Cold War

table, deals each player a card face-up. If the player owns a higher card in the same suit, he shows it and wins double his bet for that round. If he doesn’t, he tosses his hand and his stake gets added to the pot. If they want to make the game more interesting, the dealer burns a card from the top of the deck… shows it to everybody, then tosses it to give the bank an edge.”

Megan nodded.

“So Granger displayed a burn card when he let us know Scar and Shevaun Bradley are alive,” she said.

“Right.”

“What’s he shown you now?”

“The notch.” Nimec stabbed a finger at the blue pin identifying the area of Scout IV’s disappearance. “They’re being held prisoner in the notch. At some kind of underground base.”

Her eyes widened.

“Pete, that’s incredible… ”

“Don’t unbuckle your seat belt yet,” he said. “He gave us the exact location. There’s some kind of tunnel or mine shaft. He wouldn’t tell us what’s being dug up. Or stored. I figure he knows, or has a damned good idea —”

“But that’s another burn card he can show when it’s advantageous to him.”

“Yeah. Granger’s got a full deck. And he intends to use it to win himself the sweetest deal possible with INR at State, CIA, Interpol… whoever winds up with custody of the slug once they can sort that out.”

“Meanwhile he’s playing UpLink…”

“Dealing us what he figures we want most…”

“The whereabouts of our people, in other words…”

“In exchange for our agreeing to testify that he was cooperative when the time comes to face the music,” Waylon said.

Megan looked from one man to the other.

“This explains a lot,” she said. “Explains almost everything, in fact. Our rover coincidentally rolls too close to the notch… we’d programmed it to explore the area… and then whoever is out there in Bull Pass takes preemptive action. Disables or destroys it before we can receive telemetry that exposes their presence.”

Nimec was nodding.

“Next our S&R team arrives,” Megan said. “They pick up Scout’s trail, follow it to where it ends—”

“Come too close to the notch themselves with Granger sounding the alert…”

“And stumble into the same concealed pitfall as the rover,” Megan said.

Nimec and Waylon gave her near-synchronous nods. Then they were all silent for some moments.

“Why would they want to kill David Payton if they were going to let the others live?” Megan said.

“Granger swears he doesn’t have any idea,” Nimec said.

“And you believe him?”

Nimec shrugged.

“Hard to be sure, but my gut sense is he’s on the level,” he said.

Waylon looked at Megan.

“You know how Doc Payton was,” he said. “I want to say the crew here got along with him. But the truth is there isn’t anybody at CC that didn’t have the urge to strangle him at least once.” Waylon shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s terrible what happened to him. I wish it hadn’t happened. But I’m thinking it’s possible he could have done something to provoke it.”

There was more silence.

“Okay,” Megan said. “We have to make some decisions—”

“Like how we get Scarborough and Bradley out, you mean?” Nimec said.

Megan exchanged glances with him.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “It isn’t that simple. I won’t allow any more of our own to find themselves in a situation where they’re easy targets. There’s a question of how we can accomplish it. Whether we should request help—”

“From who? And when’s it going to reach us? I thought we went through this together once before. The boss got us the authority to act.”

“No argument about that,” Megan said. “But we have a small force here… and a slice of it’s been allocated to recovering function at the desalinization plant.”

“You know the pump kicked in for a little while this morning,” Nimec said. It had been a good piece of news he’d gotten upon his return from Marble Point, where he and his rescue pilot had spent an overnight due to passing fog whiteout. “Don’t ask me how the crew did it. For all I can tell they used string, scotch tape, and chewing gum. But they got it to show signs of life. And they figure to have some of its capacity back soon.”

Megan looked at Waylon.

“How much?” she said. “And how soon?”

“I’m estimating we can get to almost a quarter of our regular freshwater output in a couple of days. That’s with four or five of us on it round the clock.” Waylon spread his hands. “I can’t guarantee the pump’ll stay up, but if we lose it again manpower won’t matter. We’ve done about all we can with the parts we’ve cannibalized.”

Megan shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said. “There are other considerations to weigh. Before she left yesterday, Annie Caulfield advised me about a range of problems we can expect because of the solar flares—”

“Just another reason we should move fast.”

“Pete, we’ve already felt some effects,” she said. “Though they haven’t even emerged from the far side of the sun, it appears we’ve already had some irregularities in our satellite and radio connections. Dead spots.” Megan gestured toward her timed-out desktop computer. “I’ve experienced them myself. Annie provided an access code for a turnkey NASA Web site. A half hour ago I tried to log on and access the latest models for when the activity’s going to peak. And couldn’t. The data link broke on me. It’s still fouled up. We might be looking at periods when our radio connections go partially or entirely down over the next couple of days… can you imagine what kind of tactical problems that would lead to in the field?”

Nimec nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’d be an equal disadvantage. The other side would run into the same complications.”

She shook her head. “Still…”

“I’m no world-beater,” Nimec said. “I wouldn’t take anybody out there to the Valleys without a solid plan.”

“I’m not implying that. I trust you. But it’s my job to measure the risks. Make the final decision. Nobody else can do it. I can’t unload the responsibility. I own it… ”

She trailed off, her features tight with concentration.

Nimec watched her a moment. Then he stepped away from the map and softly rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Meg, listen,” he said. “One thing I learned from the boss… from Gord… is that part of owning it is knowing when to trust somebody enough to let go.”

Silence in the room.

Megan sat with her face turned up toward Nimec’s as that silence spooled out between them like an invisible thread. Then she took a deep breath, seemed to hold it a moment, and released a long, deep sigh.

Nimec could feel her muscles loosen under his palm.

“You said you’ve come up with a plan?” she said.

“No,” he said. “Not me.”

She looked at him.

“Who?” she said.

Waylon thumbed his chest, moved his shaved head up and down in a single nod.

“You,” she said.

He nodded again, his long-sword earrings gleaming softly under the fluorescent lights.

Megan half smiled.