Even now, the dedicated trains provided by Brussels were still running from Newcastle’s central railway station, taking the exiles down to the channel tunnel, then fanning out across the GE to designated dispersal cities. Buses ran on a constant loop between Last Mile and the station’s grandiose stone entrance on Neville Street, with the city’s traffic management network providing a clear route, and squad cars riding escort ostensibly to keep those particular streets clear, but in reality to make sure no one jumped off to make themselves a life in Newcastle. The city simply couldn’t afford any more migrants right now. It was struggling to cope with the bioil workers who’d returned earlier, and they all at least had company money behind them.
Away from the hustle and bustle of the Highcastle relief operation, Sherman’s team was coming together under Jede’s careful management. Three vans had been ghosted in the West Chirton GSW hideaway; now they were driving eastward along the A149, keeping well within the speed limit, doing nothing that could attract the attention of any officialdom.
One of the three micro copters was keeping pace with the lead van, the one containing Ruckby and a couple of byteheads they’d drafted in to help with the raid. The second van was driven by Boz, who had a pair of street soldiers riding with him, tough guys armed and ready to deal with any trouble. Jede drove the third van by himself.
To mirror them, Sid and Ralph were together; Abner shared a car with Eva, parked up on the north edge of Jarrow; while Ian was by himself, waiting outside the Simonside metro station car park. They weren’t using the surveillance routines, or even accessing the traffic macromesh to keep tabs on the vans. The gang task force files on the two byteheads Jede had recruited showed they were experts at dealing with alarms and observation routines. Sid was taking no chances. Despite the drizzle, he was determined they’d track the raid via micro copter alone. And this weather was mild; the sensors on the little machines could easily cope with a light Geordie squall.
“Do you think they’ll kill the guards?” Eva asked over their secure ringlink. “Those thugs Boz has with him are armed.”
“I doubt it,” Sid said. “Sherman won’t want to draw excess attention to what goes down tonight. If I know him he’ll be lifting a whole load of stuff as well as his actual target items; that way nobody will know what they were actually here for. It’ll look like a high-end black-market theft.”
“But if they do? If something goes wrong?”
“Then we know exactly who to arrest.”
“That won’t mean a lot to the victim’s families. We could have had a tactical team on standby.”
Ralph turned his head to look at Sid. In the yellow streetlight filtering through the windshield, his skin looked deathly gray, amplifying his expression.
“There’s a lot of maybes in that, Eva,” Sid said.
“These people are professional,” Abner said. “They’ll shoot Tasers and tranks, not bullets or e-bolts.”
“Great,” she said. “So we’re relying on Sherman to be capable.”
“He didn’t get where he is by making a noise,” Ralph said. “Besides, this is an official HDA operation. It’s my responsibility, and therefore my decision not to involve anyone else. You’re covered.”
Now it was Sid’s turn to give Ralph a blank stare. The agent responded with a shrug. “Shuts her up,” he muttered.
Sid let out a long breath, then returned to the visual in his grid.
Trigval Molecular Solutions dominated the Bede Industrial Estate where it was situated, a seven-story ultramodern, carbon-black, all sharp-edged geometries intersecting at odd angles, crystallization architecture that had gone subtly wrong. It was surrounded by a moat of corporate parkland, with a formal layout of grass, pruned bushes, and staked trees, with precise leisure zones of benches and tables where employees could take a break in warmer months.
The vans driven by Ruckby and Boz arrived at the entrance, where a red-and-white barrier was down. It slid up immediately and they both drove in, following the road around to a loading bay door at the back of the building.
“No alert registering in any police network,” Ian said. “They’re in clean.”
“Oh, they’re good,” Ralph acknowledged.
The two goons were already out of Boz’s van when a security guard emerged from a side door to check up on the unexpected activity. A tiny flash was visible to the micro copter’s sensor mesh, along with an electromagnetic spike. The guard crumpled. One of the goons dragged him back inside. Ruckby led the byteheads in after them.
“Taser,” Ian said. “Happy now, pet?”
“Ecstatic,” Eva retorted.
They waited and watched for seventeen minutes, while Boz sat patiently in his van and the drizzle gradually abated. Sid tried not to think of the silent mayhem playing out inside the black building. Eva’s worries were a meme gaining power in his mind.
