"Don't bother," Bailey growled. "Ten to one he and this Toby character left those ropes dangling as a red herring. If they're going anywhere, they'll be heading toward Aegis Mountain, not away from it."
"Toward Aegis Mountain?" Ramirez echoed, frowning.
"Certainly not away from it," Bailey said again, silently cursing his slip. Of course Ramirez didn't know the blackcollars had found a secret back door into the base. "Is there anywhere else they might have gone?"
"Yes, sir, they could have gone to Denver," Ramirez said. "One of Shelter Valley's residents and one of the town's two cars are missing."
Bailey sat up a little straighter in his chair. "Was this resident carrying any passengers?"
"No one saw any," Ramirez said, studying Bailey's face closely. Clearly, he'd picked up on the colonel's sudden change in mood. "But there are any number of places on the road he could have stopped to pick someone up."
"And then have brought him to Denver," Bailey murmured, thinking hard. If their rogue blackcollar had gone straight into Aegis, the Ryqril were out of luck. But if he'd decided to come to town first to get the rest of the gang, there was still a chance. "Any chance of intercepting them along the way?"
Ramirez shook his head. "We've had spotters run the whole length of the road, and there's nothing's moving on it. If they started at first light, they'd be here already. Of course, we do have a description of the car."
"Which they probably buried the minute they hit town," Bailey said. "But there's only one road that'll take them back home?"
"Uh ..." Ramirez sorted through his papers. "There are actually two possible routes, one somewhat longer than the other," he said. "But that seems to be it."
"Have both of them watched," Bailey ordered. "Spotters are to tag anything headed toward that area.
High-flight only—we don't want to spook them."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said uncertainly. "We'll have to clear it through Battle Architect Daasaa first, of course."
"I'll deal with that," Bailey promised. No matter how paranoid the Ryqril might be about attacks on Athena, they would spring for as many men and spotters as he needed once he laid all this in front of them. "You just get the spotter teams organized. I'll get you the authorization."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said again. "Is there some reason you think he'll be going back there?"
"I guarantee he will, Lieutenant," Bailey, favoring the other with a slightly malicious smile. "If the blackcollar came to Denver, he will be going back. The question is how best to turn it to our advantage."
"Yes, sir," Ramirez said, his voice gone neutral. "With your permission, I'll go organize the spotter teams."
"You do that, Lieutenant," Bailey said, getting to his feet and gathering up the papers. "You do that."
"I've got the data you asked for," Poirot's voice came over the phone. "I'm afraid it's not good news."
"Let's hear it," Skyler said, his eyes sweeping the busy Denver street scene flowing around him.
Security's two options were to trace the call and try to nab him, or else let Poirot continue to lead him on in hopes of setting up a trap somewhere farther down the line. So far, he couldn't tell which way they were planning to jump.
"It looks like Athena's lasers will activate if anything larger than fifteen centimeters shows a projected path over the outer fence. That's way too small for anything useful."
"Oh, I don't know," Skyler said. "You could make a serious bomb smaller than that."
"A bomb would involve explosives and probably a fair amount of metal," Poirot pointed out. "There are other sensors along the top of the fence that would tag anything like that long before the proximity and size sensors kicked in."
"I suppose," Skyler said. "I imagine small quantities of explosives might still be able to slip through the screen, though."
"Maybe, but it couldn't be very much bigger than primer cap size," Poirot warned. "Unless you know some special trick."
Skyler smiled. Poirot was so obvious when he was trolling for information. "I know a few," he said.
"What about the laser emplacements themselves?"
"What about them?" Poirot asked, his voice gone suddenly cautious as the change in topic seemed to catch him by surprise.
"Are they guarded by the same sort of sensor screen?" Skyler asked.
"They're run by the Ryqril," Poirot growled. "How do you think they're guarded?"
Skyler chuckled. "Extremely well, I'd assume," he conceded. "Relax—it was just a thought."
"I suggest you leave it that way," Poirot growled. "You've got enough trouble with the Ryqril at the moment. You take on one of their military emplacements and you'll really stir them up. Trust me, you do not want that."
"Agreed," Skyler said. "That just leaves the prisoner transfer, then. Any changes in the schedule?"
"Not so far," Poirot said, sounding relieved to be back on ground he'd presumably already cleared with his Ryqril masters. "We're still planning a seven p.m. departure for Colorado Springs: six vans, one prisoner per."
"Anything tricky about the vans themselves?"
"They've got upgraded engines and some extra armor in strategic places," Poirot said. "They've also got extra-wide sunroofs where someone can pop up, slap a maglock rapid-fire gun onto the roof, and spray the area with paral-darts, flechettes, or laser fire."
"And I presume you'll be planting trackers on each of the prisoners?"
"Actually, we may not bother," Poirot said. "You'll certainly have bug stompers along to block any transmissions anyway, won't you?"
"Definitely," Skyler said. "I guess that's it, then. Let's plan a call for two days from now, same time and place as our contact yesterday."
"You don't want to talk tomorrow?"
"I was thinking your office might be a little busy tomorrow," Skyler said dryly.
There was a short silence, and Skyler could practically hear the other's thoughts. If the blackcollars managed to pull this off, Athena's Security contingent would indeed be busy tomorrow. A number of them, in fact, might be facing summary execution. "Fine," Poirot said grimly. "Two days."
"Talk to you then," Skyler said, and hung up the phone.
He kept alert for trouble as he walked back to the car where Anne was waiting. But it was mostly habit.
Clearly, the Ryqril had decided to feed the blackcollars rope in the hope that they would ensnare themselves with it.
Which meant that the prisoner transfer tonight would certainly be a trap. But then, Skyler had never expected it to be otherwise.
He reached the car and got in. "Well?" Anne asked.
"Athena's lasers will fire if a football goes over," he told her. "They'll also allegedly fire if any size explosive tries to do the same."
"So that's that?"
"Not necessarily," Skyler said. "We might still be able to do something clever."
Anne shook her head. "One of these days you're going to run out of cleverness," she warned. "I just hope you've got something else in reserve when you do."
"So do I," Skyler said with a grimace. "Let's get back and see if we can postpone that day a little."
Anne had just started the car when Skyler's tingler unexpectedly came to life. "Hold it," he said, pressing the device harder against his wrist and trying to read the dots and dashes.