Rogue(124)

“Alright,” I said, “we’re going in silently. We kill anyone we have to, and proceed. We need to get inside with her, and take down whoever is there. We need her behind hard cover or armor. At that point it doesn’t matter what they send.”

“It does. They don’t have that much to send, though.”

“Mass matters. If I could get backup faster . . . ”

“Yeah, an entire squad is what I want around me right now, of course,” he said.

I didn’t blame him for being sarcastic about it.

“How do we proceed?”

“You get in the car and drive. I tell you where to go. The car is mined and I keep a gun on you.”

“Smart.”

“I plan to live.”

I didn’t have a chance to grab the tracer I’d left outside. I just hoped Silver had a good OP and was watching.

It hurt me to get into the vehicle. I knew I was safe. I knew he really cared about my daughter. He could have killed me, or tried to, already. So he really planned to help rescue her. In the few weeks he’d been associated with the little grub, he’d acted more like a father than I had at the time, and he had no stake in the matter. In fact, he’d been very angry about the issue, and concerned about my failure in being involved with a subordinate. It had risked the mission and he’d been livid.

In some ways, he was a very good man. Those were the ways I was going to exploit to kill him.

I drove as he directed, out toward the mountains, and I hoped Silver was following. She could have drones, or visual on the ground, or might already have a unit keyed and ready. I didn’t know, and it was better that I didn’t.

I still had a paranoid fear that Timurhin had some kind of inside source. Massaging intel wasn’t hard. I’ve given most of the basics in here. Find people out eating or drinking, ask what they saw going on at the base. Were a bunch of vertols lifting? Lots of guys with gear? Which way? Maybe an exercise in the mountains, or was it possibly a fire?

How fast could Naumann mobilize a unit, get them into civvies and vehicles and dispersed? Probably fast enough.

Did I want him to?

It took awhile to reach our destination, and it was a very deserted road. More than a couple of vehicles would be obvious, and there were no air approaches. This was scrubby, rain shadow foothill.

“Timurhin has a house here, I take it,” I asked.

“Yes. He comes here in spring and fall. It’s where I met him eight years ago.”

“You started here?”

“I’ve never taken a job here and won’t, but yes.”

I pondered killing him right now. I could . . .

“You seem to have healed well,” he said.

I said nothing. No small talk.

Eventually he said, “I’d pull into one of these clearings and hide the car. We’re within a few Ks.”

I found one and did so. Shadows moved eerily in the headlights.

He made me get out first, lay the pack on the hood, and he went through it.

“Fair enough,” he said. “We go that way about three Ks. We can meet on the southeast corner, about two hundred meters out.”

He grabbed his own bag. He had another chameleon suit, and an attachable pistol and knife.

“I only have the one suit,” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I have something better.”

“Oh? What?”

“Me.”

I dodged and slipped into the shadows and left him to wonder.

Three Ks doesn’t take long, but I had to shift about and change movement so I wouldn’t sound like a person on any monitors. I kept an eye out for wires, cameras, other sensors in any frequency I could find. I also relied on my senses. Gadgets are tools. People are weapons.

They did have a few cams set up, in game runs. I wondered if those were for hunting or security, or both. I kept an eye out for spookable game. Earth deer had been introduced here, and there were local forms that filled the same niche. There were also local predators. There was nothing I could do if I met a ripper, but they tended to stick farther north and inland. This was the edge of their range.

I reached the point he’d designated, and found a spot to wait, and listen. That gave me time to doubt him all over again. Was this a setup? No reason for it. He could have killed me in the car. Still.

I heard a faint rustle, and placed it to the east. I’d deduced it was him when I heard a whistle. It was a pattern we’d used in training. I raised my hand and waved.

I heard delicate rustling, saw a faint shimmer, then I felt him move in. He had the chameleon open just enough to vent heat without breaking visual camo.

From the distortion in the air, his voice said, “You move well.”

I said nothing. I wasn’t going to make noise I didn’t have to, nor explain that I was old and out of practice, but had been in better practice for years before he joined for that one mission.