Eventually, Jede drew up at the entrance, and the barrier lifted again. He drove around to the other two vans; then he and Boz went inside. It was another eleven minutes before one of the loading bay doors rolled up, sending a fan of bright orange-tinged light spilling out across the wet tarmac. Boz jumped down from the platform and hurried over to Jede’s van, backing it up to the open bay. Shadows wove back and forth through the light as the team started loading up the van.
“Aye, man,” Sid said grudgingly. “Got to admit, they know what they’re doing.”
“Can we see what’s in those crates?” Ralph asked.
“Not without sending the copter in closer,” Sid said. “Which I’m not going to do, I don’t want to blow this now. Abner, launch the other two micro copters, please. We need to keep tight on Jede’s van when they go for the getaway.”
“Going airborne now.”
The van was loaded after another four minutes. Doors slammed shut, the loading bay lights went off. All three vans drove out.
“Okay,” Sid said. “Abner, Ralph: We’re following Jede’s van. Focus on that. We have positive IDs on the others, we can pick them up anytime.”
“Aye, boss,” Abner said.
Sid glanced over at Ralph for confirmation, but the agent already had his eyes closed as he whispered instructions to his e-i, which controlled the micro copter’s flight. He figured any more instructions would just be patronizing and let the agent get on with it.
The three vans separated as soon as they cleared Trigval’s gate. Boz and Ruckby headed back toward the city in their respective vans, while Jede took the Tyne tunnel.
Sid switched the police car to auto and told it to start following Jede. Abner sent one of the micro copters racing on ahead to the north of the Tyne, making sure it would be at the far end of the tunnel when Jede came out.
“Unless they pull a switch on us,” Ian said. “The tunnel is the best place for that. And we know they’re good at that kind of subterfuge; look how they fooled us with the taxi.”
“Unlikely,” Ralph said.
“We’re on the tunnel approach now,” Sid said. “If there’s another van, we’ll see it.”
They dipped down the approach road and went into the tunnel. Sid watched his grid, allowing himself a quick smile as Jede’s van cleared the far end. “Seems okay.” His e-i relayed a warning from the auto that the macromesh of the road junction at the end of the tunnel had glitched, and advised him to switch to manual. “Oh yeah, like that was coincidence. What’s he doing, Abner?”
“Circling the roundabout, twice now. Ah, no, wait, here we go, he’s off down the A19.”
Sid switched the car to auto. “And what’s the betting the van’s got a different license code now?”
“No takers,” Ralph said. Behind them, Eva and Abner were entering the tunnel, with Ian a minute farther back. Traffic was minimal, mainly taxis, which brought a wry grin to Sid’s face.
Abner and Ralph kept the micro copters in a triangular formation two hundred meters above the van. Their three cars took up position trailing a kilometer behind, and drove steadily. Jede kept going all the way to the end of the A19, where he turned onto the A1.
“Interesting,” Ian said as they watched the van turn onto the northbound carriageway and accelerate down the practically empty road. “Where’s the bugger off to, then?”
They followed the van onto the A1, and Sid kept their speed constant for a while, allowing the separation distance to build to a few kilometers. When that was established he matched Jede’s speed.
After six and a half kilometers the carriageway’s overhead lights ended, leaving them racing on into the darkness. A lot of the land beside the road used to be fields, but the farmers had long ago taken GE grant money under the natural reversion scheme. Now the forests were spreading out again, covering the undulating land with sturdy deciduous trees that provided a huge wildlife reserve.
“Going to have to think about bringing the micro copters down to recharge soon,” Ralph said. “We can do it in relay.”
“Aye,” Sid agreed. “Who knew he’d be coming all the way out here.”
They passed a sign for the Alnwick slip road.
“Augustine lives around here, doesn’t he?” Sid said.
Ralph shot him a look. “It can’t be. He could just buy Trigval, there’d be no need for tonight’s activity.”
“Aye, just saying, man.”
“Screw this,” Ralph grunted.
“So what else can active-state matter be used for?” Sid asked. “Apart from in gateways.”
“Sorry, classified.”
“The company was defense-listed, we checked. So it has to be involved in some kind of weapons for the HDA.”
“I can’t fault your logic.”
“War gateways, is that it? They’re supposed to be a lot more stable than the exploratory ones, you know, before you send through an anchor mechanism.”
