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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


I had Ixil’s DubTrub out in an instant, wishing for about the thousandth time since Huihuang that I still had one of my plasmics. DubTrubs were nicely concealable, but with only four shots per load they weren’t exactly designed for protracted combat. Fleetingly, I wished I’d taken the time to strip off whatever the extra length was that Dent had added to the quick-load cylinder in my pocket so I would at least have an additional four shots to play with. Too late now. “Any idea what they’re doing?” I muttered.

“They seem to be just be moving around,” Selene said. “Not hurrying, just moving slowly around.”

From the direction she’d indicated came a soft clatter, followed by an equally soft curse. “Like maybe they’re searching for someone?” I suggested.

“I already said Dent’s not here.”

“But they may not know that,” I pointed out. Briefly, I wondered if we could have just missed Dent on our way in, that he might have been sliding up the extension arm in the Pollux launch module right as Selene and I arrived from Popanilla and started drifting toward the receiver module deck. It would take exquisite timing, but given the way the portals were set up we could literally pass in the night without either of us being aware of the other.

But no. If Dent had come into Pollux just before we did Selene would have smelled a fresh infusion of his scent. It also didn’t explain the scent of blood she was getting out here.

I scowled. In the meantime, I needed to stop wool-gathering and get on top of the situation. I still had way too many questions for Dent to let someone kill him now. “Are they still searching?” I asked Selene.

“They’re still moving around,” she said. “I don’t know if they’re searching.”

“Oh, they’re searching, all right,” I said. Now, suddenly, the whole thing was obvious. “Stay here and keep out of sight. I’ll be right back.”

Dent’s jewelry case was right where I’d left it, a couple of meters from the entry hatch. But whereas it had been mostly full the last time I’d looked into it, now it was half empty. I picked the most distinctive of the remaining gems and headed back to Selene.

She was still where I’d left her, but the scuff marks in the flagstone dust showed she’d done a bit of local exploring in my absence. “Our friends still out there?” I asked.

“Yes, but they’ve moved on to a different street,” she said. “And I think I’ve found Dent.”

“Where?”

She pointed at the top half of a small domed building that was visible beyond a low retaining wall and past a line of decorated steles. “Someone went in or out—you can see the top of the door just over that wall—and a minute later Dent’s scent went a little stronger.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Any idea what that is?”

“It’s one of the buildings the tour guides called lecture halls,” she said, keying her info pad to a map of the temple grounds. “There’s a podium in the front faced by three tiered rows of seats.”

I nodded as she pulled up a floor plan. It looked like a small lecture hall, all right: six seats in the front row, eight in the middle, ten in the back. More like a small-group conversation chamber, in my opinion, but as my father used to say, The only reason for labels is convenience or obfuscation.

Though of course just because it was small didn’t mean it wasn’t packed to the gills with armed goons. “I suppose we could just drop in on them,” I told Selene. “But I’ve never liked leaving people with guns behind me. Let’s see if we can get ourselves an escort.”

“You think they’ll just take us to Dent?”

“I think they’ll take us to whoever owns this,” I said, showing her the gem I’d taken from Dent’s case. “Or who thinks he does, anyway. They’re this way, right?”

The four humans were right where Selene had said they were, and it was instantly obvious that they were indeed searching for something. They were strung out along one side of the street, peering behind steles and into clumps of vegetation or poking around the flagstones.

As my father used to say, Always get in the first word when you can, even if that word is just hello. “You’re wasting your time,” I called as Selene and I came around the corner.

Of course, as my father also used to say, The first word probably isn’t as important as the first gun. Before I’d even finished my greeting all four of the thugs had snatched Blago 6mm snub-noses from concealment.

All of which remained pointed at the ground as their owners belatedly spotted the DubTrub I had pointed in their general direction. “Who the hell are you?” one of the men demanded, his eyes shifting from my gun to my face.

“I’m the one who’s going to show Easton Dent the error of his ways and get your boss what he wants,” I said.

“Really,” he said flatly.

“Really,” I said. “Meanwhile, you’re not getting any closer to the gems, and I doubt Dent’s getting any healthier. Shall we go?”

One of the men took a step, stopped at a gesture from the spokesman. “You giving us orders?” the spokesman asked.

“I’m trying to offer a solution where everyone gets what they want,” I said. “If you really want to stay out here sifting through rock piles, you’re more than welcome to do so. I just thought it would avoid a misunderstanding if you escorted us in to see your boss, instead of us walking in on him by ourselves. But never mind. If you’ll all just turn your backs for a minute, we’ll be on our way.”

