Avery smiled his controlled smile. Every day he seemed a little paler, a little more drawn. He dressed as nattily as always and spoke as coolly as always, but she could see that he was coming near the end of his strength. "That's good. Excellent. I knew if we waited for a full charge we could make up our losses. How many can we do?"
General Maitland considered. "It depends on the size you want. But we can make several thousand at least, with generation rates as high as one per second. I have it under program control now: Satellite recon and even our field commanders can report an enemy location and automatically get an embobblement." The almost subsonic buzz punctuated his words.
No!' The two old men looked up at her, more surprised than angry. "No." Delia repeated more quietly. "It's bad enough to trust these remote sensors for information. If they actually control our bobbling we could very well use all our reserves and get nothing." Or worse, bobble our own people.
Maitland's expression clouded. His antagonist was young, female, and had been promoted with unseemly speed past his favorites. If it weren't for Hamilton Avery, she would be out there on some battalion staff- and that only as reward for her apparent success in Asia. Lu turned her attention to Avery. "Please, Director. I know it's fantastic to suspect enemy interference in our satellite communications. But you yourself have said that nothing is beyond this Hoehler, and that whatever is the most fantastic is what he is most likely to do."
She had pushed the right button. Avery flinched, and his eyes turned to the situation board. Apparently the enemy attack predicted by Maitland had begun. Tiny red dots representing Tinker guerillas were moving into the Valley. Already the Authority bobbler had acted several more times under automatic control. And what if this is fraudulent, or even partly so? There might be Tinkers in the Valley, moving through the deep ravines that netted the landscape, moving closer and closer. Now that the possibility was tied to Paul Hoehler, she could see that it had become almost a certainty in his mind.
"And you were the person who predicted he would attack us here," Avery said almost to himself and then turned to the officer. "General Maitland, abort the programmed response. I want a team of your people monitoring our ground forces - no satellite relays. They will determine when and what to embobble."
Maitland slapped the table. "Sir! That will slow response time to the point where some of them may get onto the inner grounds."
For an instant, Avery's face went slack, as if the conflicting threats had finally driven him over the edge. But when he responded, his voice was even, determined. "So? They still have no idea where our generator is. And we have enough conventional force to destroy such infiltrators ten times over. My order stands."
The officer glared at him for a moment. But Maitland had always been a person who followed orders. Avery would have replaced him decades before if that were not the case. He turned back to the terminal, canceled the program, and then talked through it to his analysts at the front of the room, relaying Avery's directive. The intermittent buzzing from beyond the walls ceased.
The Director motioned Lu to follow him. "Anything else?" he asked quietly, when they were out of Maitland's earshot.
Della didn't hesitate. "Yes. Ignore all automated remote intelligence. In the Livermore area, use line-of-sight communications -no relays. We have plenty of people on the ground, and plenty of aircraft. We'll lose some equipment doing it, but we can set up a physical reconnaissance that will catch almost anyone moving around out there. For places further away, Asia especially, we're stuck with the satellites, but at least we should use them for voice and video communication only-no processed data." She barely stopped for breath.
"Okay, I'll do as you recommend. I want you to stay up here, but don't give orders to Maitland."
It took nearly twenty minutes, but in the end Maitland and his analysts had a jury-rigged system of aircraft sweeps that produced something like complete coverage of the Valley every thirty minutes. Unfortunately, most of the aircraft were not equipped with sophisticated sensors. In some cases, the reports were off eyeballs only. Without infrared and side-looking radar, almost anything could remain hidden in the deeper ravines. It made Maitland and his people very unhappy. During the Twenties, they had let the old groundbased system slide into oblivion. Instead, enormous resources had been put into the satellite system, one they thought gave them even finer protection, and worldwide. Now that system was being ignored; they might as well be refighting World War II.
Maitland pointed to the status board, which his men were painfully updating with the field reports that were coming in. "See? The people on the ground have missed almost all the concentrations we identified from orbit. The enemy is well camouflaged. Without good sensors, we're just not going to see him."
"They have spotted several small teams, though."
Maitland shrugged. "Yes, sir. I take it we have permission to bobble them?"
There was a glint in Avery's eyes as he responded to the question. However Lu's theories turned out, Maitland's days with this job were numbered. "Immediately"
A small voice sounded from the general's terminal. "Sir, I'm-having some trouble with the update of the Mission Pass area. Uh, two A51 is have overflown the Pass.... They both say the bobble there is gone."
Their eyes snapped up to the situation board. The map was constructed with photographic precision. The Mission Pass bobble, the Tinker bobble that had nearly killed her the night before, glinted silver and serene on that board. The satellite system still saw it-or reported seeing it.
Gone. Avery went even paler. Maitland sucked his breath back between his teeth. Here was direct, incontrovertible evidence. They had been taken, fooled. And now they had only the vaguest idea where the enemy might really be and what he might do. "My God. She was right! She was right all along."
Della was not listening. There was no triumph in her. She had been fooled, too. She had believed the techs' smug assurance that ten years was the theoretical minimum for the duration of a bobble. How could she have missed this? Last night I had them, I'll bet. l had Hoehler and Wili and Mike and everyone who counts.... And I let them escape through time to today. Her mind racing frantically through the implications. If twenty-four-hour bobbles could be cast, then what about sixty-second bobbles - or one-second ones? What advantage could the other side gain from such? Why, they could-
"Ma'am?" Someone touched her elbow. Her attention returned to the brightly lit command room. It was Maitland's aide. The general had spoken to her. Della's eyes focused on the two old men.
"I'm sorry. What did you say?"
The general's voice was flat but not hostile. Even surprise was leached from him now. Everything he depended on had failed him. "We just got a call on the satellite network. Max priority and max encryption." That could only be a Director - and the only other surviving director was K.T. in China. "Caller demands to talk to you. Says his name is Miguel Rosas."
THIRTY-SEVEN
Mike drove. Fifty meters ahead, almost swallowed up in the fog, he could see the other crawler. Inside it were Paul and Wili and Allison, with Allison driving. It was easy to keep up until Allison trucked off the broad roadway into the hills. He came down a hillside a little fast, and nearly lost control.
"You okay?" Paul's voice sounded anxiously in his ear. He'd established the laser link just seconds before.
Mike twitched the controls tentatively. "Yeah. But why come straight down that hill?"
"Sorry, Mike." It was Jill - no, Allison. "Sideways would have been worse; might have slipped treads."