“Someone check that table,” she said as soon as she was, again, fully aware of her surroundings. “I don’t know, yet, if they have a detector with them, but they already know who I am, and where I am.”
“Joe and Chet, if you can do a quick walk by,” Coryn said, “and no, don’t take Jillian with you. You might have to move quickly.”
“I’ll alert our back-up,” Kyle said, getting up with the other two, but stepping only to the next table. The man to whom he spoke pulled out a com and began talking in a low voice.
Sarah pressed down on her amarto, slipping into the uncanny alertness of her surroundings that it afforded her. Coryn’s hand had tightened around her fingers, and the people at the tables around them had suddenly tensed up, grown expectant. A blast of emotions assaulted her—this blast was much more mixed than the one she had experienced on Main Street. Those emotions had been negative, whereas what was here included a sense of triumph, like the pleasure of a cat readying itself to pounce on an unsuspecting mouse! Disoriented, she loosened the hold on her stone, and clutched at Coryn’s hand.
“Sarah, you okay?” It was Jillian’s voice; she was leaning over the table, her face mirroring concern.
“I think so, maybe,” Sarah replied, even as the meaning of the emotions she had sensed penetrated her brain.
“Coryn, Jillian, everybody,” she said, “they don’t know that we know!”
“They don’t know that I overheard the conversation, earlier tonight,” Texi commented.
“Right. But more than that, they don’t know that their dratted gadget is broadcasting its presence to me! They think that they can ambush me at their leisure, probably once I’ve left The LockandKey, and am strolling homewards, with only a small, not alert, escort!”
“You’re sure about that?” Coryn asked.
“Yeah!” Sarah couldn’t help grinning. “The emotions that blasted at me were those of guys who know that they’re winning. That it’s only a matter of time until the prize is in their hands!”
“Hah!” said Kyle. “If they think that they can just pick you up like a ripe peach, they’re gonna be in for a surprise! Soon as Joe and Chet come back we’ll have to work out a plan to empty out those bastards’ pockets!”
*****
“Shit,” said Joe, when he and Chet returned from their walk. “Kyle had it right. Eight big guys at that table.”
“And they’re Hounds, all right,” added Chet. “Those guys can’t help but announce themselves to a Security officer, once he’s on the alert.”
“Yeah,” agreed Kyle. “I remember when I first started working Security, the fellow I was partnered with would pick out The Organization jerks, and point them out to me. ‘Learn to recognize them,’ he said to me. ‘It’s actually pretty easy. They think that they’re better than the rest of galaxy’s humanity, and they can’t hide their contempt for us peasants. It shows in the way they talk, and walk, even in the way they wear their clothes.’”
“Sarah believes that they have no idea that we’re on to them, and know about their detectors,” Coryn said.
“It’s brainstorming time,” he added. “How do we make use of our knowledge, and their ignorance of that knowledge? We need to get hold of a detector while we keep Sarah safe. If anybody has an idea, no matter how wild, I want to hear it.”
The fellow whom Kyle had alerted stepped over to their table.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Some of our people further towards the exit say there’s a table of eight Hounds over there, and that Chet and Joe did a walk-by? Are they our targets?”
“Looks like it,” Coryn replied, “but be careful with your coms. You don’t want to look too much like a giant Security Team on the job. Sarah’s quite certain that those guys have no idea that their detector is broadcasting its location to her, even while it’s keying into her use of her amarto. We want to hang on to the advantage that gives us.”
“Ah, if they don’t know that we know.... I get it. Low profile it is, Leigh.”
“If you, or any of the rest of you, have any ideas as to how we can make use of those facts, let me know,” Coryn said, as the fellow turned to return to his table.
“I suppose, if Jillian and Nance are willing to live dangerously for a short while, they could accompany me back towards the Port and the Official Residence,” Sarah said hesitantly, staring into the holo of the soccer game on the table. “With the caveat that you guys, and all the other Port Security people in the bar follow as soon as the Hounds leave. I could try to determine which of them is the one with the gadget we want as soon as we, and they, get outside.”
