Daisy cut him off in her excitement. “The Himmit ships, by and large, work by redirecting or absorbing any detection energies sent at them. But what if I survey everything? The sea bottom on our patrol route? The thermal layer? The position, shape and density of the clouds, though I’d have to update that continuously? The echoes off the trees? The passage of the tropical wind?”
“I only look stupid, Miss Daisy, and even then only when I drink. But I haven’t…” The chief stopped in mid sentence. “Ohhh…”
“ ‘Oh,’ ” Daisy echoed.
“You mean you want to try to sense them by what doesn’t bounce back?”
“Precisely,” Daisy answered, possibly with a slightly smug tone in her voice.
“How did you get that from this ‘acoustical survey’ idea though?” Davis asked.
“Oh, that just suggested the possibility of graphing everything around,” Daisy admitted. “But the idea of using the data this way was mine.”
Davis looked pensive for a moment. “Miss Daisy, I thought AIDs were not supposed to be capable of original thought.”
“Ah, but Chief Davis, I am not just any AID. My sister and I are certifiably insane.”
“Processing all that data is going to be very difficult,” the chief gave one final objection.
“Wanna bet?” Daisy asked rhetorically, just before she disappeared again.
“You wouldn’t dare just shoot me out of hand,” Cortez insisted as the column of trucks, Cortez’s Hummer in the lead, neared the major rear area checkpoint across the highway just before it entered the town.
“Wanna bet?” Suarez answered conversationally. “The rejuv and repair tank won’t save you when your brains are scattered across the windshield.”
Cortez shivered, even while he scowled. Unconsciously his leg tugged at the chain that had been hastily welded to the body of the Hummer and which held his left leg in place by the ankle. He had considered trying to roll out of the vehicle when they reached a checkpoint and screaming bloody murder for the guards to kill the mutineers who had taken him. But the chain reassured him he could never get out of the line of fire before Suarez or the man who sat next to him, a Captain Miranda, put more lead into his body — worse, his brain! — than the tank could fix. If his uncle deigned even to put him in the tank. Given how badly he’d fucked up the mission it was most unlikely, vanishingly unlikely, that his uncle would do more than spit on his corpse.
The captain, Miranda, was another problem. There was enough family resemblance there, both in the name and the face, for Cortez to suspect the captain was the brother or son of the woman he’d arrested, the woman who’d tried to take a chunk out of his leg with her teeth and whom he’d had beaten and raped in retaliation. He shivered again. If this was a close male relative and the woman’s story came out, he was not “as good as dead.” Panama was a Latin country, a macho country, a traditional country. For such an insult offered to a woman of a major clan? He’d knew he’d be praying for death long before it happened.
Oh, God, what am I going to do?
“Act very confident, Manuel,” Suarez advised, patting Cortez on the head like a pet dog. “If they ask about your nose? Well, there was a spot of trouble before you arrested the traitors and criminals then, wasn’t there? But,” Suarez sighed, “with the help of your brave defenders of the Republic you were able to overcome the treason.”
Mostly unseen, Cortez scowled. His men were half stripped and under guard back near the 1st Division command post. The trucks that had formerly carried them were now full of Suarez’s men. Following the trucks was a full — no, Cortez guessed an overstrength — battalion of mechanized infantry in the very latest in Russian-built infantry fighting vehicles.
The Hummer pulled up to the guard post by the highway. There was a Mercedes Benz automobile parked nearby, the driver — a very attractive young woman — arguing with an MP vociferously. She looked vaguely familiar to Suarez. At Cortez’s stiffening and indraw of breath he asked, “Who is she?”
“The president’s daughter,” Cortez answered. “I wonder what she’s doing here.”
“No good, most likely.”
A guard held up one fist for the Hummer to stop. The driver, Suarez’s man now, not Cortez’s, applied the brakes lightly and slowed to a stop. Even before that, Suarez’s hands had moved behind his back as if cuffed, though in fact the right hand wrapped itself around a pistol.
The guard at the checkpoint looked over Cortez’s rank and decided on politeness. He was invariably polite to men heading to the front but had learned that those heading in the opposite direction were not necessarily to be trusted. Still, the general’s insignia on the collar of the prime passenger of the Hummer suggested that politeness was in order. Even had the insignia not, the long column of trucks and armored vehicles did.
“May I see your orders, General?” the guard asked. He was, in fact, polite. Still, his tone was that of every MP who ever lived, always with the unstated or shall I arrest you now.
Briefly, Cortez toyed with the idea of following his instructions too much to the letter. Perhaps if he made an obnoxious ass of himself the MP would arrest him and call a halt to Suarez’s plan. He thought on it and decided, No. Suarez is too close to the city and too committed to let an MP, or a battalion of them, stop him now. If they try to halt the column he’ll just fight his way through. Not that it would be much of a fight. But I might be killed and, while there is a chance I might survive this, I will try to live.
So, instead of making a scene, Cortez calmly reached into his right breast pocket and withdrew a small letter from President Mercedes calling for the arrest of one Colonel Suarez. This he handed to the MP who looked them over carefully before asking, “Is that him?”
“Yes, soldier.”
“Okay, then, sir, no problem. Shall I radio ahead for you?”
Cortez felt Suarez’s knee pressing slightly through the back of the Hummer’s thin seat cushion. He inhaled at the reminder, then answered, “No, that won’t be necessary. The president already knows we are coming.”
Mercedes’ AID chimed three times and then projected an image of the Darhel, the Rinn Fain, above the presidential desk.
“They’re coming, Señor Presidente,” the Rinn Fain’s AID announced through the president’s.
“Yes, Lord Fain,” answered Mercedes, directly to the Darhel rather than his AID, “I am sure my nephew has arrested the miscreants and is…”
The Darhel seemed almost to sneer, though it was the AID which spoke. “No, that is not what I mean. I mean that the column you sent out seems to have grown by seven or eight hundred men and twelve or thirteen hundred of your tons in heavy vehicles.”
Mercedes began adding and figuring. Was there any good reason for his nephew to have picked up another force? Was there any reasonable possibility that the men of the 1st Division would willingly follow his nephew to anything but his own hanging?
No.
Mercedes went pale. “How long until that column reaches the City?”
“At current speeds, approximately four of your hours, Mr. President,” the AID answered.
“The ship to take away the prisoners will be here in slightly more than that time,” the Rinn Fain interjected. “You have done as I have demanded. If you can assemble not more than… AID, how many open spaces on the Himmit vessel?”