Shadow of Victory - eARC (32 page)

“As you say, we can probably dispense with at least some of our paranoia in a high class, upscale place like this,” Frugoni said dryly, and it was Harahap’s turn to chuckle. But then his expression sobered.

“Should I assume you found the opportunity to discuss my offer with your brother-in-law?” he asked quietly, leaning forward across the table.

“That’s why I’m here. If I hadn’t, and if he hadn’t wanted me to follow it up, I wouldn’t be,” Frugoni pointed out.

“That was intended as what’s known as a conversational gambit,” Harahap told him with a smile. “I did say I could be a smartass, didn’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, I believe you did. And—”

Frugoni paused and looked up in faint surprise as a waiter materialized at his elbow. Obviously he hadn’t expected anything of the sort in an establishment like The Busted Stein.

“Drink?” the waiter inquired succinctly.

“It’s sort of required if we’re using the table,” Harahap told the ex-Marine, indicating his own two-thirds full stein. “I’d stick with the beer, though. It’s not great, but I’m not sure about all the ingredients in the harder stuff.”

The waiter appeared unconcerned by Harahap’s aspersions upon his place of employment’s beverages. He only waited until Frugoni shrugged.

“Bring me one of those.” He nodded at Harahap’s stein, and the waiter grunted.

“Five credits,” he said, proffering his memo board.

“Five credits?” Frugoni repeated, and the waiter shrugged. Frugoni glowered at him for a moment, then sighed. “All right. All right!”

He touched his uni-link to the waiter’s board, authorizing the charge, and the Anatevkan turned and ambled away.

“This place gets better and better,” Frugoni muttered, and Harahap laughed.

“Compared to some places I’ve done this kind of business, it's a palace, believe me!”

“What a fascinating life you must live,” Frugoni said sourly. Then shrugged. “But, as I was saying, I’ve talked to the others. I’m not going to blow any smoke up your ass by pretending there aren’t some serious reservations. Mostly because however good you make the offer sound, even the boys up in the high hollows are smart enough to realize that if it comes to a choice between us and you, you’re going to pick you.”

Harahap started to speak, but the other man held up one hand.

“I’m not saying any of us think you ought to pick anybody else if your people find themselves up against it, Eldbrand. You shouldn’t. I’m just telling you everybody on our side recognizes that. Which means, among other things, that we’re not going to let you any further inside. Not because we aren’t grateful or anything, but there’s that old saying about two people keeping a secret.”

“‘Any two people can keep a secret…as long as one of them is dead,’” Harahap quoted, and Frugoni nodded.

“Exactly. Bearing that in mind, are you ready to buy a possum in a sack?”

Harahap frowned thoughtfully. The “possum” of Swallow bore very little physical resemblance to the original Old Terran species, although it filled much the same ecological niche. It was also considered one of the delicacies of mountain cuisine, and he recognized the allusion to the mountaineer who’d sold a sack full of possums to a credulous flatlander…who’d gotten home to find the sack full of venom frogs, instead.

“Yes,” he said simply, after a carefully metered pause, and Frugoni nodded.

“In that case, how do we do this?”

“Well, I can have five or six hundred pulse rifles and maybe three hundred man-portable SAMs delivered here in Wonder in about two T-months,” Harahap said calmly, and watched Frugoni’s eyes brighten. “I can throw in about twelve thousand rounds per rifle, too. It’ll take something like another two T-months before I could get anything heavier—or more ammo, for that matter—in here. Of course, that’s to Wonder. Getting them from here to Swallow may be a nontrivial challenge.”

“How would they be coming in?” Frugoni asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Depends on how you want them manifested.” Harahap shrugged. “I can get them through Wonder customs labeled as just about anything you want, but I think having your people try to pick them up here would constitute an additional element of risk. All in all, it’d probably be better to simply use Wonder as a staging point and ship them from here to Swallow. There’s always the chance of their being intercepted by somebody at the Swallow end, but I think that would be less likely than the chance of something slipping if we try to juggle things here in Wonder.”

“You’re probably right about that.” Frugoni pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I can think of a couple of approaches that might work, including straight up bribery. We might have to hit you up for some financial support to make that work, but at least three of Tallulah’s Capistrano freight managers are greedy enough to overlook just about anything. In fact, one of them’s been doing just that over medical supplies and some of the CMM’s…nonlethal logistics.” He smiled unpleasantly. “That gives us a certain amount of leverage, given how thoroughly he’s screwed if his bosses find out what he’s already been up to.”

“Having a leash is always handy,” Harahap said, “but depending on one can get risky.”

“Agreed. That’s why I’m not ready to just go ahead and tell you to ship them through him right now. And I don’t suppose you’d like to get your own people picked up by Five if it turned out I was wrong.”

