“And I notice,” Julian added, “that it’s not holding up that Hamexi for a second.” He glanced over at Odo. “Have you changed your mind about it being mechanical now?”
“You see that gentleman back there?” Steyn jerked her head toward the dabo table. “Standing right behind Auger?”
Quark looked over. “You mean the one with the hidden weapon and the cravat?”
“That’s the one. His name is Mechter. He represents my current employers.”
“I have a strange feeling that the weapon might be part of the uniform they issued him,” Quark murmured. Steyn narrowed her eyes in confirmation. “But what about the cravat?”
Steyn smiled up at him. “I don’t think we need to worry about that too much. What really worries me—”
“Apart from the hidden weapon?”
“Apart from that, what worries me about Mechter is that he makes Auger even more jumpy than usual. Saw it again and again back on the ship. When Mechter’s around it makes Auger drop more cups, break more machinery, all kinds of disasters. Now, I don’t think it’s the cravat that’s doing it, though you can never be quite sure with Auger…” She frowned. “Anyway, I’m starting to get worried about whether that could eat into our winnings.”
“I hope you don’t think that makes me feel sorry for you, Captain Steyn.”
“Not at all—but what it does mean is that I’m looking for someone to keep Mechter busy for me. Which would leave Auger free from distractions, and we’d end up doing so nicely at that wheel of yours that I’d be grateful enough to pay the person looking after Mechter very well. Very well indeed.”
Between Steyn’s fingernail tapping against the glass and the crashing sound from the dabo table, Quark almost—almost—couldn’t believe his ears.
“Run that past me again,” he said. “I don’t think I misheard, but I’m sure you just asked me to help you clean out my own dabo table.”
Steyn looked aggrieved. “Well, for a very good fee!” she pointed out, hotly.
“You’re insane!”
“Well, maybe—but that’s got absolutely nothing to do with it! You’ve been watching us and listening to that wheel spinning ever since we came in, and I know that you know,” here she jabbed a finger at him, “that even with Mechter breathing down his neck, that boy over there is still going to make a fortune at your table.” She came up for air. “We seem to be locked in, and while I’m not Auger, I’m still willing to bet that you don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here. Auger could be playing right through the night. And the gaming laws are really quite strict about letting a player play, aren’t they?”
Quark shivered at the sound of that.
“So, why don’t we come up with something mutually beneficial. For us. If not the other players. Wouldn’t you like the chance to make some of that latinum back?” She flicked her fingernail against her glass again.
Quark listened to the wheel, and then looked at Mechter. He set his own finger on Steyn’s glass, stopping it from resonating. He reached behind him for the bottle.
“Ah…the gentleman with the cravat,” he said, filling up Steyn’s glass. “What can you tell me about him?”
Steyn grinned at him. “I thought you might hear what I was saying,” she said.
“I need to hear more. What does he like?”
“This is part of my problem,” Steyn said. “Because Mechter doesn’t seem to drink. Nor does he partake of any other illicit substances, as far as I know. I’m starting to think he’s incorruptible.”
Quark bared his fangs. “Now you’re making it sound like a challenge.”
Steyn winked back at him. “I knew you were the man for the job.”
“And, anyway,” Quark philosophized ruefully as Auger claimed another pile of chips, “if ever there was an application of the one-hundred-and-eighty-
third Rule of Acquisition this would have to be it. When life hands you ungaberries—”
“You have to make ungaberry juice?” Steyn guessed.
Quark pulled back from her. Sometimes hew-mons were revolting. “No,” he said, in disgust. “Detergent.”
Garak woke to a dry mouth and a splitting headache. A bright light was shining. He winced and squeezed his eyes tight shut again. Whatever Roeder had used on him, it seemed not to sit too well with Cardassian physiology. He thought about putting a hand up to his head, but suspected this was not an option open to him. He tested the hypothesis and, with a certain dreary predictability, it turned out to be true. His arms and legs were tied to the chair he was sitting on. You could travel light years, and some things did not change. Not even on Earth.
He opened his eyes again, slowly. It had gone dark. He shook his head. It stayed dark. He licked his lips and blinked, several times. Shaking his head had been a mistake. He had to hope it was the only one he had made so far this evening.
“Roeder,” he called out, trying to sound bored and not entirely sure that he was managing it, “I’m awake now. Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
There was no answer.
Garak sighed. “Preferably with the minimum amount of fuss,” he said.
The light appeared again, dimmer this time. That constituted progress of a sort. Garak heard footsteps, slow against what sounded like a concrete floor, coming nearer.
“Come, Roeder,” he said, straining forward ineffectually. “Let us skip the formalities.”
Something scraped along the floor. It felt like knives in Garak’s head. His stomach twisted and lurched. He began to cough, and struggled to stop. He urged himself to concentration, willed himself to self-control. Games like this did not win themselves.
“It’s all right.” Roeder’s voice, muted in the darkness. “I’m just pulling up a chair.”
