Blackcollar: The Backlash Mission

by Timothy Zahn

  "Colvin?" Pittman's voice came anxiously in his ear. "You okay?"

  "Sure," Colvin said, trying to sound casually hearty. I meant to do that; of course I did. Not fooling anybody but himself. "Where are you?"

  Braune's voice cut in. "We're on the road around beyond the bluff you landed on—maybe a couple hundred meters past that last switchback curve. The road looks pretty level now for a while—shouldn't be too bad a hike."

  "Though it'll probably get worse before it gets better," Pittman added. "What's the view like from up there?"

  "Oh, terrific." It was a terrific view, too. The problem was that it was a terrific view of all the wrong things. To the southeast he could see that the road did indeed begin to climb again no more than a kilometer or two past the others' position; to the west he could see the blue-violet lights of searching aircraft circling the mountains a few kilometers away. The trajectory of the falling drop pods had temporarily fooled them, but that wouldn't last long. Soon the search would widen, and picking up five men hiking along the road in the middle of nowhere would be child's play.

  And as he gazed westward, he saw a flicker of light along the road.

  Headlights.

  It was a crazy idea—he knew it was a crazy idea—but for all that it was their best hope. The road passed beneath him twice in a sharp hairpin switchback turn before rounding the bluff to continue past Braune and Pittman. At their position the vehicle would be starting to pick up speed, but around the curves it would surely be going slowly enough to hijack.

  If he could get down there fast enough.

  He stood up, nearly losing his balance to the wind, and sent his hands on a quick inspection tour of his glider. Injured, sure, but not crippled. A few bent struts and a small rip or two in the wing, but nothing that couldn't handle a short flight. The cargo pod was the only problem, but if the gale whistling in his ears held up he'd have no problem launching even with that dragging along the runway.

  The lights were moving closer, approaching the first pass beneath him, and for the first time Colvin could see that the headlights were backed up by a minor Christmas-tree display of amber running lights. The "car" was actually a large trailer truck—which opened up an entirely new possibility.

  Wrestling the glider against the wind, he snapped into his harness and pushed off. For a second the pod dragged against the bare rock like an anchor, threatening to send him head-downward over the rim to the road below. Then it came free and he was airborne, fighting the eddy currents near the bluff as he came around in a tight circle. The truck was laboring along the upper part of the switchback now. Coming around behind and above it, he brought the glider's nose sharply up to kill his excess speed, and dropped squarely onto the top of the trailer.

  And for a long second thought he was going to lose the whole thing. Even as he snatched out a knife and cut the pod loose, the truck rounded the top curve and the winds sweeping his perch abruptly changed. Ramming his knife hilt-deep into the trailer roof, he held on, fighting the bucking glider with his other hand until the pull eased enough for him to hit the harness release. The glider flew off into the darkness, and he was just trying to figure out how best to assault the cab when the truck rounded the curve and came to a tire-screeching stop at the side of the road.

  Again, he managed to hold on. From ahead came the sound of doors opening, and suddenly he realized what was going on. The truckers had heard the thump of his landing and were coming back to investigate.

  Pittman, Braune: Assistance needed NW on road, he signaled, flattening himself against the rooftop.

  Tackling two men single-handedly on opposite sides of a truck would be a tricky proposition, and the stakes were too high to risk botching it. Drawing his nunchaku, he eased to the left edge of the trailer and looked down.

  To discover the driver examining the truck's axles was a woman.

  Even in the faint backwash glow of her flashlight there was no doubt about that. Young-looking, reasonably petite—hardly the sort, somehow, that he would have expected to be driving such a monster on a tricky mountain road at night. But perhaps her companion was a man.

  "Karen?" the driver called over the wind. "Anything?"

  "Not on this side," a second female voice drifted back. "You?"

  "Nope. What could it have been?"

  Colvin recognized a cue when he heard it. Flipping his legs over the side, he dropped to the ground in front of the driver. She jumped backward, eyes going wide. "What the hell—who are you?"

