Part 29 (1/2)

noise communication with Rhys. Here. Told Rhys here because the Tau't Batu left with us, so they wouldn't be back before this habagat.

Please, let it be here still. Please...

And it was. Exactly where Rhys had placed it some eight months earlier, almost invisible beneath a couple of camouflage tarps. Jamie sank cross-legged to the cave floor, her legs too shaky to hold her up anymore. She wept, furtive, unable to stop, but unwilling to reveal to the others how overwhelmed she was.

This was their deliverance.

”My G.o.d, Jamie! Are you okay?”

Lynn. Jamie looked up and quickly nodded, giddy with thanks that of all the twenty-seven other souls in the cave, only this one had divined how to find her in its shadowy, almost labyrinthine limestone recesses.

”Yeah. Yeah. I-I-” Jamie tried to rise but slumped back onto the ground, her legs splayed out in front of her. She couldn't contain the small, nervous laugh that bubbled up from her chest, high and dissonant, prelude to her weeping.

Lynn came nearer, descended to her knees. ”Jamie, what's wrong?” She wiped tears from Jamie's face with a soft sweep of her hand.

”I-I'm okay,” Jamie managed at last, gulping back the rush of delirium. ”G.o.d, Lynn, it's here. All of it.” And she wept, grabbing Lynn's s.h.i.+rt, lowering her head onto Lynn's chest. She held on to Lynn, to the feel and scent of Lynn, and breathed deep and slow. She couldn't remember the last time it had been this easy to inhale a full, clean breath of air.

Cradling her, Lynn stroked her head, her back, and finally asked, ”What's here, Jamie?”

Giggling through her tears, Jamie raised her head and pointed to the tarp-covered pile of packs about two meters from her toes.

”What? I don't see anything.”

”There.” Jamie pointed again. ”It's right there.”

”Oh!” Lynn tipped off her knees and plunked clumsily next to Jamie. ”You didn't mention this.”

”Didn't know if it'd really be here after all this time. But it is. And look, it's not even wet.”

Jamie exhaled, wondrous, then shuffled onto her knees and stretched forward hands-first to pull one of the packs from its hiding place.

* 237 *

”Had Rhys and a couple of teams drag this stuff all the way here for Operation Repo,” she said as she opened the pack. ”Figured if we were gonna need it, we'd need it here. But they must have done okay, because none of this has been touched. Hmm, looks like cammies, comlink wraps, couple of IMS binoculars.”

Lynn seemed puzzled. ”IMS?”

”Integrated multiwave surveillance. Does radar, infrared, thermal all at once. Nice zoom capability, too.”

”I've heard about those.”

Jamie handed her a still-dormant pair before setting the pack aside and grabbing another one. ”Ah, ammo. Lots of it. Good. Weapons gotta be right here...”

Lynn helped Jamie count it up. ”North Carolina and Leonard will like this,” she said when she found a well-stocked medical kit and a several bottles of iodine. ”Hey, look, canteens and-what do you call these?”

Jamie glanced up from the collection of weapons, communications equipment, and cloakcream she'd gathered. ”Those are hydropacks.

And those packages next to them are MREs.”

”Meals Ready to Eat. Right.” Next, Lynn found a fat bundle of hammocks and mosquito netting. ”Good. Now we have enough water containers and hammocks and mosquito nets for everyone.”

”Mmm.” Jamie was distracted by a pair of IMS comlink eyewraps.

She tweaked the frame before shaking them back and forth.

”What're you doing?”

”Waking 'em up. Hardly any light in here, so motion'll have to do.” Jamie examined the wraps again, then put them on. ”So far so good. Now, let's see.” She placed her hands a foot or so in front of her and typed on an invisible keyboard. ”Gotta jump through all kinds of hoops to-yep, I've gotten them to bypa.s.s requesting a unitag. Limited functionality, but better than nothing.”

”You-nee tag? What's that?”

”And-yeah, there it goes, it's activated.” Jamie pulled off the wraps and gazed at Lynn. ”You still on the Armed Services Committee?”

”I am. How the h.e.l.l do you know that?”

”I read a lot. Well, I used to read a lot. It is public information.

How come n.o.body told you about our unitags?” Lynn replied with a vacant stare.

* 238 *

”You're scaring me now, Senator. Those little nano ID things they stick in our ear cartilage? That the Zhong take such joy in ripping out?”

”Oh, of course. The nano-polymer unique-identifier devices- NPUIDs.”

”Mmm, makes them sound like a birth control device, don't you think?” Jamie got to her feet. ”Guess that's why we call them unitags.”

Lynn accepted the hand Jamie offered and stood, too. For a long moment, Jamie held on to Lynn's hand, frowning at it and caressing it with resolute gentleness, in terrible need of the strength this contact somehow conveyed.

Blinking back new tears, Jamie took in and then quickly exhaled a deep breath. ”We've got a real chance now,” she said before squaring her shoulders. ”A real chance.” She wanted to offer Lynn the promise- I will get you back to your Rebecca and your daughters-but all she could offer was the trying, so she said nothing else.

Lynn's eyes widened for a nanosecond before she nodded, and Jamie felt a tremor in her hand. Oh. So you didn't quite realize.

Lynn squeezed Jamie's hand, and Jamie knew that for the first time Lynn understood she faced greater odds of dying in the Palawan than surviving it.

* 239 *

Chapter tWenty-eiGht.

hoW We Keep eaCh other alive Perched on a small boulder in the dark cavern, Jamie waited for those not on watch to settle in before her. Almost all of them carried something-a weapon, a comlink, binoculars-with which their hands made small repet.i.tive motions.

”You know the drill,” she said, swinging the comlink wraps she held in a tight circle. ”Keep those cranksets moving 'til you power up whatever you're working on. We won't get any help from daylight for a while yet, and we need everything we got ay-sap.”

”How long's this usually take?” asked Vargas.

”Depends on how much elbow grease you use, Sergeant.” Then Jamie changed her tone-low and stern, it gave warning: Do not f.u.c.k up. ”The weapons and scanners with juice left in their power packs are out there now with the people on first watch. By next watch, we need the rest of this gear powered up. While we're doing that, we're also going to review the dangers of active signaling.” Despite the moonlight, she couldn't see their faces and knew they couldn't see hers because several of Rhys's tarps had been draped across the wide cave entrance. Slivers of pallid light offered the only illumination. But at least they didn't have to huddle in damp, bat-infested corners to avoid being spotted by less obvious surveillance tools, like low-inclination Zhong satellites or swooping Zhong drones.