- Chapter 11

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# CHAPTER 11

"As I said before, there's a lot of guesswork here," Shaw warned as he dropped the stack of rolled papers on one end of the kitchen table and selected one from the pile. "But it's all we've got."

"Understood," Lathe said. "Let's take a look."

Standing beside Mordecai at the side of the table, Judas craned his neck as Shaw unrolled the sheet and spread it out. To his surprise, it looked nearly as detailed as an actual blueprint would have been. If this was guesswork, he thought with a shiver, he would hate to see what blackcollars came up with when they actually had something to work with.

"This is the main floor," Shaw identified it. He tapped at the four sides in turn. "Here are the four entrances we saw yesterday; the eight entrance bunkers, two per door; and the reinforced bases at each of the eight corners for the antiaircraft lasers."

"Where's Spadafora?" Judas asked, looking around as he suddenly realized the third Plinry blackcollar wasn't there. In fact, now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn't seen the other leaving for their look at Khorstron the previous afternoon.

"He's out on another job," Lathe said.

"Comsquare Lathe has him dealing with the sensors in the fence," Shaw added.

"The sensors?" Judas asked, his stomach tightening. Surely they weren't attacking today, were they? "You mean we're—today?"

"No, no," Shaw soothed, looking rather amused. "Certain things take time, Trainee Caine. Aged whiskey and out-link sensor systems are two of them."

Judas swallowed. "Oh," he said, feeling his face warming. "Sorry."

"Looks like there are mantrap foyers inside each entrance," Lathe said, tapping the large oval rooms behind the east entrance.

"Probably," Shaw agreed. "We don't know how they're furnished, of course, but from the thickness of the walls and these support points we assume each will have a couple of autotarget lasers flanking the inner door and a pair of guard holes a meter or two around the curve from them."

Judas winced. "That doesn't sound good."

"Depends on how they're set up," Lathe said. "Autotargeters can sometimes be disabled with a shuriken or two."

"Though you do tend to get only one shot at a given laser," Shaw said.

"There's that," Lathe agreed. "Tell me more about these entrance guard bunkers. You implied earlier that they didn't have any outer doors?"

"Right—they open directly through the wall into the base."

"So you could get inside through the bunkers?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't count on that being very useful," Shaw said. "The bunker walls themselves are relatively thin, but the entry doors behind them are every bit as tough as the main door they're protecting. And of course, with no external door on the bunker you'd have to blow the front off the thing to even gain access."

"Still, it would avoid the mantrap problem," Lathe pointed out. "What about the outer bunkers, the ones at the gate entrances?"

"Same deal, only the guards get in from the base via underground tunnels," Shaw said. "Here, here, here, and here. And, of course, once you were through the tunnels you'd have the same serious door to get through at the base end."

"Plus whatever additional goodies the Ryqril put in the tunnels themselves to discourage trespassers," Lathe said.

Shaw nodded. "Plus that."

"Why four entrances?" Mordecai asked suddenly.

"What?" Shaw asked, frowning at him.

"Four entrances, but the only thing nearby is Inkosi City to the west," Mordecai said. "There aren't any towns shown anywhere else, or even any real roads leading to the area. So why bother with the north, south, and east gates?"

Shaw shrugged. "Maybe they're just there for emergencies. Maybe they're planning to build barracks or auxiliary facilities on those sides. Or maybe they just got a good deal on reinforced doors. The point is that we have four possible ways of getting in and not just one."

"Yes," Lathe murmured. "Convenient."

"You want to look at this or don't you?" Shaw growled. "You do? Fine." He leaned over the table and tapped a circular opening in the center. "Here's the heart of the place, dead center on the first floor. No big surprise there—it's the most protected spot in the building."

"What's in there?" Judas asked.

"The gold at rainbow's end," Shaw said. "Or at least, all the gold we care about. The core's where all the data comes in, which is then parceled out to the various collation and analysis stations in other parts of the building. Once everything's been sifted, the analyses and conclusions are sent back to the core, where the permanently stationed half circle of Ryqril command officers make decisions and send out orders. There are things we could glean from offices all over the building, but the core's the only place to get everything at once."

