One of the men popped up high enough to aim his pistol over the hood of the car. Unfortunately for him, Miles excelled at pop-up targets and skeet shooting. While the man was still trying to aim, Miles’ bullet shattered his forearm and tore through the flesh of his bicep before burying itself in his shoulder.
“Um, what were you saying?” a pained voice called out. Miles doubted it was the opponent he’d just shot. “I’m only here because Travis had something to sell. I didn’t know anything about a Swiss wagon or a woman. If it’s all the same, I’m willing to walk away.”
“Toss your gun out,” Miles demanded. “Your buddy’s also.”
Miles couldn’t make out the muttered expletive. “How about if I holster—”
“Toss the guns out,” Miles interrupted. “If you’re lucky, they’ll be here when you come back.”
“Fine.” Two pistols clattered across the concrete.
“Slowly, and keep your hands up,” Miles commanded. The man hobbled out from behind the car, his hands in the air. “What about your buddy?”
The man glanced behind the car. “He’s pretty fucked up, and I can’t haul him with my gimp leg. If he’s still alive when I come back, I’ll see about getting him patched up.”
Miles gestured with his gun toward the exit. “If I were you, I’d get out of here before the rest of the Swiss Guards show up. Travis and I are going to have a chat.”
Once the man limped out of sight, Miles took his boot off Travis, reached down, and hauled the pock-faced man to his feet. Miles shoved the still-warm barrel of his hossleg under Travis’ chin. “You’re going to help me get my wife back. Where is she?”
* * *
“Boss, there’s a report that a Swiss wagon went missing from the convoy that came up 27 from Berne,” Darcel stated, flipping through a steno notebook. “The south gate reported it rolling through about sundown, but it never turned up at the market. The Swiss are making noise. It’s been a long time since someone poached one of their wagons, and they may be thinking about making an example.”
Troy pinched the bridge of his nose. It was too much to be a coincidence. “Do we have any details on the wagon or the people manning it?”
“Black wagon, with the Swiss emblem and owner’s mark. There were two drovers, a guard, and a medic,” Darcel read from the notebook. “Do you think the Swiss would embargo us?”
“Fuck the Swiss,” Harkness wheezed behind Troy. The obese man excelled at quietly turning up where least expected…or wanted. “The fucking farmers need us as much as we need them, and it’s not our fault if the rubes can’t keep track of their shit.”
Troy’s mind spun. He needed to get the medic out of there before word spread. Fucking Travis. Of course, he hit a Swiss wagon. Troy would take the girl back to her people—no harm had been done to her—and he’d assure them the guilty party would be found and punished. They might be pissed, but they wouldn’t embargo the Harkness Barony.
“Besides, if they embargo me, they’ll have to go halfway around The Fort,” Harkness continued. “Tell them we don’t know anything, and if they make any threats about cutting us off, kill them.”
“What?” Troy stammered. He must have missed something. Harkness couldn’t be serious. The Swiss Confederation controlled over half the farms around The Fort, and their production was half again as much as independent farmers.
“He said kill them.” Chang was Harkness’ chief bodyguard. While Troy was responsible for keeping Baron Harkness’ holdings together and running, Chang was responsible for the baron’s security. Chang was a holdover from the corporate wars, an Agent. “Do you need me to show you how?”
Troy followed Harkness as the baron shuffled to the elevator. He could feel Chang’s gaze on the back of his neck. “Let me handle the Swiss thing and see if I can work things out,” Troy said. “We don’t need to get in a pissing match with them.”
“You getting soft on me, Troy?” Harkness jabbed a button. “I’m sick of those Amish rednecks acting as though they hold all the cards. We ought to take a force down there and seize the southern conclave—make those fuckers grow food exclusively for us.”
Troy had heard threads of this idea before. The Swiss maintained a strong fighting force, the Swiss Guard, and it was only the first reason why the notion was a bad idea.