  "Unexpected company—the thump you heard on your trailer," he said. "Sorry to interrupt your trip, but I'm afraid I need transportation to Denver." He raised his voice. "Karen? Come over to this side of the truck, please."

  The driver's gaze dropped to the nunchaku in Colvin's hand. "Oh, God," she breathed. Eyes flicked over his shoulder. "Karen—no!"

  And with the crack of a small projectile gun from behind him, something hard slammed into the center of Colvin's back.

  His hidden flexarmor was equal to the attack, stopping the pellet and distributing its impact over a large part of his torso. An instant later reflexes had taken over, twisting him around on the balls of his feet into a low crouch and sending the nunchaku whipping through the air toward his assailant.

  He caught a glimpse of the woman pointing a pistol marksman-fashion from around the protection of the truck's front bumper before the spinning nunchaku forced her to duck back. The driver hadn't moved; leaping to her side, Colvin grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him as he snatched a shuriken from his pouch. Karen's head and gun poked out from cover again—

  "No, Karen, stop!" the driver almost screamed. "He's a blackcollar."

  Karen paused, gun still pointed. "Let her go," she called to Colvin. "You can have the truck, but let her go first."

  "I don't want the truck—just a ride to Denver," he called back. His tingler came on: Distract her. "I got caught out here without a car," he continued, raising his volume a bit, "and need to get to town.

  You were the first vehicle that came along—"

  There was a sudden flurry of motion, and when it was over Braune and Pittman had the gun. And Karen.

  —

  They had the gear from the pod distributed into packs and stored in the trailer by the time Caine and Alamzad reached them. Colvin was standing guard at the rear doors as they approached. "There's room for all of us in the trailer," he reported. "Cargo's some kind of rock—unprocessed oil shale, they called it."

  Caine nodded. "Good. Incidentally, Colvin, that was easily the most insane stunt I've ever heard of.

  Next time clear something like that with me before you do it, okay? Fine job, though." He nodded to the women sitting with their backs to the front tire under Braune's watchful gaze. "Now, who do we have here?"

  "We haven't had full introductions yet. The dark-haired one's named Karen; she's the one who had the pistol."

  "Well, we might as well be civil about this—and then get the hell out of here before Security finds us." Caine headed forward, nodded to Braune, and then gestured to the women. "Stand up, please," he told them. "Sorry to have disrupted your trip like this, but as my companion said we need transport to Denver. Your names are...?"

  "Karen Lindsay," the dark-haired woman said as they got to their feet. Unlike her companion, she seemed more watchful and angry than afraid. "This is Raina Dupre. If you want the truck, just take it and go."

  Caine shook his head. "Afraid a missing truck would raise a little more official notice than we can afford right at the moment. You live together in Denver?"

  "In a twoplex, yes," Lindsay answered. "With Raina's husband."

  Caine turned his attention to Raina. "When does he expect you in?"

  "He works nights." Her face seemed to sag, as if the possible reason for that question had just occurred to her. "He won't be back till seven. Please—you don't need to hurt us—"

  "We're not going to hurt you," Caine interrupted her. "You—Ms. Lindsay—whe
re are you taking the truck?"

  "Coast Shipping," she told him. "It's in the northeast part of town, near the Seventy-two/Ninety-three crosspoint."

  "All right," Caine said, pretending that that meant something to him. "Ms. Dupre, I'm afraid you'll have to stay in back with my men. I'm going to ride up front with your friend to make sure she doesn't try anything heroic."

  Raina's mouth tightened, but it was Lindsay who spoke up. "Why not let her drive? I'm not afraid to be locked back there."

  "Because I want to talk to you," Caine told her. "Come on—we need to get moving."

  —

  For the first kilometer or so they rode in silence, Caine watching out the windows as the truck wove in and out through the curves. At times the mountains would be little more than shadows at the edges of the headlight beams; then suddenly a jagged rock face would be rolling along bare meters from the side window. A small town flashed by, its sprinkling of lights wedged into what seemed to be little more than a wide spot in the road.

