by Blaze Ward
Thank the Creator he had managed to trigger the panic button. Assuming the gang could get here before something irretrievable happened.
They passed one tram stop, and Rob watched the five people around him in the glass of the car. Movement was curtailed by the hand on his neck, and the man guarding the door against anyone wanting to ride this tram.
The doors closed like a guillotine blade falling.
Into the darkness of another tunnel.
“This is our stop coming up, Handsome,” she said bluntly. “You will stand slowly and walk with care onto the platform, where we will guide you to the suite where a conversation will occur. Or I’ll just shoot you right here.”
She didn’t mean that, did she?
Still, Rob noted the shock wands in two hands. And the guns. Whatever close combat training he had mastered to be a Field Agent wasn’t going to mean a whole bunch against this group. The best he could do was walk casually and stall while a silent ping for help went out into the aether.
Movement ended and the doors opened. One man went out immediately and Rob rose with care. Shock wands suck. He was surrounded by the four men on the platform as locals exited other cars, so everyone stood still and waited for the platform to clear.
Lilijana took point, her snub bolter held low against her thigh like a professional. Another man followed her. Three followed him.
“This way,” she opened a panel that looked like a maintenance hallway.
Inside, they were alone. The floor was just dusty enough that Rob could note tracks down the middle and taste staleness in the air. Lights were every twenty yards, leaving pools of darkness you emerged from like a skipped rock kissing the surface of a still lake.
There was nowhere to run now, other than straight back to where he had been, but that just put him on the tram platform with five angry, armed people chasing him.
A hand shoved his shoulder, nearly knocking him down. Rob considered tripping and falling, just to slow things up, but suspected that he’d get a few kicks to the head and ribs if he did.
Better to remain conscious and mobile.
After a long walk, the woman turned to a side hallway and took the group into the maintenance spaces of one of the tower blocks. Past elevator shafts and HVAC installations that always reminded Rob of grungy modern art.
The space here looked like the back of one of Jorge’s sets. Pretty for the camera, but raw and industrial on this side. Lighting was rather random. Just enough to see by, but not read.
Lilijana opened a heavy, metal door and led them down a flight of steps. Again, Rob walked carefully, but not slow enough to provoke anyone with a fist or weapon handy. This was an access space for workers, rather than tenants.
Two stories down, she exited into a better-maintained corridor. People lived here, although none were in evidence at the moment. Still, narrow spaces and out-numbered.
Rob continued to stall for time.
The apartment had a number on it, as they directed him in. There was a single, wooden chair in the middle of what would have been the living room, with the other furniture pulled well back. The floor was concrete in here, so if they killed him in the process, the blood would be easy enough to clean up later.
“Sit,” the woman ordered in an ugly voice.
Rob got shoved into place, but didn’t resist too much. They’d just shock wand him at this point. That shit hurt.
Someone took his jacket off and then tied his hands behind him. It was rope, rather than metal cuffs, for all the good that did him. Wasn’t like he was wearing his combat tuxedo, where the cufflinks came with a small cutting laser built in for exactly this sort of situation.
Rob made a note to dress better on his next seduction, just for the extra toys Nigel had added to what the Service considered standard gear.
All his pockets got emptied onto a metal, dining room table nearby: wallet, comm, cash, pulse pistol, pocket change, accumulated business cards. The mark of the modern hustler.
Fortunately, nobody joined the group. Rob’s only real fear at this point was someone with a black bag filled with chemicals. He could be blown, but if they put him under sedation and started digging into his back story, he would also blow Jorge and the rest.
They probably just would shoot him at that point. Especially when he told them that he’d called for help.
One man guarding the apartment door. Another standing in the kitchen out of the way and watching over the counter. The two with shock wands here in the living room, flanking Lilijana, still holding her snub loosely in one hand.
In a mark of bizarre irony, Rob didn’t even have his ID card anywhere handy. It had gotten returned by courier in a plain envelope, and Jorge had promptly destroyed it. The Governor knew who he was now, and nobody else would benefit from that knowledge. It would give Rob one more get out of jail free moment, but he doubted that something like that would save him at this point.
“So who do you really work for?” Rob asked.
These people didn’t look like trained pros. There were subtle indicators about the stance and face if you knew what to look for. Deadly amateurs, probably, which was worse. Amateurs made mistakes that frequently, accidentally turned terminal.
Although this situation already looked terminal, at least far as Lilijana’s eyes seemed to promise him.
“I’ll ask the questions, Segura,” she growled.
That answered that. He had wondered if he had pissed off the Governor again, but she would have said that, rather than get angry.
Deadly amateurs.
“Are you from Petron?” she demanded.
Behind her, one of the men tapped his hand with the shaft of a shock wand. Probably meant to frighten folks.
Rob made a note to feed the stick to the man when he got loose, as a dessert that followed every single tooth in his mouth, which would get kicked in first.
“Petron?” Rob let himself go confused. “The capital world?”
“That’s right,” Lilijana said. “We know you’re a spy. We have someone in the Governor’s office who told us.”
