"Thank you, Sergeant Hanavi," I said. "You and the private can go." The Sergeant looked at Stern, then jerked his chin in the direction of the door. Stern thought it over for a moment as he poured himself another glass of whiskey, no ice, and then shrugged and followed.
"I've been enjoying myself quite a lot, Prefect. Now, to be blunt, what can I do for you?"
"Let us be blunt." He shook his head for a moment. "I really don't understand why you simply do not come out with it. I would have thought you would wish to make contact with me immediately upon arrival."
"And why is that?"
"Or, at least, with my office," he went on, "before you began your research. I am the assistant prefect charged with the handling of youth gangs."
Beyond him, Zev smiled at me. A familiar hand was at work here.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I wasn't briefed on that."
"Really." He decided that he didn't believe me, and then let the word hang in the air until he decided it would be impolite to let his skepticism show any further. "I must say that there has been far too little formal communication in this whole affair. Now, granted, we cannot make it public that Metzada is consulting on how to handle our youth gang difficulties—the voters would wonder why they're paying the Constabulary, after all—but I hardly think that this passing of messages through intermediaries is at all the proper way to let us know that you might be available. In any case, shall we talk about terms for your consultation first, or should we go into an overview of the situation?"
"Situation?" I asked.
"Yes, yes, yes," he said impatiently. "I mean, obviously we are going to have to put it down as a security consultation instead of going into detail, but I assure you that any reasonable invoice will be paid. You are the Tetsuo Hanavi who is the expert on urban gang warfare, are you not?"
Well, as of now I was. "Who else would I be?" I steepled my hands in front of my face. "But before we go any further, I think I'd like a full briefing from you as to the situation."
"Well," he said, with a half-snort, "of course." He pulled his briefcase to his lap and pulled out a pile of flimsies, easily two thousand pages thick. He set the stack down on the table, and rose. "Will two days be long enough to go over it?"
It had better be, I thought. Alon's negotiators were due to wrap up their discussions in two days, and we were going to be homeward-bound then, if at all possible.
"Certainly," I said. "I'll have a bill drawn up by then. You'll have our recommendations and an estimate for contract police services in another month. And I can have some rough recommendations ready then."
"Really," he said, impressed. "You clearly have been doing some research. Thank you for seeing me, Inspector-General. I shall call on you in forty-eight hours. You have my phone code in case you need anything before then?"
"I do."
By the time he was out the door, I'd divided the sheaf into sections, and was passing them out.
It took us only five minutes to find it. I happened to be the one to hit on it, but even an idiot could have spotted it.
I sat back in my chair and fired up a tabstick. "We've found him."
"Well, what is it—?"
"Tell me what—"
"Do you want us to—"
"As you were." The Sergeant's voice cut through the chatter. "Keep still. General?"
"It says, and I quote, 'The Vators are headquartered behind an abandoned storefront at Thirty-fourth and Third; the sign on the storefront says only Diane Emmett and Son.' "
Zev threw back his head and laughed. "That old bastard."
Dov didn't say anything. Words couldn't hurt.
Shimon Bar-El's family name—and our clan name, for that matter—is Bar-El, Aramaic for 'Son of God.' The one and only God is known by a variety of names: Adonai, meaning Our Lord, is one of the most common. Another is the True Judge, Dayan Emet.
Diane Emmett and Son. Shimon had hung up a sign saying where he was.
"Zev?"
My partner nodded. "We need a recon, and bad. What's the neighborhood like?"
"There are enough blacks in it. You won't be too conspicuous. Bring back some good pictures, and don't get into trouble."
"Will do. You?"
"Until we figure out exactly what's going on there, I can't think of anything useful to do except healing, and talking to Paulo Stuarti."
CHAPTER TEN
"Over to You"
Thellonee, New Britain
New Portsmouth Port Facility
01/12/44, 1711 local time
The last time I'd seen Paulo Stuarti was on a dusty road outside Anchorville, his field ODs caked with a lot of mud and a little blood—not his; things had gotten a bit raw for a moment. He'd been a lieutenant then, exec in the Casa company Ari was commanding at the time. My brother thought well enough of him to put his own life, as well as Shimon's, Dov's, and mine, on the line, and had later talked Shimon and Giacometti into pushing through a field promotion to captain, leaving Stuarti in charge of the company when Ari left.
His drinking had been under control, or so it seemed. Stuarti made major toward the end of the war, one of the youngest infantry majors that the Casalingpaesesercito ever had. More than ten years later, he was one of the older majors in the Casalingpaesan army.
He sat in an immaculate blue semi-dress uniform in one of the bars off the main lobby of the hotel complex, toying with the ornate aiguillette of a senior aide-de-camp and drinking offworld Scots whiskey, every once in a while examining the bottom of the glass as though there were some great secret hidden there.
He was a big, blond man, which always surprised me; I think of people of Italian stock as being dark and Mediterranean.
He smiled when he saw me. "Ah. Ari's big brother. How are you, General?" He beckoned to the bartender. "Another one of these, and bring the general one of whatever."
"Inspector-General. And I'll take the same," I said.
The bartender brought fresh glasses and set them down on real lace coasters, then moved quickly out of earshot.