  As yet no sign of Denver itself. We almost had to walk all this, Caine thought soberly. Almost.

  The town disappeared to the rear, and beside him Lindsay cleared her throat. "I've heard a lot of stories about blackcollars," she said, "but never anything about them getting lost out in the mountains."

  "Some of the things blackcollars do would amaze you," Caine told her, trying not to let his annoyance at the near disaster spill out onto her.

  "I'm sure."

  He pursed his lips, studying her face as best he could in the dim backwash of the headlights. A

  pleasant enough face; more to the immediate point, a face with spirit behind it. A spirit that reminded him strongly of some of the Radix resistance fighters he'd met on Argent. "Do you also hear stories about a group called Torch?" he asked.

  There was no reaction he could detect. "Never heard of it," she said. "What sort of business is it in?

  Or shouldn't I ask?"

  He shrugged. "It's not a secret. Presumably, they fight Ryqril."

  She snorted. "Doesn't sound like a group blackcollars would be interested in."

  "Then you don't know much about blackcollars. The schools around here don't go in for recent history?"

  "I get all the recent history I need from the local news," she retorted.

  Caine sighed quietly and gave up. Clearly, the government was slanting the news something fierce—and in retrospect, he should have expected that. If there were blackcollars operating anywhere within a thousand kilometers of Denver, the local Security office would be doing its damnedest to poison public opinion toward them.

  Which meant that, for the near future at least, they were going to be completely on their own. "Let me see your ID," he said.

  Lindsay dug out her wallet and tossed it into his lap. A card was set into a plastic window in the front, and with a penlight Caine gave it a quick once-over. Name, photo, address, physical description, company. "Company? They put that on IDs here?"

  She threw him an odd look. "Of course—the companies issue the IDs. Where are you from, anyway?"

  "Europe," Caine told her, choosing the simplest of the possible responses. "What do you mean, the companies issue them? Doesn't local Security handle that?"

  "Not around here. This way, if they catch you without an ID they can toss you into the hamper right away for being a driftist."

  "And then they have to try and figure out who you are?"

  She shrugged. "They've got everyone's fingerprints and retina patterns on file. Or so they say." She risked another glance away from the road. "If you don't mind my saying so, you don't seem very well informed."

  "We're new on the block." Careful to keep the beam out of her eyes, he ran his light over her clothing. Similar fabric to that of the team's Plinry clothing, at least in appearance and texture. But the cut, color pattern, and ornamentation were unacceptably different. "How far do you live from the place you'll be dropping off the truck?" he asked.

  "A couple of kilometers."

  "Which way?"

  Her lip twitched. "We'll pass within a few blocks on our way in."

  "Good." Another town, more spread out than the previous one, opened up to their right. "I want you to swing over to your house and let my men out. They'll stay there with your partner while you and I take the truck in."

  "And you're going to pass yourself off as Raina? They'll be expecting her to be with me, you know."

  "I'm counting on you to cover that one," he said, letting his voice chill a few degrees. "Remember, you'll be right in the middle of things if there's any trouble."

  "You don't need to elaborate," she said, matching his tone.

  "Good."

  The town vanished behind them, and as the sheer cliff faces returned so did the earlier silence.

  Settling back in his seat, Caine unfolded one of Lepkowski's maps and set about figuring out where and when they would emerge from the mountains.

  —

  The scene at the warehouse turned out to be anticlimactic.

  Only a single gateman was on duty at the entrance Lindsay drove the truck through, and he accepted without question her story that Raina had gotten sick at the last minute and that Caine was the best replacement she'd been able to scare up on short notice. The inside manager made them wait until he'd counted the sealed drums in the trailer, but Caine got the impression he was going through the prescribed motions purely out of long habit. Unprocessed oil shale, apparently, wasn't high on anyone's hijacking list.

