Star Risk - 03 The Doublecross Program (9 page)

She said she was curious about the Khelat diet. Wahfer took her to an ostentatiously expensive restaurant. Haute cuisine consisted of many, many dishes on small plates, surprisingly spicy, eaten with the fingers.

Wahfer said it was customary to honor a guest by feeding him or her, and Riss, lying, said it was forbidden on her own worlds.

Wahfer, as the first course arrived, accompanied by a spiced wine that M'chel just sipped at, asked what she thought of his worlds.

"Why is it everyone here on Khelat always asks that question?" M'chel said.

Wahfer thought.

"I could be honest and say that it's politeness to care about the opinion of visitors, but honestly, it's because, I suspect, we are so far from the center of things that it really matters."

Riss nodded. That sounded honest, and she said that so far she found things interesting.

"One question, though," she said. "With all of the princes in your family, isn't there a certain amount of� let me call it competition?"

"Of course," Wahfer said. "That is the way the universe is designed, is it not? Each man strives to succeed, and it is not enough just for your own success, but you must have an equal or better's failure to compare it to."

"Ah," Riss said.

Two waiters changed their plates.

"By happenstance," she said, "did you have any dealings with the Alliance advisory team that was withdrawn?"

There was just a moment of hesitation, then Wahfer said, "No, not really."

Riss caught that moment, filed it.

The evening continued on an amiable note, if not, at least on Riss's part, with any romance.

Wahfer and one bodyguard escorted Riss to the Star Risk suite, and they were not invited in.

So, she thought as she rinsed her mouth of the spiced wine's taste with a shot of clean brandy, then poured herself a small decanter for a nightcap, Wahfer knows something was wrong with things.

That could be a contact worth developing.

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TWELVE � ^ � Jasmine King wandered through the shopping district. Part of her mind was looking for something; another part was giggling gently about the way the romances portrayed "going undercover."

Certainly, she thought. Easy. Not a problem. Except when everybody around is dark complected, or perhaps of Earth-Asian descent.

And we'll ignore what happens when you're trying to look unobtrusive and all about you have tentacles�

King slid through the crowded arcade streets, appearing to look at nothing, seeing everything.

She went in a shop here, a shop there, found an example of what she was looking for in a store that sold everything from jewelry to rice.

The item was in a corner, next to three or four exotically ugly statuettes. She was staring at a sealed case of Alliance-issue rations. Or so the packing stamp, with a serial number, had it.

But another serial number had been stamped over on the case.

She memorized both numbers as the shopkeeper approached.

"Missy is homesick for Alliance food?"

"Not particularly," Jasmine said. "I'm just curious where this came from."

"I do not remember very clearly," the shopkeeper started.

King took a bill from her pocket, extended it toward the man.

"Ah," he said, but no more.

King added a second bill.

The man's smile, lacking a few teeth, beamed.

"I am happy to be of service to the beautiful woman," he began.

The rations came from a warehouse with a camouflaged roof, sitting in a small valley about a kilometer outside Rafar City.

There was a long line of battered or economy lifters, ground vehicles, and people on foot, and a cluster of soldiers at the entrance. The warehouse was surrounded by razor wire, and there were perimeter alerts.

King sat in her lifter, about a half kilometer away, watching through binocs.

A customer would approach, talk to a soldier. Money would change hands, and crated goods would be brought out.

King was about to pull out and put in a full electronic surveillance when three military lifters flew low overhead, grounded at the rear of the warehouse, and soldiers started unloading crates and cases.

They moved fast, faster than King had seen soldiers move on Khelat so far, and in minutes the lifters were empty and took off.

King, feeling very naked without backup, followed at a good distance.

***

"I shall be happy to be of service," Grok told Jasmine. "My smoking gun turns out to be not as smoky as I'd wished, and needs further work. I would like an excuse to get out in the open air and do some honest work."

"Like killing people?"

"If the opportunity presents itself."

