Star Risk - 02 Scoundrel Worlds (13 page)

She took his arm, and they strolled on.

Von Baldur repeated his question about a mole inside Dampier's Strategic Intelligence, and then another thought came, that he might be able to use in the eventuality Star Risk could get Sufyerd an appeal. It was more a hunch than a coherent idea, but he made a practice of trusting his hunches.

"I would like to know the scenario for the Torguth war games that are planned near Belfort."

"Scenario?"

"Every war game I've ever heard of has some sort of script," von Baldur explained. "The heroes go here, are attacked by whoever plays the villains, they counterattack or whatever� that sort of scenario."

"The war games are still being drawn up," the woman said.

"Get what you can� I do not need specific deployments or units, just where these mock battles will be fought."

"Might I ask�"

"I collect toy soldiers," von Baldur said. "And I am running out of role-playing games."

"I don't believe you," the woman said.

"Neither do I."

Again, the chill smile from the woman.

"If�I emphasize if�I can get anything, I'll get it to you at the Caf�f the Dawn Delights. It's two blocks down, six east. Eighteen hundred. Be inside if it's raining, outside if it's nice. Give it an hour, then try again, two nights later."

Without waiting for a response, the woman pivoted and was gone.

Now she, von Baldur thought, is almost professional.

***

It was foggy, with a light drizzle blowing across the statues.

Von Baldur growled at the weather, then realized if matters went sour, it might give him a bit of cover.

The man came toward him quite openly, and didn't bother with the code.

Von Baldur knew something was wrong. "Well?"

"Do you have the credits?"

"I do."

"Lemme see." Greed was heavy in the man's voice.

Von Baldur wished he'd gotten one of the guns out of its hiding place, but thought, if the man was going to try to strong-arm him, he might be in for a surprise.

He nodded, put a smile on his face, and took out a clipped-together band of bills.

"Well?" von Baldur said again.

"They've got some kind of operation going," the man said. "On Montrois. Real high level. I found out it was for an agent they've doubled in Strategic Intelligence. They told me�"

His voice slipped a little, and his eyes looked over von Baldur's shoulder.

Friedrich spun, saw two men coming out of a parked lifter toward him, two other lifters landing on the other side of the park. They didn't need to get any closer for him to ID them as plainclothes cops.

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TWENTY-FOUR � ^ � Jasmine King. I have an appointment with your editor," Jasmine told the young man. He looked at a screen, nodded.

"Met Fall is running a little late this morning, but he'll be with you shortly."

Jasmine went to a rather battered chair, sat down, looked about curiously. This was the first time she'd been in a holo's office. The furniture was fairly battered, as if it had been picked up at a fire sale, even though the Tuletian Pacifist was one of the most prosperous tab holos on Montrois, and the floor looked as if it could do with a determined sandblasting. The walls were glass, and looked out on a large chamber full of computers, intent journalists, and scurrying messengers.

It must be deadline time, King guessed.

There was one other person in the room besides the receptionist, an extremely pretty woman who Jasmine guessed was in her mid-thirties. She wore expensive clothes, and jewelry just a bit too ostentatiously costly. Her face, heart-shaped under a blond coif, had just begun to harden. King hid a smile, thinking that this woman was a perfect illustration of what Goodnight called a "high-maintenance bimbo," and picked up a current edition of the Pacifist, and fed it into one of the viewers scattered about. The banner above the logo read: coming soon: UNIVERSALIST SCANDALS BARED IN SHOCKING LETTERS. But there was no accompanying story.

Jasmine had read about half of a poorly written piece claiming�with no hard evidence to back the claim�that Torguth had agents riddling Dampier society, when a buzzer went off.

"Miss King," the receptionist said, "you can go straight on through the city room to the end� Mr. Fall is free now."

The other woman looked at Jasmine resentfully.

"How come she gets in straightaway, and I've been sitting here for over two hours?"

"I'm sure Mr. Fall is aware you're here, and wants to be able to give you his fullest attention," the young man said. He touched a button, and the door into the large chamber opened.

