Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

But no one tried to stop him, or even talk to him, and fifteen minutes after leaving the car he turned at last into the wide, well-lit thoroughfare that led to the high fence and heavy gate of the Athena government center.

The guards at the gatehouse saw him coming, of course, and they certainly recognized him. But to his irritation, none of them made any move to leave their bunker to come out and meet him. By the time he came to a halt in front of the gatehouse's thick-glassed window, he was ready to break all four of them back to private.

"General Poirot," he identified himself tartly, as if there could be any doubt. "Open up."

No one made a move toward the gate control. "Welcome back, General," the duty lieutenant said, his voice strangely flat as it came through the speaker grill below the window. "Colonel Bailey's been extremely concerned about you."

"Then Colonel Bailey will want to see me, won't he?" Poirot growled.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said, still not moving. "Your escort's on its way."

His escort? "I don't need an escort, Lieutenant," he said, letting his tone drop into official warning territory. "Just open the damn gate."

The other looked down at the bank of monitors beneath the window and nodded. "As you wish, sir," he said. Reaching down, he twisted the release and the gate swung open. Giving him one final glare, Poirot left the window and strode through the gateway.

And stopped short. Lined up facing him were three cars and a group of eight Security men, some still in the process of getting out of the vehicles. "What's all this?" he demanded.

"We have orders to take you to headquarters, General," the sergeant in charge said, his voice as stiff as the duty lieutenant's had been. "If you'll come this way, please?"

"Absolutely," Poirot said between clenched teeth. Bailey, he promised himself darkly, was going to hurt for this.

He stomped over and got into the nearest vehicle's rear seat. A moment later he had to move quickly to the center as two of the others climbed in with him, one on either side. Two more got into the front, the rest sorting themselves out between the remaining two cars, and a minute later all three vehicles were headed inward through Athena's streets. The other two cars, Poirot noted, had taken up positions in front and behind him, standard configuration for transporting VIPs. At least Bailey—or the sergeant—had gotten that part right.

A few minutes later they reached the Security building. To Poirot's continued annoyance, though, they bypassed the main entrance and took him instead in through the tunnel. There, his protests ignored, he was put through the full battery of scans as the techs checked him for weapons, explosives, and poisons.

He half expected them to go all the way and do a strip search. Fortunately for Bailey, even the colonel apparently didn't have quite enough nerve to try that one.

Bailey was waiting for him in the middle of the situation room, a young lieutenant Poirot didn't recognize at his side. "Welcome back, General," Bailey said, nodding as Poirot strode up to them. His words were polite enough, but there was an odd sort of distance to his tone and expression. "I'm pleased to find you alive and well."

"I'm rather pleased about that myself," Poirot growled. "You'd better have a damn good reason for what you just put me through." He shifted his glare to the lieutenant. "Who are you?"

"Lieutenant Ramirez, Boulder Security office," the other identified himself. "I've been assisting Colonel Bailey with his efforts to find you."

"Well, I'm found," Poirot said. "Thank you for your assistance. Now go home."

"I'd like the lieutenant to stay a little longer, if you don't mind," Bailey put in. "There are a few matters we all need to discuss." He gestured to the row of office and conference room doors at the rear of the situation room. "If you'll come this way, please?"

"No, we're going to do this right here, Colonel," Poirot ground out, not moving a millimeter. There were a dozen other Security men working the various status and command boards, and it wouldn't do them any harm to hear what happened to a subordinate who forgot how to properly treat a superior officer.

"Let's start with why I was put through a weapons scan before even being offered medical treatment."

"Do you need medical treatment, sir?"

"Answer the question, Colonel."

Bailey's lip twitched. "You've been in enemy hands for nearly a day, sir," he said reluctantly. "We had to make sure you weren't bringing in anything dangerous."

"And you don't think I'd have noticed if something like that had been planted on me?"

Bailey glanced at the other men at the boards. "Sir, I really think we'd be more comfortable in the conference room—"

"Answer the question, damn it."

Bailey seemed to brace himself. "If you insist, sir. No, not necessarily."

"Not necessarily?" Poirot echoed, hardly believing his ears. "You think they could have planted a bomb or loaded my pockets with cyanide ampoules without—?"

"Have you ever heard of Whiplash, General?" Ramirez asked.

Poirot glared at him. How dare he interrupt—?

And then, abruptly, it hit him ... and in that single heartbeat his simmering anger vanished into a chill like an arctic breeze. "What exactly are you implying, Colonel?" he asked between stiff lips.

"I think you know, sir," Bailey said. "You've been in blackcollar hands, and the blackcollars apparently have a drug that removes loyalty-conditioning. What would you be thinking in my place?"

For a long moment Poirot couldn't find his voice. This couldn't be happening. "All right," he said at last, forcing a calmness he most certainly didn't feel. "Yes, they injected me with the stuff. And yes, they think I'm on their side now. But I'm not."

Bailey's expression didn't even twitch. "No?"

"Of course not," Poirot insisted. "If we move fast, we have a chance to nail them once and for all."

"I suppose they sat down and discussed their plans with you, too?" Bailey suggested.

Poirot curled his hand into a frustrated fist. "They think I'm on their side," he repeated. "They think that once someone's loyalty-conditioning is gone he's automatically filled with revolutionary fervor."

"And that's not true?" Ramirez asked.

"Don't be ridiculous," Poirot snapped. "These people have no idea how much destruction the Ryqril could rain on Denver if they got it into their heads to do so. But I do. The only reason they don't—the only reason—is that they're secure in the knowledge that we have the district under control. Do you think I'd be stupid enough to deliberately wreck that status quo?"

For a minute Bailey gazed at him in silence. Poirot stared back, feeling sweat trickling down his back.

"All right," the colonel said at last. The words were conciliatory, but Poirot could tell from his tone that he still wasn't convinced. "Let's go sit down and you can tell us all about it."

Poirot looked around the room. All the other Security men were busy at their posts, none of them giving any indication that they might have overheard the conversation.

But he knew they had. All of them. "Of course," he said. "Lead the way."

Silently, they all headed back to the conference room. Bailey opened the door and gestured, and Poirot stepped inside.

And came to an abrupt halt. Seated at the far end of the table were a pair of Ryqril. "Please sit down, sir," Bailey said, squeezing through the doorway past Poirot and pointing to the chair at the near end.

Silently, Poirot started forward again and sat down in the indicated chair, his brain mechanically registering the patterns on the aliens' baldrics. One of them was a battle architect, a senior tactical officer and the highest noncommand rank in the Ryqril military.