And so they would be — if not for the fact that two of the four locations were mined.
Malinari's hand lingered over the chosen switch, while his scarlet night-vision eyes swept over, scanned, and committed to memory the second phase of the enemy's deployment.
In the last few minutes a large vehicle — an articulated truck marked with the symbols of a well-known beer manufacturer — had climbed the access road, entered through Xanadu's gates, turned about, and hissed to a halt in the otherwise empty parking lot. A party of four heavily armed men had issued from the rear of the truck and were hurrying forward into the resort in the direction of the Pleasure Dome.
Inwards — at the inner edge of the gardens toward the casino — five NCOs from the helicopter fanned out to surround the huge rotunda of the central dome itself. The men from the truck were now replacing the four in their rearguard positions behind the low walls, which allowed them in their turn to move forward and reinforce the assault force around the dome's perimeter.
Now, or when they were so ordered, three of these Special Forces men would go in through the Pleasure Dome's main doors; the rest of them, dispersed around the perimeter, would create individual points of entry. The casino's curving fa£ade of interlocking concrete panels, glass, and reinforced plastic would scarcely suffice to stop them, Malinari was sure. It was, after all, a Pleasure Dome, not a fortress!
So much for the fighting men. And Malinari presumed correctly that their commander would be with Trask's E-Branch party where they were now gathered in a group behind the smaller vehicle on the main esplanade some seventy or eighty feet in front of the steps to the casino's canopied entranceway. He knew that this was them because of their mental emanations. Hah! Rut they might as well be carrying illuminated signs! They were as Visible' to him as they must be to the pilot of their flying machine… as indeed he would be, if he were down in the resort.
So, they were all set to go, and the onset of hostilities, which must be imminent, might create sufficient of a diversion in itself, allowing Malinari to insinuate himself into the mentalist girl's mind without alerting the locator to his presence — but he thought not. Much better to be safe than sorry.
Let them be the sorry ones.
Earlier, before these people got here, Malinari had started a mist. His body and being — even his existence here in this or any world — these things were all contradictions of Nature. He was a poison that worked like a catalyst on and against any natural or mundane surroundings.
When he opened the pores of his metamorphic body and willed it, his pores would breathe a mist. Not only that but Nature would be made to respond, to answer his call. And even from the dry earth Malinari could call up a writhing mist like vile, airborne sweat, to disguise his presence. In Sunside it had served a dual purpose: to carry his probes more surely to their target (for the mist was like an extension of himself, or a medium for his mentalism) and also to hide him away should he have reason to make a covert exit — in short, a smokescreen.
But this time, so as not to draw attention to himself, he had merely started the thing, set it in motion. And now a fine, milky mist lay on the surface of the pools, and formed a barely visible ground mist in the gardens. But only let Malinari will it, it would spring into being at his command. And in the holocaust to come he would call it up in earnest to carry his mentalism, instil its primal terror, and add to the general confusion.
So then, it was time to set the wheels in motion. Time for his diversion. Time to let these fools know who he was.
He risked a quick, guarded probe, found one of his thralls inside the open doors to the casino, issued a command and withdrew… but with no time at all to spare! And even as Malinari felt his probe seized upon — and as he 'heard' Chung's gasp of startled recognition: 'What the…?' — so he tripped the first of his switches…
Six or seven minutes earlier:
Inside the innocuous-looking, in fact armoured estate car,
Ben Trask, David Chung, lan Goodly, Liz, and the SAS Major were each in their own way concerned. The Major because the articulated ops truck and its back-up party were some minutes late.
Chopper One had relayed the reason for the delay: the big vehicle's engine had developed a fault; that and the steepness of the climb had combined to slow her down.
'The gradient,' Trask said, 'but it could have been any of a hundred and one other logistical problems. Well, we made allowances for this kind of last-minute difficulty. It's why we're made up of three contingents: chopper, car, ops truck. Okay, so we're four men short for the time being. But assuming our estimate of Malinari's manpower is accurate, we still outnumber him three or four to one. And our firepower is awesome.'
And Chung said, 'That bothers me a lot: what you just said about our estimate. For the fact is it's my estimate, so really it's all down to me.'
'No, it isn't,' Goodly denied it. 'It's our best estimate, and we're each of us equally involved in this. Or we should be. And anyway, it's like I told Ben earlier: at least your talents are working for you.'
Trask looked at him. 'Still nothing?'
'Just confusion/ the precog answered. 'And a feeling.'
'You and me both,' Trask said, and the others saw that he was actually chewing his top lip. 'A feeling, yes… that this is all wrong. Okay, in a deserted resort we'd expect the lights to be out — why waste the energy? But the silence of the place, this feeling of a pent-up something, and this inactivity…'
'Ours, or theirs?' said Liz.
Trask shook his head. 'I don't know — really can't say — what I was expecting. But it certainly wasn't this. I mean, he must know we're here, he has to. So what the hell is he up to? David,' he turned to the locator, 'got any ideas? Is there any movement? What's going on?'
Chung's high brow was etched into deep lines of concentration. It's weird as hell/ he said. Tm getting these momentary flashes. It is mindsmog, definitely, but from three or four different locations, and I can't pin them down. Up there in the dome, that's one of them for sure. But the others…' He looked out of his wound-down window at the night-shrouded cliffs where they climbed to the heights behind the resort, and frowned. 'Up high, and down below… that's as much as I dare venture.'
'Up high would be the bubble on top of the Pleasure Dome,' lan Goodly came in. But Chung only frowned.
'Well, possibly,' he said, 'for it's as strong a source as any. But there are shields in use, I'm sure of that.' And:
'Malinari!' Trask grunted, grimly. 'His aerie. Solar-panelled on the outside, painted black and probably curtained on the inside, for his protection. Well, the murdering bastard will be needing all he can get of that!'
'So that's up high,' said Liz, 'but what about down below? It looks like Jake was right, and according to the plans of the place it's a real maze down there.' And turning to Trask, 'Ben, I wish you'd let me try to corroborate David's—'
'—No way!' Trask snapped, turning on her at once. 'That's right out of the question. No telepathic contact, not with Malinari. Only if it becomes absolutely necessary, maybe I'll use you then — but not until, and only if I have to. Liz, this is a mentalist who ranks alongside Janos Ferenczy. And it's one mind you're not going to enter of your own free will!'
Trask and his team were without radio headsets. As espers they needed clear heads, and were better off without the encumbrance of technical equipment. This was a time when the gadgets would only get in the way of the ghosts. And anyway, since they planned on sticking close to the SAS Major throughout the operation, radio contact seemed superfluous to requirement.