Jasmine went through the room, aware that she was getting interested looks from several reporters of at least three sexes. She was used to that.

Another glass-walled office was at the end, with a tarnished brass plate that read executive editor. The office inside was terminally cluttered with printouts, boxes, several computers, and heaped papers and holos.

Behind a desk that looked as if it'd served for fleet target practice was a man, youngish but balding, who wore his hair thinly combed across his pate. He was thin, and had the face of an ascetic. His suit was expensive, and was worn carelessly.

Jasmine introduced herself to Fall and, since there was no particular reason she could see to conceal her mission, explained that she'd be interested in any information in these letters that might help Star Risk in freeing Sufyerd.

"No doubt you would," Fall said. "I've heard of Star Risk, and have tentatively assigned two reporters to investigate. The only reason I'm holding back on publishing your identities is I'm not at all sure how we want to play you people."

"Play?" Jasmine asked.

"Yes. How does your presence help or hurt keeping the peace between Torguth, Belfort, and Dampier?"

"I didn't know," King said, trying to keep sarcasm out of her voice, "there was any purpose in reporting events except they happened."

"A very old-fashioned approach," Fall said. "Today's journalists must choose a side, choose an issue, or risk being left out of the hue and cry."

"Oh," was all Jasmine could manage.

"As for your being able to access these letters," Fall said, "I'm afraid that will be impossible, even though I personally believe Sufyerd to be innocent, and would hate to see the execution of an innocent man� assuming, of course, that he is innocent, since all of us should learn not to trust our instincts."

"We've satisfied ourselves that he is," King said.

"A good journalist must stay above such judgments until all the facts are clear," Fall said primly.

"But you just said�" King let her voice trail off.

"No," Fall said firmly. "The correspondence between Premier Ladier and Miss Hyla Adrianopole must remain secret, until we begin publishing it within the next several weeks or so, and then all shall be revealed.

"By the way," Fall continued, "I heard rumors that there was a gun battle in a restaurant across the river between some off-worlders and some of"�he lowered his voice and looked around, without being aware of it�"those who call themselves the Masked Ones. Do you happen to know anything about it?"

"Not at all," Jasmine said. "But if you'd go back to the Sufyerd matter, is there any reason that I could not look at those letters� just the ones that pertain to our client� to give us a lead in finding the real culprit, the real traitor?"

Jasmine remembered the way von Baldur had taught her that a journalist never gives anything away, but only trades.

"In exchange for which we would be willing to give your holo an exclusive when we uncover this person."

Fall hesitated.

"That's tempting," he said. "But I must tell you that I do not have possession of these letters� and, by the way, the most interesting ones come from Premier Ladier. Miss Adrianopole seems to have been far more careful in what she was willing to commit to writing.

"No. The first thing I realized was how easy it would be for someone to break in here, in the wee small hours, perhaps, and then we would be without a string to our quiver."

"The first thing I would've done, in your position, is to make copies of the correspondence," Jasmine said, in spite of herself.

"That, of course, was done," Fall said. "And those copies distributed to responsible hands. The originals, however, were deposited in yet another�"

The door to his office banged open.

Jasmine turned, saw the woman who'd been in the outer office.

"You bastard!" she near shouted. "You betrayer! How dare you even think of publishing my letters!"

"I gather," Fall said, seemingly undisturbed, getting to his feet, "you are Miss Hyla Adrianopole."

"I am� and you are a traitor to your planet, to your solar system, to everything you ought to hold dear."

King was thinking Adrianopole was getting a bit histrionic, then noted the woman's hand was scrabbling in her rather large handbag.

"Now, please be calm, Miss�"

Adrianopole, screaming wordlessly, pulled out a rather large handgun.

"Wait!" Fall shouted, and King braced for a dive for the gun. But it was too late.

The blaster slammed three times. All three bolts struck in the center of Fall's chest. An enormous amount of blood spattered on the desk in front of the editor, and more blood sprayed on the glass wall behind him.