I doubt that, lady. If they knew, you wouldn’t have to ask me.
“I have never been to Petron in my life, Kozel,” Rob replied steadily. It was even the truth.
“Then who are you working for?” she countered.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” Rob said. “What’s all this about?”
It was a provocation. They trained you how to do that sort of thing while being interrogated.
Rob had expected an open palm slap. You could put a lot of torque and sting into that sort of strike, while not damaging your target appreciably. Instead, she punched him. Slugged him right in the jaw with the fist not holding the gun, thank the gods.
Rob hadn’t see that coming, so it shocked him that she was going for violence already. He found himself laying painfully on his hands when she overbalanced the chair backwards.
The spare goon stepped up and bodily lifted Rob and his chair back to vertical as Rob flexed the muscles in his face. Might as well play like you’ve just gotten your bell rung.
Rob blinked and shook his head a few times before focusing most of his attention on the woman in the middle of his trouble. But then, women had frequently been the center of Rob’s troubles. This woman seemed more likely to kill him that most of them had been.
He needed to string thing out. Not get himself killed before help could arrive. They needed something, or she probably would have just shot him already.
“Feel like talking?” she sneered.
Concussions do interesting things to your head. The Service intentionally put their agents through the trauma, just so they knew how to react. It was a chemical they could inject that gave you the same symptoms. And made you puke your guts empty about five hours later.
Rob had hated the smell of that vial they used. It still made him homicidal, just to think about it, years later.
“What?” Rob yelled, like he had gone half-
deaf from the blow. He twisted his head right and left a little, just for emphasis.
“Can you hear me?” she raised her voice louder now and stepped close enough that he could kick her, if he felt like feeling the loving caress of the shock wand in the hands of a thug.
“Sort of,” he yelled back.
Her hearing was fine, so he could rattle her even more with the volume. The walls were stone or metal, so it wasn’t like they would wake the neighbors.
“Who are you working for?” she demanded again.”
“Jorge,” Rob replied, sticking for now to his cover.
Plus, like Petron, it was technically the truth. And technical was the best kind of truth.
She kicked him this time. Deliberately cracked him with the toe of her shoe.
“Maybe next time I'll break your kneecap,” she promised. “They snap, you know, particularly well you get under them just right with the pointed toe of a woman's pump like this.”
She held it up for him to examine
Rob wasn’t faking the pain this time.
“Answer me,” she snarled, coming right down into his face.
It was still a pretty snarl, even on the face of a psychopath. Rob took a deep breath and leaned back, pretending to be overawed by the threat of violence in her stance. Punching him in the balls wouldn’t require much effort on her part right now. Probably was next on her list.
“I can’t tell you,” Rob let his voice fall much quieter.
“Oh, Handsome, I don’t think you understand the situation,” she purred, caressing the impending bruise on his face with something like velvet delicacy. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to have these men hurt you. Badly. That would be a bad thing.”
She surprised the hardened Field Agent by kissing him on the forehead lightly before she stepped back and studied him from the middle distance. It was almost as though she hadn’t been playing a role before the psychotic killer had shown up.
Maybe Wild Duck had gone somewhere and she had gotten new orders? If Nakano tried this stunt with Jorge and Roxy, Wild Duck would be needing a new captain. And replacements for however many crew members had walked into that meeting. Not that it would help him right now, but if his friends had to burn that damned ship to the ground, that would be okay.
Not like Rob was going to forgive and forget on this one.
Rob did the math in his head. It had been about fifteen minutes since he triggered the alarm. No idea how long to round up Longbow, but Roxy was probably in the suite and Jorge was actually more deadly with a pistol dead drunk than he was sober. Something to do with the amount of experience both ways, Rob guessed.
“What’s it going to be, Handsome?” she said, loud, but not yelling.
“They’ll kill me,” Rob cringed.
“If you don’t talk, I’ll kill won’t just kill you, but we’ll take the time to maim you first. And enjoy doing it,” she said, sounding as hot and bothered as she had when they’d been snuggled close together the other night.
Good to know. You could have said something like We’ll protect you instead. I might not have believed you, but in vino veritas, lady.
Same in rage.
However, it also clarified Rob’s thought processes. Now he just had to string this conversation out long enough.
“Lincolnshire,” Rob admitted in a quiet, defensive voice, hoping he wasn’t about to get shot on general principles. Some people might panic at this point.
“Wait,” Lilijana stomped closer again, anger giving way to confusion. “Did you say Lincolnshire?”
This was where the manipulation earlier started to bear fruit. She had lost control of the conversation again. Everyone forgot that the Service played offence, even as Lincolnshire’s navy was too small and weak to threaten their neighbors.
“That’s right,” Rob cringed more, folding in on himself as much as he could like he was expecting another blow.
“What’s your target then?” she demanded.
Rob had forgotten the old maxim. Your enemy isn’t nine feet tall. Just remember that they aren’t three feet tall, either.
“What?” he tried weakly, right on the edge of panic.
