Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series (27 page)

Who, then, was responsible?

• • •

Jasith walked back and forth on the finger dock outside the Shelburne. She kept looking at her watch finger. Garvin, if he was going to show up, was half an hour late.

A brisk wind that tasted of ash from Camp Mahan was coming off the bay, so in spite of the sun there was nobody on the docks except a fisherman sitting with his back to a bollard, using a glue gun to repair a net; and a small dark ‘Raum boy, scrubbing lazily at the gangway leading down to the docks.

She didn’t see the bulge of a pistol hidden in the dock boy’s shorts, who was actually about fourteen, and had been a courier for the ‘Raum during the rising; or the gleam of the blaster hidden under the fisherman’s nets.

She started to get angry, remembered that whatever Garvin was doing, it was probably something that could get him killed. And things didn’t always happen the way they should in that business, she had learned from the ‘Rising. She decided to give it another half hour.

A sleek water runabout, all gleaming wood and chrome, which looked like it was two or three centuries old, cut sleekly in from the bay, leaving a great rooster tail as it drove toward shore.

Jasith thought the boat was about to ram the dock when the whine of its engine died, and the boat’s course straightened. Water churned at its stern as the engine reversed, and the runabout drifted to a stop exactly next to the dock.

Garvin Jaansma, immaculate in white shorts, shirt, and a cream-colored sweater, jumped out of the boat’s cockpit and deftly moored it to a piling.

Jasith’s eyes were wide.

“My-oh-muffins,” she managed. “Where did you get that boat … and that outfit?”

“Some of your fellow Rentiers donated them for the afternoon,” he said. “Rather dapper, aren’t I?”

“You are. Where did you learn to handle a boat like that?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you about the time I ran a water show for my circus?”

Jasith looked at him closely, couldn’t tell if he was lying or not.

Garvin looked at an old-fashioned wristwatch.

“It’s a bit late for lunch,” he said, behaving as if he were Erik Penwyth’s unknown brother, “but perhaps a glass of wine or some tea would go well. Care to?”

He extended an elbow. Jasith took it.

“What happens if we run into some Musth? They come here sometimes,” she asked.

“That’d be unfortunate,” Garvin said. “For the Musth.”

He didn’t explain that the runabout was loaded with close to a ton of Blok explosives, and he had the detonator in his pocket; nor that the fisherman and dockboy were only two of the platoon of gunmen in and around the Shelburne.

Jasith studied Garvin. He’d changed since she’d last seen him. His face was harder, his eyes seemed to look a little beyond or through what he was seeing, and were never still. He was leaner, and moved more quickly, as if anything his foot touched might explode.

“I didn’t know if you were going to go inside the hotel when you showed up,” she said. “But I had two of my security men check two tables in the restaurant, and make sure they didn’t have any listening devices.”

Garvin half grinned. That was the reason he was a little late — his own men had seen the security team at work, and had snatched them as they left the hotel, found out who they were, and then made sure
they
hadn’t planted any bugs.

“And you don’t have to worry about my husband showing up and asking embarrassing questions.”

“I know,” Garvin said. “He’ll be busy with War Leader Wlencing the rest of the day.”

“You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you? I mean, picking a
Matin
tower to do that from?”

“Honestly, I didn’t.” Honestly, Garvin hadn’t, but he thought Hedley’s idea a capital one.

“I wish you had,” Jasith said. “I thought it was funnier than all hell.”

Garvin grinned, a real grin, and the two laughed. It was a nice sound, he thought, remembering when it’d come at better times.

Jasith’s laugh stopped suddenly.

“Loy and I … aren’t getting along that well these days.” Without realizing it, she touched her face, where Kouro had struck her. “Next time, if there’s a next time of one kind or another,
do
have something to do with it.”

The maître d’ escorted them to a table near a window, and didn’t show by the slightest lifting of an eyebrow that he knew the man with Jasith Mellusin most certainly wasn’t her husband. The Shelburne wasn’t the best hotel and restaurant on D-Cumbre because the staff gossiped.

Jasith ordered the same white cordial she had the last time; Garvin asked for an herbal tea.

“Are you living the clean-cut life now?” Jasith asked.

“I’m working,” Garvin said.

