Marius looked at the gap in the traffic, where the cars had been chivvied out of the way by the police cars. He compared that to what he knew about the vehicle, and realised that he had about ten millimetres of clearance on each side. Plenty. He edged through the gap, having to make a correction half-way through when he realised that the trailer was not lined up true with the truck. He applied a flex to the suspension through, hopping the trailer to the side and squeezing through the gap – only taking off the thin layer of dust on the side.
As he was squeezing out of the gap, Tads addressed the team.
"We still don't know who was tracking us – but I have a plan. How about if we get up into the hills somewhere, and get stopped… then we get out, one at a time, while I'm looking astrally. And I can spend a few minutes watching us, each one, to see if the tracking resumes. That way we can find out at least which one of us was being targeted, and then work out what to do about it.
"How about… can you do a spell, and cast it on everyone, and it makes them glow if they're being targeted? Or if there's a spell being cast on them?" Kai raised an eyebrow as he asked the shaman if it was possible, but saw her shake her head.
"It'd take me weeks to work out how to do that, and I'd have to remain awake after casting it to keep it active – and it would make it very difficult to cast other spells as I'd have to split my focus. Overall, I don't think it would work like you want it to."
"Do we really want to be in the middle of no-where to do this?" asked Hunter. "Surely we want to be in the middle of town, where it's easier to hide, or they can't throw a massive fireball at us?"
"That's true – it's more likely to stop people with the risk of collateral damage – if they care about such things. But in a major population centre, it's a lot easier to get transport or assets in place," said Aswon, "think about it – if they tracked us, and we were in somewhere like Constantinople – they can fly people into the airport quickly, or hire some mercs or a strike team. If we're in the middle of nowhere, then their response time is hours and hours – which gives us time to prepare, or move."
Marius finished edging through the traffic, and turned into the middle of the road, sitting in the turn filter heading into town and pulling up parallel to the traffic jam.
"Marius – I thought we were heading out of town?" said Kai. His tone was restrained though – it was clearly a question, not a remonstration.
"We can try and turn, if you want. But some attention will come this way – maybe more choppers, maybe ground units. What better way to avoid attention than to be 'stuck' in the traffic? I mean, what terrorists would be crazy enough to hide in plain sight, right next to the event – rather than high-tail it into the hills and away as fast as they can?"
Kai and the others considered this for a moment, turning the logic over in their head and trying to think about it from the point of view of the response forces – and it did make a certain amount of sense. As long as Tads could maintain the illusion on them, it was unlikely they would be spotted as their actual vehicle type – and who would question a large cargo truck quite obviously heading in towards the incident.
"If we need to turn, I think I can do it – I'll just drive up here on the wrong side as far as that side street up there, and then I think we can…. Stand by, chopper coming." His voice took on a distracted tone, as he concentrated on his sensors, following the chopper through the sky as it swung overhead. "Getting active emissions from him – he's scanning the traffic jam. Thorough sweep, full spectrum, clearly a professional." There was a grudging tone of admiration in his voice, even rendered through the vehicle intercom.
The attack chopper drifted overhead scanning the traffic jam and the surrounding areas, flying about two hundred metres up, with the sensors covering a large cone below the heavily-armed chassis. As the pilot moved forward under minimal power, Marius focussed up onto the vehicle, and gathered more details on the layout and type of weapons, confirming that it was carrying Block III dedicated anti-vehicle missiles and a large calibre machine gun in the nose mount. The chopper was painted a dull grey colour all over, with various unit markings and blazons standing out – it was close enough that the trid sensors could zoom right in for a close look. The chopper continued to move ahead, and just as they were about to breathe a sigh of relief, they saw the tail start to turn, pushing the nose around until it was facing back towards them.
"He's spotted something. Maybe got a twitch on a sensor for something. Definitely coming back, and the sensors are being steered – narrowing focus on the road now, coming over the vehicles. No targeting systems yet, this is all scanning… but definitely coming back for a second look. Tads, we are concealed, right?"
Tads felt the magic wrapped around the truck, checking that it was still threaded protectively around them. The illusion was still in place, making them appear as a heavy duty eighteen-wheel truck, a standard articulated trailer hooked up to a long cab, the sort of thing used to transport bulk goods hundreds of miles. It was still in place, and still just as strong, though she felt that it was perhaps not the most convincing or perfect of illusions. She called on her spirit, and asked it to conceal the truck, bargaining with the last of her power to bolster the illusion and make it more convincing.