The lifter slid carefully down an alley, briefly onto a thoroughfare, then followed a freight-loading route. Grok, at the controls, went very low and very slow, without his lights, using an amplified-light headset to navigate.

The area was dark and little strewn. There was only an occasional movement, and neither of the lifter's occupants could tell if it was this world's version of rats or people intent on their own errands.

"This is the kind of district a man can get his head bashed in for him," Chas Goodnight observed.

"Or anyone else," Grok said. "Jasmine is getting too bold in following strange lifters about."

"Or else she's been doing better with the ol' marksmanship training than I thought," Goodnight said.

"I think I'm going to set it down here," Grok said. "That second warehouse she found is just around the corner, and I'll bet there's watchguards out."

"Shall I put the alarm on?" Grok said as he grounded the lifter.

"Either that or we're liable to come back to a stripper and have to hike home," Goodnight said. "But put the remote on vibrate, hey? It'd bother my nerves if it went off in the middle of a lovely bit of sneakery."

Goodnight wore black light-absorbing coveralls, and Grok depended on his dark fur and nightmare appearance to keep him safe.

Both beings wore weapons harnesses in the open. If they were stopped by anyone, they'd decided to shoot, rather than talk, their way out.

They slid around a corner, saw the storage building they wanted.

Goodnight, being the better second-story man, carefully checked the top of the razored fence.

There was a sensor about every ten meters.

Grok examined the nearest one closely. It was, surprisingly, clean and maintained. He rumbled in his throat.

Goodnight was considering the guard shacks spaced at regular intervals around the building. He took out a tiny pair of binocs, set them to normal light, and swept the area.

It was a bit brisk that night, a wind coming off the desert, and he saw no guards moving beyond the cozy security of the shacks.

That was good. He considered the sensors atop the razor wire, and took a shorter from a belt pouch to "wire" around the alarm.

Grok tapped him on the shoulder, shaking his head disapprovingly. Goodnight leaned closer. The alien's breath smelled, interestingly enough, of flowers.

"They've put all their eggs on one wire," Grok explained.

Chas puzzled.

Grok took wire cutters from his pouch, made two vertical cuts in the razor wire, starting from the ground, up about a meter, the two cuts about two meters apart. He carefully rolled up the wire until there was a door-sized opening.

Goodnight now understood. Grok wasn't being mal-apropistic�the Khelat had put all their caution on that upper wire and ignored what lay below it.

Brute force worked better than subtlety.

The two went through the hole in the wire, and, crouching, went to the building.

No faces looked out of the nearest guard shack.

Grok bowed to Chas, who considered the wall. A few meters away was the box that must have been some sort of interior alarm, most likely a motion detector.

Chas pointed to it, gave Grok a shorter.

The alien spliced a pair of wires to each side, working carefully, unhurriedly, and took the alarm out of circuit.

Goodnight went to the nearest door, sneered at the lock, picked it with four easy motions, and the two were inside.

They slid infrared goggles down, and Chas took a flash from his pouch, turned it on.

His other hand was on his gun, an old-fashioned but very silent single-shot projectile weapon.

The flash slid across crates and cases. All of them had Alliance supply numbers on them, some of them with a second set of numbers stenciled next to them.

Chas nodded. It was clear what was�

Overhead lights flared on, and the ambush was sprung.

"Sunnabeech," Goodnight yelled reflexively, going flat as a crew-served weapon on a landing chattered a burst across the crates.

Another fully automatic blaster opened up from another upper grid. The two were in a cross fire.

For one instant. Then Goodnight touched the bester switch in his cheek and accelerated. Now the blaster rounds came at him slowly, and there was more than enough time to roll out of the way before the bolts blew fist-sized holes in the concrete behind him.

He cursed at the puny suppressed weapon but aimed and shot the gunner of one weapon, who lolled out of the way, tilting the gun up, finger frozen on the trigger, shooting chunks out of the ceiling.

Grok had his enormous blaster out and shot out four of the overhead lights, then lofted a grenade toward the second auto weapon.