“What do you want to see the boss about?” the spokesman asked.

“Like I said: a solution,” I told him. “I have what he wants; he has what I want. I just want to make a deal.”

For a long moment the spokesman didn’t speak. His eyes flicked to Selene, standing silently beside me, and I thought I spotted a flicker of recognition cross his face. “All right,” he said at last. “I suppose a smart guy like you already knows where the boss is.” He gestured behind me. “After you.”

“Better idea,” I said, lifting my DubTrub a bit for emphasis. “You four can lead the way. That way I won’t have to take your Blagos away from you before we leave.”

He gave me a slightly ironic smile and a microscopic inclination of his head. “Yeah, that’d be a trick, anyway,” he said. “You a badgeman?”

I shook my head. “Bounty hunter.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he said, a subtle new edge to his voice. “Who’s your target?”

“You got anyone in there except Easton Dent?”

“So it’s Dent?”

“Of course it’s Dent,” I said. “Not to rush you or anything, but I imagine your boss values the time he’s currently wasting.”

“Yeah, he does,” the spokesman agreed. “Fine. You just better not be blowing smoke. You wouldn’t be the first bounty hunter the boss has iced.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said, a shiver running up my back. Yet another reminder, if I’d needed one, of why I’d given up that business in the first place. “After you.”

* * *

The building they led us to was indeed the lecture hall Selene had tagged. Our spokesman gave a hand signal to the two thugs manning the tall door and one of them pulled it open for us. The spokesman gestured; I nodded acknowledgment and Selene and I walked past him and stepped inside.

As we passed the threshold I slipped the DubTrub back into my pocket. The last two times I’d deliberately disarmed myself as a gesture of good faith—first in front of Mottola in the Huihuang tunnel building and then in Gaheen’s office—things had worked out reasonably well. Hopefully, I could make it three for three.

It was probably just as well that I hadn’t walked in brandishing a weapon. There were three more thugs standing guard at widely spaced positions in the lecture hall, all of them with Blagos drawn and ready. Beyond them, a short, thin man was seated in one of the front-row seats.

Facing him, tied to a chair beside the podium with his arms behind him, was Dent.

The man was a mess. Blood was trickling down his face from both sides of his lip plus a pair of wide cuts over his cheekbones. His shirt was matted with more blood, though whether that was leakage from the facial injuries or whether he’d been knife-poked in the chest a few times I couldn’t tell.

The thin man half turned to look over his shoulder as we entered. “These walking corpses have names?” he called in a harsh, grating voice.

“I’m Gregory Roarke, sir,” I called back. “Please forgive the interruption, but I have an offer that I hope will be mutually beneficial for the both of us.”

“Yeah?” he said, not sounding particularly impressed. “What kind?”

“I believe I have what you’re looking for,” I said, pulling out the gem I’d taken from the case in Pollux’s receiver module. I started toward the steps—

And stopped as every gun in the place was suddenly pointed straight at me.

“Balic?” the boss prompted.

The spokesman from the outside search team held out his hand, and I placed the gem in his palm. He gave me one last speculative look, then turned and headed down the steps to the bottom level. He handed the gem to the boss, and for a few seconds the other studied it. Then he looked up at Balic and nodded. Balic shifted his eyes to us and gestured, and the two thugs who’d been manning the door nudged Selene and me forward. “Go,” one of them muttered.

“Thank you,” I said. Taking Selene’s arm, I started down.

We’d made it four steps when she casually leaned in close to me. “Ceiling,” she murmured. “Above the center seats.”

I glanced around the room as if scoping things out, idly stroking my left thumbnail as I did so. I lifted that hand to rub the first two fingers on the skin in the center of my forehead, tucking my thumb partway behind them where the mirrored nail was close to my left eye.

In the center of the domed ceiling, spaced a couple of meters apart, were two small, black blotches in the aged but otherwise gleaming white facing of the stone. I frowned, trying to figure out what they might be.

And then, abruptly, the images resolved in my mind. They weren’t defects in the stone, as I’d first thought, but two of Dent’s gimmicked DubTrub quick-loads, fastened to the ceiling by their bases’ adhesive pads.

I looked around the lecture hall again, all the puzzlement that had surrounded those things finally evaporating. The gimbals and the additional length on the quick-load cylinders—the remote control on the Popanilla safe in place of a standard keypad—the battles in the Roastmeat Bar on Gremon and outside the Ruth—and Dent’s total lack of concern about any danger the mysterious backup shooter might be in.

