The Wind After Time: Book One of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy (18 page)

“Then you’d better think about doing a little running yourself.”

Sutro licked his lips, thinking. Wolfe sat completely still.

“All right,” the fence said after a time. “I’ve got no choice, do I? The Lumina
was
a contract job. You’re right. I went to Innokenty, gave him the word, told him what it paid.

“It was a lot, Wolfe. Enough for the stupid bastard to just go in, grab the Lumina, and get out.

“But you know crooks. Never steal one thing if they can take a dozen.” Sutro tried to shrug but found the straps confining. “Not that I gave a rat’s ass. I thought it’d maybe put up a smoke screen.”

“So who was the client?”

“You aren’t going to believe me. It was the Chitet.”

Wolfe tried to cover his reaction but failed.

“That’s right,” Sutro went on. “Maybe you best take your own advice and think about hatting out of town, eh? Maybe whatever commission you’ve been offered for whatever you’re hunting doesn’t look so fat once you realize you’re going up against an entire goddamned culture, now, does it?

“Also explains how somebody could afford to hire all those heavies that slotted Penruddock, doesn’t it?”

“Thanks for the advice, Edet,” Joshua said dryly. “Now get back to the point.”

Sutro shrugged. “One of their sobersides came to me, said they wanted something. They, not he. I asked him if he was speaking for the movement or whatever they call themselves. He said as far as I was concerned, yes. Then he told me the details. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. I wasn’t a man who dealt with crooks, let alone jewel thieves. He must be thinking of some other person named Sutro.

“The man just smiled politely and told me … well, let’s say he told me enough about myself so I would’ve been wasting time playing innocent any longer.

“They had a complete file on Penruddock. Who he was, who his wife was screwing, plans of their house, data about their servants … everything. The file was like what I’d imagine Federation Intelligence might have.”

“What was their price?”

“Ten million credits on delivery. Plus my expenses.”

Wolfe lifted an eyebrow. “Penruddock told me he paid only two and a half for it.”

“And he was paying top credit. I’ve seen — heard, actually — of two or three of those things surfacing, and generally they go out for one and a half, maybe two, outside.

“But who was I to tell the Chitet they were wasting their money?”

“What did they want with it?”

“Come on, Wolfe. I wasn’t about to ask that kind of question.”

“Any theories?”

Sutro shook his head.

“How do you know it was the Chitet? Couldn’t it have been maybe a dozen of them who’d decided to go into some kind of business of their own?”

“Could have been,” Sutro said. “But I don’t think so. I was given a complete list of com sites to use if there were any problems. There were places on ten, a dozen worlds, plus some blankies I don’t know where.”

“So you were briefed, and I assume they gave you a retainer. How big?”

“A mill.”

“That tends to make you take people seriously. What came next?”

“I went to Innokenty and put him in motion.”

“Then what?”

“I waited.”

“Did you have any further contact with the Chitet?”

“That was the only physical contact I had and the only Chitet I ever met. Although he had four security types with him. All dressed like they always do, like they’re damned religious caterpillars.”

“While Innokenty Khodyan was off being a villain, did they contact you?”

“Two, maybe three times.”

“How impatient were they?”

“I couldn’t tell. They were always calm, always quiet. I’d never had anything to do with them before, just read about them. They behaved just like I’d imagined they would.”

“What happened when things went wrong and you found out Innokenty Khodyan was dead and the Lumina was gone?”

“I contacted the main number they’d given me and talked to the voice there. They never turned their vid pickup on. And it always sounded like the same voice.”

“How’d he take it?”

“Weird,” Sutro said. “I could have been talking about the weather. I had the strange notion that if I’d said I had the Lumina in my hand, I would’ve gotten the same no-bother comeback, as well.”

“How did they end it?”

“That was strange, too. I was told I could keep the retainer, and possibly I would be dealing with them again in the future. They told me to dump all the information I had, though. They’d come to me.”

“So where’s the list of com sites?”

