'Dead,' Sabastian answered.
She drew a quick breath and started to say
something, then changed her mind. Her eyes went to Erich Frakes. 'Is he with the Fringe Alliance?' Paul shook his head. 'UNSA.'
'Does that mean we can trust him?'
'I doubt it.'
Frakes began to make a sound of protest, but William Greenleaf
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Karyn ignored him. 'Then we'll keep an eye on him. Let's get inside.'
Jacque was picking himself up off the floor.
'Look what I found!' He held up a long-barreled carbine in one hand. 'More goodies down here, too. Let's get 'em out, Selmer.'
By the time Paul and Erich Frakes had helped Sabastian out of the car, Selmer and Jacque each had armfuls of weapons they'd found in the car's rear storage compartment.
'So there really is a city,' Frakes said with a trace of awe.
'Let's get inside,' Paul said. He waited for Frakes to go first, then ducked through the arched entrance. The scene in the inner chamber was exactly as they had left it: Dorland sat on the pedestal, and Elli stood above the chauka.
Sabastian and Karyn had stopped just beyond the door.
Dorland heard them and looked around.
'What the hell?' said Erich Frakes. He was staring at Elli.
'Tal Tahir,' Paul supplied. While Karyn filled Dorland in on what had-happened at the temple, Paul pulled Frakes back through the archway. Now that he knew Dorland was safe, he wanted to get some answers from Frakes. 'How did you find us?'
'I followed him here.' Frakes couldn't take his eyes off the figure of Elli swaying above the chauka. If she noticed that others had come into the room, she gave no sign of it.
'Followed who here?' Paul prompted.
'One of Maiar's agents.'
Paul felt a chill along his spine. Was the Fringe Alliance that close to finding Clarion? 'Come on, Frakes, tell me what happened.'
Frakes looked at him, then cleared his throat.
'Yeah, I guess I should. I got word about that Fringe agent.' Paul recalled their discussion on the hotel's rooftop parking pad on Fynnland—
something about a courier's message. 'We finally got the message decoded. It wasn't as useful as we'd hoped, but it gave us the name of one of Maiar's agents who I knew had to be involved. I've been following him the last couple of days. When he took his streamer out and skipped, I had to track him. I couldn't risk calling for help—that would've given me away.'
'He led you here?'
Frakes nodded. 'He had the coordinates, no doubt of that. He must have spotted me on his scope when I broke out of the stream behind him. We took potshots at each other all the way down. It was clear he was following a beacon. It brought him straight to this place.'
