Rybak leaned forwards. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Hold on.’ Vankova brought up a replica of the feed on another screen, then wound it back. Jenna watched the heads of Rourke, Drift and the rest shuffle backwards through the market, bodies moving in an odd waddle. ‘Yup,’ the younger surveillance officer nodded, ‘look, these two are just standing around until Agent Rourke’s team go past, and on opposite sides of the junction. That would have to be a hell of a coincidence.’
Rybak grunted and leaned back, then spoke softly into her comm. Jenna fought down the urge to wipe her palms on the legs of her jumpsuit, and tried to get her breathing under control. She was supposed to be part of a GIA team – perhaps not a fully fledged agent, but at least a trusted external contractor. Then again, surely it wouldn’t be that surprising if the slicer was at least a little nervous at the thought of danger?
‘Right boys, let’s take a look at you,’ Vankova muttered. Her braid was flicked forwards over her right shoulder and she started to chew on the end in what was presumably an absent-minded manner as her fingers danced across the terminal’s controls. Jenna watched as the perspective of the monitor changed to a feed from street level, one of the many cameras situated on buildings dotted throughout Glass City. Hroza Major might have a prosperous, largely peaceful population and a low crime rate, but that didn’t mean the Hrozan government wasn’t of the opinion that prevention was better than cure.
A flash of violet hair caught her eye: Drift, apparently in easy conversation with a girl wearing overalls who was leading them through the market. The Captain’s olive-skinned face looked relaxed, but then he’d always been good at dissembling. Rourke, a pace behind, was wearing a grim expression, but that wasn’t out of character either. Then came Kuai and Jia, the former nervously fiddling with his dragon pendant and the latter skulking along with her ‘pilot hat’ pulled down firmly over her ears. Behind them was the massive shape of Apirana, his hood largely hiding his face from the cameras but still easy to pick out due to looming well above most of the crowd. Finally, Micah brought up the rear, seemingly in deep conversation with Apirana. Jenna could see that he was looking around a lot, to all intents and purposes at the market’s wares, but she’d have put money on the mercenary’s true motivations being to watch for ambushes. He didn’t seem to have picked up on the men following them, however, and it was these two that Vankova was focused on.
The young surveillance tech did something which highlighted the two tails on the overhead view and tagged a floating star above their heads on the streetlevel feed she was watching, then rewound the footage. One of them came into plain sight a few seconds later: a thickset, jowl-faced man with studs on his forehead.
‘Got you,’ Vankova muttered, and dragged her thumb and forefinger over the man’s face on the display in a pinching motion. The shot flashed up onto yet another tertiary screen which had until now been mostly blank, while images flickered up alongside it as the unit attempted to match his features against security camera feeds from the docks. While it was working she skipped back over a few more seconds of street-level feed until the other man came into view; taller and thinner, with a shaved head, his face was also selected and appeared alongside his companion’s.
‘We’ve got a route deviation,’ Karhan spoke up suddenly. He pointed to where the party had headed straight on at a junction instead of turning left towards where the icon for Lavric’s warehouse sat.
‘A mistake?’ Rybak asked.
‘The girl’s supposed to work for Lavric,’ Jenna pointed out, ‘she shouldn’t get lost showing people to where she works.’
‘Damn,’ Karhan muttered, tightening the focus on some of his cameras, ‘we figured the ambush would be at the warehouse and the girl was just so they knew the timing. It’s going to be somewhere else.’
‘And soon,’ Jenna added, ‘they must know the Captain would notice if he was being led too far off course.’
‘The Captain?’ Rybak was looking at her with a puzzled expression, and she silently cursed herself.
‘Drift,’ she clarified, ‘he acts as the captain as . . . part of Agent Rourke’s cover. We’ve sort of got used to calling him that. What I mean is, Kelsier’s people would think he’s in charge, and he’s known to be smart, so—’
‘There,’ Rybak cut her off, finger jabbing at a plaza filled with stalls and kiosks on the overhead camera shot. ‘They’ll take them in St Methodius’ Square. Open ground, time to shoot a runner before they can make one of the alleyways and get away.’ She swore in a language Jenna didn’t know and looked over at her. ‘I hope you’re right about them wanting to talk first.’
‘So am I,’ Jenna replied, her eyes glued to the screen.
It wasn’t supposed to be in the square, it was supposed to be at the warehouse . . .