"And they obviously know it," Lathe said. "I see they've got a complete double wall around it."

"With plenty of room between the layers for pressurized gas traps, antipersonnel explosives, or even a few roaming khassq if they feel so inclined," Shaw said grimly. "You can also bet they've got more autotarget lasers set up outside the doors, ready to turn the last five or ten meters of corridor into a killing zone."

"Only three doors into the place, too," Judas commented. "What about these three narrow rooms wrapped around the big central one?"

"One of them will be the base's main security monitor room," Shaw said. "This one, probably, from the number of secure display conduits we saw them putting in the walls. The other two are probably a guard room and a lounge for the command officers."

"Seems horribly inefficient," Judas said, studying the three wide corridors that led from the perimeter corridor to the central circle and its wraparound rooms and the five sets of cross corridors cutting across them. "With an octagonal shape, wouldn't it make more sense to parallel that design on the inside? Or at the very least to go with a four-sided corridor/room pattern instead of a triangular one?"

"They probably borrowed it from one of their victims," Lathe said. "They borrow everyone else's technology. Why not their architecture, too?"

"Anyway, that's the overview," Shaw said. "We've also got a little more detail on some of the areas—"

"Why the first floor?" Mordecai interrupted, gazing at the diagram.

"Excuse me?" Shaw asked.

"Probably because the second floor's more exposed to air attacks," Judas explained, frowning. Even to him that one seemed obvious.

"I meant why on the surface at all?" Mordecai said. "Why not put it underground? We know the ground can be dug into—they've got tunnels leading to the fence bunkers."

"He's got a point," Lathe agreed, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "For that matter, why not put the whole base underground?"

"For starters, underground facilities take a lot longer to build," Shaw pointed out. But he, too, was frowning down at the paper.

"Or the place may not be as valuable as they want us to believe," Mordecai said.

There was another silence, a longer one this time. Surreptitiously, Judas looked at each of the others in turn, his heart pounding uncomfortably. If they gave up now, this whole thing would have been for nothing.

And if that happened, there was no telling what might happen to his family back in Interlaken. Galway had promised them safety and security, but the unspoken condition was that Galway would continue to be in a position where he could make good on that guarantee. If the mission failed, the Plinry prefect wasn't likely to remain in the Ryqril's good graces for long.

To his relief, Lathe shook his head. "No," he said. "Haberdae must have deduced by now that Khorstron is the reason we're here. If they didn't care whether or not we got in, they wouldn't have tried to take us out of the game last night."

Judas breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "Besides, as you said earlier, Lepkowski's already gone to tell the Chryselli about it," he added. "We have to get inside."

"Right," Lathe agreed. "So let's quit worrying about why Ryqril do things the way they do and concentrate on how we're going to get in there. Tactor?"

"Okay," Shaw said, selecting another roll of paper. "This one's a closer look at the west door area...."

* * *

Neatly framed in the center of the display was a wide rectangular post, a meshwork pattern extending out from it on both sides. "It's one of the Khorstron fence posts," Haberdae identified it. "So?"

"Just keep watching," Galway told him. "Especially the upper third."

"Galway, I don't have time for gam—"

He broke off in midword as a gray projectile suddenly shot in from the edge of the display and slapped into the upper part of the fence post, the impact flattening it into a misshapen blob. "What the hell?" Haberdae muttered.

"You were wondering earlier where Spadafora had disappeared to?" Galway gestured to the display. "There you go."

"There I go where?" Haberdae growled. "What the hell is that?"

"A small piece of plutonium embedded in a putty-like substance, delivered via slingshot by a blackcollar sharpshooter," Galway told him. "That was the fifteenth he's landed on the post since dawn. The fifteenth we've noticed, anyway—he might have sent in more of them before we caught on. You can see how well the putty matches the color of the post."

"And this is in aid of what?" Haberdae asked. "I trust you're not going to suggest there's enough radiation in there to decrystalize the metal of the post and bring it down."