Because there hadn’t been a backup shooter. Dent’s toys were simply four-shot quick-loads modified to be fired by remote control.

So if Dent had them in place, why was he still sitting here bleeding? Had the control been damaged or taken away from him?

That was the obvious answer. But I’d been watching him in the Roastmeat and later as he clambered inside the Ruth, and I hadn’t seen anything that looked like a control. If it was camouflaged well enough that I hadn’t spotted it, there was a good chance the thugs who’d searched him hadn’t caught it, either.

The thugs.

I felt my throat tighten. Of course. Each of the quick-loads peeking coyly down from the ceiling had four shots, giving Dent a total of eight to play with. But counting the two men still guarding the outside of the lecture hall, we had a grand total of one boss and nine thugs to deal with. With Dent tied to a chair, killing or incapacitating only eight of the ten would do nothing but earn him a quick and violent death.

Only now that number balance had flipped. He had me and my four-shot DubTrub as backup. Even better, he had me and the other remote currently in my pocket. The trick would be how to introduce one or the other into the conversation without getting myself shot.

Selene and I were halfway to the lower level, and I was still working on that problem, when Balic retraced his steps, meeting us just as we reached the middle level of seats. Setting his right palm on my chest in silent command, he held out his left in equally silent invitation.

Frankly, I was surprised it had taken them this long. Using two fingers, I pulled out my DubTrub and set it on his palm. I started to take another step forward.

And stopped again as Balic’s hand briefly increased its pressure against my chest. “And the other one,” he said.

I suppressed a grimace. I’d hoped he would miss the small bulge of the quick-load nestled in my other pocket.

But there was nothing for it. I pulled it out and handed it over. His forehead creased a bit as he saw the unusual design, but merely put it away in his own pocket. He ran his eyes over me one final time and then nodded. “He’s clean, sir,” he announced.

The boss didn’t answer, but merely flicked a finger. Balic stepped out of our path, and we continued down to the floor. The boss waited until we arrived, then turned his head and looked up at us. “Gregory Roarke,” he said, his grating voice going a little darker. “I’ve heard of you.”

I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach as I finally got a clear look at his face. This wasn’t just some random crime boss we’d walked in on, or some local fence Dent had chosen to pass his stolen goods to.

I’d been out of the bounty hunter game for a long time. But I hadn’t been out so long that I’d forgotten the name Francisc Pacadacz.

“I’m honored, Mr. Pacadacz,” I said, forcing my voice to remain calm. Pacadacz had a violent reputation and a bloody history, but all the stories about him said that he mostly responded to respect and civility in kind.

Which wasn’t to say that he might not kill Selene and me where we stood if he decided that would gain him something. It was just that he would respect us the whole time we were bleeding out.

“I’ve heard of you, too, of course,” I continued. “Again, please forgive us for any trouble our arrival may have caused. I had no idea you had your own interest in Mr. Dent. My business with him can certainly wait until you’ve finished yours.”

“You think there’s going to be anything left of him after I’m finished?” Pacadacz countered. He held up the gem. “Where did you get this?”

“From Dent’s stash,” I said. “I hoped I could trade the rest of the gems for him.”

“He’s a target?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s your client?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t reveal—”

“Who’s your client?” he repeated.

I felt my throat tighten. There were protocols bounty hunters were supposed to adhere to, the biggest of which was confidentiality. But people like Pacadacz didn’t care much about other people’s rules. “His name’s Draelon,” I said. “He’s one of Luko Varsi’s people.”

Something that a charitable person might have characterized as a smile touched the corners of Pacadacz’s mouth. “Luko Varsi, you say? Haven’t heard his splashes for a long time. What does he want with Dent?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t share that information with me.”

“Convenient,” Pacadacz said. The brief smile had vanished now like summer dew in a hot sun. “Varsi usually goes in-house for his hunters. I don’t think I ever heard your name connected to his organization.”

“I was mostly a contract employee,” I said, feeling sweat breaking out on the back of my neck. Dropping names like Draelon and Varsi could be useful in a situation like this, but only if the other party believed you. “And he didn’t pick me up until I’d mostly retired from bounty hunter work.”

“Also convenient,” Pacadacz said. “You know what I think, Roarke? I think you’re Dent’s partner. I think you’re the person he’s been trying to threaten us with for the past three hours.”