The chopper came over again, and they watched it as best they could, craning their heads to follow it as it flew overhead and along the road. Marius watched his sensors carefully, feeling the probing tendrils of energy emitted from the various emitters on the military craft. Once again he felt the wash of power recede as the craft flew past them, and along the traffic for a few hundred metres, before once again it banked sharply and turned to face them again.
"It must be something active – I'm going dark!" They saw the lights in the cab extinguish and heard the air-con die. In the back the fridge juddered to a stop and the other electrical systems switched off one by one as Marius killed all electrical and electronic devices. The intercom system was the last to switch off, and other than the actual control electronics for the interface, they were just a black hole now. Marius held his breath, ready to re-engage systems swiftly if needed. He felt blind and isolated with his active sensors off, and all the passive sensors just displaying the "raw" take, with none of the usual enhancements and assistance.
Once more the chopper came overhead, probing and testing with its sensors. This time, between the magical protection and the lack of signals, the sensors failed to lock on to anything, and the expert system fuzzy logic in the attack computer decided that what it has seen was a "sensor anomaly", erasing the track on the system display and clearing the pilot to move on. The chopper turned and headed away slowly, continuing to work through the traffic and classify all the contacts, looking for anything alarming as it followed the road into the centre of town.
They breathed out and relaxed for a moment, and slowly Marius started to power his systems back up, one at a time. The others continued to watch out of the windows, looking for more trouble. A few minutes passed, and then Hunter snorted, then started to giggle, barely supressing the sounds of mirth. Between giggles, he pointed down the road, into town.
As the others turned to look, they too snorted or supressed smiles – as they saw the commandeered tractor and hay trailer pootling up the road towards them, covered in policemen all with 9mm pistols. They were hanging on for dear life as they were inexpertly driven by their sergeant, and were mostly covered in muck by now as they kept being thrown about as he battled through the traffic. The tractor trundled past them and round the turning, heading towards the power station. It appeared that they'd grabbed the first vehicle they could to get past the chaos in the centre of town, and were now perhaps regretting that decision.
Aswon pushed through into the back, checking on Nadia who was still hidden under the flak jackets. She poked her head out as she heard movement, asking Aswon if it was safe to come out yet, whilst he sorted out a drink. Kai shouted through from the front that she should stay put, but Aswon just came past and slid the door shut between the front and rear of the truck, motioning her to make herself comfortable but to stay out of the way. He heard the sound of a door opening, and quickly checked, watching as Tads climbed out of the truck and stood by the side of the road looking about her.
She checked astral space carefully, spending some time feeling the flow of power through the area and trying to determine if anyone was still questing after her or the others. It took a minute or two of effort and continuous checking, but she was pretty certain that she was safe and that nothing was looking for her – in fact, there was nothing magical going on in the area at all. She opened the door of the cab and motioned for the leeches to be passed down, quickly closing the door again when she had them securely held, then repeated her checks. Once again, she found nothing amiss magically, and no strange effects on the leeches – though there was noticeably less food in the jar now. She waved to Shimazu next, going through the same routine with him, and then his sword – checking for nearly a minute on each before pronouncing them "safe" and moving on.
Kai suddenly spotted Ceyda crossing the road ahead of them, nearly fifty metres further into town. She darted across through the traffic, moving quickly – and was halfway across the road before he had a chance to say anything. He dived out of the door and ran down the road towards her, closing half the distance between them before she broke line of sight around the corner of the building. The others watched him running down the road, wondering what he had seen. In the truck, they readied weapons again, trying to ensure they were ready to back him up as required.
Kai got to the corner and peeked around, spotted Ceyda as she climbed into a battered PC-1. The car was the very definition of cheap – all lightweight and flimsy alloys, minimal trim and features and almost non-existent safety systems. The "People's Car No.1" was a locally produced model, and was cheap and very cheerful. Behind him, Tads concentrated on his aura – taking advantage of him being out of the truck to check him for magical traces, unbeknownst to him. Kai called out to Ceyda, attracting her attention, and had the satisfaction of seeing shock on her face as she recognised him through the windscreen of the vehicle.
"Hey there. Want some help? Heading out of town?" he called out as she started the car and began to drive. The car sounded awful – it was apparently powered by a lawnmower engine, and accelerated slowly enough that Kai could just walk after it for the moment. "Come on, no need to be funny. We've got no issue with you. Here let me give you my number…"
Ceyda applied the brakes and held her phone up, giving Kai a very strange look, but accepting the data packet he squirted through to her from his phone. She shook her head at him, then put her foot down again, and with a "putt putt putt" noise started to drive along the clear side of the road out of town. Aswon had climbed out of the truck by now, and was watching Kai carefully as he dealt with Ceyda on the roadside, so Tads took the time to assense him as well, checking him out for any astral effects but finding him clean. It was the first time she'd really looked at him magically, and she was impressed with the magical gecko tattoos that ran down his body – the spell was not that powerful, but was firmly anchored into his soul and would be very resistant to damage or removal. That was the only thing she found on him, though – no magical trace otherwise.
