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Post by skybright on Mar 12, 2008 0:08:34 GMT -5
Daws arrived back at Our Lady shortly before noon the following day and made her way to the basement meeting room, where she found Father Rick perched moodily on one of the folding chairs.
"No sign of Proteus yet, huh?" Daws asked, slipping off her fedora and straddling a chair backwards.
Father Rick shook his head. "None. What'd Jai have to say last night?"
"He went paler than I've ever seen him -- and that's saying something. Said he'd spend all night working on it." Daws shrugged. "This whole thing hits pretty close to home for him."
"It does for all of us." Padre shook his head. "I don't want to believe this of the government I fought for, and yet . . ." He spread his hands in a hopeless gesture.
"Yeah." Daws sighed, thinking of Vance. "I get the feeling that's a common sentiment, Padre."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 12, 2008 22:12:33 GMT -5
Vance's contingent was the next to appear. Besides Handy and Nate, the Major was accompanied by Roger Latimore, who looked uncharacteristically grim--the news of the Mount Bliss project had been universally taken hard by the group's ex-soldiers.
"Hello, Regina, Padre," Vance murmured. "Looks like you haven't had any news yet."
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Post by skybright on Mar 12, 2008 22:17:08 GMT -5
Daws shook her head. "Nothing so far. Jai's going to send Veeru along with whatever he managed to scrounge up overnight."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 12, 2008 22:47:10 GMT -5
"Here's hoping we can work something out between him and Proteus." Vance slouched into a chair. "In the meantime, based on the tentative plans we talked about last night, I've been pulling ordnance together."
"And I've checked on borrowing a helicopter," Roger put in. "I know a TV news pilot down in Jersey, and he's okay with helping me out. He can work out an excuse of going out to film some stock footage--only I'd be the one taking out the chopper instead of him."
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Post by skybright on Mar 12, 2008 22:54:15 GMT -5
Daws rubbed her neck. "Guess that solves the question of how to get Cole down there -- we'll still have to rope him into this, though."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 13, 2008 21:37:35 GMT -5
"And to do that, we have to get to him in the first place," Vance sighed. "That's just one more problem to take up time we don't have."
Nate frowned. "That's even assuming we can get enough dope on the guards at Mount Bliss to catch one."
Footsteps on the stairs signaled the arrival of Sid and Miriam--unaccompanied by Alex, remarkably enough. Sid shrugged at the raised eyebrows this fact prompted.
"I made Foxy stay home with the kids," he explained. "I don't want him hearin' any more details an' gettin' even more worked up than he is."
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Post by skybright on Mar 13, 2008 22:38:05 GMT -5
Padre nodded briskly. "Not a bad move on your part, Sid." He said.
A few minutes later Veeru Patil descended the stairs, leaning on the hand railing as he did so. Over one shoulder he carried a leather satchel and a cardboard mailing tube slung on a length of black cord. "Hello, everyone." He said, unshouldering his burdens as he took a chair.
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 14, 2008 22:20:40 GMT -5
Vance nodded. "Nice to see you again. I just wish it was under better circumstances... looks to me like you and your brother may have something for us, though." Before Veeru could reply, the Major looked at Sid and Miriam. "You know if Casselton is coming?"
Miriam shrugged. "I talked to him this morning. I think so, but... he's a little uneasy about all of this."
"Aren't we all," Nate murmured grimly.
Sid sighed. "I got my schedule cleared, anyway. An' if we're gonna need any food down south, I can get some stuff from the Club's larder packed."
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Post by skybright on Mar 14, 2008 22:24:59 GMT -5
"I think it's best for you to stock up on supplies here." Father Rick said, rubbing his hands together thoughtfully. "Fewer chances for any of you to get spotted -- even a cashier could be a dangerous witness, if anyone got persistent enough about finding one of you later."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 14, 2008 22:55:55 GMT -5
Vance nodded. "This has definitely got to be as secret as anything we've ever done. Remember that we're protecting our identities on two fronts this time--from Tiernan, and from whoever's behind the Mount Bliss operation."
Miriam frowned. "You and I might be beyond that point, Major. Tiernan knows both of us--and it could be easy for him to assume we're behind any trouble we can cause with this plan of his, too." Her eyes darkened. "If we're successful, maybe he wouldn't be above letting our names leak to this mutual enemy, too."
"And then the government, or whoever it is, will be looking for our hides too," Vance agreed blackly.