We drank in silence for a moment.
"If your brother's not well and you haven't told me already, then you and I are definitely not going to get off to a good start," he said, looking off into the distance.
"He's fine. Just back from Thuringia. He's a light colonel now. Probably get his third leaf this year."
"And his stars as soon after that as possible." He nodded. "How have you been?"
I shrugged. Not a good idea; a man with a broken rib shouldn't shrug. "You know us staff types. Nothing terribly exciting. You?"
"Staff types." He rolled an ice cube around in his mouth before spitting it back into the glass. "Staff types," he said again, not liking the taste any better with a cold tongue. "Despite the aiguillette, I am probably the worst staff officer in the history of the Casalingpaesesercito. Only good at one thing, and it looks like I may have a chance to be good at it again."
He smiled and then he drained his glass, beckoning to the bartender for a refill. "The general has promised me a brevet and a battalion when war breaks out. He says 'if,' but he means 'when.' "
"Congratulations." I sipped my whiskey. "Practicing?"
For a moment I thought he was going to hit me, or at least try to. Then he laughed. "Oh, you do that polite scorn very well, Tetsuo Hanavi. Tell me, if war breaks out, am I going to be seeing the magen David over my sights?"
It surprised me for a moment that he used the Hebrew term for the shield of David, but he had served with my brother.
"Possibly," I said. "Unless your ambassador starts talking sense. Nervous about it?"
He laughed. "Nah. Not me. Give me half a year to train a battalion, and your line troops won't want to cross us. Count on it, Inspector-General." His fingers were wrapped around the glass. For a moment, the knuckles whitened, but then the hand unclenched.
"Fair enough. And now that we're done pounding our chests at each other, can we have a civilized drink, if not a civilized talk?"
"Sure," he said. He was silent for a long moment. "So you want me to talk some sense into the ambassador, eh?"
"I don't see any harm in it."
"Don't be silly. He's not going to understand. If you haven't fought with or against Metzadan line troops, it's hard to tell the difference between what you people do and what a private company's going to do. He's been talking to a Neuheimer colonel something-or-other. Bugger's got his own private mere army—a reinforced regiment, I think."
I shrugged. "And who does he register his complaint with when the Neuheimers make a better deal with the Freiheimers, and then turn on your troops?"
He smiled. "You don't understand the system. That's a military responsibility, not a civvy one. Besides, I think the idea of putting a Neuheimer up against a Freiheimer tickles his fancy." He looked into his glass. "Fucking Germans, they're all fucking Germans."
"You've spent too much time around my uncle."
"And your brother. But, like I said, don't try to convince me. Nobody listens to General Giacometti's drunk aide."
The bartender refilled his drink; Stuarti sipped some and wobbled on his stool before righting himself. "Last thing: you can't tell Ambassador Adazzi anything—you have to show him. You got a way to do that?"
I looked long and hard at the bottom of my own glass, but I didn't see any wisdom there.
Maybe you had to filter it through more whiskey. "Another one, bartender. And yes, Major, I just might. Probably within the city, and, if so, it'll be within the next couple of days."
"Really." He set his glass down and eyed me blearily. "And you're enlisting some help in bringing him into viewing range, eh?"
"Maybe. Can I let you know later on?"
He nodded. "Yeah."
"Next question: can I count on you?"
"Who the fuck knows?" He shrugged. "Yes. No. Maybe. Give it a try. See what happens."
I remembered a dusty road outside Anchorville, and a wry grin across Stuarti's face when my brother put all our lives between Stuarti and the Casa Loyalty Detachement troopers who were going to shoot him for being drunk on duty. And I remembered what Ari had said to him, just before the shit hit the fan.
" 'You'll keep that goddamn hip flask in a buttoned pocket until further notice, Lieutenant Stuarti,' " I quoted.
His face was rock-still as he decided how to take that. I didn't make it any easier when I picked up his glass and poured the Scotch onto the bar, then set it down in front of him.
"You're just going to be an observer, Stuarti, but you're going to be a sober one."
"Fuck you," he said, as I turned and left the bar. If he called for the bartender, I didn't hear it.
Back at our suite, Zev was going over a set of maps with the Sergeant and Menachem Yabotinsky when I walked in.
"The Vators got themselves a darned good adviser, who lives in their clubhouse," he said, looking up at me. "There's no way in but through the storefront. Ditto for a way out. Everybody who does business in that neighborhood pays taxes to the Vators, and you meet them at their place. If they come to you, you want to be running."
"Any chance of smuggling in some weapons?"
He shook his head. "No. None. They'll frisk us before they let us in, and even if we're running the gun salesman routine, they're not going to let us hold onto a sample. No easy way."
"You sure Shimon's there?"
"I saw them take him for his evening constitutional, Tetsuo. Two Vators did a recon, then reported back. A while later, a full twenty of them walked him around the block, while everybody on the street buttoned up their windows. Your guess is to how much they were there to stop him from leaving, and how much they were there to keep anybody else from taking him out. They may not know just how valuable the old man is, but they've got an idea."
I nodded. It was about as I'd figured. And about as bad as I'd figured.