"No, of course, not," Galway said. "But if you place the pellets over critical sensor or sonic net electronics—and all fifteen of them are over such places—there's more than enough radiation to begin slowly degrading them. Fairly unnoticeable, too, since the diagnostic sensors are being scrambled at the same time."

Haberdae looked sharply at Galway, then back at the display, then a little less truculently at Galway. "How slow are we talking about?"

"I don't know yet," Galway said. "Hours, or a low number of days. The techs are researching that now. The point is that they've actively started their plan."

"I guess so," Haberdae said, scratching his chin. "So where is he?"

"We're not sure about that, either." Galway gestured to the tech, who tapped his control board. With dizzying speed, the view on the display pulled back from the fence post and settled down into an overall view of the southwest quadrant of the Khorstron area. "Here's the affected post," he said, touching a spot on the southwest part of the fence. "We're guessing he's in a camouflage setup in or near one of the trees over here to the south of the base." He ran a hand over a thirty-degree arc through the forested area outside the fence. "There's also this abandoned shack over here, along with this shed, either of which he could also be using."

"He'd have to shoot a hundred meters from either of those buildings," Haberdae objected. "And through that whole patch of forest on top of it."

"As I said, he's a sharpshooter," Galway reminded him. "Which is why he's here instead of one of the others. Neither Lathe nor Mordecai has anywhere near the necessary skill with a slingshot."

"But a hundred meters?"

"Actually, I don't think he's that far away," Galway said. "I'm guessing he's somewhere in the woods. Unfortunately, no one saw him get in there and set up shop, and the pellets themselves are too small to get a decent trajectory vector from. And we certainly don't want to send in a team that might spook him."

"No, of course not," Haberdae said darkly. "We want them to feel nice and safe for their little raid."

"Actually, yes, we do."

"That's what I said," Haberdae insisted. "Did you think I was being sarcastic?"

Actually, Galway wasn't sure what kind of tone that had been. But there'd been something there, something nasty lurking beneath the surface. "No, of course not."

"Good." Haberdae nodded toward the display. "Let me know as soon as you have an idea how long it'll take for them to wreck the sensor system. I want to know when they'll be ready to move."

* * *

The public phone Skyler had specified was on a busy corner squarely in the middle of downtown lunchtime traffic. Poirot arrived two minutes early and stood to the side, watching the passing pedestrians and cars and feeling decidedly uncomfortable in his civilian clothing.

The phone rang, and Poirot scooped up the handset. "Yes?"

"You alone?" Skyler's voice came back.

With an effort, Poirot forced himself not to look at the van parked half a block away where Bailey and his tech team were monitoring the call. "I'm on a street corner in Denver," he countered instead. "How alone can I be?"

There was a soft chuckle. "Point taken," Skyler said. "What have you got for me?"

Poirot took a deep breath. This was it. "I've persuaded them to let me move the prisoners tomorrow night," he said. "They'll be—"

"Who's this them you had to persuade?" Skyler interrupted. "I thought you were the head of Security here."

"I am," Poirot said, and it took no acting at all to add a bitter edge to his voice. "The Ryqril are taking a personal interest in this. It seems your missing blackcollar killed one of their sentries last night."

There was a long moment of silence. "Really," Skyler said at last, his voice giving no hint as to what he was thinking.

"Yes, really," Poirot said. "I hope to hell whatever he's doing is worth the trouble he's stirred up."

"I hope so, too," Skyler said evenly. "Tomorrow night, you said?"

"Yes," Poirot confirmed. "They'll be loaded aboard a group of vans which will leave Athena at seven o'clock and head for Colorado Springs."

"That's when city traffic will be at its minimum, I presume?"

"Correct," Poirot said. "It's lightest between six-thirty and seven-thirty. That'll make it easier to spot any tails. They'll also have five or six spotters at high cover, and probably an armed patrol boat or two ready in case they need extra firepower."

"That last part could be unpleasant," Skyler said. "Any chance of getting it cancelled?"

"I doubt it," Poirot said. "It was the Ryqril's idea."

"Well, if we can't ground them, we'll just have to work around them. How many vans will you be using?"

