The Caledonian Gambit: A Novel

by Dan Moren

  “You’ve done your homework, clearly,” said Gwen, biting her lip as she massaged her left knuckles. Eli took a small amount of pleasure from the fact that his face had bruised her hand, but with the initial shock fading the throbbing in his cheek suggested that he’d still gotten the raw end of the deal. “Let’s try a different tack. Why are you here?”

  “I assume that’s not a philosophical question—okay, okay!” He cut off as the woman raised her hand again. “I’m trying to find him. I haven’t seen him in nine years, I just wanted to catch up.”

  One of the figures behind the lights, whom Eli had forgotten all about during the woman’s ministrations, coughed loudly. Gwen looked up, shading her eyes, and walked over toward the source of the noise. There was a quiet murmuring from the other figure and the woman nodded, then walked back to Eli.

  Hands on her hips, Gwen fixed him with a stony glare. “Perhaps you’d like to tell us why you’re using a fake name, Eli—or is it Marcus?”

  Eli blinked a couple of times, then frowned. Marcus? It took him a minute to place the name. Right, Marcus Wellington: the ID he’d used to get on planet. He swallowed.

  “Uh, I can explain that.” I think. His mind raced. He could explain it, of course, but not in a way that didn’t blow his cover. Think, Brody. Think. Well, the truth was always a good alternative, especially when people thought it was a lie anyway. In that case:

  “All right, all right. You got me,” he said with a weak smile. “I was in the Illyrican military. Served five years at Archangelsk.”

  “I told you he was a goddamn crim,” growled a coarse voice from behind the lights. It was accompanied by a broad, muscled figure who stepped forward into the pool of lights. Another hand snaked out and grabbed his shoulder, but he shook it off.

  A bare-knuckled bruiser of a man, his face had a lengthy scar that ran the length of one side, cutting through the bristly stubble that spoke of several days of not shaving. His eyes were a liquid brown that on any other face might have been considered warm—on his, they verged on molten. “I say we kill the son of a bitch and be done with it.”

  Kill? Eli’s throat went drier than the Caledonian outback. Maybe he’d overplayed it just a wee bit.

  To Eli’s surprise, Gwen stepped in between them. “Back off,” she snapped. “We’re not killing anybody until we figure out what he’s doing here.”

  That ought to have been a relief to Eli’s ears, but for some reason he found his mind kept circling back to the “until” part like a seagull wheeling around its next prospective meal.

  The big guy tensed. “You’re telling me what to do? Who put you in charge, lass?”

  Gwen closed the distance between her and the scarred man and poked a finger firmly in his chest, which looked a bit like a climber picking a fight with a mountain. “You said it yourself—I brought him in. Now, back the hell off!”

  The sound that issued from the man wouldn’t have been out of place coming from a rabid dog and, for a second, Eli was worried the man was going to bulldoze his way past Gwen and try to throttle him anyway. But the woman didn’t give an inch of ground and, after a moment of impasse, he threw up his hands and stalked back behind the lights. Eli heard the sound of something heavy being kicked over.

  Gwen turned back to Eli, nodding to herself. There was something else in her eyes, a brief flicker that he thought might have been relief, but it disappeared in a flash.

  “So what are you doing here?” she said, circling slowly around him. “The crims send you in as some sort of spy, just because you’re from here?” The way she pronounced the last two words it was clear she disagreed with the sentiment; to her, he might be Caledonian, but he’d never be “from here.”

  She passed out of view behind his head. Eli stared straight ahead, aware that craning his neck to see her would make him look desperate, not to mention being more than uncomfortable in his current predicament.

  “I wasn’t aware it was a crime for a guy to come home.”

  She snorted at that. “Depends. Why’d you leave the Illyricans?”

  Eli let out a breath. “Honestly?”

  “No, I want you to lie to me.”

  Eli cracked a grin despite himself. “I can do that too, if you like.”

  “So I’ve seen.”