  They arrived via autocab at the truckers' twoplex a few minutes later, to find that Braune and Colvin had scouted out the immediate neighborhood while Pittman and Alamzad had similarly checked out the house itself. "Seems as secure as anything else we're likely to find grab-bag style," Pittman reported. "Zad's got the bug stomper set up, and we've keyed out the most likely approaches to the house."

  "Escape routes?"

  Braune snorted. "Nothing to make a hard copy of. If Security finds us we're in trouble, pure and simple."

  Caine glanced across the room, where Raina and Lindsay were whispering together under Colvin's watchful gaze. "We'll try to relocate as soon as possible. What did you find in the way of clothes?"

  "Geoff's things—that's Raina's husband—are really too big, but they fit well enough to pass casual muster. Nothing beyond that, though. We'll have to buy new outfits as soon as the stores open."

  Caine looked at his watch, set before they left the Novak to local time. Three a.m. "Stores probably open sometime between eight and ten—we can check with the women. Braune, you and Colvin will take shopping detail; as soon as you can get back we'll start hunting for a new base."

  "On foot?" Pittman asked.

  Caine shrugged. "Ideally, no, but I don't think stealing a car at this point would be a particularly brilliant move."

  "I'd like to scout around anyway, if I may," the other replied. "Maybe I can find a way to get something without drawing any attention."

  Caine pursed his lips. It would be handy to have their own transport. "Well... all right, you can poke around for an hour or so. But only after we get proper clothes for you. You look suspicious enough as it is."

  Pittman gave him a tight smile. "Yes, sir."

  He turned away, stepping over to relieve Colvin's guard on the women. A good man, Caine thought, again glancing at his watch. Three-oh-five. Better set up a sleep rotation right away, he decided. The night had already been a busy one, and the morning was likely to be even worse.

  Chapter 6

  Three-ten a.m.

  Galway dropped his wrist with its borrowed watch back into his lap and reached for his mug, feeling the long night's fatigue soaking into his muscles and brain. It was like an echo of the weary stakeouts from his early Security years, missing nothing of the tension and boredom he remembered from those long-ago vigils.

  But at least here he didn't need to worry about sudden physical danger. Or so he'd been assured.

  Raising his
eyes from his mug, he scanned slowly across the bank of monitor screens set before him.

  Athena Security's situation room was about six times bigger than his own back in Capstone, with at least ten times as much sophisticated tracking and communications gear, and Athena's defenses were on a par with everything else in the government center. Even blackcollars would find this town and building impregnable—and Caine's team were not blackcollars.

  The back of Galway's neck refused to be comforted. It continued to tingle its warning of imminent destruction.

  A figure brushed by Galway's elbow and dropped into the chair beside him. General Paul Quinn, Athena Security chief. "Anything?" Galway asked.

  "Not yet." Quinn's voice was stiff. "This is what we get for playing silly games."

  Galway's jaw clenched momentarily. Quinn had been tacitly blaming him for the loss of Caine's team for the past two hours, and the prefect was getting roundly tired of it. "Yes, well, let's try to keep in mind that it was Prefect Donner's idea, not mine."

  "Of course it was Donner's idea." Quinn snorted. "What the hell can he know about mountainous terrain out in Dallas? That whole area is optically flat—you could buzz around forever pretending not to find someone and still be able to read the stitch pattern on his shirt. Out here—well, hell, he doesn't care how much trouble it costs us."

  Galway took a deep breath. "Look, General, Caine's not going to do anything tonight. Blackcollars aren't just some kind of mad berserkers—they're tactically oriented warriors, and Caine can't possibly have all the information he needs yet. Give Postern a chance to get clear and send a message."

  "Postern, huh? Your trusted spy? Your non-loyalty-conditioned trusted spy?"

  "He'll deliver. By noon tomorrow you'll have your surveillance teams back on Caine's shoulder."

  Quinn snorted again. "We should have just grabbed them when they landed. I don't care how much psychor training Caine's had, we could have gotten what we wanted out of him."

  Which was a thoroughly ridiculous statement, and Quinn surely knew it. But Galway was tired of arguing. "What about that other set of drop pods? Anything on those?"