"The current plan is to have six," Poirot said. "One prisoner per van, with a driver and a couple of guards along. Of course, bear in mind that the Ryqril could come in at any time and change any or all of that."

"I understand," Skyler said. "What about Reger's people, the ones you picked up after we crashed your party at his estate?"

"Crashed rather literally," Poirot growled, rubbing the side of his neck in memory. "Don't worry about them. We've established that none of them know anything about Reger's connection with Phoenix, and we've got more urgent things to do right now than bother with minor flight and resisting-arrest violations. They're all being released, probably this afternoon."

"That should make Reger happy," Skyler said. "Then I guess we're set."

"I hope so," Poirot said, and meant it. If this worked, and if they were able to capture even one of the blackcollars, it would go a long way toward convincing Bailey and the Ryqril that he was still loyal. "Anything else you need?"

"I don't think so," Skyler said. "Oh, wait—there was one other thing. What's the threshold size for Athena's defense lasers?"

Poirot blinked. "The what?"

"The size something has to be to trigger those big Green Mountain autotarget lasers that guard Athena's outer fence," Skyler said. "Is it basketball size, baseball size—what?"

A cold chill ran up Poirot's back. Could Daasaa have been right about Skyler planning to attack Athena? "I don't have that number off the top of my head," he said through stiff lips. "I'll have to look it up."

"Do that," Skyler said. "Let me know tomorrow when you call to confirm the final details for the transfer."

"Look, I can't keep leaving my post at odd times and coming out here this way," Poirot insisted. "Someone's bound to get suspicious."

"Since when is lunch an odd time to be coming and going?" Skyler countered.

"Since most government workers eat in Athena, not out in the city," Poirot said with strained patience.

"Okay, fine," Skyler said reasonably. "Give me a time that wouldn't be odd. You must come out to make your rounds or pick up your laundry or something."

Poirot grimaced. He didn't want to come out here again—every contact with Skyler just increased the chances that he'd make some sort of slip. Unfortunately, he couldn't think of a plausible reason to decline. "Let's make it midmorning," he said reluctantly. "I can tell them I'm checking with one of my informers. Say, ten-thirty?"

"Ten-thirty it is," Skyler confirmed. "Here's your new rendezvous." He read off a street corner halfway across town. "Talk to you then."

The phone went dead. With a curse, Poirot hung up and headed back to his car. The van would be making its own return to Athena along an entirely different route and timetable, but in an hour or so he and Bailey should be able to sit down and discuss this new twist.

If, that is, Bailey wanted to discuss it with him. If Bailey was interested in helping Poirot clear himself, rather than just trying to keep his own nose clean as far as the Ryqril were concerned.

If Bailey wasn't actually after Poirot's job.

He shook his head in annoyance at the absurdity of that thought. Bailey was ambitious, but not enough to stab his superior in the back. Not even with this damned Whiplash thing giving him the perfect excuse to do so.

At least, he hoped not.

He shook his head tiredly. With loyalty-conditioning, the thought once again flicked through his mind, a man always knew who he could trust.

Without it, how could anyone know anything?

* * *

Skyler hung up the phone and glanced around at the pedestrians and cars moving along the streets and walkways around him, wondering if Security could have traced the call and gotten a team here this quickly. Unlikely, he decided. Taking a quick look at the cloudy sky above him, he headed down the street to where Anne and the car were waiting.

He'd gone five steps when his tingler came on. Tracker confirmed, O'Hara reported. White van with surveillance equipment.

Skyler slid his fingers to his own tingler. Subject aware of tracker?

There was a pause as O'Hara mulled at the question, running his observations through the filter of his blackcollar instincts. Probably.

Skyler grimaced. But it was hardly an unexpected development. If the lower-level government workers Phoenix had freed from their loyalty-conditioning weren't interested in risking their comfortable jobs, there had always been little hope that the head of Security himself would be willing to do so.

But Skyler had a secret streak of optimism, and he'd quietly nurtured that hope. Still, now they knew for sure. Return home, he told O'Hara. Watch your backtrack.

Acknowledged.

So they would have to do this the hard way. Moreover, they would have to do it shorthanded.

