Chapter 29: Resolve
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Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. It's a mother of some sort, that much is true.
It takes about three seconds for the prospect to sink in. Then? Chaos. Organized chaos.
Poor Captain Muwan gets dragged out of the bed he's NOT in. At least, about half his clothes are still on - if wrinkled - so I figure he hadn't gone to sleep.
He calls in a few others I hadn't met before. Relatives on Mrs. Savage's side, I assume. Representatives of the 'allied' cities - which around here apparently means first cousins - catching the first helicopter out. For people who have stood still for six hundred years, they sure now how to hurry when they have to.
Thomas Roberts gets called via satellite, Apparently that's where they keep to access to the more 'real world' stuff. He's the electronics man, and the link to whatever reality they still keep in touch with. The national Weather Service provides a satellite shot of the planet every fifteen minutes, available to anyone with the computer access and the money. Batman has an account, of course. So does Wayne Enterprises. So, evidently, does the Hidalgo trading company.
Local intelligence isn't the DEO, but they do have the basic concept.
Within the half hour Littlejohn is looking at grainy but effective photos of Hidalgo,and checking against the NGS geological map for lights where there shouldn't be any. Candles and braziers probably wont show, even on the time delayed photos, but electrical lights probably will - and the camp equipment looked modern enough to expect that.
I should snatch a combat nap while we wait. There is so little time.
I'm on line with WayneTech checking for a listing of radio frequency errors, hoping I can find whatever unlicensed band Gomez is communicating on, when Littlejohn calls us over. He has a set of light readings along the river. not bright, but unexplained, and moving in the right direction. They match with what I saw in Salamanca's vision. not that I can tell these people that, but I can agree that it looks suspicious. Very suspicious. If we can't find Amhacutec anywhere else?
I wish Dick was here, but he needs his sleep. I need him to have his sleep. Tomorrow will be... unpleasant.
I head back to my linkage, Catching their frequency would be a long shot, but the chance of overhearing their plans makes it work the try. I've been lucky before.
Brooks and Mayfair are dispatched on quick helicopter overflights to the Pauhatun Mountains. Amhacutec Inca's stronghold. Make that his *former* stronghold. The villages are intact, but from the air there is no visible movement. No light. No smoke.
Brooks and Mayfair land in Apuamarca and radio back. The man is *definitely* not at home. In fact, except for women, children,and a very few very elderly men, the place is empty.
No one will answer where the men are. Gone, they tell Mayfair. Just 'gone'.
Perhaps the villagers are stubborn. Perhaps scared. Perhaps they truly don't know. Either way, the one word says it all.
That makes the village defenseless. I'd like to think that was trust in his neighbors but more realistically - Amhacutec just doesn't care. These are the expendable.
Savage grumbles, insisting that he needs answers. I don't. Like the dog that didn't bark in the night, Amhacutec's absence has given me all the answers I need.
"Doctor Savage?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne?"
"I have a confirmed radio signal from that location. Scrambled, but active. Moving with the lights."
He walks over to examine the cluster of unlisted transmission sites on my screen. "So you believe Amhacutec is along the river?"
I trace the path of dots with my finger, echoing the curves of the river. "Amhacutec, Arturo Gomez, and very likely your knife."
I print out the screen and shut down.
"Captain Muwan?" Savage looks over at the young man, who is in quiet but serious conference with Renwick and a pale-looking Pau'ah. "Prepare to reassemble the army."
Bad choice. Half the troops are exhausted from the previous excursion, and besides, every objection had to a frontal assault on Teplitzin still holds here. Mores the pity. But that argument isn't going to fly with a crew that still believes in tactical force, so I make the question... "Do we have the time?"
I can see Savage count. One day to the river. One day back. Four days left until Sotz' Ix. That leaves almost no room for error.
"A strike team will move faster," I press.
Savage frowns. "That's what you seem to prefer."
I could point out that my tactics have worked out so far, but why? He already knows that. So I just answer. "Yes."
My preference, and Savages only hope.
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I take off my shoes before I enter our room. Useless. Dick sits up before I clear the door. Eyes still closed, he holds out one of Dinah's 'Canary' earrings.
"You need?"
"Not yet," I answer, dropping my dinner jacket over the back of a chair. "Let her sleep." My shirt follows. Alfred's voice whispers I should hang them properly, but one of the servants will collect them in the morning and tonight I am *trashed*.
Dick rubs his eyes, clearly trying to clear the 'sand'. "We go?"