“We’ve talked about this. How do you overwhelm their defenses and maintain a garrison force large enough to keep control?” Troy asked. After the Fall and the Dying Years, warlords learned not to mess with organized coalitions of farmers. Cities and towns depended on them and their trade. “Where are we going?”
“Matilda said there was a new girl.” Harkness grinned lasciviously. “I’m in the mood, and some fresh flesh sounds like what I need.”
A chill ran down Troy’s spine, and it wasn’t because Chang was behind him. The door opened on the third floor, where the thralls were housed and fed. Harkness rubbed his hands together as he shuffled forward.
Troy needed to divert this train wreck. “This early in the day? Don’t you have a meeting with—”
“Fuck it. I’m a goddamned warlord, not a middle-manager,” Harkness retorted. “If you’re so worried about the meeting, you go.”
“The meeting is with the NIPSCO Gang. It’s about the juice rates.” Granted, sending Harkness could cause more damage to relations. Troy resisted patting the pocket holding the imprint drive.
“Reschedule it for later,” Harkness said as he pushed open the double doors leading to the thrallroom—a former balcony lounge overlooking the main lobby of the building. The women who served the baron lounged, ate, and worked on minor tasks around the room while a pair of guards at the bar scrambled to hide the cards between them. All watched fearfully as the baron’s squinting eyes swept the room. “Matilda!”
“Over here,” the thrallkeeper called. Troy already knew what they would find as Harkness shuffled around the corner. The medic sat at a table, a barely touched meal in front of her. She was plainly dressed, as opposed to most of the women in the room.
“Oh, you were right, Matilda.” Harkness licked his lips. “She’s farm fresh. I can smell the strawberries.”
“You have to release me,” the woman demanded, standing up. “I’m a medic in service to the Swiss Confederation of Berne. Brigands hijacked our wagon—”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Harkness sneered, jabbing a pudgy finger at the woman. “I have the power! Not the fucking farmers!” A sinister grin crooked his lips as he turned to Matilda. “Dress her in something sexy, but easy to tear off, and put her through the imprinter. The Roach knows my preferences, but don’t lobotomize her. I want her to know what’s happening.”
Women swooped in around the wide-eyed medic and herded her from the room with Matilda following in their wake. “Give us an hour to get her dolled up and printed,” Matilda called as they disappeared through a door with the protesting girl.
Harkness glared a challenge at Troy. “You going to tell me not to do something?”
Troy shook his head. “Nope. I’ll go get The Roach.”
* * *
“This soon?” The Roach checked the readouts on a monitor.
Troy handed him the UDP drive. “No choice. He can’t be reasoned with and doesn’t care about the consequences. I was hoping to salvage this mess by sending her back to her people under the pretense that we would punish the perps, maybe even show them a few heads they can feed to their pigs or whatever savage shit they do on those cult farms. The baron won’t take no for an answer, so we have to let this play out and hope no one finds out she was here.”
The steel door swung open and two men dragged the medic between them toward the imprinter. The apparatus resembled a dentist chair crossed with a tanning bed. Even if she didn’t know what an imprinter was, one glimpse of the chair and its restraints sent her into a panic.
“Please! No, don’t do this!” The woman struggled futilely as the men dragged her to the leather chair and strapped her
in. Once her head was secured, The Roach applied a pair of electrodes to each of her temples. The girl began to sob as The Roach swung down the ‘lid’ of the imprinter and obscured her.
The Roach returned to the console, glancing at the monitor between flurries of keystrokes. The imprinter hummed, and light flashed along the edge of the lid. After a couple of minutes, the medic’s whimpers faded. Troy stared at a spot on the far wall and quelled his nausea.
The lights in the room flickered, and a series of loud pops forced Troy to turn back to the imprinter. Smoke rose from the edge of the lid, and sparks erupted from the control console. The machine fell silent and dark.
Troy grabbed the handle and threw open the lid. He’d seen plenty of death since The Fall, but he steeled himself for what he would find. Smoke trailed from the tubes lining the underside of the lid, and several had burst. He fanned the acrid smoke, and it took a moment for him to register that he didn’t smell charred meat. The medic lay on the leather couch, her eyes closed. She appeared unmarred by the machine’s meltdown.