Shimon had been able to smuggle some information out, but either hadn't tried to get out the precise details of who he was and where he was, or hadn't been able to. Much more likely he hadn't tried; Metzada wouldn't need it noised about that one of our own, even an exiled one of our own, was working to build up the fortunes of a gang.
So he had assumed that the old woman would send me, and somehow or other he had gotten a message to Dunfey, suggesting that the great youth gang expert, Tetsuo Hanavi, was on his way.
Which helped to explain where we were, but didn't do anything to suggest where we ought to go from here.
"Anybody got any bright ideas?"
The Sergeant licked his lips, then took another pull at his tabstick. "You want some good advice from your old tactics teacher, Inspector-General?"
I nodded.
"Stop squirming around it. Turn it over to me."
There's an old principle we use in Metzada, that the person most qualified to take tactical command takes it. It's the job of the commander in charge to figure out who that is.
I didn't have any choice.
It was the Sergeant's job now, not mine.
"It's a bit more complicated," I said. "I've got to get Dunfey to keep police floaters off our tail while it all happens, and we're going to want the Casa ambassador across the street or something, as an observer. We're going to have to do something about making the police prefect out to be the hero of the thing, too."
"I can work with that." The Sergeant nodded. "Fine by me. You just line them up across the street." He tapped at the map. "That hotel there should do. We set things up in there, and then we walk down and across the street to where they are, and then we walk in. We can't play this as one of those split-second coordination specialties. Going to be basic and simple."
He waited, patiently.
"It's yours, Sergeant," I said. "Over to you."
"Tomorrow morning," he decided. "Tomorrow morning, you set up your observers and the police cover." The Sergeant stood. "Rent two rooms in the hotel, and then get them into the hotel quietly. We'll all move out from there. There's only one way to get him out. We walk in there, unarmed, into what I figure is going to be a gathering of at least twenty, thirty, armed and twitchy little hoodlums, and we get him out."
He looked at me long and hard. "We can't take everyone in. Dov's pushing it, but we need somebody to watch out for Shimon when it all hits the fan. I'd like Zev there, but we'll leave him and Imran for the reserve. Eph'll like that. Inside is you, me, Dov, Bernstein, Nakamura, and Stern."
Yabotinsky bit his thumbnail and considered the ragged edge. "And me," the bald little man said, quietly. "And me."
"And Yabotinsky. You keep them talking, and you leave the rest up to us." His hand shook only fractionally as he reached for another tabstick. "You just leave the rest to us."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Killing Ground
Thellonee, New Britain
1628 34th Street, New Portsmouth
01/13/44, 0323 local time
Assistant Prefect Nigel Dunfey was unimpressed as he sat back in the overstuffed chair. I could tell that he was unimpressed because his eyes were narrowed and his thin lips were pursed in a frown. I could tell that the chair was overstuffed because somebody had once spent some time with a knife, hacking at it to relieve the condition.
He shook his head. "I find it difficult to agree to give those orders, Inspector-General. Telling the district constabulary commander to keep his men away from here? No matter what happens?"
He looked at the other men in the dingy room of the even dingier hotel. "One would almost think you were planning some sort of military assault, except that I know you are all unarmed, and . . ." He couldn't find a polite way to say the obvious, that the Sergeant and the other oldsters would stand no chance against young hoodlums in peak condition, so he just gestured at the Sergeant and the other oldsters and left it at that.
I gave it another try. "You've got a serious gang problem here, Prefect. There'll be a whole stack of flimsies with a whole pile of recommendations a couple of weeks after I get back to M
etzada"—and have my number one assistant distill and regurgitate some platitudes into a format that you won't mind paying for—"but right now, I can tell you what one problem is: the Vators have hired an offworld consultant, too. We're just going to walk on in, and take him out. Period. That should make things a bit easier for you, at least in terms of this gang."
He was about to open his mouth to protest, so I raised a hand. The last thing I wanted was for him to argue himself into a corner that he wouldn't want to back out of.
"It seems to me that if you're going to be paying the kind of money that we're going to charge you, then you really ought to take our advice about the small things, if not the large ones."
He was wavering, so the Sergeant threw in a friendly smile and an open-handed gesture. "What kind of trouble do you think we're going to get into? We're just a handful of men, unarmed." He opened his coat to show just how unarmed he was.
I let the conversation flow around me while, on the street below, a skimmer pulled up to the curb and settled itself down. Three men got out: Zev, Paulo Stuarti; and Adazzi, the Casa ambassador. Dov was waiting for them at the curb; he led them into the building. We had another room rented for them to watch from. More listen than watch, really, and more to wait until it was time for them to come in to watch Zev and Imran pick up the pieces than listen.
"But how are you going to get him out? That's what I don't understand. Maybe you don't realize how dangerous those . . . children are. They're not really children, the bloody little savages."
The Sergeant chuckled. "Nothing to worry about. We'll just walk in, let them scare us a bit, then let them talk themselves into letting us go, together with their adviser. No problem. Do scared for him, Yehoshua."
Frail, white-haired Yehoshua Bernstein trembled, his lower lip quivering, for just a moment, until he stopped and smiled.
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