Gears of War: The Slab (Gears of War 5)

by Karen Traviss

  “Is that bloodstains, Tai?” Jace asked, indicating marks on his vest.

  Tai nodded. “My craft leaves its signature.”

  “Okay, cool, I’ll have whatever you’re drinking, then.”

  They looked at each other. Now there was no turning back. Dom opened the rear door and slid out, heart in his mouth. If this failed—damn, he was already thinking about what he would need to do to commandeer a Raven and airlift Marcus out.

  But he’d have to cooperate. And he won’t even see me or answer letters. It’d be like an opposed boarding and extraction.

  Screw it. If that’s what it came down to, he’d do that, too.

  Dom noted the dappling of blood spots on the paving outside before he pushed the door open and walked in, feeling his boots stick and peel off the carpet as he headed for the bar. The place smelled a lot more appetizing than it looked, a mix of rich meat stew, cigarette smoke, and a little graphite grease. The grease was oddly pleasant. It reminded Dom of his dad’s workshop.

  He glanced at Jace and Tai. “Take a seat over there,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of an empty table.

  Stevedores and truck drivers were leaning on the bar, some with their backs to the door and some watching who’d walked in. Just as Dom knew exactly what they did for a living simply by looking at them and their work clothes, they could see what he was, too. Tai and Jace took a seat and Dom went up to the widest gap along the bar.

  He folded his arms on the counter, one boot on the old brass rail, and put his coins down. Bars were one of the few places where hard currency still counted for anything. Dom never quite understood how that worked, but alcohol wasn’t rationed. If a bar or a brewery ran out of raw materials, it was too bad, so customers tended to contribute whatever brewable scraps they had to ensure a steady supply. The barman took his time finishing his chat with a regular before ambling across to Dom.

  “What can we do for you, soldier?”

  “Three halves of whatever you’ve got on draft.” There was all kinds of shit behind the bar: old photographs, parts of a shotgun, Sharks’ thrashball scarves, and even part of a Brumak’s skull. The mirror that formed a backdrop to the optics of mostly half-empty liquor bottles was cracked at one edge and the silvering was flaking off. “I’m looking for Piet.”

  The barman poured a glass with slow care. “Piet who?”

  “Verdier.” Dom had to make it clear that his business was as murky as Verdier’s. “His lawyer’s my lawyer.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is he around?”

  The barman just looked at Dom without blinking. Dom only realized something was happening when he heard movement at Jace’s table, glanced over his shoulder, and saw a tubby middle-aged man in overalls slide off one of the bar stools. Jace and Tai looked ready to intercept.

  “I am,” said the man. “What do you want?”

  Dom turned to the barman. “Make that four halves,” he said, then gestured to the table. “I want to know if you can do a job for me.”

  The only thing that gave away Verdier’s real business was the look in his eyes, nothing else about his face at all. If he’d been wearing shades, Dom might have taken him for a regular working joe who did nothing more sinister than divert a few cans of processed meat from his delivery truck each week. But those dull gray eyes were completely devoid of warmth or compassion. The faint smile didn’t do anything to soften the effect. He sat down, just glancing at Tai and Jace like he was checking if they were worth anything, and waited for Dom to put the beer down in front of him.

  “So you know Benjamin,” he said. “Why would he be giving you my name? And what’s yours?”

  “I’m Dom Santiago.” He was in the shit anyway, so using his real name wasn’t going to make it any worse. “My brother’s in the Slab and I want him out. The appeal system isn’t quite doing it for me.”

  Verdier turned and looked at Tai for a few moments. Tai looked back at him, unfazed and unmoved. Tai’s spectacular facial tattoos had a sobering effect on most people because everyone knew what South Islanders were like once they got a strop on, as Pad put it, and staring at them was one way to start it. It didn’t matter to the outside world which island they came from, although it mattered a lot to the individual Islander. They were grade A psychos in combat, all of them, and wouldn’t stop unless someone put them down permanently.

  “You got a problem, pal?” Verdier asked.

  “My friend’s problem is my problem also,” Tai said mildly, not breaking eye contact. “Can you help us?”

