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Chapter 14
Geoff Dupre pulled out of his driveway a few minutes before nine, headlights cutting twin cones through the light mist that had sprung up in the past hour. Caine let him get a block away, then nodded to Braune. "Let's go."
"Right," the other said. Pulling smoothly away from the curb, he gave leisurely chase.
Dupre was easy to follow. Braune stayed one to two blocks behind him as they headed northwest, drifting farther back as the traffic thi
The small office-type building Dupre eventually parked his car beside was situated between two large hills that hid it from Denver proper. Cutting across one end of the parking lot was a half-buried pipeline that disappeared into the foliage upslope; surrounding the whole area was a tall fence with sensor clusters mounted at each corner and over the single gate. Inside the fence, flanking the gate and drive, was a one-man guard shelter.
"Now what?" Braune asked as they drove toward the gate. "It's too late to stop—we'd look suspicious."
"Agreed." Caine pursed his lips, eyes taking in the details as he thought. With civilian clothing over their flexarmor they should be able to approach the gate attendant without panicking anyone.
Breaking in was out of the question—the sensors were surely good enough to spot that and relay an alarm to the nearest Security post. But something more subtle might get by the defenses. "I wish we'd brought Alamzad," he commented. "He might be able to give us a better reading on those sensors. Well, let's go ahead and try the old bureaucratic confusion approach. You have your Special Services ID?"
"Sure."
"Okay. Play off my cues."
They rolled to a stop in front of the gate. Caine stepped out of the car and walked briskly over to the guard shelter. The guard himself, a middle-aged man in a loose uniform, had emerged by the time Caine reached him. "Yes?" he asked, squinting a bit against the car's headlights.
"Inspector Craig Nielson, Special Services," Caine said, holding his ID against the fence for the other's scrutiny. It was an impressive card, with two seals and three signatures and some of the best etched-gold trim the Plinry blackcollars had ever turned out. The fact that it had nothing to do with any actual government agency was almost irrelevant—it looked official, and for many people that would be enough. Caine held his breath, hoping the guard was one of those.
Almost, but not quite. "Yes, sir," he said, his tone abruptly respectful. "I'm afraid I'll have to run your prints and retina pattern through the Athena link, though, before you can come in."
"Of course, of course," Caine said, mindful of the sensors overhead. They might not be continuously monitored, or even contain audio pickups at all, but he couldn't take the chance. "Just hurry it up."
"Yes, sir. If you'll slide that ID through here, this will only take a minute."
Caine passed the card through the indicated gap in the fence and the guard stepped into his shelter.
Half seen through the doorway, he busied himself with a compact terminal, and Caine forced his muscles to relax. If Hawking had gimmicked the card properly...
He had. "Uh, sir?" the guard said, frowning as he stepped back to the fence. "I can't seem to get the prints to read."
"Damn," Caine muttered with proper irritation. "I've told them and told them the alignment's off—half the readers on the continent won't pick the pattern up. Do you have another machine?"
"No, sir, but I've got a direct sca
"Sure, sure, just get on with it," Caine said, waving a hand impatiently. The guard leaned into his shelter and the gate slid open half a meter. Caine stepped through and joined the guard, eyes flicking once to the other's belt holster. A paral-dart gun, by its size, and it presented a safer alternative to the nerve punch Caine had pla
"Right here, sir," the guard said, gesturing into the shelter. Caine brushed past him, and as the guard leaned in behind him, he turned back and jabbed two fingers into the older man's solar plexus.
The guard's mouth popped open, a strangled unh the only sound to escape. Caine's right hand shifted to a steadying grip on the other's arm, his left deftly sliding the pistol from its holster and pressing its muzzle against the guard's thigh. A quiet burp, a reflexive jerk of the leg, and a second later the man went limp. Caine was ready; palming the gun and shifting to a two-handed grip, he swung the guard smoothly around and into a chair that took up most of the shelter's rear. Hitting the switch that opened the gate, he dropped the pistol into his pocket and then took a couple of seconds to make sure the guard was well enough braced and balanced to remain upright. Braune had the car through by the time he'd finished; closing the gate again, Caine got back in the vehicle for the hundred-meter drive to the building.
They parked just off the main door and headed inside. From the relative emptiness of the parking lot, Caine guessed that the graveyard shift was run by a fractional staff. If they were careful, they might pull this off without ru
The entry foyer was lit but deserted, as was the hallway beyond its double doors. Caine and Braune padded quietly past a row of closed office doors, turned a corner—
And came face to face with Geoff Dupre.
The big man stopped with a jerk, the steaming cup in his hand sloshing dangerously. "You!" he half whispered.
"No noise," Caine warned, letting the other see the shuriken in his hand. "We aren't going to hurt anyone unless you make that necessary. Understand?"
Dupre licked his lips. "What do you want?"
"Take us to your office first. No sense in standing around out here."
In silence Dupre led them down the hall to a cluttered room near the building's center. An open interior door showed several men working at a line of consoles beneath a computerized wall map alive with spidery lines. Braune caught Caine's eye and nodded fractionally toward the room before closing the door and positioning himself beside it. Caine closed the hallway door and gestured Dupre to his desk chair. The big man hesitated, then sat down. "Well?" he asked, almost belligerently.
Caine regarded him coolly. "You have a real talent for getting your courage up at the wrong times," he told the other. "Where do you store the explosives in this building?"
Dupre's mouth twitched. "Explosives?"
"Things that go bang," Braune supplied. "You use them in digging new aqueducts for the water system, remember?"
Dupre flicked a glance in Braune's direction, then looked back at Caine. "There aren't any real explosives here. All that stuff is kept in the operations warehouse."
"What have you got here?"
"Nothing really except some primer caps that we sometimes send down the pipes to clear out blockages. They're not very powerful."
"They'll do for a start," Caine said. "Where are they?"
"What're you going to do with them?" Dupre asked.
"Clear out some blockages of our own. Where are they?"
For a moment Dupre seemed ready to argue the point further. Then his eyes dropped to the star in Caine's hand and he sighed. "They're in the basement storeroom."