She did not like involving Jillian, and especially, Nance, this deeply, but it occurred to her that a slow walking pace would be explained by the women’s heels.
“The first objection to your idea that comes to mind,” countered Coryn, “is that there might be Hounds waiting outside. There’s no reason the ones in the bar can’t contact others of their kind with their coms, even as our Security people are keeping in touch with one another.”
“A valid objection,” Jillian said. “Though I like the notion of baiting them with three helpless-looking women. We wouldn’t be, of course. I’ve a stunner, Sarah has one, and Texi, you did give Nance the one I told you to take for her?”
Nance grinned, and did a little groping at her neckline. She produced a tiny weapon, the smallest of the various sizes among the Liaison Office’s stunner supply. It was a tube the size of a lipstick, or smaller, and apparently fit quite nicely—and accessibly—within the pretty woman’s cleavage.
Kyle laughed delightedly as she produced it, displayed it, and then replaced it.
“Texi showed me how to use it, too,” she said smugly.
“We did a little bit of practising,” her husband agreed. “She’s damn good, too; caught on, right away. It was a good thing that all she aimed at were our decorative dolls. If she’d aimed at me, I’d still be at home, sleeping.”
“Maybe she’ll have to think about a career change,” Coryn said, smiling. “The Agency is always looking for good operatives.”
Sarah shocked herself by feeling a sharp pang of jealousy at his words and the smile he directed at the lovely woman. The hand that Coryn was still holding, did a spasm, and he tightened his hold on it, even as Sarah fought to control the ridiculous emotion. Was she still this touchy about her looks in comparison to more attractive women? She had not had to deal with her sister in quite some time!
Outside of the hand-holding, Coryn decided, for the moment, to ignore Sarah’s discomfort, although he was quite certain that Jillian and Joe had both noted it. Not much got past Jillian, he knew, and she had taught her husband to be observant, too. Jane Mackenzie, in Laurentia, had told Coryn that Sarah had always had a hard time with the fact that as the younger, less beautiful sister, she had had to live in Maris’ shadow, and Maris, especially when the girls had been younger, had enjoyed rubbing it in. Jane had said that she was certain that the sibling rivalry had been one of the goads that had sent Sarah off-planet.
“So, are we going to make the effort to refine the three supposedly-helpless-women plot into a usable scheme?” Joe asked. “Or are we going to have to chuck it, and start again from the beginning?”
“Let’s at least explore it before tossing it onto the dung-heap,” said Kyle. “It has definite possibilities, and the women appear to be willing to give it a go. Is there some way we can minimize the risks to them, while maximizing the possibility that we can abscond with the desired piece of equipment from the Hounds?”
They tossed ideas around the table for some minutes.
The fellow at the next table with whom Kyle had been talking, a somewhat older Security man, Kyle had called him Jory, came over, interrupting the talk.
“What about using one or more of the women to lure the Hounds into an alley, and ganging up on them there?” he asked. “This detector can zero in on Sarah’s Stone, right?”
Jillian laughed.
>
“You’re thinking along the same lines that we are,” she said. “Sarah herself came up with the notion.”
“We’re trying to refine it, so as to keep the risk to the bait as low as possible,” said Coryn. “How about you bring your chair over, and assist us with your knowledge of Security protocols? It looks like there are too many of the Hounds for this small group to manage on our own. And there’s always the possibility that they’ve got more people out on the street, ready to help the eight here.”
“There are at least two more Hounds about,” said Joe. “Texi didn’t see among these the ones he eavesdropped on, earlier tonight.”
“And they may well have another of those detector things,” Texi added. “Unless there’s only one in Trahea and they’re passing it around among themselves.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Coryn commented.
“No,” agreed Jory. “We’ll assume that there are at least two gadgets among them. Do you want them both, all of them, if there are more, or just one sample, Leigh?”
