by Dan Moren
“No kidding.” His wrists still ached and he rubbed at the raw flesh. But I’m not sure if it was too long or not long enough.
The older Brody shifted and leaned back against the desk, coffee seemingly forgotten in one hand. “Spill, Lije.”
“What?”
Eamon rolled his eyes. “You’re telling me it’s a coincidence that less than three days after Sabaea miraculously returns to the galactic fold you just show up, out of the blue, in the Pig and Thistle? From what I heard, the Illyricans are only now looking to see if anybody from the invasion fleet is still alive.” His green eyes narrowed. “But you’re here already. No muss, no fuss.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Someone’s pulling your strings, Lije. The question is ‘who?’”
Eli fought the ire rising in his chest. It wasn’t so much what his brother was saying, but as always there was something so damn infuriating about the way he said it. Eamon’s question, however, seemed to be of a rhetorical bent.
“The Illyricans would surely love to see me hanging by my thumbs.” The coffee cup crumpled slightly in Eamon’s hand. “Did IIS ask you to do them a favor and track down your troublesome brother? After all, no love lost between us, is there? Did they even offer you anything, or did you just do it out of the goodness of your heart? Or maybe it was patriotic love for emperor and empire?” With each question, his expression turned grimmer until Eli fancied he could hear the grinding of his older brother’s teeth from across the room.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Eli, raising his hands, palms out. “It wasn’t the Illyricans. Geez, who do you think I am?”
“Once a crim …”
Yeah, heard that one before. “Well, I’m not anymore.”
“So?” said Eamon, eyes hard. “Who?”
“It was your buddies in the Commonwealth, you moron. They got me off Sabaea and asked me to help track you down. They said you might be in danger.”
“From who?” Eamon gave a bitter laugh. “I’m a wanted man, Lije. They’re going to have to be more specific.”
“I don’t know exactly,” said Eli, shaking his head. “The Illyricans, I guess.”
Eamon snorted. “The day I need the Commonwealth’s help to stay one step ahead of the crims is the day they’ll be picking out my coffin.”
“Look, they told me you were doing some work for them, feeding them information on some Illyrican secret project. It’s got ’em all hot and bothered.”
Eamon sighed, pushing himself off the desk. The coffee cup looked rather the worse for wear; the elder Brody glanced down at it in distaste, then tossed it into a nearby garbage can with a sloshing sound. He wiped his hands on his trousers. “What do they want?”
Eli let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Just a meet. They want whatever information you’ve got that they don’t. That’s it.”
A skeptical snort issued from Eamon’s direction. “That’s rarely ‘it.’ Everybody’s got an agenda.” His gaze returned to Eli, once again taking on an air of thoughtful appraisal. “Speaking of which, what do you get out of this whole arrangement?”
“Besides not having to spend the rest of my days as a mandatory guest of one government or another?”
Eamon didn’t blink.
He sighed. “Meghann. They said they’d make sure I was able to take care of her.”
A stillness hung in the air between them, like the moment before a thunderstorm unleashed a driving torrent of rain. Eli tugged at his collar, which suddenly seemed too tight.
“Meghann?” repeated Eamon. His voice had gone quiet—dangerously so—but it wasn’t hard to see something simmering below the surface.
“Yeah.”
“Our sister is not a bargaining chip, Lije,” he growled, stepping toward him. “What the fuck makes you think you have the right to make deals about her future?”
Something in Eli’s chest stretched, then snapped, and he pushed off the wall toward Eamon. “I’m her brother too, Eam. It’s my job to take care of her, just as much as it is yours.”
“And you left.”
The anger sloughed off his brother like a shockwave, and Eli instinctively took a step back, only barely avoiding cowering beneath the holy wrath that Eamon had summoned. Under a darkened brow that reminded Eli uncomfortably of their father, he fixed his younger brother with a cold stare.