“What the hell happened?” Troy demanded, watching the woman’s chest move as she breathed.
“A resonance feedback built up in the field…”
“In English,” Troy snapped. “Big, dumb guy English.”
“It overloaded and fried some parts.” The Roach pried a half-melted UDP drive from the imprinter. He flipped a couple of switches and tapped a button. One of the monitors flickered back on. “The good news is the boss’ new toy is alive, and her vitals are strong.”
“Did the imprint take?” Troy asked.
The Roach tapped a key but nothing happened. He squinted through his bottle-thick glasses at the monitor and toggled some switches. With an exasperated sigh, he dug through a white box until he found a capsule.
“She really is pretty,” The Roach remarked as he plucked the electrodes from her temples. “It’s a shame—”
“Yes, it is,” Troy interrupted. “Wake her up.”
The Roach frowned at Troy before returning his attention to the medic. He held the capsule under her nose and snapped it open. After a moment, the woman’s blue eyes fluttered open. She struggled against the restraints.
“Relax,” The Roach commanded. The medic ceased tugging at the cuffs holding her down. The Roach pulled out a penlight and flashed it in each of her eyes.
“Are we good?” Troy asked. Harkness would be getting impatient.
“She’s ready,” The Roach announced. “She’ll be docile until, well, the boss did say he wanted her to put up some resistance. Whatever you do, don’t touch her anywhere…well, I’d avoid touching her. If you trigger her and end the docility routine, the boss will know.”
“Do you two understand what he said?” Troy asked. “If you break the docility imprint, the boss will know, and he’ll have you hung by your nuts.”
Both men nodded, and one gulped. Yeah, he’d hoped to have a little fun on the way to the penthouse. The Roach unbuckled the restraints. The girl’s eyes were a mix of fear and confusion, but she didn’t move when freed.
“Get up,” Troy ordered. The woman climbed out of the chair. Her flimsy outfit did little to protect her modesty, even less so after the struggle to get her strapped in. “Fix your top.”
She wordlessly complied, her hands moving automatically.
“Do you know who you are?” Troy asked.
“Sarah Wirth. I’m a medic from the Swiss Confederation of Berne,” the young woman recited.
“You’re going to go with these men. If they tell you to do anything sexual, or touch you inappropriately, you are to tell Baron Harkness,” Troy commanded. “Do you understand?”
She nodded without looking at Troy.
“All right, take her upstairs to the boss. When he’s done, take what’s left to Matilda.” Troy watched them leave.
“See, perfectly coded,” The Roach proclaimed.
“Better be, or it could be both our hides,” Troy countered.
“It’s not as though I could rerun the imprint process,” The Roach remarked. “This could take days to fix.”
The intercom hissed and popped. “Is Lieutenant Streeval there?”
“What now?” Troy went to the intercom. “Streeval. What is it?”
“There’s a Swiss Guard out front with your cousin. Something about a missing medic.”
“Fucking perfect,” Troy muttered before keying the intercom. “I’ll be right there. Get a couple more guards in case there’s a problem, but keep them back.”
* * *
Sarah was a prisoner in her own body. Her skin crawled from the leers of the men escorting her, and she had a lot of exposed skin that could crawl. The garment she wore was little more than strips of sheer fabric and flimsy lace. A few gaudy bangles and strappy high heels completed the wanton outfit. She knew what was going to happen but couldn’t cry out or fight back. When the elevator door opened, she tottered forward between the guards.
A cruel-faced Asian man stood next to a pair of opulent wooden doors flanked by frosted glass panels. With a smirk, he opened one of the doors to admit her.
“Go in,” one of the guards ordered, and her feet moved of their own volition.
No, no, no! she cried in her mind, unable to bring the words to her lips. The chamber was larger than the entire floor of the farmhouse she and her husband shared with his parents. Miles—what happened to him? Was he dead? It had been hard to resist crying out for him when the brigands emerged, but if she had given him away, he would have been killed.