I looked at Dent. After the beating his face had taken there wasn’t much room for subtleties of expression, but I could almost imagine I saw a fading of his last bit of hope. We were all squarely under Pacadacz’s thumb, and there was no one else who even knew where we were, let alone might be curious enough to come looking for us.

Except that we still had Dent’s four-shot wild cards. Unfortunately, one of those cards was currently tucked away in Balic’s pocket.

I’d just have to change that.

“Full points for cleverness, anyway,” I commented, turning back to Pacadacz. “Dent knows we’re on his trail, so he drops vague hints about a mysterious partner who might be sniffing around. We show up, he pretends all is lost—just look at that face—and your men relax their guard. Once that happens, his real partner is free to swoop in.”

“And who would this real partner be?” Pacadacz asked, clearly not believing a single word I’d said.

“His brother, of course,” I said, frowning slightly. “Weston Dent. Surely you’ve heard of him.”

A flicker of something crossed Pacadacz’s face. Whether he believed in Weston’s existence, it was clear he’d heard the stories and rumors. “You think he’ll have a better chance of getting in than you did?” he growled.

“With all due respect, Mr. Pacadacz, I don’t think you understand what you’re up against,” I warned. “I presume you’ve heard the stories. People who try to take out Easton Dent get shot, usually in the back. And up to now no one’s figured out how Weston’s always been able to invisibly infiltrate the scene before the carnage takes place.”

“You telling me you have figured it out?”

“I think so, sir, yes,” I said. “It comes down to a very special type of sniper weapon, and a very special type of sniper.”

I paused, partly for dramatic effect, partly to see if I had everyone’s attention. From the utter silence in the room, I gathered I did. Even Pacadacz, who clearly didn’t trust me farther than he could spit me, was fully focused on what I was saying “We need to start with the man himself,” I went on. “Weston Dent is a master of disguise and stealth. He can find holes in the best security screen and slip through without being spotted.”

“He tries that here, he’ll get a bullet in the head,” Pacadacz said flatly.

“Absolutely,” I agreed. “Which is why he’ll try something different. A tactic designed for targets inside an enclosed place like this one.”

“You seem to know a lot about all this,” Pacadacz said, his eyes narrowed. “Makes me wonder why.”

“It’s part of my job,” I said, loading all the sincerity into my tone that I could. “I have to know as much about my target as I can before I go after him.” I nodded toward Dent. “Especially when so many people have died while he was delivering or bargaining with them. I don’t want to end up on that list.”

I pointed back toward the door. “But as you said, Weston will know better than to try a straightforward infiltration. He’ll need to go with his backup strategy, which near as I can tell is based on a modified DubTrub 2mm.”

“Like yours?” Pacadacz demanded.

So he’d paid close enough attention to Balic’s disarming of me to note the kind of gun I’d been carrying. “Yes, sir, only his will be modified for longer-range work,” I said. “The standard DubTrub is a close-in weapon, very concealable, with a load of four missile slugs. What most people don’t know is that you can elongate the gun’s barrel section to handle longer missile slugs that are large enough to carry gas, fog, or breaching explosives. I brought a sample of the extended barrel to show you, one of the Number Four”—I leaned a little on the word—“varieties.” I gestured to Balic. “Show them. Be careful you don’t pop open one of the tubes and drop out the slug.”

Maybe if he’d had a moment to think he’d have wondered what showing the rest of the thugs a plain black cylinder would accomplish. Or maybe if Pacadacz hadn’t been focused so hard on finding flaws in my story so he’d have a reason to have me shot he might have countermanded my totally unauthorized order.

But Pacadacz was preoccupied, and Balic was used to delivering instant obedience. He pulled the gimmicked quick-load from his pocket and held it up, gripping it a little gingerly by its adhesive pad. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dent straighten in his chair, his lips compressing into a determined line—

Abruptly, the quick-load twisted around in Balic’s grip, and with a low screech like the shriek of a distant banshee, it fired a shot toward the group of thugs at the door.

“Aaahhh!” I shouted, clutching my chest and collapsing to the floor, grabbing Selene’s wrist and pulling her down with me as I fell. One of the best ways to avoid getting shot in a melee, I’d long ago learned, was to pretend it had already happened. Balic was still standing there, his attention frozen somewhere between my unexpected death scene and the inexplicable behavior of the device that had come to life in his hand.

