by David Weber
“Put it on speaker,” the first man ordered.
Chomps gave him a puzzled look, hesitating just long enough for the automated “Manticore relay,” voice to come inaudibly through before lowering the uni-link and keying the speaker. “Name?” the automated voice continued.
Chomps braced himself. One way or another, he thought distantly, there was a really good chance he was going to die today. “Donnelly,” he said. “Lisa Donnelly.”
* * *
Llyn had made it only three blocks when he discovered he’d picked up a tail.
An extremely amateurish tail. There were two of them, young men, dressed in running gear, with a military look about their faces and hair styling. The Cascan Defense Force? No—it was one of the visiting Manticorans. Their running outfits were identical to the one he’d seen a couple of minutes ago on that other, bigger Manticoran.
The more immediate question was why?
The men couldn’t have seen him leaving the scene of an obvious crime—surely they’d have called the authorities by now if they had. Had that brief conversation Llyn had had with the Manticoran a few minutes ago somehow caught someone’s attention? But unless the big man himself was under suspicion for something, and the tail was just following up on possible contacts, that made even less sense.
Ultimately, though, it didn’t matter. Llyn was being tailed, and he would have to deal with it.
There was a gap between buildings coming up on the left, probably leading into a service alleyway. It would do nicely.
Picking up his pace, he headed for the gap.
* * *
Lisa had just finished going through the breakfast buffet line, and was looking for a good spot to sit down to eat, when her uni-link trilled. Setting down her plate on the end of the counter, she shot her left sleeve and peered at the ID.
It was Missile Tech First Townsend.
Her first, reflexive thought was that something must be wrong, possibly an injury on the exercise run that Commander Shiflett had ordered.
Her second thought was to wonder why in space Townsend was calling her about it.
Whatever it was, it had better be important. Clicking it on, she moved it closer to her face. “Donnelly.”
“Hey, Lisa, this is Charles,” Townsend’s voice came on, brisk and cheerful.
And completely and outrageously lacking in proper respect.
What the hell?
“You remember—we met last night at the party—I’m the guy who was telling you about my trip to Secour—”
Lisa’s frown deepened. Townsend hadn’t been aboard Guardian on the mission to Secour five years ago.
“—and that run-in I had with those rowdies—”
What in the world was he going on about? Had he been trying for some other Lisa Donnelly and been transferred here by mistake?
“—and how my good buddy Mota and I got into deep cow mix when we got back?”
Lisa caught her breath. Mota, the murdered pirate from the Havenite recording? How did Townsend even know about that?
“Anyway, I’m trying to find your car like you asked me, only these two guys down here say the key you gave me isn’t a car key at all, so I need you to help me out here. Okay?”
There was a muted double finger snap from somewhere across the room, and the low hum of conversation abruptly evaporated. Lisa started, looking up to see Captain Marcello and Commodore Henderson gazing across the table at her, their expressions intent. Something about her face must have clued them in that something odd was happening.
Henderson raised his eyebrows in silent question. Lisa shrugged her shoulders in silent response, touched her finger to her lips, and held out the uni-link as she keyed it to speaker. “Sure, Charles, I remember you,” she said. “Little fuzzy on the details of last night, though. What’s this about a car key?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Townsend said.
And in his voice Lisa could hear a subtle lowering of tension. Something strange was going on, all right, and he was clearly relieved that she hadn’t simply lowered the boom on him.
“Not surprised, the way you were drinking last night,” he continued. “Like there was no tomorrow.”
No tomorrow? Did that sound as serious as she thought it sounded? “You weren’t exactly falling behind,” she said, trying a little probe. It wouldn’t hurt to play along—if this was a practical joke, or he was trying to win some bizarre bet, she could always bust him to spacer third class later.
“That’s for sure,” he agreed. “I sometimes drink like it’s my last night on Earth.”
Lisa shot a look at Marcello and Henderson. Both men were frowning in concentration.
“Anyway, you asked me to pick up your car this morning from the parking garage,” Townsend continued. “But like I said, these two guys say this isn’t a car key. Did you maybe give me the wrong one by mistake?”
“Let me think,” Lisa said, stalling for time. So Townsend wasn’t alone. Were the two men with him listening in on the conversation?
“Because it looks the same size as the key to my Zulu Kickback back home,” Townsend said. “So, you know, it could just be a case of mistaken identity. You know—mistaken key identity. That’s why I didn’t notice anything was wrong.”
A shiver ran up Lisa’s back. Zulu. The stress on the noun had been very slight, but she was sure she hadn’t imagined it. No tomorrow…last night on Earth…and now Zulu.…
This was no practical joke. Townsend was in trouble. Serious trouble.
There was a movement to her side, and Lisa looked over as a tablet was held up in front of her with a message scrawled across it. Uni-link locator being blocked—get his position. She looked over the top of the tablet to see Commander Shiflett gazing back at her. So the XO had caught on, too. “Okay, for starters, you’ve got to learn to listen,” Lisa said. “The key isn’t to the car—it’s to the key box under the hood. Remember all the car thefts I told you about?”
“Oh,” Townsend said, sounding embarrassed. “Right. The box has a kill switch inside.”