  Verdier actually looked away first. Dom wondered if they were ahead on points now because Tai was so far outside Verdier’s experience and he really didn’t know how to take him.

  “Okay,” Verdier said. “What’s he in for? Because if it’s about kids or old folk, I won’t spring him for any amount. He can fucking rot.”

  Dom adjusted his moral compass to Verdier’s. “Court-martial for disobeying orders.”

  “Okay. It’s going to cost you. My payment has to cover the guard’s take and the driver’s look-the-other-way fee too. And it could take a damn long time. There isn’t traffic in and out of there on any kind of regular basis, let alone frequently.”

  “So you think it’s doable,” Dom said.

  “Eventually. But think the best part of five, six, seven months—a year, maybe. I’m serious. These things take a lot of planning and luck when there’s a war on. And they get called off at the last minute, like military ops, but then you’d be used to that. Can your guy hold out that long?”

  “Probably.” Could he? Dom thought Marcus could take anything, but the guy he’d last seen wasn’t that Marcus at all. “How would you do it?”

  “If you’ve got a handful of guards and half of them would pimp their grannies for a packet of smokes, it’s not hard to get one of them to shove a guy on a truck. Just got to pick the right shift, get word to your guy, and he’s out. It’s getting the delivery and the shift to coincide that’s the tough bit. The chief screw’s an honest type. Tries to keep the beating and starving of inmates down to a minimum. Regular girl scout.”

  Dom’s stomach knotted. He worried his guts out about what was happening to Marcus in there, and that just confirmed the worst he could imagine. If Marcus hadn’t been such a stubborn, self-sacrificing bastard, Dom could at least have visited him and reassured himself that he was doing okay—or as okay as anyone could be in there.

  But if it was me, and I thought I was never coming out—how would it feel to have my old life dangled in front of me and know I would never get it back again?

  “Okay,” Dom said. “What if the guy we’re extracting is reluctant to go?”

  “Oh, I see. Family feud.” Verdier seemed to take brother literally. As far as Dom was concerned, it was. “Hey, you want him dead? That’s a lot cheaper, unless you’ve got some reason for wanting to do it yourself.”

  “No, I want him out alive. But I might have to go in to persuade him.” Punch him out and drag him, probably. It was too complicated to explain. Just lie. “He’d find it hard to accept being on the run as opposed to pardoned.”

  “Persuade a guy he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life ankle-deep in shit and defending his ass? Yeah. Tough sell.”

  “Okay, then if you can’t get me in, find a way to get him on a truck even if he doesn’t want to go.”

  “What can you put on the table?”

  This was the hard bit. If the plan was going to crash anywhere, it would be about price. “Ration books.”

  “It’s going to cost more than that, kid.”

  Kid. Okay … “I’m talking about a neighborhood kitchen’s worth of books. Mass catering for two thousand for four months. High value. Meat, dairy, eggs, that kind of stuff. Half on the table, half when you bring Marcus back.”

  “That’s his name, is it?”

  “Marcus. Yeah. Marcus Fenix.”

  Verdier stared into his beer for a while. Dom hardly dared look at Jace
. He seemed to be watching what was going on at another table, or at least glancing past Dom with that deliberate slowness that said he was trying to be discreet. Tai just stared at Verdier like he was some new kind of grub, frowning slightly.

  “That’s a lot of ration books,” Verdier said at last. “You been pilfering from COG HQ? Am I going to get a bunch of angry guys in black armor trampling all over my business?”

  “No.” Dom felt suddenly and inexplicably pissed off. It was a weirdly unpleasant situation because he wasn’t sure he liked his reasons for feeling offended. “I was awarded the Embry Star. I sold it to some asshole collector because my brother means more to me than a medal. And he won the Embry Star too. He deserves better than he got.”

  It shut Verdier up, which Dom wasn’t expecting. He looked at him for a while. The dead gray eyes changed just a fraction: surprise, pity, contempt? Dom couldn’t tell. But Verdier nodded, held out his hand for shaking, and Dom took it.