"In the morning," I answer. Far too early in the morning, but there's no help for that. If it were physically possible I would start now. "You should be sleeping too." He has had what? Three hours at most. Perhaps less. And after that battle? I wish I could take him off line for at least twenty-four hours, but I can not manage my work without him.
I tap my com unit. One more call to Oracle, just to be sure that...
"Sleep." Dick stops me with a word.
"Soon."
"Now."
He is right. I need sleep. I move over to the cot, trying not to disturb Dick further.
"No, Bruce." Dick's voice hardens in the darkness. "Here. Now."
A tap in the head board echoes his meaning.
I give up, and sit on the edge of the mattress.
Dick pulls me against his shoulder. "So what went on?"
"We found the killers - I think. Amhacutec Inca. Lights down by the river. Littlejohn says there used to be an Inca city there, back whenever. Muwan is finalizing the maps now. We leave at dawn."
"We?"
"Us, Dinah, Jones unless he objects." Little chance of that. I *saw* his eyes when he saw that city. "Muwan," I continue, "and whoever Savage wants." Make that who he *has*. Yesterday we got who he *wants* on this mission, but they are old men, and if I am tired? No matter. Dick and I could handle worse alone if there was need.
Dick brushes back my hair. "And Walker?"
"The Phantom? He's going back to Santa Amoza."
"He's just gonna *dump* this creep in you?" I feel Dick jerk under my cheek. "Send J'onn to tell Walker to get his skinny white... horse... back here and..."
"No Dick." I stroke his chest, urging him to quiet. "Let it go. His skulls have spoken. He has delivered their message. It's my duty now."
"So this Phantom is just gonna take Drax, and he expects the Batman to clean up his mess?" Dick's outrage is a rumble under my ear. "Who does that guy think..."
"He is?" I brush my fingers over Dick's lips, trapping his answer. "He is the Phantom. The Ghost that Walks."
"And that means he gets to blow off..."
"Bruce Wayne? A Gotham civilian?"
Dick settles back, grumpy. "Even so. Kal wouldn't..."
"Kal is Kal."
"Kal is *Superman*." That last word is said in a tone of still-some-awe. Not quite the adoration of Dick's childhood, and of course not entirely undeserved, but... I suppress a twinge of jealousy as Dick continues. " And he *still* respects his allies. Even the ones I'd like to tell off myself, like Gardner. If *he* can show respect to the Warrior's crowd, then this guy..."
Can honor the Bat? That's a sweet thought, coming from the Bat's greatest critic, but just now? I end the argument with a kiss.
"Phantoms obey Phantoms. Twenty generations worth. He has been told to leave with Drax, and he must do..."
"What his dead father told him? That is so..." Dick freezes suddenly, then picks up smoothly "understandable. Hey, a mans gotta do what a man's gotta do. We head out in the morning. No prob."
I shift away. "So I'll leave you to get some sleep."
I am half-standing when an iron grip clamps over my biceps. "I'll get some sleep, but not alone."
"You need..." Rest, I mean to say.
"You. Here. Now."
I surrender, sliding under the sheet edge that Dick holds up.
"Don't worry. I got you an extra blanket. And another pillow." Dick pulls out one of his stack and hands it to me. "I swung by the kitchen after dinner." Dick must feel me tense, because he gives my back a little rub and chuckles. "Relax, Bruce. Just to thank the cook. And when I mentioned your miserly attitude towards sharing... K'usal got us some more stuff. Didn't want a guest to lose any sleep."
"I thought you said?"
"*Savage* is an idiot" Dick answers, "but his people are people."
"And they?" I hate to say 'don't mind. It's such an concession to small-minded-ness. But then, Babs constantly reminds me to be careful for Dick's sake. It hurt enough that Ms. Mona called him a servant. If they ever ... even... suggested...
Dick snuggles, breaking my train of thought. "They think it's crazy. But then, they think *all* the 'spanish' are crazy. And a man who would go swimming in the Rio Chak for fun?"
"Completely crazy?"
"You got it." A soft kiss lands on my ear. "But I told them I *liked* you crazy, 'cause it made you crazy for me."
Dick's logic is always ... different. "So then they handed you half the bedding in the town?"
"Sure. 'Cause I wanted it." Dick rolls his face into the hollow of my neck. I can feel his eyelashes brush closed. "Like you always told me. There's an advantage to being on chatting terms with the folks who *really* run things."
