Soldier of Fortune (2nd ed)

by Kathleen McClure

  “Do not worry, Madame,” an official-sounding voice interrupted Celia’s dramatics, “we’re here, now.”

  She was a good liar, Gideon had to give her that, but then, Odile would have to be.

  She was also, he was certain, framing him for the murder of her husband.

  Not just murder, he thought, as he turned from the damning body of evidence in front of him to take in the sumptuous bed.

  The red silk drapings were now twisted half on the floor, and spattered with blood.

  The rest of the room, which had been in pristine condition earlier, now looked as if a storm had swept through the picture window currently swinging open on its hinges.

  A storm… or two grown men fighting over a woman.

  Yup, she really knows how to set a stage, Gideon thought, as the boots from outside hit the stairs.

  Then he thought—window.

  Thirty seconds later the doors burst open, and two of Nike’s finest came rushing into the room, where they pulled up short in front of the body.

  “Jessup!” Celia cried out before sliding to the floor in an apparent dead faint, which might also have led to a slight concussion, as the two officers were paying no attention to her, being preoccupied by the presence of the body, and absence of any apparent killer.

  One of them was so new to the job that, while Celia was falling elegantly to the floor, young Officer Prudawe was racing to the open windows in hopes the fresh air would prevent any additional mess in the room.

  Don’t look up. Don’t look up. Don’t look up, Gideon thought as he pressed himself against the building.

  Then he made himself stop thinking that thought, for fear the young officer would hear him thinking, and then she would look up and see the blood-spattered man balanced on the window’s cornice, directly above where she was visibly trying not to puke.

  His gaze remained locked on the officer’s deep green cap as she placed her hands on the window ledge, one on either side of a bloody handprint.

  Don’t— the thought flitted out, in spite of himself.

  She took several deep breaths.

  —look—

  Her hand slid a bit and she raised it, turning the palm upwards to see the red smear.

  —up.

  She looked up.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” he told her.

  “Got him!” she shouted, disappearing into the room, but reappearing a half second later, gun in hand.

  “That could have gone better,” Gideon said.

  “Sir,” she said, “please climb down to be placed in custody.”

  Gideon considered the request. “I don’t see how that can work out for me.”

  On the street below, a compost lorry was steaming its way up the street.

  “I’m telling you, you are under arrest!” the young officer called up, wildly brandishing the weapon.

  “Have you been trained to use that thing?” Gideon asked, eying the lorry’s progress.

  Are you an idiot? His rational brain asked.

  Now you’re paying attention? Gideon asked the rational mind. Where were you when Celia was drugging me?

  His rational mind had nothing to say to that.

  “Yeah, I thought so,” Gideon said aloud.

  “What?”

  “Sorry,” he called down to the officer, “talking to myself.”

  “My mum says talking to yourself is a sign of mental instability,” she told him. “Really, it’d be best if you climb back down here and let me arrest you.”

  Another head appeared in the window and damned if it wasn’t Mia’s DS Hama, the decent cop, last seen on Marlboro Avenue. “Hallo!” Hama greeted.

  “Hi,” Gideon said, with somewhat less enthusiasm.

  Below, the lorry had stopped, despite a distinct lack of any bins needing emptying, directly below the cornice upon which Gideon was currently perched.

  “Right mess in here,” Hama called up to Gideon.

  “Watch yourself, sir,” the young officer said, pulling back as a draco came swooping down off the roof to buzz the lorry’s cab.

  “Yeah, about that,“ Gideon said, “you’re going to have a hard time believing this,” he leaned out ever so slightly, “but I was framed.”

  “Of course you were,” Hama nodded his understanding. “Why don’t you climb back in, and we can talk about it?”

  “Or,” Gideon said, “I could do this.”

  And he jumped.

  The young officer also jumped, and so did her trigger finger.

  “Now that,” DS Hama said, staring down, “is not something you see every day.”