He scowled. Blast you anyway, Jensen, he growled silently toward the distant mountain peaks. He'd wondered if the other had had some private agenda when he'd volunteered so quickly to stay with Flynn and his damaged hang glider. Possibly an agenda involving that observer he claimed to have seen when they'd entered Aegis Mountain on their last trip to the area. Skyler hadn't known about that at the time, but Mordecai had clued in him and Lathe afterward.

And now, if Poirot was to be believed, he was out there killing Ryqril.

Lathe had warned him not to bring Jensen along. Skyler, of course, had known better. Now look where it had gotten him.

Above the sound of the traffic came the faint but distinctive whine of a spotter. Instinctively, Skyler lowered his head to make his face harder to see, while simultaneously craning an eye upward toward the incoming vehicle.

It turned out not to be a single spotter but a pair of them, flying low and slow a dozen meters apart with a wide, flat sensor disk strung on cables between them. Not a visual scanner, as Skyler might have expected, but rather the kind of microradar and materials echo-sensors designed to look for particular metals and compounds, plus power sources and other forms of radiation.

The blackcollars' own equipment, of course, didn't have enough metal to lift them out of the background clutter, and aside from tinglers and short-range radios they used no power sources at all. That was the whole reason they'd adopted such low-tech weapons in the first place.

Which meant those spotters weren't hunting for Skyler's team. So what were they hunting?

And then it clicked, and he smiled tightly to himself. Of course: his throwaway comment to Poirot about Phoenix's secret cache of weapons. He'd dropped the line mainly to make the rebel forces look bigger and more powerful than they really were, trying to make them look more like the probable winning side. Apparently, the general had taken the line seriously.

Which was fine with Skyler. The more men and vehicles Security wasted on useless searches for huge organizations and nonexistent weapons dumps, the fewer they would have available for actually tracking down the real threat.

He reached the car and got in. "Well?" Anne asked.

"You were right," Skyler admitted. "He's still on their side."

"I told you," Anne said. "So what now?"

"We play them like they're trying to play us," Skyler said, trying to sound more confident than he felt. This tactics stuff really wasn't his strong point.

"Meaning we go ahead with the plan?"

"Unless you want to let them keep your people."

"The people who would be leading their normal lives right now if you hadn't shown up?"

"We'll get them back," Skyler assured her. "Let's head home."

Reaching down, Anne started the car. "I talked to my contact in Boulder this morning while you and O'Hara were reconnoitering the area," she said as she pulled out into the traffic flow. "She isn't happy about it, but she's agreed to get us the rolling scramble-freq radio system Security's spotters use and a couple of the general authorization codes. That's all she'll do, though."

"It'll be enough," Skyler said. "Don't worry—this is going to work."

Anne didn't answer.

* * *

"And you're absolutely sure you weren't followed?" Poirot asked as he and Bailey walked together across the situation room.

"I'm sure," Bailey said, trying hard to hold onto his temper. It had been a highly unproductive and frustrating morning, and having Poirot asking different versions of the same question over and over wasn't helping. "Trust me, General, we do know what we're doing."

Poirot made as if to speak again, seemed to think better of it, and fell silent.

The two Ryqril were waiting for them in the conference room, poring over maps and sifting through pages from a stack of reports. "Sit," Battle Architect Daasaa said without preamble, pointing the two humans to seats across from them. "Khassq Rarrior Halaak and I are not 'leased rith yaer re'ort."

"We do have more information now, though," Poirot offered. "The blackcollars—"

"I an not s'eaking tae yae," Daasaa cut him off. "Yae—Colonel 'Ailey—yaer sur'ey is not acce'ta'le."

"My apologies, Your Eminence," Bailey said, feeling his stomach tighten. His men had been working like demons to get their aerial survey of the city finished in the time Daasaa had allotted them, and for the most part they'd succeeded. But all they had to show for it was negative information. "We've begun a second sweep of the city proper, but I don't expect to find anything on this one, either. Still, there are many large tracts in the outlying rural areas that are still being searched."

"Searched for what?" Poirot asked in a low voice.

