For a moment he gazed out his window to the city beyond. Legal technicalities or not, he'd still be smart to wait until Quinn had left for the day before making his sortie. The general usually didn't close up shop before seven, sometimes as late as eight-thirty. Still, that was all right—the Shandygaff was open until three.
His phone buzzed. "Galway here," he answered it."
"Jastrow, sir—research," the man at the other end identified himself. "We've got something on your request of last night, Prefect. It turns out there is someone living in the area you demarcated for us: Ivas Trendor, who used to be Security prefect for North America before they moved the central office from here down to Dallas. He's got a self-sufficient seven-room cabin up there and about thirty hectares of land behind an old barbed wire fence. Apparently lives pretty much like a hermit."
"Is he still active in Security matters?"
"I don't think so, sir. I've never heard of him coming in for any reason."
Galway chewed his lip. "How long was he involved with Security?"
"Oh, since the end of the war at least. He was made prefect in—uh—2440, nine years after the Ryqril came. Retired six years ago, in 2455."
A retired Security prefect, who presumably knew a lot about the war and the immediate aftermath.
Postern had said that Caine was trying to locate veterans' organizations. Coincidence? "Does this Trendor have any guards at his place?" he asked slowly.
"Ah—I really don't know, sir. I can check and get back to you."
"Do that. I'll be here until early evening at least."
He broke the connection with a muttered curse. So Caine's trip yesterday could very well have had nothing at all to do with Aegis Mountain. Nothing directly, at least. Former Prefect Trendor might still be a minor stop on the way to that final goal; at the moment the whole thing was still too murky to trace that far into it.
As murky as if Lathe was directing it personally.
Galway took a deep breath. Patience, he told himself. Tonight he'd settle that point once and for all.
Until then, it might be a good idea to search the files for everything that was known about the local blackcollars. If Quinn foolishly insisted on underestimating them, that was no reason Galway had to, too.
Chapter 14
Geoff Dupre pulled out of his driveway a few minutes before nine, headlights cutting twin cones through the light mist that had sprung up in the past hour. Caine let him get a block away, then nodded to Braune. "Let's go."
"Right," the other said. Pulling smoothly away from the curb, he gave leisurely chase.
Dupre was easy to follow. Braune stayed one to two blocks behind him as they headed northwest, drifting farther back as the traffic thinned and the buildings of Denver were replaced by trees and hills. Caine kept a close watch for signs that Security had identified their car, but as far as he could tell that danger hadn't yet materialized. If so, splitting the team might turn out to have been a bad decision, especially if he and Braune ran into more opposition than he expected. But getting all five of them caught in the same car would be a disaster; and Security still might tumble to them before the night was up. Better that three of the team were out of the opposition's immediate reach on this one.
The small office-type building Dupre eventually parked his car beside was situated between two large hills that hid it from Denver proper. Cutting across one end of the parking lot was a half-buried pipeline that disappeared into the foliage upslope; surrounding the whole area was a tall fence with sensor clusters mounted at each corner and over the single gate. Inside the fence, flanking the gate and drive, was a one-man guard shelter.
"Now what?" Braune asked as they drove toward the gate. "It's too late to stop—we'd look suspicious."
"Agreed." Caine pursed his lips, eyes taking in the details as he thought. With civilian clothing over their flexarmor they should be able to approach the gate attendant without panicking anyone.
Breaking in was out of the question—the sensors were surely good enough to spot that and relay an alarm to the nearest Security post. But something more subtle might get by the defenses. "I wish we'd brought Alamzad," he commented. "He might be able to give us a better reading on those sensors. Well, let's go ahead and try the old bureaucratic confusion approach. You have your Special Services ID?"
"Sure."
"Okay. Play off my cues."
They rolled to a stop in front of the gate. Caine stepped out of the car and walked briskly over to the guard shelter. The guard himself, a middle-aged man in a loose uniform, had emerged by the time Caine reached him. "Yes?" he asked, squinting a bit against the car's headlights.
"Inspector Craig Nielson, Special Services," Caine said, holding his ID against the fence for the other's scrutiny. It was an impressive card, with two seals and three signatures and some of the best etched-gold trim the Plinry blackcollars had ever turned out. The fact that it had nothing to do with any actual government agency was almost irrelevant—it looked official, and for many people that would be enough. Caine held his breath, hoping the guard was one of those.
Almost, but not quite. "Yes, sir," he said, his tone abruptly respectful. "I'm afraid I'll have to run your prints and retina pattern through the Athena link, though, before you can come in."
"Of course, of course," Caine said, mindful of the sensors overhead. They might not be continuously monitored, or even contain audio pickups at all, but he couldn't take the chance. "Just hurry it up."
"Yes, sir. If you'll slide that ID through here, this will only take a minute."
Caine passed the card through the indicated gap in the fence and the guard stepped into his shelter.
Half seen through the doorway, he busied himself with a compact terminal, and Caine forced his muscles to relax. If Hawking had gimmicked the card properly...
He had. "Uh, sir?" the guard said, frowning as he stepped back to the fence. "I can't seem to get the prints to read."
"Damn," Caine muttered with proper irritation. "I've told them and told them the alignment's off—half the readers on the continent won't pick the pattern up. Do you have another machine?"
"No, sir, but I've got a direct scanner right here. We can just bypass the ID entirely."
"Sure, sure, just get on with it," Caine said, waving a hand impatiently. The guard leaned into his shelter and the gate slid open half a meter. Caine stepped through and joined the guard, eyes flicking once to the other's belt holster. A paral-dart gun, by its size, and it presented a safer alternative to the nerve punch Caine had planned.
"Right here, sir," the guard said, gesturing into the shelter. Caine brushed past him, and as the guard leaned in behind him, he turned back and jabbed two fingers into the older man's solar plexus.
The guard's mouth popped open, a strangled unh the only sound to escape. Caine's right hand shifted to a steadying grip on the other's arm, his left deftly sliding the pistol from its holster and pressing its muzzle against the guard's thigh. A quiet burp, a reflexive jerk of the leg, and a second later the man went limp. Caine was ready; palming the gun and shifting to a two-handed grip, he swung the guard smoothly around and into a chair that took up most of the shelter's rear. Hitting the switch that opened the gate, he dropped the pistol into his pocket and then took a couple of seconds to make sure the guard was well enough braced and balanced to remain upright. Braune had the car through by the time he'd finished; closing the gate again, Caine got back in the vehicle for the hundred-meter drive to the building.
They parked just off the main door and headed inside. From the relative emptiness of the parking lot, Caine guessed that the graveyard shift was run by a fractional staff. If they were careful, they might pull this off without running into anyone who would ask awkward questions.