“Sid, really, I can’t tell you. It’s need-to-know only.”
“All right,” Sid grumbled.
They spent the next ten minutes in silence. Then the van reached North Charlton. The micro copters showed its brake lights coming on, followed by the indicator.
Sid studied the map projected on the windshield. There were three tiny roads spiking out from the hamlet. None of them were included in the macromesh. “Crap on it.”
Ralph growled in agreement. “Those roads are too small, and nobody but locals uses them at this time of night. If this is where the handover is, they’ll have them monitored.”
“We’ve just passed the B6374 turning. Nothing for it, we’ll have to keep going. Eva, Ian, turn off onto the B6374 and we’ll see where he goes.”
“Got it, boss,” Eva said.
Sid watched anxiously as the van drove over the carriageway bridge and started heading east on the narrow track. “Oh bugger it, that road leads back to the B6374. Eva, Ian, just stop.”
Sid drove under the bridge that Jede had gone over a minute before. He resisted the impulse to crane his neck in an attempt to spot the van. Besides, he could see from the grid that Jede was south of them now.
The van carried on down the lane at barely thirty kph. Then they all saw its brake lights flare red again, and it turned off.
“Now where are you going?” Sid asked. His e-i immediately pulled the satellite image up onto the windshield, superimposing it over the map. The image had been taken in midsummer, when the meadows and woods were graded shades of lush green. They saw the track the van was on, which led to a cluster of old buildings enveloped by the burgeoning forest.
“Farmhouse,” Ralph said. “And there’s a lot of infrared emission down there. Interesting, because my e-i’s harvest is telling me the barns are is under redevelopment as holiday cottages for the English Countryside Retreats company.”
“Keep the micro copters back,” Sid said urgently. “If this is the center of Aldred’s operation, they’ll have some serious sensors keeping watch.”
“The copters are well stealthed, boss,” Ian protested.
“I don’t care. These people are smart. We pull them back.” Sid was desperate to turn the car Around and head back to where the others were parked on the B6374, but that just couldn’t happen. He’d have to leave at least an hour before coming back through North Charlton to avoid suspicion. “What now?” he asked.
“I call it in and get us backup,” Ralph said. “A lot of backup. This has just turned serious. They’re not handing the systems on for black-market resale; that’s a functioning operation down there involving active-matter technology.”
“Aye, crap on it. I was kind of enjoying this, man, you know.”
“Sid, you’ve done a terrific job. Really. It won’t go unnoticed.”
“Thanks. One favor?”
“What?”
“Let us in on the rest of the case. We’ll take the backseat, no question, but I think we deserve to be there. We might even be able to keep contributing.”
“Last fling, huh? You’re supposed to be an office baron now.”
“Still my case, though, man. And you owe me.”
“We’re going to need high-level liaison with local police. I’ll mention your name to some people.”
*
The Wukang convoy had finally cleared the jungle on Friday, two days longer than Vance had been quietly praying for. As if to compensate, the weather had gradually been improving. The aurora borealis was still the dominant power in St. Libra’s atmosphere, but the clouds were higher, and occasionally breaking up, allowing them to see clear up to a copper sky where Sirius burned its unnatural bright roseate pink. They even caught occasional glimpses of the rings. Temperature had risen a couple of degrees. The winds still blew, though their strength had diminished.
Such good fortune should have allowed them to make better progress. But open ground brought its own problems, and they still didn’t cover much distance each day.
Vance was driving MTJ-1, taking point. It was almost a displacement activity for him. Driving over the unending snowfield required his absolute concentration. He simply couldn’t think about anything else, which was a relief.
The landscape of blank snow shimmered in gaudy reds and greens as the snow reflected the aurora’s gigantic phosphorescent rivers overhead. The shifting light played havoc with his perception, making the ridges and dunes and gulches formed by the snow hard to judge. Sometimes a hump he’d thought of as rising only a meter would turn out to be as high as the MTJ, and he’d ram into it believing the plow blade would slice clean through only to come to a juddering slam-halt, embedding the vehicle so firmly the axle hub motors couldn’t extricate them. Then they’d have to take twenty minutes to half an hour to rig up the tow cable, and the other MTJ would haul them free. After that they’d have to find a lower point in the ridge and punch through. If they couldn’t find a low saddle, they’d just have to keep ramming the dune until they broke through, which could take hours.