"The weapons cache you said Phoenix had buried away somewhere," Bailey told him.

"Are you fine-tuning for gunmetal?" Poirot asked. "Because if you're looking just for metal—"

"I know how to do a weapons search," Bailey cut him off, turning back to the Ryqril. "My apologies for the interruption, Your Eminences."

"Yae rill continyae the search," Daasaa said. "General 'Oirot. Tell us a'out yaer contact."

Bailey listened with half an ear as Poirot detailed the brief conversation with Skyler, most of his mind busy trying to extrapolate to what the blackcollars might be planning.

"The 'lackcollars rill attack Athena," Halaak said firmly when Poirot had finished.

"That does now seem more likely," Bailey said cautiously. "On the other hand, Skyler might have asked about the defense laser thresholds just to mislead us."

"Dae yae think they dae not trust General 'Oirot, then?"

"They do trust me," Poirot insisted. "They have no reason to think I'm working against them." He glared at Bailey. "Unless they spotted Colonel Bailey's van and figured out that he was tapping the conversation."

"No," Bailey said firmly. "We were very careful. There's no way they could have made us."

"Then the 'lackcollars rill attack Athena," Daasaa concluded. "Yae rill nake ready to sto' this attack."

Bailey grimaced. More of his men diverted from the task at hand, this latest batch earmarked to guard against an attack they all knew couldn't possibly succeed. But Daasaa's mind was clearly made up, and it would be dangerous to argue further. "As you command, Your Eminence," he said, suppressing a sigh. "What about the prisoner transfer? Do we still go ahead with that?"

"Yae rill trans'er they as 'lanned," Halaak said. "If re nust s'lit forces, then so nust they."

Which wasn't at all how it worked, Bailey knew. Skyler could just as easily choose to concentrate his forces against one of his possible targets and ignore the other completely. But again, it wasn't something he dared argue at this point. "As you command, Your Eminence," he said again. "In the meantime, Skyler will expect General Poirot to provide some numbers on the laser threshold tomorrow. What do you want us to tell him?"

"Re rill consider," Daasaa said. "Yae rill gi' the orders."

"As you command, Your Eminence," Bailey said, standing up and gesturing to Poirot.

But instead of getting out of his chair, the general was frowning hard at the far side of the room. "A moment, please," he said slowly. "It just occurred to me that there's another possible location for this Phoenix weapons cache, a location I know you haven't searched."

"There are a lot of places we haven't yet—"

"I mean Aegis Mountain."

Bailey broke off, staring at the other. "That's impossible," he said. "Even the Ryqril haven't been able to find a way in."

For a moment Poirot didn't answer, his lips moving slightly as if he was talking to himself. Then, abruptly, his head snapped around. "My God," he breathed, his eyes suddenly blazing with passion. "It fits. It all fits."

"General—"

"No—listen to me," Poirot cut him off, his words tumbling over themselves in his excitement. "Last year when Lathe came, we thought they were here to assassinate former Prefect Ivas Trendor. But that never made any sense."

"They also got into Athena and ran games through the Security building," Bailey reminded him.

"Only because General Quinn pushed them into it," Poirot said, wincing visibly at the memory. "And then once Trendor was dead, they suddenly closed up shop and left." He tapped a finger on the tabletop. "But what if the assassination was just a blind? What if what they were really here for was to get into Aegis?"

Slowly, Bailey sat down again. "All right," he said, thinking hard. "But if they have all these weapons, why haven't they used them?"

"Because they first needed Silcox and Reger to build them a proper rebel force," Poirot said. "And we know they did—we've got six of the leaders locked away upstairs."

"And now Skyler's come back to lead them into battle?"

"Why not?" Poirot countered. "They have the personnel, they apparently have the weapons, and with the blackcollars they have some top-notch military leadership." He looked at the Ryqril. "And one of them was obviously snooping around the main entrance into Aegis," he reminded them.

"And of course, with Whiplash they also have the spies?" Bailey suggested.

Poirot stared at him, the excitement draining from his face. "You don't believe me, do you?" he said, his voice subdued again. "You think this is something Skyler told me to feed you."

