Biowar

21

Lia sat in the car two miles from the castle where Dean had been taken. It had been more than ten minutes since he’d apparently been knocked out, and they were just now getting a full eavesdropping net on-line.

She wanted to throttle Telach personally.

Or Rubens. They should have had more people in place when the operation began — or they should have just skipped the meeting in the bookstore.

“All right, we have it mapped,” said Rockman finally. “I’m uploading the schematic for you.”

“It’s about time.”

“You want to trade places, be my guest.”

Lia put the car in gear, slipping back onto the road that ran near the gated entrance. The castle was owned by the state as a museum but was not open to the public. The main entrance was at the foot of a steep hill, more than 300 feet above the point where Dean had come in on the opposite side.

“The guards are moving,” said Rockman. “They’re going back into the building.”

Lia pulled past, then drove down about a hundred yards to a point where the shoulder area off the road widened.

“No one’s in front,” said Rockman. He could tell where people were by looking at the input from the motion and sound sensors that had been spread over the site by the vessel.

“Can you hear what’s going on inside?” she asked.

“We can hear some shuffling near Dean, but he’s not moving.”

“All right.” She put on her lightweight rock-climbing shoes and tied down her jeans at the cuffs. As she walked, she fastened a body-hugging knapsack across her chest. Besides her gun and computer, it held a number of bugging and tracking devices, a very thin but strong nylon rope, and anchors that could be inserted into the stone wall of the castle to aid climbing. Just as she reached the fence, she put on a skullcap, smoothing back her hair.

Lia jumped up on the fence and pulled herself quickly over the pointed stakes at the top and then dropped down. The security system was not tied to a computer, or at least none that the Art Room could find, and so she was relying on their analysis — more like a guess — of the likely coverage area they’d mapped out after spotting the video cams with their sensors. Rockman directed her through a swath of uncovered area that, conservatively, measured three feet wide. Lia sidled through it to the camera itself, a shoe-box-sized video job that had a pair of shielded wires running into its mount. She took out a large coupling piece from her back pocket — it looked a bit like a sawed-off section of garden hose with hinges — and clamped it around the top wire. She had to then fit a transmitter onto the top.

“Easy,” said Rockman. “You’re going to jiggle the image.”

Lia pushed her thumb into the activator slot, trying to use as little pressure as possible.

“So?”

“We’re working on it. This is an old-fashioned system; one monitor per unit. We have this one knocked,” said Rockman. “But we’ll have to work around the rest.”

“Great.”

She started walking toward the castle wall, stopping precisely eight feet from the wall, just short of the spot where the analysis predicted her shadow could be seen by another video camera. There she took the rope from her pack, tying a plastic gripper onto the end. With a heave Lia reared back and tossed it up at the stone cutout on the wall twelve feet above. She wasn’t so much worried about hitting the cutout precisely as tossing the rope high enough to reach the walkway behind the rock ledge; otherwise it would flop back down and with her luck fall through the video coverage area. She made it and with two flicks of the wrist caught the loop in the rope.

“All right,” she told Rockman.

“Hold on. We think we have a workaround on the video system. It’ll take another ten minutes.”

“Way too long,” she said. “We’re going to have to risk it. Worst case, my shadow will only flicker across.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re right. They’re moving around a lot inside,” added the runner.

“Is there anyone on that level?”

“Negative, but there’s a door at the far end of the walkway.”

Lia took a step back, curled her hand on the rope testing the weight, then leaped forward, gliding to the wall. She tugged upward, quickly climbing to the top.

“Clear?” she asked, but before Rockman could answer she started over, realizing she couldn’t be seen because of the way the wall angled.

“Why are you asking if the coast is clear if you’re not going to listen to me?” complained the runner.

“I do nothing but listen to you,” she whispered on the other side. “Which way?”

“The stairway on your left.”

The outer wall of the castle was irregularly shaped, extending around three sides of a courtyard, which was set off from the keep by another wall. That wall was fifteen feet higher than the one Lia was on; the main part of the castle towered another twenty-five feet or so. There was a guard post beyond the steps, though Lia couldn’t see into it from where she was huddled. She took out her handheld, scanning for security devices, even though the Art Room had already analyzed satellite data and found none. When she confirmed that the area in front and below was clear, she began moving toward the steps.

“Helicopter coming,” said Rockman as she reached them.

“Yeah, I hear it.”

“They’ll be able to see you from above.”

“That guard post?”

“Yeah, it’s empty — go!”

She went back up the steps and trotted along the wall to the guard post, which covered an angle in the outer wall. While the roof was open — there would have been boards there during the castle’s active days as a fortress — a thick ledge of stone blocks provided an easy place to avoid detection from the air.

The helicopter, meanwhile, had grown louder and louder.

“I think that chopper’s going to land here,” she told Rockman.

“People moving in the main building.”

“Dean?”

“No. Wait — he’s going in the opposite direction. Lia, stay where you are.”

She froze, seeing the shadow of the helicopter as it circled above, only a few feet from the courtyard. It was descending — a close fit. The sound reverberated against the wall behind her, and dust flew into her face. She crawled backward, getting out of view.

“Careful,” hissed Telach.

“I’m going to blow up the helicopter,” she said, sliding against the stairs and unzipping her pack.

“No,” said Rockman.

“We can’t let them take Charlie.”

“They’re not taking him,” said Telach. “There are two people who are going to get aboard the helicopter. We want you to take their pictures.”

“Shit.”

“Lia, we need you to try to get pictures of the people boarding the helicopter,” said the Art Room supervisor. “Dean is being brought back downstairs.”

“Where are they taking him?”

“Don’t worry about that. Get the pictures. We need to figure out who these people are,” insisted Telach. “Then we’ll decide what to do.”

“I have to help Charlie.”

“Dean is fine. Even if they did take him, it’s part of the operation. Don’t let your hormones screw with your brain.”

“Give me a break,” said Lia.

“They should be up there now,” said Rockman.

Lia pushed her handheld and its camera in the direction of the helicopter and crawled back toward it.

“Got it. Two good faces,” said the runner

The helicopter engine revved. Lia scurried back to the sheltered spot, waiting as the aircraft rose and circled the castle before heading back to the east.

“Where is he?” Lia asked.

“We want you to look over the castle. You can get down through the courtyard, that door we pointed out on the right near the corner,” said Rockman.

“Where’s Dean?”

“He’s being carried down the steps by two men. There’s someone else with him.”

“I’ll check it out.”

“No, by the time you get there, they’ll be gone. Go inside the castle,” said Telach. “It’s empty now. Have a look around:”

She hesitated.

“It’s all right, Lia,” said Rubens from the Art Room. “We share your concern. Mr. Dean will be fine. They’re taking great care with him.”

“All right,” said Lia, lingering a second more before going back to the steps.