Industry & Intrigue (67 page)

“
You didn’t have to stay with
us
,” she
said. “I did warn you that I was going to do whatever was necessary
to get information from her.”

He slapped his hand against the
wall in frustration
at her rationale. “And I told you that the Arm don’t break
that easily. But you had to go ahead and torture her to
death.”

Fiona planted herself on the
soft mattress of the nearby bed.
“It worked didn’t it? She gave up what she
knew.”

“
Oh what
? A fucking address that may or may
not be an Arm safe house. Three weeks sitting on it and we haven’t
seen the slightest bit of activity. Face it Agent Badenoch, she
played you even after everything you did to her. If she had broken,
she would have given up a lot more than single address. Not to
mention that it wouldn’t even matter now even if it had led us to
the Arm. We’re at war, no captured assassin is going to stop
that.”

In that Fiona was
in complete
agreement with. If they caught an assassin today and sent them
giftwrapped to the capital, it would not undo the damage. The
Galrians had committed unforgiveable crimes in the eyes of most
Alkons. The war would play out in full, no matter what their
investigation uncovered.

Tel walked over to the set of drawers,
peeled off a piece of paper and scribbled something. When he
finished, he flung it at Fiona and it landed in her lap. He had
written down his name, a bank, and a line numbers.

He pointed at the piece of
paper with the pencil
. “If you need to draw more funds, go to the
nearest branch of the Arketh Commerce Bank. Use my name and that
account number. It’ll give you access to the money I get from
winnings. I don’t want anything more to do with this.”

He turned his back to
them and exited the
room. Fiona glanced at the paper and memorized the details before
stuffing it into her holder with the rest of her documents. She
looked over at Kendrick, who was lying on his back, his shoulders
and head resting against the beds’ headboard. “He was never up for
this. Not for the side that we have to deal with,” she
said.

Kendrick shifted slightly, so
he could angle himself to talk to her. ‘I’m
surprised
. I
would have thought living in this city for as long as he has would
have inured him to violence and bloodshed.”

“
This is city is brutal, but
it’s a simplistic brutality at best. Nothing more
than thugs and
fraudsters squeezing as many coins as they can out of each other.”
She tipped her head slightly and brushed her hair behind her ear.
An annoying habit she had never been able to shake. “Except for the
Arm of Assassins. Like us, they move in the dark and hidden places
of the world; far more complex and subtle than the brutes of this
city could understand. We can’t be bound by the black and white
thinking Tel maintains. Better that he’s out of it.”

“
For more than just
that
,”
replied Kendrick. He picked up the telegram and scanned it again.
“The director wants us to keep at the Arm of Assassins, but pretend
to carry out counter-intelligence in the city. It’s a flimsy excuse
for us to stay here. What use would Galrian spies have in
Longhaven? The city has little strategic or military value. Hells
they’d be doing us a favor if they sacked the place. It would save
us the trouble of doing it.”

She rolled her eyes at his
comment, but he wasn’t half wrong. Longhaven had gone to the scum
long ago and she had yet to
see any redeeming qualities the city may
have.

“
So where do we go from
here?’ he asked.

“
Tel was rig
ht. The safe house is useless,”
said Fiona. “Even if it’s true, it’s clear they’re not using it at
the moment. What we need is a more direct route. And I think after
today I have it.”

“
Oh?” Kendrick raised his
eyebrows in curiosity.

“
I have information about the
location of a master assassin; his home address.”

“
How in the hells did you get
that?” asked Kendrick in in surprise.

“
Tel isn’t the only operative
Imperial Intelligence has in Longhaven. I had to ask the director’s
permission to even approach this source.”

“
So why didn’t we do that
from the start?” asked Kendrick, understandably
frustrated.

“
I suspect it’s tied up
with
why he
has to give the appearance of taking us off this,” she said.
“Someone above the director pushed for him to stop the
investigation and he became suspicious. So he gave me the go ahead
to tap a source directly inside the Arm.” She let Kendrick absorb
the enormity of that.

“
Inside the Arm?” His voice was
full of disbelief
and rising in volume. “You’re telling me the director has
someone undercover in the Arm of Assassins.”

Kendrick was intelligent
but
he could
act stupidly at times. “Keep your voice down,” she urged. “Anyone
could be listening from the walls of this city. And in answer to
your question, yes, he does. He couldn’t risk approaching them
without risking their cover.”

“
And in the meantime
Galria
sucker punches us with a sneak attack.”

Fiona put her hand up and rubbed her eyes.
“No one saw that coming, not even Director Talmach, even with his
agents in Urdov. If this were to be discovered the Arm could
declare war against Imperial Intelligence.”

“
So why did he finally decide it
was worth the risk?”
asked Kendrick. He had calmed down now. He was
satisfied with the information, though Fiona had not told him the
entire truth yet. It was best if he thought all of this came from
the director.

She shrugged.
“He didn’t say and
I didn’t ask. You know how it is. But if I had to guess I would say
it’s because he smells something that he doesn’t like. Same as I
have, ever since the assassination of Rossiv.”

“
What
are you talking about?”

This was why she was a senior
agent and Kendrick was still only a junior.
“Don’t you find it odd that the
Arm was contracted for a political assassination? Not to mention
how easy it was for them to access to the exact place and time to
carry it out.”

“
You
’re saying…” he left the rest unsaid,
finally beginning to understand.

She nodded. “Yes I am. There
may be a fact
ion within the imperial government that had a hand in
this.”