“Which, of course, means I should get to the point of why I wanted to talk to you,” Jasith said. “Did you manage to get away with the money I arranged?”

“We did,” Garvin said. “And thanks. It’s being put to very good use right now.”

“Don’t tell me how.”

“I hadn’t planned to.”

She reached in her belt pouch, took out a small, blue-plastic chip, gave it to him.

“Mellusin Mining is very, very big. Not as big as it was before everybody started shooting, but still big.”

“I’d kind of understood that already,” Garvin said. “Seemed fairly obvious to me.”

“One thing my father had, which he never told me about, was a handful of people who’d do just about anything for him. Hon Felps, he was Daddy’s first assistant, had to tell me about them.”

“A lot of very rich types seem to need their own private muscle,” Garvin said. “You’re not shocking me.”

“I’ve still got the people. Maybe, the way things are going with the Musth, I’ll need them, sooner or later. But that’s not why I brought them up.

“Look at the chip.”

Garvin did.

“Looks like an old-fashioned hotel key fob,” he said. “With a number on it.”

“The number’s the thing. GT973. Remember that.”

“ ‘Kay.”

“Every one of my key executives has been told if anybody contacts him and uses that number, give him or her anything they want,” Jasith said. “I mean anything.”

“That’d sure make embezzlement an interesting proposition.”

“I guess it did a couple of times, Hon said. Or maybe some other ways some people wanted to take advantage. He said it didn’t happen more than twice, and I didn’t ask him for the details.”

Now it was Garvin’s turn to consider Jasith. She, too, seemed to have grown up, her expression older than it should be at twenty. There were little wrinkles at the corner of her mouth. Garvin wished he could make them into smile lines, ignored the romantic thought.

“You’ve got the number,” Jasith said. “If you need it for anything … go ahead and do it. Just tell me if you need me to cover what happened.”

“Thanks,” Garvin said, and the key disappeared as their drinks came.

“What about money?” she asked. “Do you need more?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Again, ask if you do.”

“Again, thanks.” Garvin wondered if he should say anything, wondered why he shouldn’t. “You’ve changed some.”

“
Things
seem to have changed, haven’t they?”

“Yeh,” Garvin said, sipping tea. “They surely have. Something else that just came to me. Sometimes we run a little short of transport. Mellusin Mining has a lot of spaceships, transporters.”

“Just ask.” Jasith put her drink down, leaned across the table to him, said, fiercely, “Garvin, it’s going to get worse, a lot worse, before things get better, isn’t it?”

“Yeh.”

“What about the Confederation? Are they ever going to show up?”

“Damned if I know,” Garvin said. “I wouldn’t expect them, or anybody else in high-anodized armor anytime soon.”

“What about Redruth?”

“I don’t think he’d want to tangle with the whole Musth empire, or even the chunk we’ve got hanging around here, so don’t worry about him for a while. I’d guess he assumes there’s a gabillion of them in-system, although I wish to hell I knew why they
haven’t
swarmed all over us,” Garvin said. “I know we would, if we’d grabbed a system from the Musth that had things we wanted.

“I guess we all screw up, thinking that just because somebody’s weird-looking, way down deep they think the same, or sort of the same as we do.”

Jasith managed a smile.

“That’s the advantage of being a woman. We know better. We learned the hard way.”

Garvin laughed.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Jasith looked around.

“I really wish we weren’t here,” she said.

“Where would you like to be?”

Again, a smile came.

“I remember a lim, floating around Camp Mahan. Or a flower bed at my house.”

Garvin, when he’d arranged the meet, had one of his men rent a room upstairs for emergency purposes. The balcony fronted on a roof ideal for a sudden exit, and the room could have been … could be … used for other purposes. He almost said something, stopped himself.

“That’d be nice,” he said gently. “I’d like that a lot, too.”

He took money from his pocket, put it on the table.

“Maybe … another time.”

He bent over, chastely kissed her lips, hurried out.

Jasith lifted her drink, then didn’t want it. She stood, watching Garvin move quickly down the dock into the runabout, bring the lines inboard as the engine throbbed into life. Foam frothed at the stern, and the boat moved away from the dock, then, at full power, sped off, lifting to the step.

