by Chris Bunch
“It’s hard,” he said mournfully, “being so far away from the Alliance, and trying to keep up the good fight for the freedom of Belfort. It’s a long struggle, and Torguth’s infiltrators are on the increase. Perhaps what I share with you will bring in some donations, which we can always use.”
“Actually,” M’chel said, “what I told your receptionist was, to put it politely, a crock.”
Abiezer reacted, one hand sliding toward a desk drawer.
“No,” M’chel said hastily. “I mean no harm. What I want to do is trade for information.”
Abiezer relaxed, and put the leer back on. “What would you be interested in trading?”
“Four standard cargo packs of current-issue Alliance small arms, plus ammunition,” Riss said briskly. “You might be able to use those in your long struggle.”
Abiezer blinked, recovered, blinked again. “We, uh … I should make you aware that I’m recording this conversation, and if you propose anything unlawful, I’ll be duty-bound to report you to the proper authorities.”
“Yeah. Right. What I’m proposing is to give you guns for words. I have no idea what the gun laws are here on Belfort, and don’t give a damn. And I don’t think you do, either.”
“That’s as may be,” he said carefully. “Something like what you propose would suggest you want some very valuable words from me.”
“I do,” Riss said. “I want to know a few things about the Masked Ones.”
Abiezer’s lips thinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bullshit,” Riss said bluntly. “You were one of the Masked Ones’ hierarchy, and supposedly your constant demand for taking action against the current government got you sent out here in exile.”
There was a long silence.
“No,” Abiezer said. “Not exile. But a place where a man of action is appreciated.”
“Call it what you want,” M’chel said.
“What do you want the information for?”
“I’m not asking you what you want the guns for.”
Abiezer grinned, showing the overly white of rebuilt teeth. “No. You’re not. So who trusts whom the least? I mean, who goes first?”
“I’ll tell you what,” Riss said. “I have a ship … and the cargo … at the spaceport. My ship has more than adequate security. You can send, say, three or four people to make sure the guns are there, and there’s no surprises in store. When your people come back to you, then you and I start talking. When I’m satisfied, you can bring in your stevedores.”
Abiezer thought, then nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
• • •
“All right,” von Baldur’s voice came through Riss’s ear bud. “They’ve got four men here, and Grok is going to escort them over to the cargo ship. We’re on standby.”
“Big rog on that one,” Riss said, and turned her attention to Juda Abiezer, who lounged in his chair behind the desk.
“I’m miking all this, and bouncing it back to my ship,” she said. “Not for any kind of legal use, but just so I don’t miss anything.”
“Good,” Abiezer said. “Nothing like common trust.”
“Let’s start with now, and work backward,” Riss said. “What’s the real situation like here on Belfort?”
“You mean with Torguth? They’ve got agents all over the place, been sliding them in for at least ten years. Some are honest-to-Wotan immigrants, but most of them are either agents in place, infiltrators, or, lately, just plain hooligans.”
“Strength estimate?”
“Probably four or five thousand,” Abiezer said. “And they’re well-trained, so that makes their numbers more than enough to paralyze society here. That’s what the Patriot League is for — we break up every demonstration, every meeting, every riot they try to put on.”
“What do the police do about that?”
“Nothing,” Abiezer said. “Some of them don’t want to create trouble, others back Torguth, and others are on our side. I think we’ve got more cops with the League than they do. I think,” he repeated with emphasis.
“Which is one reason I’m very damned glad to get the guns. They’ll be just a bit more of my edge, since the League’s somewhat outnumbered.”
“What are your numbers?” Riss asked.
“Sorry,” Abiezer said. “I don’t tell that to anybody.”
“I suppose that doesn’t matter,” Riss said. “Now, assume that your society is able to stop this disruption, and that Torguth itself is turned back. What are you going to get from this?”
“Saving a system that’s important to Dampier, keeping its citizens here free, and standing up to tyranny,” Abiezer said.
He spoke just a little too quickly. Riss hoped it was because he’d been asked that question many times already, and not that the response was nothing more than a convenient lie.
“Now,” she said, “let’s talk about the Masked Ones.” She gave him a succinct version of what Givoi had told her.
“You’ve got somebody on the inside,” Abiezer said.
“I don’t tell that to anybody,” Riss said, and got a grin from Abiezer.
“So what do you want from me?”
“You were in the hierarchy,” Riss said.
“I was. Fat lot of good it did me.”
“How many people are in the Council?”
Abiezer shook his head. “I don’t know … and I’m being honest. I had contact with only one man.”
“Could it be possible that there is no Council? That there’s just one man running the Masked Ones?”
“Of course not!” Abiezer said vehemently, then stopped, frowning. “You know,” he said after a bit, “I’ve got to pull that one back. I don’t know. I guess … I guess there’s no reason there couldn’t be.”
Riss nodded, took out a slip of paper, wrote something on it, and turned the paper over. “In a second, I’ll let you see who I think that man is.”
“I don’t know if I can confirm that.”
“Fine,” Riss said. “All you have to do when you read it is tell me I’m wrong. But I’ve got something first. Mostly, it appeared to me that the Masked Ones’ demonstrations and head-beatings were in support of the Universalists, correct?”