‘You thought about what you’re going to do with your share of the money?’ Micah asked as they traipsed through the streets of the Flats Markets, attracting some stares in the process. The Dutch mercenary’s armavest looked a little out of place but at least he wasn’t carrying his immolation cannon. Hroza Major’s status as a frontier planet meant the Europan gun controls were looser, partially in case the Federation of African States decided to try to grab itself some more territory, but that sort of military-grade hardwear was still out of the question in such a supposedly respectable place as Glass City.
‘The money?’ Apirana replied, a little absently. Over his life, he’d largely got used to attracting attention, but he couldn’t help but feel vulnerable and exposed despite the sizeable automatic pistol tucked into the small of his back under his top, the hood of which he was once more wearing up. Drift and Rourke had enough faith in the plan to be walking into what they strongly suspected was a trap, but Apirana was more than a mite uneasy about the whole thing.
‘Yeah, the money we’re going to get from Kelsier once we take him down.’ Micah’s eyes were enthusiastic, but at least he had the sense to keep his voice low as they pushed through the throng of Hrozans. Not that it would have probably mattered if he’d been bellowing in Apirana’s ear; the surrounding traders and stallholders were doing a good enough job of hollering their wares that the sound of a small military engagement might have passed unnoticed.
Hopefully we don’t have to test that theory, but I wouldn’t place a bet . . .
‘Honestly hadn’t thought much about this past staying alive,’ he admitted, turning side-on to squeeze through a gap between a stall of what looked to be red melons on one side and a table of unfamiliar tubers on the other. ‘Why, you got your mind set on something?’
‘I figure a man like that, he has to have a fair bit of cash tucked away,’ Micah replied, ‘and on an even seven-way split, that might be enough to retire on.’
Apirana blinked. ‘Retire?’
‘Yes,’ the mercenary nodded, ‘you think I want to be knocking around the galaxy for the rest of my life dodging bullets or waiting for Jia to fly us into something really solid?’ He casually fended off a woman with a tray of what might have been aubergines. ‘Think about it, A.: how long has the Captain been chasing a big score?’
‘For longer’n I’ve been on the crew,’ Apirana admitted.
‘And has he ever managed it?’ Micah asked. ‘I mean, I’ve only been with you a couple of years, maybe you all got rich and then blew it.’ The tone of his voice conveyed his opinion of how likely he felt that was.
‘No,’ Apirana sighed,‘something always seems t’get in the way . . .’
‘Exactly.’ Micah raised his eyebrows in what Apirana assumed was meant to be a meaningful way. The Maori felt his own creasing into a frown.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘There’s too many
complications
in this crew,’ Micah said quietly, ‘especially the Captain.’ He cast a furtive glance ahead of them, where Drift’s longlimbed, violet-haired shape could be seen walking alongside the girl sent to guide them. ‘You’ve done your time for your crimes, am I right?’
‘Yeah,’ Apirana nodded, suppressing a slight grimace.
‘
He never has
,’ Micah pointed out. ‘He’s dodged or tricked or talked his way out of everything. And fair play, when we’re in trouble he can be handy to have around because of that, but how many problems has his history caused us? I’m not just talking about this, now, I’m talking about all the jobs we haven’t taken and all the places we’ve had to avoid without even
knowing
about it.’
Apirana grunted. This wasn’t something he wanted to think about too hard; he still felt the cold bite of shame for how he’d behaved in the
Jonah
’s canteen. Once he’d calmed he’d started to realise that he’d always known the Captain must have had a shady history, and if he’d always been content to let it lie and had never been willing to ask the questions then what right did he have to get angry when the answers were unexpectedly revealed? But he’d felt foolish and his anger had risen automatically. His instinctive reaction to feeling stupid or incompetent was to place the blame elsewhere and get angry about it, no matter how much he came to regret it in the long run.
And he had nearly come to regret it immensely. He had a brief flashback of seeing Jenna’s face turned up to him, eyes closed and features screwed up, her skin even whiter than usual as she waited for his fist to land. She possibly didn’t even know how close he’d come to lashing out at her, how he’d teetered on the razor’s edge for a long second, trying to fight down the impulse to obliterate this new provocation.
He became aware that Micah appeared to be expecting a response, and grunted noncommittally. ‘So what’re you saying?’
