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"Wait a minute, Galway," Qui
"That bunker isn't a hotel, you know."
"How far away from the others is this bunker, Galway?" Pittman asked.
"Shut up, Postern," Qui
Pittman bristled. "I don't especially care for you, either, Qui
"All right—all right," Qui
"Understood," Galway muttered after him, jaw tightening at the sarcasm. Pittman's paranoia wasn't his fault, after all. "Come on, Pittman, move it."
"How hard is it to get off the detention level, anyway?" the youth asked as they stepped out onto the roof. "I'm not just being fussy, Galway—I've seen these guys in action."
"They'll be on the fifth level; you'll be two levels underground," the prefect growled, starting to get fed up with Pittman himself. "There's a single elevator off the fifth level, which opens out only onto the fourth floor. The elevators off the fourth floor are then half the building away, and the entire level is guard barracks. Give Qui
"Okay," Pittman murmured, and with that finally subsided.
They made the rest of the trip in silence, a quiet that, oddly enough, matched the building as a whole.
Even during the night shift Galway had never seen the place quite as deserted as this, and he found it a bit u
The lounge was empty when they arrived, the handful of men who might be there clearly occupied elsewhere. "There's a luncheon pantry over here, and drinks in the cooler here," Galway said, pointing them out. "No beds, but the couch over there will do if you get tired enough. The situation room is through that door. Stay out of it if you don't want Qui
"I understand." Pittman took a deep breath, let it out. "I expect you've got some important torturing to attend to, so I suppose you'd better go."
"You're welcome," Galway said dryly. Turning, he stepped through the door and headed back toward the elevator.
Chapter 26
The unmarked van pulled to a halt by the Security building and a half-dozen men climbed out, laughing and chattering as they shouldered their laser rifles and walked up the steps to the glassticenclosed foyer. Seated across the street in his parked car, Mordecai watched closely through the windows as they passed the duty officer at his desk and lined up in front of a reinforced door at the reception room's back wall. Each did something to a small upright console; the machine's response each time was to open the door. Within a minute all six men had vanished through it, leaving the desk man alone.
Leaning back against the seat cushions, Mordecai considered. An ID check, presumably. Not completely unreasonable, even in such a supposedly secure place as Athena, but it was going to complicate things. He had an ID, of course—the dead Security man from whom he'd obtained the uniform had kept his in a breast pocket clearly designed for the purpose—and if all the machine cared about was the card itself, Mordecai was home free. If the program was also checking the bearer's fingerprints and retinal patterns...
Mordecai pursed his lips, searching his memory. No, that was probably unlikely—and if the thing was really being that thorough, it was doing so damn quickly. Odds were good that it was only checking the cards, and that would be easy enough to handle.
Presumably. He'd find out for sure in a minute.
The duty officer glanced up as he entered, nodded briefly, and returned his attention to his display.
Mordecai nodded in return and strode briskly past him toward the rear door. Chances were good that Security men from both day and night shifts had been called up for this operation, and if the blackcollar behaved as if he belonged here anyone he met would probably assume the unfamiliar face simply belonged to someone on another crew.
Assuming, of course, that they hadn't paid close attention to the photos Galway had surely circulated.
The console by the door was indeed as simple as he'd hoped, apparently nothing more than a scan screen and a reset button. But there was always the potential for surprises. Palming a shuriken in his free hand, he pressed his stolen ID against the screen and held his breath.
There was a quiet beep, and the door ahead opened—and as he started through he noticed a display that hadn't been visible from the car outside. Three columns of names filled the screen, their positions shifting subtly as one more was added.
Which meant he'd been worried about nothing. Safe, fat, and sassy here in the middle of Athena, the Security bigtops evidently hadn't even considered the possibility of unauthorized entry. All they cared about was knowing who was on duty and available in the building and who wasn't.
Smiling tightly, Mordecai stepped through the door. So much for both enemy preparedness and blackcollar overcaution.
Beyond the door, a handful of people moved briskly along on unknown errands. Glancing once at his watch, Mordecai joined them, matching their businesslike air as best he could.
—
The situation room was considerably larger than Pittman had expected it to be, and for a long minute he just stood in the lounge doorway and gazed around at it. Four men were currently on duty, splitting their attention between a large overview screen of Denver, a bank of screens that looked to be from mobile units, a long panel that evidently handled voice-only communications from the field, and a second bank of screens that showed nothing but hallways and small rooms.
Hallways, small rooms, and a fair number of Security uniforms.
"You got the general's permission to be here?" one of the Security men said as Pittman moved toward the latter bank of displays.
Pittman nodded toward the screens. "That the detention level?" he asked.
"Yeah," the other said briefly, getting up and walking over to him. "Let's see your authorization."
"I don't have any, but Galway said I could wait in the lounge next door," Pittman said, his attention still on the displays. "You keeping a good eye on those guys?"
The Security man snorted. "Oh—right. You're Postern, aren't you? The informer."
Pittman's jaw tightened momentarily. He was getting tired of the contempt that always seemed to accompany that identification. "Yes," he acknowledged shortly. "You haven't answered my question."
One of the other officers snickered, swiveling his chair lazily toward Pittman. "Worried they'll come down and pay you a visit, are you? Maybe you should go back to the lounge and hide under the couch."
Pittman sent a cold look in his direction, then turned back to the original speaker. "Well?"