Cauldron of Ghosts

by David Weber

  It was . . . close to impossible. Tailing a vehicle in a modern major city by eyesight alone required a large team of surveillance experts—emphasis on large and expert. There was probably no gang in Lower Radomsko who could have managed that. Even someone like Dusek would be hard-pressed unless he had plenty of advance notice.

  She ran fingers through her hair. The sensation was strange. Thandi always kept her hair cut short, as soldiers usually did. Still, she’d had some hair. She was rather proud of it, in fact, although she’d never have admitted that to anyone. The albinism that was typical of modern Ndebelans sometimes resulted—as it had with her—in hair that was colored a brilliant platinum as well as being tightly curled.

  Now, her hair was of a piece with the rest of her. Dull, drab, dreary. The only reason it wasn’t lank was because it was too short altogether. Colored a sort of icky gray-brown, it was less than two centimeters long except for an idiotic-looking pigtail that was apparently considered the height of fashion on her supposed home planet. (That was a Verge world by the name of Pezenec. Thandi had never been there—never been near it—but she’d spent hours studying the planet on their way to Mesa.)

  “All right,” she said. “Where and when will we meet up again?” She didn’t ask him where he’d be going and what he’d be doing. That was need to know—which she didn’t.

  “I’m not sure. It depends on this, that and the other. Within two days, though, unless something gets really tangled up.”

  And with that, he opened the passenger door of the lorry and swung himself out of the cab. Once on the ground he took a few seconds to study the area nearby and then set off at a brisk pace toward one of the buildings to the rear.

  Thandi didn’t wait to see where he was going. She started the lorry and keyed in the directions. That took no time at all, since it was the same directions she’d been following when the ambush happened.

  Was there a word for an ambush gone badly wrong? she wondered. There damn well ought to be.

  She thought about for a while, as the lorry made its way through the streets.

  Slambush? Scrambush? Lamebush?

  Eventually she settled on ambust.

  * * *

  The man was one scary son of a bitch. But Hasrul’s mother was in bad shape now. He had to scrape up the money to get her the medicine she needed—and soon. He didn’t think Mama would last much longer if he didn’t.

  “Oh, come on,” the man said. He leaned a shoulder against the wall of the building they were standing next to. But he didn’t put any real weight on it, and Hasrul was sure he could still spring into action in an split second.

  “I’m almost insulted,” the man continued. “Do you really think I need to steal from someone like you?”

  Hasrul hated to admit it, but the man had a point. His clothing didn’t qualify as rags, but give it a few more months and they might. Mama’s condition was draining every source of funds the family could get its hands on. There wasn’t much left for anything else except the bare necessities.

  “I haven’t got the tools,” he protested. “Can’t afford them, neither.”

  “I didn’t think you did and I didn’t think you could. So what?” The man cocked his head a little. “Are you going to tell me with a straight face that you don’t know who can do the work and does have the tools? If you do, you’ve insulted me twice and you’re getting onto thin ice.”

  Hasrul ignored the implied threat. Sure, this guy was scary as hell, but he wasn’t the only scary son of a bitch around and Hasrul was used to threats. What did interest him was the man’s use of the word “ice.” Between that and the accent, Hasrul was now sure he was an offworlder. There wasn’t much ice on Mesa outside of refrigerating units and the polar ice caps.

  Perhaps oddly, that reassured Hasrul. The truth was, some of the people in Lower Radomsko sure as hell would steal the clothing from a twelve-year-old boy—and cut his throat in the bargain. But he didn’t think someone who could afford the passage on a starship would bother.

  “Yeah, sure, I know somebody. What do you want me to tell him? And what’s in it for me?”

  The man hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing down the street. They were standing in the mouth of the alley, so the wrecked vehicles were still in sight. “Tell him I’ve got what’s left of one air car—pretty fancy one, too; it’s a Lecuyer 80 Zed Alpha—and two lorries. He’s welcome to cut them all up and sell what he can.”

  One of the lorries was still undamaged. But Hasrul knew that cutting it up for parts was safer than trying to sell an unregistered vehicle. The police didn’t bother with checking vehicle registrations in Lower Radomsko, but if you went beyond those limits you might get into trouble. You were sure to get the registration checked if you went outside the seccy districts.

  “What’s the split?” he asked.

  “Seventy-thirty.”

  “Which way?”

  “He’s doing all the work. Seventy for him and thirty for me.”

  “He’ll try to cheat you.”

  “That’s a given. As long as he doesn’t get too greedy, I’ll look the other way.”

  “And how will he know what’s too greedy and what isn’t?”

  For the first time, a smile came to the man’s face. Now, he was a really scary son of a bitch. “He’ll know he crossed the line when he sees his brains on the ground. So you can tell him that I recommend he err on the side of caution.”

  Hasrul wasn’t exactly sure what the word “err” meant, but the context made it clear enough.

  And, again, he felt reassured. There was something completely relaxed about the way this man issued threats. They didn’t even seem like threats at all. Just . . . foresight. Predictions of what was sure to come. Not even old Bianka the fortune-teller could make something sound that certain.

