Wild Card (23 page)

“Got a couple of problems,” he said quietly.

I kicked myself. I was thinking like a civilian again. This wasn’t some gang of badasses out to get the colonel. This was Ops 4-16, the Nagas. A military unit, who’d be thinking like the military.

“They got eyes aloft?” I guessed.

“Yeah. Couple of light aircraft during the day. That’s all they need. They can see every car that moves out here for fifty miles around. But they’ve brought in a helicopter for night.”

“What have they got?”

“I don’t know, they aren’t giving specs out.” Snapping at me was a sign of how wearing this had to be for him. On his own, he would have been a ghost to them, but taking his wife along for the ride must have limited his choices. Now it was close to getting him caught.

He gathered himself and sighed. “The Ops 4 group has access to two high spec birds. The Chinese Z10 and the Apache.”

Oh, shit.

“They have a Naga flying those?”

Neither machine was the sort of thing you retrained a grunt to fly. At least, not if you wanted them to fly it twice. Flying any helicopter was a handful. Flying at night made it worse and the control systems in these super-helicopters pushed it even further.

“No,” Colonel Laine said. “They’ll have someone seconded from a flying unit.”

“That’s a weak point.”

Possibly.

“I wouldn’t want to depend on it.”

No, I wouldn’t either. With the colonel pinned down in the high plains, it was up to me to come up with a way to get him to Denver, whatever the Nagas threw up to stop us.

“I’ll arrange something tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe I can get the FBI to close the airspace down. If they haven’t got spotter planes to coordinate their cars, they won’t be able to concentrate their patrols. We should be able to get you out.”

“I don’t know, the TacNet reports make me think they’ve got enough people here that they’re doing ground sweeps during the day, checking any hiding places like this one.” I’d never heard the colonel like this before. He sounded so beaten down. “I haven’t got a detailed map, but I reckon they’ll find me tomorrow if I don’t move.”

Damn. Nothing like pressure. It had to be tonight.

My mind raced. There
are
ways to take on an attack helicopter from the ground and win, most of them involving lots of Stinger missiles. Lots. I had a problem with that on a whole load of levels.

This was the US. Stingers that missed the helicopter might select some other heat source to lock on and end up targeting a family car on the road. And if I did manage to take the helicopter down, I wasn’t killing Nagas, just some pilot and gunner who’d been seconded from the Cavalry and thought they were following legal orders. Oh, and on a practical level, I couldn’t go out tonight and buy a dozen Stingers in downtown Denver anyway.

All of those were good arguments for not attacking any military helicopter. There was one other point. If it was the Apache, it had a counter-measures weapon system that could backtrack and target multiple Stinger launch sites.

It wasn’t a real healthy option taking on an Apache, but I had to plan for the worst case. I had to assume it would be the Apache. And I had to assume that, as a last resort, they’d forget coordinating cars to come pick us up and would try and blow us away.

I needed to counter the Apache’s advantages.

The pilot would be looking at synthetic vision—a composite picture that combined images from a low light camera and an infrared scope and overlaid it on whatever he could see out the window. Like a werewolf, he would be able to see humans in the night from their body heat. Even on a moonless night like tonight. In Ops 4-10, we thought of Apache pilots as no longer completely human, which felt horribly ironic to me now.

The gunner’s weapons system had the same vision capability. He could fire missiles that would lock onto a car’s heat signature, and he had an armor chewing machine gun that was slaved to the movements of his head.

The Chinese Z10 wasn’t anything like as capable, but shared a lot of the same abilities. Either of these damned helicopters were capable of hunting coyote in the night desert. Humans and cars would be too easy.

All of which left me with options I’d devised as a purely theoretical exercise in Ops 4-10. The assignment had been to find the minimalist solution that could be used to escape from a hunting helicopter at night, but minimalist still required a truckload of equipment.

“You’re going to have to leave it with me, Colonel. Thank God, there’s no moon tonight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Set the ball rolling. Then I have to go party. But don’t worry, after the party I’ll gear up and come get you.”

“Your sense of humor is going backwards.”

“Yeah. Keep this cell handy, I’ll call you.”