  “He’s getting away,” Prudawe observed, then turned from the suspect, currently sprawled over the mounds of organic waste in the rapidly departing lorry. “Shouldn’t we pursue?”

  “I don’t imagine he will be going very far, at least not without the help of a physician,” Hama said, glancing down at her sidearm.

  She followed his gaze and her normally fawn brown complexion went decidedly grey. The shot-counter listed one plasma bolt fired, just seconds ago.

  “Oh, no,” she groaned, powering down the weapon.

  “It looked like a glancing blow, at worst,” Hama told her. “That won’t help with the paperwork, mind, but at least you didn’t kill the man.”

  Both she and Hama leaned out the window.

  “Best radio it in,” he said, “and get an all-district alert on this fellow.”

  As Prudawe moved to obey, Hama pulled back into the bloody room to see a very unvalet-like valet caring for the vapor-ridden mistress of the house.

  Hama hoped she recovered quickly—he had a few questions for the widow, not least of which was why she was wearing an infantry long-coat of a size more appropriate to a very tall man.

  A man, he calculated, about the size of the fellow who’d just jumped two stories into a compost heap.

  32

  The compost lorry clattered through the early morning streets of Nike like a smelly avalanche, causing many a sleeping citizen to duck deeper under their covers in self-defense.

  From his position in the lorry’s bed, Gideon wished he could do the same.

  As it was, he was holding onto the side of the vehicle with his right hand, and clamping his left against the plasma burn over his ribs, all while trying not to inhale the varying degrees of rot infusing the air around him.

  Every so often, the lorry would make a turn, and a gust of fresh air would slap him in the face with invigorating clarity, but then the buildings would rise on either side, and the air would thicken with decay, and he would again commence breathing through his clenched teeth.

  He figured they’d passed through no fewer than three of Nike’s wedge-shaped districts when a broken cobble in the road sent the entire lorry jumping. Several unidentifiable former foodstuffs landed atop Gideon, leaving him with little hope that he could avoid sepsis.

  “Do you even know how to drive this thing?” he yelled forward at the same time the vehicle came to a jerking halt, sending an aged cantaloupe (and very nearly Gideon) splatting to the cobbles.

  Unused steam vented from the chimney at the top of the cab, the right-hand door popped open, and a dark-haired midget came out. “You say something?” Mia asked, grinning up at the muck-covered Gideon. “You look like you could use another bath.”

  “I asked if you could drive—never mind.” He shook his head and started to climb out, only to be knocked back into the rubbish by a giddily swooping Elvis, who’d trailed the vehicle the entire way. “Ouch,” Gideon said, then rubbed cheeks with the draco, who’d come to rest atop a mound of rotting greens to hiss his concern at his person.

  “He was worried,” Mia said.

  “So was I.” Gideon offered the draco one more gentle stroke before gritting his teeth and hauling himself out of the muck. “So should you be,” he added, landing next to her and tapping his right shoulder, where Elvis immediately came to rest, talons lightly pricking through the fabric of Gi
deon’s shirt. “The cops won’t be long tracking down a stolen compost lorry.”

  “I know, that’s why I drove it here,” she said, pointing to her right, and Gideon looked in that direction.

  In the monochrome of Nike’s misty dawn, he could barely make out what he was seeing.

  What first came to mind were the blocks his sergeant’s daughter had used to play with. She’d build these monstrous structures, and then knock them over, laughing like a hyena as they went tumbling.

  The buildings in front of him reminded him very much of those blocks… after the fall.

  “Where is here?” he asked, following her as she headed into what had to be a condemned neighborhood.

  “Lower Cadbury, or what’s left of it, after the ’47 bombings. Best get moving,” she prompted as he seemed hesitant. “It’s perfectly safe, and the coppers won’t go in past the first two blocks.”

  “Because they don’t have a death wish.”

  “The suns are never bright enough for you.” She sighed.

  At that Gideon had to laugh, then he hissed.