Garak peered out. The light became bright again, almost dazzling. In silhouette ahead, like in a shadow play, he watched the dark figure of Roeder stretching out in his seat. As Garak’s eyes adjusted, he was able to pick out details: the short distance between them, Roeder’s legs crossed at the ankles as if he were at ease, the accuracy with which he was pointing the phaser at Garak. The light lessened and, in the shadows to which he was adapted, Garak saw the lie behind Roeder’s easy posture: saw the tension in the muscles of his shoulders and his arm, saw the unsteadiness with which he drew each breath. He was a man expecting a threat and readying himself to deal with it. Where, Garak wondered, did Roeder think that the danger lay? It was hardly as if Garak himself posed much of a threat right now.
Garak glanced around. They were sitting in a dark, small room. It was damp; filled with the scent of the river. Looking for options, he picked out the doorway, over to his left. He felt as if there was a weight of buildings above them. He would have guessed that they were in a cellar, except that there were windows straight ahead. He realized now what the source of the light was. It was the moon. It shone on his face and put Roeder in darkness.
“I don’t remember threatening you, Garak,” Roeder said. “So what was the knife for?” His voice was still coming out thick, Garak noted contritely. He really had not meant to hit him that hard.
“You took me away from the crowd, and my security, and then led me under a bridge,” Garak pointed out. “Would you not have felt a little threatened? Would you not have become a little suspicious yourself?”
“I was already suspicious,” Roeder answered. “When Ben Sisko turns up out of the blue with a Cardassian in tow? That’s when I become suspicious.” Roeder ran his free hand along the phaser. “Why did he bring you along this evening? Why did you want to meet me?”
“There’s nothing suspicious about that.” Garak spoke confidently. Here he could be truthful; or, at least, the small part of the story that he told would not be lies. “I asked the captain to introduce us because you interested me—”
“Interested you?” Roeder’s fingers strayed around the phaser.
A misstep, Garak thought, a little frantically. “I wanted to know,” he said quic
kly, “what could make a Starfleet officer resign his commission. What could turn him against the war.”
There was a silence. The light went out. The moon must have gone behind a cloud. Then there was the sound of the chair scraping, and then slow steps.
“Don’t you know already?” Roeder was now close by.
Garak felt a certain amount of sharp impatience at that question. If he knew already, he thought, he would not be subjecting himself to this charade. He turned his head slowly, and took a good, clinical look at Roeder. He saw that he had read the man correctly. The blood around Roeder’s nose was almost black against the pallor of his face. The hand that came up to wipe at it was shaking; the one around the phaser was too tight. His breath was coming out in rasps, and Garak could almost smell it on the other man’s breath. Desperation.
Garak did not know how—could not guess how—but it was clear to him that Roeder had known from the outset that Garak had come to kill him. And Roeder was afraid, Garak could see; afraid that this was all part of an ambush, afraid that he had gone too far already, afraid that they had been missed at the embassy, afraid that any moment now someone would arrive to finish the job that Garak had started. This was a man who needed to make Garak talk, but it was not a man who felt he was in control of the conversation. Which was where Garak’s opening lay. Because Cardassians, after all, excelled at conversation.
Garak began to speak. Every few words, he would shift his eyes, ever so slightly, to glance past Roeder’s shoulder, looking for a rescue that he did not in fact believe was coming. But each time he looked, it made Roeder twitch a little closer to the edge.
“Cardassians,” Garak said, “are trained from birth in duty, and in loyalty. We are patriots, Mister Roeder; love of our country is the rock upon which our empire is built. It lies at the very heart of us.” He glanced over Roeder’s shoulder. “When we see these qualities in others, we understand them. We admire them. But, in the time I have spent away from my own people, it has been my observation that duty and loyalty are not always sufficient for others. Other races are more pliable. They give.” Another glance. “And the reasons can be so very different. Love. Power. Greed. So many frailties! And I am fascinated by them.” He smiled up at the blood on Roeder’s face. “I came to meet you this evening, Mister Roeder,” Garak taunted, “because I wanted to find out which one of those it was that turned you into a traitor.”
It had exactly the desired effect. Roeder stared down at him for a shocked, empty moment. Then he drew back his arm and smashed the phaser hard across Garak’s face.
9
QUARK CONTEMPLATED Mechter. Wine. Females. Holosuites. One of them would be his downfall.
Still, that glass of synthale looked almost untouched….
“Brother?”
And he seemed to prefer watching the dabo wheel to admiring M’Pella…
“Brother…”
Holosuites. That had to be it. Their charms were infinite; imagination was the only limit….
“Brother!”
“Rom, will you be quiet! I’m thinking!”
“But, brother, this is important—”
Reluctantly, Quark dragged himself away from his plans for Mechter.
“I think,” Rom’s voice was low and urgent, “that I’ve found a way out.”
He got Quark’s full attention, right then.
“What?” he whispered. “Where?”
“Follow me….”
Quark came out from behind the bar, and scurried after his brother. Rom led him to one of the storerooms. On one side of the room stood a fair-sized crate that Quark had agreed to store for Brixhta. For a fair-sized fee. The lid of this crate, Quark noticed, was slightly askew. He went over to it, reached out a hand and then, quickly, lifted the lid and peered inside.
It was empty.
Quark lowered the lid, and fastened it shut.
