Hansen slid the large diamond in a gold band onto the middle finger of his left hand. His finger joints were no larger than the shafts of the phalanges. The ring fit easily, then clamped with a tiny prickling.
“Seconds to insertion,” Hansen thought.
“Forty-seven,” the ring’s AI responded, using the nerve pathways of Hansen’s body.
“It’s connected?” Fortin said nervously.
“It’s all fine,” Hansen replied. “Look, I’m briefed and ready. Just step back.”
“I don’t like to see my necklace—on somebody else,” murmured one of the spectators.
“And Fortin!” another chuckled. “That’s a look you haven’t tried—or have you, dearest?”
“That’s not your gunhand, is it?” Fortin fussed. “It won’t interfere?”
Hansen glowered at the android face of which his own was for the moment a perfect copy.
“My gunhand,” he said distinctly, “is the hand I’ve got a gun in at the moment.”
He flexed his left fist. The artificial intelligence flashed harder echoes of light across the ice and the fawn-gray uniform Hansen was wearing.
“It won’t interfere. Trust me.” Hansen’s face formed a sort of smile. “Nothing interferes with that.”
“Five seconds to insertion,” said the machine voice in Hansen’s mind.
“Here we go,” Hansen said aloud, stepping toward the discontinuity as though his briefing officer were not in his way—and Fortin wasn’t; he’d jumped aside as his double strode through the space.
Hansen began to giggle. He was wondering if the necklace would hide the stains if he pissed the pants of this beautiful dress uniform. The thought wasn’t the worst way to release tension at the start of an operation.
He stepped into the faceted blur in the center of the hall and—
His polished shoe ground down on the gritty red soil of a drill field. An officer stood in front of a platoon of infantry. They were drawn up at attention but armed to the teeth. Dust, blowing across the field from the fans of eight APCs, aided the excellent camouflage pattern of the troops’ fatigues.
The field was scooped from the side of a mesa. On the rim above, a tank company aimed its weapons toward Hansen. Each of the two-squad armored personnel carriers mounted a light cannon in its forward cupola; the guns were centered on Hansen’s chest also, though some of the weapons would have to blast through the bodies of the infantrymen at attention.
Hansen didn’t assume those gunners would be any slower to shoot than the others.
The waiting officer threw Hansen a sharp salute. “Sir!” she said. “I’m Major Atwater, in charge of your escort. We’re very glad to have you with us again, but I have to warn you that we’re on heightened alert. It’s been raised to Threat Level 3.”
Hansen returned the salute crisply but brought his arm down to point at the pair of APCs waiting with their hatches open. “Then let’s get the hell out of an obvious target zone like this, Major,” he snapped.
Major Atwater spun on her heel. She bawled, “First Platoon, saddle up!” though the formation had disintegrated with troopers running for their vehicles almost before the first syllable was out of her mouth.
“The other vehicle is commanded by Lieutenant Filerly,” Hansen’s AI informed him.
The infantry poured aboard the armored personnel carriers with the grace of belted ammo cycling through a machinegun. The APCs lifted to hover half a meter off the ground.
Atwater leaped aboard behind her troops. The hatch of the other vehicle clanged shut. Hansen reached for the equipment belt beneath his coat and followed the major. Within the APC, the crew chief’s finger was on the hatch switch.
Hansen threw toward the rear of the troop compartment the contact grenade he’d snatched from his belt. Wearing the uniform and appearance of Major Atwater, he dropped backward out of the closing hatch.
The grenade belched orange from the hatch and the firing ports. Ammo went off in a crashing secondary explosion.
The armored personnel carrier staggered in the air. Hansen rolled to his feet and ran. The blast-ruptured fuel cells burst in a cataclysmic fireball, hurling bodies and other debris in a wide circle.
“Filerly!” Hansen shouted as he ran toward the APC which had taken aboard the other two squads. “Pick me up! The Inspector General’s been assassinated!”