The Cold Between (18 page)

“It is Luvidovich who beat him,” Elena pointed out.

But Ilya was shaking his head. “Neither of you knows the history. Stoya was brought here two years ago for a reason.
The government wants the perception that law and order are followed at all times, that there is no tolerance for crime. It is rumored that Stoya was a Syndicate enforcer, and that the Syndicate tribes recommended him to the body of ministers. Why else would they bring him in from off-world?”

She had been right about Stoya, then. “Is he off Osaka Prime?” she asked.

Ilya nodded. “He was a sheriff in the southern capital, at Fuji Seaport.”

Hell.
Even Elena, who avoided shore leave whenever possible, had heard of Fuji Seaport. It had the least crime of any city on Osaka Prime, but its population had been steadily dwindling over the years. Many people said that was due to the restrictive laws on public conduct. Others said it was because sometimes people just disappeared. The ranks of the Corps spoke openly about government-sponsored kidnappings and killings, and whenever they dealt with Osaka traders, they were careful to establish the cargo's port of origin up front.

She wondered if Greg knew where Stoya was from.

Trey had noticed her expression, and was frowning at her. She tried to think of how to phrase it. “It means,” she told him, “that Stoya will cheerfully kill to close a case, and never look back.” She felt a bubble of panic rise up in her stomach. “We need to get out of here,” she told him. “If they know Ilya is your friend—”

“They spoke to me this morning,” Ilya told her. “I had nothing to say to them, and they did not push. Like most people, they think I am useless as well as old.”

“But they didn't know then that you'd spoken to Danny.”

“You are assuming,” Trey put in, “that they will talk to Ynes,
and follow the same path. They had not spoken to her yet, so we have no indication that they're—”

Her comm chimed, and she glanced down. “It's Greg,” she told him. “Twenty minutes early.” Her mind was racing; she did not want to talk to him yet. She looked up at Trey. “There's only one reason he'd call me early, Trey. We need to go.”

But what she saw on his face was not fear for himself. “They will go after my sister,” he said. “We cannot risk comming her—they will trace it. Elena—”

“Let's go.” She turned to thank Ilya, but he waved her away.

“I am not so easily captured,” Ilya said. “Protect your family, Treiko.”

Trey tugged her toward the stairs. She wanted to say something reassuring, to apologize to him again—but she knew how he felt. In every battle, whenever they were hit, the first thing they all did when the shooting stopped was check names.

Trey took the stairs quickly, and she hurried to stay by his side. “It is close,” he told her. “Even if we do not catch a tram, we can make it to the restaurant in five minutes, perhaps less.” Trey shoved open the building's front door.

Instantly they were blinded by a bank of massive white lights. Elena blinked, but it was fruitless. She could make out nothing.

“Step away from her, Treiko Zajec,” said a familiar voice.

She tightened her grip on him. “Don't you dare,” she breathed at him. He was not moving.

A silhouette appeared against the lights, stocky and thick-necked. “We do not care about the woman,” Stoya said, and she thought he sounded bored. “Step away from her and come with us, and she will be free to go.”

His fingers loosened. She reached over with her other hand and closed her fingers around his.
“Trey.”

“I want your word, Stoya,” he called. “Commander Shaw goes home, and you leave my sister alone.”

“We do not need them,” Stoya said irritably. When Trey said nothing, he waved a hand. “Yes, yes. You have my word.”

She tightened her hand. “You can't.”

“It is not only me,” he said quietly. And without looking at her, he pulled his hand from hers.

He had descended only one stair when he was rushed by two men who yanked him away. The lights dropped, and she blinked to clear her vision. Four officers, including the two holding him, and Stoya.

Not so many.

She pulled her handgun, and aimed it at Stoya's head. “Let him go,” she said loudly.

The two free officers drew on her, but she did not look at them. There were bystanders, she realized, all hanging back, but still too close: fascinated, confident they wouldn't be hurt. God, she hated civilians. “Give the order,” she told Stoya, never taking her eyes off of him, “or I will drop you in the street.”

She had killed before, but only once someone she could see. Most of her kills were from the air, self-defense shots while flying her people out of a combat area. She had never hesitated, had never doubted her orders. She did not know how many people were dead due to her actions. She still had nightmares now and then.

She thought killing Stoya would be easy.

But he was either confident she would back down, or supremely uncaring about his own safety. When he answered her, he sounded as irritated as he had back at the station, when all she had done was demand Trey's release. “And how will your Admiralty react to such an action?”

“You are assuming,” she said, “that I care.”

Stoya shook his head and gestured at the officers. “You are outgunned, Commander Shaw,” he pointed out.

“You're assuming that I care about that, too.”

“They will kill you, I assure you.”

“And
I
assure
you,
” she told him, “that I will blow your fucking head off before I hit the ground.”

She could do it. She was certain. The two cops aiming at her were kids. They had likely never shot at anything outside of a target range. They would hesitate. They might even miss, although at this range that would be unlikely. Still, she'd certainly have time to kill Stoya before she died.

Do it,
she thought at them.
I dare you, you assholes.

But it was Trey who spoke. “
M'laya,
” he said, his voice gentle. And then he added something in that odd dialect he had been speaking with Valeria. It took her a moment to work it out.

Find another way.

She could still smell the ocean on the wind, and the unfamiliar metallic odor of brick warm from the afternoon sun. She could smell the sweat of the men standing before her, frozen, weapons still, waiting. The wind touched her face, and a strand of hair tickled her ear. She had felt that same loose lock of hair on the tram, with Trey's arm around her waist, his body warm and straight. He had still smelled like vanilla, just a little, and she wondered if it ever left him. He must use it often. Her
mother had baked a lot when she was a child, but she had never had that lingering sweet smell about her. Her mother always smelled of fresh air and practicality.