“Not there,” Rom was saying, “over here….” Quark glared at him to quiet him down. He stood for a while in contemplation, listening to the shouts drifting in from the dabo wheel. He heard Steyn give a yell of triumph….
Quark put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Rom,” he said, “we don’t want to put anyone in danger.”
“But we can get out of here—”
“Rom!” Quark stopped him. He licked his lips. “Who knows,” he extemporized, “what could be happening across the station right now? There could be…” He waved his free hand…. “a whole Dominion fleet arriving, squadrons of Jem’Hadar battling through to ops right now—”
Rom shuddered beneath his hand. “Oh,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that, brother.”
“Well, don’t you worry, Rom,” Quark said. “We’ll all be safe, here in the bar. And we’ll hear from Major Kira or from Odo when it’s okay to come out. Don’t worry about that…it’s probably for the best.” He ushered Rom away from the crate and out of the storeroom. “We’ll forget we ever saw it.”
Sisko and Chaplin drew closer to the next bridge. There were several dark figures walking along it; and Sisko could see a pair standing toward the center, looking back the way he and Chaplin had just come. He took in a breath of night air, and prayed that his sense of relief was not premature.
“Do you think that will be them, Captain?”
He shrugged. “Can’t say from down here, Lieutenant. But I certainly think we should take a look and find out.” They started to walk toward the steps leading up onto the bridge. Then Chaplin’s combadge chimed.
She tapped it. “Lieutenant Chaplin,” she said.
“It’s Marlow.”
“We’re just about to check out a couple of people we think could be them.”
There was a brief pause, and then Marlow spoke again. “Who’s ‘ we’?”
“I have Captain Sisko here with me.”
There was a silence. Sisko could practically hear Marlow’s dismay that such a senior officer was now aware that they had lost their charge. He covered his smile but Chaplin saw it, and bit at her lower lip.
“Have you got anything else for us to go on?” she said, turning away. They started to go up the steps.
“I have some coordinates from the sweep,” Marlow said. Sisko noted that he was keeping his voice smooth. “It picked up the delegation here in San Francisco. And—you’re not going to believe this, Wendy—there was a Cardassian signature in Beijing—”
“Perhaps somebody should check that out,” Sisko suggested.
“Are we planning to do anything about that, Guy?”
“Someone at this end is on it. Now. And the only other Cardassian life sign was there in London all right—I’m patching the coordinates through to you.”
Chaplin took out her tricorder. Sisko looked over her shoulder at the data streaming across the screen.
“Those are our coordinates, sir,” she said, tapping a set of numbers with her forefinger. “And these are what Marlow has just sent…which puts Mr. Garak very close.”
Sisko peered along the bridge. The two figures were embracing now.
“But it’s not along there, Captain,” Chaplin said. She was still looking down to read the data.
“I think I could have told you that myself.”
She glanced up, saw the couple, and gave a wry smile. “Well, these coordinates put him back on the north side of the river, just a little way over there.” She turned to face the way they had just come, and pointed to the left.
“Any idea what’s over there?” Sisko asked. If Chaplin had scoped out the area properly before coming out on this evening’s assignment, she would have a good sense of the immediate geography.
She didn’t let him down. “Well, further on are the real city sights, the historical buildings that are left,” she said, promptly. “But these coordinates aren’t as far as that.” She screwed up her face. “The reading puts him practically beneath the bridge. Which seems a strange place to be if you want to see the city.”
Sisko frowned. “Yes, it does….”
>
Her combadge chimed again and she tapped it. “Chaplin.”
“Marlow. There’s something else.”
“I’m listening.”
“I did a trace on the signature near you. I wanted to see if I could track his route from the embassy. It’s odd—I followed it as far as the underpass, and then there was a break in the reading. When I picked it up again, it was showing where he is now. He’s stationary right now, by the way.”
“What do you think would cause a break like that?” Chaplin asked.
“The process I was using can be a bit haphazard, so it could just be something went wrong at this end. Or…well, the other immediate explanation that comes to mind is that he used a transporter.”
“But, Guy, that doesn’t make any sense. It’s hardly any distance,” Chaplin said, looking around and frowning.
Sisko gestured at her tricorder and held out his hand. Chaplin passed it over, and he started thumbing at it.
“I can’t help you with that,” Marlow was saying. “But it seemed worth telling you.”
Sisko read the data. “A transporter has been used here recently,” he said, after a moment or two. “There’s no way we can know for sure that it has anything to do with Garak, of course, but it would explain the anomaly Marlow picked up reading the signature.”
“But it wouldn’t explain why someone would transport themselves—” Chaplin glanced back toward the embassy, measuring the distance. “—a hundred yards down the road? That’s odd.” She gave Sisko an embarrassed smile. “I’d certainly like to think I lost them because they transported out, but if I’m being honest, it doesn’t make sense.”
“No, not really,” Sisko agreed. A distance that short, you would just walk it. Unless you were moving something heavy. Or someone. Someone who was unable to walk…
Sisko looked out across the dark north bank again. He reached instinctively to his side, and then remembered where the evening had started. “Lieutenant,” he said, “we’re going to go and take a good look down there. But I might just have to ask you for the loan of your phaser.”
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