"So, Jack . . . how much longer do you think it'll be till the Center hands me my severance pay?"
"Not long, actually," McBryde admitted.
He leaned back in his own chair, taking his beer stein with him, and shook his head. He and Herlander Simões sat in his kitchen once again, as they'd sat so often over the past months. The fact that they'd been just about due for one of their regular conversations when he paid his visit to Turner's diner had had more than a little to do with his timing.
"That's about what I figured." Simões managed a twisted smile. "I don't suppose you have any idea what they might plan on doing with me after that, do you?"
"No. To be honest, though, I don't think it's going to be very pleasant, Herlander." He grimaced. "All those e-mails of yours to Dr. Fabre aren't exactly likely to weigh in your favor, you know. To be frank, I've been worrying a little bit about you over the last couple of weeks. We both know your time at the Center's getting short. I figure that's one reason your temper's been even worse than usual lately, to be honest. And I've also been wondering just how tempted you've been to try something to get even."
"Get even with who?" Simões laughed harshly. "The Alignment? You think they'd even notice anything I could do at this point? And I'm pretty sure Fabre's security wouldn't let me anywhere near her. Or any of the rest of the LRPB, for that matter! And"—his voice softened ever so slightly—"I'm not going to do anything to 'get even' with the Center, Jack. Not when I know how that would have to splash on you."
"Thank you," McBryde said softly.
He took a swallow of beer, giving his guest a moment or two, then leaned forward.
"Thank you," he repeated, "but, be honest with me, Herlander. You do want to get even, don't you?"
Simões looked at him silently for several seconds. Then his nostrils flared, and his face took on a strange, hard expression—a focused expression, harsh with hatred.
"In a heartbeat, Jack," he admitted, and it was almost as if he found it a relief to say the words out loud, even to McBryde, the man—the friend, as well as keeper—whose job it was to keep him from achieving exactly that. "Oh, in a heartbeat. But even if I wanted to, how could I? It's not like I'm in a position to accomplish anything on the grand scale. And, to be honest, I could spend the rest of my life 'getting even' and never come close to what those bastards deserve."
He looked McBryde straight in the eye, letting him see the anger, the hatred, the concentrated bitterness, and McBryde nodded slowly.
"That's what I thought," he said quietly. "But tell me this, Herlander. If I were to show you a way you could get even, or make a down payment, at least, would you be interested?"
Simões' eyes narrowed. McBryde wasn't surprised. Even now, after the months they'd known one another, despite the fact that Jack McBryde was probably closer to Herlander Simões' soul than anyone else in the universe, there had to be that instant suspicion. Was this the Alignment's final betrayal? The "friend" completing Simões' destruction by luring him into an overtly treasonous statement?
McBryde understood that, and he made himself sit calmly, looking back at the other man, waiting while Simões' highly competent brain followed that same logic chain to its conclusion. There was no need for McBryde to "lure" him into anything—there'd been more than enough past conversations to provide all the evidence Alignment Security needed to lock him away for the next several decades, at the very least.
The seconds trickled past, tensely, slowly, and then Herlander Simões drew a deep breath.
"Yes," he said, his voice even softer than McBryde's had been. "Yes, I'd be interested. Why?"
* * *
Lajos Irvine's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline when he played back the imagery from his bug and recognized the "stranger" at the diner's table. His surprise was heightened by the fact that this was a bug he'd put in place weeks ago and this recording was now fairly dated. He didn't check these records regularly, since he didn't want to visit the diner often enough to be recognized.
What the hell . . . ?
He realized he was sitting there, frozen in astonishment, and gave himself an impatient shake. It still didn't make any sense to him, but he triggered the fast forward, watching the take from the bug, and there was no question what he was seeing.
What the fuck is Jack McBryde doing sitting around drinking coffee in a dive like Turner's? That's so far outside his bailiwick it's not even funny. And if he's going to run an op on my turf, why the hell didn't he tell me he was?
