Simões looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay, I can't argue with any of that. But why is tomorrow significant?"
"I already told Bardasano that it'd be best to have our last meeting on a Saturday. There won't be a lot of people around in Gamma Center, so I said it'd be more relaxing for you. Make it easier for me to get whatever final wrapup information you might be able to provide." He shrugged. "I was planning to stall until next Saturday—maybe even the one after that—but given the new developments we should do it right away."
Herlander took a deep breath. "Okay. What should I do?"
"Early tomorrow morning, go to this address." He slid a piece of paper across the table. "Memorize it and destroy the note. Someone will be there to take you to the rendezvous with the people who'll be taking us off the planet. I'll meet you there later, after I finish some last business at the Gamma Center."
"What bus—? Oh. You'll be laying false leads."
Jack smiled. "That's one way to put it."
Anton looked around the table. "Is everyone clear on what needs to happen?"
Carl Hansen gave his three subordinates a quick glance. "Yes, I think so. David, you've got the trickiest assignment. Any questions?"
David Pritchard shook his head. "No, it's straightforward enough. After whoever-it-is-whose-name-remains-unknown leaves this 'Gamma Center' place—which I'll be told by a signal from Karen—I park the aircar in the lot of the sports stadium next door and walk away, giving myself plenty of time to get clear. Cary will trigger the device we've already planted in the old Buenaventura tower as soon as word comes from Carl that he's on his way to the spaceport with whoever-it-is. Then I blow mine."
"It probably won't even scratch the 'Center,' " Hansen said, "given how deep it's buried. But it should do some major damage to Suvorov Tower." Like the other members of his group, Hansen had only the vaguest notion, even now, of what the Gamma Center truly was, but he didn't have to know what it was as long as he knew it was important to the authorities he hated with every fiber of his being. "Suvorov's right on top of it," he continued, "so the scorpions're bound to assume the Center's the real target of whatever is happening."
Pritchard had a sour look on his face. "I still don't understand why we're taking so much effort to keep the casualties down. That part of the city, the only seccies around will be servants and janitors."
"Which is exactly why we're doing it this way, David." Karen Steve Williams was making no effort to hide her unfriendliness. "Those servants and janitors are our people too, you know, even if you don't care about them. As it is, we'll be killing a few of them. But at least this way—and it'll help a lot that it's on a Saturday—it shouldn't be too bad."
Cary Condor nodded. "I agree with Karen. David, try to hold the bloodlust to a reasonable minimum, will you? It'd be a different story if you could park the aircar in Suvorov's own garage—"
"Better still, park it right in the middle of Pine Valley Park," Pritchard said savagely. Pine Valley was the park at the exact center of Green Pines, and Green Pines was inhabited only by freeborn citizens—and wealthy and very well-connected ones, at that. The Gamma Center's hidden location was well inside the Green Pines city limits, but it was on the commercial side of the city.
"Yeah, sure, that'd be great—except there's no way you're parking an aircar in or near either place and getting out safely. Not with the security they've got. The parking lot of the sports stadium is as close as we can realistically get."
Pritchard was not happy with the arrangement. Even a nuclear device—as small as the one he had, anyway—wasn't going to do that much damage to a buried, hardened installation. Not when it was set off out in the open, in an empty parking lot, more than a kilometer from it's target, anyway.
But . . . He supposed it was better than nothing. And he knew there was no point in continuing the argument any longer.
"Yeah, yeah, fine. I understand the plan."
Victor and Yana finished their final walk-through of the escape passageway. It had originally been built to be one of the conduits for the city's underground transport network. About a century earlier, the city had discontinued most of that network, but had seen no reason to demolish what existed. In fact, they'd spent some money shoring it up and making sure it was stable. The expense of tearing apart buildings which had been erected on top of the areas in order to do a proper job of filling in the conduits would have far greater. So would the repair cost of having parts of the city collapse if those old underground passageways started corroding.
Since then, the abandoned passageways had been put to different uses by different people. Not surprisingly, the city had a large population of indigents, including a number of people who were not sane. Many of them lived down there. Criminals used the passageways for any number of purposes—and paid off the police to keep them from inspecting too often or too carefully. Merchants used them to store perishable goods, under what amounted to dirt-cheap climate controlled conditions. And, finally, the passageways were used by the underground, smuggling escaped slaves to freedom.
This particular passageway could be reached from a hidden entry in the basement of one of the tenements not far from Steph Turner's restaurant. The passageway ran for fully two kilometers thereafter under the city's streets. They'd use the next-to-last exit, which would put them within easy walking distance of the delivery van that would take them into the spaceport itself. By the time they reached the van, Carl Hansen and the two Mesan defectors should already have arrived. All of them except Carl and Victor—Carl as the driver; Victor as his helper—would be hidden in the crates in the van's interior. Unless the security guards at the spaceport insisted on physically searching the van, including breaking into the crates, everything should work fine. Among the many items Victor had obtained from the ever-helpful Triêu Chuanli had been shipping containers that were not only environmentally sealed but even had equipment designed to block the sort of instrumental inspection that security guards were usually satisfied with.
It wasn't likely at all that these guards would insist on a physical search. That area of the spaceport was given over to shipments to and from the smaller and less reputable freighters in orbit. It was taken for granted that a certain amount of smuggling was being carried out. Carl's bribes should be enough to do the trick.
If not . . . Well, Victor was there. With the same Kettridge Model A-3 tucked up his sleeve. There was at least a chance—not a bad one, either—that he could kill all the guards before they could send out a warning. From there, they might be able to make it to the Hali Sowle's tender and get into low orbit before anyone really knew what had happened. There were so many such tenders coming and leaving that unless the authorities spotted which one they were in, they might be able to get aboard the Hali Sowle undetected.
Hopefully, of course, it wouldn't come to that.
"Well, that's it," Yana said. "Victor, I have to say it's been a real pleasure sleeping with you night after night after night in the sure and certain knowledge that I would get no thrills whatsoever."
"Oh, stop whining. If I had given you any thrills—and Thandi found out—you'd get the thrill of a lifetime."
Yana grinned. "A very short lifetime."
"They don't call her Great Kaja for nothing."
On his way back from the safe house where he'd had the meeting with Hansen's group, using a different underground passageway, Anton decided to wrestle with his conscience. There wasn't any time left. He'd either pin the damn thing down or he'd have to concede defeat—which would mean reopening those parts of the plan with Victor that he wasn't happy about.