by David Drake
A third truck drove into the warehouse and collided with the second. The drivers shouted at one another, and the rest of the convoy stopped in confusion on the approach road.
Coke led his men toward the gap he’d cut in the fence. “I think we’d best stay in the woods and hump our way back,” he explained. “I’m not thrilled about walking the six klicks into Potosi, but L’Escorial is going to see the flames before too long and come out with guns blazing.”
“Does Peres realize that?” Niko Daun asked. The point had obviously escaped the tech himself.
“Here, wait by the jitney,” Vierziger said.
“We can’t drive it back through the forest,” Coke objected. “It’s not a skimmer. We’ll just have to abandon it.”
“Sten’s going to pick us up in a moment,” the gunman explained. He looked at the sensor tech. “Niko,” he went on, “the Astras don’t know the gage is burning yet. Whether they’ll realize that a fire here will call the owners’ attention is an open question.”
An unlighted aircar slid low over the treetops. Sten Moden was at the controls. He dropped vertically to hover on fan thrust directly behind the jitney.
Coke half-climbed, half-tripped his way into the vehicle’s other front seat. Vierziger and Daun got into the back.
“Is there anything else you ought to have told me?” Coke demanded in a loud, generally directed voice.
“Well, you didn’t want to walk either, did you, Major?” Sten Moden said as he pulled the joystick toward him to add power. “Esteban was still doing tests on the Stellarflow, so I asked if he’d mind me putting it through its paces tonight. Does pretty well, don’t you think?”
The Stellarflow was too massive to accelerate quickly, especially with a load that included the logistics officer, but it had a good deal of power. Starlit glimpses of the treetops close beneath suggested their speed was 200 kph and rising. Moden swept them in a broad arc that would approach Potosi from the north, opposite to where all the commotion was occurring.
“Look, I’m not going to argue with success,” Coke said after a moment “But the next time, don’t pull this sort of thing behind my back, all right? You guys act like a team, and I’ll promise not to act like a little tin god.”
He realized as he spoke that something very basic had changed in the structure of this survey team; and that he was pretty sure it had changed for the better.
They were out of sight of the warehouse at this altitude, but the whole sky behind them glowed red from the swelling inferno.
Matthew Coke’s bedroom had a window which opened out onto the alley beside Hathaway House. When he leaned his elbows on the ledge, he could watch the building across the street. As a result, he wasn’t surprised to hear his commo helmet click, then warn in the voice of Lieutenant Barbour, “Matthew, two men are walking toward us from L’Escorial headquarters. There isn’t any other exceptional behavior from that direction.”
The breeze blew from the south. Even at this distance it carried with it a whiff of burned vegetation, burned plastic, and—present only if you knew it was there—burned flesh.
Coke lifted himself back from the ledge. One of the approaching visitors was garbed in an ensemble of scarlet and vermilion, a well-tailored outfit and clearly expensive. The two close hues made his plumpish figure seem to shimmer.
The other man wore a red beret, but the remainder of his clothing was khaki. The garments looked a great deal like Frisian battle dress.
“Right,” Coke said as he snatched the gray cape from the hook by his bed. “Action stations, though I doubt there’ll be trouble. I’m coming down.”
The shooting had gone on south of town until nearly dawn. The fact that it hadn’t spread to Potosi proper meant the syndicates really didn’t want the lid to blow, despite all their deadly posturing. That might change when the L’Escorials realized just how badly they’d been hurt by the fire.
Margulies slammed down the stairs ahead of Coke. She slid her left hand along the balustrade against the possibility of her heel catching on a tread as she jumped the steps three at a time. Vierziger was already with Barbour in the lobby, his proper location.
Georg Hathaway stood by the door and wrung his hands. “I’m sure there won’t be any trouble,” he murmured. His voice sounded like that of a dying sinner claiming confidence in his salvation.
“Johann, take the upstairs today,” Margulies ordered as her boots hit the tile floor.
