The Backlash Mission

Chapter 11

Quinn set the phone down and turned to Galway with an expression that was just short of murderous. "I trust you're satisfied now," he bit out. "That brings us up to two deaths from that fiasco—a second man's just died from brain hemorrhaging. And for nothing."

Galway forced himself to return the general's glare steadily. "Would you rather have left them stuck out there with no transportation?" he asked.

Quinn snorted. "So instead we have them running around Denver in an untrackable vehicle. Great.

Just great."

"It's not my fault that someone tried to steal their car," Galway said stiffly. "It's also not my fault Caine got back at the wrong moment. I could point out that if your men had bothered to make a surveillance pass first they would have seen that Caine had things under control and could have just kept going with no one the wiser."

"Oh, right." Quinn was heavily sarcastic. "And I suppose if the central router had been omniscient we could have saved the wrecked car and spotter, too."

Galway sighed. "We both assumed it was the others in the stolen Security car, General—don't try to push all that off onto my shoulders."

"Why not? You're the one who claims to know these bastards—why the hell didn't you recognize Caine's voice?"

"What difference would that have made? Really? All right, suppose I had realized it was Caine's team in those two cars. He knows that Security dispatchers aren't stupid enough to fall for such a simple charade—he'd have been suspicious as hell if we hadn't made some reasonable response. All right, so we've temporarily lost them. So what? As long as Postern is alive and unsuspected, we're still on top of things."

Quinn snorted and turned away, stomping over to where the monitor duty officer was still tracking the marked car. Galway took a deep breath and went the other direction, to the situation room's main communications board. The officer there looked up with a face that was studiously neutral. "Yes, sir?"

"What have you got on the three people Caine's team took out?" Galway asked.

The other shrugged. "Smugglers, it appears, though we won't know exactly what they were smuggling until we get their car back—maybe not even then if they were on their way to a drop when they stopped. It's nothing particularly unusual—Denver's a sewer sludge of criminal types."

Galway pursed his lips. Smugglers. Caine had mentioned smugglers when he talked to the dispatcher on that wild ride back to Denver. Had he simply pulled that out of the air, or had he had time to interrogate the failed car thieves before the Security team blundered onto the scene? Though he couldn't see offhand what difference it made either way.

Aegis Mountain.

Galway shivered. So he'd been right about Caine's target—the team's afternoon trip virtually assured that. There was nothing else in that area that could possibly be of interest to the commandos.

Unless...

"Are there any private residences out in those mountains?" he asked the Security man slowly.

The other's eyebrows lifted slightly. "I can't imagine the Ryqril letting anyone live that close to their base," he said.

"Neither can I. Check it out anyway."

"Yes, sir." Swiveling around to his board, the officer logged the request with the appropriate research unit. "Unless it's urgent, Prefect, you probably won't get anything on this until morning," he pointed out. "Do you want me to tag it as a priority?"

Galway hesitated. "No, don't bother. Morning should be soon enough."

Especially since anything like a priority tag would be likely to attract Quinn's attention. Galway had had enough of that for one day. Besides, whatever Caine was up to, he still couldn't be ready yet to make his move. And unmarked car or not, Postern was still there to betray them.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to hang around for another hour or so. Just in case something came through.

—

Seen from space, nighttime Denver looked even more alive and active than its daytime incarnation had, and for the umpteenth time since Quinn had left for the night Galway found himself staring bemusedly at the steady flow of pinprick lights that marked the city's incredible traffic density. Now and again his eyes flicked to the locator circle in the southeast that marked where Caine's stolen car was sitting. There had been a second locator circle once, but it had vanished soon after Caine had entered the traffic pattern of the city. It wasn't likely to reappear, unfortunately.

"Prefect Galway?"

Galway started, realizing with some embarrassment that he'd dozed off. He looked up as Colonel Poirot, the man in charge of Denver's night watch, sat down beside him. "Yes, what is it? Have you found Caine's new car?"

Poirot shook his head. "No chance now, really. The satellites had him until about halfway through Golden, but we just couldn't keep track of him once the traffic got too thick."

Galway sighed. "Yeah. I suppose I was hoping we could get enough high-resolution stills that we could trace through them. By hand if necessary."

"You've already seen the highest-resolution we've got, I'm afraid." The colonel exhaled with frustration. "You know, before the war we had satellites that could count the eggs on a picnic table.

I'll never understand why the Ryqril didn't replace them."

"Because satellite transmissions can always be tapped into," Galway told him. "The Ryqril don't like the chance that someone else might be monitoring their movements. Well... what good news did you bring me?"

"Good news is a rarity around here tonight," Poirot said dryly. "This little gem came in a few minutes ago: the Ryqril have picked up a small ship skulking around a few million klicks out."

"What?" Galway took the proffered report, scanned it quickly. Scout-ship-sized, possibly left behind by the Novak. Presumed purpose: observation and/or rescue. "Are they going to send a Corsair to investigate?" he asked, handing the paper back.

"For the moment, apparently not. The ship certainly can't come any closer without triggering alerts all over the planet; by the same token the Ryqril can't get something out there without spooking it."

At which point it would simply swing around through hyperspace and take up its vigil elsewhere, forcing the Ryqril to waste time locating it again. Galway understood the logic, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Postern didn't say anything about a ship," he muttered. "I wonder just how many other cards Caine's got stashed up his sleeves."

The colonel gave a little shrug and shook his head. "I wouldn't even want to guess."

"Nothing come in yet about possible residents near Aegis Mountain?"

"No—and if it hasn't come through by now it's not going to until the day shift comes back on.

Research must have higher-priority work to do at the moment."

Galway nodded. "I suppose I might as well pack it in for the night, then."

"Good idea. I hope you have better dreams than the rest of us do."

Poirot stood up and moved off, and after a few moments Galway levered himself out of his chair.

There really wasn't anything else he could do at the moment. And with Caine's trip to analyze tomorrow, to say nothing of studying whatever was available on the mysterious ship out there, the morning's work was already promising to be hectic.

He paused at the door, an odd thought pricking at his mind. Possible misdirection regarding Aegis, the efficient action against the Security forces, a seemingly accidental encounter that had just happened to dump the marked car—the whole thing was starting to feel familiar. Uncomfortably familiar, in fact.

But that sort of thing was Lathe's trademark. And Lathe wasn't here this time. Couldn't possibly be here.

On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to take a few hours in the morning and sift through the intelligence files for the past few days. Just to see if anyone had spotted any new strangers in the city... and had lived to report it.