  “Oy!” She poked at his side, apparently only just noticing what was going on under all the decayed vegetables. “You’re hurt!”

  “Ow,” he said pointedly, and she dropped the poking finger. “One of the officers had a jumpy trigger finger.”

  “The coppers put that beating on you, as well?”

  “No. Look, it’s not so bad, if I can get clean.”

  “Not sure there’s enough water in the Avon for that,” Mia said doubtfully, but started to lead the way.

  Gideon took one step after her, then froze. “She took it!”

  “What?” Mia, already several steps ahead, looked back.

  “That murdering wasp took my coat!” he said, before realization of the loss hit him like a ton of Lower Cadbury’s bricks, and suddenly he felt unable to take another step.

  “What wasp?” Mia started back. “Gideon?”

  On his shoulder, Elvis began to croon anxiously.

  In the distance, he could hear the approaching wail of the police force’s transports.

  And still Gideon didn’t move—couldn’t—as a kind of fugue settled over him.

  “What’s—

  —wrong with you?”

  At Dani’s question, Gideon looked up from the careful study of his hands, spliced by shadows from the barred window.

  The two were seated on opposite sides of a table in the visitor’s pen of the Epsilon base brig.

  Gideon was scheduled to ‘ship out to the Morton Barrens the next morning.

  He hadn’t meant to look up, because seeing her only made it worse. The truth was, he’d have preferred not to take her visit at all but, not only was that too much the coward’s way, disappearing without a word would only drive her to dig into the Nasa incident, and Gideon couldn’t let that happen. If she started digging, he had no doubt Rand would know, and then he’d follow through on his threat against her.

  “You mean, beyond six dead soldiers and a life sentence in the Barrens? Not a thing.” The tone, deliberately dismissive, didn’t faze her, but then, it wouldn’t. She was, and always had been, the strongest person he knew.

  “Yes,” she said, leaning on the table between them, the table to which he’d been shackled, “beyond that. Gideon,” she whispered, when he didn’t respond, “no one who knows you believes you’re responsible for this.“

  “Dani—”

  “No one,” she overrode him, “believes you were deserting, much less selling intel to the enemy.”

  “I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.” He let a hint of disdain slide through. “What else would anyone expect from—how did it go in the officer’s mess? A jumped-up thief with no respect for military tradition, and less right to command than a stunted draco?”

  “Fine.” She sat back.“Colonel Singh thinks you’re capable of it, but I know better.”

  “You think you—”

  “I know you,” she cut in, again. “I know you didn’t desert. I know you didn’t betray the Corps. I know you did not cause the deaths of those soldiers.”

  “But I did,” he said, looking her dead in the eye. “Everything that happened in Nasa, happened because of me.” Which was the truth, even if it wasn’t the entire truth.

  Dani just stared.

  “This is who I am,” he insisted. “And who I am was never going to be worth your—I was never a good bet,” he fell back on the oldest of their arguments, the one she could never win, because Gideon could never quite convince himself he deserved Dani’s love.

  “So what you’re saying—about you, about us, about all of this…” She gestured at the table, the shackles, the bars on the window “…is ‘I told you so.’”

  “I’m saying it’s time you stopped looking for what isn’t there.”

  It came out more harshly than he’d expected, but from the glittering in her eyes—of tears or fury, or both—it seemed finally to have done the trick, because she didn’t come back with another argument.

  Instead she looked away, towards the windows, through which the last rays of the suns were beaming, cheerily ignorant of the petty human tragedies playing out on the planet below.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said at last, rising from her chair and turning away, still without looking at him. “I guess I expected the man I loved would have more fight in him.”

  Gideon said nothing.

  “Guess I was wrong,” she said at last.

  Gideon waited until, without another word or glance, she’d departed.

  “Guess you were,” he said to the empty air in front of him.

  “Hellooo,” Mia waved her hands in front of Gideon’s face. “We gotta scarp.”

