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Colonel Seng, who'd led Javelin across Kentucky in the most skillful march into enemy territory Valentine had ever experienced, had once been one of those children.
The Free Republics could use another Colonel Seng.
But twelve. Plus two kids and the women.
He couldn't do twelve. Not all at once, not without running too many risks of a mistake. Duvalier might be able to, but it would take her all night in her methodical manner. But perhaps he could stampede them.
Two paces away, Alessa Duvalier lay swathed in her big overcoat with her sagging, flapped hunter's cap pulled down low. You had to look twice to be sure there was a person there rather than an old, lightning-struck stump.
Her eyes sparkled red, alive at the thought of cutting a few throats. Duvalier had a personal grudge against all Quislings. She'd selected Valentine years ago to become a Cat, tutoring him in sabotage, sniping, assassination, intelligence gathering-all the variegated duties that covert operations in the Kurian Zone entailed. They still bore faint, matching scars on their palms that sealed the odd bond between them, a strange blend of mutual respect and an almost filial blend of conflicting emotions.
"They'll send out scouting parties in the morning, sure as sunrise," Duvalier said.
"Bound to cut the legworm trail," Valentine agreed.
"We could nail the scouts headed our way."
"Which might draw more trouble, if this is just an advance party of a bigger operation," Valentine said. "Besides, it won't help those poor souls in the trailers."
Duvalier's mouth opened and shut again. "Let's skip the usual argument. I know you'll just pull rank anyway."
Valentine answered by stripping off his uniform tunic as she muttered something about crusades and hallelujahs and saving souls.
"We'll need someone good with a rifle," Valentine said. "Just in case they don't bite."
"That old worm driver, Brian something-or-other-he has that scoped Accuracy Suppressed. He hit a deer on the run with it. His kid's always carrying it around."
They ended up bringing the son-his name was Dorian-forward. The father came along as spotter. Dorian's father claimed the boy was just as good a shot, with better eyes. He'd already seen action that summer and been blooded at what in better times would be called the tender age of fifteen at the river crossing where Valentine had taken out a company of Moondaggers with a handful of Bears. Dorian's swagger showed that he considered himself a hardened veteran.
Valentine could just remember what it was to be that young.
He outlined the plan and had Dorian repeat it back to him.
"Steady now, Dorian. Don't pull that trigger unless they throw down on me, or I signal. And the signal is . . . ?"
"You hit the dirt," Dorian said, even though they'd already been through it once.
"Remember to check your target. I'll be moving around a lot in there. Can do?"
"Can do, Major Valentine."
It felt good to run. Valentine enjoyed losing himself in his body. Idleness left his mind free to visit the nightmare graveyard of his experiences, or calculate the chances of living to see another Christmas or summer solstice, or think about the look on the old man with the goatee's face when his fellow prisoner ripped the heel of bread right out of his hand. So he escaped by chopping wood, loping along at the old easy Wolf cadence-even the rhythmic thrust of lovemaking.
Though the last left him feeling vaguely guilty for not being attentive enough to the woman.
Since they'd said good-bye to the Bulletproof legworm clan after the battle across the river from Evansville, he had nothing but memories of Tikka's vigorous sensuality and the musky smell of her skin. They could be revisited at his leisure. Now he had work to do.
He had the sense that their affair was over, her curiosity, or erotic interest, or-less flatteringly-the desire to cement good relations between Southern Command's forces and her clan being satisfied.
He crouched in a bush, watching the young sentry, who seemed to be watching nothing but stars and the rising moon.
Valentine checked his little .22 automatic, which he usually carried wrapped up in a chamois with his paperwork. Over the years he'd had cause to kill with everything from his bare hands to artillery fire, but he'd found a small-caliber pistol more useful than any other weapon. It was quiet, the rounds were accurate at close range, and you could carry it concealed. With the lead in the nose etched with a tiny cross so it would fragment and widen the wound, it did damage out of proportion to the weight of the round.
He wondered if the Kurians' death-machine avatars, the Reapers, felt the same electric nervousness when they stalked a victim.
Of course, in a meadow like this, in open country, Reapers did not stalk, at least not for the last few dozen meters. They acted more like the big, fast cats Valentine had seen loose in the hill country in central Texas, covering the distance in an explosive rush that either startled their prey into stillness or made escape futile.
Of course, in the city it was something else entirely. Urban Reapers were the trap-door spiders of many a ruined block, striking from a patch of overgrowth, a pile of garbage, or a crack in the ceiling. But he doubted these headhunters worked the cities. Too much law and order, even if the bad law and order of the KZ.