Damn. I had two plans. One was to sneak out like a mouse, relying on the hunters to be too confident in their electronic systems. The other was the fallback. I really didn’t want to go there, but there was supposedly a way to even up the odds.

I needed a combat team. I needed equipment. I needed more time.

Joking with the colonel aside, I was going to have to miss the reception at Haven. Bian was going to kill me, but it was that or save the colonel.

Jen chose that moment to arrive home, preceded by Julie and followed by David and Pia, who were laughing at something.

“What’s up?” she demanded as soon as she saw my face.

“A list of things to do and no time to do them.” I’d promised to tell her everything, so I explained the colonel’s position, as briefly as I could. Jen would understand that our visit to Altau would need to be cancelled. That would have to be my first call, to Bian, as soon as I finished talking to Jen. Then I’d need to find that truckload of equipment. In a couple of hours. At night.

“And this list of equipment?” Jen picked up a pad and a pen.

I huffed. This was just delaying me. Pia was starting to look agitated, and I made myself calm down.

“Nightscopes and a tactical comms system from Victor. The man himself. A couple of his men and an SUV. Your helicopter.” I swallowed nervously, but she didn’t even blink. “A motorbike. Er… survival blankets and dark-colored, lightweight blankets, paramedic first aid kit, half a dozen powerful LED torches, a couple of laser pointers, photographer’s tripod…” I ran through my list, all the way down to: “…and duct tape, lots of duct tape.”

“That’s it?”

“No,” I said. “There’s one thing I can’t imagine anyone will be able to provide in a hurry. Maybe I’ll need to rig up an alternative—”

“Enough already and tell me.”

I sighed. “An infrared communications laser. Preferably something with juice like a satellite system.” I scowled. It had been a long time since I’d done the evaluation on this kind of equipment. “And Matt, for an hour, to help put it together,” I added.

“There are firms here in Denver that make satellite comms equipment,” said David.

“Maybe I’ll have to break in somewhere…” I slowed to a halt. Jen was looking smug and reaching for the phone.

“Jen? Who’re you calling?”

She smiled. “I’m starting with your friend and mine, Mr Campbell Carter. Who, by the way, is just desperate for me to help organize his fundraising campaign.”

“But—”

“He owns Merrow Technologies,” Jen said, “and they are the majority shareholder in AdAstra Communications.”

“Who supply satellite comms systems to NASA,” David finished off and punched the air. “Touchdown!”

“And I’m sure he could arrange a loan at very short notice. What shall I say it’s for?” Jen asked coyly.

“Ahh…an experiment with short, urgent messages to a vehicle.”

“Well, he won’t have any idea anyway.” She pointed me to the hallway. “This is going to take a few hours to put together, during which time we
will
be at the party. Go change. All of you.”

“But I have to—”

Pia grabbed me and started to pull me out.

“You don’t have to sit here and organize everything,” Jen said. “That’s what I’ve got secretaries for.”

“But—”

“Go. Your dress is on your bed. We are
not
going to be late.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“Wow.” Jen said, when I reentered the study.

I was scrubbed and changed, with my hair braided and my face made up by Pia as I fretted. I was still tugging the dress to see when—not if—it was going to fall off. It defied gravity and the tugging.

Lisa had done her magic again. Even distracted as I was, I loved the gold dress. It fit like a glove up my front, just covering my breasts and dramatically swooping down to my lower back. From the level of my thighs, the material was light and layered, gathered towards my left leg. As Lisa had said, dramatic as a flamenco dress.

Jen’s reaction swept away any lingering worries about the outfit. It was worth it just to see the way she looked at me. She came over and inspected me, her blue eyes checking me up and down, and her fingers smoothing a ruffle here and there.

“I approve,” she murmured. “I’d better go catch up.” She planted a kiss on my cheek.

My Athanate stirred comfortably as she sauntered away, glancing back over her shoulder for a last look at me.

An intercom call from the guards at the gate brought me back down to earth; Alex had arrived. With Ricky—I’d forgotten that little complication.

