Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

"I was afraid of that," Jensen said, coiling the rope and setting it on top of the wood bin. "Is there someplace out there where Flynn can wait for Adamson's morning shuttle service?"

"Assuming they don't shut down the whole region," Flynn warned. "Anyway, I'm thinking maybe we should forget Denver and try the cross-country route."

"Relax—I don't think they'll be back tonight," Foxleigh said. "Doc says they have to check the rest of the pylons and then hotfoot it to Athena. Here, I'll take that," he added, holding out his hand as Flynn pulled his old pistol from his belt.

"What's happening in Athena?" Flynn asked, handing it over.

"No idea," Foxleigh said, putting the gun carefully in his own waistband. "But I get the feeing they're expecting a show from your friends tonight."

Jensen grimaced. "With us on the sidelines," he growled. "No way we can get out tonight, I suppose?"

"Cars aren't back yet," Foxleigh reminded him. "We may want to send Flynn down to Adamson's place overnight, though, just in case. The question is what we're going to do with you. You're not in any shape for a long, bumpy car ride."

"No, but I don't think we've got much choice," Jensen said. "If they come back with a full team, there's nowhere around here I can hide where they can't eventually chase me down."

"Unless you go—" Flynn broke off.

"Unless you go where?" Foxleigh asked.

"Unless I go somewhere outside this valley and go to ground," Jensen said, his eyes sending a warning look in Flynn's direction. "And I'd better get started while I've still got some light."

"You're not in any shape for a long walk, either," Foxleigh said firmly. "At least, not alone. I'm going with you."

"What, with your bad leg?" Jensen asked, gesturing toward it.

"I'll match my leg against your ribs any day," Foxleigh said. "Besides, the minute you're out of sight of the cabin and town you'll be completely lost."

"You might be surprised," Jensen said.

"Or you might be," Foxleigh countered. "There are a lot of ways to get lost, sidetracked, or stuck out there."

"I could try to get you to cover tonight and then come back for my rendezvous with Adamson in the morning," Flynn suggested.

"You'd get just as lost together as either of you would get separately," Foxleigh said. "What are we still arguing about this for? The subject is closed. I'm helping Jensen to cover. Period."

Jensen and Flynn exchanged looks. "He kind of sounds like Lathe when he's in one of his moods, doesn't he?" Jensen commented.

"He does a little," Flynn agreed, clearly not at all happy with the situation.

"All right, Toby, you're on," Jensen said, looking back at Foxleigh. "When do we leave?"

"As soon as we've organized some provisions," Foxleigh said, a sense of relief rushing over him. Relief, and an odd sadness. "Give me a hand putting these travel packs together, will you?"

Twenty minutes later, the two men slipped through the door into the gathering dusk. Ten paces from the cabin, Foxleigh led them off the path that led to town and set off eastward through the wilderness.

As they headed down a small rise, he turned for one last look at the place that had been his home for so many years. Flynn was visible in the doorway, standing straight and tall and motionless, watching them leave.

He knew he would never see either the cabin or the boy again.

Three o'clock in the morning.

Bailey stood at the hospital room window, hands clasped behind his back, staring out at Athena's muted streetlights and quiet buildings. So the blackcollars hadn't attacked after all. True, there was no particular reason why they should have, especially given that they were still supposedly waiting for Poirot to deliver the data on the defense laser threshold. But somewhere in the back of his mind, he'd expected that question to have been a ruse, a ploy to lull him into a false sense of security while they hit the place a day earlier than expected.

But they hadn't. So where did that leave him?

"Colonel?"

Bailey turned. The interrogator he'd brought over earlier in the evening was leaning over the bandageswathed figure in the bed, his ear close to the boy's mouth.

The boy. Mentally, Bailey shook his head, his mind flashing back to that fever dream Poirot had spun for them back in the conference room about Aegis Mountain and weapons caches and secret military forces.

Whatever this Phoenix was that Reger and Silcox had created, it wasn't even close to being an army, and all the weapons and blackcollars in the world wouldn't change that. This kid, in particular, was barely even out of college—

"Colonel!"

"Yes, I'm listening," Bailey growled, feeling his face warm with embarrassment as he angrily shook the random thoughts away. Fatigue always made his mind drift that way. "What is it?"

"I think you'll want to hear this for yourself, sir," the interrogator said, sitting upright and gesturing to the chair at the other side of the bed.

Frowning, Bailey sat down. The kid's eyes were closed, his breathing slow but steady. "Go ahead," he told the interrogator.

The other nodded. "Rob?" he called softly. "Rob? You need to tell our other friend here what you just told me."

For a moment the kid didn't move. Then, his head turned slightly, his eyes reluctantly opening to slits.

"She knows," he murmured. "She knows the way inside."

Something with cold feet took a walk up Bailey's spine. "Who knows the way?" he asked, leaning close to the boy.

"Anne," Rob said. "Anne does."

"Anne Silcox?"

"Yes," the boy said. "They told her. You know. The blackcollars."

Bailey looked up at the interrogator. "Ask him the way into what," the other suggested quietly.

Bailey looked back at the injured prisoner. "What place does Anne know the way into?"

"You know," Rob said, his voice almost too soft to be heard. "Aegis Mountain."

Bailey's mouth was suddenly very dry. Could Poirot have been right after all? "Do you know the way in?" he asked.

"No," Rob said. "Just Anne. And the blackcollars."

Bailey locked eyes with the interrogator. "This had better be straight," he warned.

"It is," the interrogator assured him. "I never prompted him."

Bailey looked back down at the half-sleeping kid. So there was a way in after all, a way the blackcollars had apparently found.

And at this very moment, across town, General Poirot was working with the tactical group who were trying to come up with a plan to capture one or more of those same blackcollars. Coincidence?

Abruptly, Bailey got to his feet. "Keep at him," he told the interrogator as he snagged his coat from the hook. "Find out everything he knows, and I mean everything. I'll send over a couple more men to assist."

"You don't need to do that, sir," the other assured him. "I can handle it."

Bailey gazed at him, an unpleasant tingle whispering through him. Whiplash ... "I'll send a couple more men to assist," he repeated, his tone making it an order. "And you aren't to breathe a word of any of this to anyone but them and me. Clear?"

The interrogator's lips compressed. "Yes, sir."

Three minutes later Bailey was in his car, heading through the silent Athena streets toward the Security building. Yes, Poirot had been right about Phoenix and Aegis Mountain. The question now was, how had he managed to be so right?

More to the immediate point, did this wonderful revelation come with hidden strings attached?

He didn't know. But he was damn well going to find out.

It was still dark when Jensen's mental alarm clock went off. Four o'clock in the morning, or near enough.

Time to go.

For a minute he lay still on the hard ground, listening to the night sounds around him playing counterpoint to Toby's slow, even breathing. The man was asleep, with the deep oblivion of a man who'd spent a couple of hours the evening before tromping through unbroken wilderness on a bad leg.