The Forlorn Hope
Page 22
"Who in the hell do you think you are, soldier?" the Colonel roared.
"I think we're—" and ben Mehdi's peremptory gesture brought the three sergeants forward. Jensen's face-shield down even in the dimness of the dock—"the people whose contracts you broke, Mr. Government!"
"We didn't—" the Colonel began. Around him guns pointed at the mercenary sergeants, then wavered as Morale Section soldiers met eyes as flat as the reflective face-shield.
"Captain, you put us in a position of danger in which we were attacked by Federal troops," the Lieutenant said flatly. "By Cecach Armed Forces. That's a breach of contract, pure and simple. All deals are off until we've made a composition of damages with the hiring authority."
It was a flawless performance, thought Albrecht Waldstejn. He supposed that it would usually have been acted out in a conference room, with Colonel Fasolini there to provide the bulk and bluster. Individually the three sergeants were the faces of Death. Together, they were the Furies, and their silence had lowered over the Cecach platoon as surely as Colonel Fasolini must have done in dozens of meetings with dress uniforms.
"There are three bulk carriers in port that seem to have been converted to carry troops," said Sergeant Jensen. His lips, cracked and gummy behind the shield, caused him to enunciate with great care.
"Yeah, just how many other contract soldiers are there right here in Praha?" rasped Sergeant Hummel. She pointed a finger at the Morale Section officer. Her slung weapon waggled also, its barrel parallel to the line of her forearm.
"And don't think the units at the Front haven't heard how Federal troops turned on us," added Sergeant Mboko somberly. "Praha wasn't the only place we talked to when we sailed through the lines."
The Cecach Colonel was opening his mouth to speak. Before he could do so, Lieutenant ben Mehdi applied the counter-stroke to the whip-saw. "Of course," he said, "we don't hold you personally responsible, Captain . . . but until legal responsibility is determined, I think you'll agree that matters had best be left to your superiors."
The Colonel turned abruptly. "Take that one away!" he snarled to the pair of soldiers holding Albrecht Waldstejn. As sharply, he whipped back around to ben Mehdi, but he did not meet the mercenary's eyes. "For the time being, you can remain aboard," he muttered. "Someone will see about rations and bedding."
"Some problem about Captain Waldstejn, I see?" said Hussein ben Mehdi. He thumbed idly toward the sound of boots echoing out the rear of the enclosed dock.
"Lieutenant Waldstejn," snapped the Morale Section officer. He was out of the quicksand and his arrogance had returned in full force. "And there's no problem, no. An internal matter which even hired killers can understand, I suppose."
Ben Mehdi raised his lip and an eyebrow instead of asking the question out loud.
"The 522nd had orders to defend its positions to the last man," said the Cecach colonel in a rising voice. "Lieutenant Waldstejn instead chose to retreat."
"Even your sort shoot soldiers who desert in the face of the enemy, don't you?"
Chapter Sixteen
"You understand, Mr. Mehdi, that the, ah—" Benoit paused to look around the bridge of the Katyn Forest, even though he knew that he, Captain Ortschugin, and the mercenary lieutenant were alone there. The plump man was factor for a dozen off-planet space lines besides Pyaneta Lines; but he was legally a Cecach citizen and thus subject to local law if the wrong person heard him imply that there were two governments on the planet— "the Republicans had no right to seize the Katyn Forest. That, of course, affects your claim for salvage for rescuing her."
"The Rubes poked guns in my face and told me the ship belongs to the Lord's Host," said Vladimir Ortschugin. "You were going to come from Praha and tell them they were wrong?" The spacer spat ringingly into the cuspidor.
"Yes, I believe the Captain has noted the salient point," ben Mehdi took up smoothly. He had stripped off his holster and bandoliers for this interview. Now he luxuriated in an absence of weight which to him was by no means primarily a physical thing. "It isn't significant for purposes of the present discussion whether the loss was due to piracy or to the act of a duly-constituted government. The fact is, the loss did occur—"
"The vessel was still under the control of her crew when you, ah, boarded her," the Factor interrupted.
