Then the day ended and they started out across the last four miles. Blade would not have been at all surprised if the pickup point had been deserted, perhaps with some coded sign that it had been permanently abandoned. He was even prepared to find nothing at all, or even several bodies littering the grass and a Russland machine gun trained on them from the woods.
Instead he found four men who gave the proper recognition signals and understood his. That was exactly as he'd expected. What he hadn't expected was that one of the four men would be Piedar Goron. By now they were well outside Goron's normal area of operation, the area he knew as well as he might know the face of his wife. Blade had thought Goron was too good an underground man to take the risks involved in moving outside his own territory, except in an emergency.
Goron took Blade aside as soon as they'd moved a safe distance into the forest. «There is going to be a problem in getting you and Rilla out of here, one we had not anticipated.»
«Purple Two's blown?»
Goron shook his head. «I wish it were that simple. No, as far as we know, it is still secure. Or it would be, if we could use it.»
«Why can't we use it?»
«They will not let us.»
«Who won't let us?» Blade's irritation showed in his voice. Goron seemed to want to talk in riddles, and Blade was in no mood to put up with it. Or had something happened to shake Goron so badly that he couldn't speak clearly and concisely?
With a little prompting from Blade the story came out. It was quite simple. A Priority One message had come to the Rodzmanian underground from Englor. It had stated that no, repeat no, deviations from any of the standard routes were to be used in connection with Operation Housepainter-Rilla Haran's defection.
«A flat prohibition?» said Blade.
«Yes.»
«No reason given in the message?»
«None.» That didn't sound like R. Blade was almost certain enough of that to say it out loud, but not quite. Damn it, he wished he knew just a little bit more than he did about the ways and methods of the Special Operations Division, enough to know whether R ever sent messages like this one. He would have known that much if he'd really been a senior Special Operations man, with fifteen years' experience as an Independent. But he was Richard Blade, stranger from another Dimension. He knew enough about Special Operations to do a competent job for it in the field, but not enough to guess what might go on in the Division's bureaucracy at home.
Unfortunately, there was no reason why someone in Englor could not have given this half-witted order. An intelligence organization could easily commit all the errors, crimes, and follies of any other bureaucracy, and a few more besides.
«The message had the standard double confirmation?» said Blade, probing further.
«Yes, damn it!» exploded Goron. His anger burst out in a roar that made birds and small animals dart away in fright. It seemed loud enough to be heard beyond the edge of the forest, a good three miles away.
Blade decided to let the issue drop. Further questioning would not alter the facts or produce any essential or even useful information. It would simply add to the strain that Piedar Goron was already enduring, and Blade would do much to avoid that. He would do nothing to add to the burdens of Goron and his comrades in the Rodzmanian underground.
Goron seemed to sense this change in Blade. He took several deep breaths, and when he spoke again his voice was, level and calm. «We will still use Route Purple Two, but we will use the same exit as Purple One. That should keep them happy in Englor. There is no critical increase in risk. In fact, conditions are unusually favorable for the exit operation. Number 37's squadron is on a field-deployment exercise, so-«
The plan unfolded, Blade's mind worked along two parallel tracks, assessing the plan as he memorized it. It seemed entirely acceptable: It would certainly get Rilla and him back to Englor days or even weeks faster than any other plan, if it worked as Goron described it.
And if it didn't? Well, if it didn't, Blade and Rilla would at least be near the seacoast, and the sea still belonged to Englor. Once again there was a road home across the sea, if all else failed.
Chapter 15
The edge of a fog bank lay across the airfield, creeping in from the sea only five miles away. It made the darkness even deeper, dimming the runway lights to faint and fuzzy yellow glowworms somewhere far off in an unguessable distance.
Blade rolled down the window of the truck cab and peered out into the darkness. From the map and what he'd seen before the fog closed in, Blade could reconstruct everything within two miles of where the truck was parked.
In front of the truck lay the concrete strip of the runway, stretching half a mile off to the left and a mile to the right. On the far side of the runway was a parking strip. On it stood a dozen light bombers of the Sixth Maritime Patrol Squadron of the Rodzmanian Air Force. One of those bombers would take Rilla and Blade home across the Nord Sea to Englor.
Of course they would need some help. Blade looked past Piedar Goron at the wheel of the truck and off to the left, to see if that help could be in sight yet. There was nothing to see except the dim lights of the airfield's hangars and control tower. Blade looked at his watch and realized that it was still a good ten minutes before the pilot was due.
«Thank God, Josip is in a maritime squadron,» said Goron. «Otherwise we would not be able to do our work tonight. The regular bomber squadrons do not fly in this kind of weather. There are not many Rodzmanians in the maritime squadrons, either, and most of those are truly faithful to the Red Flames.» Goron's face twisted, as if he wanted to spit at that thought.
The pilot that Blade knew only as Josip came from an old and distinguished Rodzmanian family. In this respect he was unlike most Rodzmanians who had been permitted to join the armed forces under Red Flame rule. Most of them were «the people from nowhere,» as Goron put it. They were fervently loyal, and any of them would gladly shoot Blade, Rilla, Goron, and Josip without thinking twice.
Josip was different. He came from among those Rodzmanians who normally held themselves rigidly aloof from the Red Flames. So when he wanted to serve them, they welcomed him with open arms. At thirty he was a lieutenant colonel in the Rodzmanian Air Force, with power and privileges superior to nearly all Rodzmanians and a good many Russlanders as well.
He'd paid a price for this, of course. Not all the Russlanders trusted or accepted him, and his own people despised him. His family not only never spoke to him, they never spoke of him. Even by the standards of the underground, his life was a lonely and grim one. Blade was glad Josip would be flying them out to Englor, to enter a life of exile but also of freedom-freedom to work openly against Russland, more freedom than any Rodzmanian could hope to know until the Red Flames were driven out.
Blade turned to look into the back of the truck where Rilla sat cross-legged on a pile of toolboxes and empty ammunition crates. She wore the same clothes she'd worn away from the resort, and over them a winter flying jacket so bulky that it almost concealed even her spectacular figure. She was pale and silent, obviously very much on edge but just as obviously doing a heroic job of concealing it. Blade was tempted to try giving her some reassurance, but decided against it. She was proud enough to resent it.
Blade also didn't want to try filling her with an assurance he didn't feel himself. Perhaps it was just the darkness and the fog, but his intuition told him that this affair was not going to run smoothly right to the end. He wanted very badly to believe that by dawn they would be drinking strong tea and eating eggs and bacon in Englor. He couldn't quite manage it.