“Christ on a crutch,” Sergeant Miscowsky muttered. He glared at his watch, then back at the tangle of vines and bright flowers hanging over the brackish water. “I think I just screwed the pooch again.”
“Nah,” Corporal Tandon said. “You told him to start late, so he did. He’ll get here.”
“Shit, how’s he going to find us?” Miscowsky demanded. “There’s ten channels to this fucking excuse for a river.”
“He’ll find us,” Owassee said.
“If he can get the boats. I didn’t get the idea that uncle of his was all set to help us.”
“Hell, Sarge, you worry too much.”
“I get paid to worry.” Miscowsky looked again at his watch. “He gets here or not, we still have to report our position. Better get set up, Nick.”
“Right.” Tandon took gear out of his knapsack. He set the point of what looked like a large corkscrew against a goshee tree trunk and drove it in, turning the handles until it was seated solidly in the corky wood. When he had the horn-shaped antenna firmly in place, he unpacked the hand-cranked generator and plugged the radio set into it. “Okay, Owassee, you’re junior man now.”
“One bad thing about letting the kid go,” Owassee muttered, but he took the generator and strapped it to a log, attached the handles, and gave it an experimental turn. “Ready when you are, C.B.”
Miscowsky consulted his watch. “Not long now. Maybe ten minutes. Wish that kid—”
There was a low whistle from upstream.
“Goddam,” Miscowsky muttered.
Another whistle, then what might have been an answering one.
“Sumbitch! That’s Cloudwalker all right,” Tandon said.
A minute later two flatbottomed skiffs came into sight. Jimmie Cloudwalker was perched in the bow of the first. Buford Purdy stood in the back with a long pole. The second skiff was poled by Etienne Ledoux. They piloted the boats to the bank and tied them to low branches of the overhanging trees.
“Good to see you,” Miscowsky said, as his troops and Ledoux jumped onto solid ground. “Wondered if you might have trouble borrowing a boat.”
“I am still not certain this is wise,” Ledoux said. “You have told me the Girerds are already enemies of the governor.”
“That’s for sure,” Miscowsky said.
“I have considered. They claim this land. It is no real use to them—few can live and work here—but still they claim it.” Ledoux shrugged. “Eh, bien. I can take you within three kilometers of the Girerd hills. We will be there by midnight. Then I will take my boats and go. With God’s help the Girerds will not know the—guests on their land gave you aid. But if you should find our assistance of value—perhaps you will remember us. No one cares to be a guest forever.”
“We won’t forget you.”
“Time to check in, Sarge,” Tandon said. He plugged his helmet set into the radio and began speaking in a low voice. After a few moments he made adjustments with the control wheels on the antenna, listened, and adjusted again. Then he smiled and motioned to Owassee to begin cranking.
“My nephew has explained why you are not likely to be overheard,” Ledoux said. “I confess I am still concerned—”
“So are we,” Miscowsky said. “We don’t want trouble any more than you do.”
Tandon continued to speak in a low voice. Suddenly he straightened. “Sarge! The colonel wants to talk to you.”
XIX
Lysander wondered if he would be allowed in the situation room, but when he went there after breakfast the sentries saluted and let him pass. Despite the best efforts of the stewards and the air conditioning system, the conference room stank. Fear and excitement blended with stale tobacco and spilled coffee.
The scene inside hadn’t changed from the night before. Intelligence NCOs bent over the big map table. The Officer of the Day sat in a high chair at one end of the room. Senior officers came in, examined the maps and spoke to the sergeants, and went out shaking their heads.
One thing had changed: now the map table showed the actual location of Frazer’s patrols in green. In most cases that was all there was, but some patrols had shadow locations shown in yellow. Lysander frowned at the display, then finally asked one of the plot sergeants.
