"Blast," he whispered, his face rapidly turning florid in the dim mist. "Didn't we tell her radio silence was essential?" He quickly switched on the microphone. "Ulysses One, get off this channel. Sirene is here."
"Thank God. But you've got to try and find Mike. Isaac went to look for him, but he hasn't come back."
"You mean Mannheim?" Armont took the microphone. "Where did he go?"
"He said he was going to try the empty loading bays down at Launch," she said. "He hasn't come back, so maybe he found him. Could you try there?"
Reggie turned to Armont with a questioning look that needed no words. It was, simply, What do we do now?
On this one, Armont had no better idea than anyone else. They all knew where the loading bays were, since the blueprints had made that plain enough. The problem was the sequence. Should they go ahead with the assault as planned, to take the time to try to find him and pull him out? Her intel on his location was just a guess, but it was a start.
ARM's rules always had been that their own people came first. So if they knew where Vance might possibly be, nothing else mattered. According to the rules, they had to drop everything and try to pull him out. Even if it jeopardized the operation. Those were the rules. No exceptions.
For that matter, Armont suddenly thought, why not try
and bring her in out of the cold, too? Then they would have a personal guide to the whole layout. It seemed to make a lot of sense, particularly since radio security was already shot to hell.
He clicked on the microphone again. "Can you meet us there? Where you think he is?"