“Don’t fuck around, Lije. She grieved for you, you hear me? There wasn’t a body to bury, but that didn’t stop her from mourning—not least because there was no one else to do it. Everybody left her: mom, dad, Aunt Brigid, Uncle Kieran, you. Everyone left her, except for me.” His expression had turned fierce, eyes glinting. “So you stay the hell away from her. Take whatever deal the Commonwealth is giving you for finding your errant brother and get the hell off Caledonia.”
“Fine,” Eli bit off. You righteous asshole, he didn’t add.
Eamon nodded sharply and huffed out a breath. “Okay. Long as we got that settled, I’ll go to your goddamn meeting—but I don’t want you there. This is between me and the Commonwealth. Your part is done.” He picked up a pad of paper from the desk and scribbled something on it, then ripped off the top sheet with a swift motion that looked like he’d have preferred it to be Eli’s arm.
Eli took it gingerly, as though it might burst into flames, and glanced down: Café Écossian, 9 a.m. The address below was in Raleigh City’s upscale Highgate district, the polar opposite of Leith and Upham. The kind of place you went when you had money to burn.
Crossing his arms, Eamon nodded again. “So, Lije, I guess this is it.” Something around his eyes softened ever so slightly; Eli didn’t think he’d have noticed it on anybody else. “Look. I’m glad you’re okay, but this,” he said, waving his hands at the office around them, but encompassing something larger, “this isn’t for you. It was never your world.” He shook his head. “Find something else. Somewhere else.”
An empty feeling plucked at Eli’s stomach. Maybe there was truth to the old saying: You couldn’t go home again. Especially when there wasn’t anywhere left to call home. Suddenly, cleaning out the toilets on Davidson Station didn’t seem so bad.
No, part of his brain reminded him, it was pretty bad.
“Yeah,” he said at last. “Okay.”
“Good. Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to let my friends out there blindfold you and take you out of here. It’s better for all of us if you don’t know exactly where you are. All right?”
Instinctively, Eli prepared to object, then closed his mouth when he realized he had little to gain from it. If he didn’t agree then all it meant was they’d do it the hard way, and that man with the scarred face had seemed a little too eager at the prospect of violence.
“Well, I guess I don’t have much of a choice, huh? Otherwise you’ll just have to pry my eyes out?” he said, trying to inject a note of levity into the conversation.
Eamon just nodded. “It’s one option.”
“Right. Uh, I think I’ll go with the blindfold.”
CHAPTER TEN
Kovalic was getting impatient. Strike that: he’d passed impatient about half an hour ago on the express train to Anxious City. The ceaseless drumming of his fingers on his thigh would have been enough of a clue for anybody, but in case that wasn’t sufficient he kept pulling his comm out of his pocket, flipping it open, and then closing it again, like a parent whose kid was out past curfew.
“That’s it,” he said finally. “We’re going in.”
“’Bout bleeding time,” said Tapper, slapping his hands together. “I scrounged up a couple sluggers—they’re kind of on the vintage side, but they checked out all right. Also, found a pair of concussion grenades for cheap. Good chance at least one of them’s a dud, but doesn’t hurt to carry just in case. Oh, and a spring-loaded composite blade.”
Kovalic shook his head. The sergeant’s knack for somehow acquiring a mélange of dangerous and deadly weaponry within twenty-four hours of landing
on a planet—any planet—never ceased to amaze him. There seemed to be something about the man that black marketeers responded to, though he wasn’t sure if it was respect or just plain old intimidation.
“Anything on the non-lethal side?”
“Well the conkers aren’t going to kill anybody if they actually work.”
“I was looking for something a little more … subtle?”
“Subtlety is Three’s department, cap.”
“Speaking of which.” Kovalic flipped the comm open again and called Page. The lieutenant opened the line, but didn’t say anything.
“We’re going to take a stroll,” said Kovalic. “Eyes sharp, let me know if you spot anything.”
“Got it,” murmured Page.
Kovalic rang off as Tapper dug into his rucksack full of armaments. They’d taken up a spot a few blocks from where Page was keeping watch, just in case the man needed backup. Skimming Tapper’s offerings, Kovalic took the blade but decided against the pistol. With a shrug, Tapper loaded a cartridge into one of the guns and checked it.