“And the actual key,” Lisa said, wondering if any of this even made sense with Cascan technology. If it was completely off the wall, whoever was listening in would call fraud in double-quick time.
“Right,” Townsend said. There was a slight pause, and Lisa caught the hint of a murmur, as if someone just out of hearing range was giving him instructions or a prompt— “It was a light-green Picasso Rey, right?”
Across the table, Henderson lifted an urgent finger from his tablet. “Black,” he murmured urgently. “Picasso Reys don’t come in light green.”
Lisa nodded. “No, my first car was light green,” she said, trying to put strained patience into her voice. Henderson and Marcello were murmuring together, she saw, Marcello watching closely as Henderson worked rapidly on his tablet. “You’re looking for a black Picasso Rey. Jeez, Charles, are you even in the right place?”
“Sure I am,” Townsend said with an attempt at wounded dignity. “Three apartment garages in a row; I’m down in the first one.”
“No, you’re down in the second one,” Lisa corrected. “I swear you are utterly useless. Do you need me to come down there and show you?”
“No, no, don’t do that,” Townsend said hastily. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me before I’ve had my morning coffee. You want me to bring it to your place when I get it?”
“Well, that was the idea of sending you,” Lisa growled. “Are you going to have to drive all over town until you remember where I live?”
“No, no,” Townsend said with an air of wounded dignity. “That I remember just fine. You’re four doors down from your office at Tinsdale Range Runners.”
“Right,” Lisa said. If that meant what she thought it did…
“Great,” Townsend said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Bye.”
The connection broke. “With all due respect, Commander,” a Cascan civilian who Lisa hadn’t yet been introduced to sai
d, “what in the Holy Name was that all about?”
“One of our people is in trouble,” Lisa told her. “Something serious.”
“You sure he’s not just playing games?” the civilian pressed. “Sure sounded like a game to me.”
“Missile Tech Townsend doesn’t play that kind of game,” Shiflett told him.
“And Case Zulu’s not something our people make jokes about,” Marcello added. “Especially not to their superiors. Commodore? Anything?”
“Maybe,” Henderson said. “Three apartment buildings in a row with underground garages…I’ve got four possibles within two klicks of the Hamilton Hotel.”
“Any of them have an address of three-eleven something?” Lisa asked.
Henderson blinked. “Three-eleven Marsala Avenue,” he said. “Four blocks from the Hamilton. How did you know?”
“The Tinsdale 315 is one of the components in Damocles’s weapons ranging sensor,” Lisa said. “Four down puts it at 311.”
Henderson grunted. “This guy’s quick on his feet,” he said as he tapped rapidly on his tablet. “It’s like Secour all over again. Must be something in Manticore’s water. Okay; police alerted—emergency one level—signaling they’re on their way. What is this Case Zulu thing, anyway? I assume it’s not actually a Manticoran car model.”
“Hardly,” Marcello said grimly. “After Secour, First Lord of the Admiralty Cazenestro decided our personnel needed more hands-on combat training. Originally, the final stage in that training was called ‘Zulu Omega’: a full-bore combat scenario, some of it live-ammo, as intense and realistic as we could make it without actually killing anyone.”
“Some recruits have nightmares for weeks afterward,” Shiflett agreed.
“Yes, they do,” Marcello said. “Believe me, it leaves an impression. But after a while, our people started calling that stage just ‘Zulu’ or ‘Case Zulu.’ It’s turned into a sort of shorthand for ‘everything’s going straight to hell and we’re all going to die.’ Like I said, it’s not something an experienced noncom like Townsend would use to his department head on a whim.”
“The captain’s right, Sir,” Shiflett confirmed. “Either Townsend is facing guns, or thinks he soon will be.” She looked at Lisa, inclining her head slightly in salute. “Nicely done, TO.”
“Thank you, Ma’am,” Lisa said. “I just hope we were reading him right.”
Shiflett’s lip twitched. “I guess we’ll find out.”
* * *
“Man, I’m just running on half-hydraulics today,” Chomps said, slathering on all the embarrassment he could as he keyed off his uni-link. At least they hadn’t pulled out their guns yet. Maybe they’d bought the act.
Or maybe they were still waiting for a thumb’s-up or thumb’s-down from their boss. Either way, time to try for a graceful withdrawal.
“Guess I’d better get next door and find her damn car.” He took another step up the tunnel—
“You don’t have to go outside,” the first man said. He gestured behind Chomps. “There are connecting doors between the three garages.”
“Really?” Chomps asked, frowning.
“We do a lot of work in this part of town,” the second put in. “Most of these side-by-sides have a second exit.”
“Safety regulation,” the first man explained. “Come on—I’ll show you.” He brushed past Chomps and started toward the lines of cars, leaving only the second man between Chomps and the street.
Or rather, leaving the second man plus all the others working up there. Wincing, Chomps turned and followed the first man toward the cars. Trying fervently to figure out what he was going to do.
Were they really just going to show him a way out and let him go? That would imply that they’d bought the little impromptu he and Donnelly had put on. It would also imply they were extremely trusting souls, which Chomps didn’t believe for a minute.
