"Yes."
Lombard went to a file drawer. "They have any other names?"
"I don't know. I wrote out my report. You want to read it?"
"Sure, in a sec. Okay ... Twisted Cross. They're designated a Quisling unit. Looks like they get around by train. That's odd. They're cross-referenced to Eastern Division."
"Why's it odd?"
"They provide railroad security, maybe?"
"Why is it odd?" Valentine asked again.
"Usually Quisling units stay in one area, under a lord or a group of lords. You wouldn't find the late Captain Gan-net's Chanute Leadership Corps operating in, say, Illinois. Unless that particular Kurian family was invading Illinois, I suppose."
Valentine gave him the copy of his supplemental report that he'd attached to his description of the battle at Little Timber. Lombard looked through the three pages at the rate of ten seconds a page.
"Aren't you going to read it?"
"I did. Shall I quote the key passage? Ha-hem ... 'The destruction of Lieutenant Caltagirone's platoon and Smoke's report of heavily armed Reapers employed in groups as a cohesive fighting force demand investigation. Any information on the General-'"
"Sorry. I wrote a report on these guys once before. I might as well have tossed it in a swamp."
"Fear not. I'm sure it lives forever in an index just like this one, so it can be located in a climate-controlled warehouse. Wish we filters got the same treatment-you should smell this place in August. Let's go talk to Doug; he's our Quisling expert for everything west of the Mississippi."
As he followed Lombard to the stairway, Valentine congratulated himself for passing through the filter.
Lombard took him to an office this time. Doug Metzel had a nameplate on his door, which opened only partway thanks to the volume of binders in his office. They lined shelves, filled corners, and cut off the light from the room's big, arch-topped window. A cat napped in the sun atop one labeled bridge security. But the man himself wasn't in.
"Two weeks' leave. His mother-cancer, I guess," his assistant reported. She was a slight woman, perhaps in her late thirties, and wore a Guards uniform. Her nameplate read sgt. lake.
"Shows you how often I make it to the third floor," Lombard said.
"What is it, Bone?"
"I've got a Wolf just in from ... ah ..."
"Lake of the Cherokees," Valentine supplied.
"Memory's great short-term." Lombard shrugged. "Five minutes later, it's mush. Comes from doing sort after sort after sort."
Lombard made further introductions. Metzel's Southern Command associate shook hands with Valentine. "I'm honored," she said gravely. Valentine hadn't heard that expression very often from either a civilian or a Southern Command Guard. He wasn't quite sure how to respond.
"It's a pleasure," he said.
"I'm Doug's liaison, and I'm filling in while he's gone. What do you have, Lieutenant? Sit down and give me the highlights."
Valentine sat across from her and began with his first encounter with the Twisted Cross swastika logo when he'd seen it on a canoe belonging to some Reapers hunting a Cat named Eveready in the Yazoo Delta. The Illinois Quislings who feared an organization with that insignia called the Twisted Cross. The Twisted Cross man he'd met in Chicago who spoke of a comrade who "fed" and suffered a bad leg wound. The man's own feeding, somehow inspired by the others. Then more recently, Smoke's description of Reapers with guns.
She listened attentively and brought down a binder. Inside it were pages of snipped insignia from uniforms. She consulted the legend in the front and then opened it before Valentine. "Like this?"
The card within had a black piece of fabric attached. On the fabric was a white piece of metalwork, a reversed swastika.
"That's their insignia. I saw one just like it in the Zoo in Wisconsin. The owner... he fed like a Reaper." Valentine's voice cracked, embarrassing him.
The liaison and Lombard grimaced. "Maybe just a sicko? Monkey see, monkey do?"
"I only saw him for a few minutes. He was definitely Twisted Cross."