“He’s a Hindu god.”
Morley chuckled dryly. “Talk about threats to body and soul. Everyone at North Lakeside must be afraid to walk outside for fear of lightning strikes.” She thumped the arms of the chair and rose slowly. “Well, I’m going to let you get some rest. Pimentel will be around soon, if he hasn’t staged an assault on Base Command.” She straightened Jani’s sheet. “Hit the rail pad if you need anything.”
Jani licked more cotton coating from her teeth. “I’m really thirsty now.”
“Thank the sedative for that,” Morley said. “We need to hold off. Your fluid levels are satisfactory, but post-takedown vomiting is still a threat, and the usual antinausea meds we give might do you more harm than good.”
Jani stuck out her tongue at the closing door. “I have such glamorous illnesses.” She stared at the ceiling, hunting for any interesting blemishes that would set it apart from the other hospital ceilings she had known.
“Hello, Kilian.”
Jani raised her head too quickly. The room spun.
Neumann sat in Morley’s recently vacated chair. He wore desertweights. A rancid smile. “Didn’t think you’d see me anymore, did you?”
Jani stared at the years-dead man. “Guess the takedown didn’t.”
“Yeah. Can’t trust technology. Pin blocks. Shooters. Pulse bombs.” He straightened so he could look over at Jani’s bandaged arm. “So, your marble-eyed buddy set you up. With friends like him, who needs a death sentence?”
“I was never in any danger.”
Neumann snorted. “Shows what you know. Hell, you said it yourself. Knives have slipped during those little bouts before, and Cèel’s a hard-liner who’d like nothing better than to offer a prayer of thanks over your corpse.”
“But instead, Nema forced him to accept me.” Jani tried to sit up, and made the mistake of using her right arm for support. Stars exploded. She slumped back against her pillow, breathing in quick gasps to keep those precious sips of water where they belonged. “He’s ten steps ahead of all of you. Always was. Always will be.”
“You better hope so. Your continued existence depends on it.” Neumann stood and walked to the window side of the room. The wash of daylight highlighted odd shadows in his pale tan uniform, darkenings across his torso, his right trouser leg and sleeve. “Yeah, he’s got them all running scared.”
“Cao can’t afford to lose whatever idomeni support she has.” Jani sat up, this time more carefully. “Colony-Haárin trade increases every month. Financial stakes are huge. The colonies will vote her out of office the second her policies affect their pocketbooks.”
“Since when did you become a political analyst?” Neumann sneered. “Well, you were always good at flummoxing those too ignorant to know better.” The taunting expression turned self-satisfied. “But you never fooled Acton van Reuter. And you sure as hell never fooled me.”
“I killed you.”
Neumann shrugged. “My shooter caught in my holster.” The front of his shirt had darkened further. Looked shiny. Wet. Red. “You’d have never outdrawn me in a fair fight.” He turned from the window to face her. The blood from the shooter entry wound in his abdomen had soaked from the V of his collar to below his beltline. “But you don’t know a goddamned thing about fair fights, do you, Kilian? All you know is fucking your way to the top and interfering with your betters.”
Jani watched the bloodstains bloom. The killshot. The exit wound that blew out his right leg. The wound in his right arm, that seeped instead of bled. That was where the shelving had fallen on his corpse during the first round of Laumrau shelling, severing the dead arm. He’s a hallucination. Yet he seemed more real than any person Jani had seen that day. Big as life and so damned ugly. “One of the last times I spoke with Evan, he sounded as though he missed you. Why?”
Neumann leaned against the window. The blood from his damaged arm streamed down the glass. “Evan was a good kid. Normal blowouts growing up. The drinking—that started way too early, but Acton wouldn’t listen to me.” He smeared a line of blood with his finger. “Evan understands tradition. He respects it.”
“What he respects are the privileges of being the V in NUVA-SCAN.”
“Ours by right of conquest, Kilian, paid for with those names on the Gate. Top dog gets the best cut of meat—first law of life in the Commonwealth.”