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Post by skybright on Mar 14, 2008 23:04:11 GMT -5
"So the sneakier, the better." Daws said, frowning. "As if there weren't enough factors to take into account, here."
She glanced tensely towards the stairwell. "Wish Proteus'd show up, if he's going to."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 15, 2008 20:50:28 GMT -5
"Be patient. You know better than anybody how tricky it is to snoop around Tiernan's lair." Vance leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw, not looking particularly patient himself.
Only a few seconds later, they heard footsteps on the stairs--but the new arrival was only Henry. He paused on the steps and looked around pensively, then came down the rest of the way.
"Good afternoon... such as it is," he said demurely as he sat down. "I don't know what use I can be in this, but here I am."
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Post by skybright on Mar 15, 2008 21:01:10 GMT -5
Daws shrugged. "I guess having another level head in on the planning certainly can't hurt."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 15, 2008 21:16:29 GMT -5
A few more minutes passed in quiet, nervous small talk before they heard footsteps again, and Proteus finally appeared.
"I'm sorry I'm late," he said briskly as he approached the group. "The person I was faking was on a schedule. Long story..." His silver eyes turned to Veeru. "Mister--Patil? I think we met at Miss Rosenstein's birthday bash."
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Post by skybright on Mar 15, 2008 21:24:04 GMT -5
Veeru nodded. "Yes, we did. It's good to see you again -- I only wish that the circumstances were better ones."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 15, 2008 21:39:14 GMT -5
"I'm not sure these folks ever have such a thing as good circumstances," Proteus said frankly, and sat down. "I managed to find out certain things, at least--but let's hear what your computer people learned first."
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Post by skybright on Mar 15, 2008 21:54:03 GMT -5
Veeru nodded seriously and reached for his satchel. "My brother spent all night combing the Internet." He said. "I wish we had better results to show for it, but . . ."
He shrugged. "Most of what is out there about this 'Mount Bliss' amounts to nothing but rumors -- conspiracy-theory messageboards and crackpot newsgroups. Maybe there's some truth in them, but unearthing it is slow going."
Veeru withdrew a thin sheaf of papers from the satchel and held them up with an apologetic shrug. "This is the information from those sources that Jai thinks may be genuine -- what he managed to find so far, anyway. It isn't much -- a vague general location, places their supplies are supposed to be shipped from, the nearest military bases, some things like that.
"Jai has also found a few . . . he called them 'empty spots' on the Web. Possible places where the Mount Bliss complex itself might have its databases. He was still working on them when I left, but that . . ." Veeru shrugged broadly. "Considering the level of security we must be dealing with, that might take more time than we have."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 15, 2008 22:15:34 GMT -5
Vance frowned. "That's not good."
"I already knew the location of Mount Bliss last night," Proteus supplied, and took a folded sheet of paper from beneath his jacket. "And this is a rough layout of the place--or a partial one, at least. It's enough to show where Colonel Ashley is held, and where two guardposts are--but a lot of the rest is a blank. This is all Tiernan himself knows about the complex."
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Post by skybright on Mar 15, 2008 22:25:55 GMT -5
"Which puts us on equal footing with Tiernan." Daws said, "But it still leaves us pretty far behind the other guys."
Veeru cleared his throat. "Jai did find two other things that might be of some use." He said, holding up the cardboard tube. "You mentioned that the place was built in a used-up coal mine. These are plans of the dead mine tunnels in that area."
He nodded to Proteus. "If you can go through them and find the one we want, then perhaps the plans will help a bit more with guessing the layout -- or with finding a way in."
Father Rick raised an eyebrow. "You mentioned two things. What's the other?"
Veeru frowned. "It . . . may be nothing. But several of these mines," he raised the tube, "Are owned by the same company, or were. And though it no longer own or runs any active mining interests . . . it still has several people on payroll." He shrugged. "Maybe it's nothing -- but Jai says it might be a dummy corporation. A front for the people they employ at the lab."
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Post by Jordanna on Mar 15, 2008 22:44:17 GMT -5
"Too bad we don't have anything to compare that to," Vance murmured.
"We might." Proteus shook his head. "A lot of Tiernan's files are unbelievably cryptic--nothing but random-looking, unlabeled notes with names or dates. I had to dig through a lot of that stuff just to find what I've brought you. I may not have paid it too much attention, but I've got a pretty decent memory for names--I might see one I recognize."
Nate, meanwhile, had taken the mine charts and the printout of the partial Mount Bliss plan, and was poring over them intently.
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