He frowned, tipping back in the battered armchair in the tiny kitchen of the cramped apartment to which his trustee's status entitled him, and thought hard. McBryde wasn't like that asshole Lathorous. Oh, he had some of the same star line's "my shit doesn't stink" attitude, but he had it under better control. And he'd at least always tried to look like he respected the unglamorous and thoroughly unpleasant duty of deep-penetration agents like Irvine. And he had suggested he'd be keeping his own eye on the situation Irvine had reported to him. He was far enough up the seniority tree that he could do it just about any way he wanted to, too, but still . . .
He's been an office puke for years now, Irvine reflected. It shows, too. He's so far out of practice he didn't even come up with a disguise that would have fooled anyone. And it never occurred to me to mention to him I'd left bugs in the place.
Irvine grimaced and reminded himself to be fair.
No, it didn't fool me, that's true, but, then again, I know him. I doubt anyone in that restaurant has ever met Mr. Jack McBryde, Secret Agent at Large. In fact, the only people who would recognize him would be other Security types. But in that case, his eyes narrowed, why worry about a disguise at all? As far as I know, he's never been operational here on Mesa, so who the hell is he disguising himself against?
Irvine sat thinking for several more seconds, then leaned forward and replayed the imagery from the very beginning. It wouldn't have been obvious to most people, but Irvine wasn't "most people." He was a highly trained intelligence officer, and his frown deepened again as he realized McBryde was there for the express purpose of speaking with the waiter. And, Irvine decided, both of them were working very hard at pretending that he hadn't. They were doing a damned good job of it, too. If anything had been needed to convince Irvine that the big seccy really was an operator himself, watching him "not talking" to McBryde would have supplied it.
And McBryde was doing exactly the same thing back, although not quite as well. Probably because he was rusty from so many years sitting behind a desk. But why was he bothering? What the hell were they talking about? It had to be some kind of infiltration operation, but what the hell did McBryde think he was doing, pulling that kind of stunt on his own? And why hadn't he even bothered to get more background out of Irvine? Or at least alert Irvine so that he'd have had some kind of backup if this bizarre effort of his went belly-up?
It wasn't just stupid, it was dangerous, and something about it was ringing bells somewhere deep inside Lajos Irvine's brain. Obviously, McBryde was senior enough to him that there was absolutely no reason the other man should have bothered to get Irvine's permission. He had the authority to initiate investigations whenever and wherever he chose, if he thought there was any threat to the Gamma Center's security. But—
Irvine's train of thought stuttered abruptly, and he sat suddenly bolt upright in his chair.
No, he told himself. That's just too fucking off the wall even for you, Lajos! The man's the frigging head of security for the Gamma Center, for crying out loud! He's a Level Fourteen, damn it, and Bardasano's only a Sixteen, herself!
Yes, he is, a small, quiet voice said in the back of his brain. And there could be all kinds of perfectly legitimate reasons for him to be doing this. The fact that you can't remotely begin to imagine what one of them might be doesn't mean they don't exist. But what if that's because he doesn't have a reason—a legitimate one, at least?
The thought sent an icy shudder down Lajos Irvine's spine. It was preposterous, and he knew it. But if McBryde was up to something, his general knowledge and—especially!—his assignment as the Center's security chief put him in a position to do a terrifying amount of damage. And he was the Center's security chief, so who'd question anything he might choose to do?
Oh, shit. I do not need this. I really, really do not need this. If he is up to something, then God only knows how much damage he's already done. But if he's not up to something and I start punching alarm buttons, he's not going to like it very much. And he's going to be in a hell of a position to make me wish I'd never opened my mouth. Besides which, whose alarm buttons do I punch? Not his, that's for damned sure! And that bastard Lathorous is not only a major pain in the ass in his own right, but he and McBryde go way back. Taking this to him wouldn't be the most career-enhancing move I can think of, either. But if I don't take it to someone and there's anything at all to it . . .
He sat staring at the frozen imagery, and his brain raced.
* * *
"Tomorrow? So soon?" Herlander's tone of voice was more that of a man puzzled than one distraught. By now, the estrangement between Simões and everyone he knew except Jack was essentially complete. The only thing he really cared about any longer, besides his anger and desire for vengeance, was the memory of his daughter—and he could take that wherever he went.
