The vibration of the four big turboprop engines still came through the walls, paneled though they were in padded bison leather. This was a man’s room: dark furniture, racked guns, a bar, books on hunting and wildlife, large comfortable chairs, bear and tiger pelts on the floor.
“We have seen no sign of the Rolfes or the Commission moving against us,” the Batyushkov said. “Hopefully that means that your unfortunate young collateral died without revealing anything of our plans. If the Rolfes knew how close those plans were to implementation, they would certainly attempt something.”
“That’s the best-case analysis.” Giovanni Colletta nodded, suppressing a surge of fury. And that unnatural wolf-bitch of the Rolfe’s will pay, he thought. You will be avenged, Anthony.
“Alternatively, they are preparing a trap for us,” the Russian said meditatively. “Yet unless they act soon, we will be able to kick open any trap from the inside. Our plan is robust and does not depend upon all things going as we hope.”
“Adrienne Rolfe is being carefully watched,” the Colletta assured him. “So far she has done nothing out of the ordinary. If she does, we will be immediately informed.”
The commander of his household troops came through and saluted, a slim man of medium height with a thin black mustache, a sallow complexion and a strong hooked nose. He was a Colletta collateral himself, sent through the American military academy at West Point and several years of active service in the Eighty-second Airborne. That had been done at vast trouble and expense—establishing the identity and faking his later “death” convincingly had been a nightmare, in these days when DNA tests were routinely done as part of a coroner’s examination. It was an investment that would pay off handsomely in times to come, when the Commonwealth came under the rule of the Collettas and went conquering worldwide.
“Sir,” he said. “We are approaching the landing strip at Lake Salvatore.”
“Thank you, Major Mattei,” Giovanni said.
The note of the engines changed, a lower growl as they crossed the Sierra heights and began their drop toward the landing strip. Giovanni made conversation, nearly certain the Russian knew nothing of his nervousness—it would not do to lose face.
There was a jolt as the plane’s wheels touched down, and a juddering rumble as it slowed, then a jerk as the parachute brake deployed. The aircraft slowed to a halt, then taxied for a few minutes on the long dirt strip. There was a whine as the rear ramp descended; then hot, dry air cataracted in as the rear doors of the lounge were opened. Giovanni walked forward, squinting a little against the harsh bright desert sunlight; his cotton bush jacket stuck to his skin for an instant as the heat set sweat flowing, then sucked it up.
A Hummer was waiting beside the ramp, and beside it a tall blond man in uniform. He saluted and kissed the hands of the Primes.
Batyushkov embraced him. “Yuri Alexeievich!” he said. “It is good to see you once more.”
“Colonel Garshin,” Giovanni said more coolly, nodding politely but maintaining a proper distance.
They climbed into the hardtopped Hummer; two more of the open-topped model preceded and followed them, with machine guns at the ready. The lodge stood a few miles north of the shore of Lake Salvatore, a long, low ranch-style dwelling of adobe, with wooden galleries on both sides. North of that was something new: several hundred acres of tilled land, tall green corn and potato vines and wheat stubble, fed by furrows diverted from the river that ran down from the high sierras to the west. Those stood along the horizon like teeth reaching for heaven, towering fourteen thousand feet above the flat sagebrush-covered valley floor; scattered near the lake and the settlement were herds of cattle tended by mounted cowboys. From the buildings a new road drove south and east, into the Inyo range, more barren and bitter than the sierras, the outliers of deserts as stark as any on Earth.
Dimitri Batyushkov waved his hand at the mountains on both sides as they drove past the lodge and turned southeast, along the lakeshore and toward the lower peaks that separated the Owens from Death Valley.
“An excellent protective barrier, and an even better location for surveillance radar,” he said jovially.
Giovanni nodded; that emphasized the primacy of the Colletta contribution to the enterprise.
“How does the training progress?” he asked Colonel Garshin.
“Fairly well, sir,” the man replied; his English was thickly accented but fluent enough. “The men are of fairly high quality for black-arsed savages; the main problem apart from teaching them a civilized language is that they are wholly illiterate and unfamiliar with the simplest machines—with wheelbarrows, even. You will understand that this renders the most elementary training more difficult and time-consuming. Certainly they are ferocious enough. Their main complaint is the lack of liquor and women.”
“I trust you can maintain discipline,” Giovanni said.
The Russian officer smiled thinly; he had a broad, high-cheeked face with slightly slanted eyes of cool blue, below cropped hair the color of birch wood.
“Oh, we maintain a fine discipline, you will find, sir,” he said. “Basic infantry training is complete, and we have moved on to the specialized segments. Within broad limits, the more time we have for those, the higher our chances of swift success when we strike.”
It was only twenty miles to the site of the mine, but that meant climbing nearly eight thousand feet in the last eight miles; they began by bumping and jouncing up a wash, and then up a poor excuse for a road that wove drunkenly along the mountainside. The air felt chilly and thin by the time they reached their destination nearly three hours later. Dun wilderness stretched away to the west and north and south; they were nearly at the crestline, on a gently sloping plateau below a much steeper section of the mountainside. As they turned, the road seemed to disappear; the blue surface of Lake Salvatore glinted like a great turquoise jewel set amid the dun-green sage; the lodge was barely visible, the runway a brown thread drawn with a ruler, and the cultivation a postage stamp on a land that extended for infinite blue distance.
Barracks built of fieldstone mortared with mud sprawled about the camp; the entrance to the false mine hid the main armory, and the crisp new lines of a great square building were supposed to contain crushing mills and smelters. Smoke did pour out of a stack; what the Russians called maskirovka—not just camouflage, but concealment that actively misled.
And at the edge of the camp, on an X of great timbers, a naked brown man hung in chains spiked to the wood.
“As you can see, we take energetic measures to maintain good order,” Garshin said. “This man attempted to desert.”
“Well, that ought to teach them the consequences of failing to make a clean break,” Major Mattei said, his voice and face carefully neutral.
“Indeed,” the Batyushkov agreed happily. “Now, you are proceeding to more specialized training?”
“Yes, sir,” Garshin said. He pointed to the larger, newer building. “That is our duplicate of the Gate complex. All units have been through the assault training at least once, and we are stepping up the pace. Things go faster, since the unteachables have been eliminated. I anticipate little further attrition; no more than one or two percent.”