It went off short, but the loader jerked in terror and fed a belt crossways into the feeding trough.

The gun jammed.

Goodnight was running, zigging, as he reloaded his popgun.

There was a soldier at the steps leading up with a nice, lovely blaster.

Chas killed him, sent a grenade spinning up toward the crew-served gun, and had the man's blaster. Four more shots and the warehouse was back in darkness.

Goodnight's eyes took less than a second to adapt to the dark as he went flat.

Bolts crashed over his head, and Chas heard somebody scream as a grenade went off at the other side of the building.

Then he was up, doubling up the steps, and cut the two survivors of the crew-served down.

He scanned across the warehouse in time to see Grok's huge bulk hurtle over a railing, claws tearing at the other gunners.

Chas went back down the steps to the main floor.

A door came open, and there was a soldier with a portable spotlight.

Goodnight shot him, had the light as Grok, impossibly agile for his bulk, came down to the main floor.

"Come on," Goodnight shouted. "I think they might be on to us."

"As you have been known to say," Grok said unhurriedly. "No shiteedah."

A day later, at Friedrich's request, Star Risk, less Grok, assembled in one of their suite's living rooms. Antibugs were at full blast.

By now, Star Risk had taken over the entire wing of the hotel, and it was starting to look less like a luxury hotel than a highranker's barracks.

"Where's Grok?" von Baldur asked.

"I am here," Grok's voice came from a small transceiver. "In spirit and witness, if not the flesh. My apologies, but I am quite busy digging out some interesting data."

Friedrich frowned, then forgot about it.

"Here is what I have on this whole Alliance supplies situation. I first got interested because I was trying to find out just how crooked the Khelat government is, and thought these disappearing supplies, not to mention these unrecorded guns, might be."

"In the fond hopes," Goodnight put in, from where he sprawled on a sofa, "of maybe being able to cut ourselves in on the profits."

"The thought did occur to me," von Baldur admitted. "But I thought the risk might be inordinate.

"The closer I looked, it appeared as if it is a private swindle that someone is running on their own. An indication is that the supplies are being sold directly to the public. If the government were involved, I would guess they might find a more direct, and more profitable, way.

"I thought it might be interesting to find out who is running this. That produced the firefight of night before last. I sent in some of our troops�the ones we'd hired�to see what happened on the morning after.

"That warehouse had been cleaned up. It was empty, thoroughly cleaned. No blood, no torn-up crates, no bodies, no guns, but here and there on the walls were fresh splotches of paint.

"None of the guards on duty that night reported hearing or seeing anything.

"I went to the government's secret police. Again, nothing had happened of note.

"I made a couple of assumptions at this point�one that the conspirator or conspirators have high-level connections within the government, and that we would be well advised to back out of the matter to avoid personal risk."

"This," Goodnight said, "is after I almost get my young ass shot off. Let's make those kind of assumptions a little earlier next time, all right?"

Friedrich smiled briefly.

"What a shitty contract we did take," Riss said. "I say so, even if it was my idea."

"This is," von Baldur said gently, "the sort of things mercenaries learn to expect, my dear."

"But I don't have to like it," M'chel insisted.

"No," Jasmine agreed. "And if we can assume the situation might well get worse, I think we should keep a bag packed and a back door oiled."

"That is not a bad idea," Friedrich said.

M'chel came into the suite with a wheeze late the next afternoon.

Grok and Jasmine were waiting for her.

"Great gods, but it's hot out there." She went to a sideboard, poured down two glasses of ice water. "Too hot even for beer."

Grok handed Riss a folder.

"What is this, my birthday?"

"Hardly," the alien said. "This is the final after-action report of the Alliance Advisory Team assigned to these worlds."

Riss stiffened.

"It is yours," Grok said. "I procured it through a fellow who is studying in the Alliance Archives."

"What does it have about the late General Lanchester's death?" M'chel said, her voice suddenly cold.