Empire (Empire 1)

They created a weapons cache a hundred feet from the road, leaving the heavier weapons there. Cole assigned Drew and Babe to stay with the cache. Each of the others carried sniper rifles and sidearms, rations, ammunition, and other supplies.

They also wore the infrasound transceivers Torrent had obtained for them. They used a digital signal, but it was carried on sound waves too low in pitch to be heard by human ears. It was like the shout of a giant. Elephants used sounds that low to communicate with each other from miles away. The receivers were on; they didn’t turn on the transmitters until the carrier signal was actually needed. No need to be blasting low-pitched tones all over the mountains except at need. Besides, the captured mechs had a variant on this technology. The best guess was that their equipment operated at such a different pitch from the Army’s new system that they wouldn’t be able to pick up the jeesh’s transmission tone. But there was no certainty of that.

They spread out, never so far that they couldn’t keep track of where the man in front of them was, but never so close that a trap could be sprung on all of them at once. There was a ranger tower atop the ridge between the lakes, but it seemed to be unoccupied. It might hold cameras, however. Cole and the others knew enough not to let themselves be seen from that angle—but not to assume that it was the only observation point, either.

The slope and the trees were such that from their side of Lake Chinnereth, they could observe the opposite shore but not their own. Certainly the other side of the lake offered nothing interesting. If the trees had been cut right to the maximum waterline, then the lake level was about three feet below full—about normal for summer here. Once the turbines started running to generate electricity, though, the lake would drain steadily but slowly all summer, and it didn’t seem to Cole as though the watershed here would be large enough to replenish the lake waters if there was a constant drain.

This reservoir didn’t make sense. The slope of the canyon was so steep that the dam had to be very high in order to hold enough water to make a lake of any size. Yet the lake was only about four miles long on one branch, three and a half on the other. He knew from the map that Lake Genesseret was even smaller—two miles long.

It was a boondoggle. The federal government had paid for this project, and it would never pay for itself. Nor would it generate that much electricity if it was also supplying some town somewhere with water. This was exactly the kind of project that environmentalists loved to kill. It should have been easy to do, because the dam was indefensible.

Yet there was no sign of any kind of development here beyond the lake itself. The original route of road 21 was under water, and if a new road had been cut it must be on this side of the lake, since it could not be seen on the other.

Their travel today would go much faster if they climbed down to the clear-cut slope between the waterline and the trees, but there they would be completely visible to any observers. The idea was not to be detected. So they would move slowly through forest, going miles around Lake Chinnereth, then moving up to the ridge between the lakes and again going down to look at Genesseret and go far enough around it to inspect all its shores.

And then back again to the cache and, if they found nothing, then pack it all up and come home again.

There was an island in the middle of Lake Chinnereth, which must once have been the rounded top of a low hill. There Cole could see the only human structure beyond the dam itself that was visible here. It was a cabin that might once have been a ranger way station or, conceivably, somebody’s small summer cabin. It looked like it had probably been made from local timber, laid down like Lincoln logs. It was impossible to tell whether it pre-dated the dam or was thirty years old. It certainly wasn’t much older than that, and might not be abandoned—there was still glass in the windows.

Down near the waterline, there was a small dock with a short swimmer’s ladder. And not a floating dock—it made no allowance for changing water levels. It’s as if the builder expected the lake always to be full.

The dock had to have been built after the dam, or there would have been no point. But the cabin didn’t look like it could hold a serious number of mechs, even in the basement. And even if it could contain such things, how could they be loaded onto barges from that tiny dock?

Even stopping frequently to listen and observe, they made good time through the woods; they took turns walking point and tail, and now and then they could talk in low voices to each other and pass observations and orders up and down the spread-out line. Each man controlled his own eating as he walked—there was no need to stop for meals.

When they reached the end of the east fork of Lake Chinnereth, Cole split Load and Arty off to go out to the point of the peninsula between the lakes and observe what they could. If they hadn’t heard from Cole to the contrary, they were then to go back around to rejoin Drew and Babe at the cache.

So now there were only four of them proceeding overland to the west fork of Chinnereth and then up the ridge between the lakes. There were a few signs of hikers, but none of the litter was new and the few campsites were covered with layers of pine needles. Again, no way to tell if there had been hikers through here since the lake was formed.

Cole sent Mingo and Benny around to the west side of Genesseret to reconnoiter the eastern shoreline. They didn’t need to go all the way to the dam. As soon as they had observed and photographed the whole eastern shore, they should come back around and, again, if Cole had

not told them otherwise, round both lakes and return to the cache.

Only Cat was with Cole now, moving together near but not on the crest of the ridge between lakes. Occasionally they would cross over the ridge and move down the other side, since they were observing the far shores of both lakes now.

They were near the peak of the ridge now, approaching the observation tower. Now they moved even more stealthily, moving slowly and methodically toward the tower from two different directions. There was no sign of any kind of wiring, though that hardly proved that there was no wiring. Nor was there any sign of cameras—but, again, that might simply mean that the cameras were very small and well concealed.

In the southwest, clouds were building. A summer thunderstorm? That would be potentially disastrous—lightning could do worse things than an EMP gun. Even fog would be irritating, forcing them to wait till it cleared to complete the mission.

Cole crept back away from the cleared area around the tower; he knew Cat was doing the same. They would move slowly around to two other vantage points and inspect the other two sides of the tower.

It was in the midst of this maneuver that Cole’s receiver vibrated. He immediately began backing farther away from the tower. He pressed the go-ahead button.

“Mingo here,” said Mingo. He was talking softly, but articulating very clearly. “Come down to the area twenty feet above the clear-cut zone. Right where you are, just go down. No structures, no sign of tunneling, but something you need to see.”

Cole pressed the go-ahead button again, requesting more information without having to speak aloud.

“If you don’t see it, then we’re crazy,” said Mingo. “I’m not going to predispose you.”

Cole pressed the code for Cat, knowing he had heard. Cole whispered, “Down to Genesseret.”

It took only fifteen minutes to move, relatively noiselessly, to the zone twenty feet or so above the clear-cut zone. Whatever they were supposed to see, Cole couldn’t see it.

And then he could. The ground was suddenly wet underfoot.

Cat noticed it, too. He moved toward Cole and when they were near enough, said in a low voice, “Somebody ran the sprinklers this morning.”

The ground was sodden, as if it had been heavily watered. From about fifteen feet above the waterline, the pine needles no longer carpeted the forest floor in a natural way. They had been carried downward as if by receding water, hanging up on tufts of grass, roots, rocks, any obstruction, the way floating pine needles would when the water drained away.