*END CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE*
^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^)
Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. It's a mother of some sort, that much is true.
It takes about three seconds for the prospect to sink in. Then? Chaos. Organized chaos.
Poor Captain Muwan gets dragged out of the bed he's NOT in. At least, about half his clothes are still on - if wrinkled - so I figure he hadn't gone to sleep.
He calls in a few others I hadn't met before. Relatives on Mrs. Savage's side, I assume. Representatives of the 'allied' cities - which around here apparently means first cousins - catching the first helicopter out. For people who have stood still for six hundred years, they sure now how to hurry when they have to.
Thomas Roberts gets called via satellite, Apparently that's where they keep to access to the more 'real world' stuff. He's the electronics man, and the link to whatever reality they still keep in touch with. The national Weather Service provides a satellite shot of the planet every fifteen minutes, available to anyone with the computer access and the money. Batman has an account, of course. So does Wayne Enterprises. So, evidently, does the Hidalgo trading company.
Local intelligence isn't the DEO, but they do have the basic concept.
Within the half hour Littlejohn is looking at grainy but effective photos of Hidalgo,and checking against the NGS geological map for lights where there shouldn't be any. Candles and braziers probably wont show, even on the time delayed photos, but electrical lights probably will - and the camp equipment looked modern enough to expect that.
I should snatch a combat nap while we wait. There is so little time.
I'm on line with WayneTech checking for a listing of radio frequency errors, hoping I can find whatever unlicensed band Gomez is communicating on, when Littlejohn calls us over. He has a set of light readings along the river. not bright, but unexplained, and moving in the right direction. They match with what I saw in Salamanca's vision. not that I can tell these people that, but I can agree that it looks suspicious. Very suspicious. If we can't find Amhacutec anywhere else?
I wish Dick was here, but he needs his sleep. I need him to have his sleep. Tomorrow will be... unpleasant.
I head back to my linkage, Catching their frequency would be a long shot, but the chance of overhearing their plans makes it work the try. I've been lucky before.
Brooks and Mayfair are dispatched on quick helicopter overflights to the Pauhatun Mountains. Amhacutec Inca's stronghold. Make that his *former* stronghold. The villages are intact, but from the air there is no visible movement. No light. No smoke.
Brooks and Mayfair land in Apuamarca and radio back. The man is *definitely* not at home. In fact, except for women, children,and a very few very elderly men, the place is empty.
No one will answer where the men are. Gone, they tell Mayfair. Just 'gone'.
Perhaps the villagers are stubborn. Perhaps scared. Perhaps they truly don't know. Either way, the one word says it all.
That makes the village defenseless. I'd like to think that was trust in his neighbors but more realistically - Amhacutec just doesn't care. These are the expendable.
Savage grumbles, insisting that he needs answers. I don't. Like the dog that didn't bark in the night, Amhacutec's absence has given me all the answers I need.
"Doctor Savage?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne?"
"I have a confirmed radio signal from that location. Scrambled, but active. Moving with the lights."
He walks over to examine the cluster of unlisted transmission sites on my screen. "So you believe Amhacutec is along the river?"
I trace the path of dots with my finger, echoing the curves of the river. "Amhacutec, Arturo Gomez, and very likely your knife."
I print out the screen and shut down.
"Captain Muwan?" Savage looks over at the young man, who is in quiet but serious conference with Renwick and a pale-looking Pau'ah. "Prepare to reassemble the army."
Bad choice. Half the troops are exhausted from the previous excursion, and besides, every objection had to a frontal assault on Teplitzin still holds here. Mores the pity. But that argument isn't going to fly with a crew that still believes in tactical force, so I make the question... "Do we have the time?"
I can see Savage count. One day to the river. One day back. Four days left until Sotz' Ix. That leaves almost no room for error.
"A strike team will move faster," I press.
Savage frowns. "That's what you seem to prefer."
I could point out that my tactics have worked out so far, but why? He already knows that. So I just answer. "Yes."
My preference, and Savages only hope.
^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^) ^^V^^ (^V^)
I take off my shoes before I enter our room. Useless. Dick sits up before I clear the door. Eyes still closed, he holds out one of Dinah's 'Canary' earrings.
"You need?"
"Not yet," I answer, dropping my dinner jacket over the back of a chair. "Let her sleep." My shirt follows. Alfred's voice whispers I should hang them properly, but one of the servants will collect them in the morning and tonight I am *trashed*.
Dick rubs his eyes, clearly trying to clear the 'sand'. "We go?"