“Not going to happen.” Harahap chuckled. “However you want it shipped, we’ll ship it. But we’ll be using third-party carriers, and none of our people are getting any closer to Swallow than right here in Wonder. Trust me, it’ll be better—and safer—for all of us.” He shook his head. “You people do not need to have contact with a bunch of outworlders anywhere Matsuhito’s people might notice it.”

“True enough. But I hate to lose any time on the first delivery.”

“No need to.” Harahap shrugged. “It'll arrive here in Wonder in about two months, like I said. What needs to happen in the meantime is that you go back to Swallow and figure out exactly where you want the weapons delivered, how you need them packaged, and how you need them manifested. I’ve already set up a secure mail account here in Anatevka. If you can get back here within, say, five T-weeks—even six—and drop the information into that account, my…associates who get them this far can see to any repacking and relabeling you might need.” He smiled cynically. “In that respect, a place like Wonder’s just about perfect. Smuggling’s one of the locals’ major industries, and for some odd reason, they don’t seem to have a whole lot of concern about Tallulah’s tender sensibilities.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Tammas MacClacher frowned as his panel chirped. He laid his book reader in his lap and punched up his air car’s HUD. At the moment, he was parked on the summit of a hill in the shade of a grove of mountain oak—silver oak’s shorter (and less pricey) cousin—just off the main ground route from the capital and three kilometers inside Caisteal Òrach’s eastern perimeter. It was a good spot from which to keep an eye on the ceramacrete ribbon of the ancient, old-fashioned roadway…and the hill gave enough elevation to substantially extend the range of his air car’s somewhat illegally modified radar.

Now his HUD came up, and his mouth tightened, his frown turning into something harsher and colder, and he stabbed the com button.

“MacHutchin,” a voice replied almost instantly.

“Elphin, it’s Tammas,” MacClacher said tersely. “I’ve got a dozen incoming, sixty-five kilometers out. No transponders, and they just came over Greentree Knob at less than a hundred meters.”

“Cac!” A moment of silence, and then. “How fast?”

“About three hundred. They’ll be there in maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Got it.”

The connection died, and MacClacher lifted his own air car off the ground and sent it scudding westward at well over five hundred kilometers per hour.

* * *

“Get your guns!”

Luíseach MacRory MacGill jerked up out of her chair as Elphin MacHutchin burst out onto the veranda.

“What are you talking about, Elphin?!” her father demanded, looking up from his after-lunch whiskey, but MacHutchin had his priorities straight.

“Keddy, fetch Peter and Georgina,” he snapped, rather than answering that question. “I’ve called the air cars ’round. Tell them there’s no time to pack!”

“Aye, Elphin!” Keddy MacRory jerked his head in sharp acknowledgment and went charging off the veranda towards the stables.

“Damn it, Elphin!” Mánas MacRory half-barked in exasperation. “What the hell are you on about?!”

“The friggin’ Uppies’re inbound!” MacHutchin half-snarled, turning back to him. “A dozen of MacQuarie’s tac lorries! They’ll be here in fifteen minutes!”

“Shit!” Luíseach’s cousin Raghnall came out of his chair, gray eyes flashing.

“Are you sure about that, Elphin?” her father asked sharply.

“Young Tammas picked them up crossing Greentree Knob at treetop level.” MacHutchin’s voice was as bleak as his expression. “No transponders, twelve of ’em, and they’re coming in at three hundred KPH flying nape-of-the-earth. What does that sound like to you, Mánas?”

Elphin MacHutchin had been Mánas MacRory’s bodyguard for over twenty T-years, and his concern—his fear—turned that bleak voice hard as steel.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean they plan on coming in guns blazing,” Elspeth MacRory told her husband, laying her hand on his arm, her face tense, but Mánas shook his head as he laid his own hand over hers.

“Maybe not guns blazing, gràidheag,” he said. “But nobody else would be sneaking in on us that way. And they wouldn’t have that many vehicles unless they damned well meant business.”

“We have to get you out of here, Dadaidh,” Luíseach said urgently. “Now!”

“No.” Mánas shook his head, his expression grim. “You and the children, yes, but I’ll not run—not from our own land! It’s a little enough the bastards’ve left us, and they’ll not take this to go with it!”

Luíseach bit her lip. Caisteal Òrach, Golden Castle, was the last of the dozen or so royal estates which had once belonged to the MacRory Dynasty. Tavis MacRory had become King Tavis I largely because his family had been the single largest landowner on Halkirk, and he’d provided almost every hectare of the Crown’s land by deeding it to the Crown at the time of his coronation. The deed, however, had clearly stipulated that it reverted to his family in the event that the monarchy was abolished. Tavis MacRory had been a hardheaded, pragmatic man who’d frankly doubted the monarchy wouldn’t be abolished, eventually, and if his family was going to provide the Crown’s lands, he intended to make sure it got them back if that happened.