“Wolfe, as you said, I’m no fool. When Ben Greet said Innokenty had been nailed by the law, I jumped out of there and reported. I would have blanked my data even if they hadn’t told me to. I’ve stayed clean because I stay clean.”

Wolfe considered for a moment, then loosened Sutro’s straps and pulled one arm free. He picked up the Lumina and held it out.

“Edet, touch the stone.”

Sutro hesitated.

“Go ahead. Nothing’ll happen to you.”

Reluctantly the fence obeyed. Once more the stone flamed colors. Wolfe closed his eyes, appeared to listen, then set the Lumina down and refastened Sutro’s bonds.

“All right. If you’re lying, you’re lying to yourself, too.”

“That’s all?”

“Not quite. Now, you’re going to go through every detail, as it happened, from the time the Chitet came to you, what these men looked like, and everything else until you dumped your files.”

• • •

“There he comes,” Thetis said. “See? From just behind that island five points off north.”

The lighter was a white dot against the blue water and sped toward the island at high speed, not more than two yards above the water, foam frothing up on either side of the hull.

Joshua and Candia’s travel cases were stacked on the verandah, and Thetis sat on one of them.

The lighter slowed as it neared the beach. But instead of berthing at the pier, it cut its drive, skewed sideways, and settled down into the water about thirty yards offshore. The front hatch lifted.

“Get down,” Joshua snapped, pulling Candia sprawling behind one of the cases, then yanking Thetis to the cover of one of the verandah’s columns. Bewildered, she crouched. A gun appeared in Joshua’s hand.

A man stood in the lighter’s hatch. He was not Jacob Libanos. In spite of the heat, he wore sober, dark clothing. He had a neat goatee. A man and a woman appeared beside him. One was Libanos. The woman, dressed in quiet, subdued clothing, held a gun against the old man’s side.

A loudspeaker crackled.

“Joshua Wolfe. Please surrender. We do not wish to provoke bloodshed. We know you have the man named Sutro, and we wish to talk to both of you. Do not force us to take physical action.”

“Bastard,” Joshua swore, then regained control. “Candia, you and Thetis go out the back. Try to find a place to hide. I’ll try to stall them. They shouldn’t look for you too hard.”

“Joshua Wolfe,” the voice came again. “Please come into the open with your hands raised. Tell the others in your party to do the same, or else Libanos will be shot. This is not an empty threat.”

“Go on, you two!” Joshua said.

“No.” The voice belonged to Thetis.

Joshua turned his head. She had her small pistol out, aimed at his head.

“No,” she said again. “We do just what that man wants.”

“Thetis — ”

“That’s my grandfather! Do what I said!” Her voice was shaking, but it was very determined. Candia started to say something.

“Shut up,” Thetis snapped.

Joshua stared at her, then grunted, spun his pistol out into the open, and stood, lifting his hands.

• • •

The two men pushed Joshua into the room. He stumbled, nearly went down, regained his balance. He was naked and blindfolded.

He
felt
four others in the room, but none of them spoke. After a moment a woman laughed deliberately. For a moment Joshua felt comfortable. That was very much part of the familiar basics of interrogation.

The woman spoke. “Is it agreed that I speak for the Order?”

Three voices agreed.

“Joshua Wolfe, we desire certain information from you. It is expected that you will not cooperate. Unfortunately, we have but a limited period of time to secure this data, and so we shall be forced to use methods that are normally abhorrent to us, save in the most extreme cases.

“This is such a time.”

Wolfe barely had time to sense the blow before it hammered into his diaphragm. He gasped and staggered, and he was hit twice more, once in the kidneys, then in the side of the head.

He went down, curled, protecting his privates, smelling pine oil from the floor, tasting blood and vomit in the back of his throat.

A kick thudded into his back, another into his ribs. A hand grabbed his neck and twisted it, and three times a fist smashed into his face.

“That is enough. Remove him,” the woman said.

• • •

This time Joshua had been permitted to wear a thin pair of pajama pants that might once have been white but now were soiled with bloodstains, filth, and dried excrement, none of it his. His eyes were uncovered.

He was pulled from the room they’d picked for his cell, a large, windowless storage room at the back of the mansion. He had no idea where the others were.