“That’s what we’re telling Barton, sir.” The sergeant grunted in disgust. “‘Cause of those traitors in the Governor’s office, the rebels have been getting satellite reports all along. Mostly those’ll just show big troop movements, they won’t see the patrols, but once in a while they get lucky and see some of Captain Frazer’s specials.” The sergeant grinned. “Our turn now. Cap’n Alana fed in a program to jigger things so when the satellite does get a reading, the Government House computer reports the location a little off from where they really are. Can’t hurt.”
“No, I don’t suppose it can. Thank you, Sergeant.” Lysander leaned over the map and frowned. It couldn’t be that simple. If they cut off all data, the rebels would get suspicious, but what if they sent patrols of their own to verify the satellite information? Rottermill must have thought all that out. Or Falkenberg himself.
Probably it didn’t matter. Things would get settled soon or not at all. The basic situation was thoroughly simple: they knew where the borloi was kept. The problem was what to do about it. So far no one seemed to have thought of anything.
Someone’s watch chirped the hour. In the next few minutes most of the senior staff came in to stare at the map table. The plot didn’t tell them anything they hadn’t known twelve hours earlier, but if anything was going to happen, they’d know it in the chart room before anyone else did.
“Do you all a world of good to go for a walk,” Rottermill said.
“Sure would.” Ian Frazer bent over the map table and eyed the distances between Rochemont and the nearest airfields.
“Report time,” Rottermill said. “Swenson.”
“Sir.” Lieutenant Swensen adjusted her headset and nodded to the communications sergeants. It took nearly an hour for Frazer’s SAS teams to make all their reports. As they did, Lieutenant Swensen fed their present and anticipated positions into the map computer. All twenty-three teams would converge on Rochemont, but not for several days.
There was a sudden hush as the projected position of Miscowsky’s team appeared on the map.
“Get a confirmation on that,” Captain Rottermill said automatically.
“Confirmed,” Captain Frazer said. “Looks like the lads have found themselves river transport. Cooperation from the locals.”
Captain Fast leaned down for another look. Then he straightened in decision. “Swensen, hang onto that contact.” He touched buttons on the intercom. “Colonel, there’s something here you ought to see.”
* * *
Falkenberg was grinning when he came into the staff room. It was infectious. Soon everyone in the room was smiling.
“We’ve made several promises in the governor’s name,” Falkenberg said. “All worth it, I think. Headman Ledoux swears he can put twenty troopers and a fair amount of equipment in the Rochemont hills by dawn if we get them to the river early tonight. I’ve sent Miscowsky on ahead with Purdy as guide, so we’ll have some forces on the spot no matter what happens. Of course they won’t be able to do very much without reinforcements.”
“I like it, John Christian,” Major Savage said. “A good mortar team with complete surprise might just be able to take out a landing boat.”
“I can see some problems,” Captain Fast said carefully. He looked at Falkenberg. “With your permission, I’ll reserve my comments for later, though.”
“Looks better than anything else I’ve seen,” Ian Frazer said. “Only problem is, I don’t have twenty SAS troops left. In fact, I don’t have any.”
“Your regular scouts will do for this, Ian,” Captain Fast said. “It’s not like they’d have to stay out there for weeks.”
“Harv and I will go,” Lysander said quietly.
Everyone turned to look at him. There was silence for a moment. “Well, Your Highness, it could get a bit—” Frazer cut himself off.
Lysander smiled, not unkindly. “Captain, I don’t know what notion you have of how princes of Sparta are brought up, but you might reflect on the name we’ve given our planet. Harv Middleton has spent the last couple of weeks teaching unarmed combat to your special forces troops, right?”
“Yes—”
“And they’ve learned from him, haven’t they. Well, not to boast, but I can take him three falls in four.”
“I—see,” Frazer said.
“So that’s settled,” Lysander said. He thought he saw Falkenberg grin momentarily.
“Ian, I expect you ought to round up the other volunteers,” Major Savage said. “Mortars and recoilless teams particularly wanted.”
“You know, this just ought to work,” Rottermill said. He grinned. “Legal, too. Provided they’ve put the borloi aboard the boat before we fire on it.”
“Hadn’t occurred to me,” Major Savage said. “But yes, that could be important.”