The interrogator let his eyes flicker over Cade for a few seconds, as if looking for a visual cue as to how to open. “So, the other half of the duo,” he said finally. He was American. “You two have caused a lot of problems.” He didn’t seem to expect any response at that point. “Okay, let’s save us all a lot of time. We know you were at the motel in Chattanooga, how you got there, and that you were brought out through St. Louis by this Hyadean from California, Teera Vrel.” He went on to supply some of the salient details. Maybe the idea was to sound as if he knew more than he did, with the implication that telling untruths could be risky. Cade figured that Rebecca and Julia between them would have supplied everything up to the incident in the motel. With surveillance everywhere and taps into all the computers, who knew how they had traced them to St. Louis? Anything relating to the three days between his and Marie’s fleeing from Chattanooga and their arrival at the St. Louis Hilton was notably absent from the interrogator’s account.
“Did you at any time meet the person who was referred to as Otter? His real name was Reyvek, formerly with the security forces.” Cade didn’t answer. The man nodded to one of the guards behind. A pain like a three-second migraine headache seared through Cade’s skull, then stopped. Just a warning. He realized that the rush of fear had almost caused him to loose bowel control. A sour taste welled in his mouth. His chest was pounding, palms slippery.
“I’m not here to do all the talking,” the interrogator told him. “You will tell us, so you might as well make it easy on yourself. Again, did you at any time meet Otter?”
Cade licked his lips. Conflicting impulses tore at him. He had never known that the urge of self-preservation could be so strong. In his confusion he couldn’t form a coherent answer. The pain began again, rising slowly this time, like a dental drill probing a nerve, only in his head. “No!”
“No, what?”
“No, I never met him.”
“Did you talk to him at all—by phone, maybe?”
“No.”
“You will tell us,” the interrogator reminded him again.
Cade felt sweat running down his back inside his shirt. “I didn’t talk to him! What else can I say?”
“CounterAction arranged his defection. Weren’t you involved with that?”
“I don’t know anything about CounterAction.”
“Don’t give us that,” the colonel said from the corner. His voice was clipped. “You’ve been an undercover informer of theirs for years. That’s what that whole setup of yours is in California. Isn’t it?”
“No. That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” the interrogator at the desk echoed. The drill started probing again.
“It’s not true, I told you!” The drill stopped. Cade gasped for breath. “You’ve had your spy there for a year. What did she see?”
“Why did you go to Chattanooga?” the interrogator asked.
“You just told me a few minutes ago. I didn’t intend going to Chattanooga. Only Atlanta.”
“That was the story,” the colonel said. “We want the real reason.”
“That’s all there is.”
“Wasn’t it to rendezvous with Kestrel, your former wife, whom you’d been in communication with all the time?”
“No. I didn’t even know she was there.”
“You expect us to believe that?” the interrogator asked.
“Probably not, if you’ve already made your minds up. . . . But it’s true.”
The interrogator glanced at the colonel, apparently deciding not to pursue the point for the time being. He jotted something on the papers in front of him and looked back up. “Where were you in the three days after Chattanooga—before you showed up in St. Louis?”
“I don’t know.” Cade felt a tingle building up. He gulped. “It was dark. We followed a car somewhere.”
“So you were still in the general area,” the colonel said.
There couldn’t be any denying it. “Yes.”
“How many hours did you drive from Chattanooga? Which direction?”
“One, maybe two. North . . . I think.”
The interrogator made more notes, then consulted something on the laptop. “Vagueness won’t get you anywhere in the long run,” he murmured, still looking at the screen.
The colonel moved across the room to stand looking down at Cade, giving him no respite. “Where did Vrel go?” he demanded.
“When?”
“Quit stalling, Cade. Vrel wasn’t at Corto Tevlak’s house. Where is he?”
“He went to check up on some things.”
“Back to Uyali?”