Vierziger raised an eyebrow. He looked spruce and trim. Somehow he’d managed to scrub away all the soot and matrix residue which had settled on him during the firefight.
“This is—”he began.
“Not today, Sergeant!” Mary Margulies snapped. “We’re trading today.”
She flashed a near-smile of apology to her subordinate, then to Coke.
“I think I know this guy,” she explained in an undertone. She pointed toward the streetscape in Barbour’s display. “I think he used to drive for me.”
Barbour didn’t comment, but his right hand moved. Half the hologram screen became a facial close-up of the man in khaki.
“Via, that’s Angel, all right,” Margulies said. “Via, he looks bloody awful!”
Margulies’ friend carried a sub-machine gun, but it was slung muzzle-down over his back. His cheeks were hollow and his skin looked flaky, almost mildewed.
His well-dressed companion raised his knuckles to rap on the door.
Hathaway shivered and smiled falsely. “Ramon Luria,” he murmured with a nod toward the holographic display. “Raul’s son, that is.”
The knock was crisp and imperative—three short strokes.
“Let your guests in, Master Hathaway,” Coke directed. “There won’t be any trouble.”
If one of L’Escorial’s leaders had come personally, that was certainly true. For so long as he was here.
The door sighed open. Ramon Luria waved a hand expansively. “Hathaway!” he said. “It’s been too long since I sampled your beer. And you, sir, you’d be Major Coke, I assume? The very person I’ve come to see.”
If you watched Ramon carefully, you could tell that he was nervous. His movements had a birdlike suddenness, and there was a tic at the corner of his left eye. At a casual glance, though, the syndicate boss was utterly relaxed.
“Hello, Angel,” Mary Margulies said from a corner of the lobby. She stood with the sole of her right boot against the wall behind her. “I made a trip out to Silva Blanca just to see you the other day.”
“El-Tee!” the man in khaki said. “Blood and martyrs, Lieutenant! What are you doing here?”
“Same as you, Angel,” Margulies said, answering a more limited question than the one Angel asked. “I’m pulling security while my boss does business.”
Coke suddenly realized why Margulies leaned back against the wall. That way she had an excuse for not offering her hand or her arms to her former comrade.
Angel’s skin puckered and shook because muscles were twitching randomly in response to the commands of damaged nerves. He appeared to have been pulled from his grave to come here—and from the look in his eyes, his worst problems weren’t the physical ones.
“Major Coke doesn’t need security, El-Tee,” Angel said. “We’re all friends here. I was, I was—”
His eyes darted toward Ramon. The syndicate boss pretended not to notice him, instead eyeing the lobby with an avuncular smile.
“I’d been partying a little, I mean, when you guys landed,” Angel rattled out, “or I’d have been over before. I’ve been telling Ramon here and the Old Man, if the FDF wants in, hire them. There’s no better!”
“Angel’s our training officer,” Ramon said, deigning to glance at his companion. “And he assists my son Pepe, our …shall we say ‘war chief’?”
He laughed, a throaty sound and as threatening as jovial. “Angel Tijuca,” he added. “Since I gather not all of you are familiar with our boy?”
“Rather than stand in a doorway,” Coke sai
d, “why don’t we adjourn to the bar.”
He nodded. “I’ll buy the first round.”
Ramon waved the idea aside. He wore rings on all four fingers and his thumb. The bands were set with rubies, diamonds, and what Coke judged was a large amethyst.
“I’m just the messenger, really,” Ramon said. “I came to invite you back to our house to discuss future affairs with my father, Raul. I aid him, and Pepe even more so when he’s home. But the Old Man still makes the final decisions.”
“Your son Pepe isn’t here, then?” Coke said with a bland smile.
“That’s correct,” Ramon answered with no smile at all. “But he’ll be back soon, Major. And you will want to have come to a decision with my father before that time, do you see?”
He bent his lips up at the corners. The warning couldn’t have been more explicit if he’d drawn and charged a pistol.
“I don’t mind discussing my employer’s business at any good location, Master Luria—” Coke said.