“Yeah,” Abiezer said. “Those damned Independents are too damned leftish for me, or for anybody else who wore a mask. And, since we want to take power eventually, the Universalists were the best stepping-stone to the counterrevolution.”
“You’re aware of the recent murder trial of Premier Ladier’s mistress.”
“Of course. Damned glad she got off. I’d hate to live in a society where a woman’s name can get dragged through the mire by any hack who can get access to a printing press.”
“One thing that didn’t come out in the trial is that Ladier is … was … increasingly cozy with representatives of Torguth.”
“What?” Abiezer was truly shocked.
Riss waited.
“Why hasn’t that come out?” Abiezer demanded.
“It is, right now,” M’chel said. “You can have anyone you know back on Montrois check around for the latest pamphlets Fra Diavolo … I assume you know who he is … is circulating.”
“That lying son of a bitch is worse than any holo asshole,” Abiezer growled.
“Maybe,” Riss said. “But for your information, I can attest that he’s not lying this time.”
“And why should I believe you? I never heard of you before today.”
“Think guns,” Riss said. “Why would I be giving you guns if I was blowing smoke?”
Abiezer puzzled.
“I don’t know. Things like this get beyond me.”
“You can turn over that piece of paper now,” Riss said.
Abiezer obeyed. His eyes went wide … a little too wide, Riss decided. She waited.
“I won’t shake my head no,” Abiezer said. “But it’d be my life to say yes.”
M’chel got to her feet. “Thank you for your time, Jud
a. You can have your men take the cargo.”
Abiezer stared at her, then nodded slowly and reached for the com, then caught himself. “Just to make sure there’s no slips,” he said, “why don’t you stay here with me until the unloading’s finished?”
Riss didn’t like it, but couldn’t think of a way out. “Why not?” she asked. “We’re both creatures of our word, aren’t we?”
• • •
Three hours passed. Riss got increasingly nervous. This was taking too long.
Abiezer had asked her to excuse him, and left her in the cavernous office.
At least she’d managed to make a call on her secondary com device, a throat mike, so she didn’t have to vocalize, assuming the office had a bug.
Abiezer came back in, then. “The last case just came off the transport,” he said. “So you kept your end of the bargain.” He went to his desk. “Unfortunately, circumstances prevent me from keeping mine.” He slid open a drawer.
Before his hand went in, Riss slid an obsidian throwing knife from her inside arm, and flipped it, underhand, at Abiezer’s neck.
The blade spun sideways, Riss not being any more of a knife artist than anyone else outside a sideshow, and hit him, very hard, in the bridge of his nose.
Abiezer screeched, stepped back.
The second knife didn’t miss, burying itself in the base of his throat. Abiezer gagged unpleasantly, staggered, and fell on his face.
Riss took a small blaster from the inside of her thigh, went to the window, kicked its security grate free, and was halfway out when the secretary came in. He had a gun in his hand.
She triggered one of the small blast grenades that’d been hidden behind her belt buckle, threw it at him. It went off, and he jumped in shock. Before he could recover, she shot him twice in the heart, and was out the window.
“I’m on the run,” she managed into the mike, spun as two of the sentries came around the side of the building. She crouched, braced against a small tree, and shot them down.
“And we’re here, as summoned, your royal marineness,” came back the thin voice in her normal mike.
There was a roar overhead, and the yacht slashed in, went forty-five degrees from vertical on full braking, lowered on antigrav down into the open land behind the building.
Riss heard a grating behind her, looked back. The roof of the Patriot League was opening, and a multi-barreled chaingun appeared. Three men were behind it, feeding belted rounds into the breeches.
There was a ripping sound, then a crash, like that made by a missile launcher, and M’chel went flat and rolled. The missile from the yacht smashed into the League building, and it exploded in fire, the cannon and crew spinning away in the mushrooming cloud.
The yacht was down, and its airlock was open. Riss pelted to it and in. The lock slid closed behind her, and the ship went vertical, although with ship gravity on, it felt perfectly normal to her. She recovered her wind, then went through the inner lock into the main crew space.
Goodnight wore a missile launcher helmet, and was concentrating on a pull-down screen. Von Baldur was at the controls of the yacht’s small autocannon. Grok sat glowering in the only chair that would accommodate him.
“If we scoot like we should,” von Baldur said, “we should be out-atmosphere before the local yokels even realize we have been and done.”
“Good,” Riss managed. She went to the sideboard, poured herself a very long brandy, and drained it. “Booze always tastes better,” she said to no one in particular, “just after you’ve almost lost being able to drink it.”
Goodnight took his helmet off. “We’re in-space, and …” The world spun a trifle, and strange colors flashed at the only open port. Goodnight irised it shut. “… and,” he said unnecessarily, “on our first jump. Home free, and all that.”
He looked at M’chel. “You owe me, you know. If I hadn’t been there, sharp as a thimble, that cannon would’ve produced shredded M’chel. You owe me.”
“I owe you,” she grudged.
“Repeat after me … sometimes even a bootneck is full of shit and needs all the help she can get.”
Riss gave him a deadly stare, but obeyed.