Bailey shrugged uncomfortably. He hated having to think the worst of his superior this way. "All I know is that none of the Phoenix prisoners has even mentioned Aegis."

"Maybe none of them know about it," Poirot said. "Maybe only Silcox and the blackcollars know. In fact, maybe that's why they worked so hard to get her away from us in the first place."

"Aegis Nountain is sealed," Daasaa said. "Re ha' 'een trying 'or two years tae 'enetrate it. It cannot 'e done."

"Can you afford to take that chance?" Poirot asked.

Halaak's eyes narrowed, his left hand dropping to the short sword belted at his left hip. "Dae yae s'eak thus tae a khassq?" he demanded.

Poirot's lips tightened. "I meant no disrespect, Your Eminence," he said. His voice was properly deferential, but Bailey could hear the clenched teeth behind it. "But I'm concerned that if the blackcollars do intend an attack on Athena, we may find ourselves facing more than catapulted bowling balls or whatever else they can improvise."

"Yae rish tae di'ert e'en nore o' yaer nen tae search the nountain?" Daasaa asked.

"Actually, that may not be necessary," Bailey put in. He still wasn't ready to buy Poirot's conveniently timed reasoning, not by a long shot. But at the same time, he had to admit it wasn't something they could afford to dismiss out of hand. "We know they can't get in or out of Aegis through the main entrance, not with your base there, and you've got the highway blocked as well. All the rest of the terrain in the area is pretty rugged, far too rugged for land vehicles."

"Reach yaer 'oint, Colonel," Halaak rumbled.

"The point is that we have a ring of sensor pylons around the Idaho Springs area that were specifically designed to watch for aircraft," Bailey said. "If there is a back door into Aegis, and if the blackcollars try to move anything substantial out through it, those sensors ought to spot them."

"Assuming the pylons haven't been tampered with," Poirot warned.

"Exactly," Bailey agreed. "I propose, therefore, that we send out a couple of teams to inspect all the pylons and make sure they're functioning properly. Unless they find a problem they should all be back well before nightfall. Even if Skyler does intend to attack Athena, he surely won't move until then."

For a moment the Ryqril conferred between themselves. Bailey kept his eyes on Poirot, who in turn seemed to be carefully ignoring him. "'Ery rell," Daasaa said at last. "Send yaer nen tae exanine the sensors." His eyes bored into Bailey's. "They rill 'e 'ack 'e'ore dark."

"Absolutely, Your Eminence," Bailey assured him.

"What are your orders for me?" Poirot asked.

Daasaa regarded him thoughtfully. "Yae rill continue tae assist 'lanning 'or the 'risoner con'oy," he said.

Poirot bowed his head slightly. "As you command, Your Eminence."

Bailey grimaced. The battle architect was offering Poirot all the rope he would need to ultimately hang himself ... and the general, for his part, was grabbing every bit of that rope that he could.

"Yae rill go," Daasaa said. He looked at Bailey. "'Oth o' yae."

"As you command, Your Eminence," Bailey said. Standing up, he and Poirot left the room.

"So?" Poirot asked when the door was closed behind them.

"What do you mean, so?" Bailey said. "We carry out our orders."

"That wasn't what I meant," Poirot said, his voice curiously hesitant. "What do you think—really—about this?"

Bailey sighed. "You're right about the blackcollars' last incursion not making any sense," he conceded. "Assassination was never one of their usual jobs, at least not according to the histories."

"And this particular killing made no sense on top of it," Poirot said. "Trendor was retired, hardly a threat to them or anyone else."

"True." Bailey cocked an eyebrow at the other. "But on the other hand, the Ryqril are right, too. They've been trying to get into Aegis for two years and haven't made it yet."

"True," Poirot said. "But Ryqril are hardly the most innovative people around."

Bailey looked at him sharply. How could he say such a thing? A senior officer of TDE Security?

Because he wasn't loyalty-conditioned anymore, that was how. It was something Bailey could never let himself forget. "Whatever," he said, letting his tone go plain-tan neutral. "I'll also admit that blackcollars in possession of Aegis Mountain weaponry is a very unpleasant thought."