Needless to say, the Loomis Prosperity Party had seen no reason it should be bound by a solemn contract. The MacMinns had simply taken over the vast majority of those lands as “government property”…and handed two thirds of it out to various cronies. The only real exception had been Caisteal Òrach, the smallest and least valuable of all the royal estates.

“If they get kicked out on their asses, we can always get it back,” Raghnall pointed out. “And Luíseach’s right. We’ve got to get you out of here, whatever happens, Uncail. If they get their hands on you two and the children, there’s no one left.”

“No one left to do what?” Mánas demanded. “D’you actually think there’s a chance in hell of anyone ‘kicking their asses out’?” Anger—not at his nephew—made his voice harsh, almost savage, and Raghnall shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said simply. “But this I do know—if anyone ever can kick them out, they’ll need a symbol to rally ’round. And, God help us all, right now, that’s our family. It’s you, and don’t forget what happened to Dad and Granddad.” His expression was carved out of granite. “If they want you gone, arresting you may be the last thing on their minds.”

“He’s right, Mánas,” Elspeth said tightly.

“And where do we go?” Mánas’ expression was bitter. “What hole will I crawl into?”

“Amulree,” Raghnall replied. “They won’t expect you there, given the way you and Huisdean tore into each other the last time you met.”

“No, and I doubt Huisdean’ll be all that damned happy to see us, either!”

Huisdean MacRory, who headed one of the cadet branches of the MacRory line, was a distant cousin, but he and Mánas had loathed one another since childhood.

“Which is exactly what I hope MacQuarie and MacCrimmon will think, too.” Raghnall chuckled grimly. “I’m not saying Huisdean’s one of your greater admirers, Uncail Mánas, but he’s blood, when all’s said, and a lot less fond of MacCrimmon than he’s ever let on.”

“You’ve talked to him about this?” Mánas demanded.

“Of course I have! And I didn’t mention it to you because I knew what you’d say. But he’ll put a roof over your head, and his lads will fight to keep it there. If you get yourself out of here before the Uppies land in the front yard!”

Mánas glared at his nephew like an irate bull, but then the fire in his eye faded and his shoulders slumped.

“You’re right, balach,” he said. “You’re right. It just goes hard.”

“I know, Uncail. But there’s no choice. Now get Antaidh Elspeth—and yourself—out of here.”

“And what about you?” Mánas demanded as he extended his hand to Elspeth, pulling her to her feet. “If they want me, they’ll want you.”

“Not so much as they’re wanting you…and Luíseach,” Raghnall said grimly. “I’ll not be heir unless something’s happened to you, her, Peter and Georgina.”

“He’s right, Dadaidh,” Luíseach said, and her voice was hard. She wasn’t only Mánas’ daughter; she was also second in command of the MacRory Militia. “Oh, they’ll want him, too, but not so much as they want us and the kids.”

“And you’re right, Uncail,” Raghnall said. “This is MacRory land, and there’ll damned well be a MacRory on it when those bastards land!”

“We’ve no time to debate all this,” MacHutchin pointed out sharply. He raised his uni-link to his ear, listening for a moment, then snorted.

“Keddy’s got Peter and Georgina,” he said. “He’s loaded them into the stable air van instead of waiting for the air car. In fact—”

Everyone on the veranda looked up as the air van snarled into the air and headed west, directly away from the incoming UPS strike force.

“You can catch up later,” Raghnall told Luíseach. “In the meantime, get your father and mother out of here. And keep your head down at Amulree.”

Luíseach looked rebellious, but only for a moment. Then she nodded unhappily.

Two air cars sizzled in for landings, and Mánas, Elspeth, and Luíseach had just started for the veranda’s steps when the door to the house flew open again.

“There’s another lot coming in from the west!” Steaphan MacHutchin, Elphin’s son barked. There was a military-grade pulse rifle over his shoulder, and he threw its duplicate to his father as he came. “Another dozen of the bastards!”

“Damn it to hell!” Raghnall snarled. “Go, Uncail! Get out of here now!”

“Steaphan, you’re with Luíseach in the second car!” Elphin snapped, checking the pulse rifle’s magazine.

“Aye!” his son acknowledged, and took Luíseach’s elbow, half-pulling her down the steps while Elphin followed Mánas and Elspeth towards the nearer air car. Fifteen or twenty more militiamen came boiling out of Caisteal Òrach’s outbuildings, all of them armed, and three-man crews atop the main house were stripping the camouflage panels from the pair of roof-mounted anti-air tribarrels Raghnall had acquired from Erin MacFadzean.