  Hasrul really couldn’t imagine this guy killing or hurting someone like him, who was barely more than a child. Not because he wasn’t ruthless enough but just because it would be beneath his dignity.

  That still left the critical issue to be resolved.

  “What’s in it for me?”

  The man pushed back against the wall and came to a straight-up standing position. “I’ll leave that up to you. You can choose between five percent of whatever I get or a favor.”

  “What do you mean, ‘a favor’?”

  “Just what it sounds like. I’ll owe you a favor. Call it in whenever you like. If it’s within reason, I’ll do it.”

  “Who gets to decide if it’s reasonable?”

  “Me, of course.” His smile came back—only this time it seemed to have some real humor in it. “Don’t worry, kid. If I can’t or won’t do you the favor you ask for, pick another one. You won’t have to look for brains on the ground. I’ll just use the word ‘no.’ ”

  The sensible choice was the five percent commission, of course. But . . .

  That would only get Mama medicine for a couple of weeks. And there was something about this guy.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Achmed. Achmed Buenaventura.”

  “I’m Hasrul Goosens. You owe me a favor. Well, you will, anyway. In about four hours.”

  Chapter 32

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Andrew hissed, when he saw the two criminals in the back of the lorry’s cab.

  “It’s Victor’s idea, not mine,” Thandi said. “But there’s no point fretting over it now. What’s done is done.”

  “What’s done is most certainly not done.” He pointed an accusing finger at the objects of his wrath. The gesture was a little silly-looking, though. As cramped as they were in the cab, he had to keep his hand tucked up against his chest. “Just dump them somewhere. Far from here.”

  “No. We’re not going to do that, Andrew, so just drop it. Help me get them inside.”

  “People will see us! They’ll be suspicious.”

  “It’s a service alley—with nobody in sight.”

  “There’s a street lamp.”
>
  “It’s fifty meters away and it doesn’t shed any light back here.”

  “But somebody—”

  “Andrew, shut up. Shut. Up. Just keep the door open.”

  She reached over the seat and pulled Callie up. Then, in as close an approximation as she could get to a fireman’s carry inside the confines of the cab, she got her out of the lorry and down in the alley. From there, it was easy work to get the injured and unconscious woman inside the leased unit through a side door.

  Thankfully, Artlett kept quiet and opened doors as needed. Once they were inside the unit, Thandi laid Callie down on the floor of one of the back rooms. There was no furniture in that room as yet.

  Within two minutes, she’d laid Teddy down next to her.

  “Okay, let’s get the equipment inside.”

  “We’ll need to use the service entrance in the back. It’s got the only door big enough.”

  While Andrew went to get that door open, Thandi returned to the lorry and drove it around to the service entrance through two connecting tunnels. As was usually true with residential towers with commercial establishments on the lower floors, all deliveries of goods and equipment were done by way of underground arteries. She hadn’t wanted to unload the two injured people at the large service entrance because there was almost bound to be someone in sight. But the area wasn’t especially well lit, and unloading equipment in innocuously marked containers (using the same logo of Komlanc Intermodal Transport) didn’t reveal anything significant, even if someone was watching. They were opening a business, after all. New businesses needed supplies and equipment.

  After opening the rear of the lorry, the first container she brought out was the one holding the scrambling and anti-eavesdropping devices. It wasn’t all that big a container—two meters long, one wide and one deep—but it weighed quite a bit. Since she was carrying the container on a portable counter-grav generator, however, that wasn’t a problem.

  Andrew directed her, and she guided the container down a steep flight of stairs into the basement. Into a subbasement, actually, since the entry was already below ground.

  “No elevator?”

  “Not one that’s operating. Which word in ‘seccy district’ are you having the most trouble with?”

  Thandi was amused rather than irritated. Now that they’d gotten the wounded criminals out of public sight, her mood was improving. Andrew Artlett could turn grumpiness into an art form.

  He waved his hand toward the ceiling. “The elevators serving the upper floors are mostly working, of course. This building’s over three hundred stories tall. But the maintenance budget is stretched and the work crews are stretched even worse. They don’t try to keep nonessential equipment operating. The only people who use the basements and subbasements are shop owners on the bottom floors. If they want working elevators, they can damn well pay to fix them themselves.”

  As it turned out, the subbasement was the lowest of five subbasements. By now, they were far underground. It was also now clear to Thandi why Andrew and Victor hadn’t been worried that the equipment they’d soon have in operation would be detected by anyone in Mesan security. Between the equipment’s own shielding and the meters of soil and ceramacrete between the subbasement and the surface, nothing would be detected. Nothing, at least, strong enough to be analyzed. A huge and densely populated modern city generated so much electronic noise that any given signal got degraded quickly even without shielding.

  After she unloaded the container, Thandi let Andrew go to work getting the equipment up and running while she took the counter-grav generator back upstairs. There were more containers to be brought in.

  She left the largest of them till the end. That contained the medical unit, which was the heaviest of the containers as well as the biggest. She wouldn’t be able to fit that one down the stairs to the basement. She probably couldn’t take it up the stairs to the higher floors either. They’d have to set it up in one of the back rooms of the main floor. That would pose a bit of a security risk, but there was no way around it.

