's a small city, and he has three prisoners to watch, feed, and keep clean. He'll make a mistake. Storm will jump him. Or we'll find him. Keep looking."
Damon left. Beckhart cleaned up his coffee mess, settled into his chair. He felt better. Almost relaxed. The worst possibilities were, for the moment, no more than ghosts of evil chance.
He made some elementary calculations. The lead time he had on the Seiners if he and they started for the Yards together. Stars' End was eight days rimward of The Broken Wings. The Yards were somewhere back toward the Inner Worlds. How long till a Sangaree courier reached Stars' End with the news about Homeworld?
The Sangaree had no known shipboard instel capacity. They communicated by courier exclusively. So his agents told him. So he hoped. The scheme depended on a long news lag and Starfisher stubbornness.
He smiled. If the fastest ship known had left Homeworld immediately after von Drachau's attack... He should have fourteen more days.
"Thomas, there's no way you can stay ahead of me for two weeks. Not in this burg."
Confidence soon yielded to doubt. High Command withdrew his Marines over his protest. The doubts grew stronger. On day seven the CSN personally called. Beckhart could conceal the truth no longer. He covered for McClennon by declining to name names.
He was loyal to his men. Thomas was no turncoat. He was a victim of his occupation and faulty technical preparation. Sooner or later every agent encountered the crisis. McClennon had had the misfortune to hit his at an historically inopportune moment.
Heads were going to roll among the Psych crew! On day eleven Beckhart came to the conclusion that the first head lost would be his own. The CSN kept making sounds like a happy executioner sharpening his axe.
"Come in, Major. I take it you're going to tell me the same old thing?"
"Unfortunately, sir. He's just not leaving any tracks. We did find a cellar this morning that someone had been using, but they were long gone when we broke in. We've covered sixty percent of the city now. We're reasonably sure he hasn't slipped back into what we've covered."
"Reasonably sure? Damon, I don't want reasonably sure. I want absodamnposilutely sure."
"And instead of sixty local police reservists, I want my battalion of Marine MPs."
"What could I do? They took them," he said into Beckhart's scowl. "I see it taking seven or eight days of searching with what we have, Major. We don't have that much time."
"The probability of contact is going up faster now, sir. He has less room to maneuver. The computers almost guarantee we'll find him within five days. The statistical profile is against him. I've had my people stop using the regular comm nets. He may have been monitoring our traffic."
"Of course he was. He's crazy, not stupid. All right. Carry on."
Beckhart leaned back, thought, Thomas, I've got to give you credit. You're good when you have to be. And, what the hell is wrong with Storm? He should have done something by now. He knows McClennon better than anybody else. He's the best man I've got.
Was the little bastard in on it? The possibility had not occurred before. Mouse was the perfect agent. You did not suspect his loyalty.
But Storm's loyalty was to his dream of exterminating the Sangaree, of avenging his family. He had no motive but habit for taking a Bureau line in this. And he and McClennon had become close friends. They had done too many missions together...
They might have cooked this whole thing up with that Seiner bitch.
"Admiral. The CSN on instel, relay from Assyrian."
"Oh, Christ. Again?"
"He sounds upset."
"He's always upset. Switch him through."
A moment later, "Good morning, sir."
"You found that man yet?"
"No sir. We're closing in. The computers say we'll have him any time now."
"I've got computers too, Beckhart. And a lot more input resources. I have the Sangaree raidmaster at Stars' End getting the word sometime day after tomorrow. We don't know what those people will do. Maybe go crazy. I've ordered the attack squadrons back off courier intercept. That's hopeless. They'll return to Carson's and Sierra. Hittite is moving up to Blackworld. Two Conqueror Class reserve attack squadrons are moving into the Twenty-First Transverse in case they break through the Twenty-Third. What concerns me more than the Sangaree, though, is what Gruber is going to do when he's free to deploy. I'd guess he'd head for the Yards. From what I've been told, if he gets there ahead of you, we lose. There's supposedly no way we can root them out, and no way to get close enough to deliver the threatened nova bomb. This isn't news to you. I repeat it in case you've lost sight of the facts. Your loyalty to your people is laudable, but... "
"I'm aware of the problem, sir. It was my intention to calculate a most probable quadrant and send von Drachau to wait there while I rooted this man out. That would give us a few extra days, added to the lead time we have because of the additional distance from Stars' End to the Yards."
"You're dealing with a stubborn man, Beckhart. You haven't found him yet, let alone gotten him to talk. You apparently know him. How long can he hold out after you take him?"
"I don't know, sir." Beckhart did not like admitting that. It was a question he had been trying to ignore. He had not come out equipped for mind probing. He had not begun to worry about possibly needing the equipment till lately.
"Why is he doing this?"
"You mean his motives? I don't know. Faulty Psych programming is what set him off. You might call it induced schizophrenia. Even he's not sure what he's doing, or why. Or even who he is a good part of the time."
"I suppose you still insist on protecting him?"
"Yes sir. I don't believe he's responsible for his own actions. I don't want him punished because of technical errors made by the people who prepared him for his mission."
"Okay, Beckhart. This is the word from High Command. Prepare to meet his demands. If you haven't got him in hand by noon Tuesday, Luna Command time, you give him what he wants."
"Sir!... "
"That's the word. We'd rather have Stars' End and the Seiners if we can, but Stars' End is for sure. We won't risk our shot at that weapon technology."
"Sir... "
"It's not subject to debate, Beckhart. It sounds spineless to me, too, and it's my idea. But that's the way it's going to be. If you get hold of him before deadline, we'll reevaluate our position. But only if you get hold of him."
Beckhart tried several arguments. None made any impression.
High Command's position was understandable. The very existence of the race was on the line. But still...
"Get me Major Damon," he ordered after the CSN secured. "Damon? Word from High Command. We find him by noon, Tuesday, their time. Or he gets what he wants. Do the best you can."
Beckhart leaned back, closed his eyes. He felt tired and old. He went over all the old ground. There must be a way of smoking Thomas out. He just had to look at it from the right angle.
But, oh, was it an elusive angle.
Nineteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Mouse came around first. He saw McClennon sitting a meter away. Thomas wore a grave expression.