She watched until it disappeared to the east, along the coast, into the haze. Jasith realized the haze was her making, found a handkerchief in her purse, dabbed at her face, checked her makeup, then left the room.

A waiter checking table settings and a maid folding napkins at a table near the exit waited until she was gone. The maid took a tiny com from her pocket, keyed it.

“Both clear,” she said. “No tail, no probs, no action. Team withdrawing.”

• • •

“Interestin’,” Njangu said. “So we’ve got Mellusin Mining in our pockets. All we have to do now is figure out what we can use ‘em for.”

He eyed his friend skeptically.

“You done good, little brown brother. I’d make lewd suppositions about how you did it if I hadn’t read the cover team’s report.” He caught Garvin’s expression.

“Something delicate there. Sorry. Forget I spoke.”

“Didn’t mean to be touchy,” Garvin said. “I’m just not sure what happened … what didn’t happen … meant.”

“Like I said,” Njangu said. “Forget about it. You want to clear your head even more, I’ve got a nice, nasty little bit of nastiness about to ripen. Nothing but in, bang, bang, bang, and we go home.

“This clever operation emanates from careful study of my stumbling around a few weeks or so ago trying to pot ol’ Wlencing that didn’t play out like it should’ve. But I always knew something good’d come out of that.”

“You mean Lir figured something out?”

“Sharrop,” Njangu said. “If you want to come, you’re a straphanger, and I’m in charge. Better … big strong lad like yourself can be commo, and lug the set.”

“I’m your boy. Gimme ten to put a harness together.”

• • •

Actually, the idea really was Njangu’s. A husband-and-wife team, going to work for the Musth at the Highlands base took some uninflated metalloid-coated balloons with them, together with a can of gas. They had an elaborate story all ready, involving a birthday and absent friends, and were somewhat disappointed when their gear was barely glanced at, and the balloons ignored. They also had, hidden in the handle of a suitcase, a tiny transceiver, set on a single frequency.

Njangu’s team, inserted about two hours’ hike from the base by Grierson, consisted of half a dozen gun guards from I&R, together with ten men and women from an infantry company’s combat support platoon. Each carried a light mortar and an apron pack of rounds.

They reached the cave Njangu had found on his previous trip, holed up. At dusk the next day, they ate and washed from a nearby pool.

Njangu checked the wind direction. As always at that hour, it was blowing from the southwest, at about four knots. Perfect. And, as always, the fog hung close about them. He had trouble seeing ten meters in any direction.

The team moved by compass to the location Njangu had picked, just behind a low hillock. Two hundred meters on the other side of the rise the base perimeter began, with its guards and alarms.

The mortars were carefully positioned by SatPos, sandbagged, their aiming stakes set. They would fire on predetermined azimuths and ranges.

Three rounds per tube were fused, the correct increments set, and the guns were ready.

Garvin touched a sensor on his transmitter, and the transceiver inside the camp beeped once. The woman holding it glanced around the barracks again to make sure everyone except her partner was sleeping, twisted the handle, and waited until a responding beep came. Then the pair filled the balloons, opened their barracks window, and freed them.

Sixteen silvery blobs floated away, across the base toward the runways …

Njangu waited ten minutes, then tapped two I&R women. They doubled across to the mortar teams, clicked fingers, came back.

Ten gunners held rounds over the tubes, pulled safety pins, and dropped the rounds. Nearly simultaneously, the guns CHUNGed, and small bombs lofted into the Musth base. Another volley, and a third.

The first alarm was shrilling as the team broke their tubes down, shouldered them, and trotted away, keeping the hillock between them and the Musth base.

Njangu, on point, touched sensors as they retreated, and tiny lights they’d clipped to bushes along the path lit for a few seconds, then burned out, leaving nothing but a trace of ash to mark their presence, fireflies guiding the attackers back toward their aircraft.

Meanwhile, mortar rounds slammed in across the base, and the Musth went to full alert. A rocket battery managed to get a location on the mortar launches and ripple-fired a return volley, then corrected and sent hell flaming around where the mortars had been.

Aksai, wynt, velv
all followed alert plans, and their pilots and scurrying ground teams got drives started, and the ships lifted, getting away from danger.