This is going to be fun. Not.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I got Alex first, leaving Ricky talking to Pia and David in the living room.

His dinner jacket was superb, the black cloth complementing his light brown hair and the cut emphasizing the broad shoulders and snake-slim hips.

I searched his eyes, green and sharp tonight. Was there any doubt, a little hesitation that told me I’d broken what had grown between us? Nothing.

Or was I seeing what I wanted to see?

His brow was creased and I reached up hesitantly to smooth the wrinkles out, just as Jen had done with my dress.

My stomach clenched in anticipation, but there was no sudden maelstrom of emotions overpowering me.

“Okay?” he said softly as I dared to lean against him.

“Yeah. I think so.”

His face turned to brush the inside of my wrist with his lips, sending a shiver down me. Still no reaction from my strongbox.

I couldn’t risk driving my kin away. I had to make him understand it wasn’t me that had rejected him so violently in Ricky’s back yard. Even more hesitantly, I
reached
. Our eukori slipped over each other like twining silken scarves. There was no hesitation in the sensuous darkness that was his true inner self.

The green of his eyes slipped subtly toward gold.

He sighed and smiled. “Has this cured you of any doubts that you used Athanate compulsion on me?”

“No,” I said. As he frowned again, I went on. “But at the moment, I’ll try to just deal with everything as it is, rather than how I got here.”

He laughed and his hands went to circle my waist.

I skittered back. No, I wasn’t ready for that yet. I wanted it but I didn’t dare.

“Okay,” he said, holding himself in check.

We relaxed, two paces between us.

“Anyway, I wouldn’t have minded being compelled by you,” he joked.

“No, you
couldn’t
. That’s the difference, Alex. That’s where I can’t go. I mustn’t compel you and I have to be sure I’m not compelling you. Anything else and I’m on the slope to ending up Basilikos.”

“What’s the point if you never use it?” There was still humor in his tone.

I shrugged. “I’m not being unrealistic. Defensive use, where my life is threatened would be justified. Use it on friends and family? Hell, no. I’d be no better than Basilikos.”

“What about on the pack?” His eyes went past me to the living room door.

“I wouldn’t,” I said, turning, “but I can’t guarantee what Altau would do.”

We went into the living room to tackle the next problem. Ricky.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“You are kidding, aren’t you?”

“No, Ricky. The options are, you stay here, or you wear a blindfold. It’s Altau’s standing orders. No outsiders get to know where the headquarters are.”

I wasn’t sure how secret Haven was any more, after Matlal’s attack on the Assembly, but I wasn’t going to go against these orders.

“What about Alex?”

“Alex is a member of my House, and kin besides. I’m responsible for him and Alex understands that.”

Ricky didn’t like that, but he couldn’t argue it.

“It’s not just a formality either, Ricky,” David said. “If Altau find out you know where Haven is, the standing orders say you’d have those memories erased.”

“Memories like that aren’t neat little modules, either.” Pia said. “It’s easy enough to blur a face, but something that relies on landmarks, for instance, links into all sorts of other memories. Having those erased would be unpleasant.”

Ricky swore under his breath.

“Let Felix take it up with Skylur, and I promise you, I’ll back Felix,” I said. “I think this division is stupid.”

At that, Ricky took a long, cool look at me, but in the end, he just nodded.

Chapter 24

House Altau didn’t do things in a small way. Their style was normally restrained, but I’d had a feeling that went out the window when they decided to make an impression. I was right.

There was still a sense of disturbance about Haven, but instead of the anthill we had the swan: grace on top and frantic paddling below. All the cars that had been parked on the lawns were gone. The lawns were gone too—vanished under a pageant of marquees and tented pavilions. Somewhere in that flapping city, I figured Panethus strategists would be ignoring the party and concentrating on assessing the risks of Basilikos’ actions and planning responses.

We drove through all that right to the front door of the house, and handed the keys to the valet.

A flock of greeters and ushers delivered us to the antechamber of the reception, which was in the suite that had been used for the Assembly. Julie and Ricky were directed to a separate room where others waited. I was assured that all security in Haven was Altau’s responsibility and nodded to Julie to go.