But if they’d decided to kill him after all, why go any deeper into the garage? Why not just shoot him here and be done with it?
He felt his stomach tighten. Because once among the rows of cars they could drop him and not have his body discovered for hours. Ten meters ahead was a panel truck with a slightly curved windshield, and in the distorted reflection Chomps saw the second man fall into silent step behind him.
Keep it together, Chomps ordered himself silently. The two men were undoubtedly armed, and they were both out of grabbing range. Even if he was able to get to one of them, trying to use him as a human shield against the other would be useless. With his broad Sphinxian build, he might as well try to hide behind a flagpole.
Keep it together. How would they do it? Certainly the safest method would be to simply shoot him in the back. He’d already seen that gunshots didn’t seem to spark any notice from the locals. A nice, quick shot, and they could get back to the main business of the day.
But people who didn’t like leaving loose ends typically didn’t like taking any other unnecessary risks, either. And if they preferred not to risk someone calling in a fresh gunshot, the next likely approach…
He was watching the truck windshield closely when the man behind him slid a knife from inside his shirt and picked up speed, closing the gap between him and his victim.
It was all Chomps could do not to react. But he kept walking, forcing down the urge to turn and face his attacker. The man was moving into stabbing range, but he would probably wait until the group was at least within the first line of cars before he made his move, if only so that he and his partner wouldn’t have to drag the body so far.
Chomps let the man get to within half a meter. Then, he jerked to a halt, spun around, and slashed his left arm diagonally down and outward through the space between them like he’d been taught in the Casey-Rosewood salle.
To his astonishment, and probably that of his attacker, it worked. Chomps’s wrist caught the man’s knife hand across the forearm, knocking the weapon out of line.
Follow-up! Lunging forward, Chomps made a grab for the deflected wrist.
But his attacker had recovered from his initial surprise and snatched the hand back out of Chomps’s reach. His follow-up would probably be to make some sort of feint and then take another shot at burying the knife in Chomps’s torso.
There was no way Chomps would be lucky enough to block the next attack. That left him only one counter. Grabbing the man’s collar with his left hand, he reached down and got a grip on the man’s belt with his right—
And with a grunt of effort he lifted the attacker off his feet, turned halfway around, and hurled him into his partner.
The man in front had already turned back to face the fracas, his hand digging into his shirt for his own knife or gun or whatever weapon he had in there. He had just enough time to rearrange his expression into stunned disbelief before the incoming human missile rearranged everything else and sent the pair of them crashing to the pavement.
A trained operative, Chomps reflected, would probably take advantage of his opponents’ temporary disadvantage to make that condition permanent. But Chomps wasn’t trained, his attackers were rapidly sorting themselves out, and if he screwed up the only permanence he was likely to achieve was that of his own death.
And so he charged straight past the tangle of bodies and limbs, reached the first line of vehicles, and ducked in alongside the panel truck, running sideways through the narrow gap between the truck and the next car over. His only chance now was to go to ground, call the police, and hope he could play hide-and-seek with the killers until they arrived.
He had reached the gap between the first two lines and ducked around the truck, looking for the next nearest vehicle that would hide his bulk, when there was the crack of a gunshot behind him.
His first impulse was to take a quick, panic-edged inventory of his skin and body parts. He’d heard once that terrible pain didn’t always register right away—maybe he was half a minute from death and just didn’t know it. But he seemed to be uninjured—
“Freez
e, everybody!” The stentorian bellow echoing through the underground structure could be produced only by the sort of portable amplifiers police forces throughout the galaxy used. “Hands where we can see them. Now!”
Carefully, aware that his arms and legs were still trembling with adrenaline and not at their most reliable, Chomps came to a stop and crouched down.
Twenty seconds later, a half dozen gray-clad figures came charging from the tunnel, their guns drawn and ready.
Chomps took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself. Then, raising his arms, he stood up and started toward them through the line of cars. Good cops, he knew, wouldn’t simply accept his word that he wasn’t one of the bad guys. Good cops would grab everybody in sight, throw on the cuffs, and haul them down to the station house to be sorted out at their leisure.
In fact, good cops would probably be very hands on throughout the procedure, possibly to the point of making everyone eat pavement while they passed out the restraints.
The Quechua City cops, as it turned out, were very good cops indeed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Khetha’s shuttle was exactly where Ulobo’s tablet had said it would be. The flight systems were cold—the Supreme Chosen One probably hadn’t used the vehicle for months—but they came up with gratifying speed. A quick check of the computer as the reaction thrusters did their self-check revealed a quasi-diplomatic priority launch code for the vehicle. The relationship between the Cascans and Khetha’s alleged government-in-exile, Llyn reflected, must have been an interesting one. Probably very expensive, too.
But the details didn’t matter. If the code got him off Casca in a timely fashion, that was all he cared about.
Meanwhile, Ulobo’s tablet had included information on the orbiting ship’s startup procedure. It would still be tricky to operate a ship like this alone, but as long as nothing serious happened with the engineering he had no doubt he could handle it. The only other option was to collect the pick-up crew he’d tentatively reserved over the past week and make this journey a group effort.