  “You’ve got to scarp,” he said, slumping against the remains of a graystone wall. “I think I’m done.”

  She blinked, then stared. “What?”

  “I said, I think—no, I am—done. Listen,” he held up his bloodied right hand, the left still pressed to the seeping wound in his side, “it was bad enough when it was just Rand after me, except it wasn’t Rand, or not only Rand, because Celia was always there, playing me. Playing him, too, I guess,” he rambled, barely aware of Mia, watching him the way one would watch a dog with the first hints of foam at its mouth. “The black swan who betrayed them all.”

  “Swan?”

  “Played the cops, just now,” he said. “Played them so well they’re looking at me for Rand’s murder.”

  She stayed where she was, watching. “Did you do it?”

  “No. But I can’t prove that.” Any more than he could prove his innocence at Nasa. Rand—no, Celia—no, Odile—was just that good.

  “I don’t care what the filth thinks.” Mia gave a shadow of her usual shrug. “I’m not sure I even care if you did for the bugger, I just care you’re honest with me.” She started to turn again.

  “Mia.” She stopped, but didn’t look back. “I’m not kidding. I’m done.” She remained still, shoulders slumping in the tunic, which he now saw had a new tear in it. “You should get going,” he said, but it was like talking to a wall, or himself, age thirteen. “Dammit, Mia—”

  “What?” She spun around to face him, her hands flying out in exasperation. “What? What d’you want from me? A pat on the back? A handkerchief? What?”

  “I—”

  “So this wasp of yours…” She cut him off with a two handed wave. “She put them mangy twins after you, and had Nahmin dope you, and set you up for a killin’?”

  Gideon, watching the dodger the way he’d watch a grenade with a popped tab, nodded.

  “She did all that, and now you’re all ‘boo-swarmin-hoo, she has my coat’—”

  “I don’t believe I used those exact—”

  “—so you’re done?” The hands, which had been continuing to flap in exasperation, dropped to her sides. “That’s not done. That’s quitting!”

  “Well—”

  “But all right. Fine. Qui
t. Be done.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and glared with enough disdain he almost couldn’t see the disappointment. “Done and dusted, and rotting inna nick because if you can’t be bothered to get your own back from some fancy-pants, upper-comber, risto wasp—”

  “Did I mention she’s a fancy-pants, upper-comber, risto wasp, spy?”

  “Fancy-pants upper-comber, risto wasp spy,” Mia amended, “then what good are you?” Then she paused.

  Gideon waited.

  She looked at him. “Did you just say spy?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t get a chance because just then, from somewhere nearby, they both heard a cry for help.

  A cry that was suddenly truncated, as if the one calling had been violently silenced.

  “That way,” Gideon said, pushing himself off the wall and racing past Mia. Elvis was already airborne, flapping his way deeper into the bombed-out tenements.

  “We’re not done with this,” Mia called, but Gideon, with his long legs, was outpacing her, as if he hadn’t just been beaten, shot, and jumped off a window ledge.

  She put on a burst of speed, and caught up just in time to see Gideon flying at a large, mean-looking tough. He tackled the bastard so hard they both went rolling over a pile of street rubble where, after they landed, all Mia could see of the fight was the odd fist, elbow, or shoulder.

  The entire scene was punctuated by the odd grunt, curse, or screech—that last courtesy of Elvis, who was circling wildly above the fight.

  Figuring Gideon had things under control, she turned to a young man who, from his prone position and ghost-pale face, was the one who’d called for help, and offered him a hand up. “You okay there, mate?”

  “I… Yes. I think.” The youth patted himself absently, as if making sure all his parts were still there. “I hope he doesn’t hurt Wendell. That would only make it worse.”

  Mia looked at him—his jaw was already starting to swell—then at the slumping tenements that made up Lower Cadbury. “It could get worse?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  From behind the pile of rubble, a rough tenor shriek was followed by a significant thud, and then silence.