The Iron Admiral: Deception (4 page)

“Justice was done.”

He was probably right but that didn’t make it right. He’d been the prosecutor, the judge, the jury and the dispenser of retribution.Chohzu the Destroyer in a very personal guise.

Allysha eyed him as the Lysanda lifted and turned toward the city. He wasn’t sorry. He was ruthless, proud of what he’d done. The military mask slipped into place for the first time all day. His face became composed, his expression controlled. She couldn’t see his feelings anymore.

“Look,” he said after a few moments. “If a beating teaches that young thug a lesson it will be worth more to him than going before a court. The judge would have slapped him on the wrist and told him not to be naughty again.”

“And that excuses you beating him to death?”

He shot one unreadable glance at her and looked away. The Lysanda’s engine purred through the night, the only sound in the cabin.

Yes, they would have raped her. She knew that. He’d rescued her, of course he had, but his bodyguard was nearby. He could have waited for them. He could have turned them over to the police. Oh, god.

Yes, she was grateful but this darker side of him scared her. What if he turned on her like that? And to think she was even considering giving up the fight. The vehicle skimmed in over the suburban sprawl, headed for the bright towers at the center of the city. Maybe this was a reminder, a wake-up call.

Saahren hadn’t changed. He might look like Brad Stone, act like Brad Stone, but underneath it all, a scratch below the surface, wasChohzu the Destroyer. Grand Admiral Saahren.

She was surprised when he spoke. The strange expression on his face seemed to be a combination of anger and sadness. “I’m not proud of myself, Allysha. I lost control. I admit it. I don’t do it often.” He slid

his tongue over his lips. “Let me tell you a story. When I was a small child my home planet had slipped out of Confederacy control and was left to its own devices. The local warlords fought for their slice of pie

like dogs over a bone. Where I lived, we were invaded and taken over by a neighboring army. We—the locals that is—were reduced effectively to slavery, farming our own land for the benefit of others. The warlord employed garrisons of mercenaries to make sure we behaved. They were brutal and eventually, my father led an uprising against them.”

He stopped talking, just sat there. She could almost feel his pain.

“What happened?”

“The uprising was suicidal. They didn’t have a hope. The mercenaries captured my father and my brothers. My mother escaped into the mountains with my eldest brother’s infant son. But soldiers caught my sister and me. They raped her, three of them. One after another and then two at a time. She was fourteen.”

His nostrils flared. “They made me watch. Even if I closed my eyes I could hear her scream, hear her beg them to stop. There was nothing I could do. Not a damned thing. And then they slit her throat, like an animal. Blood from her artery splattered my face.” His face was emotionless but a dark fury burned in the depths of his eyes. “You think I was hard on him? Think again.”

His words left her numb. Horror, disgust, pity for a helpless child. And his sister, just fourteen. What a way to die. A nightmare. That could have been her. He might have been forced to watch them rape her, slit her throat. “I’m sorry,” she murmured at last. What else could she say? “I didn’t understand.”

“And now you do.” He took a deep breath and blew it out.

And him? What had they done to him? She wrapped her arms around herself, squeezed tight. She couldn’t form the words, shrank away from hearing an answer.

“They beat me senseless and left me for dead. I was lucky; I was found, taken to a hospital and the Confederacy doctor there took me to Malmos with him. I couldn’t go home, so I lived with him until I was old enough to get into the Fleet Academy. By the time I had my commission, it was all over. The Confederacy Fleet had liberated Ceres.”

He didn’t even look at her, slumped in the driver’s seat, gazing at nothing. But he’d sure given her a few things to think about. The skimmer joined the major sky way, cruising above the brighter lights of the inner suburbs with the other traffic toward the brilliant towers of the city center. Home was minutes away.

Thoughts tumbled through her brain. A helpless boy watching his sister being tortured and killed.

Saahren

on Tisyphor, gentle and caring and now this other side to him, a vengeful spirit. She couldn’t think about this now, didn’t want to think about it.

“Who were those men?” Allysha said. “The ones who turned up?”

“My escort. Secret Service people. I asked them to keep a distance. I wanted at least to feel I was alone with you.”

“Are they always there?”

“Yes. It goes with the job.”

