The Backlash Mission

Chapter 32

"You took a hell of a chance out there. I hope you realize that."

Lathe paused, looking away from the mirror to the edge of the sunken tub where Reger had seated himself. "Not that much of one, really," he told the other. "A little strategically applied makeup, a lot of genuine blood in case they were being thorough enough to use type analyzers, and the rest was pretty much of a given. You'd be surprised at how few people will really look at a face that's covered with blood."

Reger snorted, and Lathe turned back to the sink and the last remnants of the makeup from their prison escape, glad the tedious job was almost done. The dried blood had been easy enough, but the false head wound had been composed of non-water-soluble materials and the solvent's odor reminded him of some of the worst days of the old war.

"I assume," Reger said, "that there was method to the rest of it, too, that you didn't just improvise as you went along? The Silcox woman—why did you have her wear all of your flexarmor? Just to bulk her out?"

"Partly that, and partly because all the rest of us were supposed to be unconscious from head wounds." He caught Reger's puzzled look in the mirror and continued, "She established early on for the assault team that her injury was one where she could fade in and out of consciousness, right?

Okay; that meant she could conveniently fade out if someone started asking awkward questions, but could also fade in if the medics started to check her out for any problems besides her head wound—specifically, problems below neck level."

"Ah." Reger nodded. "I see. With your flexarmor elsewhere, they were welcome to examine the rest of you as much as they wanted."

"Right," Lathe said. "And the symptoms fit with her supposedly having bandaged her own head, anyway—"

"Which she needed to have done to hide her hair."

"Right again. Also, with the in-out fading, she would have been able to provide diversion or misdirection if it had become necessary. Which it didn't, as it turned out—I don't think the major directing the operation really knew what he was doing."

Reger snorted. "You put a hell of a lot of trust in her."

Lathe took one last swipe at his forehead and thankfully tossed the cotton ball aside, turning to face Reger again. "We're having to do a lot of trusting on this mission, it seems. Well, now—enough of these preliminaries. You've probably heard the whole story from Caine or one of the others by now, anyway. So what did you really come here to talk about?"

The other pursed his lips. "Caine tells me he wanted to get those two truck drivers out, too, while you were there—spun me some sort of story about you not trusting them to cooperate with you on the escape."

"He's right; we couldn't have. But it's actually simpler than that. The Dupres and Karen Lindsay had no connection to us at all, aside from having been forced to help us in a couple of minor parts of the operation. A fast interrogation will show they're innocent pawns, and they'll be released. If we'd broken them out, on the other hand, they'd automatically have come under more suspicion, and when they'd been recaptured they'd have been put through the whole gauntlet. By ignoring them when we made our break, we actually did them a favor. Though Caine still has a hard time seeing that."

Reger grunted. "Maybe with good reason. Because as it turns out, they're not quite as unconnected as you thought. I own the trucking company the two women drive for."

"What?" Lathe felt his eyes narrow. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I didn't know it before," the other retorted. "You never mentioned those people before tonight.

Anyway, it may not be an immediate problem—I own the company, but through several levels of bureaucratic paper. It could take Quinn days to dig his way through it, even after it occurs to him to look."

"Yeah. Unfortunately, Galway's here, too, and if Quinn doesn't think to look, he sure as hell will."

"Caine told me a little about Galway," Reger said. "Sounds like a dangerous opponent."

"If the Ryqril and other assorted idiots didn't keep interfering with him, he might have nailed us long ago," Lathe said frankly. "If Quinn gives him free rein... well, there's nothing we can do but try to move up the timetable as best we can."

"By running amok in Denver." Reger exhaled between his teeth. "I can't say I like that idea at all, Lathe. The inherent advantages of the attacker notwithstanding, there are a hell of a lot of Security men at Quinn's disposal. And that doesn't count Denver's real bosses, who're going to be damned annoyed at a progressive gunfight shaking up their territories."

"We need Bernhard's knowledge." Lathe shrugged. "As long as he's unwilling to rock his own personal boat, the only way to get his help is to make it even more dangerous for him to sit on his hands. Tonight's little play in Athena will have pushed things a long way toward that goal—that's the main reason I took the risk in the first place—but if he's going to be stubborn, we'll just have to keep stirring the fire."