But he had no time for either set of thoughts. The quick-load’s next shot took out one of the inside guards, while the third slammed into Pacadacz himself as he bolted from his seat and tried to scramble to the relative safety of the podium.

The fourth shot blasted into the side wall just below the dome of the ceiling as the remaining thugs opened fire on Balic, their trained reflexes targeting the one who was clearly shooting at them. The shriek of DubTrub fire went silent, the response gunfire likewise faltering as Balic collapsed in a bloody mess. Across the room, I could hear someone bawling orders, sending two of the remaining thugs clattering down the stairs to check on Pacadacz while the other two moved to defend the door.

But Pacadacz was beyond saving, and the door wasn’t where the threat was coming from. As the thugs leaped to obey the new commands, one of the DubTrubs in the ceiling opened up with its own deadly fire. It emptied its four shots into the remaining four thugs, leaving the last one poised and ready as the door swung open and the two outside guards charged in.

Five seconds later, it was over.

Cautiously, I eased my head up to the level of the chair backs, doing a quick but systematic check of the room. All nine thugs lay crumpled on the floor, their blood forming rivulets and small pools as it stained the lecture hall’s white stone. All of them dead.

All except one. Even as I finished my survey a small movement caught my eye: Balic, struggling weakly to get his Blago free of its holster. Standing up, I walked over to him.

“Out of the way,” Dent ordered in a raspy voice. “I’ve got two shots left.”

“It’s okay,” I said, holding out a warning hand toward Dent. “He’s not a threat.”

“Roarke—”

“More than that, we need him alive.” I reached Balic and squatted down beside him. He was still struggling with his gun; I helped him free it then took it from his weakened fingers and stuffed it into my belt behind my back. From his pocket I retrieved my DubTrub and held it loosely in my hand, not pointed at anything in particular. “How you doing?” I asked.

He looked up at me with an expression that was bouncing between pain, hate, and uncertainty. “How do you think?” he grated.

“As long as you can still talk,” I said, looking him over. He was wearing body armor under his clothing, I saw now, which had absorbed most of the volley his panicked allies had directed at him. Dent had obviously also expected the armor—I’d already noted that most of the DubTrub rounds he’d remotely fired had been head shots. Probably why he’d set his backup guns in the ceiling in the first place. Balic wouldn’t be doing any wind sprints any time soon, but he wasn’t likely to shuffle off and die on me, either. “I assume the late Mr. Pacadacz has a ship nearby with other staff aboard?”

Balic’s eyes flicked over to Pacadacz’s motionless body. “So he is dead.”

“Afraid so,” I said. “Sorry, but there wasn’t any way around that. But like my father used to say, Just because the king is dead doesn’t mean the livestock don’t have to eat.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that the king is dead, but the organization lives on,” I said. “At least for a while. So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to call the ship and get a team here to clean up this mess before the badgemen find it. In return, we’re going to let you live. Got that?”

His eyes narrowed as he gazed up at me. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Call it a last act of mercy. I doubt Mr. Pacadacz would want this to be the story of how he died, sucker-punched by an invisible sniper. But once all the bodies are out of here and the blood’s been cleaned up, you’ll be able to tell whatever tale you want. Hang on a second.”

I crossed to Pacadacz’s body and did a quick search. One of his pockets yielded a cushioned bag with more of Dent’s gems inside, which I tucked away in my own pocket. The gem I’d given him had ended up on the floor a couple of meters away; retrieving it, I took it back to Balic. “This is yours now,” I said, holding it out so he could see it and then stuffing it into his pocket. “If you decide to bail on whoever takes over the organization, you’ll at least have some traveling money. Either way, you need to get off Fidelio as soon as the cleanup is done. Deal?”

Again, he took a moment to study my face. Then, he gave me a small nod. “Deal.”

“Good,” I said. “Go ahead and make your call. We’ll be out of here in a minute.”

By the time I reached Dent Selene had freed him from the chair and was helping support him as he walked shakily toward the steps. “An act of mercy?” he croaked. “That bastard doesn’t deserve any mercy.”

“I know,” I agreed. “You want to try to get rid of all these bodies before someone stumbles over them? Or would you rather have the whole temple grounds crawling with badgemen and journalists for the next week?”

He glowered at me. “How did you find me? How are you even here?

“We can talk about that later,” I said. “Unless you really want to go into it here and now.”

His eyes flicked to Balic, who was working a phone out of his pocket. “I suppose not,” he said. “Fine. Lead the way.”


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