The Lysanda landed at level thirty. He ignored her protests and walked her to her door. “I had a wonderful day, Allysha.” His voice was soft and his eyes wistful.

“Pity about the violence at the end, eh?” Oh, buckrats. If anything, she was more confused than ever.

“Look, I enjoyed it too, but… I’ve got a lot to think about.”

She saw his frustration, his unhappiness, in his eyes. He just nodded. “I love you.”

Suddenly, for a moment, she saw into a wounded soul, saw what drove him, saw a boy watching his sister being tortured. Her heart cried out to him, but her head stopped her. Not now. “Goodnight.”

Allysha closed the door and heaved a huge sigh. Oh, man, what a day. Peeling off her coat, she walked over to the window and gazed out over the gardens separating the Fleet buildings. That one over there, its blank facade bathed in moonlight. His apartment was on the eighty-seventh floor. He’d been angry when he learned that she didn’t need her techpack to access the computer systems onArcturus , that she could connect via her implant, she’d even been a little bit frightened of him. But that was a nothing in comparison with the raging fury he’d shown tonight. He’d almost seemed possessed, demonic.Chohzhu .

She’d never felt so confused, not even with Sean. Maybe that was her issue, she fell for the wrong men.

Everybody had warned her against Sean; her father, Xanthor. But she’d known better. She’d even become estranged from her beloved father because of Sean.

She sank down onto the arm of a chair. Saahren. It would be an even worse mistake with him. He’d shown her tonight how dangerous he could be.But he apologized , said the little voice in her head,he explained. He was protecting you, reliving the murder of his sister .And let’s face it, you had a wonderful day with him. Even considered a kiss goodnight.

“Oh, shut up,” she said aloud. “He was still responsible for my father’s death.”At least, I think so. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to think anymore .I just want to go home. Running a hand through her hair, she went to her bedroom.

By the time Saahren returned to the thirtieth level, the Lysanda was gone. In its place, the leader of his security escort waited with his vehicle. Saahren slid into the passenger seat for the short trip to the central

Fleet tower, wrapped in his military demeanor while his heart ached.

His apartment occupied half of the eighty-seventh floor. From the outside, the walls were blank durasteel but external sensors projected live images to internal screens fashioned to look like windows. It was impossible to tell the difference from the real thing.

He stood at the window and gazed across the park to the block Allysha lived in. So close, so tantalizingly close. He was sure she would have let him kiss her goodnight. And once she was in his arms… He shook his head. Damn those misbegotten louts. They could have taken the vehicle and he wouldn’t have cared. They wouldn’t have been able to get far, anyway. But that greasy, pimply little piece of filth had to grope her, had to remind him of his sister. He smashed his right fist into his left palm.

He’d enjoyed that. Blood stained his knuckles and his hand hurt but all hells he’d enjoyed that. He would happily have killed the shartong. Truth be told, he very nearly had killed him. If she hadn’t intervened, he would have. It wasn’t his proudest moment. It had been a long time since that dark spirit lurking in the corner of his soul had had the upper hand. The very thought of Allysha being raped as those animals had done to Kira all those years ago—

“Admiral Leonov is here to see you, Admiral,”said his IS.

Leonov? Now? “Let him in.”

“How are you?” Leonov, dressed in casual clothes, had obviously come straight from home.

“What do you think? Those no-account, miserable, filthy little pieces of shit were going to rape her and I was supposed to watch. I beat him up the one who groped her, gave him something to remember. ” He put out his hands, the fingers tense. “I wanted to kill him. I very nearly did.” He gazed again at the dried blood on his knuckles and turned to the bar. “Drink?”

“Why not?”

He splashed Lochandor into two heavy-based glasses, handed one to Leonov.“Was I the rescuing hero? Not for a moment. She shied away from me, said I was brutal.”

Leonov’s lips jerked in a sympathetic smile. “Violence is military.” He spread his hands. “That’s how she’ll see it. Grand Admiral Saahren imposing his will. Don’t glower at me like that. I’m just telling you how it is. Remember what Irina told you. Allysha has to unlearn all the things she’s ever learned about you. You can’t force it on her, she has to do it herself, to really believe it.” He scratched his cheek.

