Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Judas Solution

Bailey squeezed the papers tightly between his fingers, silently cursing himself. Of course they hadn't been able to contact him—he'd turned off his comm so that the background chatter wouldn't distract him from his private interrogation at the hospital and had forgotten to turn it back on. "Get a team out there now," he ordered, glancing at the rim of the sun pushing its way above the eastern horizon. "I want the cabin searched—thoroughly—and everyone in town questioned. On second thought, make it two teams.

And run me up everything we have on that hermit."

"I already did that, sir," Ramirez said, indicating the papers in Bailey's hand. "But I can't send any teams without Daasaa's authorization."

"Oh, can't you?" Bailey growled, getting to his feet. It was their missing blackcollar, all right—it had to be. If he slipped through their fingers because of miscommunication or flat-out bureaucratic bumbling, heads were going to roll. Very possibly literally. "Fine. Let's go find him."

The colors of the sky to the east were fading into blue, though the sun hadn't yet appeared over the mountains, when they reached the hidden air vent. "Here we are," Jensen said, pointing to the grating at the vent's mouth as they crossed the small clearing in front of it.

"Amazing," Foxleigh said, shaking his head in wonderment. Even knowing there was something out here to find, he hadn't spotted the grating until they were practically on top of it. "You know, I actually saw the kids who were working on this, though I couldn't tell what they were doing. It wasn't until your group showed up last year that I put the pieces together."

"I'm glad Security wasn't paying you visits then," Jensen said, starting to unfasten the twisted wires that held the grating in place. "Give me a hand here, will you?"

It took them several minutes to get the grating free. After that, it took four pulls by both of them to get it off. "You were right," Jensen admitted, puffing like a distance runner. "I couldn't have done that alone."

"We're going to want to close it up behind us, aren't we?" Foxleigh asked as he peered carefully inside.

Beyond the grating, a metallic tunnel stretched back about twelve meters, then seemed to turn downward.

"Absolutely," Jensen said. "Let's turn it on edge and bring it inside, see if we can wedge it into position."

Five minutes later, they had it back in position and wired again in place. "Well, that was fun," Foxleigh commented. "Any trick to the rest of it?"

"All sorts of them," Jensen assured him, pointing down the tunnel. "We start with a hundred-meter climb down a ladder, with a sonic at the bottom that'll be trying to poke holes in your balance the whole way."

"Lovely," Foxleigh said, wincing. Like he didn't have enough trouble with balance even on his better days. "You didn't think to turn it off before you left?"

"We didn't want to turn it off," Jensen said. "Anyone authorized to be in here would know about it and be mentally prepared to fight against the effects. The only others who might come in here we didn't much care about."

Foxleigh shivered. Once upon a time, he reminded himself soberly, he'd considered coming out here on his own to check the place out. It was just as well he hadn't. "Okay, consider me mentally prepared," he said. "Let's get to it."

They were at the downward curve, and Jensen was fiddling with a rope ladder that had been left behind, when Foxleigh thought he heard the distant sound of approaching patrol boats. But it could have been his imagination.

"So they're gone," Bailey said flatly.

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, his own voice stiff and formal. Clearly, he had no intention of taking the blame for this. "They found two ropes hanging down into a ravine from pulleys fastened beneath a trick box where Toby had mounted his toilet seat."

"Where he'd what?" Bailey lifted a hand before Ramirez could answer. "Never mind—I don't want to know. Did you track along this ravine to see where it goes?"

"It doesn't seem to actually go anywhere," Ramirez said. "The stream that Toby tapped into for his water supply joins it a little ways along, and then it just meanders its way southwest. There may be places where you can get out, though, which the team couldn't see from the air. If you'd like, I could send a couple of men to follow it on foot for a ways."

"Don't bother," Bailey growled. "Ten to one he and this Toby character left those ropes dangling as a red herring. If they're going anywhere, they'll be heading toward Aegis Mountain, not away from it."

"Toward Aegis Mountain?" Ramirez echoed, frowning.

"Certainly not away from it," Bailey said again, silently cursing his slip. Of course Ramirez didn't know the blackcollars had found a secret back door into the base. "Is there anywhere else they might have gone?"

"Yes, sir, they could have gone to Denver," Ramirez said. "One of Shelter Valley's residents and one of the town's two cars are missing."

Bailey sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Was this resident carrying any passengers?"

"No one saw any," Ramirez said, studying Bailey's face closely. Clearly, he'd picked up on the colonel's sudden change in mood. "But there are any number of places on the road he could have stopped to pick someone up."

"And then have brought him to Denver," Bailey murmured, thinking hard. If their rogue blackcollar had gone straight into Aegis, the Ryqril were out of luck. But if he'd decided to come to town first to get the rest of the gang, there was still a chance. "Any chance of intercepting them along the way?"

Ramirez shook his head. "We've had spotters run the whole length of the road, and there's nothing's moving on it. If they started at first light, they'd be here already. Of course, we do have a description of the car."

"Which they probably buried the minute they hit town," Bailey said. "But there's only one road that'll take them back home?"

"Uh ..." Ramirez sorted through his papers. "There are actually two possible routes, one somewhat longer than the other," he said. "But that seems to be it."

"Have both of them watched," Bailey ordered. "Spotters are to tag anything headed toward that area.

High-flight only—we don't want to spook them."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said uncertainly. "We'll have to clear it through Battle Architect Daasaa first, of course."

"I'll deal with that," Bailey promised. No matter how paranoid the Ryqril might be about attacks on Athena, they would spring for as many men and spotters as he needed once he laid all this in front of them. "You just get the spotter teams organized. I'll get you the authorization."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said again. "Is there some reason you think he'll be going back there?"

"I guarantee he will, Lieutenant," Bailey, favoring the other with a slightly malicious smile. "If the blackcollar came to Denver, he will be going back. The question is how best to turn it to our advantage."

"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, his voice gone neutral. "With your permission, I'll go organize the spotter teams."

"You do that, Lieutenant," Bailey said, getting to his feet and gathering up the papers. "You do that."

"I've got the data you asked for," Poirot's voice came over the phone. "I'm afraid it's not good news."

"Let's hear it," Skyler said, his eyes sweeping the busy Denver street scene flowing around him.

Security's two options were to trace the call and try to nab him, or else let Poirot continue to lead him on in hopes of setting up a trap somewhere farther down the line. So far, he couldn't tell which way they were planning to jump.

"It looks like Athena's lasers will activate if anything larger than fifteen centimeters shows a projected path over the outer fence. That's way too small for anything useful."