She lowered her gun.

The two officers kept their weapons aimed at her. As Stoya pulled her handgun from her grasp, her eyes sought out Trey's. He stood, unresisting, between the two men, and he looked at her with such open affection her heart turned over. God, what had she been doing?
I'm sorry,
she mouthed at him, and incredibly, he smiled.

And then they were pulling at him, and the two armed officers were still watching her warily, and it dawned on her that they were going to take him away and she would be alone. She took a step forward, and one of the men who had pointed a weapon at her moved toward her.

“Leave her,” Stoya barked, and the man scowled and turned away.

“Remember,” Trey called, as they pulled him toward a waiting vehicle. “It is not only me.”

She watched, numb, her brain slow and stupid, as the door slid shut, and the vehicle soundlessly moved away.

He was gone.

It made no sense.

She heard a faint, distant noise, and tried to ignore it.
It is not only me.
He had said that for a reason. She needed to think clearly, and that damn sound kept distracting her. What did he mean?
What were we doing?
And then she remembered: they had been heading for the restaurant. His sister. Ilya was going to comm Trey's sister. They had been going to make sure she was all right.

And in a rush the whole plan came back into focus.

She turned down the sidewalk and pulled up a local map on her comm, her eyes sweeping the street for an approaching tram. Nothing was coming. The streets were lined with people staring at her, wondering what the hell had just happened. There was no shortage of witnesses, but no way for her to get anywhere except on foot. She swore determinedly and broke into a run, weaving in and out of the crowds, half expecting someone to try to stop her. Instead, they all moved out of her way.
Of course,
she thought.
I am the mad Corps soldier who pulled a gun on a cop
.

Bloody hell, she should not have let him leave.

The chime repeated, and she hit the comm as she was running. Officially she owed Greg an apology; she had promised she wouldn't ignore his signal again. But for now, he was the only person she knew who had the power to help her. “We need to do something,” she said without preamble. “They've arrested him.”

There was a pause, and she thought he would shout at her; but then he swore, and she felt a glimmer of hope. “How long ago?”

“Two minutes, maybe three. I've got to find his sister and—”

“Come home, Chief.”

She stopped running. “What?”

“I said come home. That's an order.”

Ice hit her veins, flooding through her until she was certain she was shivering. “You don't understand,” she said, wishing it was true. “They'll kill him, Greg.”

“They won't.” He sounded decisive. “I'll contact the Admiralty, and they'll—”

“They'll what?” She was aware she was shouting, that people were beginning to look alarmed. Forcing herself to calm down, she turned away from the storefronts and lowered her voice. “Order Niall MacBride to blow him to bits?”

That caught his attention. “What are you talking about?”

“You can't tell me you didn't know.”

“I still don't know. What the hell do you mean?”

“Captain Solomonoff said—”

“You
spoke
to her?” She knew him well enough to know when he was losing his temper. “Do you have any idea what you have stuck your goddamned neck into, Elena?”

“How in the hell would I know when you won't tell me?” The ice was receding, giving way to anger and a hurt deeper than she wanted to examine. “You send me down here with
half
the information I need and leave me to stumble onto everything on my own, and tell me to betray the only person I can trust—”

“You don't even know him!”

“Well I sure as hell don't know you!” she hissed. “Danny was looking into the
Phoenix,
did you know that? Did you know he was at the same damn bar talking to the same woman MacBride had been crying to a month ago?”

“Back up, Chief. MacBride was
there
?”

“Weeping to
strangers
over some awful thing he had to do.” It was an inference, but surely Greg already knew the truth. “You knew he was under orders, didn't you?”

He grew quiet. “I suspected, Elena. But not until after you left.”

“Well when in the hell were you going to tell me?”

“After you came back here,” he snapped, “like I ordered you to.”

She wanted to throw something.

“You knew exactly why I was coming down here, and you didn't give me information I
needed
? You leave me down here unarmed,
Captain,
and you're going to get what you get.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you and the Admiralty can either help, or go fuck yourselves,” she said decisively, “but I'm not abandoning him.”

“I'm giving you an order, Chief. You get back here
now
and—”

“No.”

“You're disobeying a direct order?” He sounded incredulous.

“You're damn right I am,” she told him. “If you and Central are trying to start a war with PSI, I will not have anything to do with it.”

“Chief, nobody is trying to start a war.”

“And you know this, do you?”

“Goddammit, Elena, enough is enough!” He sounded desperate. “Let me be a diplomat, for Christ's sake, and I'll get him out, I swear to you. But you have got to get off that planet before they arrest you, too.”

If they had not arrested her for threatening the life of their police chief, Elena reflected, it was unlikely they would arrest her for anything else. “You wanted me to get him out of prison,” she said, “so I'm getting him out of prison. And you go ahead and fucking write me up on that one, Greg, because whatever the fuck Central is up to with PSI, I want it on the record that I'm on the other side of it!”

“Elena—”

“You go play
diplomat,
” she spat at him. “I'm going to make sure nobody else dies.”

And she cut him off.

She kept her finger on the comm behind her ear. She had worn one in some form or another since she was seven years old. She could not remember ever having disabled it. Gently she slid a fingernail underneath it and peeled it from her skin, then dropped it onto the sidewalk. She lifted a foot and pressed her heel against the unit. There was a single crack, and then the tiny device was ground to dust.

She looked up to see a young woman watching her curiously. She was tall and thin, with warm, dark eyes like Trey's; she was ordinary, unhurried, and unaware that Elena had just detached herself from everyone she knew.
And,
Elena realized belatedly,
my map.
Cursing her impulsive gesture, she tried to look composed. “Excuse me,” she began, “I find myself a bit lost. I am looking for a restaurant owned by Katya Gregorovich. Do you know where it is?”