"In the morning," I answer. Far too early in the morning, but there's no help for that. If it were physically possible I would start now. "You should be sleeping too." He has had what? Three hours at most. Perhaps less. And after that battle? I wish I could take him off line for at least twenty-four hours, but I can not manage my work without him.
I tap my com unit. One more call to Oracle, just to be sure that...
"Sleep." Dick stops me with a word.
"Soon."
"Now."
He is right. I need sleep. I move over to the cot, trying not to disturb Dick further.
"No, Bruce." Dick's voice hardens in the darkness. "Here. Now."
A tap in the head board echoes his meaning.
I give up, and sit on the edge of the mattress.
Dick pulls me against his shoulder. "So what went on?"
"We found the killers - I think. Amhacutec Inca. Lights down by the river. Littlejohn says there used to be an Inca city there, back whenever. Muwan is finalizing the maps now. We leave at dawn."
"We?"
"Us, Dinah, Jones unless he objects." Little chance of that. I *saw* his eyes when he saw that city. "Muwan," I continue, "and whoever Savage wants." Make that who he *has*. Yesterday we got who he *wants* on this mission, but they are old men, and if I am tired? No matter. Dick and I could handle worse alone if there was need.
Dick brushes back my hair. "And Walker?"
"The Phantom? He's going back to Santa Amoza."
"He's just gonna *dump* this creep in you?" I feel Dick jerk under my cheek. "Send J'onn to tell Walker to get his skinny white... horse... back here and..."
"No Dick." I stroke his chest, urging him to quiet. "Let it go. His skulls have spoken. He has delivered their message. It's my duty now."
"So this Phantom is just gonna take Drax, and he expects the Batman to clean up his mess?" Dick's outrage is a rumble under my ear. "Who does that guy think..."
"He is?" I brush my fingers over Dick's lips, trapping his answer. "He is the Phantom. The Ghost that Walks."
"And that means he gets to blow off..."
"Bruce Wayne? A Gotham civilian?"
Dick settles back, grumpy. "Even so. Kal wouldn't..."
"Kal is Kal."
"Kal is *Superman*." That last word is said in a tone of still-some-awe. Not quite the adoration of Dick's childhood, and of course not entirely undeserved, but... I suppress a twinge of jealousy as Dick continues. " And he *still* respects his allies. Even the ones I'd like to tell off myself, like Gardner. If *he* can show respect to the Warrior's crowd, then this guy..."
Can honor the Bat? That's a sweet thought, coming from the Bat's greatest critic, but just now? I end the argument with a kiss.
"Phantoms obey Phantoms. Twenty generations worth. He has been told to leave with Drax, and he must do..."
"What his dead father told him? That is so..." Dick freezes suddenly, then picks up smoothly "understandable. Hey, a mans gotta do what a man's gotta do. We head out in the morning. No prob."
I shift away. "So I'll leave you to get some sleep."
I am half-standing when an iron grip clamps over my biceps. "I'll get some sleep, but not alone."
"You need..." Rest, I mean to say.
"You. Here. Now."
I surrender, sliding under the sheet edge that Dick holds up.
"Don't worry. I got you an extra blanket. And another pillow." Dick pulls out one of his stack and hands it to me. "I swung by the kitchen after dinner." Dick must feel me tense, because he gives my back a little rub and chuckles. "Relax, Bruce. Just to thank the cook. And when I mentioned your miserly attitude towards sharing... K'usal got us some more stuff. Didn't want a guest to lose any sleep."
"I thought you said?"
"*Savage* is an idiot" Dick answers, "but his people are people."
"And they?" I hate to say 'don't mind. It's such an concession to small-minded-ness. But then, Babs constantly reminds me to be careful for Dick's sake. It hurt enough that Ms. Mona called him a servant. If they ever ... even... suggested...
Dick snuggles, breaking my train of thought. "They think it's crazy. But then, they think *all* the 'spanish' are crazy. And a man who would go swimming in the Rio Chak for fun?"
"Completely crazy?"
"You got it." A soft kiss lands on my ear. "But I told them I *liked* you crazy, 'cause it made you crazy for me."
Dick's logic is always ... different. "So then they handed you half the bedding in the town?"
"Sure. 'Cause I wanted it." Dick rolls his face into the hollow of my neck. I can feel his eyelashes brush closed. "Like you always told me. There's an advantage to being on chatting terms with the folks who *really* run things."
*END CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE*