Authors: Gavin Smith
‘He is,’ Salem said simply. There was no trace of doubt in his voice.
‘We completely checked him,’ Pagan said, exasperated, still not sure what to do with his pistol. Morag was nodding. She was looking confused as well but had no problem pointing a gun at me.
‘Put the gun down,’ Mudge told me.
‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ Merle asked quietly.
‘Why am I alive, Merle?’ I asked.
‘A mixture of dumb luck and people who lack the professionalism to know when they should cut their losses, as far as I can tell,’ Merle answered.
‘Look, I don’t know what you think you know but we can have this conversation without the pointing of guns,’ Mudge said. He was worried. Joking apart, I was his best, possibly only, friend and I was pointing a gun at his lover.
‘Put the gun down now,’ Cat told me. I think the trigger on her shotgun was squeezed to the furthest point it could be without the weapon going off. I think she’d had more than enough of my own personal horror show. I knew she would have been furious about what I’d said to Morag when I’d been possessed.
‘Don’t be so fucking childish, Jakob!’ This from Morag.
‘They knew. Their response time was too quick. They weren’t waiting for us but they were not far off,’ I said. I could see from their faces that they had considered this. ‘Rolleston told me that we’d been sold out by two people.’
‘Well there’s a source we can trust,’ Mudge said sarcastically.
‘Jakob, you’ve no idea,’ Morag started. ‘While you were getting beaten up by your date Merle saved us.’
Mudge and Pagan were nodding but there was something off about Pagan’s expression.
‘You were the one who was so keen that we kill ourselves rather than be caught. If you had the position to help Mudge and the others further down the alley then you had line of sight to take me out,’ I said to him.
‘That’s not what this is about,’ Merle said. His tone reminded me of the voice I’d heard coming from my mouth when I was locked in my gilded cage. ‘You’re trying to find someone else to blame.’
From the looks on Pagan, Mudge, Mother and Tailgunner’s faces they knew that I was right. Morag was less sure as she was newer to the dynamics of gunfights.
‘Why am I still alive, Merle?’
‘You know I can take that gun off you any time I want?’ he asked me.
‘Stop pointing my gun at my brother!’ Cat hissed, but it was written all over her face that she knew I was right too.
‘Do you think I care what happens now?’ I asked. ‘Either you answer my question or I put a bullet through your head and damn the consequences.’
By now Tailgunner and Mother were lowering their weapons. Strange turned her PDW on Merle.
‘Strange!’ Morag shouted.
I’d glanced at the girl for a moment. Merle could only have told from a slight movement around my lenses, but by the time I was back concentrating fully on him he had both Hammerli Arbiters in his hands. He was fast. One was pointing at me and the other at Strange.
‘Woah!’ Tailgunner shouted as he turned on Merle. Cat brought her shotgun to bear on Tailgunner. Mother aimed her PDW at Cat.
‘Oh this is fucking stupid.’ Morag lowered her pistol.
‘Not if we’ve got a traitor in the mix,’ I said.
‘I’m better than you; I’m faster than you. Drop the gun,’ Merle told me.
‘Oh but mate, it’s a size game, isn’t it. Mine’s bigger than yours. I don’t doubt you’ll be accurate but I fancy my chances at surviving a burst in the face. Your pretty face on the other hand becomes a mess on the wall,’ I told him.
‘I think you should compare sizes,’ Morag said, holstering her pistol.
‘Me too,’ Mudge agreed. There wasn’t much humour there.
‘What about the girl? Maybe you live but she’s dead and you know it.’
‘Anything happens to her and you die as well, Jakob,’ Tailgunner told me. I felt he was being a little unfair.
‘She can put the gun down and walk away any time she wants,’ I said through gritted teeth. Strange helpfully shook her head. I didn’t like having anyone as unpredictable as her involved whether she was on my side or not.
‘Take another step and weird girl dies,’ Merle told Morag. She’d acted like the whole thing was stupid but had been moving back, jockeying to get position on Merle. Morag froze and looked pissed off.
‘Why would he betray you and then fight so hard for the rest of us?’ Mudge asked.
‘I couldn’t figure that out either. If he was still working for the Cabal then he could have destroyed us a long time ago,’ I said.
‘The orders must have come from Earth …’ Pagan said.
‘Something you want to add?’ I asked. Pagan looked stricken. This I hadn’t expected. What the fuck was going on?
‘Don’t buy into his paranoid fantasy; it’s guilt transference, that’s all,’ Merle spat.
‘He was in a hole for six months. He was comms dark the entire time,’ Mudge said. There was desperation in his voice. He needed Merle to not be the traitor. I think that this was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen him. Emotionally. Physically, the wanking on the Hydra still won out.
‘Which means that one of us had to deliver it,’ I said. ‘This where you came in, Pagan?’ I asked.
Pagan shook his head miserably and looked like he was about to say something.
‘The encrypted message,’ Cat said. Now she sounded stricken. I remembered watching brother and sister communicating by hardlink on the
Tetsuo Chou
on the way out.
‘What message?’ Morag demanded.
‘Shut up, Cat,’ Merle said angrily.
Cat swallowed hard. ‘Sharcroft gave me a heavily encrypted message to deliver to Merle,’ she said miserably.
‘You know better than that!’ Merle was livid now.
‘You should have told us,’ Morag said quietly.
Mudge pointed his Sig at Merle.
‘Why’d you sell us out?’ he asked. His tone was hard and you would have had to know him as well as I did to know how much this was costing him.
‘Are we breaking up, lover?’ was the sarcastic response. If Strange hadn’t been on the line I probably would have shot him then.
‘This mission’s hard on relationships,’ Morag commented with inappropriate dryness.
‘Look, shoot Jakob if you want, but stop pointing the gun at Strange,’ Tailgunner told Merle.
‘I’m sure you’re a big man down here but I’ll walk through you to get out of here,’ Merle told the big Maori.
‘Look around you, wanker,’ Mother spat.
I glanced around. The Kiwis were all aiming guns, some were pointed at me – couldn’t say I blamed them – but most at Merle.
Cat lowered her shotgun.
Merle spared her a look of contempt. ‘You always were a disappointment. Always folding when times are tough.’
‘Fuck you!’ Her voice echoed around the massive cave. ‘We’ve done enough damage.’ More quietly. She walked over and stood between Strange and Merle. Nobody seemed to care if I got shot.
‘It’s a death sentence now,’ I told him.
He looked around at the circle of guns. ‘That doesn’t mean I’ll tell you shit,’ he said as he lowered his pistols.
Everyone relaxed a little. Mother covered as Tailgunner moved in to disarm Merle.
‘He’s got a Void Eagle on his hip and two blades on wrist hoppers. Careful you don’t touch the blades,’ I warned Tailgunner.
‘What were your orders?’ Mudge asked. His pistol was hanging limp at his side. His voice was flat, completely devoid of emotion. Merle ignored him.
‘Come on. We’ve got most of it,’ I told Merle. ‘You’re completely compromised, nothing to bargain for or gain at this point.’
‘Call it professional pride,’ Merle said grimly.
‘Call it being a wanker,’ Tailgunner muttered.
‘You have not acted well,’ Salem surprised me by telling Merle. ‘You have caused much pain. If you persist in this then I will make sure you talk.’ The man’s gravitas was such that I felt like Merle had just been judged. Merle swallowed but said nothing. Who the fuck was this guy? I could see why people could believe he had been one of the Immortals. There was total self-belief there, no doubt whatsoever in his capabilities. Merle could see that as well.
‘Merle, stop being an arsehole!’ Cat said, turning on her brother.
‘Oh well, since you put it that way, I’ll abandon op sec!’ he spat at her with derision.
‘I’ll beat it out of you myself,’ she muttered.
Mudge put a gun to Merle’s head.
‘Three,’ he said.
‘Mudge?’ Pagan and Morag said at the same time. Tailgunner took a step back. Cat stepped towards Mudge. I moved to intercept her.
‘You’ll get him killed,’ I told her.
Mudge didn’t handle personal betrayal well. He’d been despondent back in Maw City after Gregor. It had taken Morag and me a long time to convince him that it hadn’t really been Gregor; that Rolleston had killed him with Crom before he’d left Earth.
