They came out in some other building’s under-level, and the door disappeared behind them, indistinguishable from the wall. They continued on through ordinary utility tunnels. “You use this route often?” he panted.
“No. But every once in a while we want to get something in or out not recorded by our gate guards, who are Baron Fell’s men.”
They emerged finally in a small underground parking garage. She led him to a little blue lightflyer, elderly and inconspicuous, and bundled him into the passenger seat. “This isn’ righ’,” he complained, thick-tongued. “Admiral Naismith—someone should go after Admiral Naismith.”
“Naismith owns a whole mercenary fleet.” Rowan strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. “Let them tangle with his enemies. Try to calm down and catch your breath. I don’t want to have to dose you again.”
The flyer rose into the swirling snow and rocked uncertainly in the gusts. The city sprawling below them disappeared quickly into the murk as Rowan powered them up. She glanced aside at his agitated profile. “Lilly will do something,” she reassured him. “She wants Naismith too.”
“It’s wrong,” he muttered. “It’s all wrong.” He huddled in the jacket Rowan had wrapped around him. She turned up the heat.
I’m the wrong one. It seemed he had no intrinsic value but his mysterious hold on Admiral Naismith. And if Admiral Naismith was removed from the Deal, the only person still interested in him would be Vasa Luigi, wanting vengeance upon him for crimes he couldn’t even remember committing. Worthless, unwanted, lonely and scared … His stomach churned in pain, and his head throbbed. His muscles ached, tense as wire.
All he had was Rowan. And, apparently, the Admiral, who had come searching for him. Who had very possibly risked his life to recover him. Why? I have to do … something.
“The Dendarii Mercenaries. Are they all here? Does the Admiral have ships in orbit, or what? How much back-up does he have? He said it would take time for him to contact his back-up. How much time? Where did the Dendarii come in from, a commercial shuttleport? Can they call down air support? How many—how much— where—” His brain tried madly to assemble data that wasn’t there into patterns for attack.
“Relax!” Rowan begged. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re only little people. And you’re in no condition. You’ll drive yourself into another convulsion if you keep on like this.”
“Screw my condition! I have to—I have to—”
Rowan raised wry eyebrows. He lay back in his seat with a sick sigh, drained. I should have been able to do this … to do something… . He listened to nothing, half-hypnotized by the sound of his own shallow breathing. Defeated. Again. He didn’t like the taste. He brooded at his pale and distorted reflection on the inside of the canopy. Time seemed to have become viscous.
The lights on the control panel died. They were suddenly weightless. His seat straps bit him. Fog began to stream up around them, faster and faster.
Rowan screamed, fought and banged the control panel. It flickered; momentarily, they had thrust again. Then lost it again. They descended in stutters. “What’s wrong with it, damn it!” Rowan cried.
He looked upward. Nothing but icy fog—they dropped below cloud level. Then above them, a dark shape loomed. Big lift van, heavy… .
“It’s not a systems failure. We’re being intermittently field-drained,” he said dreamily. “We’re being forced down.”
Rowan gulped, concentrated, trying to keep the flyer level in the brief bursts of control. “My God, is it them again?”
“No. I don’t know … maybe they had some back-up.” With adrenalin and determination, he forced his wits to function through the sedative-haze. “Make a noise!” he said. “Make a splash!”
“What?”
She didn’t understand. She didn’t catch it. She should have— somebody should have—”Crash this sucker!” She didn’t obey.
“Are you crazy?” They lurched to ground right-side-up and intact in a barren valley, all snow and crackling scrub.
“Somebody wants to make a snatch. We’ve got to leave a mark, or we’ll just disappear off the map without a trace. No comm link,” he nodded toward the dead panel. “We have to make footprints, set fire to something, something!” He fought his seat straps for escape.
Too late. Four or five big men surrounded them in the gloom, stunners at ready. One reached up and unlatched his door, and dragged him out. “Be careful, don’t hurt him!” Rowan cried fearfully, and scrambled after. “He’s my patient!”
“We won’t, ma’am,” one of the big parka-clad men nodded politely, “but you mustn’t struggle.” Rowan stood still.
He stared around wildly. If he made a sprint for their van, could he—? His few steps forward were interrupted when one of the goons grabbed him by his shirt and hoisted him into the air. Pain shot through his scarred torso as the man twisted his hands behind his back. Something coldly metallic clicked around his wrists. They were not the same men who’d broken into the Durona Clinic, no resemblance in features, uniforms, or equipment.
Another big man crunched through the snow. He pushed back his hood, and shone a hand light upon the captives. He appeared about forty-standard, with a craggy face, olive brown skin, and dark hair stripped back in a simple knot. His eyes were bright and very alert. His black brows bent in puzzlement, as he stared at his prey.
“Open his shirt,” he told one of the guards.
The guard did so; the craggy man shone the hand-light on the spray of scars. His lips drew back in a white grin. Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed out loud. The echoes of his voice lost themselves in the empty winter twilight. “Ry, you fool! I wonder how long it will take you to figure it out?”
“Baron Bharaputra,” Rowan said in a thin voice. She lifted her chin in a quick defiant jerk of greeting.
“Dr. Durona,” said Vasa Luigi in return, polite and amused. “Your patient, is he? Then you won’t refuse my invitation to join us. Please be our guest. You’ll make it quite the little family reunion.”
“What do you want from him? He has no memory.”
“The question is not what I want from him. The question is … what someone else may want from him. And what I may want from them. Ha! Even better!” He motioned to his men, and turned away. They chivvied their captives into the closed lift van.
One of the men split off to pilot the blue lightflyer. “Where should I leave this, sir?”
“Take it back to the city and park it on a side street. Anywhere. See you home.”
“Yes, sir.”
The van doors closed. The van lifted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mark groaned. Bright prickles of pain shot through a dark nausea.
“You gonna give him a dose of synergine?” said a voice, surprised. “I didn’t get the idea the Baron wanted this one handled gently.”
“You want to clean up the flyer if he vomits his breakfast?” rumbled another voice.
“Ah.”
“The Baron will do his own handling. He just specified he wanted him alive. Which he is.”
A hypospray hissed.
“Poor sod,” said the first voice reflectively.
Thanks to the synergine, Mark began to recover from the stunner hit. He didn’t know how much time and space lay between him and the Durona Clinic; they’d changed vehicles at least three times after he’d regained consciousness, once to something bigger and faster than an aircar. They stopped at some location, and he and the troopers all went through a decontamination chamber. The anonymously-dressed troopers went their way, and he was given over to two other guards, big flat-faced men in black trousers and red tunics.