"In the possession of her crew," said the mercenary, "but under the control of the cannons trained on her, wouldn't you say?"
The hull shuddered. A pair of gantries had begun to winch the damaged fusion bottle out of the Power Room. The omni-directional bracing had been cut, but the weight of the unit itself had pressure-welded the bottle to the deck during years of service.
"Not that we plan to be unreasonable, Mr. Benoit," resumed Hussein ben Mehdi. He unfolded a print-out run from the Katyn Forest's own manifesting computer. "In fact," the mercenary said, "we have a proposition here that will reduce the out of pocket cost to your client by twenty percent."
Forty percent, in all likelihood, ben Mehdi said within his smiling face—though he would hold out for thirty-five down to the last. But Pyaneta would take the deal.
By Allah, they would take it if the Company had to ram it down their throats with gun barrels.
"How they hanging, Pavel?" asked Churchie Dwyer. He did not look up from the lap board on which he was dealing cards.
"Churchie, good God, he's been condemned!" blurted the Cecach private. "One of the repair crew just told me!"
"Yeah, that's old news," said the veteran, continuing to deal. "Guess you wouldn't have heard it, not leaving the ship—" he grinned up at the deserter—"so you don't get recognized and wind up in the next cell."
"Old news?" Hodicky repeated. He squatted to bring his face nearer to that of Dwyer. "You knew that?"
"Yeah, we been playing poker with some of the guards at the Karloff Barracks," Churchie said. "They mentioned it a couple nights ago, didn't they, Del?"
Del Hoybrin was seated on the deck beside Churchie. He nodded happily. "Hi, Pavel," he said. "I can't believe this!" Hodicky said. "The Lieutenant saves your butt how many times? And all you care about's how much money you can win from the guys whore going to kill him!"
Dwyer peeked at each of the hands he had just dealt. He sighed and slid them together into a pack again. "Win?" he said. "Not with the cards I've been getting, kid. Why, even Del here's been making out better'n I have."
"That's right, Pavel," agreed the big trooper.
"Tried everything, you know," Churchie went on while his fingers shuffled as if with their own sentience. "Been carrying over liters of industrial ethanol, cutting it with juice while we play. Hell, those hunkies still clean me out every afternoon. And don't they crow about it!" The gangling man dealt the cards, face down as before.
Half a dozen workmen began manhandling the base unit of a vibratory cutter through the hatchway. The holds and the compartments aft were theirs, twenty-four hours a day while the repairs went on. The bridge and the cramped quarters forward provided a little privacy but no real quiet. Troopers had rented several rooms outside the port with the tacit approval of Federal officials while negotiations continued.
The Cecach private licked his lips. Anger gone, he pleaded, "Churchie, I know you don't mean that. Look, if you know people in the place he's being held, maybe you can get through to see him. There's got to be something we can do!"
"Churchie says he can appeal," put in Del Hoybrin. He frowned as he generally did after he had spoken of his own volition.
"Appeal!" Hodicky shouted. "Appeal! Sure, to Commandant Friis. His is Morale Section. Mary and the Saints, he complains that his men ought to have the same authority everywhere that they have within ten klicks of the Front. To shoot people without any trial for 'crimes against discipline'!"
"Ever been in Karloff Barracks?" Churchie asked unperturbed. "Thought you might have trained there or something."
The little man shook his head. He was unsure where the question was leading. "No," he said, "the
place has just been the military prison since before I was born." He grimaced. "They stopped executing people there a couple years ago. Too many complaints about the shooting right in the center of town, since Friis really got Morale Section 'organized'."
"Well, Pavel," said the veteran judiciously, "I don't see there's much good in you getting your bowels in an uproar, then." He began to turn over the hands he had just dealt. "Feel like a game of something?"
Pavel Hodicky slumped. The anger had burned out. Now the hope was gone too. "Then that's it," he said dully. "After all he did for you, and you're just going to leave him to die."