“He didn’t say exactly where, and I’ve already been mixed up in this long enough not to ask.” Cade looked up. The colonel was watching him distastefully. “Look, whatever you think, I haven’t been working with CounterAction. I just make trading deals and mind my own business. If Julia’s been any good to you, you know that.”
“Who was the other Hyadean who disappeared with him?”
“I’d never met him before.”
“I didn’t ask that. What was his name?”
Cade couldn’t bring himself to answer. He gripped the edges of the chair and stared at the front of the metal desk, feeling himself perspiring in rivers. “It doesn’t matter for now,” the interrogator’s voice said tiredly from above. Cade raised his eyes, half expecting a trick. “We don’t want any undue unpleasantness here. This is only a transit facility, you understand. Shortly, you’ll be taken to a more permanent location, where they have experts who are more skilled at this kind of thing than I. I’m sure you’ll be more cooperative by the time we next meet.” He eyed Cade dourly for a moment. “Even if you do discover a reserve of unsuspected heroics, there are usually other avenues of weakness that can be explored. The other person that we’re holding, for example, seems to be becoming an object of restored affections, even assuming that your alleged estrangement was genuine. I trust you take the point?”
“Bastards!” Cade started to rise and was checked by a jarring sensation in his neck. A hand from behind seized him by the hair, yanking his head back, forced him back down, while another cuffed the side of his face painfully. He glowered across the desk, panting shakily.
The interrogator studied Cade’s face pensively. It must have registered abhorrence that a Terran could be capable of selling out his own kind to such a degree. His expression changed to one of amused contempt. “Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for some campus ideology. Our files describe you as a realist. There’s only one kind of realism in the universe, and its proponents all understand each other. There aren’t any rules to the game. Its sole object is to take care of oneself. You make trading deals, you said? Very well. We can make you an offer to come over to the winning side in return for being sensible. Isn’t that what any realist wants?”
Cade didn’t hold much stock in any offers. Whichever way things went, he had the distinct feeling that knowing what they knew now, the chances of he and Marie ever getting back to the States were pretty slim. Losing them somewhere would hardly present a problem. After all, they had never officially left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Hyadean transport hummed through the air. Cade had no idea in what direction. The view panels were set to opaque, leaving just the stark, metal-ribbed interior and its austere fittings. Marie was next to him, with two Peruvian guards in the row in front, three behind, and their Hyadean officer facing from a bulkhead seat in front. The captives had been issued with baggy gray prison garb, and each wore one of the diabolical Hyadean collars. They had both spent a second uncomfortable night. But at least they were together again—for the time being. Perhaps a chance to renew concern between them was part of the intention—to make things that much tougher later. There had been little opportunity to discuss their experiences. Cade didn’t know if she had been exposed to threat along the lines the interrogator had implied. He wouldn’t have mentioned it in any case.
“Look. . . .”
He kept his voice low, glancing sideways to be sure she was listening. “It’s been a long time. A lot’s happened. In case we don’t get out of this, I just want you to know that a lot of things that seemed smart once don’t seem so smart anymore. What I mean is . . . Hell, you know what I’m trying to say.”
“Roland groping for words?” she murmured. “I don’t believe it.”
“Asshole, then. How’s that for a choice of word? I was an asshole.”
“No talking between the prisoners,” the Hyadean officer said.
Cade sensed Marie smiling. Her hand found its way around the metal tubing holding the armrest, to where his was resting. Their little fingers touched and entwined surreptitiously. If only just a little, he felt more at peace.
About fifteen minutes later, the transport dipped suddenly without warning and went into a steep descent. The officer grabbed a handrail on the wall to steady himself and asked something in Spanish to the guard who seemed to be second in command. The second answered negatively. The officer called out in Hyadean to the vessel’s control system. There was no response. He called something else, then broke out a manual control panel that hinged down from the bulkhead. The guards began jabbering in alarm as they clung for balance. “¡Silencio!” the officer shouted, tapping frantically at the panel. “¡Espera para órdenes!”
Cade and Marie exchanged ominous looks. “You might just have made that last-words speech in time,” Marie whispered. They clutched hands tensely.
