The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series (37 page)

“I’d think not,” Njangu said. “I came from Intelligence and Reconnaissance, and we work closely with II Section — Force Intelligence. I think I would have heard some whisper if we were running death squads.”

“Perhaps … or perhaps not,” Poynton said. “I must allow my opponents credit for some intellect, and being able to keep a few secrets. Not to mention the possibility that you are both double agents, in which case you’re lying.

“Not that it matters, for the head of our Planning Group and I have devised a mission for you two, a further test. I will control your team, and you will have access to any resources the ’Raum can provide which you need.

“Your assignment is to track down and eliminate those death squads, those they call beards. If you fail, that might suggest you are still with the Force, but the problem will have been solved for us by the beards. If you succeed … you have done everyone on D-Cumbre a great favor.”

“I frigging despise eavesdroppers,” Njangu snarled. “Even when they’re on my frigging side.”

“So I see,” Garvin said calmly. He sat on one of the small apartment’s beds, feet on a table. Their room was a mess working on a shambles — wire ripped from the ceiling and walls draped across plaster-strewn tables; three spike-mikes that’d been boot-tested and found wanting, a shattered grid-mike that’d masqueraded as a bad scenic view of the bay invisible behind the high walls of the Eckmuhl, and an archaic standard microphone that appeared to have been planted by one of D-Cumbre’s original settlers.

“Did you get all of them?” he asked.

“Every bleedin’ one,” Njangu said, shaking his head, holding up one finger and pointing to one of the ceiling lights. He scrawled on a notepad:
I boogered that one so it’s only got about a meter’s range. Let them think they’re still hearing something, so they don’t get worried. Keep the important shit in writing.

“ ’Kay,” Garvin said. “By the way, where’d you learn your techno skills?”

“Can’t a girl have a few secrets?”

“Why not. So what’re we gonna do about nailing your bearded honey?”

Njangu slumped down on another bunk. “That’s a poser, ain’t it?”

“Actually, the first question is,
can
we do anything about ol’ Angie?”

“We better,” Njangu said. “Or The Movement’s gonna have us ‘dobe-walled.”

“Appears like,” Garvin agreed. “So what’re the options?”

“The first and easiest would be to nark her off to the coppers,” Njangu said. “Which’d piss off our new lords and masters, ‘cause it’s a little hard to believe she and her crew’d get Handled Harshly, since me and some other people have this sneaky and obvious hunch the Rentiers are bankrolling them. Plus I ain’t big on snitching.”

“So you want to do her yourself?” Garvin asked.

“Not really,” Njangu said honestly. “I’m not that hard-assed. But we’ve got to ensure she … and the rest of the beards … are inactivated. Permanently. Unless we want the same treatment.”

“This keeps sounding like killing,” Garvin said, grimacing.

“It do, doon’t it?”

“But first things first,” Garvin said. “I know we’re incredibly gifted, intelligent, analytical and well hung, but how are we gonna
find
young Angie? I understand there’s been some other folks looking.”

“I think I can get ahold of Rada,” Njangu said. “She did gimme her com number, and suggested a meeting place. I think we ought to establish contact, see what shakes, then play it by ear.”

“So commence to button-pushing, my friend.”

“Not here,” Njangu said. “Let’s go grab our quote escorts end quote and find a neutral com. No. Better idea. Let’s go tell Poynton what we’re going to try.”

• • •

Njangu waited until the monorail car was almost empty, then picked up his battered case and got off, trying to think like he looked — a young, not very successful salesman having a bad day out here in the tules, hoping the little fishing village of Issus would change his luck. He left the station, walked through the park, eyeing the businesses around the square for possible customers. His eyes swept left, right.

There’s one
…
even wearing his old service boots
…
good camou, Angie
…
another one pretending to scan the holo board
…
now one of ours, shit, gotta break that woman’s thumbs and get her to stop playing spy, peepin ‘around like she ought to be wearing a veil with a codebook in one hand
…
goddamned amateurs
…
pity the frigging Movement’s down on hiring crooks
… He bent, adjusted a bootstrap, glanced casually behind him.
Another one back there …
Angie’s gift-pistol in the small of his back felt very comforting.