One man held a blaster on him; the other two strapped his hands behind his back with plas restrainers. They frog-marched him down the corridor into what had been the dining room. Wolfe saw his own bloodstains on the polished wooden floor. Now the windows had been covered, and the long table had been moved to the side. There were four chairs behind it. Two of them were occupied, one by a woman, not unattractive, in her thirties, hair worn in a convenient pageboy cut. The man was some years older, with gray close-cut hair and a neat goatee. Both wore quiet clothing that came close to being a uniform. There was a gun on the table in front of the woman.

Two of the guards left. The one who remained was squat and heavy-muscled, with narrow eyes that never left Wolfe.

“Is it agreed that I speak for the Order?” the woman said, no question in her voice.

“It is.”

“Joshua Wolfe, I require you to answer certain questions. You will answer them fully and completely.”

“To whom am I speaking?”

“You may call me Bori. It is not my name but will give you a symbol to use.”

“Where are my friends?”

“They are still alive and are being kept secure. You should be aware that their safety depends on your cooperation, of course.”

“When you have what you need, what do you intend doing?”

“I do not think that pertains to the moment,” Bori said. “I am the one with the questions.”

Wolfe half smiled.

“You find something funny?”

“I was just remembering something I told Sutro a few hours ago.”

“We know a great deal about you, Joshua Wolfe. About your war record, about your time with the Al’ar, even your activities here in the Outlaw Worlds, although you’ve done an excellent job of remaining nearly invisible.”

“Since you know everything, then what’s the point of our … chatting?”

“Tyrma!”

The squat man slashed a knife hand sideways into Wolfe’s upper arm. Joshua winced and bit his lip to keep from crying out.

“We have little time or appreciation for humor,” Bori said. “Now, you will please answer our questions. First, the most immediate matters:

“Are there other bombs set in the casino, as the police believe?”

“No.”

“The reason we asked was because if there was going to be further upset to the order of things, it might be well to immediately go offworld before continuing our interrogation. I suspect you are telling the truth and that first bomb was merely to create a diversion.

“Do you have other associates beyond the ones we secured?”

“No.”

“Where is your ship?”

“Offworld. In a parking orbit.”

“Then you lied. There
are
others in your team.”

Tyrma struck again, this time with a side kick to Wolfe’s ankle. Joshua almost fell, recovered.

“How many are there in your crew?”

“Two,” Wolfe said.

“How will you summon them?” Bori held up the bonemike from Wolfe’s gear, and he experienced a faint moment of hope. “This device appears of too limited a range to reach beyond the planetary surface.”

“I use a conventional com,” he said. “I place a call through the offworld connection to a certain party on a certain world on a certain link. My ship’s computer monitors any com that’s broadcast of that nature, and the crew’ll land at whatever point I told them to.

“If the pickup point has changed, then I can use any microwave transmitter to tell them where to get me once they’re in-atmosphere.”

“Complicated,” Bori said. “But careful, so I am not surprised. We shall require you at a certain time to summon them.”

“But not at the moment.”

“Who are you working for?”

Joshua said nothing, stiffening for the blow.

“No, Tyrma. Not now. We shall outline our needs to Joshua Wolfe before we apply further stress.

“Are you working for the Federation? Specifically, are you working for Federation Intelligence? If so, we shall need to know all the details of your mission, including controlling agents and when and how you report.

“Are you working for the Outlaw Worlds’ own law enforcement?

“Are you working on a matter of personal concern?”

“I’m following my own trail.”

“Which is?”

“When the Al’ar trained me, they used a Lumina stone,” Wolfe said. “When I served the warrant on Innokenty Khodyan, I discovered the stone.

“I wanted to know where it came from and where I could find others. That is why I went to Penruddock.”

Bori stared at him, reached under the table, took out the Lumina, and set it in front of her. “We shall return to that line of questioning again. I am not sure I accept your story.”

Joshua waited.

“There are stories that not all the Al’ar departed … or did whatever they did at the end of the war. Have you heard such tales?”