Jani watched Neumann draw on the glass in his blood. One line. Another. Then crosshatches, like a small grid. He’s here for a reason. Her ghosts always appeared for a reason. It was her job to figure out what the reason was. “Speaking of dogs, ever run into Ebben, Unser, or Fitzhugh?”
Neumann drew an X in one box. “Once in a while.”
“Did they ever tell you who killed them?”
“Oh, now she wants information.” He filled another box with an O. “Even though she knows I can’t tell her anything she doesn’t already know or have the ability to figure out.” When the blood on the window became too thinly spread to work with, he refilled by dipping a finger in his oozing arm. “No, Kilian, you have to work for your supper like everyone else. No more easy rides. No more getting by on your Two of Six mystique.”
“That mystique was the reason you forced my transfer to the Twelfth Rovers.” She watched him puzzle over the half-filled grid. “You need a naught in the upper-right corner.”
“Oh, thank you.” He drew it in, then cut a diagonal slash through his line of O’s. “Being dead plays hell with the ol’ cognition.” He took a white-linen handkerchief from the pocket of his short-sleeve and wiped the window clean. “You think Pierce had something to do with their deaths.” He tucked the bloody cloth away, then crossed his arms and leaned against the pane. His right arm shifted as he applied pressure—the elbow slipped down.
Jani tried to sit forward. Every time she moved, her right arm throbbed. “I know he did. It’s just a question of what.”
“He already told you. At the soccer match.”
“He said we had a lot in common.”
“Nah. He did you two better.” Before Neumann could explain what he meant, the door swept aside. Lucien stood in the open entry and peered cautiously into the room. “Who are you talking to?”
Jani eased back against her pillow. “Just myself.”
“Just myself,” Neumann mimicked. “What a choice you have. Keep your mouth shut and piss him off, or tell him the truth and have him think you’re crazy.” He minced to Lucien’s side and blew him a kiss. Then he pulled at his own belt. “Tell you what, Kilian. I bet he shows you his any second now. Then I’ll show you mine, and you can tell us which is bigger.”
Jani shot back in disgust, “I didn’t know you had one, you son of a bitch.”
Lucien stiffened. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m only here because Nema ordered me to come. If you want me to leave, just say so.”
“No.” Jani waved toward the bedside chair. “I’m just tired. My arm hurts.” She watched Neumann wander to the far corner of the room and turn his back. He stood hunched, right shoulder jerking up and down. Jani shifted so the seated Lucien blocked the view.
“You’re not supposed to have visitors, but Nema wants an eyewitness account of your condition.” Lucien’s heavy-lidded stare moved over her as Neumann’s grunting sounded from the corner. “So, how do you feel?”
“I just had my arm yanked out of its socket from the inside. How do you think I feel?”
“Nema said you fought most as idomeni. He crowed to me for over fifteen minutes. If he’s doing the same thing at the embassy, Cèel’s ready to kill him.”
Neumann spun around. “Hey, Kilian, look what I can do!” He tugged at his right arm, gasping in fake surprise as it came away in his hand. “Wave bye-bye to Aunt Jani.” He held it by the wrist the way a father would his son’s arm, and worked it up and down. The limp hand flopped like a dying fish.
“Are you all right?” Lucien glanced at the monitors. “I don’t want to
be the one to tell Nema you look really sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“I heard you’re going to a party tomorrow night.”
“From whom?”
“Ischi. I stopped by FT to hear what happened. He wouldn’t shut up about you, either.” Lucien’s peeved look altered to angel innocence. “You know, that invitation says you can bring a guest.”
“Boy, that’s a friend.” Neumann had given up waving bye-bye, and now played one-sided patty-cake. “You’re lying there half-dead, and all he can think about is trolling for new victims at Mako’s shindig.”
Jani watched Neumann toy with his limb. “Stop by during morning vis and I’ll let you know.”
Lucien eyed her sourly. “Is that a hint?” Something banged against the door, and he hunkered down as if to dive under her bed. “I better get going. After what I heard about Pimentel, I don’t want him to be the one to find me.” After an obvious pause, he leaned down and gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek before slipping out of the room.
