"If there were, I'd have suggested it three minutes ago," Bernhard retorted. "There's nothing we can use. No windows, either."
"Your basic firetrap," Skyler said. "Can we assume that there are a lot of important people in here tonight? People Nash and company would hesitate to damage?"
"Chong'll roast over a slow fire if he shoots anyone but us," Bernhard said flatly. "But he's a damn good shot, and this table is fastened pretty solidly to the floor. We'll never even get our legs out from under it before he gets one or more of us."
"Only if he can see what he's shooting at. Lathe?"
"Probably our best approach," Lathe agreed. "Main switches are to the right of the door; emergency lights high on the wall behind you, Bernhard, and near the back of the room on my side."
"There's one over the main switches, too," Skyler pointed out.
"That one goes last—it'll be shining right into Chong's eyes when it comes on." Lathe tapped at his trigger: Mordecai: Stand by for fast break. Kanai: three-count, then distract Chong to right. Sliding two shuriken into his hands, Lathe set his feet... and as Kanai's left hand twitched toward the anteroom he moved.
His first star spun across the room to bury itself in the wall just above the light switches. There was a sputtering flash of shorted circuits, and the room's soft glow was abruptly replaced by the harsh floodlights of the emergency system. Shouts of surprise and anger, Chong's bellow louder than any of them—and Lathe was out of the booth, diving flat to open up Skyler's line of fire, then rolling up on one knee to send his second shuriken over the booths toward the emergency light box in the rear.
Peripherally, he caught a glimpse of Bernhard swinging out his side of the booth; a second later the light back that way winked out in a tinkle of glass. Even as he spun around to the door the last of the backups yielded to Skyler's shuriken and the room was plunged into darkness.
Almost. From the anteroom a pool of light was spilling through the doorway, silhouetting Chong neatly against the opening. Possibly the big man's mind was still trying to catch up; if so, it never had sufficient time to do so. Skyler's knife flickered just once as it bounced hilt-first off Chong's forehead, dropping the man where he stood. One down, one—or more—to go. Lathe sprinted forward, skirting the pool of light and flattening himself by the doorway.
He needn't have bothered. Briller, folded up fetal-style on the floor, had already lost all interest in the proceedings. Across the room Kanai, shuriken at the ready, was easing the outer door open for a quick look. Sidling around the doorframe into the anteroom, Lathe looked for the coatcheck girl.
If she was, indeed, the Shandygaff's backup gun, she wasn't doing her job. She stood upright at her window, empty hands folded almost primly on the sill; her expression behind all the makeup showed simple interest, with no anger or fear accompanying it. She looked at Lathe as he entered, nodded toward Chong. "Is he dead?" she asked.
"Not if I know Skyler," he replied, squatting to retrieve his teammate's knife. "He avoids killing even more than the rest of us. Ryqril excepted, of course."
"They'll get you before you take five steps outside, you know."
"I doubt it." Bernhard and Skyler slipped into the anteroom; Lathe tossed the latter his knife and reached for his tingler. Mordecai: Report. Lookout approaching door. Others neutralized.
Lathe cocked an eyebrow at Skyler, who nodded and stepped to the door. He exchanged low words with Kanai—and abruptly flung the door wide, hurled his knife, and slammed the panel shut. A
single splintering impact shook the thick wood, followed by silence. Skyler eased the door open a crack just as Mordecai's message came: All clear.
"I suggest you two fade while you can," Lathe told Bernhard as he stepped to Skyler's side. "But first give me a way to contact you tomorrow."
"Just call in a message for me here," Kanai spoke up. "We can discuss a rendezvous point then."
Halfway out the door, Lathe looked back at him. "Call you here?"
Kanai met his gaze evenly. "I'm the contact man. It's my job to be here."
"What about Nash?"
"I can handle him. Just go."
Lathe flicked a glance over Kanai's shoulder at the coatcheck girl, then nodded. "Tomorrow night," he said, and ducked out the door.
Skyler was waiting for him a short way down the sidewalk. "Let's get moving," he urged as Lathe joined him. "The other customers might eventually take exception to being left in the dark."
They set off quickly across the mall toward the sidestreet where they'd parked their car. "A fairly profitable evening, as these things go," Skyler remarked as they walked. "If nothing else, we at least found out that Bernhard's team can still fight."
"We learned a lot more than that," Lathe said. "We know the Ryqril have a center outside Aegis Mountain—which suggests that they at least, are still locked out."
"Hmm. So the gas-attack survivors locked the place down before they died. Maybe that's why the commander sent so many of his people out—didn't want anyone around who might consider opening up in exchange for an antidote."
"That's my guess," Lathe said, glancing behind them. No tails tonight, apparently. Hardly surprising.
"Could be one of the reasons Bernhard resents having been sent out with the cattle drive, too.
Probably feels it was a slight on his integrity. That, or else his current life-style has rubbed blisters on his conscience."
"Kanai certainly has blisters on his," Skyler agreed. "Given that, you think Bernhard will come through with a useful list?"
"I don't know, but it doesn't matter anymore. We've already found our native guide."
There was a pause. "You're not serious," Skyler said at last.
"Why not? A blackcollar would certainly have made sure he knew all the ways in and out of a base he was assigned to."
"You'll forgive me if I doubt Bernhard's enthusiasm for such a project."
Lathe sighed. "He'll help us. Willingly or otherwise, he'll get us in. It's all a matter of finding the lever that'll move him."
"And of surviving his reaction to its use."
"There's that, of course," Lathe said. "There's always that."
—
The chaos lasted at a low level for quite a while after the brief battle, and the lights remained off even longer. Eventually the Shandygaff's employees finished getting their portable lanterns set up and a seething Mr. Nash got them working on the damaged wiring. The exodus of the angrier customers slowed to a trickle and stopped, leaving a remnant of the hardier and less impatient behind.
Seated alone at his small table, Galway sipped his drink and contemplated the tightening of his stomach muscles. Lathe and Skyler. On Earth, in Denver... and with the local blackcollars already signed on as allies. The files had said Bernhard's team always left government targets strictly alone—but Galway had seen for himself just how fast "harmless" blackcollars could turn.
Plinry's history was about to repeat itself in Denver. Galway could only hope Quinn still had time to start taking all of this seriously.
Chapter 15
From the government section of New Geneva to the Hub in Plinry's Capstone, Caine had seen a fair number of fortress cities, but even so Athena was unique. Nestled against the ridges of the Hogback to the west, with Green Mountain rising above it to the north, it didn't look like a fortress city, for one thing. Its simple mesh fence and spotlighted outer perimeter were almost throwbacks to an earlier age before sophisticated sensors and automated defenses. True, the fence was topped by a sensor ring, but the weaponry to back the sensors up was conspicuous by its absence. So much so, Caine thought at one point, that a sufficiently naive attacker might actually think the place an easy target.