Goodnight grinned. “And, to finish the payoff, pour me one of those.”
He noticed Grok’s expression. “If I read your face right, and I’m still not sure I do, what do you have the ass about?”
“I came out here with you,” the great being said, “when I should have been doing paperwork, in the hope I would find a few necks worth wringing. Instead, I just sit here, the action having gone on about me, but without me. I am not pleased.”
“Tough,” Riss said. “If you need something to think about, what the hell happened with Abiezer? I thought we were getting along just ducky, and he went and turned his coat on me.”
“No thought required at all,” Grok said. “You shocked him when you told him the Universalists were hand in hand with Torguth.
“So he checked with his master.”
“L’Pellerin,” Riss said. “Shit. For what we got … basically no more than confirmation of our theories, we … I … might well have stirred up a shitstorm.
“I guess I got a little too cute for my own good. Once he had the guns, there was no reason to keep the deal going with me. I should’ve come up with something better. Creeping up behind the bastard with a sock full of sand and then letting Chas pull his toenails out until he sang in C sharp comes to mind.”
Grok nodded agreement, then said, “That L’Pellerin is the traitor, as well as the head of the Masked Ones, is very very clear now. Abiezer confronted him, and, no doubt, was offered a deal for you … and the rest of us … to become dead.”
“What sort of deal?” von Baldur asked.
“Oh, I could theorize,” Grok said. “Let us assume that Torguth made L’Pellerin an arrangement some time ago. Something such as he would become the puppet ruler of the Dampier System. That could well be the equivalent of the marshal’s baton Riss talked about earlier that another spymaster was denied.
“Since Abiezer was working for L’Pellerin, and had no doubt been offered some sort of satrapy to accept exile on Belfort, it would have been very easy for L’Pellerin to reassure Abiezer that his deal was still intact. Just the supreme bosses would be changing slightly.
“All Abiezer had to do was remove the four of us, and the situation continues as before, except that, no doubt, the street-fighting between the Torguth thugs and Abiezer’s Patriot League suddenly stops.
“Torguth takes Belfort, and names Abiezer quisling. The deal with L’Pellerin remains in place, and when Torguth inevitably takes Dampier, either from without by invasion, or from within by subversion and anarchy, L’Pellerin now sits the throne.
“One, two, three … and I think we should get back to Montrois as rapidly as possible. L’Pellerin has heard of Abiezer’s death by now, and, I must assume, is moving on us.
“Without slighting her qualifications in the slightest, our Jasmine is very much alone except for the hired help.”
FIFTY-ONE
The big surprise at the mansion was that there weren’t any surprises waiting. All was very quiet.
Star Risk thought about throwing a Very Minor Success party, but didn’t think hangovers would improve matters if surprises did develop.
Surprises did just that, a bit after dawn the next morning. Evidently L’Pellerin had decided to wait until he had all of Star Risk penned in the same coop before striking.
The attack started with a heavy commercial lifter, crashing at as much speed as it was able to reach holding close to the ground and having to make a hard turn off the boulevard, through the heavy iron gates. It was enough to smash down the gates, then, bursting into flames, it killed the two sentries.
The Masked Ones didn’t attack from above, assuming that Star Risk probably had some sort of antiaircraft provision. It did — small autotracking AA missiles hidden in three of the mansion’s front bedrooms.
; But rather than catching everyone asleep, the new shift of guards was already awake, and finishing breakfast in the dining room. Half an hour earlier, and the Masked Ones might’ve been able to successfully follow up the first shock attack on the sleeping mansion.
Instead, the two lifters that came in next, modified with armor plating in front of the driver’s compartment and filled with heavily-armed gunmen, were immediately engaged by the guard shift commander and his fellows when the intruders lifted over the burning crash, exposing their soft bellies. One lifter spun sideways, crashing beside the initial attacker. The second tried to retreat. The driver was killed by a heavy blaster bolt, and the lifter slid sideways and smashed down in the driveway.
“Go, go, go,” Star Risk’s hired guns were chanting, as they deployed out into the mansion’s yard, finding cover behind parked lifters, trees, and statuary, and finding targets. “We got ‘em now, we got ‘em now.” No one could complain about the guards’ morale.
By then, the five Star Risk principals were awake, half dressed, and had their combat harnesses on.
There was a brief, brisk firefight that killed another Star Risk guard and half a dozen Masked Ones. They fell back, and found cover.
“We have got fire superiority,” von Baldur shouted.
“No,” Riss called back. “The bastards are waiting for something.”
“Well, let’s not let them get bored,” Goodnight said, and burnt a burst from a crew-served blaster through the rising smoke.
“Did you notice something interesting?” King asked, and Riss was impressed with her calmness. “No sirens.”
“So we’re to work out our fate by ourselves,” Grok said. “L’Pellerin is making sure his thugs aren’t interrupted. I don’t mind that, since I am of a mind to wreak total havoc.”
Goodnight’s loader made a small, frightened noise.
Riss heard it before she saw it, then a huge self-propelled gun on tracks ground toward the mansion. Its firing spade cranked down, and it reversed, and the spade dug in to ground the weapon securely. The cannon tube lifted, pointed at the mansion.