Now he knew. Waiting was bad. Waiting and not knowing was worse.
With the rest of the Wolves as a reserve, backing up Patel's A company and Glass's heavy weapons teams from the Seng battalion, Valentine would attack the construction site in an effort to break out Champers's crew.
Valentine, Duvalier, Bee, and Brother Mark, plus some communications staff, would be the Operational HQ. Valentine felt guilty dragging Brother Mark into the country like this, but he had a sensitivity to Kurians that surpassed the indistinct tingle Valentine felt when Reapers were on the prowl nearby.
He'd done all he could, in his few days, to get the team ready. Using poles, clothesline, tentage, and some barbed wire, Valentine built a rough model of the construction site and two attendant camps based on his observations. He had the men run practice attacks, day and night.
The journey south went easily enough. They took pickups and trailers, fully half Fort Seng's motor pool, south along roads they were pretty sure to be safe. The last ten miles had to be covered on foot and legworm. Their vehicles retreated halfway to Fort Seng, where they waited for the pickup broadcast.
He passed the time by talking to Major Grace.
"If you don't mind me asking, sir, why all the note taking?"
"I'm The General's eyes and ears in Kentucky. He wants my opinion of you all. I want to make sure my eyes and ears have it right."
Grace's use of The General, with an intonation that suggested capitalization of the adjective, reminded Valentine of the man he always thought of as "The General," the leader of the Twisted Cross.
"Is this an opinion you can share with the subjects?"
Duvalier, having heard the beginning of the conversation, pulled her arms into the confines of her coat and settled down to sleep, pillowed by Valentine's pack.
"The General said he wants all the backwoods barons and perfumed princes run out of Southern Command."
"Backwoods barons and perfumed princes?"
"By that he means," Grace said tiredly, as though he'd explained this innumerable times to thickheaded subordinates, "that there won't be any more comfortable niches in Southern Command. For too long there have been officers who built themselves little domains, skimming what can be skimmed, tasting what can be tasted, and nobody dares challenge them because they're irreplaceable. Nobody's irreplaceable, and The General's determined to prove it, or he expects to be replaced."
"Is that a direct quote, sir?"
Grace looked at him afresh through his glasses, held as though they were a magnifying glass. "As a matter of fact, it is."
"Have you found any barons or princes at Fort Seng?"
"You do live in style. I haven't seen so much silver barware in one place."
"We inherited it, it's not a collection. The last six months have been too busy to do much antiquing."
"But plenty of recruiting. Tell me, Major Valentine, how do you choose which volunteers to take? Your command could be easily infiltrated this way."
"Could be," Valentine said. "Hope the infiltrators don't mind grading road and slapping some paint up, because that's what most of the men spend their time doing."
"You really expect to build a brigade out of a bunch of Quislings?"
"Not right away, we don't. It takes time to adapt to Free Territory. Have you met Ediyak?"
"She's one of the brighter lights in your command. Good breeding. Springfield College ROTC?"
"You wouldn't have thought that two or three years ago. Fresh out of the Kurian Zone, scared to ever make a decision or sign her name to anything. She's been promoted twice in the last year."
Grace closed his book, tucked it into his camouflage fatigue coat.
"Poking sticks into a hornet's nest will keep one busy," Grace said.
"Or you might call it killing Kurians, but I'm equable. Six of one, half a dozen of the other . . ."
Grace's mouth tightened. "Did it occur to you that this may be a trap?"
"If it is, it's working perfectly," Valentine said. "There's no sign of a trap."