The two slipped out of the alley into the narrow, winding streets of Leith, lit only by foggy pools of light from the faux-antique street lamps. This late at night, the only other people walking were either trouble or looking for it.
“Weird place,” muttered Tapper.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“All this … pretense.” Tapper waved his hands at the buildings and streetlights. “Designing the things to look like Earth five hundred years ago, like it was some sort of golden age.” He shook his head. “I’m as much a fan of revivalist architecture as the next fellow, but it’s just not practical.”
“I don’t think practicality is necessarily what they had in mind.” But Tapper was right: there was an almost theme-park feeling to this part of Raleigh City, as though the streets were lined with facades fronting empty houses. Eerie.
Shaking off a slight feeling of unease, Kovalic made for the turn he’d identified earlier. He’d taken advantage of their holding pattern to pull up maps of the area and plan their approach. A block or so down from their position they found the narrow entrance to Deadman’s Close and turned inside, their steps echoing from the vaulted stone ceiling overhead. Tight quarters with a chokepoint at either end; that made it a good place for an ambush. He was fairly confident he and Tapper could handle your average street thugs, but they did have the disadvantage of not knowing the terrain.
The fears proved unfounded as they exited the tunnel back into the night and started down a long, winding staircase. The condensation from the fog had made the steps treacherous and the lack of a real railing meant the only option was to go slowly and brace yourself against the opposite wall. Instead of an ambush, Kovalic supposed you could just wait for people to start down the stairs and then chuck rocks at them until they fell. Just as effective, really, and certainly looked a lot more like an accident than a knife in the gut.
To Kovalic’s relief, they made it without incident. At the bottom of the stairs, Kovalic consulted his mental map and turned left, then right. The water of Leith Harbor came into view: a dark, empty mass ahead of them. A few ships bobbed in the fog, red and green lights blinking; they bounced up and down like a drunken Christmas tree.
The same sense that had kept him alive this long gave him a nudge before his dark-adjusted eyes even saw the figure emerge from the deeper shadows. He felt Tapper tense beside him and casually put a hand on the sergeant’s forearm.
The figure was small and wiry, and strolled over to them as though it were the most natural thing in the world. In the darkness, Kovalic had a hard time appraising the threat the shadow might pose. Even if it were armed, it didn’t seem prepared for a fight—which might merely mean that it felt confident in its backup or that it was very dangerous indeed.
“Fàilte,” a man’s voice said.
“Fàilte,” Kovalic echoed back, wrapping his mouth around the unfamiliar word.
The man seemed to be waiting for something else.
“Nice night we’re having, huh?” said Kovalic cheerfully.
He saw the figure stiffen and shift his weight but, before the man could act or move, Tapper had slipped forward and punched him in the stomach. The air went out of him in a single poof and he doubled over. That turned out to be a particularly bad idea, since it presented ample opportunity for Tapper to bring an elbow down on the back of the man’s neck. The figure went down like a sack of potatoes. Tapper brushed his hands off and straightened his coat.
“Something tells me that he wasn’t the only one,” murmured Kovalic.
“Well, maybe if you’d let Three bring that night-vision gear he loves so much we could know for sure. But what’s done is done.”
Kovalic looked down at the dark shape crumpled at their feet and sighed. “We can’t just leave him out in the middle of the street. Grab an arm.”
The sergeant complied and the two of them dragged the man back over to near where they thought he’d come from. Kovalic rifled his pockets quickly, finding only a wallet with a handful of marks and a comm unit. Skimming the unit’s memory yielded a handful of calls to unnamed numbers; Kovalic dumped them into his own comm but didn’t hold out much hope—this guy was just a foot soldier after all.
Tapper gave the figure a nudge with his toe and it yielded a slight groan. He’d be okay once he woke up; they’d be okay, too, just as long as they were long gone by that point—Kovalic doubted the sentry had been able to make them out in the dim light. But they didn’t have time to take out each and every gang member between here and the bar.