The obese man in charge leered as she stopped in the middle of the room. A large bed was behind him, making her wish she could shudder.
“Matilda was right,” Baron Harkness said, appraising her. “Healthy, fresh, pretty—I don’t even see any stretch marks. Tell me, farm girl, have you had any babies?”
Sarah shook her head, wishing she could turn away from the smell of his breath and unwashed body.
“Maybe I should change that.” Harkness licked his lips and groped her breast, shoving aside the flimsy swath of fabric.
“Free!” a voice said in the back of Sarah’s mind.
* * *
Troy glared at his cousin as he descended the steps. Travis, standing next to a young man wearing the tattered garb of the Swiss Guard, studied the pavement. A wagon was parked at the curb, a Swiss emblem emblazoned on the side. The word ‘Berne’ was unmistakable at the bottom of the emblem.
“What’s going on?” Troy demanded. The two guards behind him hadn’t raised their guns but were ready. Four more guards were hidden in the lobby. Troy scanned the street but didn’t see any more Swiss, guards or otherwise.
“This piece of shit says he sold my wife to you last night,” the guard declared. “Bring her to me now, and maybe we won’t embargo your whole barony and tell the other farming confederations.”
The kid had to have brass balls to march in here without back up. He also must have rocks for brains. The question was, who else knew? Why wasn’t a whole cadre of Swiss Guards here?
“Where’s your Hauptman?” Troy asked.
“On his way,” the young guard replied. “Since it’s my wife, I wasn’t about to wait.”
Travis subtly shook his head. Troy considered having them both gunned down, but the odds of a witness were too high.
“Come inside, and let’s get this sorted out,” Troy offered. “No one wants to get in a pissing match with the Swiss.”
The guard paused, giving Travis a sideways glance before nodding. “Fine. What’s important is getting my wife back.”
A distant crash barely registered to Troy. Was it more Swiss Guards? Something pelted him from above and tinkled to the pavement. Tempered glass? Something large smacked into the pavement with a meaty thunk! It took him a moment to realize the bloody lump was Baron Harkness, with a leather belt wrapped around his throat.
* * *
The door flung open as the guards responded to the shattering glass. “Baron H?” o
ne of them called. “Is everything okay?”
She stumbled around the corner, pointing behind her. “The balcony door…he clutched his chest and…”
Both guards rushed past. It only took them a moment to spot the shattered glass and empty balcony. “Where’s the baron?” the guard closest to her asked.
Shiva snatched the knife from the sheath on his belt and swept it across his throat. His partner turned, gun in hand, but too slowly. Shiva stepped in and rammed the knife into the soft tissue between his collarbone and neck. Her victim convulsed and squeezed the trigger, destroying a vase and another windowpane before bleeding out from his carotid artery.
The Asian man peeked around the door frame but disappeared before Shiva could scoop up the fallen guards’ gun and fire. With her off hand, she grabbed the other guard’s shotgun and hip-fired it at the dark silhouette in the frosted glass. The Asian man dove across the doorway, rolling and bringing up his pistol. Shiva fired three rounds from her purloined handgun. She would have preferred stabbing him, but one had to be practical.
Shiva covered the Asian as she closed. All three shots were center mass, which was the most likely spot to be armored. The man coughed as Shiva approached. Even with Kevlar, three rounds to the chest would knock the piss out of you. Shiva kicked away his gun. As he tried to roll away from her, her eyes fell on the sword strapped across his back. Shiva dropped the shotgun, hauled the Asian man to his feet by the scabbard, and dragged him toward the glass barrier surrounding the open space at the center of the building.
The man recovered his wits and struggled but found no way to halt his progress. He released a buckle and shrugged off the sheath, spinning to face Shiva. His acrobatic kick batted the pistol from her hand and sent it clattering across the stone tile floor. The Asian smirked as he assumed a martial arts pose. Shiva slammed her foot into his chest and launched him over the bannister. His arms pinwheeled as he plummeted 27 stories.
From the Ashes Page 38
