‘Expecting someone?’The general’s voice is mild.
Way too mild.
And Aptitude has her back to him. So she misses the anger in his eyes. ‘There’s a gyrobike,’ she says. ‘Coming through the hills.’
In three steps the general stands beside her.
‘An Icefeld 38.’
The Wolf’s eyes must be augmented to see that distance. He glances back. ‘Your regiment uses Icefelds,’ he says, looking at me. ‘Don’t they?’
‘Most regiments use Icefelds.’
‘Perhaps your general wants a word.’
Aptitude opens her mouth to disagree. It’s all Debro can do not to tell her to keep it shut. But she doesn’t want to draw General Luc’s attention. Mind you, there’s no need. He’s seen for himself.
‘Or are you expecting someone?’ he asks, voice silky.
Aptitude blushes.
About the worst thing she can do.
Six months she lived in Farlight at Golden Memories. That’s my bar below Calinda Gap. Yet every street smart we taught her vanishes the moment she finds herself home. Even now, she can’t smell trouble brewing.
‘Who are you expecting?’
‘Vijay Jaxx,’ Aptitude says. ‘Well, not Vijay himself. He’s off-planet. But he said he’d be sending-’
‘A message?’
Aptitude’s blushing again.
‘A little present? Some love token?’
General Luc is grinning. Like this is the funniest thing he’s heard.
‘Your beloved is the son of the man who wants to kill Sven?’
‘Wants to-?’ Aptitude is so busy being shocked by the bit about General Jaxx wanting me dead that she misses his reference to Vijay as her beloved. I don’t. The Wolf and I are unequal in rank, birth and wealth. But we share one habit. We use words sparingly.
When Aptitude doesn’t deny it, something goes flat behind the general’s grey eyes. ‘So,’ he says. ‘This is what your mother didn’t mention. Your heart belongs to Colonel Vijay Jaxx, hero of the battle for Hekati?’
Aptitude stares at the tiles.
‘Well?’
She nods.
‘And his heart belongs to you?’
This time she looks up. ‘Yes,’ she says, walking straight into his trap. ‘My heart is his. And his is mine.’ She sounds about twelve, and in need of a good slap.
Debro puts her head in her hands.
‘Mine is his and his is mine . . .’ Sweeping Debro’s daughter a low bow, General Luc says, ‘In that case, it would be my pleasure to deliver it to you . . . On a plate.’ A second later, he disappears.
*
I’m out of my seat when Anton grabs me. Breaking his grip, I flip him round and slam him into a wall.
‘Sven.’
‘Sorry . . .’
Debro nods towards Anton. She’s right; he’s the one I should be apologizing to. Hauling him up from the tiles, I check he’s steady on his feet.
‘That was a pretty good block.’
Anton smiles ruefully. When he puts a hand to his mouth his fingers come away bloody. ‘Not good enough,’ he says.
Debro is looking between me, Anton’s split lip and her daughter’s face which is frozen in shock as she finally realizes what General Luc intends.
Her look is one I will never forget.
Debro’s a liberal. People like her believe everything can be made right if only you talk nicely or understand what the other person wants.
People like me know that’s shit.
You make the rules. If someone doesn’t like them, you break that person or they break you. I saw the darkness in the Wolf’s eyes. He’s going to do exactly what he promised. Deliver Vijay’s heart to Aptitude.
Unless one of us stops him. And that has to be me.
‘Sven,’ says Debro, when I yank the gun from my belt.
For once I ignore her.
My SIG-37 wakes instantly. This just proves it can when it wants.
Beneath us, doors grind open as General Luc’s combat car exits from Palazzo Wildeside. Damn thing’s wolf grey. A long hood and short trunk, a turret like an upturned cup.
Looks like someone smashed the cup and glued it back with the missing pieces replaced by bombproof glass. Seems no logic to what shape or where the windows are. It’s probably coincidence the vehicle looks like a wolf’s skull on wheels. Then again, maybe not.
‘What’s with that turret?’
‘Better deflection of pressure waves.’ The SIG obviously regards this as a personal insult.
‘OK. Where’s its weakness?’
‘Blast bucket design, post-blast roll-back, high-protection crew capsule. Apart from that shitty colour scheme, you tell me.’
‘How good’s the roll-back?’
My SIG admits that might be a weak point.
We’re planning to explode an airburst at ground level in front of the car, and use the lift to explode a second airburst a quarter of a second later, with a third a quarter of a second after that.
If I can flip the vehicle . . .
‘More to the point,’ the SIG says, ‘if you can keep it flipped.’
Yeah, then I can shoot General Luc when he crawls from the wreckage. Alternatively, we can build a huge bonfire round his car if he refuses to come out.
The SIG and I are good at improvising.
‘Sven . . .’
I’m sighting when Debro puts her hand on my wrist. Very slowly she pushes my hand towards the ground and I let her.
‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘Debro-’
‘Etiquette won’t allow it. The general was our guest.’
‘And he’s lieutenant governor. Commander of the Wolf Brigade. While you’re on remand and liable to be sent back to Paradise . . .?’
‘That too,’ she says.
Anton is promising his daughter that the Wolf doesn’t mean it. Aptitude knows it’s a lie. There’s no way General Luc will see
reason when he calms down. The Wolf made a promise. It’s a promise he will keep.
‘Sven,’ my gun says. ‘You might want to check this out.’
‘What?’
It tells me to take a look at what the Wolf’s doing now.
Seems that vowing to deliver Colonel Vijay’s heart to Aptitude on a plate isn’t enough. The Wolf intends to stop her getting Vijay’s message as well.
His scout car parks across our entrance.
The gyrobike is going to find its way blocked. Its rider will have other problems. A ragged crowd is filling the dusty square that squats in front of Debro’s compound. Provincial militia, village police, guards from the local jail, even a pair who look like bailiffs. The Wolf is calling up cannon fodder.
Must mean he has a plan. Otherwise, all he need do is shoot the Icefeld’s rider when he enters the square. A second later I hear a whine of gyros, and four police bikes enter the square from one direction, stop to talk to a police sergeant, and then peel away from the crowd to head out of the village.
The bikes are as ragged as their riders.
The sergeant strides across to the Wolf’s vehicle and I see a hatch drop on the turret. Don’t know what General Luc says but the sergeant nods. A second later, he talks to a couple of other officers.
They begin erecting a roadblock where the main street, such as it is, enters the square. ‘What are the odds of him involving himself?’ I ask Anton.
‘Luc?’
‘Yeah.’
Anton sucks his teeth. ‘Slight.’
More is the pity . . . General Luc won’t get his hands dirty. He’s going to watch while others do it for him. Although you can bet he’ll kill Vijay Jaxx himself. That’s different, clearly.
The police bikes are ex-combat issue, painted dirt grey and almost invisible against the scrub and withered groves beyond the village.
‘Recognize their riders?’ I say, handing Anton my field-glasses.
He shakes his head.
‘Not friends of yours?’
‘No,’ he says sharply.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sven!’
‘Just checking.’
‘No,’ says Anton. ‘Not friends.’
‘And not recent guests either?’ the SIG says.
He grins, seeing where this conversation is going. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Definitely not recent guests.’
‘So Debro’s not going to object if I kill them?’
Anton shrugs, as if to say, who knows what Debro will object to . . . And follows me down the stairs before she has time to notice we’re gone.