Further discussion was stalled, as a couple of policemen burst out of the alleyway, led by a couple of small children – who were all pointing animatedly at where the PC-1 had been parked. The policemen crossed the road, weapons pointed up in the air but ready for action, and looked around. Then they saw a window wind down and a man lean out, calling to the policeman, getting his attention then pointing back at them – at Kai in particular. The policemen called to his colleagues and then they started to head towards the team, fixing Kai with a steely look.
As the policeman got to within a few metres of Kai, he spat out a burst of rapid fire Turkish. Kai looked at him blankly, shrugging and raising his empty hands, palm upwards. He was about to turn towards Hunter and ask him to translate for him, when the cop slipped into heavily-accented and badly-phrased English instead.
"Speak! Tell me the plan, or I will kill you all. You with the mental deficit – speak now or kick you in the crotch!"
Kai just stared at him, lost for words at the outburst. His mouth hung open, and he just stood there, which seemed to infuriate the policeman further – making him repeat the phrase louder, and waving the gun in his face.
Hunter stepped forward, his hands held open and clearly not holding a weapon, and addressed him in fluent Turkish, pointing first at Kai, then at where the car had been, then up the road behind them. The policeman listened intently, then spoke into his radio. Down the road, a second policeman spoke to the vehicle owner who had pointed at them, and they saw him nod and then point up the road behind them. There was another burst of conversation over the radio between the policemen, then one of them pulled out a phone and hit a speed-dial, making a report to some unknown party.
Kai looked from policeman to policeman, trying to get a fix on their body language, whilst Hunter listened carefully. Then with almost no warning, he fired off a quick burst of Turkish, whet his lips and made a sound...
"Pthuppp pthuppp pthuppp pthuppp pthuppp pthuppp." He pointed back along the road to emphasise his point.
The policeman nodded at him, and then turned and gathered his colleagues, jogging back down the way they had come, and disappearing out of sight around the corner.
"What the hell was all of that about?" asked Kai.
"Well, the guy learnt his English from watching action movies by the sounds of things, so I shouldn't worry about that – but now you know why those guys in the valley were so upset with you – that's just what you sounded like to them. But they wanted to know about that woman. I told 'em she was a fruit seller, and conned us out of some money for bad stock, but she'd vanished – and you were trying to get our money back. She refused, so you were trying to take a picture of her on your phone whilst she was making a getaway in her piece of shit car."
The team all looked up in unison, as the chopper appeared overhead. It grew larger and flashed by them, nose down and travelling flat out as it headed south – in the direction that Ceyda had travelled.
"That was what the phone call was about – he was calling in to a military liaison that they had a fix on the suspect vehicle, and passed on the description of the car. At the end there I was telling them what a crap thing it was, and that it sounded like a lawnmower – and can't be going that fast."
Ahead of them, a police car appeared from the alleyway, and started sounding his siren, causing traffic to try and edge forwards and back up a few inches at a time, until there was enough room for it to pull out and then accelerate hard along the road, also following the PC-1. Seeing as Hunter was now out of the vehicle, Tads spent a minute watching and assensing him, making sure he was also not being tracked.
Things seemed to calm down, and everyone got on with the task of waiting. No more choppers were seen, or tractors full of policeman. Street vendors went about their business, and the kids returned to play. Seconds ticked past and turned into minutes. The radio played bad trash pop that sounded tinny and far too heavy on the treble. They sat and waited, occasionally breaking the silence to ask innocuous questions, or to check around the truck and ensure no one was observing them in particular. As time marched by, they saw some of the cars slowly manoeuver and turn around, heading back out of town. Others got out and walked about, or found someone they knew and stood and chatted. A few drivers got together and someone produced some kind of game board, and they played what looked to be a variation of draughts on the tailgate of a truck.
The hours marched by, one, then two, then three. Every now and then someone would question whether they should go back, and work their way through the hills instead. But the general consensus was that turning the truck around in the tight confines of the street would be a real pain. Secondly, it would take them potentially closer to all of the police and the military chopper that had gone after Ceyda. Finally, it was probably the best cover they had – to hide in plain sight, just another truck stuck in a massive tailback. Dusk fell, and the spirit concealing the truck vanished as the last rays of sun disappeared behind the horizon. Tads was not able to summon another – not and keep the spell disguising them up and in place, and they all agreed that the locals wouldn't miss that transformation if it happened. Finally, at just before 7pm, the traffic ahead of them started their engines and flipped on their lights. The cars started to move away, travelling at a slow but steady speed, snaking around the corner and heading into town.
