Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

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.