Part 56 (1/2)

In effect, the refugees were camping not in but atop the old city. He couldn't make out individual figures from this distance, but he guessed there had to be thousands down there. Tens of thousands. He had been right about the sanctuary.

They must have come from throughout the planet to this single place. Even though Ike had guessed they were migrating to a central location, their numbers astounded him. Haddie was a solitary race, as willing to demolish one another as their enemy, p.r.o.ne to wandering in small, paranoid packs. He'd decided there were probably no more than a few thousand left in the entire subplanet. There had to be fifty times that right here. For them to have gathered this way, and in apparent armistice, it had to be like the end of the world.

Their abundance was good news and bad. It all but guaranteed that Ali would end up in the refugee horde, if she was not already among them. Ike had devised no specific gambit, but had been relying on a much smaller mob to deal with. Finding her from a distance was going to be impossible, and infiltrating them a lengthy nightmare. Just locating her could take months. And all the while he would have to tend the hostage, his daughter. The prospect threw him into a downward spiral. He looked at his watch - Troy's watch - and noted the time and date and alt.i.tude.

He heard the pad of feet, and started to rise up, knife in hand. He had time to see a rifle b.u.t.t. Then it axed into his face, he felt it clip his temple, and all the brawl went out of him.

By the time Ike revived, he was bound hand to foot with his own rope. He pried his eyes open. His captor was waiting, seated five feet away, barefoot and in rags, sighting on Ike's face through a US Army night-vision sniperscope. A pair of binoculars hung from his neck. Ike sighed. The Rangers had finally hounded him to earth.

'Wait,' Ike said. 'Before you shoot.'

'Sure,' said the man, his face still burrowed behind the rifle and sight.

'Just tell me why.' What had he done to deserve their vengeance?

'Why what, Ike?' The executioner lifted his head.

Ike was thunderstruck. This was no Ranger.

'Surprise,' Shoat said. 'I didn't think it was possible, either, an ordinary joe trumping the great Ike Crockett. But you were easy. Talk about bragging rights. I mug Superman and get the girl.'

Ike couldn't think of what to say. He looked across at his daughter. Shoat had tightened her bonds. That was significant. He hadn't shot the girl outright.

Bearded and emaciated, Shoat had not lost his daft grin. He was very pleased with himself. 'In certain ways,' he said, 'we're the same guy, you and me. Bottom feeders. We can live off other people's s.h.i.+t. And we always make sure we know where the back door is. Back at the presidio, I was ready, just like you.'

Ike's face ached from the rifle b.u.t.t, but what hurt most was his pride. 'You tracked me?' he said.

Shoat patted the rifle with the sniperscope. 'Superior technology,' he said. 'I could see you from a mile off, clear as day. And once you netted our little bird, things were even easier. I don't know, Ike, you got slow and you got sloppy. Maybe you're getting old. Anyhow' - he glanced behind him over the precipice - 'we've reached the heart of the matter, haven't we?'

While Shoat talked, Ike gathered the few clues. A rucksack sat against the wall, half empty. Over near the watchful girl, Shoat had scattered the plastic refuse from a single military rations packet. It told Ike he had been unconscious long enough to be tied, and for Shoat to finish a meal. More important, the man had come alone; there was just one pack and the remains of one MRE. And the MRE meant he was not feeding off the land, probably because he didn't know how to.

Obviously, Shoat had foraged through the destroyed fortress and found a few essentials: the rifle, some MREs. Ike was mystified. The man had his ticket home; why pursue the depths?

'You should have taken a raft or just started walking,' Ike said. 'You could have been partway out of here.'

'I would have, but someone took my most vital a.s.set.' He lifted the leather pouch that hung from his neck like an amulet. Everyone knew it held his homing device. 'It guarantees my exit. I didn't even know it was gone until I needed it. When I opened the pouch, there was only this.' He unlaced the top and shook out a flat jade plate.

Sure enough, Ike saw, someone had stolen his device and replaced it with a piece of antique hadal armor. 'Now you want me to guide you out,' he guessed.

'I don't think that would work very well, Ike. How far could we get before Haddie found us? Or you did me in.'

'What do you want then?'

'My box. That would be nice.'

'Even if we found it, what's that do for you now?' With or without his homing device, the hadals could still find the man. And Ike could, too.

Shoat smiled cryptically and aimed the jade plate like a TV remote control. 'It lets me change the channel.' He made a click sound. 'Hate to sound like Mr Zen, but you're just an illusion, Ike. And the girl. And all of them down there. None of you exists.'

'But you do?' Ike wasn't taunting him. This was a key to Shoat's strangeness.

'Yeah. Yeah, I do. I'm like the prime mover. The first cause. Or the last. When all of you are gone, I'll still be around.'

Shoat knew something, or thought he did, but Ike couldn't begin to guess what. The man had recklessly followed them into the center of the abyss, and now, surrounded by the enemy, had waylaid his only possible ally in getting out. He could have shot them from a distance at any time over the past several weeks. Instead, he'd saved them for something. There was a logic at work here. Shoat was smart and sane, and dangerous. Ike blamed himself. He'd underestimated the man.

'You've got the wrong guy,' Ike said. 'I didn't take your box.'

'Of course not. I've thought a lot about it. Walker's boys wouldn't have bothered with any tricks. They would have just put a bullet through me. You would have, too. So it was someone else, someone who needed to keep the theft quiet. Someone who thinks she knows my code. I've got it figured out, Ike. Who it was, and when she took it.'

'The girl?'

'You think I'd let that wild animal close to me? No. I mean Ali.'

'Ali? She's a nun.' Ike snorted to deride the notion. But who else could it be?

'A very bad nun. Don't deny it, Ike. I know she's been playing hide-the-snake with you. I can tell these things, I've got good people sense.'

Ike watched him. 'So you followed me to follow her.'

'Good boy.'

'I didn't find her, though.'

'Actually, Ike, you did.'

Shoat grabbed a loop of rope and dragged him to the edge. He draped his binoculars around Ike's neck, and cautiously loosened the rope binding Ike's hands to his feet, then backed away, aiming his pistol.

'Take a look,' Shoat announced. 'Someone you know is down there. Her and our two-bit warlord. His satanic majesty. The guy who ran off with her.'

Ike wrestled to a sitting position. The news of Ali energized him. His hands were numb from the ropes, but he managed to paw the binoculars into place. He scanned up and down the ca.n.a.ls and choked avenues and ruins lit green by the night vision. 'Look for a spire, then go left,' Shoat instructed.

It took several minutes, even with Shoat describing the landmarks while looking through the rifle scope. 'See the pillars?'

'Are those Walker's men?' Two men hung, slumped. Neither was Ali. Yet.

'Just taking a rest,' Shoat said. 'They've been getting some rough treatment. And there's another prisoner, too. I've seen him with Ali. They keep taking him away, though.'

Ike searched higher.

'She's there,' Shoat encouraged. 'I can see her. Unbelievable, it looks like she's writing in her field book. Notes from the underground?'

Ike went on searching. A hill of flowstone k.n.o.bbed above the ma.s.ses, enfolding all but the upper stories of a carved stone building. The walls had collapsed on Ike's side of the building, exposing to view a s.p.a.cious room with no roof. And there she was, sitting on a chunk of rubble. They had freed her hands and legs; why not? Two stories below, she was surrounded by the hadal nation.

'Locked in?'

'I see her.' They hadn't started her rites of pa.s.sage yet. The branding and shackles and mutilations were usually started in the first few days. Recovery could take years. But Ali looked whole, untouched.