Valentine noticed lights on in the old prison. Had the Kurian Lord already begun gathering an aura supply?
He might even have slipped in, but finding him, let alone killing him, in such a large complex would be difficult without surrounding the prison with flamethrowers and having the men burn their way to the center.
For all he knew, there wasn't anyone in there except a couple of Control soldiers cleaning out the animal and plant infestations that had no doubt built up over the years.
"Leave it alone, Val," Duvalier said. "Look at that place. I doubt anyone's in there who isn't fixing a toilet. It would take us two hours, probably, to get there, check the whole place out, and get back. Plus, probably more killing. Now me, I'd go there just to knife a sentry and set fire to it, but I know you'd want to bring out some one-legged senior citizen who lost the last round of musical chairs at the post office."
"Maybe I'll go over and peek in a few windows," Valentine said quietly. "Or not," he said, looking at his radioman, who was working a scrambler radio taken from the armored car that should be able to pick up Georgia Control communications.
"Major Valentine, may I-" Pellwell said.
"Cool your engine, college girl," Duvalier said.
Pellwell drew herself up and ignored the interruption. "You could let me send in the ratbits. They could cover that building in half an hour. If it's in as bad a shape as it looks, they'd have no problem getting in or getting around."
Valentine looked at her charges. They'd found a greasy wrapper caught in a bush, probably blown from the construction landfill, and were sniffing stains.
One looked up at Pellwell and chittered.
"Yes, food soon."
"Do they understand what a uniform is?"
"They know how to tell an armed man from an unarmed one."
"You send them into that building, and if they find any prisoners and count them accurately, I'll buy them a steak dinner. Or whatever their favorite treat is."
She squatted, looking like a grasshopper thanks to her long limbs, and lifted up the biggest ratbit, the one Valentine was calling Patches. She pointed. "That building. Count men. Count soldiers. Very quiet. No steal. No wreck."
Valentine heard it yeek back. She handed out a piece of bacon to each from one of her big leg pouches. The ratbits stuffed them into cheek pouches as Patches chittered at the others.
They bounced off on their oversized hind legs, making Valentine think of a kangaroo he'd seen on a TV documentary in his time with the Coastal Marines.
Pellwell looked anxiously at the sloping ground between the hill and the old prison.
"Worried they'll screw up?" Duvalier asked.
"Not so much that," she said, blinking fast. "They know what to do. Before, it was all play in old warehouses and apartments and school offices. One of them gets caught down there, it isn't just a loud no and a spell in isolation. They'll get stomped on and scraped out into the garbage."
Valentine had his own anxieties. He'd heard nothing from Gamecock's Bears.
The only blemish on the operation was that they couldn't destroy the foundation of the Kurian tower. No one wanted to venture in to get the explosives and face the fangs of that locked-up, anxious Reaper.
Valentine nearly had the prisoners organized for the ride back. Thanks to the armored cars, some utility trucks, and a personnel transport bus, everyone would be able to ride.
As dawn came up, Valentine thought he heard gunfire in the distance, but he couldn't be sure. His ears sometimes played tricks on him when he pressed them.
A Bear messenger rumbled in on a captured motorcycle. He reported that Gamecock's radio had "crapped out" before they even hit the crossroads blockhouse, and the Bears had successfully executed their ambush. Gamecock would pursue the Georgia Control Company south for an hour or so to "keep up the skeer" and then turn back north and head for the rendezvous.
The Gunslingers came in on their legworms and picked through the camp. Valentine was giving them advice on keeping well clear of the explosives dump when Pellwell returned. She gave him a salute.
"You don't have to do that, you're a civilian."
"Oh, sorry ... I was excited. Major Valentine, my guys are back from the prison. They searched the whole thing. They counted three soldiers there, four other men total, one other."
"One other what?"
"They're not sure. Big like her, they say."