Free Dyson's Drop by Paul Collins Page B

he could count, come close to exposing him, and had even wounded him. He could not let this opportunity elude him.
    He would not.
    But he couldn’t just waltz into the detention level in the bowels of RIM and eliminate her. Apart from the fact the entire floor was heavily and constantly monitored - which could be circumvented - the repercussions would be worse than the initial days of the great Mole Hunt.
    Then again, perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing. It would certainly undermine RIM’s perceived omnipotence. What kind of organisation could not protect a prisoner in its own jail?
    Black would have to give it some thought. But he would have to do it quickly. Anneke was due to be transferred to Urkor in just three days.
    And Urkor was too far away for Black to get to her there. He had bigger fish to fry.
    So. Three days. Three days in which to kill two birds with one stone?
    Well, why not? What was the point of being a deviant criminal genius unless you were devious?
    ‘Solid idea,’ Black whispered. ‘Solid.’
    They moved in tight two-by-two formation, probing forward into the darkness, silent as gliders. They could not be seen, except by electronic means, but they could see: infrared, quantum-enhanced night vision, radar-visual feedback, motion sensors, the works.
    In all, twelve masked and armoured men and women padded along the tunnel: three units, four to each. Nor were these meres - soldiers of fortune available to anyone who paid their fee. No, these were highly trained professionals, like semi-mythical groups from the past, the Old Empire Guard or the commandos.
    They were the top guns of Quesada’s highly secret Alpha Force, an elite squad used for special occasions. Only today they happened to be dressed in the livery of the Myoto Company.
    Alpha One - the leader - signalled a halt. He did not speak or issue electronic signs. Instead, he flashed curt hand signals, passed down the line.
    As one, the twelve came to a crouching stop.
    Alpha One beckoned Hawkeye to his side, motioning him to take readings. Hawkeye hunkered down in the darkness, running a battery of tests, probing the tunnel ahead as well as the walls, floor and ceiling.
    When he communicated, he used a technically evolved form of sign language, one of Quesada’s more brilliant notions, excavating from the distant past a ‘language’ no longer used.
    ‘We’re in the bubble,’ gestured Hawkeye. ‘In the bubble’ meant they were moving within an artificially created electronic blind spot, undetected by the vast array of RIM ‘eyes’ and ‘ears’.
    Of course, having someone on the inside helped.
    ‘Run point with Ice Queen,’ Alpha One said. ‘I want constant monitoring from here on in. Let me know the moment somebody picks up our footprint.’
    ‘You got it.’
    Alpha One signed for the squad to move on. Ice Queen and Hawkeye took the lead, the former guiding Hawkeye while he closely monitored the available spectrum of surveillance frequencies and fields. Ice Queen’s job was to watch where Hawkeye put his big feet.
    Just as well she did.
    Hawkeye, intent on a ghost signal he had picked up, was about to take a step when Ice Queen’s hand clamped hard on his shoulder. He froze.
    ‘Something on the ground,’ she signed.
    Hawkeye frowned, shuffiing carefully backwards. He trained his instruments on the ground ahead. Sure enough he started picking up a weak signal. A hair-thin trip wire connected to a pinhead battery. Damn.
    ‘How’d you spot it?’ he asked Ice Queen. ‘And don’t tell me female intuition.’
    ‘Got an external tomography scanner. Analyses cross sections, shows anomalies.’
    ‘Got to get me one,’ signed Hawkeye, impressed. Alpha One came up from behind. ‘We got a problem?’
    ‘Dealing with it, sir,’ signed Ice Queen.
    ‘Then deal with it. You ‘re holding us up.’
    Ice Queen gritted her teeth in the dark. Hawkeye tapped into the circuitry of the tripwire using a quantum-tunnelling device to hijack