Michael Kube-McDowell - The Quiet Pools

One or the other. It had to be one or the other. But if they chose wrong, Jeremiah would have a chance to run. And a man like Jeremiah with a network like Homeworld could run for a long time.

But which one was Fort J?

It came down to probabilities. Pacific Land Management had nineteen registered partners, twenty-eight comlines (counting eight on the building’s Sky LAN), and its fingers in half a billion dollars’ worth of land and real estate in four countries—a splendid foundation for the infrastructure of a revolution. By contrast, the Peterson Road house had a modest four comlines, an overdue property tax bill, and a reclusive owner with legitimate connections to most of the state’s business and political leadership.

Dryke chose the Peterson Road house.

He hedged his bets by calling the texperts down from Seattle and leaving one, the brooding man named Ramond, to play stakeout at Pacific Land Management. But the rest went with him to Hoffman Hill, a six-hundred-meter summit just six klicks from Peterson Ridge and belonging to the same whorl of valleys and steep-sloped tree-covered fold mountains. Hoffman Hill was a nearly ideal staging area—just a one-minute dash from the target for the armed and armored Beech Pursuit that Ramond and Dru had leased for them in Seattle.

By that time, all of them were well into their second dose cycle of Watchman. While Dru set up sky monitors and spotting snoops on the ridge line, Dryke huddled with the others in the predawn chill to lay out the logistics. They made a skeptical audience.

“We come in from the top, he’s got a lot of room to hide. We come up the road and hit his gate, and he’ll sky,” said Loren, the most senior of Dryke’s recruits.

“I know,” said Dryke. “That’s why we’re going in both ways.”

“I’d sure rather be doing this with fifty bodies than five.” Loren’s frown was dyspeptic. “What do you know about the defenses?”

“Boundary fenced and a hailer. That’s all that’s on the books. I’m sure that’s not all there is.”

“Anti-air?”

“Maybe.”

“How many people up there?”

Dryke reached down to the open kit by his feet and tossed the corpsec a clear-skinned frag helmet. “Can’t tell you. So flash goggles, bug-heads, and torso armor for everyone. And keep your fagging heads down.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just pump a rocket or two into the house from here?” asked Liviya with a grin. She was cradling her frag helmet under her arm like a basketball while she checked her pistol.

“I’m sure,” Dryke said. “Dru will do battle management from here if it comes to that. But I really don’t want this drawn out. If it’s not over in five minutes, we’re going to be in more trouble than I want to think about.” He looked up through the trees at the brightening sky. “Any questions?”

“I want another look at this guy’s picture,” Loren said.

Dryke keyed the frame and wordlessly handed Loren the slate.

“With five minutes warning, they’ll be able to dump all their files and break both ends of every link,” Dru called to them without looking up from her work. “Five seconds would be enough if it’s all volatile storage.”

“We’re not going in for files. We’re going in for Jeremiah— or whoever speaks with his voice.”

“If we have to shoot to stop someone—” Liviya began.

“Then shoot straight,” Dryke said. “Any more questions?”

In the silence, Loren handed back the slate.

“Dru, anything?” Dryke called to the texpert.

She shook her head. “Outside lights went off a minute ago. Two comlines active, looks like background traffic. Might be there. Might not. Nothing conclusive.”

“Do you have the tracer ready?”

“Yes.”

“Send it.”

“Will do.”

With the skylink’s cellular narrowcasting and active message routing, every personal receiver sent regular updates to Central Addressing, so that the net would know where to “forward” the owner’s messages. Trace queries—ordinarily not processed without a court’s “order to locate”—retrieved the current address in the system.

“For whatever it’s worth, the tracer’s still pointing here,” Dru announced a few seconds later.

Dryke nodded grimly. “Let’s go find out if it’s worth anything.”

Like chrome hummingbirds waking to the dawn, the team’s three cars rose from the muddy track of Lawrence Road and fanned out over the forested slopes.

Loren and Liviya’s skimmers stayed at treetop level, swinging north and west in snaking arcs that kept them below Fort Jesus’ horizon. Dryke took the Pursuit straight up along the slope of Hoffman Hill and exploded skyward, clawing for the altitude he would need in a look-down shoot-down scenario, showing Fort J only the armored underbelly of the flyer.

But there was no response from Peterson Ridge—not when the skimmers flashed over the boundary fences, not even when the Pursuit’s climb flattened out and turned over into a heart-stopping dive.

“No delta,” said Dru, watching the comline traffic. A burst coder carried her words to all three vehicles. “Repeat, no delta, nothing to squash.”

As the double dome of the house grew larger before him, Dryke saw the two skimmers slow and drop down into invisible gaps in the trees and disappear.

“Unit Four on station, all clear,” said Loren. A breath later, Liviya logged in a near-echo.

Still there was no response.

The purr of the Pursuit’s engines climbed to an annoyed whine as it braked for touchdown. With a last-second sideslip, Dryke dropped it on the concrete scorch pad in front of the garage, blocking the middle half of the double-wide door.

“System lock,” he said. “Code Eben-Emael.”

“Locked,” said the autopilot AIP.

Dryke flipped down his own bug-head and climbed out on the left side of the flyer, keeping its bulk between him and the house. He looked to see if Loren had come up the road into position and was answered with a wave.

“Liviya?”

“Ready.”

“Going in.”

Crossing the yard to the front door under the gaze of the house’s many windows was an act best done without thinking. Once on the porch, Dryke waved Loren forward and waited until the black man was alongside the Pursuit.

“Dru?” asked Dryke.

“No change.”

“What?”

“No change?”

“Ramond?”

“Nothing is happening here, Mr. Dryke.”

“This is bad. This is very bad,” warned Loren. “Maybe we ought to wait until we know it’s clean.”

“Goddamm it, he’s gone,” Dryke fumed, reaching for the door. “We’re too late.”

“Oh, man—”

Dryke touched the controls and received a shock—the door was unlocked.

“Son of a bitch,” he said, staring. “Dru?”

“No change.”

“Not even a fagging burglar alarm?”

“Nothing.”

Dryke puffed out a breath. “No one else comes in,” he said, and stepped through the doorway.

Inside the Fuller were the ordinary private places of a man of some means, but few affectations. A gentleman’s kitchen, tidy and highly automated. A morning-facing breakfast nook, with a hummingbird feeder hanging outside the windows. A working study dotted with motion toys and engineering models. A dark bedroom with an empty, neatly made bed.

Stinger in hand, Dryke moved warily from room to room, wrestling with a mixture of heart-thumping fear and squeamish embarrassment, waiting for a nasty surprise and fearing he had already received it. The house felt empty, like a set piece, a fabrication.

“Nothing yet,” he said. “Loren—check the garage.”

In a moment he had his answer. “Got one Avanti Eagle and one Honda SD-50, as registered.”