A man came toward him, a familiar face, brushed against him, and was past, and Njangu realized his sidearm had been quite neatly lifted. Before he could figure what to do next, Angie Rada came out of a net repair shop’s alcove and was beside him, holding his right elbow in her left. She was dressed like a day tourist from the capital, but kept her other hand in her windbreaker pocket. “Smile like you’re having fun,” she whispered. “We’re two old friends who just happened to run into each other.”

“Aren’t we?”

“Why’d you take off?” Angie asked.

“Things got a little henhouse back at good old Camp Mayhem, and I decided to seek grander horizons.”

“What took you so long to call me again?”

“I thought I’d check the other options first,” Njangu said. “I’ve got a pretty good idea a man could get killed working for you … with damned few credits in the process.”

Angie’s grip tightened, and she swung the hand in her pocket until it pointed toward Njangu. “What others? The ’Raum?”

“Jesu Joy of Man’s Desire, Angie! Just ‘cause you’ve turned into some kind of bigtime death squad leader doesn’t mean you have to pack in what little goddamned humor you had!”

“Careful, Yoshitaro,” Angie warned. “What I’m doing isn’t a joking matter.”

“Yeh, well I always learned that it’s a good idea to keep a smile on your lips and a song in your heart when you’re smashing the State.”

“We’re hardly doing that,” Rada said. “Rather, we’re backing it up, doing the work it’s reluctant to do, so it can become as strong as it’s supposed to be.” She looked critically at Njangu. “You know, I’ll never understand you.”

“Nothing to understand,” Njangu said easily. “I’m just a charming feller with an eye for the main chance. I checked around with the local mobbies, but they’re lying pretty low, and not hiring outside talent at the moment.”

“You better realize something, mister. Once you’re in this thing of mine … of ours, there’s no getting out until it’s over.”

“And that’ll be?”

“When these frigging ’Raum have been taught their place and put in it.”

“Which is?”

“The bastards that have been killing women and children and policemen … dead or in prison. Dead by court, dead by our hands, it doesn’t matter.”

“What about the others? Not every ’Raum is rebelling.”

“Shit they’re not,” Rada said fiercely. “They’re backing these murderers in everything they do, and that’s just as bad as if they were pulling the trigger or setting the bomb themselves. So they’ll have to pay. We ought to just stamp ‘em all out, but I know my Cumbrians. They think they’re too good to go off-planet and work the mines, or dig the ditches, so we’ll always need the ’Raum, I’m afraid. But we can keep them off Dharma Island, off the other major islands, and out of the cities.

“Maybe we’ll isolate them on some of the Windward Islands or something, and build ports to transport the miners back and forth to C-Cumbre, and have temporary camps for those we need to have doing scut work in the cities. I don’t know. That’s for the pols to work out, after we give the government back to them.”

“We?” Njangu asked.

“You don’t think I’m alone in this? Killers, for your information, are high-maintenance tools. My family, after their stores got burned, have realized which side they’re on, and that helps. But there’s others … real big names, names that’d surprise you, who’re contributing. Credits, vehicles, target tips … you name it, we’ve got it.

“So are you in?”

“As if I’ve got a choice.”

“Good,” Angie said. “Now, we’ll arrange to get back to Leggett, making sure you didn’t bring any friends along, and then we’ll start training you.”

“More training?” Njangu wailed, but felt vast relief. It looked as if he’d done it, stepped through the door the minute it fell open.
Ho-ho, Njangu Yoshitaro, master infiltrator and double agent.
And then everything fell apart around his shoulder blades.

Acheery voice called “Aay! N’anju! Angie!”

Njangu jolted …
shit, blown,
saw a smiling, long-haired beauty. Deira, of long months ago. He sagged in relief, lifted a hand in greeting. Then he saw Angie’s face, cold in rage, and her hand came out of her jacket pocket holding a heavy pistol, and she crouched, bringing her offhand up in support, the gun aiming, in utter madness, at Deira. Njangu reacted without thinking, snapkicking, the gun spinning away, into the park. Angie scrabbled after it, snarling incoherently, and a gun blasted behind Njangu, blowing a hole in a parked lifter.

Njangu rolled, hand going for his bootheel, not as nonsensical as it looked. One heel had been modified by ’Raum craftsman, and held two old-fashioned shot-shells, each in an alloy barrel, with spring firing pins. He had the weapon, brought it up, saw a heavyset man he thought he remembered from the Force aiming at him, not five meters away, and snapped the first pin. The gun blasted, nearly breaking his wrist, and the pellets spattered the man. He screeched, dropped the gun, grabbed his face, and staggered backward.

