It was near midnight. Kelmer Faronya lay on his belly on the side of a large stone pile, the boundary corner of four farms. Next to him lay Jerym Alsnor, and on Alsnor's other side a picked young captain, a Smoleni intelligence officer selected by Colonel Fossur. About half a mile ahead lay the village of Hearts Content, a large village, one-time seat of government for a large district. The Komarsi didn't call it Hearts Content. To them, according to the intelligence briefing, it was Brigade Base Four.
The least moon was near the zenith, and full. Another, a larger half disk, lay dusky gold on the treetops behind them in the west. Even in the light of just one, Kelmer felt dangerously exposed. Through his visor, he could see almost as well as by daylight, saw what his camera saw, and of course it adjusted to the available light. Specifically he saw Komarsi soldiers standing guard at the fence ahead of them. It had been decided by someone, perhaps Lord Kristal himself, that a journalist's video equipment, being non-military, need not meet Level 3 military restrictions. Colonel Voker had warned him not to tell the troopers what he saw through it though, said it as if he'd meant it. Kelmer wasn't sure what he'd do if Jerym asked him to.
Lieutenant Jerym Alsnor glanced back. It was time to move; the setting moon had half disappeared behind the treetops. The grass and weeds made better cover than he'd expected. The Komarsi had torn down the rail fences in the fields, presumably to prevent them being used for cover, then sent out crews with hay mowers to cut the grass and weeds. But they'd been allowed to grow up again. The responsible thing for them to have done, it seemed to him, was plow the fields, then harrow them every week or two.
Remarkable carelessness, born of overconfidence. That'll change after tonight, he told himself, whether we pull this off or not.
Scouting from a treetop at sundown, his binoculars had shown him the sentry posts around the ordnance dump, and at intervals around the rest of the camp. Now, with one hand he operated the signal scratcher he carried, heard it answered, then tucked it back into a shirt pocket. The sound they made was easily distinguished at some distance, but also easily dismissed as small night creatures. His men knew better. Then he flowed off the stone pile and began creeping toward the gate where the road entered the fenced compound.
The sentry stood with his rifle at order arms, as prescribed. His attention wasn't as prescribed though. He was thinking of the foreman's daughter back home. She'd never given him better than mild disdain, but in his imagination he enticed her into the hayloft, then grabbed and kissed her. Her eyes had widened, and she'd clutched him passionately. He'd slipped the skirt off her haunches, and . . .
An arm locked across his face, his mouth, and a heavy, razor-sharp knife drew firmly across his throat.
A moment later his killer stood in the sentry's place, the sentry's rifle at present arms. Seconds later he heard the wire cutters, kept hearing them. Now if the zone between the fences was clean, the way they'd been told . . .
At the truck-park office, only two soldiers were on duty, playing cards. There was no guard at the door. It opened. A man stepped in with a small crossbow, fired a bolt and dropped to his knees. Instantly the man behind him released another. The first Komarsi's forehead had hardly hit the table before the second was falling sideways.
* * *
Jerym walked openly down the street, followed by twelve troopers. They carried no packs, because in the village, Komarsi soldiers wouldn't ordinarily carry them. The weapons slung at their shoulders were submachine guns instead of rifles, providing heavier firepower for close range.
He'd know soon how good Colonel Fossur's informants were. At intervals he grunted a low "here," gesturing, and two men turned off to disappear into the shadow of some house. Finally there were only himself and two others. They continued to the inn, where Jerym stopped on the broad porch and sat down on a bench, as if for a chew of spice leaves before going in. The other two disappeared inside. One went on through to station himself in the back yard. The other, grenades dangling, sat down in the lobby, where he could watch the stairs and the hall beyond them.
At the ordnance dump, a man opened the gate, and a tarp-topped half-ton truck rolled out. He closed the gate behind it. So far, he thought, things seemed to be going perfectly. So far. At worst, now, they'd raise enough hell to make it worthwhile. He resumed his guard post, in case some Komarsi came while the others were stringing the det cord.
The half-ton rolled quietly, slowly down the street, headlights on but half-hooded, according to brigade policy as last known. It passed the inn, reached the village plaza, and followed the street around one side of it. The driver had thoroughly assimilated the intelligence they'd been given. He didn't review it now, didn't need to. He simply acted on it, on it and his warrior perceptions and reflexes.