“I think we’re going to need a distraction,” he said slowly. “How’s your belligerent drunk?”
Tapper tilted his head to one side. “Are you talkin’ to me?” he half-slurred, half-growled.
Kovalic raised an eyebrow. “A bit much, but it’ll probably do. Weapons.” He beckoned with a hand.
With a sigh, Tapper reluctantly pulled out the pair of concussion grenades from his pockets, the pistol from the back of his waistband, a backup pistol from a holster on his right ankle, and a six-inch combat knife from his left boot. The last he slapped into Kovalic’s open hand with a sigh. “Christ, buy a guy dinner before you get him down to his skivvies. What if they jump me?”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” said Kovalic with a roll of his eyes as he returned the gear to Tapper’s rucksack and shouldered it himself. “I’d rather do this without a body count. If you’re not back in an hour, Three and I are going to come looking for you.”
“Roger, boss.”
“All yours then.” Kovalic gave him a slight bow and gestured toward the street at large.
Tapper rolled his shoulders, then made a good show of stumbling out into the street. Throwing his head back, he yelled loudly enough that his voice—now tinged with the rough, slurred tones of the intoxicated—reverberated off the flanking buildings. “Olly oxen free!”
Kovalic shook his head and then, sticking to the shadows, slipped off the main drag and onto one of the many side streets. As long as he kept out of sight and away from whatever ruckus Tapper was causing, he ought to be able to make his way to the Pig and Thistle largely undisturbed.
The side streets weren’t nearly as well-lit as the main road—and that was saying something. The few street lamps that dotted the area were flickering or giving off only a dim orange light that illuminated little more than their immediate surroundings. Kovalic let his eyes adjust to the dark, but even so could barely make out anything more than the blocky shapes of the buildings. Not that there was much else to discern at this time of night; the streets seemed to be largely empty.
As he prepared to round a corner, something made the back of his neck itch—he’d seen nothing and heard nothing, but he’d learned to trust that feeling. Pressing himself against the side of the building, he edged to the corner and gave the barest of peeks around. Nothing presented itself to his field of vision and he was about to chalk it up to a fals
e positive when the hint migrated from his subconscious to the forefront of his mind: the smell of cigarette smoke. His mind automatically cataloged it; it wasn’t one of the popular commercial brands, and the faint hint of the burning paper suggested that it had been rolled by hand.
A glowing orange ember burned briefly in the shadows of a building that was about halfway down the street he’d been about to turn down; it faded just as quickly. Another sentry. One who, had Kovalic continued blithely along his path, would have clearly seen him silhouetted in even the faint light from the street lamp. And, unfortunately, the sentry was positioned right smack dab between Kovalic and his destination.
What he wouldn’t have given for one of CID’s electrical disruptors—those things could knock out a street light from a hundred yards away. Unfortunately, they also weighed several pounds, which made them somewhat impractical to pack on a whim.
Glancing around, he took stock of his situation: the intersection formed a T, and he’d been about to swing a 90-degree left turn. Thanks to an unlikely cluster of streetlights, crossing the junction was out. He briefly considered breaking one of the streetlights with a loose brick or rock, but that seemed likely to attract more attention than he wanted.
As he took in the scene, he chanced to look upward and caught sight of a stone arch that overhung part of the street, connecting two buildings on opposite sides of the street. It was an odd architectural choice and one for which Kovalic figured he could thank the Caledonian forebears’ fascination with this particular branch of Earth architecture. Still, he wouldn’t look a gift arch in the mouth, as it were.
Sadly, the same city planners had failed to leave him a convenient fire escape to climb up. But the virtue of this architectural style was that it had plenty of nooks and crannies to use as footholds. It had been a while since he’d last free climbed, but luckily the buildings in this part of town were only a few stories high. It took him about seven minutes, at the fastest safe pace he could manage, to climb to the top, followed by another two minutes of quietly leaping from rooftop to close-set rooftop until he made it to the archway.
