Morris nodded, his expression unhappy. Ludmilla had briefed them all on the Troll's flight systems. Fighters didn't mount battle screen because they used their n-drives to intercept incoming weapons, but the Troll couldn't configure his drive field to do that until he was at least a hundred meters off the ground. Up to that point, he could be hit-assuming they got through his active defenses-but the window would be only seconds wide.
"More to the point, perhaps," Aston went on, "we're all agreed that we're only going to get one clean shot at him-if we're lucky. Once he knows we're on to him, he'll redouble his security measures, at the very least; at worst, he'll go for the quick kill and simply blow the planet up. So we have to catch him when he's vulnerable, and to do that, we have to know where he is. Which is only another way of saying that we can't search for him without risking alerting him, but that we've got to know where he is before we warn him in any other way."
"Maybe." Ludmilla licked sweat from her upper lip and ran her fingertip over the mountainous terrain, frowning. "I know we'd hoped for some sort of physical sighting, but this may actually be better. He must be pretty well hidden-probably underground; they like that-and we haven't had any search activity in the area. So he must know we haven't spotted him, and when we do turn up, he's going to spend a few minutes wondering why we're there."
"Which would be all very well if we knew where he was," Aston objected, but his face was intent, as if he sensed some thought working itself out behind her eyes.
"Maybe we can figure that out," she said softly, turning to Morris. "Mordecai, is there any sort of aircraft which would normally fly something remotely like a search pattern in that area?"
"Hm?" Morris thought for a moment, frowning, but it was Abernathy who provided the answer.
"Sure," he said. "Forestry Service planes buzz around the national forests and parks all the time." Morris and Aston looked at him with surprised respect, and he chuckled. "Hey, I'm a California boy. I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley-little place named Exeter, just below Sequoia National Park. They do surveys, aerial mapping, hunt for pot growers, watch for forest fires, all that sort of thing."
"Yes, they do," Morris said slowly, "and the Southeast's been dry again this year. I bet they're keeping a real close fire-watch."
"Good." Ludmilla looked at Aston. "I've half-expected something like this. That's why I was so glad to get my flight suit back together."
"Why?" he asked tensely.
"Because the sensies work. I can wear it and ride around in one of these Forestry Service planes. Even if he's buried himself, he'll have set up detection posts. Why not? Your technology wouldn't even recognize one of his scan beams."
"But yours will," he said flatly, and frowned when she nodded. "No, Milla. We need you to handle your blaster. I let you talk me into jump school because we might have to go in by chute, but if you go mucking around up there with twenty-fifth century technology and he spots you-"
"I'll use passive systems," she said calmly. "Everything else will be powered down to a shielded trickle charge. He'd have to be within a hundred meters to pick that up, and that's assuming he knew to look for them in the first place. Which he won't, because I'm 'dead,' right?"
"Just so you don't get that way for real." He tried to speak lightly, but she heard personal as well as professional concern in his voice, and her eyes smiled at him.
"All right," he said after a moment, "how close can you pin him down?"
"Well, with a little luck I can place his scanner sites, at least, to within ... oh, twenty meters. The area he's protecting with them should give us a good idea where he is, and if you put up an air umbrella that knows where to look, you'll at least double your chance of catching him as he lifts."
"All right," he sighed again, after a long, silent moment. "I don't like it, but I don't see any way around it, either. So where do you think he is?"
"I suspect he's right here," she said, tapping the map. Aston craned his neck and looked over her shoulder. Her finger rested on something called Sugarloaf Mountain. "Right in the middle of Mordecai's area with this nice valley right at the top, see? There's even a road of sorts, connecting to state highway-" she bent closer to the map "-Two-Twelve, and it looks pretty heavily forested in there. Good cover."
"You may be right. But he could be in one of these side valleys, too."
"I know. But that's where he is, Dick. Somewhere on this mountain."
"Agreed," he said, giving himself a mental shake and banishing his feeling of dread. "All right, Mordecai, get us a Forestry Service plane. We'll put a pilot we know the bastard can't read into it to be on the safe side, and we'll have Jayne see what kind of satellite pictures she can hunt up, too." He turned to Abernathy. "Major, alert the troops. I want a full gear inspection by eighteen hundred."
"Yes, Sir," Abernathy said crisply.
"Mordecai-" Aston turned back to the commander "-get back to Washington and tell Admiral McLain we need a fighter umbrella-a distant one. See if he can set it up out of Langley or Pax River; they're both outside the Troll's reach, but they can get there in a hurry. But stress that I don't want them mission-briefed ahead of time. Find the senior man with a good EEG and put him in charge, then brief him so he can set up an ops plan, but don't let him give it to the troops until just-"
He broke off as he realized Morris wasn't listening to him.
"Mordecai?" Aston cocked his head and followed the direction of Morris's eyes. Ludmilla had just taken off her jacket, and the commander was staring at her as if at a ghost. "Mordecai!"
"Just ... just a minute, Dick," Morris said softly. He was still staring at Ludmilla, and she looked back with a puzzled expression.
"Milla," he asked quietly, "where did you get that shirt?"
"This?" She looked down, stroking the silk-screening, and Abernathy and Aston looked at her in puzzlement. It was the one with the skeletal rider, and they'd seen it many times without noting anything extraordinary.
"That," Morris said. "According to the FBI report, there's a screwy anarchist group with an interracial membership turning up. Not many members actually spotted, but they're spread all over the affected area."
"So?" Aston asked.
"Their emblem," Morris said softly, "is a skeleton on a white horse."
There was silence, and Ludmilla rose slowly, reaching for the FBI report. As she stood, Morris started visibly and reached out quickly. Her eyes widened, but she stood motionless as he grabbed the bottom of her shirt and stretched it out, reading the lettering.
"My God, my God!" he whispered. "No wonder I didn't think of it. It's not from my book-it's from yours!"
"What in hell are you talking about, Mordecai?" Aston demanded.
"This." He turned the lettering and read it aloud. " 'The Fourth Horseman,' " he whispered. Aston looked blank, but Abernathy straightened with a jerk. "The rider on the pale horse," Morris went on. "The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse." He looked up and met Aston's eyes.
"Death," he said quietly.
There was total silence, then Aston cleared his throat.
"All right, M&M. When you talk to Admiral McLain, tell him to make sure at least some of the air cover's armed with nukes."
"Nukes?" Morris stared at him, frowning in protest. "But what about the ground force? We can't use-"
"You damned well can," Aston said harshly. "We can't fuck around with him, Mordecai. If this son-of-a-bitch gets off the ground, we'll lose him. Either he'll go to ground all over again-this time knowing that we're at least partly onto him-or he may just be pissed enough to set off his bomb. So if I tell you to, or if whoever's in charge upstairs sees the bastard taking off, nail him. Understood?"