Jack nodded. He and Draycos were definitely thinking along the same lines. 'In other words, it should have taken a couple of weeks to get a new site prepared, break down the transmitter, and then move it. Which means we should have heard about this before we left Carrion.'
'Correct,' Draycos said. 'And if they only began moving it yesterday, there would be no need for us to travel there tonight.'
'We could have hung around Mer'seb for a few days while they got it set up.'
'Correct,' Draycos said. 'That may imply the Shamshir are aware of our interest and are trying to keep us from succeeding. But it may also imply there is something else about this mission that we are not being told.'
'Could be.' Jack scratched his cheek. 'Though I suppose there could be a simpler explanation.'
'Which is?'
'That the Shamshir simply changed their minds about where to put their transmitter,' Jack said. 'And no one bothered to tell any of us about it until now.'
'But timely information is vital to a warrior's job,' the dragon objected. 'Surely they would not hold it back from us.'
'Hey, I'm just a raw recruit,' Jack said. 'Remember? Nobody has to tell me anything.'
'Talking to the window?' a familiar voice asked pleasantly from behind his shoulder.
Jack clamped down on his tongue as he felt Draycos slide quickly back to his usual position. 'Hello, Alison,' he said, turning to face her. 'Sure. Doesn't everybody?'
'Don't tell me,' she said. She plucked his pack from the seat beside him, dropped it unceremoniously onto the floor, and sat down. 'Let me guess. You were staring at the window because you needed a moment to reflect.'
Jack made a face. 'That was pathetic. I hope you didn't come all the way over here just for that.'
'No, mostly I wanted to see what the view was like out there,' she said, craning her neck to look past him. 'And to find out what you and Grisko were talking about.'
Jack felt his eyes narrowing. 'What do you mean?'
She gave him a patient look. 'You. Grisko. Talk. Two minutes ago. You need me to spell any of the words for you?'
'No, I've got it, thank you,' Jack growled. 'Not that it's any of your immediate business, but we were discussing the fact that we're not going to November Six. We're going to Kilo Seven instead.'
It was Alison's turn for narrowed eyes. 'Why?'
'According to Grisko, the Shamshir moved their transmitter.'
For a brief moment he thought he could see an echo of the emotional swirl in her eyes that he'd noticed once before. But then she just nodded. 'Oh,' she said.
' 'Oh'?' he repeated. 'That's all? Just 'oh'?'
'What more is there?' she countered reasonably. 'If the transmitter's been moved, we move with it.'
He shrugged. 'I suppose.'
She tilted her head, her eyes shifting down from his face to his chest. 'So that's what they're all talking about, huh?'
Jack frowned. 'What?'
She nodded toward his chest. 'Your dragon tattoo. Nice.'
Jack looked down. Sure enough, part of Draycos's jaw was visible through the partially open shirt. 'Oh, it's lots nicer than that,' he assured her, putting a little boasting into his tone. 'It goes all the way around, and then some. See?'
He pulled the collar a little to the side to reveal more of the dragon's face. The last thing he really wanted to do was advertise Draycos's presence this way, and he was pretty sure Draycos felt the same way. But he'd met enough men with tattoos to know you didn't get one with the idea of hiding it. Alison was pretty sharp, and if he didn't brag about his dragon, she might wonder why. 'Here—the head's the best part,' he went on, reaching for the shirt's sealing seam. 'Let me get this open a little more—'
'No, that's all right,' Alison said hastily. 'Really. I was just wondering if it was like the one the Dragonbacks wore.'
'I already told you I never heard of the Dragonbacks until a month ago.'
'Maybe you didn't,' she pointed out. 'But your tattoo artist might have.'
'Oh.' That angle hadn't occurred to him. 'Is it?'
'Is it what? Oh.' Alison shook her head. 'Not even close. The Dragonbacks had their tattoos between their shoulder-blades, just below the neck. A little dragon, coiled around itself into a circle. Nowhere near as big as yours.'
'You seem to know a lot about them.'
She shrugged. 'Like I said, I do my research. Always terrific to talk to you.'
She got up and headed back forward to her own seat. 'Interesting,' Draycos murmured.
'What is?' Jack asked, turning back to the window. 'Her obsession with dragon tattoos?'
'That she noticed your conversation with Sergeant Grisko and wondered about it,' Draycos said. 'She is quite observant.'
Jack closed his shirt down to where it had been before Alison showed up. 'Observant and nosy,' he agreed. 'I wonder if they know this is her second try at joining a mercenary group.'
'I do not know,' Draycos said. 'Do you think you should tell them?'
Jack gazed out the window, weighing his options. Below them, the shadows were lengthening still more. Above them, the sky was definitely beginning to darken. 'No,' he decided at last. 'But let's keep an eye on her.'
The last twenty miles were spent traveling at treetop height, with the Lynx dodging its way around the handful of taller trees and an occasional hill or tall rock.
Jack gazed out at the blur of green shooting past his window, fully expecting to crash and burn any minute. Uncle Virge could have pulled off this kind of maneuver easily. But it wasn't Uncle Virge running the controls up there.
Fortunately, the pilot knew what he was doing. He ran the course without so much as a single serious bump, and a few minutes later had set them down in a small clearing at the base of a rocky cliff face.
If parts of the Carrion training base had been spartan, the Kilo Seven outpost was downright primitive. The only solid structure was a flimsy looking prefab building about the size of a one-bedroom hotel room. Grisko identified it as the outpost HQ, and the place where Tango Five Zulu would be setting up their computers and listening gear.
The rest of the outpost consisted of four tents scattered beneath the trees. Two