"Maybe if you told me what you wanted to know, I could find it out for you."

"Sorry." Lathe shook his head. "You I could probably trust to keep quiet about it, but the rest of your people I couldn't. And if Security gets wind of it, they're likely to overreact. Badly."

The intercom in Reger's pocket beeped. "Yes?" he said, pulling it out.

A second later, his eyes widened, and, bounding from his seat, he stepped close to Lathe, holding the instrument so that both men could hear. "...says that Lathe'll want them put up here, at least for the night. What do I tell him?"

"It's Jensen and Mordecai," Reger hissed into Lathe's ear. "With Bernhard and Kanai."

Lathe plucked the instrument from Reger's hand. "This is Lathe—put Jensen on."

"Uh—yes, sir."

"What the hell does he think he's doing?" Reger snarled into the pause.

"I don't know, unless they've persuaded Bernhard to help. Somehow."

A moment later Jensen's voice came on. "Lathe? What's up?"

"That's my line, isn't it?" the comsquare said. "Reger and I were just wondering why you brought Bernhard out here."

"You wanted him here, didn't you?" Jensen said, sounding surprised. "Wasn't that the basic idea of this operation?"

"Yes, but—well, we were rather hoping to keep Reger's assistance to us out of the general news."

"Ah. Well, we weren't followed, if that's what's worrying you. And we stopped off at our numberthree safe house before leaving town and went over the car and both of them with a bug stomper.

They're perfectly clean."

"Glad to hear it." Lathe thought hard for a second, trying to hear beyond Jensen's words and figure out what the other had in mind. "Uh... the sensor net and death-house setup you were building for Reger—how far along are they?"

"Essentially finished, at least the visible parts. There's some wiring to be done yet, but I should be able to finish all of that tonight. You—uh—weren't planning to mention the death house to Bernhard, were you?"

Lathe pursed his lips. "Not that or the sensor net either. Should I make it an order?"

"I think it would be a good idea."

Lathe looked at Reger. "Is there some part of the house you can put Bernhard and Kanai where they can be watched around the clock?"

The other had a sour look on his face, but he nodded. "Yes, if you really think it's necessary. And safe."

"It's probably both. As long as they know where we are now, I want to have them right here where we can keep an eye on them." He caught the look on Reger's face and added, "And as long as there are five blackcollars in the house on your side, he's not likely to try anything against you personally."

"I hope you're right. Barky"—this into the intercom—"go ahead and let them in. Don't bother with the usual escort; there'll be a group of blackcollars here to meet them."

"Yes, Mr. Reger." The instrument went dead.

"You'll get some of your men out there right away?" Reger suggested mildly to Lathe.

In answer, the comsquare reached for his tingler.

—

For Caine, the confrontation at the steps to Reger's house turned out to be rather anticlimactic.

Not that he was really expecting trouble. With Lathe and Skyler waiting with Reger and him and with Jensen and Mordecai walking behind them, the two Denver blackcollars would have had to be crazy to start anything. Still, given Bernhard's attitude at their earlier meeting that evening, such a complete reversal struck Caine as damned odd, to say the least.

But a reversal it apparently was. Neither Bernhard nor Kanai showed the slightest sign of hostility as they walked up to where the reception committee waited.

"Lathe," Bernhard said, eyes cool as he looked over at Reger. "So. Reger. I should have guessed you were the one playing patron for them."

"Accident of history, actually," Reger told him. "Not that it matters. You really here to help, or was this just a childish ploy to smoke me out?"

Deliberately, Bernhard turned back to Lathe. "Is there some place where we can talk?" he asked.

"Somewhere we won't be disturbed or eavesdropped on?"

"My room's got a bug stomper in it," Lathe said, stepping back and gesturing the other forward.

"Mordecai, escort Commando Kanai to his quarters, will you? Reger will tell you where. Caine, Skyler, come with us."

The comsquare led the way inside and down the various hallways to his room. "Make yourselves comfortable," he told the others as he folded a table out from the wall and then stepped to a bookshelf where a stack of maps was sitting.

