Страница 58 из 79
"Not with the word already out," Lathe assured her. "Actually, I'm rather hoping the lasers will react to an attempt to ram the fence from the inside."
Caine took a deep breath against the butterflies begi
"Against those lasers?" Jensen grunted from the van's rear. "That bandage over her hair will protect her about as much as the flexarmor will. Lathe—we've got company coming. One of the spotters is swinging around in this direction."
"Has he got us fingered?"
"I don't think so, no. He's turning pretty casually, as if he's just coming in for a closer look. But if we don't want him to spot the grand exit, we'd better get out fast."
"Right. Next corner—everyone get ready to climb out."
The next corner turned out to be a short two blocks from the fence and what could now be seen to be a heavily guarded gate. Skyler herded the others into the relative concealment of an arched doorway in the cross street while Lathe and Hawking worked together at the driver's side of the van. A
moment later they were finished, and as the two blackcollars jumped clear the vehicle lurched forward and sped off toward the gate.
"Make yourselves invisible," Lathe murmured as the two blackcollars joined the others under the arch. "And cross your fingers."
"It's veering off line," Colvin pointed out tensely as the vehicle vanished from sight beyond the buildings across the street from their shelter. "It was starting to shift toward the other lane."
"A little of that'll be all right," Hawking assured him. "As long as it hits the fence somewh—yowp!
There goes the spotter."
It was, Caine thought, the understatement of the evening. The aircraft screamed past them at streetlight level, chasing after the empty van like a mad Valkyrie.
"Everyone across the street—up against the building over there," Lathe snapped.
They'd barely reached the other side when there was a crash of metal on metal from around the corner as the van plowed into the fence—
And without warning the entire landscape lit up like the inside of a sun and there was a thunderous explosion.
Followed immediately by darkness and unearthly silence. Cautiously, Lathe took a look around the corner. "Come on, everyone," he said, and disappeared around the building at a dead run.
Ahead, the scene by the fence was stomach-churning impressive. Torn metal lay scattered everywhere, some of the pieces barely recognizable as being from the van or the spotter, others too distorted for even that much identification. At least five meters of the fence were gone or crumpled; the concrete around the crash site—what of it was visible—was blackened and blistered. Of the guards that had been standing at the gate there was no sign at all.
"What happened?" gasped A
"Looks like Lathe was right," he told her. "The van must have triggered the defense lasers when it rammed the fence. I guess the spotter was too close and got caught in the blast—either that or the laser got it directly."
"My God." She shook her head, as if not believing it.
"I'm sure Torch has done things equally messy," Lathe commented from her other side. Caine looked across at him, struck by the intensity in his voice. "It's part of any war, guerrilla or otherwise... and if you're really determined to be a part of it, you'd better get used to this sort of thing."
She glanced at him, then turned silently away. Caine caught Lathe's eye, nodded at the fence. "You have some special magic to keep the lasers from frying us?"
"Shouldn't need any magic," the comsquare said. "I doubt the things are set for antiperso
Apparently Qui
Chapter 29
The spotters were still buzzing around the city—mostly far to the south of their quarry—when Lathe pulled the car into an alley and shut off the lights. "What're we doing here?" Caine asked, his stomach tensing again. He'd had enough surprises for one night.
"I need to make a quick phone call," the comsquare replied as the second and third cars pulled up behind them. "Ms. Silcox, I'd like you to accompany me. Pittman, come up here and get behind the wheel, just in case a fast exit is required. Caine, you stay with him; I'll have the rest of them spread out in loose shield formation."
"It might help if we knew exactly what kind of trouble you were expecting to run into here," Caine told the comsquare in a low voice as the others began clearing out of the van.
"No trouble anticipated," Lathe assured him. "Just a precautionary measure. Really."
"Right," Caine muttered under his breath. He and Silcox got out as Pittman went around and climbed into the vacated driver's seat. Caine listened as the footsteps faded into the night... and for the first time since their capture he was alone with Pittman.
For a long moment neither man moved or spoke. Then Pittman took a deep breath. "Whatever you're going to say to me, I wish you'd go ahead and get it over with."
"All right," Caine said. His eyes flicked over the younger man's face, noting the tension lines there—lines he'd never really paid attention to before. "You've been playing this game for quite a while, I understand. Why?"
"You mean how did the Ryqril force me to—?"
"No, I mean why did you go to Lathe instead of simply playing along with them?"
Pittman turned to face him, a vaguely bewildered look on his face. "What the hell else was I supposed to do? Betray all of you for real?"
"Why not? Whatever they had on you must have been a real sun-cruncher for them to trust you so fully." Caine frowned, a sudden thought striking him. "Unless they thought they'd gotten you loyaltyconditioned?"
Pittman snorted. "Galway's not stupid enough to try something that obvious. It takes fifteen days to condition someone that thoroughly, and if they'd tried keeping me out of circulation that long they might just as well have phoned Lathe and a
Caine nodded. He knew all that, of course, but for a moment he'd dared to hope Pittman might have stumbled on a way to break the Ryqril's loyalty-conditioning technique. "Then back to question one: why didn't you simply play on Galway's side?"
Pittman dropped his eyes, turned back to face the windshield. "Because I couldn't," he said simply.
"You're my friends; my comrades-in-arms, if you want to get sentimental about it. I couldn't betray you, no matter what it cost."
He swallowed, and Caine saw his jaw muscles tighten momentarily. "What is it going to cost?" he asked quietly.
"With luck... nothing. At least, that's what Lathe's promised me."
"And you trust him to come through?"
Pittman turned back to face Caine, a wry smile on his lips. "Why not? You do."
Caine snorted. "That's hardly an apt comparison. I never get to choose whether to trust him or not."
"Sure you do. You don't have to put up with all of his high-handed finagling—not really. You could go to him right now, tell him he's pulled one too many fast ones at your expense and that you're taking off. But you're not going to, and we both know it. Why not?"
"Because he's the best tactician I've ever known, I suppose," Caine said, almost grudgingly.