‘Two,’ Mudge said.
‘You serious about this?’ Merle asked.
‘What do you think?’ Mudge asked.
It went very quiet. The quiet seemed to last for a very long time. I think Mudge was trying to give his lover every chance he could. I saw Mudge start to squeeze the Sig’s trigger as he began to form ‘One’ with his mouth.
‘All right,’ Merle said quietly.
Mudge held the gun where it was, touching Merle’s temple. Mudge was too close. Merle could have disarmed him any time he wanted. That wasn’t the point. The point was that Mudge was prepared to pull the trigger.
‘You can lower the gun now. I believe you,’ Merle told him. Mudge didn’t move.
‘Mudge,’ Morag said softly. I could see he was still thinking about pulling the trigger. ‘Come on, love.’ Morag reached up and pulled Mudge’s hand down. The tension seemed to drain out of him.
Mudge turned to me. ‘Goddamn you.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all I had. It wasn’t nearly adequate for any of this fucking mess. Mudge walked off.
‘Can we have this conversation without any more guns being waved about?’ Morag asked. I handed Cat back her Void Eagle.
‘Sorry,’ I told her. She just holstered the pistol. ‘Well?’ I asked Merle.
‘Disinformation,’ he said. ‘Or are you egotistical enough to think that the prime minister of England –’
‘Britain,’ I corrected automatically. Americans never got that right.
‘– was really going to share Earth’s defence weaknesses and strategies with a lowly grunt?’
I just stared at him. Of course he was right. I was so fucking stupid.
‘So Earth’s not as weak as she told me?’ I finally managed to ask.
‘Right,’ he said.
‘But—’ Tailgunner started.
‘A very few of the operators sent out were set up to hear that information one way or another. The PM and her allies—’
‘Including Sharcroft,’ a miserable-looking Pagan interjected.
‘I suspect including whoever’s left of the Cabal will be shitting themselves. Anyway, they are going to go to the governments on Earth and say, “Look, this is what we’ve done. Unless we unite and work together we are fucked.”’
Mother blew air out between her teeth. ‘That’s pretty ballsy.’
‘You were a sacrifice. I gave a vague warning before the robbery and then dropped a dime on you as it began, and you played your part brilliantly. They didn’t even have to torture you from what I heard.’ He was back to good old contemptuous Merle.
‘You brought them down on us?’ Tailgunner said, nodding towards me. Rannu was still howling violent obscenities.
‘Hey, fuck you. Why are you all so fucking precious? We’re soldiers. Expendable. See, if they were on to me I’d firestorm my memory and kill myself. I don’t have time to turn the plasma rifle on my head so I’ve got a couple of internal suicide systems, but you all just whine. This worked because they were pretty sure that you were too weak to kill yourself and because you’d break quickly.’
Played. We’d all been played.
Tailgunner didn’t look happy. He punched Merle in the stomach. The punch lifted Merle off his feet and doubled him over. Tailgunner looked at Merle with utter contempt. Merle straightened up and spat in Tailgunner’s face. They went at it. Morag was right. There was far too much testosterone around here.
‘Hey!’ Best sergeant’s voice. They ignored me.
‘Pack it in now.’ This from Mother. She was much quieter than I’d been. Tailgunner stopped and Merle relented as well.
‘You didn’t though, did you?’ I asked Merle.
‘What?’ he gasped. He was fighting for breath.
‘Kill yourself when we were on to you.’
He straightened himself up and wiped blood away from his mouth.
‘Well, what are you going to do? I’m loyal to Earth. I’m not working with the bad guys. I think you know that and I’m the best you’ve got.’ All probably true. He wasn’t just loyal, he was a fucking fanatic. ‘But here’s the thing. Now you all know, that’s just multiplied the exposure and the chance of this plan, probably the best plan we have, being fucked up.’ Also right. He grinned savagely and turned to me. ‘So I’m sorry everyone got killed and you were rude to your girlfriend.’ I couldn’t help glancing at Morag. Her face may as well have been made out of the same stone as the cave. ‘But you’re one lucky motherfucker to even be here so relax. It worked and you’re alive.’