“Isn’t that sweet?” Neumann tossed his arm onto the top of a metal-frame table, and struggled to adjust his leg. Judging from the balletlike turn-out of his foot, it must have slipped from its tenuous mooring. “Well, Kilian, it’s been lousy as ever. I’ll leave you alone. Let you digest it all.” He limped to the door, empty right sleeve soaked and dripping. Then he slapped his forehead, returned to the chair, and picked up the limb. “Forget my head next.” He waved good-bye with the detached arm. “’Course, I’d have to give you a chance to blow it off first.” He exited through the door, literally, the blood from his blown leg squelching in his shoe.
Pimentel visited toward nightfall. He wore summerweights. Dress “B” shirt. Creases sharp enough to shave with. Eminently suitable for reaming North Lakeside ass.
We’ll see, he said, when Jani asked him about Mako’s party. He transferred data from the monitors to the recording board containing Jani’s chart and gingerly examined her right arm. He seemed distracted. He asked her questions about Cal Montoya’s diagnosis, and about John, and left without saying good night.
Morley brought her a snack. Not fruit sludge, but nutritional broth. Chicken-flavored. Spicy. With crackers, even. Jani savored it like a meal from Gaetan’s.
Wonder if Neumann will come back. The prospect angered rather than scared her. He’s part of me. Like Cray, and Borgie. She’d seen them the last time she visited Chicago. They helped me solve a murder, too.
Her door had opened wide before she realized it had opened at all.
“Captain?” Sam Duong slipped in, then skirted to one side so no one in the hall could spot him before the door closed. “Shh. I don’t want Pimentel to see me.”
Jani looked him over. He wore civvie summerweights. No sign of an outpatient bracelet. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He eyed her in bafflement. “I’m on dinner break. I just stopped by to visit. See if you needed anything.”
“A working brain.”
“What?”
“Sit down, Sam.” Jani watched him as he walked to Lucien’s recently vacated seat. He looked a little wobbly himself—he gripped the chair arms the way she did, as though he’d fall off if he didn’t hang on tight. “I’ve been thinking about Pierce.”
Sam shot her the same aggravated look Friesian and Pimentel had been bestowing on her since her arrival. “You shouldn’t be thinking about him. You should rest. Get better.” He looked at her arms. “You fought. Now you should recover.”
“Pierce and I have a lot in common. He told me so himself.”
Sam chuffed. “You have nothing in common with him! You’re lovely and he’s—” His face darkened with embarrassment. “He’s not.”
“You shepherded the paper, Sam. Do you remember why I’m here?”
“Stupid reasons. No proof.”
“I was wanted in connection with the death of my commanding officer.” Jani knew Sam admired her, and it pained her to destroy it. But better he should know her for what she was. Better she should tell him things he couldn’t remember. “I killed him.”
“No—!”
And Pierce—She gasped as Neumann’s words hit her like a punch. “And Pierce did me two better.” She slumped forward and pounded the mattress with her fists. “Two better. Two better. Two better!”
“Captain?” Sam leaned forward, bracing his hands on the edge of the bed for support. “You look like you did under the awning. I don’t think you should look like that now.”
Jani thumped the bed, her right arm singing in time. “Pierce killed them, Sam.”
“Keep your voice down!”
“For the good that thereof would spring. Then he stole the documents connected with my case because they could lead back to him. And he stole other documents and put them back and set you up to take the blame.”
Sam stared. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth to muffle his cry. “I did not put them there!”
“No.” Jani massaged her aching arms. “Pierce was sent to do a very important job. Doing that job would have been the first step in saving the Service, the Service he’d come to love, thanks to Mako. The Service he’d come to see as his life.” She held out her hand, as Pierce had. “It was night. The air reeked of panic and the stench of burning bodies. The Haárin had constructed the Ring of Souls around Rauta Shèràa—he was one of the happy few who witnessed the Laum line up to be slaughtered and tossed on the burning piles.”
Sam closed his eyes.