"The security here seems to be tighter than the last time I came by," Bernhard commented as he pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. "Your doing?"

"We helped a bit," Lathe said briefly. "Here we go." He stepped back to the table, unfolded a map of the Aegis Mountain area, and laid it out. "Recognize it?" he asked Bernhard.

"Aegis Mountain," the other said. "So?"

"I want you to get us in."

Bernhard twisted his neck to look up at Lathe. "That's what you wanted? Damn it all, Lathe, I told you once the mountain was locked up tighter than a Ryqril base. How the hell—"

"Yes, I know the official story," Lathe interrupted him coldly. "I also know it's a load of cockroach slime. You were a blackcollar assigned to the base—whatever back doors there were in and out of it, you know about them. So scrap the sheep bleatings and tell us where they are."

For a long moment the two men remained frozen where they were, gazes locked. Caine licked his lips, without noticeable effect, as the tension in the room grew steadily more oppressive. He desperately wanted to look over at Skyler, to see how the other was reacting to the standoff, but was afraid to move even that much... and at long last Bernhard dropped his eyes.

"Give me a map of the area northwest of the mountain," he said with a tired sigh. "It won't do you any good... but I'll show you the only way in."

—

"It's one of the fifteen ventilation tunnels into the base," Bernhard said, tapping the map at a spot alongside an intermittent creek. "Two meters across at this end, but it gets bigger later on as a bunch of the intakes connect together. It cuts horizontally into the mountain for a dozen meters, then shifts to vertical, dropping a hundred meters or so before leveling out again and heading in toward the base, several klicks away. It's an intake tunnel, fortunately; if it was an exhaust tunnel you'd find your way blocked by the groundwater heat-exchange system."

"Seems straightforward enough," Skyler commented, peering over Bernhard's shoulder. "What's the catch?"

"The catch is that these are too obvious a back door for even military bureaucrats to miss," Bernhard told him sourly. "So they made sure no one could use them."

"Booby-trapped?" Caine hazarded.

Bernhard snorted. "That's a mild way of putting it. It's an extremely nasty three-stage defense system." Snaring a pencil and pad from the bookshelf, he began to sketch. "Stage one is in that first dozen meters at the mouth of the tunnel and a few meters of the vertical shaft. It's remote-operated, for the most part, though there are some pressure and proximity defenses there, too."

"At least the manual weaponry won't be any trouble," Caine remarked. "No one in there to fire them."

"Stage two," Bernhard continued, ignoring the comment, "is at the midpoint, where the smaller tunnels join into one large thirty-meter one. That part's more or less passive, with bulkheads that were supposed to seal down the tunnel when the base was abandoned."

"Were they activated?" Lathe asked.

"I don't know, but I'd guess so. And even if you've really got the time and equipment to cut or blow through all those, there's still stage three... and I guarantee you won't survive that one."

"Let me guess," Skyler said. "Automated defenses, right?"

"Automated, self-contained, and utterly pure poison," Bernhard said heavily. "Lasers, particle and flechette weapons, gas, explosives and scud grenades, and a microwave flamer that would lock the joints on battle armor while it cooked you. If you had any battle armor."

"In other words, an area of the tunnel to be crept through with caution," Lathe said. "How long is it?"

"About a hundred meters—and you're missing the point. You aren't going to creep through it; nor are you going to run, fly, or drive through it. You enter that section and you're dead. Period."

For a moment the room was silent. Then Lathe leaned over the table and made a small mark on the map, one valley away from and due north of the spot Bernhard had indicated. "I presume the entrance to the tunnel is camouflaged," he said. "You'll need to help us find it."

Bernhard stared up at him. "Haven't you been listening? I just told you the tunnel was lethal."

"Yes, you did," Lathe said. "But security systems decay with age, and it's possible even something this sophisticated has fallen apart sufficiently to let us get by it. Regardless, we need to check it out in person." He straightened up. "If you'll come with me, I'll take you to the room Reger's got set up for you. We'll lie low here a couple of days to let Security run themselves ragged out in Denver, then head out and see just what we've got to work with out there."