The transport leveled out suddenly, causing more disorder; then there was a bump and a swish that sounded as if they had brushed a treetop, followed by sudden deceleration, throwing everyone forward onto the floor and flattening the officer against the forward wall. Cade was pitched fully between the two seats in front and went down in a heap with the guards. Before anyone could begin untangling themselves, there was the bang of a hole being blown in the side of the cabin, and then something exploded in a blaze of light that left Cade blinded and helpless except for a bizarre reverse-colored image etched into his retina. He was vaguely aware of shouts, scrambling noises, bodies colliding around him. Fragments of vision began coming together again to reveal the door partly burned away and hanging open, two large, helmeted figures silhouetted against the daylight, coming through, and then others, smaller. A guard tried to rise and was clubbed down. Two of the assailants seized Marie. One threw something like a blanket over her head and held her, while one of the larger figures leveled a device at her throat. “No!” Cade screamed. He tried to hurl himself at them, but strong arms gripped him from behind. Then a metallic mesh came down over him, and he felt his head being pushed back.
“Don’t resist!” a Hyadean voice shouted near his ear. “It scrambles signals to the collar! They can still blow your head off!” Cade forced himself to relax and felt some kind of shield being forced up between his neck and the band of metal. Moments later there was a clunk, and the collar came free. The mesh was removed. He looked over, his eyes still dim with aftershock from the light, and saw that Marie was rid of hers too. He turned back to the Hyadean, who was regarding him in what looked like a jaunty stance, hands on hips, while armed Terrans shepherded the dazed guards and their officer out through the ruin of the door. The details cleared slowly to show him in Hyadean combat garb, belt and shoulder harness loaded with pouches and accoutrements, grinning and waiting while Cade’s vision cleared sufficiently to recognize him.
It was Hudro.
“You were going the wrong way,” Hudro said. “We figured you needed help.” There had to be a response that would go down in history. Cade couldn’t think what it was.
Meanwhile, the second Hyadean, who was female, had been locating and smashing key parts of the transport’s communications equipment. “That’s it,” she announced. “Let’s go.”
“We need to move fast,” Hudro told Cade. “The traffic-control system will be flashing alarms already.”
The vessel was tilted among a tangle of vines and trees. They climbed out carefully and crossed an open area, where Terrans in forage caps and jungle gear had the officer and two of the five guards sitting on the ground, disarmed, hands on heads, while two others assisted one who seemed to have hurt a leg. There didn’t seem to be any more Hyadeans. The female who was with Hudro frisked the captives for personal communicators and took those too.
In a clearing a short distance away was an olive-painted military helicopter, rotor running. The two Hyadeans guided Cade and Marie over to it, where a Terran waiting in the doorway helped them aboard. He shouted to the others, who began backing away from the guards, keeping their weapons trained on them. The guards were looking scared. For a sickening moment Cade thought they were about to be gunned down in cold blood. But the rescuers turned to run the last few yards to the waiting helicopter and threw themselves aboard. Hudro shouted something to the pilot, and it began rising. A couple of weapons were thrown back to the guards as the helicopter cleared the treetops. Minutes later, it was skimming over a green ocean of forest.
“I said that one day I save people,” Hudro shouted above the engine noise. “Is good feeling.”
“I’m glad you don’t waste time once you make your mind up,” Cade yelled back.
Hudro gestured to introduce the other Hyadean, crouching next to him on the floor, gripping the side netting—the helicopter’s cramped side seats didn’t admit to Hyadean proportions. She had taken off her helmet to reveal orange-yellow hair and smooth features for a Hyadean. Cade had the feeling that by their standards she would be young and pretty. “This is Yassem. A long time we know each other. It is she who shows me the Terran God. We decide that Hyadeans who bomb Terrans from homes here are criminals. Terran powers that they act with are criminals. We want no more part.” He hesitated, then said something to Yassem in Hyadean. She laughed, which Cade remembered meant embarrassment. “I guess is okay to tell you now,” Hudro said to Cade. He gripped Yassem’s hand. “Until yesterday, Yassem works with Hyadean intelligence service. Communications technical specialist. Is how we meet. We fall over love. Go away, live together as Terrans now. Who knows where? Away. Maybe Asia someplace.”
