Papa would be the trash man.
He waited about three minutes, long enough for his shadows to realize he might get away, long enough for them to race up behind him.
One of them swung into the alleyway, flashlight stabbing out from his silhouette. Papa squinted against the glare and leveled his pistol, just as the second shadow came up behind the first. “Hold it right there!”
The shadows froze.
“Lower the light,” Papa commanded. “You know who I am, so you know I’m armed. And you know I can see you against the street lights behind you. Lower the light and put your hands up.”
There was a quick, whispered conference, while Papa waited, strung tight as a lyre, ready to duck and dodge to the old armchair in front of the couch. But the flashlight beam dipped, and the two shadows lifted their hands slowly.
“Just so you’re okay, Colonel,” one of the voices said.
“Sure.” Papa smiled without mirth as he slowly stood up, still ready to dodge—but the two silhouettes stood frozen. “All right, now.” He stepped closer, his pistol glinting in the dark. “Put your hands on the wall. Who sent you?”
“Naval Intelligence, Colonel.”
Papa stopped. Then he said, “ID?”
“Inside my coat, on my left.”
“Take it out,” Papa said. “Lay it on the ground and back off.”
Slowly, the shadow did as Papa said.
“Farther back. All right, that’s good enough.” Papa stepped forward and bent down, still keeping his eyes on the two men. He picked up the flat, slick case, flipped it open without looking, and finally took a quick glance down, then back up. That told enough; he looked down, studied the ID, then slowly stood up, lowering his pistol. “All right, boys, you can put ‘em down. I never like to hang up a friend.”
The shadows relaxed visibly. “No problem, sir. We shouldn’t have alarmed you.”
Papa shrugged, stepping into the light to get a good look at the agents’ faces. “You’d have to be almost supernatural to keep me from noticing.”
The taller agent nodded. “An assassination attempt tends to do that.”
“So that’s why you boys were detailed to me?”
“Yes, sir,” said the shorter one. “HQ figured you wouldn’t like the idea of bodyguards, sir.”
“Well, they were damn right!” Papa let some of the irritation show. “I can take care of anything I come up against, myself!”
“Yes, sir. With all respect, sir, there’s a real chance the enemy might send half a dozen men after you, sir.”
No need to say who the enemy was—and Papa had to admit he didn’t like the sound of the odds. But he glowered and said, “I’ve had worse than that in combat.”
“So have I, sir—but I had a spray-rifle and grenades, not just a pistol. “
Papa looked at the man more closely. “You were in combat??
“Both of us, sir,” said the shorter man.
“Rank?”
“Sergeant, then. They booted me up to lieutenant when they put me in Intelligence.”
“They need you a hell of a lot more on the line than down here protecting a broken-down ex-sergeant from bogeymen!”
“We’re hoping to be rotated back, sir. But we realize what we’re doing here is more important.”
“More important?” Papa shouted. “Don’t even think it, Lieutenant! I’m just as expendable as any man on the line! Every soldier has to take his chances.”
“Uh, by your leave, sir.” The shorter agent looked down at the pavement, then up again. “We can’t afford to take chances with your life, sir.”
“Every soldier’s as important as any other, Lieutenant!”
“Yes, sir. That’s why your life is vital,” the taller man said. “I wound up with a rifle that jammed in combat. I used it as a club and got a Hothri rifle, and it worked well enough to save my life—but it was close.”
“They don’t have so many rifles that jam up these days,” the shorter man said, and the taller agreed. “Not since you took over as quartermaster.”
The shorter man nodded. “We figure you’ve saved ten thousand lives, give or take a thousand, Colonel.”
Papa stared, dumbstruck.
“As you said, sir,” the taller one said softly, “no soldier’s life is any less important than any other. That’s why we have to keep you alive.”
“All right, all right!” Papa turned away. “You can stick around. Just don’t get in my way, damn it!”
“Yes, sir. If you can cuss, we’re doing our job.”
Papa snarled and turned away, stomping down the street, feeling sheepish and somewhat ashamed—but underneath it all, secretly elated. His mind churned, reeling over what the Intelligence men had said, reviewing the impossible notion of saving ten thousand lives, feeling humbled and exalted at the same time-and absolutely certain that they had to be wrong, that he couldn’t be that important.
Which is why he didn’t notice the movement in the shadows as he passed the alley . . . didn’t notice until hard hands grabbed him, slamming him against the wall. He shouted and lashed out, but iron fingers seized his arms and yanked them up and back while a gag jammed into his mouth. Another hand darted into his coat, yanked the pistol out, and a voice snapped, “He’s wearing armor.”
“Under the hood, too,” another voice said, and yanked Papa’s cowl back to show the helmet.
“We’ll go for the spine.” A shadow hulked before him, slamming a fist into his belly, another into his jaw. He tried not to fold, but hard hands forced him down, and steel glinted in the night, flourishing high . . .
Guns barked, and the hulking shadow spun away, slamming into the wall. The man who held Papa’s gun fired back, a split second before he whirled and folded. The third one just gave off a tired sigh as he wilted.
Struggling for breath, Papa looked up at the two Intelligence agents, amazed. One of them turned away, checking the assassins, but the other was right there by Papa, holding his arm. “Are you hurt, sir?”
Papa shook his head, trying to wave the man away, trying to unkink his diaphragm long enough to take a breath.
The Intelligence man seemed to understand. “Try to relax, sir.”
Finally, air came in—only a trickle, but enough to start his belly pulling in more.
The taller man came up. “Two dead, but the last one will live. Maybe he can tell us something.”
Papa caught enough breath to say, “Don’t count on it. He probably only knows an electronic voice and a public phone number.”
“Probably,” the taller man agreed, with some regret. “They look to have been professionals.”
“Not as much as you two.” Papa finally straightened up and forced out, “Thanks, Lieutenants. Seems it was something I couldn’t handle.”
“Glad to help, sir.” The taller one’s voice was neutral, but his eyes glowed.
“Just doing our job.” The shorter one actually smiled.
“Glad you were.” But that wasn’t enough. “About my . . . snarling at you, before. Sorry.”
“Perfectly all right, sir,” the shorter one assured him, and the taller one answered, “This is a fine assignment.”
Alice noticed the discrepancy her first day on the job. The weights on the receipts didn’t match the weights ordered. Not surprising—they were for pig iron.
“If I tell my department head, they’ll suspect me,” she told Papa.
Papa shook his head. “Not with your record. After all, they promoted you because you managed to boost quality control, didn’t they?”
She turned away, frowning. “I’ve been thinking, Peppy.”
“You can get in trouble that way.”
“Oh, be quiet! And listen. It occurred to me as I was going over those purchase orders and receipts that by promoting me to paper-pusher, they got rid of me in quality control.”