“One, definitely,” Coryn replied. “More, if we can get them. It would be nice to get them all, but I’m not expecting anyone to perform miracles. Except when it comes to keeping the women safe.”
He grinned with the last sentence, but it was not entirely a happy grin.
“Don’t patronize us, Coryn,” Jillian snapped, and Sarah was glad that Jill had been the one to say it. Joe rolled his eyes at her.
“I’m not, Jillian, believe me,” Coryn responded. “However, capable as you three may be with your stunners, I don’t like the odds of three women, two of them in dresses and heels, against at least a couple of handfuls of the Hounds. I’m not okaying anything unless we can better those odds.”
“How about if I pick a contingent from among the Security people here, and send them to an agreed-upon alley to await the women?” asked Jory. “There’s quite a number of us here, so if I collect a sprinkling from among the tables, their disappearance ought not to be too noticeable.”
Coryn’s grin returned.
“Now you’re talking,” he said. “We’ll just have to decide which alley. It can’t be very far; I don’t think those guys are going to wait too long before pouncing.
“Texi, Nance, would you know of a good, dim alley, hereabouts?”
“Sure do,” replied Texi. “There are several, as a matter-of-fact, in the vicinity. You’re thinking of heading in the direction of the Port?”
“That would seem most natural, I’d think,” piped up Sarah.
She gestured towards the holo on the table.
“Like we girls got tired of the guys talking football, or whatever it is that guys in Trahea go on about, and I invited them to come to the Official Residence and kill a bottle of wine there. We can always stop for a gigglefest in the designated alley, and basically invite the Hounds to assault me.”
“Good grief, Sarah, I don’t like it at all when you put it that way,” Coryn protested, appalled.
“You’re not supposed to like it,” Sarah laughed. “You and all the Security people are supposed to come running to save me! If we’re lucky, Nance and Jillian will get through this without a scratch!”
“There will be Security people hiding in the shadows of that alley, waiting for you and the Hounds to arrive,” Jory said. “Now, let’s get down to the details:
“Texi, can you lead, using a roundabout route, of course, some of my people to the chosen area? Your wife knows the alley, right? So she can direct the girls there when they traipse off?”
He grinned conspiratorially as he spoke the last sentence.
Texi and Nance had a quick conference in Kordean, and Nance nodded at Coryn when it was done. Her husband got up from his chair.
“I think that you better return here before we begin the operation,” Coryn said to Texi. “Make the ruse look more natural. You’ve got your com, right?”
Texi nodded, and headed for the exit. Meanwhile Jory had returned to his table and had begun to make calls on his com. People—mostly men, but including a couple of muscular women—were quietly leaving the room in Texi’s wake. Sarah counted eight that she saw, and guessed that there were others that she missed.
The operation was turning into a major event.
*****
“I’ll play a bit with my stone when we get into the alley,” Sarah said to Coryn when the table, once again had its full contingent of occupants, laughing and making merry. “Maybe I’ll make it a part of the gigglefest.”
Somebody turned on the general sound on the holo, and the voice of the announcer giving the play by play description intensified the noise level.
Sarah found herself unwilling to let go of Coryn’s hand, but it had to be done, and he gave her fingers a quick final caress as she pulled them away, and stood up.
She yawned.
“Gee, Jillian, Nance, what say you; why don’t we just trot back to my home away from home, and let the guys watch sports the rest of the morning, if that’s their hearts’ desire,” she said. “The soccer game’s boring me silly, and I noticed that Coryn has a couple of fine bottles of red on his wine rack.”
“Yeah, I could use a dose of girl-talk, about right now,” Jillian responded. “Besides which, I wouldn’t mind getting out of these shoes. Didn’t want to kick them off here; the floor’s grotty. In the Official Residence the floors are always immaculate.”
“Don’t thank me for those clean floors; thank Dili and Curt! Coryn, you won’t mind if I uncap some wine?”
“Help yourself—yourselves.” Coryn’s smile was wide. “I have an expense account.”
Texi was supporting Nance by an elbow as she stood up, teetering slightly on her heels.