Kendrick sat up now and pulled his legs
over the bed, planting his bare feet on the floor. “Shit,” he said,
shaking his head. “So how do we handle this?”

“
Very fucking
carefully
,”
replied Fiona. “With everything happening right now under the
Minister Blake and his war effort we can’t bring attention to
ourselves. Not until we have the full story of who hired the Arm
and for what purpose.”

Kendrick clasped his hands
together and clicked his tongue. “And when we find this assassin,
what then? The last one didn’t give us m
uch and she wasn’t on the level of a
master if she was hired to kill a low-level target like that
factory manager. We’ll only have more trouble trying to get
something out of anyone higher up the ladder.”

Fiona had
thoug
ht long
and hard about this matter. Clearly members of the Arm would not
break. They were trained not to fear death. A different approach
would be required.

“
We use magic
to get what we
need,” she stated.

Kendrick looked at her like she
was a lunatic.
He knew exactly what she meant with that statement. “Are
you insane?!” he spluttered. “It goes against every law of magic
that all mages swear by. And it isn’t the same as physically
torturing someone. By all accounts getting secrets out of someone’s
head is the metaphysical equivalent of cracking open an egg.
They’ll end up a gibbering idiot or an empty shell. Hells Fiona,
can we cross that line?”

She didn’t say anything,
mere
ly kept
her face serious. Kendrick didn’t have the stomach for this either.
She was beginning to wish he had left with Tel.

“
Neither of us could do it
without an insanely powerful magical artifact. If such a thing even
exists. Who do you plan on getting this mental magic done for us?”
he asked.

“
We search,” replied Fiona. “I’m
sure a city such as Longhaven has its share of amoral, unscrupulous
mages. We search until we find someone willing to do
it.”

“
Hells be damned,” muttered
Kendrick.

“
Can you think of another way to
get to the Arm?”
she asked him.

“
Not right now. But shit
Fiona, I sure as
hell don’t want to end up on the wrong end of something like this.
Didn’t you hear what happened to the archmage of Warded Spirals a
few months ago?”

She had, but this was
different. They only n
eeded it the one time. If the situation truly
became problematic they could always eliminate the mage. “This is
nothing like that. Unless you have a device in that bag of yours
that can replicate the effects of mental magic, I plan on doing
this. Are you with me or not?”

He let out a deep breath. “I’m with
you.”

She smiled. “Good. Now all we
have to do is
find a mage who is the right combination of greedy and
careful.”

Chapter
67

Luthais’ hospital bed
was in the largest
room on the top floor of the Flag Memorial Hospital. Tegan had
ensured he was cared for by the best nurses and had the best
doctor. She was sitting in the uncomfortable chair next to his bed,
holding his undamaged left hand. His hand was warm and dry, but he
had not stirred an inch the entire time she had been
here.

She
had been here since this morning,
leaving the daily business of running the company to her
executives. The governess was due to bring the children by soon.
They were infatuated with their uncle; they had always seen him as
fun compared to the strict rules and authority of herself and her
husband. Not that they could see it was for their own good;
children needed discipline.

Luthai
s’ left arm had only suffered minor
burns on the upper half and shoulder. His front and right side were
a different story. He had third degree burns on his chest, all over
his right arm, shoulder and burns up the right side of his face.
His hair had been singed away, though it had protected his scalp
from any major burns.

But it was not the damage from
the terrible fire of the bomb that Tegan feared. Dr. Mary
Ashford
had
informed her that all of his burns were treatable and with the
right herbal treatments he may not have much scarring. She was the
best doctor in the hospital and was well worth her exorbitant
fee.

T
he problem lay with the injury Luthais had
suffered when he was hit by a piece of flying metal. He had been
struck by one of the large metal plates of the grinding pots and
knocked down hard. It had given him several broken bones and a
hefty blow to the head. Right now he was in a coma and Dr. Ashford
had no idea if or when he would come out of it.

Tegan tightened her grip on her
brother’s hand.
“Luthais, this is my fault. I should have been more
careful, put better security around our sites after those
hells-cursed revolutionaries intruded on father’s wake.”

She clutched at her face with
her other hand. “No doubt this is their way of getting pay
back
for
what happened to them. I should have been more careful. I let
Kulthon handle the problem and now it’s out of hand.” She made a
mental note to get something out of Kulthon for this. His aid had
backfired and she was going to squeeze everything she could from
him in payment.

She looked up at his face,
unmoving aside from the
slow rise and fall of his chest. “Father always
let you get away with whatever you wanted. Tessa was the
confrontational one, I was the dutiful one, but you…you he always
treated as a child, even when you came of age.

It wasn’t fair I know. It’s why
you
acted
the way you did so often I think. Skipping university classes,
seducing the daughters, sisters and wives of father’s business
associates. Anything you could to get his attention. But all you
did and he never punished you harshly. When Tessa or I did poorly
in an exam, he would send us to our rooms. We couldn’t come out
until we had studied for so long that we could pass another test.
Which he would make us take right then and there.”

She sighed. “Despite that, he
cared about you in his own way. Before he died he told me
to watch out for
you. He was always so worried that one day you were going to get
yourself into too much trouble. That’s why I was so mad at you for
that business with Albert Trent. It’s not that it was a bad
decision. It’s that I don’t want you involved with difficult
business decisions like that. You like to play at being bad, but
when it comes down to it, you never had the heart for making tough
choices.