Colvin stepped to the railing, took a quick look down. "I don't see anything," he said. "Could be Lathe and reinforcements. Should we wait?"

"No." Caine shook his head. "Besides, this is our job—we're the ones Jensen picked for his backup, remember? Come on."

They slipped through into the darkened hallway, and from there past the large double doors into the hangar proper... and as they took their first tentative steps in the pitch-darkness, Caine realized they were in trouble.

The hangar was huge. The supply storage room they'd entered Aegis through had been comparable in size, but with boxes and crated machinery all around it had seemed more likely a cozy maze than anything else. In contrast, the hangar had an overwhelming sense of emptiness about it, an emptiness that, combined with the darkness, gave Bernhard a hell of a combat advantage.

"Where's this control station, Zad?" Colvin hissed at Caine's side.

"Straight across the hangar," Alamzad whispered back.

Caine took a deep breath. It was the blindfold test all over again, this time for real. "All right," he said, forcing calmness into his voice. "We'll use the Plinry recognition code system—try not to take each other out in the fight. Do you know where Pittman is, Alamzad?"

"Afraid not."

"Okay. Colvin, you hang back near the door until we've got Bernhard localized. Give us a hundredcount, then signal Pittman with the recognition info."

"Via tingler? That'll alert Bernhard."

"Can't avoid it. Besides, by then we ought to be in position to jump him."

"Right. Good luck."

Alamzad to his right, Caine set off. Open your senses, Lathe's old instructions came back to him.

Relax, and allow your subconscious to process the information your ears, nose, and skin are sending it. He concentrated... and as he slipped into the necessary mental state the small bubble of perception around him began to expand. There, off to his right—something large, with a stubby appendage stretched out toward them. One of the fighter craft, somehow still safely inside when the rest were locked out by the base's fall? Probably. Ahead, the sounds of a low voice were becoming audible—Bernhard talking to himself? Odd; but it was the best directional marker the hunters could have asked for. He stepped up his pace; with luck they'd be on top of the blackcollar before Colvin's tingler signal alerted him that he had company.

Caine: Bernhard on phone at far end of hangar.

"Dammit!" Caine snarled to himself, slapping at his tingler. But it was too late; Pittman's ill-timed message had sent the balloon up for good. "Attack," he snapped, charging forward.

Beside him, he sensed Alamzad vectoring off from his direction, swinging wide to flank Bernhard and present a more diffuse target. Caine snatched out his nunchaku, sent the flail swinging in a wide defensive arc ahead of him. Somewhere very near here—

With a crack of hardwood on hardwood the nunchaku leaped in his hand, almost tearing itself from his grip. He had barely time to realize he'd just hit Bernhard's own nunchaku before a foot snapped out toward his chest.

Snapped out much too fast to counter; but if Caine's reflexes weren't those of a blackcollar they were still adequately fast. Twisting at the waist, he managed to turn far enough for the kick to hit him obliquely, the toe of the boot scraping across his chest as it went by. Off-balance, his own counterkick was weak and of dubious aim, but it still connected solidly enough to elicit a grunt of pain from his opponent. Caine let the momentum of Bernhard's kick throw him backward, flipping himself over into a crouch. "Bernhard?" he called into the darkness. "Give it up, Bernhard—you can't get out of here."

The other didn't answer... but abruptly there was a crash of bodies off to his side. "Got him!"

Alamzad gasped, the last word cut off into a whuff of expelled air. Caine took a long step toward the sound, dimly sensing someone else moving in from behind. "Bernhard!" he snapped, and as the faint swish of cloth on cloth telegraphed the blackcollar's coming attack, Caine ducked his head, rolled into a flat somersault, and kicked both feet straight out toward his unseen opponent.

He caught Bernhard square in the chest, from the feel of the impact, throwing the other backward to the floor. Caine's nunchaku was still in his hand; rolling into his knees, he swung it whistling over his head.

The hardwood slammed into bare hangar floor, the crack echoing in the vast room. Caine flipped the flail horizontally, trying to find where Bernhard had rolled to. "Over here!" Colvin called from ahead of him, and Caine was scrambling to his feet when his tingler suddenly went on: Stand by for nova.

Nova; Plinry code for a flare. Caine halted in midstride, squeezing his eyes down to slits... and suddenly the room blazed with light.

Bernhard was caught flat-footed. Even as he twisted his head away from the glare and tried to leap back, Colvin's nunchaku lashed out to catch him hard across his abdomen. Bernhard folded over with a choked gasp, falling heavily to the floor. Colvin raised the nunchaku for a final blow to the head—

"Hold it!" Caine snapped. "Don't kill him. We need to know who he was talking to on the phone."

Colvin caught the flailing half of the nunchaku, brought both sticks down to a guard position. Caine glanced around, spotted Alamzad dragging himself slowly from a prone to a sitting position. "You all right?" Caine asked, stepping toward him.

The other nodded weakly, clutching his stomach... and only then did it penetrate Caine's conscious mind that the light bathing the tableau was far too clean and steady to be coming from a flare.

He turned, squinting against the glare. A pair of spotlights of some sort. He stepped out of their direct line, in time to see a shadowy form climb out and away from a larger shadowy bulk.

The bulk he'd tentatively identified earlier as a leftover fighter craft. "Pittman?" he called.

"Here," Pittman replied, coming around into the light. "What do you know? The damn trick actually worked. I was afraid nothing would happen when I flipped the switch."

"I'm glad you didn't get the laser cannon controls by mistake," Caine countered. "Good move, though. All right, Bernhard—you've had enough time to get your wind back. Who'd you call and what did you tell him?"

Bernhard's face was still pained, but he managed a tight smile anyway. "I called for revenge," he said in a hoarse voice. "You're finished, Caine—you and your whole crowd of troublemakers. I've just burned your last bridge out of here."

Chapter 38

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Caine growled, his throat suddenly tight.

"It means I've taken out your base of operations," Bernhard said. Still holding his stomach, he eased himself into a sitting position. "You probably didn't know it, but while we were at his house Reger was stupid enough to tell me that he'd had Jensen redo his sensor net. Thought it would be a deterrent, I suppose. The fool. So. In an hour it'll be dark outside; half an hour after that he'll be dead meat."

Alamzad snorted weakly. "You're the fool," he said. "I worked with Jensen on that net, Bernhard—Security won't get within half a klick of Reger's house."

"Security?" Bernhard's lip twisted in contempt. "Quinn's trained idiots couldn't find their way through a garden patch. No, Security won't be called into the act until Reger is dead and his house a smoking ruin—though after that I imagine they'll find enough evidence linking him to you to take his organization apart down to the bedrock."

"So it was your blackcollar team you called," Caine said quietly, an odd feeling of sadness flowing in to replace some of the tension. He'd hoped Bernhard wouldn't do this. "All right, Bernhard—on your face on the floor. Lathe'll want to talk to you."