Fall gurgled, was dead, and went down.

"You shitheel," Adrianopole shouted, aiming again at the top of the corpse's head.

But King knocked her hand up, and the fourth round punched a fist-sized hole in the ceiling.

Adrianopole stumbled, almost fell, catching herself with a hand that landed in the pooling blood on the desk.

"Oh," she said, lifting her hand. "Oh," again. She looked at Jasmine.

"Perhaps," she said, very calmly, "you'd do me the favor of calling the police."

"After you give me that gun," Jasmine said, afraid to draw her own for fear it would set Adrianopole off again.

"Oh. Certainly." She passed the blaster across. "Be careful. It has quite a hair trigger."

"And I continue to quote from thisyere black-ribbed tabloid," Goodnight said. " �A woman in my position, all alone, without a man able to stand beside her, must be able to fight for her rights, to strike out against monstrous tyranny and injustice.' She really said that?"

"She really said that," Jasmine said. "I was standing there. She also said that, quote, �in olden times there was the unwritten law, which was used monstrously against women. But I now cite another unwritten law, that gives a woman a chance to defend herself against vile calumny,' end quote."

"I do not believe anyone has ever said �calumny' who wasn't a univee lecturer," Grok said.

"They do," Riss said, "if they've got a speech memorized."

"Just so," Jasmine said. "I wonder who wrote it for her?"

"Good question. But a better one is, What about those damned letters?" Goodnight said.

"They're not in Fall's office," King said. "While they were cleaning up the gore, I made a search, as best I could. Fall's little floor safe was shut, but not locked, and they weren't in there."

"How'd you have time to make sure?" Riss said.

"I just stole everything in the safe," Jasmine said. "And went through it outside."

"While there was blood all over hell's half acre?" Riss said. "I'm impressed."

"So am I," Goodnight said. "I think our little Jasmine is starting to grow up."

"We'll have to keep looking for those letters, then," Riss said. "We don't need the original. A copy'd do just ducky.

"I just hope Freddie is doing better than we are right now."

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TWENTY-FIVE � ^ � Friedrich von Baldur didn't waste his breath snarling about being sold out by the double or triple agent beside him.

He turned, crouching, and drove a knuckle-punch up into the side of the man's neck, who was dead in mid-step.

One of the two cops shouted something. Von Baldur paid no mind, but was running, zigging, around the sculpture, toward another one about twenty meters distant.

He was counting, hoping, on two things.

The first was that these cops would be under orders to take him alive, if possible. A dead spy, at least uninterrogated, is about as worthless as they come.

He reached the second sculpture, jumped up, and yanked the tiny gun out of its hiding place.

Von Baldur came down, and snapped a round into the pistol's chamber, took a two-handed stance, braced against the sculpture.

He fired, hit the first cop in the chest, switched his aim to the second, and fired again. The man grabbed his stomach, went down.

Cops who'd been streaming out of the landed lifters went flat, shouting at each other.

Von Baldur's second hope, now confirmed, was that these cops weren't ordinary street bulls, but members of whatever Torguth called its Counter Intelligence Force.

Espionage is normally a fairly bloodless sport, except at the end and the lethal chamber.

These agents weren't used to being shot at, and seeing their two fellows weltering in their blood froze them for a bit.

Time enough for von Baldur to run, hard, out of the park, past a gaping oldster on his evening walk, and down a side street.

Walking the neighborhood before contact had paid dividends. Friedrich had two open avenues of escape�one into a wealthy district, the other into a somewhat seedy workers' district. He picked the second.

Rich people see a man running, and they call the police. Workers, more realistically, get the hell out of the way and pretend they saw nothing.

Von Baldur took the first turning, went up an alley, down another street, then a broader avenue that led, more or less, back toward his hotel. He forced himself to stop running, pocket the gun, and go whistling on his way, just another man on his evening constitutional.

But the street was fairly empty, and those on it were hurrying off.

They'd scented police, and were heading for shelter.