"Umm, I don't remember that I said that," commented the veteran. He glanced over toward the dockers who were hoisting their apparatus into position. The six poker hands were now face up on the board in Dwyer's lap. The first four of the hands he had dealt so swiftly were straight flushes, king through nine in each suit. The fifth hand was four sevens and the ace of spades.
The last poker hand was a trey and two pairs— aces and eights.
Churchie Dwyer picked up the last hand, the Dead Man's Hand which Wild Bill Hickok had held when a bullet spattered his brains over the card table. "No," said the veteran, "I don't remember saying that at all."
* * * *
"Hey Doc," gibed one of the troopers in the rented room, "his hang better than yours. Maybe you ought to go back to bodies."
The crewman from the Katyn Forest beamed over the other sewing machine. He had just enough English to catch the drift of the compliment.
Marco Bertinelli gestured angrily. "Maybe you'd like nice business suits?" he demanded.
"Hey, I don't need the shears in my eyes," said Iris Powers, though the gesture had not really been that close. She stood with her arms out, ready for the Corpsman to drape her with the swatch he was cutting to length.
Bertinelli bent to his work again. "Look," he said, "tailoring, it's an art. My old man, he'd kill me—sure. But if you make fatigues—" he nodded to the wedge of camouflage print against Trooper Powers' arm— "they've got to look like fatigues, right?"
"Goddam," said Sergeant Hummel as she tried to tug down the legs of her own new garment. "I swear this crotch seam has teeth. But yeah, you're right, Doc. We're rolling our own instead of picking them up ready made so we don't ring too many bells. Looking like the Federation Guard isn't exactly a low-profile idea."
"There's plenty of troops around in tailored uniforms," objected the trooper who had made the first comment. "Hell, Praha's so rear-echelon it's ninety percent asshole."
"Sure," agreed Marco Bertinelli. Perfect, the cuff would be a centimeter too long. "But it isn't the strack troops who get assigned to this kind of duty, is it?"
Pinched lips rather than words indicated agreement all around the room.
Chapter Seventeen
"Kings full!" sang the Sergeant of the Guard as he slapped his cards on the table. "Sweet bleeding Jesus, Churchie, it was the best night of my life when I ran into you in Maisie's last week. I swear to God, you're buying the best poker education a man could want."
There was a buzz from the monitor in the glazed booth attached to the guardroom. "Sarge," called the soldier there, "it looks like the van, but it's early."
"Well, handle it," said Sergeant Bles. His fingers trembled, organizing the pile of large-denomination scrip he had just swept from the table. The other two guards in the game watched their sergeant enviously, but they had folded after the draw. One of them took the deck as Churchie Dwyer passed it with a glum expression.
"I don't understand their papers," the man actually on duty called plaintively. The guard post was a brick room built against the inner face of the wall. The booth had a view of the entrance road, from the double-barred gates to the line of barracks converted to prison blocks. A fiber-optics system gave the monitors in the booth both a close-up and a panorama of anyone who pulled up to the front of the gate.
"God damn, Stieshl," muttered the Sergeant as he stood up. "Does your mommie got to hold your cock when you pee?" He strode toward the booth. "They got "a pass for 1430, they get in. It says 1530 like we was told, then they cool their heels in the steet for an hour, right?" He bent over his subordinate's shoulder to see the paperwork the blonde driver of the van was holding to the receiver.
Churchie Dwyer got up and stretched. He could see the monitor past the two Federal guards. "Well, Del," he said, stepping casually toward the booth himself, "I guess it's about that time."
"Now, what the hell," Sergeant Bles muttered toward the screen. He turned and saw the knife slide out of Dwyer's sleeve.
The mercenary punched him in the solar plexus as hard as his ropy muscles could drive a short blow. The Sergeant's breath whuffed out with a sound too muted to call attention to itself. The fifteen-centimeter knife blade had split all four chambers of his heart. The dead man could not really be said to have felt its passage.
