Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

"Have all other units move in immediately," Bailey ordered the communications officer. "Have them pick up everyone they can and bring them here."

"Yes, sir." Raising his mike, the operator began issuing orders.

Bailey leaned back in his seat, gingerly kneading the swollen area beneath his ear. First Poirot, now Silcox. What the hell were they up to?

"Sir?" Lieutenant Ramirez said tentatively at his side.

Bailey had completely forgotten the man was there. "Yes, Lieutenant, you can return to Boulder if you'd like," he said. "Thank you for your prompt assistance at Reger's house."

"Actually, sir, I was hoping for your permission to stay here and help out," Ramirez said. "My men can certainly handle a mountain search without me being right there with them. If you can use my help, that is."

"Right now, I can use all the help I can get, Lieutenant," Bailey said candidly. "Thank you."

"My pleasure, sir," Ramirez said. "What I was going to say, though, was that it'll be at least an hour before any of the prisoners get here. It might be a good time to go up to the infirmary and have your injuries looked at."

"I suppose you're right," Bailey agreed reluctantly. There was certainly little he could do down here right now. "Fine. You stay here—if there are any updates, feed them to me right away."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said.

Bailey glowered at the map of the Denver area spread across the wall. "And make damn sure all the prisoners are stripped and searched before they're brought inside the Athena perimeter," he added.

"Reger's men as well as the Phoenix people. We're not going to be caught like that again."

Between the car changes and the carefully circuitous route, it took over an hour for them to reach the safe house. "How's the patient?" Skyler asked as O'Hara opened the door and let them in.

"Still sleeping," O'Hara said. "I gave him another shot half an hour ago, just to be on the safe side. This our girl?"

Anne bristled. "Our girl?"

"He's sixty years old, Anne," Skyler reminded her dryly. "To him, anyone under fifty is a kid. Yes, this is Anne Silcox. Anne, this is Commando Kelly O'Hara, our reigning master of diplomacy."

"Sorry," O'Hara said. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Anne said. She gave O'Hara a pointed once-over, then turned back to Skyler. "All right, we're here. What's this big surprise?"

"Come and see," Skyler said, gesturing her toward the conversation room. Reluctantly, he thought, she let him lead her there, the rest of the group trooping along behind them.

He'd expected to get a good reaction. He wasn't disappointed. "God in heaven," she breathed, her eyes goggling as she stared at the man sprawled on the couch. "That's General Poirot. What's he doing here?"

"He thought you were getting a new shipment and decided it would look good on his record if he was in on the snatch personally," Reger told her. "Got a little more than he bargained for."

"I told you you'd like it," Skyler added.

"You think so?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea the kind of manhunt they must have going out there right now? No wonder they tried to grab me and the others."

"What others?" O'Hara asked.

"The rest of Phoenix," Anne said, glaring at Skyler. "I made a couple of calls while you were clearing the stairs, trying to warn them. Rob—that's my second in command—said they'd already surrounded his house. I wonder now if any of them got out."

"We'll get them back," Skyler promised. "But first things first. Get the Whiplash out and let's get Poirot turned."

Anne sighed. "You really don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?"

"I can pump all the Whiplash in him that you want," Anne said quietly. "But it won't do any good."

Skyler felt his stomach tighten. "What are you talking about?" he demanded. "We tested the stuff when we were here a year ago. It works."

"I didn't say it didn't work," she retorted, her voice suddenly bitter. "I said it wouldn't do any good.

We've quietly kidnapped and treated over a dozen loyalty-conditioned government workers in the past eight months. Not a single one of them is interested in joining us."

Skyler looked over at Kanai, standing silently against the wall. "Kanai?" he invited. "You want to jump into this?"

"She's right, as far as she goes," he conceded. "All those we've tried it on have gone straight back to their jobs."

"We can't get anything from them?" Skyler asked. "If not cooperation, at least some information?"

"There are a couple who occasionally slip us a little something," Anne said. "But only a little, and it's never anything really useful."

"Of course, none of them has access to anything really high up anyway," Kanai added. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying."

"Until when?" Anne countered. "Until we get to someone who'll blow the whistle on us with his superiors instead of cowering in his cubicle trying desperately to pretend nothing's happened to him? If you think Security's interested in us now, just wait till you see what happens then."

"Seems to me that Security's reaction is kind of moot at this point," Hawking offered.

"Yes, thanks to you," Anne said, glaring at Skyler again. "What in the world did you think—?"

"You know," Reger interrupted, "maybe we should sit down, nice and quiet, and take this from the top.

Skyler can start it off by telling us where Lathe's lurking and what he's up to this time."

"Actually, Lathe isn't here," Skyler said. "He got invited to Khala to break into a Ryq tac center."

Anne blinked. "He got what?"

"Let's sit down," Reger repeated, more firmly this time. "Discuss this like civilized men and women."

Anne snorted. But she stalked over to a chair beside Poirot's couch and dropped into it. "Fine," she said.

"I'm sitting."

"Thank you," Reger said, pulling up a chair to the other side of the couch and sitting down. "You were saying, Skyler?"

"We got word that the Ryqril were building a new tac coordination center on Khala," Skyler said, pulling up a third chair equidistant from Anne and Reger and signaling O'Hara, Hawking, and Kanai to remain standing on guard. "It seemed way too tempting a target to pass up."

"Sounds like a trap," Anne muttered.

"Of course it's a trap," Skyler agreed. "Which just makes the whole thing that much more intriguing. At any rate, Lathe took a team there to see if we can turn it to our advantage."

"Enough of an advantage for a final victory?" Anne countered. "That is what you meant about this being the last hornets' nest we'd ever need, isn't it?"

"What do you mean, victory?" Reger echoed, frowning. "As in throwing the Ryqril out of the TDE?"

Skyler shrugged. "Basically."

Reger shook his head. "That's impossible."

"Lathe doesn't think so," Skyler said. "Between us and the Chryselli, we've got the Ryqril in a pretty tight place right now. A big enough push in the right direction might just do the trick."

"The right direction being this Ryqril tac center, I presume," Reger said, his eyes settled into a sort of distant stare. "So why are you here?"

"Because chaos in one place is less impressive than simultaneous chaos in two widely separated places,"

Skyler told him. "The idea is—was—for us to help you and Phoenix and your loyalty-conditioned moles turn this city upside down."

Anne shook her head. "It's not going to happen," she said. "The system here is just too set and stable.

Nobody wants to rock the boat."

Skyler rubbed his chin, gazing at Poirot's sleeping face as he tried to think. Lathe was the tactical genius of the group, and the plan he'd worked out for the Earth part of the operation was a typically solid piece of work.

Unfortunately, it had assumed a thriving Phoenix and a large number of Whiplash-treated moles.