"Tomorrow's Saturday," McBryde explained. "I've already been told to have one last interview with you, in order to settle everything before you go off to Siberia."
Simões frowned. "Where's Siberia?"
"Sorry. It's just an old reference. It means a long exile, Herlander, and under very tough conditions. In your case, it's probably going to mean a long stint of 'rehab' and a series of shit assignments where they can sit on you and be sure you don't fuck anything up looking for some sort of revenge. You're too valuable to just get rid of entirely, but it's going to be a cold day in hell before anyone really trusts you again, and you know it."
Simões looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"Okay, I can't argue with any of that. But why is tomorrow significant?"
"I already told Bardasano that it'd be best to have our last meeting on a Saturday. There won't be a lot of people around in the Gamma Center, so I said it'd be more relaxing for you. Make it easier for me to get whatever final wrapup information you might be able to provide." He shrugged. "I was planning to stall until next Saturday—maybe even the one after that—but given the new developments we should do it right away."
Herlander took a deep breath. "Okay. What should I do?"
"Early tomorrow morning, go to this address." He slid a piece of paper across the table. "Memorize it and destroy the note. Someone will be there to take you to the rendezvous with the people who'll be taking us off the planet. I'll meet you there later, after I finish some last business at the Gamma Center."
"What bus—? Oh. You'll be laying false leads."
Jack smiled. "That's one way to put it."
* * *
Anton looked around the table. "Is everyone clear on what needs to happen?"
Carl Hansen gave his three subordinates a quick glance. "Yes, I think so. David, you've got the trickiest assignment. Any questions?"
David Pritchard shook his head. "No, it's straightforward enough. After whoever-it-is-whose-name-remains-unknown leaves this 'Gamma Center' place—which I'll be told by a signal from Karen—I park the air car in the lot of the sports stadium next door and walk away, giving myself plenty of time to get clear. Cary will trigger the device we've already planted in the old Buenaventura tower as soon as word comes from Carl that he's on his way to the spaceport with whoever-it-is. Then I blow mine."
"It probably won't even scratch the 'Center,' " Hansen said, "given how deep it's buried. But it should do some major damage to Suvorov Tower." Like the other members of his group, Hansen had only the vaguest notion, even now, of what the Gamma Center truly was, but he didn't have to know what it was as long as he knew it was important to the authorities he hated with every fiber of his being. "Suvorov's right on top of it," he continued, "so the scorpions're bound to assume the Center's the real target of whatever is happening."
Pritchard had a sour look on his face. "I still don't understand why we're taking so much effort to keep the casualties down. That part of the city, the only seccies around will be servants and janitors."
"Which is exactly why we're doing it this way, David." Karen Steve Williams was making no effort to hide her unfriendliness. "Those servants and janitors are our people too, you know, even if you don't care about them. As it is, we'll be killing a few of them. But at least this way—and it'll help a lot that it's on a Saturday—it shouldn't be too bad."
Cary Condor nodded. "I agree with Karen. David, try to hold the bloodlust to a reasonable minimum, will you? It'd be a different story if you could park the air car in Suvorov's own garage—"
"Better still, park it right in the middle of Pine Valley Park," Pritchard said savagely. Pine Valley was the park at the exact center of Green Pines, and Green Pines was inhabited only by freeborn citizens—and wealthy and very well-connected ones, at that. The Gamma Center's hidden location was well inside the Green Pines city limits, but it was on the commercial side of the city.
"Yeah, sure, that'd be great—except there's no way you're parking an air car in or near either place and getting out safely. Not with the security they've got. The parking lot of the sports stadium is as close as we can realistically get."
Pritchard was not happy with the arrangement. Even a nuclear device—as small as the one he had, anyway—wasn't going to do that much damage to a buried, hardened installation. Not when it was set off out in the open, in an empty parking lot, more than a kilometer from its target, anyway.
But . . . he supposed it was better than nothing. And he knew there was no point in continuing the argument any longer.