Raghnall claimed a pulse rifle of his own while he watched the air cars lift off and streak away—to the north, this time, not due west—and wondered if his uncle understood the real reason he’d stayed. Oh, he'd meant it, when he said there’d be a MacRory on MacRory land when the Uppies landed. McMinn and MacCrimmon had spilled too much MacRory blood for it to be any other way. But if MacQuarie’s strike commander realized Mánas, Elspeth, and Luíseach had already left, their chance of eluding capture would go from slim to nonexistent. The longer he and his militiamen stalled the Uppies, made them think their quarry was in the house behind him, the better the escapees’ odds became.

It’s not like I ever thought we could stop the bastards. I just never told Uncle Mánas that. Best case, MacCrimmon and MacQuarie would’ve backed down rather than risk an open fight when people are already so pissed over Zagorski’s policies. But if they insisted on taking him in, there was never any real chance we could stop them. But if I’d told him that, he’d’ve pitched three kinds of fits about “running out” and leaving me to stall.

Unlike Mánas, Luíseach had always known exactly what Raghnall had in mind. She hadn’t liked it one bit, but she had children to think of. Raghnall didn’t. That gave him a greater degree of freedom, and he switched his uni-link into Caisteal Òrach’s general net.

“All right, gaisgeaich,” he said. “Get to your places, but nobody fires a shot unless I say so. We’re buying time, not starting a bloody war!”

One or two of the militiamen—and women—looked rebellious, but heads nodded, and he wasn’t concerned with his lads and lasses’ discipline. In fact, he was a lot more worried by the Uppies’ lack of discipline. Hopefully, they’d see the rooftop tribarrels and decide talking beat shooting. And when they did—

“Oh my God!” someone shouted, and Raghnall wheeled around as the stable air van came hurtling back out of the west…pursued not by a UPS tactical van but by a military-grade sting ship in the livery of Star Enterprise Initiatives Unlimited’s in-house security arm. The van slewed sharply in midair—Keddy was clearly trying to put it back on the ground—but Raghnall’s eyes were still widening in horror when the sting ship’s bow mounted pulse cannon fired.

The burst of ultradense thirty-millimeter ceramic darts shredded the air van like an old-fashioned chainsaw. The vehicle tipped crazily and then simply disintegrated in a massive ball of exploding fuel.

“Bastards!” Raghnall heard someone else screaming with his vocal cords, and the pulse rifle snapped to his shoulder. Military-grade or not, it would have been useless against the heavily armored sting ship.

The rooftop tribarrels weren’t…and the gun crews were no longer waiting for anyone’s permission.

The sting ship pulled up sharply, banking away from the murdered air van, and ran straight into a torrent of fire from both tribarrels. One sleek wing disintegrated, and the sting ship cartwheeled out of the air. It plowed into the surrounding forest at better than six hundred kilometers per hour and exploded.

“Under fire!” Raghnall heard Elphin MacHutchin’s voice over the uni-link com channel an instant later. “We’re under fire! We’re—”

The voice stopped abruptly, and Raghnall MacRory’s face was stone as understanding roared through him.

They never meant to “arrest” anybody. His thoughts were colder than ice and more implacable than any glacier. It was Dad and Granddad all over again. But they’re not going to be able to sell it as an “accident” this time.

And they damned well aren’t going to have it all their way, either.

He looked at the tattered, flaming wreckage where fourteen-year-old Peter and nine-year-old Georgina MacRory had just died and inhaled sharply.

“Find your positions,” he said coldly, and wheeled to face the armed men and women who stood staring at the same wreckage. “If they want us bad enough, they’ll have us…but not until we’ve killed a shit pot of them first!”

* * *

“—don’t care what MacCrimmon or MacQuarie say!” Burgess Stirling snarled. “That was goddamned well a fucking assassination, and every one of us knows it!”

Wordless, savage agreement rolled around the table under the light of the hissing pressure lantern, and Megan MacLean’s heart sank as she heard it. Not because she disagreed with a single thing Stirling had said, and not because the same fury didn’t throb in time with her own pulse beat. But because—

“We’re still not ready!” Nessa MacRuer looked at the others pleadingly. “I know how all of you feel—I feel the same way! But we aren’t ready yet!”

“That doesn’t matter,” Tammas MacPhee grated. “I agree with you, Nessa, but it doesn’t matter. They’ve started something none of us can stop, any more than MacCrimmon could stop it—not at this point. And let’s face it—if we’re not able or willing to move now, after something like this, we never will!”

“Damned right,” Stirling growled.

His organization, the Red Fern Association, had consistently pushed for a more confrontational stance. They’d wanted street demonstrations, provocations, even riots. They hadn’t worried about burned out shops and businesses, or even broken heads and bodies in the street. In fact, they’d wanted broken heads, wanted the Uppies to overreact and squirt hydrogen straight into the furnace of Halkirk’s growing unrest. Megan MacLean understood that perfectly, and she’d never much cared for Stirling or his methods.