“Ramon, please, just Ramon,” Luria said with another glittering arc of his hand.
“—but when we arrived, there was some difficulty with your men,” Coke continued. “And since from the sound of matters last night, people are pretty worked up still, I don’t know that your home would be the best place to talk business. For me, that is.”
“Don’t think anything of it!” Ramon ordered. “Those imbeciles you killed, you did me a favor. With so many in Potosi all together, the men need disciplining or they’ll get completely out of hand.”
“I’m not sure they feel that way,” Margulies remarked from where she stood against the wall.
The veneer of bonhomie slipped from Ramon’s face. “They feel whatever way the Lurias tell them to feel!” he said. “If I, Ramon Luria, tell you that you can visit my home without concern, that is so. Will you doubt my honor?”
“The Old Man doesn’t think it’s a good idea for him to show himself with things like they are, Major,” Angel Tijuca explained with desperate sincerity. “Out in the street, I mean. Like you said, things got pretty excited last night. You’ll be all right, truly.”
Coke shrugged. There wasn’t really a choice about going. He just hadn’t wanted to appear too eager. “All right,” he said. “Mary, you want to tag along?”
“You bet,” Margulies said as she shifted herself onto both feet. “Maybe Angel and I can catch up on things while you talk business with the important gentlemen.”
Niko Daun stepped into the doorway from the kitchen. His action station was first floor, rear; Vierziger and Moden guarded the upper story for now.
“I wonder if I could go, sir?” the sensor tech asked. He already wore the ammo pouch filled with bugging devices. “I’d sort of like to see the place.”
“No, stick around,” Coke ordered. He didn’t want to try planting hardware in L’Escorial HQ while Tijuca was there. Margulies’ friend might recognize Frisian equipment, which could be embarrassing— or worse. “I won’t need a gofer, since we’re just across the street.”
He grinned at the syndicate boss to draw attention away from the exchange which had just taken place. “You know,” he said, “you could have just phoned yourself.”
Ramon waved his hand. “Would you have accepted the invitation had I not shown myself willing to visit you?” he said.
“You’ve got a point,” Coke said. He deliberately checked that his sub-machine gun was on safe. Slinging the weapon muzzle-down across his back, he added, “Let’s go talk to the Old Man, sir.”
Ramon Luria ushered Coke ahead of him through the door marked BOARD ROOM. An old man in red and a middle-aged one wearing a business suit of Delian cut were already seated within.
Instead of wood paneling, the walls of the sanctum in the basement of L’Escorial headquarters were covered with holographic screens. If the equipment had been perfectly tuned, an observer would almost think he was standing at ground level and the building didn’t exist.
In fact, the hardware had all been installed at stock brightness and coverage settings, which varied from unit to unit. One of the thirty-odd screens was dead and three others operated at less than half their proper resolution. The set-up made Coke think of a diorama viewed through distorting mirrors.
Ramon waved proudly at the walls and said, “My son Pepe brought these back with him from Delos on his last trip. Pepe is very up-to-date, very civilized.”
There was no sign on the streets of the gunmen who had been omnipresent throughout Potosi since the survey team arrived. Civilians moved in nervous spurts, like birds on the verge of a violent storm.
The table in the center of the room was a black synthetic oval. There were thumb controls at eight points around its circumference. Each was a shallow dome paired with a shallow depression.
Coke casually fingered the bump nearest him. Nothing happened. If the system had been operating, his touch would have brought live a workstation linked to the data bank within the table.
“I am Raul Luria,” the old man at the head of the table said without rising or preamble. “Potosi is mine, Cantilucca is mine. For too long I have allowed the Guzman syndicate to exist—out of affection for the late Pablo, so close a friend of mine. But after last night—”
Raul Luria rose with the staggering difficulty of a ship’s mast being stepped by amateurs. The man seated to Raul’s left looked alternately bored and disquieted by the rhetoric.
“—after last night, I have no more compassion. They must be crushed!”