“Should I seem stumbling and drunk?” she asked with a giggle.
“Only slightly,” Sarah answered, grinning at her. “Just enough to look authentic, like you’ve had a drink or two.”
She noticed that Nance, like she herself, had not finished her first beer. Jillian was slightly ahead of the two of them in her consumption, but she was bigger and taller than either of them, and athletic-looking, as well. Though Joe made her look delicate, she really was not; she, like Coryn, was every inch the Agent.
“I’ll come and fetch you from the Official Res later, Nance,” Texi said loudly, as he let go of her arm. “Enjoy your time with the girls.”
“’Tis a pity the fair sex finds sports boring,” Kyle commented. “I kind of enjoyed having the women around.”
“Hey, you want women to hang about, you got to be willing to talk about hair-dos, clothes, and babies,” Jillian shot at him. “Ditch the kick-boxing talk. And especially the talk about all the variations on beach volleyball!”
“She’s laying it on thick, Jill is,” Joe muttered. “It’s not like she doesn’t get tons of attention from me!”
“They’re enjoying the playacting,” Coryn said. “Just as well. Things could get serious awfully fast.”
*****
“This way,” said Nance, when the threesome had teetered outside. “I know just the short-cut for us to take.”
She settled herself between Sarah and Jillian, grasping each one by an arm. Good, Sarah thought. That way her left hand was free to press a finger on her amarto, once they reached the chosen alley.
“Hey, isn’t there a song about the Kordean night, how beautiful it is in Lina-light?” asked Jillian.
“You mean the one that starts: I’m travelling through the soft Kordean night,/ How wonderful things look by Lina-light,/ She’s the moon we all love,/ And she’s held up high above/ By the power of the mighty Seven Circles?” Nance sang the words of the song in a voice that did her credit.
Sarah had heard the Apprentices and the servants at Ferhil Stones sing the song, and she could join in the chorus:
“Beautiful is the Kordean night,/ And gentle, so gentle the Lina-light,/ I’ll be home before the hot dawn,/ I’ll get home ere Lina’s gone.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” sa
id Jillian. “I want you ladies to teach it to me before sunrise.”
There was a shadowy alley leading from the street they were on; not much of the moonlight was penetrating it.
“This is it,” Nance said. “Our short cut.”
Sarah gave an involuntary shudder while Jillian turned into the alley with a whoop.
“Let’s go girls!” she cried. “The quicker we cross this valley of shadow, the sooner we’ll get at that bottle of wine Sarah promised us!”
Now she was the one in the lead, while Sarah was the one trailing. She pressed her amarto down against her skin, and even before she had a chance to fully connect to it she was assaulted by an emotional storm: triumph, greed, hunger, sexual desire. She loosed the stone, and became aware of footfalls behind her; someone—several someones—were running towards her.
A burst from a stunner, and Nance went down; Sarah herself was still on her feet.
“What the fuck!” she cried and turned around to look at the first Hound coming towards them.
He ignored her, and came to an abrupt stop beside Nance’s crumpled body, Jillian stunned him as he reached for the woman on the ground; Sarah used her stunner on the man behind him—and then the Security people were all around them, and the Hounds were going down, shot by multiple stunners.
“The stupid git!” Sarah shouted. “He thought that Nance was me!”
“Stupid git, all right.”
Coryn was there beside her, helping her straighten out the pretty woman’s body. Sarah realized that she was on her knees beside Nance, and tears were running down her cheeks.
“I didn’t want her to get hurt,” she heard herself saying. “If anyone was going to be stunned, it should have been me.”
“Texi, can you carry her?” Coryn was asking. “We’ll take her to the Official Residence. If she should need medical attention, she’ll be close to the Port Clinic there.”
“And I can monitor her,” Sarah added. “I’ve learned to do that. If anything is wrong beyond the usual results of a stunner shot, I’ll know right away.”
Love and Intrigue Under the Seven Moons of Kordea Page 8
