She hugged the albino with sheer relief.
When she let him go, he said, “So if they come tonight, we tell sec?”
Mildred grimaced. “Can’t tell them outright. I figure I should make sure Markos is out here at that time and he can stumble on it. But there’ll have to be backup.”
“How you get him out here?” Jak asked. It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but it made Mildred feel awkward. The flare of attraction between herself and the sec boss had been secret, and she wanted it to stay that way.
“I’ll figure that out,” she said lamely.
If Jak was surprised by that, he didn’t betray the fact. Instead he continued. “We tell Ryan, and all of us get here—surround it and ready to help if necessary.”
“No,” Mildred said emphatically, “I don’t want that. This is a Pilatan legacy, and if it comes out because of two blacks who are stopped by outsiders—and pale outsiders at that-—then it’ll divide the people when they really need to pull together. Half of them won’t want to believe that either Chan or Elias are behind this, and if whites are there…”
Jak nodded. “Just me, then. That work?”
Mildred nodded. “You’re an albino. You’re acceptable in that sense. Yeah, I figure you and me can give Markos the backup he needs.”
“Okay, but should fill others in anyway,” Jak pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s fair. Let’s do it.”
As they made their way back to the ville, Mildred realized that her doubts about both J.B.—and by implication, the rest of the companions—and Markos had been proved wrong. Both were good men in their separate ways. Chan had obviously been her initial attacker. He was of a similar build to the Armorer and had adopted J.B.’s limp to aid his disguise. Both he and Elias had used their moralistic stances to hide their real selves until revealed this day—and then only to Millie and Jak. It may prove harder than she thought to convince the sec boss and to convince Ryan that she should handle this with so little manpower.
Something that Markos and Ryan shared was their complete integrity. She knew the one-eyed man would understand why she and Jak would have to do this alone.
Chapter Eleven
“You want to what!” Ryan exclaimed when Mildred had outlined her plan.
“I want it to just be me and Jak,” she reiterated. “It can’t be any other way.”
“But, Mildred, it’s going to be—”
“Are you saying that we can’t handle it?” She bristled.
Ryan sighed. “Of course I’m not saying that. You know better. But we always play the odds. That’s why we’re still here and the people we’ve had to come up against have mostly long ago bought the farm. Seven is better odds than two, that’s all.”
Mildred paused. “Yeah, I know that’s what you’re saying. And you know, most of the time I’d agree with you. But this has to be different, and I’ve explained why.”
There was a long silence. The companions were grouped in their quarters, Mildred having dragged them away from their work—allegedly under the auspices of Sineta—in order to have this conference. They were all fully armed, having reclaimed their weapons from the armory that morning. That was why Jak had been carrying his Colt Python. The only exception was Ryan, who was incensed when Mildred and Jak revealed to him where his SIG-Sauer had found a new home. The rearming was part of final preparations as the armory was now crated ready for transportation. The loading was the task from which they had been pulled by Mildred.
The late afternoon shadows were long over the street where they were housed and without any lamps the inside of the adobe hut was dark. Jak and Dean were acting lookouts at the front and back, still keeping an ear on the proceedings.
Finally, Ryan said, “Okay, I’m with you on this, but I still don’t like it that you’re not playing the odds.”
“Mebbe there’s a way that you could stack them a little,” Krysty mused thoughtfully.
“There is?” Mildred responded. “How?”
Krysty shrugged. “You’re planning to stop Elias and Chan and then present it as a fait accompli to Sineta and Markos, right?” She waited for Mildred to agree, then continued, “So why don’t you let them see it going down? Take them with you.”