The old man—the Old Man—pointed a crooked index finger at Coke. “Where do you stand in that, foreigner? Shall we crush you too?”
“I represent a business firm, sir,” Coke said mildly. “We can supply personnel and equipment that will permit you to achieve your stated goal faster and more cheaply than you could in any other manner. I don’t see why we can’t strike a deal that will benefit both parties.”
“One of the possible problems, Major,” Ramon Luria said with his back to the door behind Coke, “is the sort of arrangement Friesland has already made with the Astras.”
“And what you had to do with the raid last night,” Raul Luria grunted as he bent, joint by joint, back into his chair. “If you’re working with those pigs, I’ll see to it that you’re slaughtered with them. I swear it!”
“Father, we agreed there’s no profit in discussing the past,” Ramon said, his voice quivering between fear and contempt. “Isn’t that so, Master Suterbilt?”
The businessman grimaced. “There’ll be no profit in anything for the best part of a year,” he said. “It’ll take at least that long to rebuild gage stocks. And what is the Delos cartel going to say?”
“There’s no arrangement between Astra and the FDF,” Coke said. “Zip. Nada. Do you have a chip projector here?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Ramon looked blank. “I can bring one,” he offered.
“Here, you can use mine,” Suterbilt said. He slid a palm-sized belt unit across the table to Coke.
The businessman was stocky and probably no older than Coke, now that the Frisian had time to focus on him. At the moment, Suterbilt wore a scowl that amplified the angry appearance of his ruddy complexion.
Coke looked at the projector, then unclipped the one from his own belt instead. “That’s all right,” he said. “Mine will do.”
The Frisian unit was half the weight of the older Delian projector Suterbilt used. Coke had hoped for a console model—the equipment built into the table itself would have been perfect, if the cursed thing had worked—but it didn’t really matter. Cantiluccans probably wouldn’t feel comfortable with the sort of crystalline images which the civilized universe took for granted.
Coke dropped into the reader the chip he’d prepared. He turned up the gain. “This is why we have no deal with the Astras,” he said.
The negotiations in Astra headquarters shimmered in a hologram a meter across. The image had a gray translucence and there was considerable distortion t
oward the edges of the field, but it was both visible and audible.
“A company of infantry and a company of combat cars,” said Matthew Coke’s image. The scene was assembled from recordings made by the commo helmets of the three Frisians present at the meeting.
The image cut forward a few seconds. Barbour had spliced the data into the continuous form Coke wanted, but that meant the visuals were choppy. “Approximately three thousand Frisian thalers per day,” the Coke hologram said, “perhaps ten percent over.”
Raul Luria was trembling with rage. His mouth worked, but no words came out. Ramon, who had moved to the side where he was visible out of the corner of Coke’s eyes, wore a fixed smile. Suterbilt, the factor for Trans-Star Trading, simply frowned in puzzlement.
The Frisians vanished abruptly. The three Astra principals remained. Through the excellence of Barbour’s editing, Adolpho Peres’ lips moved in near synchrony with his words: “So our Frisian visitors clean up our problem. They board the ship we provide, though they don’t know the ship’s ours. And the ship never gets home.”
The bug Daun had left beneath the Astra conference table was audio only. You couldn’t have told that when Barbour had finished mixing input from the bug with images culled during the two-party conference. When the Peres image “spoke” the final words, his face froze in a grin of murderous triumph …which was certainly true to the spirit of the plan the gigolo had outlined to his fellows.
Coke shut off the recorder and smiled at the L’Escorial leaders. “So,” he said. “I’ve recommended to my superiors that we not do business with Astra. Shall my team and I go home, or …?”
Raul Luria began to laugh. For the first moments, Coke thought the old man might be having a stroke instead. The paroxysm continued for nearly a minute.
Ramon pulled out a lace handkerchief and stepped to his father’s side. He stood there, looking worried but unable to act. Raul hacked and wheezed and drooled from the corners of his mouth.
Suterbilt swallowed. His body tilted slightly away from the L’Escorial patriarch, and he was careful not to look to the side.