  “Half now,” he said.

  “Deal.” Dom shook his hand, appalled that he felt no guilt whatsoever and wondering again what the hell Mom and Dad would have thought of this. He took the long brown envelope out of his shirt and laid it on the table. It was hard to trust anyone these days, but he had no way of checking this guy out, although he could certainly make sure that the bar got a direct hit by accident one day if Verdier stiffed him. Shit—listen to me. What am I becoming? “How are you going to get in touch with me?”

  “You can use this bar, or Amberley’s office.”

  “Okay. When are you going to check back with me?”

  “I’ll touch base with you once a month until it’s set up. Starting next week.”

  Verdier drained his beer in one pull, pocketed the envelope, and went back to the bar. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of him. It was that kind of place, though. They were probably all into some scam or other. It was the kind of small-scale civilian corruption that would normally have outraged Dom, but right then he didn’t give a shit. He was perfectly comfortable with his morality. He couldn’t weep over people he didn’t even know going hungry when Marcus was in jail, especially as his mental image of the place had been completely confirmed by Verdier.

  A year. Marcus might be in there for another damn year. He’s going to be a wreck when he gets out.

  It was when, not if. Dom went on drinking his beer. Tai sipped his like a duchess, which made him look as if he was messing around, but that was just the way he drank everything. Jace seemed more focused on the door.

  “I don’t want to worry you,” he said, “but four assholes were watching you and Mr. Wonderful there doing business. I think we need to go check that the Pack’s still out there.”

  “Okay, drink up.”

  That was all Dom needed, to have to explain to Hoffman why they’d lost a Packhorse in the red-light district. He checked his watch. Yeah, it was time they left. He got up and walked out of the door as casually as he could, steeling himself for the worst. But the Packhorse was still parked there. The street lighting was patchy, one light in three kept on despite the power shortages to deter kryll, but it looked like it was in one piece.

  He paused on the curb, feeling his life had reached a watershed. So it was done. He’d taken the plunge. Now he had to let the thing run its course. Jace and Tai could deny all knowledge if they had to, even though he knew damn well they never would.

  “Hey, it’s got all its tires,” Jace said, right behind him. “Still some respect for the uniform, then. I’m gonna break the speed limit getting out of this shithole, believe me.”

  Jace walked around to the driver’s door and Tai went the other way. Normally Dom’s situational awareness was pretty damn sharp even in the relative safety of the city, but for some reason he just didn’t see it coming. Someone cannoned into him from the side and knocked him flat. He hit the ground hard, winded. His first instinct was to ram his elbow in the guy’s face—it was a young blond guy, right on top of him—but then he saw someone’s boot coming and curled up in a ball. The kick caught him in the shoulder. Jace was yelling at someone to get the fuck on the floor. Dom was now pinned by two guys, and he realized when they made a grab inside his jacket that it wasn’t the Packhorse they wanted.

  That’ll teach me to hand over an envelope in a public place.

  Oh shit …

  He couldn’t reach his sidearm. He was going to get knifed. He knew it. Worse than that, he was about to lose the second half of the payment. One of the guys was flat on him, almost face to face and trying to press his arm across his throat, and Dom didn’t even think: he sank his teeth into the first flesh in range. It was a blind animal moment. His teeth hit something hard and his mouth was suddenly full of blood. His attacker screamed and tried to jerk free. What had he bitten down on—a hand, an ear, a wrist? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He hung on like a dog. In one of those weird suspended seconds when every sound, every movement, every smell became crystal clear. He could hear the thwock-thwock-thwock sounds of someone getting punched shitless and Jace yelling at someone that he had plenty more where that came from, motherfucker. Then a shot rang out and everything stopped dead. The pressure eased off his right arm.

  “You can release him now, Dom,” Tai said. “Let him go.”

  Sanity and rational thought flooded back. Dom still had his teeth in the blond guy’s wrist. Oh god. Terrific. That explained the blood. Tai pulled the two guys off him and by the time he rolled over and knelt up, spitting blood and feeling sick, one was flat on the ground and not moving. Tai had the blond one across the hood of the Pack with his arm twisted up his back.