"Then let's make sure we nail it down right now," Poirot said firmly. "You get those teams out to the pylons, and I'll see if we can come up with a way to nab them when they try to spring their friends." With a brisk nod, he headed across the situation room.

Bailey gazed at his back as he strode away. "Right," he muttered under his breath. "Assuming you really want to nab them."

"Sir?"

Bailey turned to see Ramirez come up behind him. "I've got the latest batches of reports from the scanning teams," the lieutenant said, waving a sheaf of papers.

"That can wait," Bailey told him. "I need you to find me a couple of tech teams, a few Security men to guard them, and a pair of aircraft to ferry them."

Ramirez seemed taken aback. "That's going to be a little tricky, sir. All the available techs and spotters are out with the scanning teams. The rest are on city monitor duty or getting some sleep."

"What about your Boulder people?"

"They're doing weapons scans up there, too."

"Have them put that on hold," Bailey decided. "I need someone to go check all the Idaho Springs sensor pylons and make sure they haven't been tampered with."

Ramirez grimaced, but nodded. "I'll see who I can find." He started to turn away, then paused. "By the way, I understand you had a check made of all my people last night."

"Just a precaution," Bailey assured him. "You'd already suggested the blackcollars might try to slip someone in through the returning spotter teams. I wanted to make sure the people checking them in also hadn't been infiltrated."

"Very prudent of you." Ramirez's eyes hardened a little. "I understand you also did a check on me."

Bailey felt a flicker of anger. How the hell had Ramirez found out about that? "Yes, I did," he said. "You have a problem with that?"

"I have a problem with my competence being questioned behind my back," Ramirez countered. "If you had questions about my performance, you should have brought them to me directly."

"It wasn't your competence that was at issue, Lieutenant," Bailey told him evenly.

Ramirez seemed to draw back. "You aren't serious."

"Deadly serious," Bailey assured him coldly. "As serious as our enemies are."

Ramirez's lip twitched. "And?"

Bailey studied the other's face, as plain-tan neutral now as Bailey's own. True, the check hadn't picked up any suspicious absences or obvious attitude changes. But from Poirot's experience they knew the Whiplash change could be affected in under twenty-four hours, possibly with as little as a single injection of the damned stuff. So what did even perfect work attendance prove? "You seem to be in the clear," he told Ramirez. "At least, as much as anyone else is."

"I see," Ramirez said stiffly. "Thank you, sir. I'll see about getting you those tech teams." Spinning around in a military about-face that was just a shade crisper than it needed to be, he headed for the communications station.

For a moment Bailey watched him go. Then, turning the opposite direction, he headed for the door Poirot had disappeared through a few minutes earlier. Let Ramirez be annoyed if he wanted to be. Let him think he was under suspicion, too. In fact, it might be best if everyone in Athena started watching everyone else. Just let them get on with their work and their back-watching and leave him alone for a while.

Because it had suddenly occurred to him that there might be a way to prove once and for all who was telling the truth about this alleged Aegis Mountain weapons cache. True, none of the prisoners up in the interrogation rooms had mentioned anything about either the mountain or the weapons.

But then, not all of the prisoners were in the interrogation rooms.

He took the elevator up to the garage, where a handful of Security men and drivers were standing around talking quietly together beside the line of parked vehicles. "Yes, sir?" the duty sergeant said, breaking from the group and stepping over as Bailey came in.

"I need a car," Bailey said tersely, striding past him toward the nearest car.

"Yes, sir." The sergeant gestured, and one of the other men moved hastily to Bailey's target vehicle and opened the back door.

"I'll be driving myself," Bailey said, closing the door as he passed it and opening the driver's side.

"Yes, sir," the sergeant said, sounding a little uncertain. "Ah ... your destination, Colonel?"

"I'll be back when I'm back," Bailey said, ignoring the question. "If there's an emergency, I'll have my comm on channel six."

The other might have said something else, but the slamming of the car door cut it off. Starting the engine, Bailey pulled away and out into the Athena traffic.

Smiling tightly to himself, he headed for the hospital.

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Framed