Angie recovered her pistol, was aiming, and Njangu let the other barrel go. Both of them missed. Njangu ducked away, into some brush, heard Angie screaming, “Kill him! Kill him!” and for the first time in his life, the cops came to the rescue.

There were three of them, big men wearing riot gear, and they saw Angie, pistol in hand, and reached for their guns. She shot one, he grabbed his arm, and she ran toward the monorail station.

Njangu went after her, cutting through the park, not sure what he’d do if he beat Angie to the station, hoping to hell his backups had seen what’d happened and were coming, but seeing, hearing no one, the crazy thought repeating,
all right, bitch, all right, you went and made it personal and now it’s gonna be payback time.
Behind him, the cops shot again, then a third time, and he wondered at what. Someone shouted “Halt,” and he threw a rude gesture over his shoulder, kept going.

He stopped behind a tree thick enough to stop a blaster bolt. He looked back, and saw Deira on her hands and knees, scuttling behind a grounded lifter, felt an instant of relief, then dashed on.

A grenade boomed ahead of him, then he was out of the park, seeing smoke curl outside the ‘rail station/town hall, two sprawled bodies and shattered glass jeweling the ground. Angie was going up the steps, two men with her. One paused, aimed carefully, and shattered the top of the com tower on the hall’s roof.

A ‘rail car was inside the station, turbine whining. Another grenade blasted, and shots echoed from inside. Njangu, a crazy whirl in his guts, ran up the steps of the hall, used a shattered window frame for a step, pulled himself to the roof of the hall. He shinnied up the lattice of the blasted tower, just as the ‘rail eased out of the station, two meters below him, three meters away.

Not letting himself think, he jumped, and thudded down on the car’s roof. He slid, almost going off as the car picked up speed, found a pressure hold, squirmed to a rotating beacon, clutched it as the wind roared about him.

Now what, you silly bastard, now what, hoping they didn’t hear the thud as you landed and this goddamned thing doesn’t go fast enough to knock you off, and didn’t you forget something important like maybe a bang-stick?
His fingers fumbled at his other heel, pulled it off, and whipped the antenna free to flail in the wind. He touched the POWER sensor, the SEND button.

“G … this is N.” Static crackled, and Njangu winced, knowing this half-assed lashup the half-assed ’Raum techs had built, swearing it’d never be found, swearing it was set away from any Force frequency, was screwed and pretty quick blaster bolts would start punching holes in metal and then Njangu Yoshitaro.

“G. Go.” Garvin’s voice was quite calm, and Njangu forced himself to sound the same.

“In a world of shit,” he said, and briefly explained what’d happened.

“What do you need?”

“Wings, asshole … but maybe somebody knows the ‘rail routes, and can be waiting at the station with a hundred gazillion Zhukovs.”

“Negative on the
Zooks,
” Garvin said. “But there’ll be people there. The Big Man’s here, and he’s giving orders. Hang on. We’ll pull your ass out.”

“You better.”

But the ‘rail never reached the main Leggett station. As the silver rails curved over the Heights, then down toward Leggett, it came close to the ground, not ten meters above a thickly brushed hillside. Blaster fire came from inside, then screams, and more shots. The turbine screamed up the cycle, then there was sudden silence.

Yoshitaro chanced looking, saw an emergency exit screech open, locks protesting. A man jumped, gun in hand, arms wide, coat flapping, landed, then Angie followed, then the third man leapt free. Angie glanced up at the car, and Njangu hastily ducked out of sight. The trio pushed through the undergrowth toward a nearby street.

Njangu Yoshitaro, unarmed, listed three dozen sorts of fools he was, jumped into the middle of a thornbush, rolled, and went after the three beards.

• • •

“G … this is N.”

“Go.”

“Obviously the party didn’t make the station.”

“No shiteedah. What happened?”

“They jumped off outside Leggett, infiltrated into the city.”

“Eeesh. So we’re starting all over again?”

“Big negative, my friend. I stayed with ‘em. Present location Yoke Itchie Seven Unyoke Q as in Queen, Yoke Medal Doolie Gik Gik Pod Sif Medal Pod Unyoke. Bring some big guys with sticks. These people aren’t friendly at all.”