  Victor had insisted on bringing the medical unit. He claimed it was probably even more important than the scrambling gear. She’d been doubtful, herself, but hadn’t argued the point. Anton hadn’t been inclined to debate the matter either.

  And now . . . it looked as if Victor might have been right. There were a number of ways to solidify the allegiance of people to a new criminal gang. She’d never contemplated the problem before, but it now occurred to her that being able to offer good medical care was probably very high on the list.

  The unit wasn’t state of the art. That would have required Beowulfan design and manufacture, which would be risky if it was spotted anywhere on Mesa. But it was fairly close, being a topline unit made on Strathmoor. It wouldn’t be as versatile as the much larger stationary equipment in a hospital, but that sort of full-spectrum capability was probably not going to be needed anyway. Or, if it was needed, would be a moot point—since they’d all be facing interrogators in Mesa’s equivalent of a dungeon. Who were not likely to be offering them tender loving care.

  Since Andrew was still preoccupied with the scrambling gear, Steph Turner made the decision as to where she wanted the med unit.

  “All the way in the back, I think. There’s a really big walk-in pantry next to the kitchen. Once we place the med unit against the back wall, Andrew can build a set of shelves that swing aside and hide it if necessary.” Steph made a face. “That’s about as primitive as things get in the way of disguises. But it’s the best we can do.”

  “No, it makes sense to me,” said Thandi. “A full-bore search of the building by security agents won’t be fooled, but if you get that kind of search you’re screwed anyway. A fake wall, especially if it’s got shelves on it holding food supplies, will be enough to hide the med unit from anyone who wanders back there by mistake. Or from thieves—not that there’s much chance of thieves getting past that equipment Andrew’s setting up in the basement.”

  “Or my favorite cleaver,” Steph said, very matter-of-factly. “I didn’t bring all my cooking stuff, since I’m not setting up a commercial diner. But I got the basics.”

  * * *

  Before long, it was done. And now it was time to give the med unit its maiden voyage.

  So to speak. She didn’t think there was really much chance Callie was still a maiden.

  “Which one goes in first?” Steph asked.

  “The woman. Her injuries are worse.”

  Steph frowned. “How can you tell? Those legs both look like a mess.”

  “I’m the one who shot them and I know where the darts hit. Callie doesn’t have a knee left. Teddy does, even if the area around it is pretty chewed up.”

  “Whatever you say, O Dealer in Death and Destruction.”

  “I could have just killed them, you know.”

  Thandi left unsaid the fact that she damn well would have, too, if it hadn’t been for Victor and his schemes.

  * * *

  Since he had a few hours to spare, Victor decided he might as well use them productively. Three of the safe drops he’d set up the last time he and Anton had been on Mesa were within reach in the time he had available, unless he ran into trouble before he could get out of Lower Radomsko.

  That wasn’t likely, though. He’d checked the locator on his air car before ramming the lorry and knew that he was close to the outskirts of Lower Radomsko. By now, word of the killings would have spread for blocks—and he only had four or five blocks to go.

  So, he set off walking. Two things were a given, here. First, the residents of an area like this could recognize at a glance someone who projected an aura that said: Do not mess with me. Do not even think about it. Second, Victor could project that predatory aura superbly well. He’d learned how to do it in the abstract while still at the StateSec Academy, practicing in a simulator. In the years that had gone by since, the aura had become a reality. If anyone was stupid enough to mess with him here, they would find
themselves in a world of hurt.

  He didn’t even think about it—which, of course, just made the aura that much more intimidating. He spent the time working through the angles of his newly improvised plan.

  He considered and then discarded the idea of actually taking control of Lower Radomsko. That was certainly possible. Victor couldn’t have done it on his own. But with Thandi available, it was by no means out of the question. Still, even with her, the project would take too much time.

  He wasn’t sure why he thought that, exactly. How much time was “too much,” in such a fluid situation?

  But Victor trusted his instincts—which were not “instincts” at all, really. The mind involved here was that of a man who was superb at this sort of work and now had a lot of experience at it. Not as much experience as someone like Kevin Usher, but with possibly even more than Kevin in the way of raw talent.

  That mind operated on many levels, not all of them fully conscious and some of them not conscious at all. Analyzing, gauging, assessing, calculating. Term after term could be added to that list, but after a while it became pointless because the thinking involved had no defined boundaries or rigid pathways. This was art, not science.

  So while Victor couldn’t have explained why he didn’t think they had enough time to take over Lower Radomsko, he was sure they didn’t. The interstellar political situation was coming to a boil. It probably would have done so anyway, but the complete destruction of Filareta’s fleet made it certain—and raised the heat by an order of magnitude. Anybody with any sense at all could now see that the Solarian League was doomed. The only uncertainty that remained was the exact manner in which it would disintegrate.

  But however that disintegration unfolded, one feature of it was now a given. Mesa was doomed also. And Victor was sure that doom wouldn’t be long in the making.