  Piet Verdier was standing over another guy Dom hadn’t even seen, a handgun aimed between his eyes while he tried to sit up. Jace was kneeling on the fourth guy’s chest, shaking his right hand like he’d broken a bone or something. There had been four of them, then. It must have looked like reasonable odds when it started.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Verdier said, “this is nothing to do with me. Okay?” He rested the muzzle against the forehead of the guy on the ground, who was clearly shitting his pants. “Son, you need to learn something. Don’t fuck with my customers, and don’t fuck with my income. Got it?”

  For a moment Dom thought that would be it, just a frightener to make his point. Then Verdier cocked the weapon, and Dom realized he was going to pull the trigger. Shit, not here. Not in front of us. He was going to witness a murder. That wasn’t part of the plan at all.

  “We didn’t mean to,” the guy said. “Honest, Mr. Verdier.”

  Verdier paused for a moment, then moved the muzzle to the guy’s left kneecap and fired. The scream echoed all over the goddamn street. Jace and Tai froze. The kneecapped guy was writhing on the pavement, shrieking, and Verdier had to put his boot on his shoulder to hold him in position. Calm and slow, he put the pistol to the guy’s other knee and fired again. The screaming was off the scale now. Nobody came out of any of the buildings nearby. The regulars at the Fusilier watched casually from the doorway, smoking and probably comparing points of technique. Dom just stared. It was only a few seconds but he felt like he’d been standing there for hours.

  “There,” Verdier said. The guy was rocking back and forth on his side now in a pool of blood. Dom had never heard anyone scream that much, not even on the battlefield. “Now, the rest of you get to walk, because I want you to run away and tell the rest of your fuckwit kiddie gang what happens if you try to piss up my lamppost. Who’s it going to be? You? Yeah, you, ginger. Come on. Up you get.”

  The ginger kid couldn’t have been more than twenty and there was a big wet patch down the leg of his pants. He hesitated. Then he scrambled to his feet and ran for it. Dom expected Verdier to shoot him. Instead he just watched him go and checked his clip.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  Dom had no idea what to say. “We’re fine.”

  “Okay, you boys go and leave me to tidy up.” Verdier went over to the two remaining guys and frowned
like he couldn’t make up his mind where to shoot them for effect. “I’ll be in touch. You’ve got my word, Mr. Santiago. An Embry Star still counts for something, you know.”

  Dom couldn’t work out if Verdier was making the point that he would use violence without a second thought if he didn’t get his other payment, or if he really did simply object to half-assed gangs operating on his turf. Maybe he meant it about the Embry Star. It was hard to tell. Verdier waved Tai aside, pulled the third guy off the Packhorse, and grabbed his wrist to straighten his arm. Dom didn’t want to see what was coming next.

  “Off you go, Gear,” Verdier said, jerking his head in the direction of the city center. He shoved the handgun into the crook of the guy’s elbow. “You don’t want to see this. Elbows. Even harder to fix than kneecaps, not that I want to burden JMC any more than I have to. Poor assholes. Always working flat out.”

  Jace got into the Packhorse and started the engine. Dom hadn’t even seen what had happened to the guy he was kneeling on. “Dom, move it. You too, Tai.”

  Yeah, that was good advice. Dom slammed the rear passenger door behind him and tried to focus on why he was getting sucked into all this. Jace hit the gas hard. But the roar of the accelerating engine couldn’t drown out the sound of another gunshot, then the shrieking that carried on the air and didn’t seem to fade with the distance.

  Nobody spoke until they were a kilometer from Wrightman. Jace let out a breath.

  “Now there’s a man of his word,” he said.

  Dom was sure he could still hear the scream. It was never going to go away. But in this world, a man had to save who he could and screw the rest.

  CHAPTER 12

  I understand if you don’t want to write back. But I’ll keep writing every week, because something’s got to get to you sooner or later, and I’ll keep writing until the day you’re released. I will be there, Marcus. I swear I’ll be waiting.