At the far end of the plaza was the district government building and village hall combined, a large, two-story frame building that was now brigade headquarters and communication center. At least a skeleton crew would be on duty through the night there, and the brigadier and his immediate staff had their quarters in what had been the district magistrate's residence next door. There should be guards, but the slipshod way these Komarsi did things, he wouldn't bet on it.
The two guards at the headquarters entrance watched the half-ton approach. "Bloody strange," one of them said quietly. "The brigadier said headlights had to be full-hooded." He pursed his lips. "Somethin' mayn't be right. Get back inside the door and watch."
He moved quickly down the steps, submachine gun ready, and strode into the middle of the street, walking toward the oncoming half-ton. It slowed, stopped, and calling, he ordered the driver out. Instead of the driver, the man beside him got out and stepped toward the guard. He seemed to have no weapon. "What's the matter?" he asked, then abruptly dropped to one knee, drawing a pistol as he did so, and fired. The guard went backward, his weapon discharging into the air as he fell.
The truck jerked forward then, passing the kneeling trooper. At the same moment the other guard stepped onto the porch, firing a long burst through the windshield, hitting the driver. The half-ton rolled on, slowing, and the remaining trooper vaulted in over the tailgate.
Unsteered, it swerved, lurching to a stop a half-dozen yards from the building, and the remaining guard approached it crouching, ready to fire again. There was a tremendous explosion, a blinding flash as the truck erupted . . .
Kelmer Faronya crouched by a tree near the base gate. The men who stood guard were men he knew. Earlier he'd almost died of nerves, waiting in the grass sixty yards away, his camera tracking one of them while they'd stalked the guards who'd stood where they stood now. Whose bodies they'd dragged into the shallow ditch beside the road. It had seemed impossible they wouldn't be seen, wouldn't be shot down, bringing the whole unlikely scenario falling with them. Nothing in the training at Blue Forest provided the necessary skills. He hadn't known there were such skills.
Simply by watching, he'd recorded it all. Now there was nothing to record, but from his tree-side vantage he recorded anyway, staring down the graveled main street into the village. It was difficult to breathe. Gunfire would surely break out any minute, and the sleeping village would erupt with armed and angry soldiers. A half-ton appeared, turned onto the main street, and he watched/recorded it recede toward the village center. He knew its roles: destruction and cue. It was almost time; perhaps they'd do it yet. It lost itself in the darkness, blocking the close fan of illumination from its hooded lights, and he waited some more. And waited.
Suddenly there was a shot, then another. A submachine gun belched. Seconds later the night was split by a powerful explosion. Almost at once there was more submachine-gun fire, continuing, and the dull roars of grenades. An alarm whooped needlessly, and he imagined soldiers pouring from the village houses, each of them a barracks of armed men. Then the ground shook, and again, and again, the explosions overlapping like a string of monstrous lady-fingers as ordnance bunkers blew.
His paralysis was gone. He wanted to slip back down the road, run through the grass, find the forest, but the two troopers stood watchfully at the guard posts, and he would not go till they did. They were his friends, and he feared their disdain even more than he feared the enemy.
Minutes passed with diminishing gunfire, then two of the troopers who'd marched up the street with Jerym appeared and stood beside Kelmer in the deep shadow beneath the tree. He felt safer with them there. Soon a GPV came, headlights unhooded, and together they hid from it, bunched behind the tree. A Komarsi officer got out and walked over to question the troopers by the gate. Their answers seemed to satisfy him, because he got back in the vehicle and it turned and drove back into the village.
Three more troopers arrived, one of them Jerym. "All right," he said, "let's get our asses out of here." Seen through the visor, he seemed exhilarated. They turned and trotted down the road a short distance till they were joined by men with light machine guns who'd been placed to cover them if they were pursued. They all left the road then, loping across the field, even the men carrying the machine guns running easily and swiftly. In eight or nine minutes they reached the forest edge. Jerym whistled shrilly, was answered, and soon others joined them; the men who'd blown the ordnance dump had gotten out earlier. But of the men who'd marched into town with the lieutenant, there were only the four.
The men that were with him, though, were grinning. Kelmer stood unbelieving. Then Jerym gave the order, and once more quiet, they headed into the woods along an old sleigh road.