Caine cleared his throat as Bernhard got to his feet. "Lathe, I'd like to talk to you when you've got a moment."

"Of course." Lathe caught Skyler's eye, jerked his head toward the door.

"Sure," the big blackcollar said. "Come on, Bernhard, I'll show you to your quarters."

Bernhard looked as if he wanted to say something, but apparently changed his mind. Together, he and Skyler left the room.

Lathe turned to Caine as the door closed behind the others. "Well? Bernhard's scare story getting to you?"

"A little, maybe," Caine admitted. "But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. Is it my imagination, or is everyone suddenly becoming very cooperative around here?"

Lathe pursed his lips. "You noticed that too, did you?"

"It's a little hard to miss. First Anne Silcox admits she knows at least a little more about Torch than she originally let on, then Bernhard does a complete one-eighty on helping us—to the extent that he doesn't even argue about your dragging him along into the mountains. And last but not least, Reger is willing to let him and Kanai stay here, despite the fact that they'd probably like to see him dead and vice versa. It seems to me just a little too good to be true, and I'm not sure I trust any of it."

"Hm. Well, as for Silcox, I don't think there's anything necessarily suspicious there—she wasn't going to trust us on our word alone until we basically proved we were on her side by getting her out of Athena."

Caine snorted gently. "On her side, sure. After basically dragging her into this mess just so there'd be someone for Bernhard to go after that we could rattle Security by saving—"

"Who told you that?" Lathe asked sharply.

"Oh, come on, Lathe—I may not be as good a tactician as you are, but I've got hindsight with the best of them. Your hope of getting to Torch through her fizzled, so you left her dangling in front of Bernhard so that you'd have an excuse to pull the Grand Athena Escape Stunt. You want to argue any of that?"

For a moment Lathe stared at him in silence. Then, ruefully, he shook his head. "You're better at this stuff than I thought," he admitted. "I always knew you had tactician talent. Would it help if I told you I was hoping Bernhard wouldn't take the bait and that I'd have to get my lever on him somehow else?"

Caine shrugged. "Actually, I don't feel as bad about her as I still do about the Dupres and Karen Lindsay. After all, Anne volunteered for duty here—why should she expect any different treatment than the rest of us get?"

Lathe shorted. "Thanks a lot."

"Don't mention it. You were talking about suspicious cooperation...?"

"Right. As for Bernhard..." Lathe hesitated. "I suspect he's using his change of heart as camouflage while he sets up a game of his own on the side. Add to that—" He broke off abruptly. "Never mind.

The point is—"

"Add to that Jensen's move in bringing Bernhard back here in the first place?" Caine suggested.

Lathe gave him a lopsided smile. "You're definitely better at this than I thought," he said. "Yes. On the surface that doesn't seem like a very smart move on his part... but there's something in his attitude that makes me think he also may have a plan of his own in the works, something that he needed Bernhard's presence here to accomplish."

"You going to ask him what it is?"

"No—at least not right now. When and if we get into Aegis, maybe it'll be time then. But not yet.

Some of Jensen's attitudes and perspectives may have changed since the Argent mission, but his basic skills and intellect haven't. You may not have noticed, but as we were escorting Bernhard here earlier, he and Reger were heading off into a huddle by themselves, so it's possible Jensen's cooked up something with him that'll help protect our flanks while we concentrate on the main mission."

"In other words," Caine said slowly, "you do have an idea of what he's up to. But don't want to tell me what it is."

Lathe gazed off into space. "Caine... if I'm right, it's something I don't really want to be involved in.

And I'm pretty sure you won't want to know about it in advance, either."

"Or in other words, I should trust you. Just this once." Caine grimaced for a moment, then sighed. "I knew I shouldn't have agreed to let you take command."

Lathe chuckled. But the laugh lines stayed only briefly, and didn't reach his eyes. "Come on, let's go talk to the others," he said, folding up the map. "We need to discuss this, decide who'll be coming along to the mountain in a couple of days."

"Blackcollars only?"

Lathe eyed him, shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Your team's earned the right to be in on the kill."

"I agree." Caine grimaced. "I just hope you're not being literal about it being a kill."

The comsquare nodded grimly. "So do I."