They indicated into the traffic and were quickly let in, and trundled down the road into town. As they closed on the roundabout, they saw the remains of a badly-burnt bus on the road, with liberal amounts of fire-fighting foam still washing down the street, lit with a multitude of portable lights on stands set up around it. The rotating blue lights constantly cast weird shadows around the scene, causing crazy reflections from the glass and the surrounding buildings, and casting hues from blue through purple as it refracted through the foam and slick road surface. There was a terrible smell of burning, and Marius sealed off the air conditioning and set the blowers on max to clear out the smell of crisped pork whilst they all tried not to think about what that signified.
The roundabout was shut, but it looked like a temporary road had been built between a house and some industrial unit around it. Emergency road matting was laid down, and flashing lights on cones guided the vehicles through the front garden of the house and then down the access road of the unit, then over some rough ground at the back and up a hastily-filled drainage culvert and back onto the main road. The cars scrabbled for grip in some places, but the truck managed the rough terrain easily, crunching over the tiger matting and loose gravel and then powering up the slope. Then they were back on the highway, and with a mighty roar the engine applied power, pulling away smoothly and accelerating down the two lane road that was all but deserted. Most of the other traffic continued around and across the highway, through another temporary access road and into town, heading east instead of west and following the team.
They drove for about thirty minutes, looking at the tailback on the other side of the carriage way, who were probably also heading into town or back the way they had come from – slowly starting to move forwards as they had done – but their side of the road was nearly clear. The odd car came screaming past them at top speed having been caught way back in traffic, but these easily moved around them on the near-deserted road.
Ahead of them though they saw a roadblock – two large police cruisers set up in a staggered formation that forced them to slow and move through an S-bend. They were flagged down and stopped in the middle, waiting for the ID check on the car ahead to be completed, and then rolling forwards into their place. The rest of the team hid in the back, making themselves ready to attack or respond if necessary, and leaving Marius and Shimazu in the front with their fake IDs ready to scan.
When the door was tapped on with a nightstick, Shimazu opened it carefully and gave a wave of acknowledgement, and then handed down the two IDs. The police man checked them, but they both flashed green as the portable scanner checked them and cleared their profiles quickly. Without a word, the official handed back the IDs and waved them on, and Marius was quick to comply. They pulled away from the stop and piled on the speed again, moving swiftly on the quiet road. The sides of the road were dark and quiet, no electric lights and very few houses, and the darkness stretched away both inland and out. Clouds had gathered in the last hour or so, cutting out the moonlight and only the two white beams from the headlights cut through the darkness.
Around 22:30, they arrived in Bartin – the location they had originally planned to have lunch at, and pushed through, trying to make up for lost time on their route. Leaving Bartin, the darkness swallowed them up again, and they continued to head west along the coast road. They thundered through small villages and tiny towns, mostly dark places with nothing moving at this hour, until eventually the road headed inland and uphill for a while, veering south and away from the coast. They crested a ridge and the road swung due west and descended again, and before them was a large coastal plain laid out. The town of Eregil was laid out before them, thin ribbons of housing clinging to the main road and following the major routes west then both north and south. But at the end of the road they were on, and framed by the road splitting left and right was an enormous facility, lit up like a beacon on the horizon. A vast series of huge industrial buildings, some nearly a kilometre long, ran north to south, encased in a gossamer like lattice of supports and gantries and all lit by a thousand arc lights.
They descended down the road, drawing closer to the town and speeding past quiet houses and shops, closing in on the major road junction and the entrance to the Eregil steelworks. At the centre of town, just opposite the road junction, they found a sign for a national low-budget motel, and turned into the car-park. It was moderately busy, but they found space to park the truck and woke the night porter. Over the sounds of hammering, they asked for rooms and were directed to a number of empty double bedrooms, after Marius had swiped his ID and paid for a night's stay. Finally at around 01:00, they collapsed into bed, listening to the dull thuds of massive forge hammers working steel and other metals in the furnaces just a few hundred metres away. Occasional loud steam whistles punctured the night air, and klaxons sounded to signify some industrial process.
One by one the team tried to push pillows over their ears to drown out the noise, or turn down their hearing enhancements – both natural and cybernetic – trying to get to sleep.