‘I’m saying that if we stay on this crew then you and I are going to be getting shot at and busting our knuckles on people’s faces for the Captain’s schemes until we’re too old to do it anymore,’ Micah said quietly.‘I’m sure as hell not managing to save anything up. If we get a decent score off Kelsier’s corpse, I’m thinking of cutting loose. You know,
invest
. Maybe buy a bar somewhere; borders change and politics shift, but people will always want liquor.’ He grinned suddenly, a quick flash of white teeth in the darkness of his face. ‘Present company excepted, of course.’
‘An’ you’re telling me this because . . .?’ Apirana asked, trying to keep an eye on what was going on around them. There were just so many
people
in this market . . .
‘Wondered if you might be interested in throwing in,’ Micah shrugged nonchalantly. ‘You’re a sound guy, not just a dumb
worger
, I reckon you’ve got a head for business. Besides, double the starting money means more choice of venue.’
‘You’re not considering the possibility that we might die first, then?’ Apirana snorted as they emerged from the alley into a wider square awash with the weak, white light of Perun. The mercenary just shrugged.
‘There’s no point planning for a future in which you’re dead. I just—’
‘Then shut up a second,’ Apirana cut him off, partially raising one hand while trying to reach casually under the back of his top with the other. Micah frowned, his own hand straying to the holstered gun at his belt.
‘Problem?’
‘Yeah, this place,’ Apirana replied, looking around. ‘Me an’ the Captain didn’t come through here on the way t’Lavric’s last time. We’re being taken by a different route.’
‘
Verrek
,’ Micah muttered. Apirana saw the mercenary’s eyes flicker upwards, scanning the windows around them. ‘We’re sitting ducks here, I don’t care what the plan is.’ He raised his voice so the others could hear him over the bustle of the market. ‘We need to get into—’
There was a hiss, and he cut off with a choking sound. Apirana watched him in confusion for half a second as Micah’s left hand rose towards his throat, but then a terrible comprehension dawned in the mercenary’s eyes moments before the hissing sound came again and two of the Dutchman’s fingers were sheared off by the passage of a second stargun disc into his neck. Micah dropped to his knees in front of Apirana’s horrified gaze, his right hand still fumbling with his holster.
‘
Ambush!
’ Apirana roared, hauling his gun out and desperately searching for the threat. He saw it a moment later, through the crowd which had suddenly realised that guns were being drawn and fired in their midst and were starting to scream and run: a man with his stargun still raised and his face obscure by a virulently coloured mask . . . but it wasn’t a mask, Apirana realised with a shock. It was an electat.
The Laughing Man.
How long had the Laughing Man been a figure of legend in the galaxy’s underworld? Twelve years? Fifteen? Apirana had first started hearing tales of him in prison on Farport, when new inmates came in bearing dark rumours of callous executions and impossible assassinations. By the time he’d got out again, the man known as Marcus Hall was the unquestioned king of contract killers, a dark myth with an undeniably real core. Only one thing was really understood about him: if he’d taken a contract on you, you might as well arrange a comfortable way to die and save yourself some trauma.
Apirana had seen bad things in his life. Hell, he’d done more than a few. Even so, it was one thing to know that a man such as Hall existed, and quite another to see him walking towards you. His body reacted a fraction slower than it would have normally, sheer panic freezing his muscles for a split second. Long enough, as it turned out, for his hood to be snatched down from behind and something cold and round to be placed at the base of his neck.
‘Drop it, big man,’ someone snarled. Apirana risked a glance sideways and saw other members of the rapidly thinning crowd around him had also broken cover and were now holding guns on his crewmates. His anger flared for a moment, a brief crimson flash of desire to turn and wreak bloody vengeance on the man behind him, but he fought it down. He opened his hand to let the gun fall and stared straight ahead, hands raised to the sides of his head, guiltily grateful that the screams and shouts around him were largely obscuring the bubbling wheezes which were Micah van Schaken’s last actions in life.
The Laughing Man’s eyes flickered across the group, presumably checking that they were all covered by the motley selection of gun hands he had with him. Several of these were cybernetically enhanced, Apirana noticed; it meant they’d blended in well with the market’s workers, some of whom would be hauling large crates or pallets of goods around, but it also seemed that Kelsier had a definite preference for metal in his employees. The girl Natalija was nowhere to be seen. Apirana wondered if she’d been a plant all along, or simply an innocent decoy told to take them by a certain route.