“Who are you planning to attack?” Lilijana loomed over him now.
“Salonnia.” Rob figured he could let the details out slowly enough at this point.
Just waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill.
“And have Corynthe take the blame?” she mused, changing personalities again on him. “Interesting. That explains the interest in Black Aurora and Ahearn & Toledano. Stupid of you to hire Okonkwo to attack his own bosses, unless you had something on him, or could offer enough money to turn the man’s head. Too bad you guessed wrong.”
She paused now, studying him like a freshly-butchered hog.
It was about to get really ugly. Particularly when she put down the pistol and picked up the knife that had apparently been waiting for her on the mantle.
She dialed someone on her comm and waited for them to pick up as she studied the knife in her hands, watching the light shine across the blade.
“6725 Lacertae,” she smiled at him as she spoke into the microphone. “Brilliant, Handsome, I’ll give you that.”
It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he slumped his shoulders in apparent defeat.
Plus, to make himself a smaller target as she started to cut pieces off of him. It wouldn’t be long now.
“Understood,” she replied.
Now was then things got dicey. He was blown, but he’d known that. Would they bring him in someplace to slowly bleed him dry of whatever he knew, or shoot him right there and cut their losses? The Service had trained agents how to withstand torture, but that presumed the interrogator wanted information.
This chick just wanted blood.
Lilijana Kozel had a smile in her eyes still, but the woman was apparently either a trained agent in her own right, or a homicidal sociopath.
Rob would put his money in the latter, just from the look in her eyes.
“Now, Handsome…” she started to say, taking a step towards him with the shining knife out.
The door to the apartment exploded inward, carrying the man guarding it into the room on the shockwave.
Rob went over sideways onto his left as hard and fast as he could.
Roxy came through the door first, holding that bolter rifle up to her shoulder. Anybody but her, and he would have pitched a fit about not using a pistol in close quarters like this. But he’d seen her scores back home.
Jorge was a step behind her, amazingly without a martini glass in hand for once. Truly, a measure of the seriousness of the situation.
Roxy blew past the kitchen space where the one goon was without pausing, that bolter barking quickly twice, and then a third time.
Rob craned his head around fast enough to see the first goon blasted backwards into the wall. Lilijana got flipped ass over tea kettle from the shot hitting her.
The last man standing had started to move, and Rob kicked at him with a foot. Not much, but unexpected. The man faceplanted as Roxy sidestepped and drove him into the floor with the butt of her rifle and then put a shot into his back.
Elapsed time, less than three seconds.
Jorge rolled Rob over and cut the rope with a knife as Roxy disarmed Lilijana, kicking the knife away.
“Kitchen?” Rob asked.
“Mine,” Jorge said. “Down.”
Looking around the room, Rob was surprised the pirate lady was still alive, but Roxy had apparently shifted her aim high and left from center. The shoulder was probably shattered, but modern medicine could do wonders.
“Nigel was listening to comm traffic,” Jorge said as he helped Rob to his feet. “We’re blown.”
“Maybe,” Rob countered. “How close is Queen to ready?”
Jorge paused to study him.
“Hit them anyway?” he asked.
“Ticking bomb scenario,” Rob replied. “But
we’ve still got enough fuse to burn. Any message has to either jump on the first ship and blow their own cover, or go through channels. That buys us time.”
“What do we do with her?” Roxy asked, standing over the only other pirate in the room still alive.
It was a nasty wound, but Roxy had intentionally kept her alive. Even an of inch down and over and it would be a sucking chest wound and impending death. This could be treated, if someone called the medics fast enough.
Longbow wasn’t here, so they must have decided not to wait. Rob could agree with those decisions. It had been his ass on the line in another few seconds.
Rob retrieved all his kit as a chance to think. The others were deferring to him, since he’d been in the room.
“We’ve got it all on tape, Nigel?” he yelled to the front of the apartment, where the cowboy was covering the hallway and listening to the comms. “Plus what my comm was recording?”
“Do, Handsome,” came the reply.
He turned to Lilijana.
Even through the pain he could see the snarl on her face.
“It’s too late for you, Handsome,” she snarled. “They know. And word will get out about you and your friends, as well.”
Rob turned to Jorge and let some of the ugliness in his soul out.
“Edit out everything after the door exploded,” Rob said. “That protects your cover and we can blame this mess on all on the troops I recruited. We’ll send the tape to the Governor by courier, just before we blast off.”
“You sure, kid?” Jorge asked.
“In vino, veritas, Jorge,” Rob proclaimed.
And shot Lilijana once with the pulse pistol.
23
The voice over the intercom was sharp.
“Everyone either strap yourselves in or you get to have a medic fix you.”
Rob figured that Raef could actually do this launch without all the theatrical craziness, but was putting on a show for the passengers.
Jorge and Roxy were in their cabins with the doors locked. It gave them plausible deniability later, depending on what Rob had to say now. Plus, Roxy needed a shower to get the blood and cordite out of her hair.
