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"I've got eight men who've run courier for Martinez up north. They know where to go."
"Keep those uniforms handy. You may need them again."
"Very well, sir."
"More responsibility than you wanted, I'm sure."
Finner rocked back and forth on his heels, keeping time to the music, fighting a smile. "I'm getting used to it. I think I'm better at this than I thought. Hope you didn't think I was accusing ..." Finner let the sentence trail off.
"No. Stay suspicious, Finner. If I'd been more suspicious when we hit the Free Territory-oh, never mind. I want to pay this Consul Solon back with some of his own coin."
* * * *
Finner and his Wolves left them while they were still in the hills. The road sloped down into the Ruins. It began to rain again. Valentine put an old green towel over his shaven head so the ends hung down like a bloodhound's ears and seated an old Kevlar helmet over it.
"This cover my scar?" he asked Post. "I'm worried I've made Solon's Most Wanted."
"Pretty much," Post said, tilting his head to see the thin white line descending Valentine's right cheek. "It's shaded off, anyway. You can still see the bit by your eye. It's the haircut that makes the real difference."
"That wasn't a haircut, that was clear-cutting."
"Your teeth could use some coffee stains to complete the disguise. I've never known anyone who spends so much time brushing his teeth in the field."
"Every meal, the way my momma taught me." That memory caused a brief stab: the last time he'd seen them in Minnesota he was eleven and she'd-stop it. "If you'd ever seen a nice, runny oral infection you'd join me," he finished, a little lamely.
The column passed shells of buildings. Empty gas stations, strip malls with their glass fronts blasted out, foundations of homes that had burned and died grew closer and closer together as they came into the city limits. Gutted two-story structures gave way to piles of rubble, though the highway they walked on had been cleared. The debris lined either side of the road like snowdrifts.
The column sighted a guard post.
"Okay, Post, I'm going to talk to them. They'll probably take me to the CO of this scrapheap. If I'm not back in two hours, or if you hear shooting, just fade into the hills. Split up if you have to."
"Told me that, sir."
"I'm repeating it. Nobody, not even Ahn-Kha, goes in after me. We want them confused; fighting will unconfuse them faster than anything."
A sergeant with a corporal trailing behind like a heeled dog stepped from a little shelter at the spectacle of a quarter mile of humanity waking down the road toward his post. They wore tiger-striped cammies, with AOT yellow insignia at the shoulder. Valentine kicked his horse on and trotted forward. Ahn-Kha stepped in front of his horse and took the reigns.
"I heard you speaking to Post. If this turns, we're not to go in after you?"
"Not even you, old horse."
"If I can't go in after you, my David, I'm coming in with you."
"Post will need you if-"
"You'll need me more."
Ahn-Kha's ears went flat and the Grog took a stance a little wider than a riverside oak, four hundred pounds of roadblock.
"You'll be my bodyguard then," Valentine said, knowing when he was beaten, and not wanting to look like there was a crisis in his command.
They approached the guard station. Valentine hailed the sergeant from horseback.
"We're a day late, I know. Bad weather," Valentine said.
"A day late for what?" the sergeant said. He looked more at Ahn-Kha than at either Valentine or the unarmed column far behind. Valentine was suddenly glad Ahn-Kha had insisted on accompanying him.
Valentine glared, and turned his chin so the three pips on his collar showed.