  His smile faded. Don’t play it too smug, or they’ll never buy it. “I was tired of the life,” he admitted. “Following orders every day, training to kill. It was boring … and terrifying all at the same time. I never really wanted to be a soldier.”

  “You shoulda thought of that before joinin’ the crims,” she snapped back, her voice harsh as her accent got thicker. “That’s what they do.”

  To that, Eli had no response. He sat quietly, his appendages numb, the rest of his muscles tight against the restraints that held him to the chair.

  “This is a waste of time,” came the scarred man’s voice from behind the lights. “I still say we kill him and dump the body.”

  “Those aren’t our orders,” said another man’s voice, this one with what Eli could only describe as more cultured overtones than the first. “The boss said anybody looking for Eamon Brody was to be brought in, questioned, and held.”

  What is it with all this talk of killing people? Eli’s racing brain had finally slowed to a modest blur, and with it had come an uncomfortable leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach. This didn’t make sense: the Tartans didn’t kill people—they beat the crap out of them and left them bleeding in the street.

  Come to think of it, they also weren’t in the habit of tying people to chairs and interrogating them. It was all a bit paranoid and, frankly, not quite heavy-handed enough for a street gang.

  That’s because they’re not a street gang. His stomach did loop-de-loops as the pieces started to come together in his head. Oh, shit. These guys aren’t just Tartans … they’re the fucking Black Watch. He swallowed: De Valera’s crew.

  Eli was as familiar with the group as any Caledonian, and certainly enough to know how considerate they were to those they viewed as Illyrican sympathizers: namely, not very considerate.

  De Valera and the Black Watch had acquired an air of taboo when Eli had been young; his parents had spoken of them only in hushed tones when they thought the children were asleep. But Eli and Eamon had lain awake in their small apartment, listening to them argue about the justness of De Valera’s cause. Connor Brody had, unsurprisingly, been a full-throated backer of armed revolt no matter the cost, though Eli suspected he himself would never have had the courage to raise a weapon. Molly Brody, never one for violence, had called De Valera a murderer and a thug. He suspected his wasn’t the only family into which the Black Watch had driven a wedge.

  “Well, we can’t leave him here,” put in another voice which, unless Eli totally missed his guess, belonged to a second woman.

  Where’s here? Eli thought suddenly. It had barely occurred to him to check out his surroundings; he could picture Fielding—wherever the hell he was, goddamn him—shaking his head in disappointment. There wasn’t much to see beyond the bright lights shining in his eyes, but if he rolled his head back slightly he got the impression of a tall ceiling with iron rafters beneath a corrugated metal roof. Between that and the short amount of time he thought he’d been out of commission, he guessed that they’d taken him to one of the warehouses in the port district.

  The icy cold finger of reality traced a line down the back of his neck. It seemed unlikely they’d just trundled him out the front door, in case they thought he had backup. But from what Eli remembered of the bar, there was only the one door in and out. Which meant they had some other way to move him unseen.

  A tunnel. Must be a tunnel connecting the bar with the warehouse. It made sense: the Black Watch probably shipped a lot of illicit goods in and out of the port—weapons, at the very least—and this would be a good place to store them. The Pig and Thistle provided a solid and, in its own way, reputable cover.

  The voices were still a
rguing over Eli’s fate, which meant that they missed his next three or four polite attempts at getting their attention. He cleared his throat and drew a deep breath, then let it out in his best drill sergeant voice.

  “Excuse me.”

  The chatter stopped as suddenly as if it he’d pressed pause.

  “What?” growled the bruiser, stepping again into the light.

  “I think this has all been a terrible misunderstanding,” Eli said, donning his most charming smile. “If you just want to throw me out on the street, I promise not to go to the cops or the Illyricans, and we can all forget this ever happened. I won’t even tell them about this place or anything. Not that I know anything. Because I don’t.” He tried to conceal a gulp with a smile.

  There was silence at that pronouncement. Somewhere in the distance Eli heard the creak of a door swinging open, followed by footsteps slapping against the concrete floor. If the others noticed, they gave no sign.

