"There were four of them in the lead jeep. One of them was in normal clothes."
"Did you see who it was? There's nobody in the platoon left."
"I don't know."
"It could be our traitor."
Jacintha stroked Denise's cheek. "I don't think there is one."
"There has to be! Newton has Prime."
"Our dragon isn't unique," Jacintha chided gently.
"But..."
"Come on, we need to finish this."
The four of them split into pairs to approach the crashed jeep, closing on it from opposite sides.
"Newton was in there when he detected our Prime infiltration," Gangel said. "And that diagnostic probe is still transmitting. Whoever the fourth man is, he's in a bad way."
"Do you think Newton is still in there?" Jacintha asked.
She and Denise were crouched at the corner of the next house along the main street. When Denise inched around the foundation pier she could see the battered rear end of the jeep sticking out of the house. Nothing moved. Heat traces around the jeep were confused and fading. "I doubt it But he can't have got far."
"Okay. Eren, any heat traces on your side?"
"Nothing."
"Stand by. We're going in."
"I'm going in," Denise said. "You cover me."
She scurried along the front of the house, keeping flat against the wall. Her breathing had quickened, the rasping loud in her ears. Heat was flooding out of the jeep, its axle motors gleaming crimson, power cells casting a vermilion glow underneath the chassis. The smashed-up wall was crisscrossed with hot ruby lines where the material had bent and cracked. Denise eased herself through the gap at the side of the jeep, her pistol sweeping across the room. There were thermal tracks all over the floor, leading to the door. Jacintha climbed up behind her and nodded.
Denise flipped around the open door, into the hallway. It was empty. The door at the far end was open a couple of centimeters. She didn't even need infrared. The dust showed two sets of Skin bootprints going straight to it. Only one came out.
Her bracelet pearl pinpointed the diagnostic card broadcasting from inside. The fourth man was definitely in there. Beads of perspiration were building up on her face. It was no good creeping along the hall: the Skin carbines could shoot through walls as if they were fog. She sucked down a breath and sprinted down the hall, bursting through the door. Shock froze her.
Jacintha followed her sister into the end room and nearly knocked into her. Denise was standing rigid in the middle of the room, pistol pointing at the figure slumped in the corner.
"You're dead," Denise croaked. She was aiming at Hal Grabowski's head. The same Hal Grabowski who had faced a firing squad and died. Now here he was again, all by himself in an abandoned house in Dixon. Her pistol arm shivered slightly.
"Who the hell's that?" Jacintha asked.
"Hal Grabowski."
"You mean the Hal Grabowski that you set up in Memu Bay? The one Z-B executed?"
"Yes," Denise snapped. She straightened her arm, ready to shoot. She couldn't do it, not an unconscious man. Then she noticed the writing on the wall beside him.
HELP HIM I WILL KNOW
The diagnostic probe was resting against Hal's abdomen, still transmitting. Denise looked from that to the big medical kit box.
Gangel and Eren slipped into the room.
"Where's Newton?" Eren asked. "And... hey, isn't that Grabowski?"
Denise flashed him an exasperated glance and finally lowered her pistol. Gangel went over to the window. The frame was open. When he pushed at the plywood sheet nailed up outside, it swung out. "Looks like Newton left."
"So what about him?" Eren asked, pointing at Grabowski.
"He's Newton's problem," Denise said.
An explosion went off somewhere in the town.
Gangel was squinting through the gap at the side of the plywood. "That was a smart missile. He just took out the general store building. What the hell did he do that for?"
Denise looked at Hal again. She understood the message now. "He's not asking."
"What?" Jacintha asked.
"Newton wouldn't abandon an injured comrade. He's not asking us pretty please to help Grabowski. He's telling us."
There was a huge explosion outside. The house on the other side of the main street blew apart, fragments of composite panels and solar collectors whirling through the air to rain down over a wide area. Dust and smoke surged up out of the crater, spreading out in a miniature mushroom cloud.
The blast shook the room. Denise ducked in reflex. The glass in the window frame cracked, and the plywood sheet whirled away, allowing sunlight to blaze in. She saw the diagnostic probe had fallen off Grabowski and scrambled over the floor to grab it. She slapped it down on Grabowski's stomach; the display pane began to register his vital signs again. "All right! We'll do it."
Jacintha stared at her. "Do what?"
"Newton's out there with a rack of smart missiles—which he's probably loaded with Prime. He'll keep firing them over Dixon until he runs out. If we go outside, the seeker head will spot us and... that's it. Even we can't deflect one of them. The only place we're safe, the only coordinate he'll never target, is here with Grabowski. And if we don't keep Grabowski alive, guess which house the next missile will take out."
"Sneaky bastard," Gangel said with bemused admiration.
"You said it," Denise grunted.
They all winced as another missile detonated. The flash was close to the maintenance shed. Smoke began to rise over the rooftops.
"He's not kidding, is he?" Jacintha said. She knelt beside Grabowski and lifted his shirt up. "We'd better get to work." She took a dragon-extruded analyzer unit out of her pocket, placing it over one of Hal's defunct medical organ modules. The little plastic rectangle softened and began to mold itself round the module.
"What range have those missiles got?" Eren asked.
"Three kilometers," Denise told him.
"That's not too far. We know he was injured. We can catch him."