"You're welcome," Galway said dryly. Turning, he stepped through the door and headed back toward the elevator.
Chapter 26
The unmarked van pulled to a halt by the Security building and a half-dozen men climbed out, laughing and chattering as they shouldered their laser rifles and walked up the steps to the glassticenclosed foyer. Seated across the street in his parked car, Mordecai watched closely through the windows as they passed the duty officer at his desk and lined up in front of a reinforced door at the reception room's back wall. Each did something to a small upright console; the machine's response each time was to open the door. Within a minute all six men had vanished through it, leaving the desk man alone.
Leaning back against the seat cushions, Mordecai considered. An ID check, presumably. Not completely unreasonable, even in such a supposedly secure place as Athena, but it was going to complicate things. He had an ID, of course—the dead Security man from whom he'd obtained the uniform had kept his in a breast pocket clearly designed for the purpose—and if all the machine cared about was the card itself, Mordecai was home free. If the program was also checking the bearer's fingerprints and retinal patterns...
Mordecai pursed his lips, searching his memory. No, that was probably unlikely—and if the thing was really being that thorough, it was doing so damn quickly. Odds were good that it was only checking the cards, and that would be easy enough to handle.
Presumably. He'd find out for sure in a minute.
The duty officer glanced up as he entered, nodded briefly, and returned his attention to his display.
Mordecai nodded in return and strode briskly past him toward the rear door. Chances were good that Security men from both day and night shifts had been called up for this operation, and if the blackcollar behaved as if he belonged here anyone he met would probably assume the unfamiliar face simply belonged to someone on another crew.
Assuming, of course, that they hadn't paid close attention to the photos Galway had surely circulated.
The console by the door was indeed as simple as he'd hoped, apparently nothing more than a scan screen and a reset button. But there was always the potential for surprises. Palming a shuriken in his free hand, he pressed his stolen ID against the screen and held his breath.
There was a quiet beep, and the door ahead opened—and as he started through he noticed a display that hadn't been visible from the car outside. Three columns of names filled the screen, their positions shifting subtly as one more was added.
Which meant he'd been worried about nothing. Safe, fat, and sassy here in the middle of Athena, the Security bigtops evidently hadn't even considered the possibility of unauthorized entry. All they cared about was knowing who was on duty and available in the building and who wasn't.
Smiling tightly, Mordecai stepped through the door. So much for both enemy preparedness and blackcollar overcaution.
Beyond the door, a handful of people moved briskly along on unknown errands. Glancing once at his watch, Mordecai joined them, matching their businesslike air as best he could.
—
The situation room was considerably larger than Pittman had expected it to be, and for a long minute he just stood in the lounge doorway and gazed around at it. Four men were currently on duty, splitting their attention between a large overview screen of Denver, a bank of screens that looked to be from mobile units, a long panel that evidently handled voice-only communications from the field, and a second bank of screens that showed nothing but hallways and small rooms.
Hallways, small rooms, and a fair number of Security uniforms.
"You got the general's permission to be here?" one of the Security men said as Pittman moved toward the latter bank of displays.
Pittman nodded toward the screens. "That the detention level?" he asked.
"Yeah," the other said briefly, getting up and walking over to him. "Let's see your authorization."
"I don't have any, but Galway said I could wait in the lounge next door," Pittman said, his attention still on the displays. "You keeping a good eye on those guys?"
The Security man snorted. "Oh—right. You're Postern, aren't you? The informer."
Pittman's jaw tightened momentarily. He was getting tired of the contempt that always seemed to accompany that identification. "Yes," he acknowledged shortly. "You haven't answered my question."
One of the other officers snickered, swiveling his chair lazily toward Pittman. "Worried they'll come down and pay you a visit, are you? Maybe you should go back to the lounge and hide under the couch."
Pittman sent a cold look in his direction, then turned back to the original speaker. "Well?"
The Security man sighed. "Look, kid, there's really nothing to worry about. Your friends are harmless—they've been searched, they're surrounded by guards, and in a few minutes they'll all be locked away. I don't care how good blackcollars are, they can't be very dangerous inside little steel cubes."
"Hey!" one of the others called from the first display bank. "They've remote-forced the ambulance down—no one in it."
"Oh, hell," one of the others murmured. "Quinn's not going to like this one."
"Get Marsala and Abrams tied in," Pittman's challenger instructed, striding over to the display bank and frowning at one of the screens. "We'll want a fast diagnostic telemetry set up, see if the thing's been on autopilot since leaving or whether someone could have bailed out en route."
"Oh, come on," a third man put in, joining the others. "We've had it under surveillance practically the whole time."
The discussion continued, and for the moment Pittman was forgotten. Giving the detention display bank one final scan, he returned to the lounge, closing the door behind him. As it had been since he first arrived, the room was deserted; crossing it, he slipped out the far door and headed down a hallway toward the elevator.
Already the building was beginning to fill up as more and more Security troops filtered in from the aftermath of the capture. Pittman shared the elevator with three men in combat garb who were apparently on their way upstairs after checking their heavy weapons into the building's armory. All three gave Pittman a quick once-over, and though they remained silent he could sense that they knew who he was. Gritting his teeth, he got off at ground level, letting them continue to the fourth-floor barracks on their own.
Six heavily armed men were waiting by the elevators, laser rifles slung over their shoulders, obviously headed for the armory. Pittman gave them a wide berth, eying the rifles longingly, and began looking around for the building's from entrance. It turned out to be only a single turn and a dozen meters ahead, and was as secure-looking as he had expected. A small display set into the wall beside the door showed the view from the duty officer's desk; a single Security man was briefly visible as he passed the desk and headed for the door. No one else was in sight; all seemed perfectly quiet.
For a moment Pittman paused, wondering if he ought to head out into the lobby for a moment and talk to the desk officer. But everything appeared to be adequately under control out there. Which meant it was now time for the real test: to find out just how secure Quinn's fifth-floor cells really were. Turning, he headed back toward the elevators.
—
Elevators, and the lobbies where people gathered to wait for them, had a unique sound profile about them, and it was child's play to recognize that the place he sought was just down the hall from the entrance door. Senses alert, Mordecai headed off in the proper direction... but he'd barely taken five steps when he realized that the clothing of the man walking away ahead of him was familiar. The clothing, as well as the posture and the walk.
Pittman.
The blackcollar's lip twitched in a grim smile as he slowed his pace to avoid overtaking. Pittman didn't turn around, but continued around the next corner without pausing. A group of armed Security men were waiting for the elevator there, and for a moment Mordecai considered jumping them and getting himself a little extra firepower. But prudence won out, and instead he took up a casual position against the wall near the corner, staying well back from the others. Hanging his head in a posture of thought that would both discourage idle conversation and mask his features a bit, he waited.