"We could just abandon the river, right?"
"They just saw us run and hide," Chieftain said. He'd seen it from Cottonmouth Five. "To me, that seems like the perfect time to attack."
"Except for those guns on the Delta," Coalfield said. "We'll be as waterlogged as those hulks on the boom in two minutes."
"A lot can happen in two minutes," Chieftain said.
"He has a point," Valentine said. "I wonder if something could be attempted."
"Not with our flotilla."
"I was thinking-more like a canoe. Have to find out what kind of swimmers those ratbits are, first."
Their watch boat reported that the River Patrol flotilla and its giant weren't chancing the boom in the dark and storm. But God knows what they would try tomorrow. If the Delta got in among the crowded barges ...
Valentine stood, gripping the rail, looking at the beached barge, listing under its load of rusted containers.
Containers.
He'd have to swallow his pride and ask Makak for his assistance.
Valentine practiced with the ratbits on the back of Cottonmouth Four.
The hardest part was getting the line to float in such a way that the ratbits could use it. Though small and discreet, they weren't strong.
Valentine reconciled himself to spending the night cold and wet. The Mississippi in April would be unpleasant, especially on his still stiff wound, but it would be a vacation compared to the wild river trip raiding Adler's headquarters, when he'd been in and out fast-moving snowmelt for three days in an insulation suit.
They found him a green-painted aluminum canoe on Cottonmouth Three. It had a couple of bullet holes in it but was otherwise sound. Valentine would have preferred a plastic composite-less sound when scraping against branches or if he accidentally banged it with his paddle, but it was not to be.
"Don't suppose you can make me feel warm," Valentine asked Makak as it rode clinging tight to his belly.
I can make you not mind the cold so much. It is like a stiff drink, however. It will slow your reflexes and brain activity.
"Then forget it," Valentine said.
Pellwell rode in the front of the canoe, paddling. She'd insisted on coming along on this final mission.
They clung to the Missouri bank. A quarter mile from the boom, they portaged to the downriver side. Pellwell stumbled noisily but held up her end in more ways than one.
On the downriver side they paddled north toward the boom. There were sentries on the bank, watching the ropes fixing the boom to some sturdy tree stumps, trunks, and sunken anchors.
Pellwell slipped into the bottom of the canoe.
"I need to start playacting."
Just imagine yourself a Reaper. Move as it does. Scan as it does. I will do the rest, Makak advised.
Valentine had seen enough Reapers to fake the exaggerated, long-limbed movements. He turned the canoe toward the bank and stared hard at the River Patrol guards there, as if he were checking them and not the reverse.
Cigarettes were hurriedly extinguished. If the guards had looked any more alert, they would have pissed voltage.
Silently, Valentine turned out to the boom. He felt as naked as if he'd stepped out of the shower under all those eyes, but the ruse, whose effects were invisible to him, seemed to be working.
They found some floats and old, moldy life jackets helping hold up one of the wrecks. With them, they formed a makeshift float for the rope.
Then it was time for Valentine and the ratbits to go into the water. He cheked their gear one last time. Everything depended on a Miskatonic researcher and her chittering little creatures with brains that would fit into the palm of his hand.
They came at first light, sure as sunrise.