And the Ryq hadn't been shy about making that clear, either. Nor, apparently, was he interested in starting now. "I ha' seen Lathe in action," Taakh said in response to Haberdae's quiet comment, taking a step closer to the prefect. "The 'lan rill rork."
Haberdae grimaced. "Yes, Your Eminence," he said, his voice neutral again. Loyalty-conditioning permitted a man to offer suggestions to a Ryqril, or in certain circumstances to even argue with them.
But no one argued with khassq-class warriors. Not if they wanted to stay alive.
"Looks like they're splitting into two groups, sir," one of the techs at the monitor panel spoke up.
"Yae ha' 'oth directions co'ered?"
"Everything is covered, Your Eminence," Haberdae said. His voice was properly respectful, but beneath it his patience was clearly strained. "From that altitude, they have a maximum range of maybe thirty kilometers. We've got fifty klicks covered, in every direction—"
"Something's wrong," Galway interrupted him, the back of his neck starting to tingle as he stared at the silhouettes of the hang gliders.
"There's nothing wrong," Haberdae growled. "My people have them covered."
"They're not there," Galway said, his vague apprehensions suddenly becoming certainty. "Those are decoys."
Haberdae turned to the control board. "Vaandar?" he demanded.
"Sensors clearly show a person hanging under each of those gliders," the tech assured him.
"The sensors are wrong," Galway insisted, swiveling to the communications section of his panel and keying a switch. "Because that's all they're doing—hanging. They're not controlling the gliders.
Dispatch? Get me fifty men—"
"Hold it," Haberdae snapped, grabbing the armrest of Galway's chair and giving a yank that brought him rolling back from the board. "You already have all the men you're entitled to for this operation. You do not have authority to grab any more without my permission." He looked at Taakh. "Isn't that right, Your Eminence?" he added.
"The gliders aren't under control," Galway said, carefully pronouncing each word. "They're decoys.
Lathe and the others got off somewhere else."
"Rhere?" Taakh demanded.
"Exactly," Haberdae seconded. "We've had the shuttle under surveillance the entire way."
"Except where it dipped into the Falkarie Mountain foothills," Galway reminded him. "There were a nearly two minutes where the sensors were blocked."
"And the ground observers had visual contact the whole time," Haberdae countered. "They would have seen any parachutes."
"Then they didn't use parachutes," Galway insisted. "Look, Prefect, I don't know how they did it. All I know is that they're not with those gliders."
"Ha' yae other e'idence?" Taakh asked.
Galway braced himself. "No evidence, Your Eminence. Just my experience with the way Lathe does things."
"Then 'Re'ect Ha'erdae is correct," the Ryq said. "Yae nay not rekest his other nen."
And there would be no appeal, Galway knew. Not with Taakh. "As you command, Your Eminence," he said. "In that case, may I be excused for a few minutes? The gliders won't land for at least another half hour, and I have some other matters to attend to."
Taakh inclined his head. "Yae nay go."
"Thank you," Galway said. Standing up, he headed for the door.
"Don't you touch my people," Haberdae warned.
"I wouldn't think of it," Galway assured him.
No, he wouldn't touch any of Haberdae's precious Security men, he thought grimly as the door sealed itself behind him. Not even the ones who were currently doing absolutely nothing except lounging around Inkosi City's main entry roads, as if Lathe would be foolish enough to enter a city along such obvious routes.
But then, Haberdae's Security men were hardly the only resources available. There was an entire government's worth of bureaucrats and tech workers scattered around the city, all of them loyaltyconditioned, none of them under Haberdae's legal jurisdiction. If Galway could get them out onto the streets and highways in the next half hour—all the streets, not just the obvious entry points—maybe they could spot the incoming blackcollars in time to get Judas and the special ops team in position to intercept them.
Picking up his pace, he hurried down the brightly lit corridor. With luck, maybe he could still pull this off.
CHAPTER 3
"So has anyone been inside the mountain since we left?" Skyler asked as they drove eastward along the winding road toward Reger's estate.
"Anne and I went in a couple of times in the first few months," Kanai said. "We wanted to see if there was any more information on Whiplash we might have missed earlier."
Skyler nodded, thinking of the irony of it all. The old Torch resistance organization had spent its last days in Aegis Mountain, working to develop a drug capable of breaking the hitherto unbreakable Ryqril loyalty-conditioning. And they'd succeeded, only to succumb to the residual chemical warfare contamination in the base before they'd even had a chance to use it. "Was there?"
"Not that we could find," Kanai said. "We were able to get a couple other sections of the base operational, though, complete with heat and power. We got one of the elevators running, too."
"I hope you didn't go near the main command level," Hawking warned.
"And risk bringing the entire mountain down on us?" Kanai snorted gently. "Give us a little more credit than that, Commando Hawking."
"I'm sure he was just asking," Skyler assured him. "But you haven't been inside lately?"
In the reflected glow of the headlights, Skyler saw Kanai's lips compress briefly. "As I say, we've had some differences of opinion. I'm mostly working with Reger these days."
"What kind of differences?" Skyler pressed.
"Perhaps it would be best if we wait until ..."
He trailed off.
"What is it?" Skyler asked, looking out the windshield.
"That's the road to Reger's estate," Kanai said, pointing ahead to a road branching off to the right.
"Those two houses on either side of the intersection have their porch lights on."
"And they shouldn't?" Skyler asked.
"All the houses on that road are owned by Reger's people," Kanai said. The car came up to the road, and he drove past without slowing. "The porch lights are never lit unless something's wrong."
"Any other ways in?" O'Hara asked.
"There's an access road along the west side of the estate," Hawking said. "It'll bring us right up to the sensor keyhole Jensen and I put in."
"Unless Reger's closed it up," Skyler said.
"I don't believe he has," Kanai said. "No one but a blackcollar would be able to sneak in along it anyway."
"Okay, get us back to that road," Skyler said. "You and Hawking know the system and grounds best—
you'll go in through the keyhole. O'Hara and I will give you some lead time, then we'll come in the front door."
It took Kanai a few minutes by back street and other people's access roads to return them to the western edge of the Reger estate. Maneuvering the car around the worst of the potholes, he came to a halt a few meters from the outer fence, a simple-looking wire-mesh design, two meters tall, that probably looked like any number of other property-line fences in this part of the mountains. "Electrified, no doubt,"
O'Hara commented as the four blackcollars approached it.
"Yes, but not seriously," Hawking assured him. "Jensen cranked back most of the juice so that he could run pressure sensors along the top without the current blinding them."
"Another good reason to leave the fence alone," Skyler said, pulling on his battle-hood and gloves as the others followed suit. "O'Hara?"
O'Hara stepped to his side, and together they eased their way cautiously forward until they were about a meter from the fence. There was no obvious reaction from either the fence or the environs. Turning to face each other a meter apart, they settled into wide horse stances, knees bent, hands cupped thigh high in front of them. "Kanai?" Skyler said, looking back at the others.