the base that had been relatively unscathed by the attack. The going was no faster here, though, as the roads were full of vehicles, moving in all directions.
They had to pull over to the side at one point and wait for a line of huge alien battle tanks to pass. The tanks had no tracks but moved on four large, ball-shaped wheels. The main gun was a long barrel protruding from a dome-shaped turret at the top. Their heavily armored circular hulls were virtually impregnable. The hulls spun at high speed in battle, and even armor-piercing shells just ricocheted off before they could explode. The earth shook and the Land Rover rattled on its springs as the massive tanks rumbled past.
In a stone city of war, guarded by fierce gargoyles and high-tech weapons, the headquarters of the PGZ still managed to look more menacing than its surroundings. Four stories high, it towered over the one- and two-story buildings around it. There were no gargoyles. It did not need them. Built of a darker stone than the other buildings, it looked like a castle with high, turreted walls. Rooms curved out from the sides of the building. Light burned through narrow oval windows, gleaming like animal eyes in the sparse morning light.
Once again Chisnall felt the cold strangeness. The intuition that had never failed him. This was a bad place. A place of bad things. A place of bad people.
There were no signs of any kind on the building, nor on the tall, jagged wall that surrounded it. Two heavy metal gates provided the only way in or out of the compound. There was no visible security presence, but as their vehicles pulled to a halt outside, a pair of guards emerged from a watch house just inside the gate and waited, weapons in hand, for them to emerge from their vehicles.
“Get the humans ready,” Yozi said, and walked over to the gate. He spoke to the guards and after a moment one of them turned and disappeared inside the main entrance to the dark castle.
Chisnall and Brogan covered the two SAS men with their sidearms and motioned for them to get down off the tray of the Land Rover.
Yozi turned back. “ID tubes, everybody.” He motioned for them to approach the gate.
Bzadian ID tubes were a matching pair of blue-metal tubes, about the size of a pen, worn on the shoulders like an epaulet. Chisnall unclipped the one from his right shoulder and held it in front of him. The one on his left shoulder he deliberately left alone. It looked exactly like an ID tube but was something else entirely.
The PGZ guard took the tube from him and examined it before inserting it into a scanner unit on his waist. Chisnall waited calmly. The ID was good. Chisnall was sure of that. Human forgers had cracked the Bzadian ID codes months ago, and it was a real ID tube, taken from a Bzadian POW, recoded to Chisnall’s profile. There was a moment’s pause before it confirmed, with a buzz and a blue light, and the guard handed the tube back to him with three short nods.
The other members of his team and of Yozi’s unit all passed their tubes through the gate for checking, taking turns to cover the prisoners as they did so. By the time the guard had finished checking the IDs, the first guard reemerged from the castle, followed by a number of PGZ officers.
It was hard not to cringe a little at the sight of the blood-red uniforms, but a little fear might not look out of place. From what he’d heard, the average Bzadian was more scared of their secret police than humans were.
The gate opened slowly, scraping off to one side, and the guard indicated that Yozi and Chisnall should escort the prisoners inside.
Brogan passed next to him and murmured, “If things get hairy, Fleming is going to try to create a diversion.”
Bennett was struggling to stay upright now. The long ride had not done any good to his injured leg. His fierce grimace showed that it was only through sheer determination that he was able to retain his balance as he and Fleming walked ahead of Chisnall and Yozi into the compound. The SAS men were the toughest soldiers Chisnall had ever met, and it was hard not to admire them, but he forced himself to show only contempt for the men.
The smallest of the officers seemed to be in charge. He