Marie laid a hand on Yassem’s shoulder and smiled. “Good luck,” she said.
“Thank you.”
The rest of the company in the helicopter comprised a mix of tough-looking characters in parkas, sweaters, flak jackets, combat smocks, decked with equipment belts and bandoliers, nursing an assortment of weapons. One who appeared to be the leader—with a black beret worn forward, sunglasses, and a black mustache—was eyeing Cade and Marie curiously from a jump seat on Hudro’s other side.
“Here is Rocco,” Hudro supplied, following Cade’s gaze. “I know too for long time now. My work with Hyadeans makes me live close with MOPAN bandits, try to spy. But it works backward. I get to know them. Yassem tells me about God, and I learn bandit peoples know God too. So I am on wrong side. Maybe live with bandits for time before go to Asia. Teach defense to Hyadean devil weapons. Many tricks. Makes me the big prize, eh?”
Rocco acknowledged Cade and Marie with a nod. Cade returned it. “We owe you a big thanks. I never realized we were so well known here already.”
“If Hudro says you’re two important people who could make some difference to this war, that’s good enough for me,” Rocco said.
“So how did you pull it off?”
Rocco indicated Hudro and Yassem. “You have to ask them. They got into the system that controls the Hyadean robot flyers. Brought it down where it wasn’t supposed to go. We were waiting.”
“Where are you from, Rocco?” Marie asked.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. No family left anywhere. All wiped out in the fighting. Now I just live to fight Globs.”
“Globs?” Cade’s brow creased.
“Globalists,” Marie supplied.
“Forces of governments that work for the criminals,” Hudro said. “Is more complicated here than Earth is told.”
“And every day getti
ng more complicated,” Rocco said. “What do you think is going to happen in the north?” he asked Cade and Marie. “Places in the western states ordering federal troops out. Air bases being taken over.”
“We hadn’t heard about it,” Cade said.
“A lot of people say they’re gonna split.”
Cade turned his head to Hudro. “After you left Tevlak’s, we tried to send a file to Vrel via his phone. Did it come through?”
Hudro nodded. “It comes through. But we cannot send to Chryse. Vrel think he knows somebody in California instead. If they ever get it, I don’t know.”
“Where’s Vrel now?” Cade asked.
“Waiting for us. Is with Luodine and Nyarl. When—” Hudro looked away as a call from the pilot up front interrupted. Rocco got up, ducking his head, and shouldered his way forward between the rows of figures hunched over guns and packs. Hudro straightened up on the floor in readiness to rise. Next to Cade, Marie pulled herself closer.
Rocco came back and shouted down to Hudro. “Segora is under attack. We are being warned off. The pilot wants you up front. We’ve got incoming radar from somewhere.”
“What’s Segora?” Cade asked Hudro as he unfolded up from the floor.
“Is where we were supposed to land. Maybe have to change plans now.” Hudro followed Rocco forward. The guerrillas had become alert, straightening up in their seats to watch something outside. Cade turned to look out of the open hatch, past the machine gun. Several miles away, perhaps, an aircraft shaped like a black arrowhead was climbing away from the ground, followed by a second a short distance behind and to one side. A boiling cloud of black smoke mixed with flame rose behind them. More planes were visible as dots higher up.
“Air strike,” Yassem commented needlessly. Smoke was also coming up from other places among the trees. Whether it was due to air attack, artillery, or conflagrations on the ground was impossible to say. A brilliant pink light flashed past the open gun-hatch; then came the jolting of objects hitting the helicopter’s structure. The cold realization came over Cade that they were being shot at. Yassem put her helmet back on and secured it.
Worlds in Chaos Page 64