“The base was a shambles, I’ll bet. Partly from the Haárin bombing, partly from the efforts of Ebben, Unser, Fitzhugh and the rest trying to cover their tracks. But that was all right. Pierce was a weapons runner in the life he’s left behind. He was used to thinking on his feet. Improvising.” Her voice dropped. “Up to a point. I’ll bet he was just supposed to arrest them. But they ran. Toward the city. The shuttleport. He’d never find them then.” She looked at the stricken Sam, who still held his hand over his mouth. “What do you do? They’re human and you’re human and it’s all going to hell and they’re running. What do you do?”
Sam spoke through his fingers. “I yell for them to stop. The MPs always yell—”
“They don’t stop, Sam! They keep running. A few more seconds, and they’ll be gone. What do you do?”
Sam had raised his hand to object, but the protest caught in his throat. Instead, he raised his arm higher, straightened it, squeezed off. “I . . . shoot them.”
“You shoot them.” Kilian nodded. “And you know that no one can die by shooter on the Night of the Blade. So you shove the bodies in agers to rot them and hide the cause of death. Call it an awful mistake if anyone complains. Then you spend the next two decades building a career and trying to forget that one night when it all went to hell, when you became the thing you’d been sent to destroy.”
“But Caldor—?”
“Not involved. She was only put into one of the agers to make it look like an accident.” Jani thought back to Pierce on the day of the match, wound to snapping with anxiety, bursting with all the things he wanted to tell her because they had so much in common. “Could you stop by the hospital library and get me a copy of Paradise Lost?”
Sam eyed her strangely. “I suppose so.” He took his handheld from his shirt pocket and entered a notation. “I’ll go right now.”
“Wait. Is there someplace you can spend the night?”
“Well.” Sam frowned. “Tory invited me to her eighteenth birthday party. She feels sorry for me.” He moaned in pain. “The music alone will kill me.”
“You should go. You should pretend to get very drunk. Make someone put you up for the night. It should all be over after tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
Jani forced a smile. “You’re not the only social butterfly around here. I’ve been invited to a party, too.”
Chapter 27
It took Evan several days to work out what must have happened. He ransacked the Family records that he
’d been allowed to keep, searching for any references to Rauta Shèràa Base from the early days of the civil war through the evacuation and the long journey home.
Bless you, Mother. Since Carolina van Reuter was an Abascal by birth, she had persuaded her brother—the then-Exterior Minister—to copy her on the Mistys he received from both Rauta Shèràa and Ville Louis-Philippe, the colonial port nearest Shèrá. The fraternal generosity should have ceased for security reasons as soon as conditions in Rauta Shèràa became dangerous, but owing to the pressure applied by the frantic Carolina, they never had.
Evan had found the messages, encased in parchment slipcases and bound with dark blue cord, in a set of silver brocade boxes stashed in the closet-sized spare bedroom. Well, that explained why Joaquin hadn’t claimed them. He must have taken one look at the containers, assumed Carolina’s personal missives, and allowed his sense of gallantry to overwhelm his lawyerly reason.
Good old Quino. Evan arranged the most important messages in a neat row atop his desk and reread them. In a court of law, they’d be considered insufficient evidence. Too many gaps that needed to be filled in by Evan’s memory and his gut instinct.
“That’s where the court of public opinion comes in.” Or rather, the court of public opinion that mattered.
The first marker on the trail was a communication from J-Loop Regional Command to the Consul-General, who had relocated his offices to Rauta Shèràa Base after the Haárin started shelling the city. A timetable, informing him that three cruisers, the CSS Hilfington, the CSS Warburg, and their flagship, the CSS Kensington, were being sent from Station Ville Louis-Philippe to evacuate the human enclave.
The ships would take on additional supplies in preparation for the evacuees. They would also take on additional weapons. T-40 shooters, both short and long-range. Screech bombs. Smoke screens. No blades of any sort, however. Regional Command didn’t want the Haárin to think humans wanted to challenge them with their ritual weapons of choice.
Rules of Conflict Page 30