"Yeah, yeah, fine. I understand the plan."
* * *
Victor and Yana finished their final walk-through of the escape passageway. It had originally been built to be one of the conduits for the city's underground transport network. About a century earlier, the city had discontinued most of that network, but had seen no reason to demolish what existed. In fact, they'd spent some money shoring it up and making sure it was stable. The expense of tearing apart buildings which had been erected on top of the areas in order to do a proper job of filling in the conduits would have been far greater. So would the repair cost of having parts of the city collapse if those old underground passageways started corroding.
Since then, the abandoned passageways had been put to different uses by different people. Not surprisingly, the city had a large population of indigents, including a number of people who were not sane. Many of them lived down there. Criminals used the passageways for any number of purposes—and paid off the police to keep them from inspecting too often or too carefully. Merchants used them to store perishable goods, under what amounted to dirt-cheap climate controlled conditions. And, finally, the passageways were used by the underground, smuggling escaped slaves to freedom.
This particular passageway could be reached from a hidden entry in the basement of one of the tenements not far from Steph Turner's restaurant. The passageway ran for fully two kilometers thereafter under the city's streets. They'd use the next-to-last exit, which would put them within easy walking distance of the delivery van that would take them into the spaceport itself. By the time they reached the van, Carl Hansen and the two Mesan defectors should already have arrived. All of them except Carl and Victor—Carl as the driver; Victor as his helper—would be hidden in the crates in the van's interior. Unless the security guards at the spaceport insisted on physically searching the van, including breaking into the crates, everything should work fine. Among the many items Victor had obtained from the ever-helpful Triêu Chuanli had been shipping containers that were not only environmentally sealed but even had equipment designed to block the sort of instrumental inspection that security guards were usually satisfied with.
It wasn't likely at all that these guards would insist on a physical search. That area of the spaceport was given over to shipments to and from the smaller and less reputable freighters in orbit. It was taken for granted that a certain amount of smuggling was being carried out. Carl's bribes should be enough to do the trick.
If not . . . Well, Victor was there. With the same Kettridge Model A-3 tucked up his sleeve. There was at least a chance—not a bad one, either—that he could kill all the guards before they could send out a warning. From there, they might be able to make it to the Hali Sowle's tender and get into low orbit before anyone really knew what had happened. There were so many such tenders coming and leaving that unless the authorities spotted which one they were in, they might be able to get aboard the Hali Sowle undetected.
Hopefully, of course, it wouldn't come to that.
* * *
"Well, that's it," Yana said. "Victor, I have to say it's been a real pleasure sleeping with you night after night after night in the sure and certain knowledge that I would get no thrills whatsoever."
"Oh, stop whining. If I had given you any thrills—and Thandi found out—you'd get the thrill of a lifetime."
Yana grinned. "A very short lifetime."
"They don't call her Great Kaja for nothing."
* * *
On his way back from the safe house where he'd had the meeting with Hansen's group, using a different underground passageway, Anton decided to wrestle with his conscience. There wasn't any time left. He'd either pin the damn thing down or he'd have to concede defeat—which would mean reopening those parts of the plan with Victor that he wasn't happy about.
His pangs of conscience centered on the fact that they'd be using nuclear devices. He'd never been comfortable with that. Initially, he'd argued that they could substitute fuel-air bombs, which could do just as much damage as small nuclear explosives. He'd given up that argument when their local contacts insisted they didn't have the resources to build homemade bombs of that type—which, of course, was an obvious . . . prevarication. True, unlike nuclear devices, there was no civilian use for fuel-air bombs that made the alternative of just buying them on the black market feasible, but that wasn't really the point, either. He could have whipped up a suitable fuel-air bomb for them in two or three hours using commercially available hydrogen, a portable cooking unit, and a cheap timer, and he knew they knew it. Which meant that the real reason they "didn't have the resources" was because they wanted to make a statement, and he had serious reservations about making the statement in question.
Partly, of course, it had been his hope and expectation at the time that this sort of "flamboyant" (to put it mildly) escape method would never be necessary anyway. There'd been no way, of course, to predict or even envision the sort of espionage treasure trove that Jack McBryde and his companion represented.
