And for a long second thought he was going to lose the whole thing. Even as he snatched out a knife and cut the pod loose, the truck rounded the top curve and the winds sweeping his perch abruptly changed. Ramming his knife hilt-deep into the trailer roof, he held on, fighting the bucking glider with his other hand until the pull eased enough for him to hit the harness release. The glider flew off into the darkness, and he was just trying to figure out how best to assault the cab when the truck rounded the curve and came to a tire-screeching stop at the side of the road.

Again, he managed to hold on. From ahead came the sound of doors opening, and suddenly he realized what was going on. The truckers had heard the thump of his landing and were coming back to investigate.

Pittman, Braune: Assistance needed NW on road, he signaled, flattening himself against the rooftop.

Tackling two men single-handedly on opposite sides of a truck would be a tricky proposition, and the stakes were too high to risk botching it. Drawing his nunchaku, he eased to the left edge of the trailer and looked down.

To discover the driver examining the truck's axles was a woman.

Even in the faint backwash glow of her flashlight there was no doubt about that. Young-looking, reasonably petite—hardly the sort, somehow, that he would have expected to be driving such a monster on a tricky mountain road at night. But perhaps her companion was a man.

"Karen?" the driver called over the wind. "Anything?"

"Not on this side," a second female voice drifted back. "You?"

"Nope. What could it have been?"

Colvin recognized a cue when he heard it. Flipping his legs over the side, he dropped to the ground in front of the driver. She jumped backward, eyes going wide. "What the hell—who are you?"

"Unexpected company—the thump you heard on your trailer," he said. "Sorry to interrupt your trip, but I'm afraid I need transportation to Denver." He raised his voice. "Karen? Come over to this side of the truck, please."

The driver's gaze dropped to the nunchaku in Colvin's hand. "Oh, God," she breathed. Eyes flicked over his shoulder. "Karen—no!"

And with the crack of a small projectile gun from behind him, something hard slammed into the center of Colvin's back.

His hidden flexarmor was equal to the attack, stopping the pellet and distributing its impact over a large part of his torso. An instant later reflexes had taken over, twisting him around on the balls of his feet into a low crouch and sending the nunchaku whipping through the air toward his assailant.

He caught a glimpse of the woman pointing a pistol marksman-fashion from around the protection of the truck's front bumper before the spinning nunchaku forced her to duck back. The driver hadn't moved; leaping to her side, Colvin grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him as he snatched a shuriken from his pouch. Karen's head and gun poked out from cover again—

"No, Karen, stop!" the driver almost screamed. "He's a blackcollar."

Karen paused, gun still pointed. "Let her go," she called to Colvin. "You can have the truck, but let her go first."

"I don't want the truck—just a ride to Denver," he called back. His tingler came on: Distract her. "I got caught out here without a car," he continued, raising his volume a bit, "and need to get to town.

You were the first vehicle that came along—"

There was a sudden flurry of motion, and when it was over Braune and Pittman had the gun. And Karen.

—

They had the gear from the pod distributed into packs and stored in the trailer by the time Caine and Alamzad reached them. Colvin was standing guard at the rear doors as they approached. "There's room for all of us in the trailer," he reported. "Cargo's some kind of rock—unprocessed oil shale, they called it."

Caine nodded. "Good. Incidentally, Colvin, that was easily the most insane stunt I've ever heard of.

Next time clear something like that with me before you do it, okay? Fine job, though." He nodded to the women sitting with their backs to the front tire under Braune's watchful gaze. "Now, who do we have here?"

"We haven't had full introductions yet. The dark-haired one's named Karen; she's the one who had the pistol."

"Well, we might as well be civil about this—and then get the hell out of here before Security finds us." Caine headed forward, nodded to Braune, and then gestured to the women. "Stand up, please," he told them. "Sorry to have disrupted your trip like this, but as my companion said we need transport to Denver. Your names are...?"

"Karen Lindsay," the dark-haired woman said as they got to their feet. Unlike her companion, she seemed more watchful and angry than afraid. "This is Raina Dupre. If you want the truck, just take it and go."

Caine shook his head. "Afraid a missing truck would raise a little more official notice than we can afford right at the moment. You live together in Denver?"

"In a twoplex, yes," Lindsay answered. "With Raina's husband."

Caine turned his attention to Raina. "When does he expect you in?"

"He works nights." Her face seemed to sag, as if the possible reason for that question had just occurred to her. "He won't be back till seven. Please—you don't need to hurt us—"

"We're not going to hurt you," Caine interrupted her. "You—Ms. Lindsay—where are you taking the truck?"

"Coast Shipping," she told him. "It's in the northeast part of town, near the Seventy-two/Ninety-three crosspoint."

"All right," Caine said, pretending that that meant something to him. "Ms. Dupre, I'm afraid you'll have to stay in back with my men. I'm going to ride up front with your friend to make sure she doesn't try anything heroic."

Raina's mouth tightened, but it was Lindsay who spoke up. "Why not let her drive? I'm not afraid to be locked back there."

"Because I want to talk to you," Caine told her. "Come on—we need to get moving."

—

For the first kilometer or so they rode in silence, Caine watching out the windows as the truck wove in and out through the curves. At times the mountains would be little more than shadows at the edges of the headlight beams; then suddenly a jagged rock face would be rolling along bare meters from the side window. A small town flashed by, its sprinkling of lights wedged into what seemed to be little more than a wide spot in the road.

As yet no sign of Denver itself. We almost had to walk all this, Caine thought soberly. Almost.

The town disappeared to the rear, and beside him Lindsay cleared her throat. "I've heard a lot of stories about blackcollars," she said, "but never anything about them getting lost out in the mountains."

"Some of the things blackcollars do would amaze you," Caine told her, trying not to let his annoyance at the near disaster spill out onto her.

"I'm sure."

He pursed his lips, studying her face as best he could in the dim backwash of the headlights. A

pleasant enough face; more to the immediate point, a face with spirit behind it. A spirit that reminded him strongly of some of the Radix resistance fighters he'd met on Argent. "Do you also hear stories about a group called Torch?" he asked.

There was no reaction he could detect. "Never heard of it," she said. "What sort of business is it in?

Or shouldn't I ask?"

He shrugged. "It's not a secret. Presumably, they fight Ryqril."

She snorted. "Doesn't sound like a group blackcollars would be interested in."

"Then you don't know much about blackcollars. The schools around here don't go in for recent history?"

"I get all the recent history I need from the local news," she retorted.

Caine sighed quietly and gave up. Clearly, the government was slanting the news something fierce—and in retrospect, he should have expected that. If there were blackcollars operating anywhere within a thousand kilometers of Denver, the local Security office would be doing its damnedest to poison public opinion toward them.