Dwyer cleared his knife with a sucking sound but little blood. The guard sergeant was collapsing in the half-flinch, half-crouch to which the punch would have driven him even without steel on the end of it. Churchie did not have to worry about the men behind him, not with Del Hoybrin in the room. There was a bleat from one of the card players, then a loud crunch. The deck scattered. Some of the cards flicked Churchie's back as he leaned toward the man in the booth.
On the left monitor, the truck driver was saying urgently, "Wait a minute, buddy, I've got it right—"
As the puzzled guard started to look back again for his sergeant, Churchie's left hand gripped his hair to position his head. He stabbed through the base of the guard's skull. The Federal soldier squawked. His torso began to draw itself backward into an arch. The mercenary swore. His knife hilt was clamped against the victim's spine by the convulsion. The blade was sunk for half its length through bone and up into the cortex. Churchie yanked sideways in a panic. Even the density-enhanced blade had its structural limits. It flexed, then snapped off in the skull. The guard's limbs flailed, knocking over his chair and hammering against the wall of the booth.
Dwyer reached over the body and threw the gate switches, outer and then inner. He was breathing very hard. "Bastard!" he panted. "Bastard!" He flung his broken knife against the wall in a clatter.
The van pulled up outside the booth. Two men in Federal fatigues jumped out of the closed back, Leading Trooper Gratz and Hussein ben Mehdi wearing sergeant's pips as the best Czech speaker available for the guard post.
Churchie looked behind him. Del was standing by the overturned table, more or less as he had been when he crushed the skulls of the two card players against one another. One of the sprawled men was breathing stertorously. Neither of them moved.
"—ing door!" ben Mehdi snarled as he rattled the panel beside the booth. The van whined off toward the euphemistically-titled Transit Block, accelerating.
Churchie stepped to unlock the door he had forgotten. Before he did so, he paused to pry the wad of money from Sergeant Bles' dead hand.
* * * *
"Hey Lieutenant," the young jailer called as he led the way down the corridor, "they're here for you early." There were a number of ways to des with the knowledge that most of the people with whom you worked would be dead in a few days. This jailer handled it by ignoring the fact anc treating his charges as if he were an enthusiastic hotel manager.
Albrecht Waldstejn thought that brutality might have been preferable. But then, it was hard to be sure.
Waldstejn stepped back from the shower. The spray continued to swirl down the cell's sole drain. "They can damned well wait, then," he shouted to the steel door. "Or they can carry me out like this. God knows it doesn't matter to me."
"Get your clothes on and do it fast!" snarled another voice through the observation gate. "I'm not spending any time here that I don't have to. You, get the door open!"
"Sir," the jailer objected, "there's no need—"
"Do it!" There was a click as someone laid a magnetic key against the lock plate.
No one spent much time in chit-chat with members of a death squad, anyway.
"Snap it up," snarled Hodicky in a voice like that of an angry lap dog. Beside him stood the jailer in a gray service uniform. He carried a shock rod, the only variety of weapon permitted within the unit. Two of the three other soldiers waiting in Federal fatigues were mercenaries whom Waldstejn knew by sight but not name. The third was Sergeant Johanna Hummel with a set of Cecach handcuffs instead of the molecular springs which Waldstejn knew the Company stocked for its own use. The condemned officer felt a fleeting surprise that he did not see Iris Powers—but Powers spoke no Czech and might have endangered them all by ignoring a chance direction.
Waldstejn slipped on his boots. As he straightened from fastening them, Pavel Hodicky seized his wrist. The deserter's fingers trembled with suppressed hysteria. "Lock them," he said to Hummel, "and let's get this over." The Sergeant obeyed with a clumsiness which could have been explained by embarrassment. The Cecach officer caught the light in her eyes, though, and he knew that she was wired for battle, fearful and exultant together. Waldstejn's own expression of shock was real enough, Maria; and it was yet to be proven that death did not lie just beyond the cell, as he had assumed when they gave him word that morning that his appeal had been denied.