Anton knew that, as a purely practical proposition, his reluctance to use nuclear devices was pointless. You could even argue—as Victor certainly would—that it was downright silly. The human race had long since developed methods of mass destruction that were more devastating than any nuclear device ever built. The former StateSec mercenaries who'd soon be trying to destroy Torch on Mesa's behalf wouldn't be using nuclear weapons. It would take far too many of them, and why bother anyway? They'd be using missiles, of course, but they'd be using them as kinetic weapons. Accelerated to seventy or eighty percent of light-speed, they'd do the trick as thoroughly as any "dinosaur killer" in galactic history, but it wouldn't be because of any nuclear warheads! For that matter, a few large bolides—nothing fancier than rocks or even ice balls—could have done the job just fine, if the attackers had only had the time to accelerate them to seventy or eighty thousand KPS, which was barely a crawl by the standards of an impeller-drive civilization. It would simply be faster and simpler to use missiles than piss around with rocks and ice cubes.
That said, for a lot of people in the modern universe—and Anton happened to be one of them—nuclear weapons carried a lingering ancient horror. They had been the first weapons of mass destruction developed and used by human beings against each other. For that reason, perhaps, they still had a particular aura about them.
Of course, that was exactly the reason Hansen and his group—certainly David Pritchard—were so determined to use nuclear explosives. Not only were they in the grip of a ferocious anger going back centuries, but the knowledge which Anton and Victor had given them that Mesa planned to destroy Torch had given that fury a tremendous boost. Stripped to its raw and bleeding essentials, the attitude of Hansen's people could be summed up as: So the scorpions want to play rough, do they? No problem. Rough it is.
They knew that setting off nuclear devices on Mesa itself would constitute a massive—indeed, qualitative—increase in the already-murderous intensity of the struggle between slaves and their creators. The plans of those slavemasters to violate the Eridani Edict would do the same, of course. But, at least once, it would be slaves who struck the first such blow.
Zilwicki had real doubts about the wisdom of that course of action. Even Victor did, if not to the same degree as Anton. But there was a momentum to this fight that, at certain places and times—and he suspected this was one of them—overrode all caution.
For a moment, hearing a slight rustling noise to his left, Anton stopped and turned toward it. That was just a reflex action on his part, making clear to anyone who contemplated attacking him that such a course of action would be most unwise.
Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps even beneficial. Anton had no hope that the people behind this "Mesan Alignment" scheme could be brought to see reason. Just the information McBryde had already given them made it obvious that, for all their intellect and acuity, they'd abandoned reason centuries ago. But maybe they could be intimidated, in the same crude manner that Anton was even now intimidating whoever lurked in that darkness to the side of the passageway.
Probably not. Almost certainly not. But was it still worth a try?
What decided him in the end, though, was none of that. It was nothing more sophisticated than the impulses driving Hansen and Pritchard and their people. These Mesan Alignment people and their Manpower stooges were, after all, the same swine who had kidnapped one of his daughters, tried to murder another, tried to murder his wife—him too, of course, but he held no grudge about that—and were now trying to murder his daughter again.
To hell with it. Let them burn.
* * *
They'd already decided Anton would spend this last night in Victor and Yana's safe house. That posed a slight risk, but less than adding an additional complication to their actions on the morrow by requiring yet another rendezvous.
His two companions were there when he arrived, sitting at the same kitchen table where they'd spent so many hours already.
"You're looking pensive," said Victor. "Is something troubling you, Anton?"
He draped the jacket he'd been wearing to fend off the chill over one of the seats. "No," he said.
* * *
Late that night, Lajos came to his decision. Much as he hated to take the risk, he didn't see where he had any choice. He'd have to tell Bardasano.
Tomorrow, early in the morning. It'd take a fair amount of persuasion before he could get past Bardasano's aides, since he was not one of the people she had any regular contact with. Trying to do it at night was probably impossible.
Tomorrow would be soon enough, anyway. It wasn't as if Jack was going anywhere.