  “What kind of idiots do you take us for?” said the scarred man.

  Brutal, nasty, violent idiots? Tempting as it would have been to say out loud, Eli could see the man’s hands already clenched into fists. Despite the warm-up slaps earlier, he wasn’t sure that he was ready to move on to the next round.

  The footsteps Eli had heard a moment ago had gotten louder as they approached, then suddenly ceased as they neared the production on the main stage.

  Gwen, who had been largely silent, suddenly stepped in front of him again. She bent over until her face was on a level with Eli’s, hands on the tops of her thighs like she was talking to a small child.

  “I tell you what,” she said, her breath floating into his face in a hot cloud. He could still smell the vestiges of whisky on it. “You give us something, we’ll give you something.”

  “A bullet in the head?” He couldn’t imagine De Valera being particularly understanding of an Illyrican soldier, the ex- part notwithstanding.

  An unpleasant laugh issued from the scarred man. Great, at least I’ve succeeded in amusing him.

  Gwen’s eyes darted to Scarface, and then back to Eli. “Just give me something,” she said, and Eli thought a note of worry had crept into her voice. He frowned as he met her gaze. If he hadn’t known better, he’d say there was genuine concern there, like she didn’t actually want her compatriots to hurt him. But maybe it was just wishful thinking.

  “Sure. What do you want?”

  She eyed him for a moment before speaking. “Tell me your name. Your real name. Is it Marcus Wellington?”

  “His real name is Elijah.” A new voice chimed in, a familiar one that Eli had never thought he’d be this relieved to hear again. “Elijah Brody. And, for better or worse, this idiot is my little brother.”

  Eamon.

  Eli grinned up at Gwen, who was staring at him in wide-eyed surprise, colored with just the barest tinge of guilt, like a kid who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Oh,” said Eli brightly. “Didn’t I mention that?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “You son of a bitch,” said Eamon when the door closed behind them. “You’re alive.”

  It was ten minutes later and he’d led Eli off the warehouse floor and into a small office. It was a cramped room with a metal desk and two chairs, one of them facing a small, antiquated terminal. Papers covered every available surface: invoices, pay stubs, purchase orders. Hanging on the wall was an old-fashioned flip calendar on which a number of dates had been circled in red pen. Unusual, but not unheard of: if the business here was anything like what Eli suspected, having a paper-based trail was probably less traceable, a benefit to those who moved goods in and out.

  Having been cut loose from his aluminum chair perch, Eli was massaging his wrists where the plastic restraints had cut into them and left his skin red and raw. He eyed his brother, who was shaking his head, not yet come to terms with the ghost in front of him.

  The picture that Eli had seen in the Commonwealth’s dossier had been out of date, but it didn’t really matter: he would have known that face no matter what. Five years his senior, Eamon had inherited their father’s looks, right down to the bright red hair. That color had softened with age, fading from the fiery mane of his youth toward a burnished copper. He’d grown a beard, too: a full red one that, even trimmed short as it was, covered his cheeks and chin. The green eyes flanking the broad nose were also pure Connor Brody, whereas Eli’s own blue ones stemmed firmly from their mother’s side. But more than anything, it was the subtle twist of the mouth that made him think of their father, a slight jag that Eli had always associated with unpredictable violence.

  So when Eamon stepped toward him, Eli found himself involuntarily bracing for a slug. But, to his shock, his brother enfolded him in a bear hug, squeezing him to the point that he thought his shoulder might pop out of its socket. When he finally released Eli, Eamon held him out at arm’s length, his eyes sweeping up and down as if they could take in the last nine years in a glance. “Christ,” he said, his voice grating and rough, “I can’t believe it.”

  “Hey,” said Eli awkwardly.