“Masquerading as someone else took you several steps backwards.”

“I wasn’t ‘masquerading’ as you so nicely put it, I was undercover. Besides, if I hadn’t masqueraded as someone else she wouldn’t even have spoken to me.” Let alone kiss him, make love to him.

Leonov raised a placatory hand. “Understood, Chaka. For what it’s worth I told Irina over breakfast this morning what you intended for the day. She approved. Said it was just what she needed to see the man underneath the uniform.”

He tossed down a swallow of his drink, relished its warmth sliding down his throat. “It didn’t work, did it? I’ll never understand women.”

“What man does? You’ll just have to be patient.”

Patience. That was what Irina had said. He wasn’t good at patience; never had been. “I have no real quarrel with the security service people. I ordered them to stay away and overrode their objections.”

Perhaps if he hadn’t she’d be here now, finding out about the man beneath the uniform. Or he’d be with her. Or maybe neither.

“Perhaps. But they should have recognized the threat earlier. These four were fishing in the lake earlier.

They’re known petty criminals. The team leader admits he underestimated the potential for danger.”

Saahren dropped into an armchair. “Is that why you’re here? To tell me your people screwed up? Or to commiserate?”

“Commiserations are clearly appropriate,” Leonov said, a hint of a smile hovering around his lips. “No, this is a bit more important.”

More important than Allysha?

Leonov sat in another chair and steepled his hands. “You were followed today. By this.” Using his comlink, he projected an image of a nondescript skimmer carrying two people. “One of your escort vehicles noticed and went to investigate. These two know their business; they pretended they were going to a factory to put us off the scent.”

He brought up the two men’s profiles; Liam McNeill, late of Ullnish, looking for a job on an all-human world. Kris Hybent, a buyer for the Quartermaster chain on Hildebrand.

“Their IDs check out—face matches, voice prints, all the usual checks. But my people put trackers on them.” He grimaced. “Our friends found them both and transferred them to a skimmer, then stole another

skimmer and disappeared.”

“Smart.”

“Very. I’d hoped that these two fellows would lead us to Sean O’Reilly.”

“You think he’s in Malmos?”

“I can’t be certain. You know how hard he is to track. We thought we’d found him on Kentor but he disappeared a few days ago, not long before this fellow McNeill arrived. And it’s interesting—this McNeill fellow has a chip but we can’t track it for some reason.”

“Really? That sounds like something Allysha could do. Or maybe O’Reilly. According to Allysha, he’s good.”

“I’m wondering if this McNeill fellow is O’Reilly. Either way, we need to find these two.”

“You think this was about Allysha. What makes you so sure? It might have been unrelated, some half-brained assassination attempt on me.”

“Perhaps. If that’s the case I still want to find them. Something’s happening out there. The ptorix are too quiet, the GPR is too quiet. Just consider this.” He ticked the points off on his fingers. “We know Tisyphor was GPR and whatever they wanted from Allysha they didn’t get. Van Tongeren was killed within a day of being released, a professional hit job which is what they’re known to do with failures.

O’Reilly has disappeared and this fellow McNeill can’t be traced. Let’s assume she was the target, which means somebody is still chasing her but we don’t know what for. And then again, if it isn’t the GPR after Allysha, then we still need to know who they are and what they want.”

Saahren leaned back into his chair.

“What are you suggesting?”

“That we do nothing and we see what happens.”

Something about the way Leonov said the words chilled his blood. Not again, surely not. “Forget it, Vlad. I’m not going to put her into danger again.” First Brjyl, then Carnessa. And on Carnessa she was nearly murdered. No, not again.

Leonov rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I knew you’d say that. But—”

“No.” Saahren smacked his hand down on the arm of his chair. “Absolutely not. You’re not going to dangle her on a line like some… some bait for a fish.”

“Chaka, please. Let’s look at this rationally. Nobody wants to hurt her. Nobody. They want her to do something. We keep an eye on her, and when they make a move, we’ve got them.”

“Use her again, you mean. No, Vlad. It isn’t going to happen.”

“Chaka, the GPR wants her for something. We still don’t know what and we’ve run out of ways of finding out. We’ll look after her, I promise you.”