  “We thought you were dead.” To Eli’s continuing surprise, he thought he saw his brother’s eyes glistening. Must be a trick of the light. “Meghann and I. When we heard about Sabaea, about the Illyrican fleet—which wasn’t until, god, a week or two later—Meg looked you up in the rolls they posted on the net. ‘Brody, Elijah, Flight Lieutenant; 42nd Fighter Wing, ISC Venture carrier strike group, Fifth Fleet: missing in action.’” He rattled it off as quickly as Eli could have recited his name, rank, and serial number. “She would have cried for weeks if she’d had any tears left in her.”

  A pang of guilt jolted through Eli like somebody had punched him in the gut. Meghann had been just fourteen when he left for the academy, a bright-eyed, red-haired, energetic girl with a smile for everyone she met. In his head, the last message, the one the old man had played, echoed back at him.

  I think you should come home.

  “Any other time, I would have been thrilled to hear the crims had gotten a swift kick to the bollocks,” Eamon went on, shaking his head again. “But not at that cost.”

  Eli blinked; he didn’t think he’d ever heard Eamon say a single thing about the Imperium that wasn’t scornful, if not out-and-out violent. The red hair hadn’t been the only thing Eamon had gotten from their father—his legendary temper had come with it. As a kid it had been employed to keep his younger siblings protected from their father’s choleric bouts. As he’d grown older, that anger had turned outward, to the people that had invaded their planet. His brother had been about twelve when the Illyricans had arrived and, with the pubescent hormones intensifying his already established restlessness, the gangs had been a natural outlet.

  “I saw about the gate to Sabaea reopening,” his brother continued, walking over to an ancient-looking coffee maker that sat by the door. “It was all over the news—could hardly hear about anything else all day.” He waved a paper cup toward Eli, who nodded in response. Eamon poured two cups of black sludge that looked as though it had been sitting on the burner for at least a couple of weeks, then handed one to Eli. He took it gratefully, letting the steam waft into his nose.

  “But I never in a million years imagined you’d turn up back here. You were stuck there the whole time?” A note of something else—suspicion, maybe—had crept into Eamon’s voice.

  “Pretty much,” said Eli, staring down into the cup.

  “Pretty much,” Eamon echoed. “Gwennie said you ditched the crims.” His head cocked to one side, eyes watching Eli. “That true?”

  He gave a careful nod. “Yeah, I did. Thought you’d be ecstatic about that?”

  Eamon gave a deep snort. “Not unless you did it while you were traveling in your time machine.”

  “Sorry,” said Eli. “It’s in the shop.”

  He thought that might get a laugh out of his brother, even if only a bitter one, but the elder Brody just rubbed a hand across his f
ace. “Sweet mother of mercy, Lije. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Eli winced at the nickname. His family had called him “Lije”—no one else had. “I came home.”

  “Nine years gone by and you stroll into the Pig and Thistle like a tourist and start dropping my name?”

  “Well, I didn’t know how else to bloody find you,” said Eli, heat rising in his face. “You don’t have a comm number that I know of, mom and dad are dead, they bulldozed the One-Seven. Where the hell else was I supposed to go? For all that I’m supposed to be dead, you’re the one who’s practically a ghost.”

  Eamon crossed his arms over his chest, his expression neutral. “You could say I value my privacy these days.” He softened. “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that? Those guys would have sliced you up and fed you to whatever’s swimming around the harbor at this time of night.”

  “And what the hell is up with that?” said Eli, waving his arms in exasperation. “Armed guards at the door of the Pig and Thistle? Thugs dragging me into a warehouse just for asking after you? Who the hell are these people? Your drinking buddies? Your ragtag band of misfits?”

  “Just colleagues.”

  “Colleagues I wouldn’t want to meet down a dark alley. The Black Watch, Eam? Really?”

  Eamon’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about it?”

  “Enough to know they’re bad news. That they kill people. The attack on the Illyrican trade delegation when we were kids? The Bloody Hundred? De Valera? Everybody knows he’s a maniac, even if they’re too scared to say it. And you’re, what, working for him?” Eli shook his head. “Christ, Eamon. What the hell happened?”

  Eamon’s expression was hard. “You’ve been gone a long time, Lije. Things have changed.”