‘You seem to have this one leashed.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Loemanako grinned. ‘You’d be amazed how quickly these political guys lose interest in their job once they’ve been socketed up and plugged in a few times. We haven’t had a Correct Thought lecture all month, and the personal files, well, I’ve read ’em and our own mothers couldn’t have written nicer things about us. Amazing how all that political dogma just sort of fades away. Isn’t that right, Lamont?’
The political officer cringed away from Loemanako. Tears leaked into his eyes.
‘Works better than the beatings used to,’ said the noncom, looking at Lamont dispassionately. ‘You know, with Phibun and, what was that other shit-mouthed little turd called?’
‘Portillo,’ I said absently.
‘Yeah, him. See you could never be sure if he was really beaten or if he’d come back at you when he’d licked his wounds a bit. We don’t have that problem any more. Think it’s the shame that does it. Once you’ve cut the socket and shown them how to hook up, they do it to themselves. And then, when you take it away… Works like magic. I’ve seen old Lamont here break his nails trying to get the interface cables out of a locked kitpack.’
‘Why don’t you leave him alone?’ said Tanya Wardani unevenly. ‘Can’t you see he’s already broken?’
Loemanako shot her a curious glance.
‘Civilian?’ he asked me.
I nodded. ‘Pretty much. She’s, uh, on secondment.’
‘Well, that can work sometimes.’
Carrera seemed to have finished his briefing as we approached and the surrounding officers were beginning to disperse. He nodded acknowledgement at Loemanako.
‘Thank you, sergeant. Did I see Lamont giving you some grief up there?’
The noncom grinned wolfishly. ‘Nothing he didn’t regret, sir. Think maybe it’s time he was deprived again, though.’
‘I’ll give that some thought, sergeant.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Meanwhile.’ Carrera shifted his focus. ‘Lieutenant Kovacs, there are a few—’
‘Just a moment, commander.’ It was Hand’s voice, remarkably poised and polished, given the state he must be in.
Carrera paused.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sure you’re aware of who I am, commander. As I am aware of the intrigues in Landfall that have led to your being here. You may not, however, be aware of the extent to which you have been deceived by those who sent you.’
Carrera met my gaze and raised an eyebrow. I shrugged.
‘No, you’re mistaken,’ said the Wedge commander politely. ‘I am quite well informed of the extent to which your Mandrake colleagues have been economical with the truth. To be honest, I expected no less.’
I heard the silence as Hand’s exec training stumbled. It was almost worth a grin.
‘In any case,’ Carrera went on, ‘the issue of objective truth doesn’t much concern me here. I have been paid.’
‘Less than you could have been.’ Hand rallied with admirable speed. ‘My business here is authorised at Cartel level.’
‘Not any more. Your grubby little friends have sold you out, Hand.’
‘Then that was their error, commander. There seems no reason for you to share in it. Believe me, I have no desire for retribution to fall where it is not deserved.’
Carrera smiled faintly. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘There is no need to view things in such—’
‘I asked if you were threatening me,’ The Wedge commander’s tone was mild. ‘I’d appreciate a straight yes or no.’
Hand sighed. ‘Let us just say that there are forces I may invoke which my colleagues have not considered, or at least not assessed correctly.’
‘Oh, yes. I forgot, you are a believer.’ Carrera seemed fascinated by the man in front of him. ‘A hougan. You believe that. Spiritual powers? Can be hired in much the same way as soldiers.’
Beside me, Loemanako sniggered.
Hand sighed again. ‘Commander, what I believe is that we are both civilised men and—’
The blaster tore through him.
Carrera must have set it for diffuse beam – you don’t usually get as much damage as that from the little ones and the thing in the Wedge commander’s hand was an ultra compact. A hint of bulk inside the closed fist, a fish-tailed snap-out projector between his second and third knuckle, spare heat, the Envoy in me noticed, still dissipating from the discharge end in visible waves.
No recoil, no visible flash, and no punch backwards where it hit. The crackle snarled past my ears and Hand stood there blinking with a smoking hole in his guts. Then he must have caught the stench of his own seared intestines and, looking down, he made a high-pitched hooting noise that was as much panic as pain.
The ultra compacts take a while to recharge, but I didn’t need peripheral vision to tell me jumping Carrera would be a mistake. Noncoms on the loading deck above, Loemanako beside me and the little knot of Wedge officers hadn’t dispersed at all – they’d just fanned out and given us room to walk into the set-up.
Neat. Very neat.
Hand staggered, still wailing, and sat down hard on his backside in the sand. Some brutal part of me wanted to laugh at him. His hands pawed the air close to the gaping wound.
I know that feeling, some other part of me recalled, surprised into brief compassion. It hurts, but you don’t know if you dare touch it.
‘Mistaken again,’ said Carrera to the ripped open exec at his feet. His tone hadn’t shifted since the shooting. ‘I am not a civilised man, Hand, I’m a soldier. A professional savage, and I’m on hire to men just like you. I wouldn’t like to say what that makes you. Except out of fashion back at the Mandrake Tower, that is.’
The noise Hand was making shaped towards a conventional scream. Carrera turned to look at me.
‘Oh, you can relax, Kovacs. Don’t tell me you haven’t wanted to do that before now.’
I manufactured a shrug. ‘Once or twice. I probably would have got around to it.’
‘Well, now you don’t have to.’
On the ground, Hand twisted and propped himself. Something that might have been words emerged from his agony. At the edge of my vision, a couple of figures moved towards him: peripheral scan, still squeezed to aching point by the adrenalin surge, identified Sutjiadi and – well, well – Tanya Wardani.
Carrera waved them back.
‘No, there’s no need for that.’
Hand was definitely speaking now, a ruptured hissing of syllables that weren’t any language I knew or, except once, had heard. His left hand was raised towards Carrera, fingers splayed. I crouched to his level, oddly moved by the contorted strength on his face.
‘What’s this?’ The Wedge commmander leaned closer. ‘What’s he saying?’
I sat back on my heels. ‘I think you’re being cursed.’
‘Oh. Well, I suppose that’s not unreasonable under the circumstances. Still.’ Carrera swung a long, heavy kick into the exec’s side. Hand’s incantation shredded apart in a scream and he rolled into a foetal ball. ‘No reason why we have to listen to it either. Sergeant.’
Loemanako stepped forward. ‘Sir.’
‘Your knife please.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Give Carrera credit – I’d never seen him ask any man in his command to carry out work he wouldn’t do himself. He took the vibroknife from Loemanako, activated it and kicked Hand again, stamping him onto his belly in the sand. The exec’s screams blurred into coughing and whooping sucked breath. Carrera knelt across his back and started cutting.
Hand’s muffled shrieking scaled abruptly up as he felt the blade enter his flesh, and then stopped dead as Carrera sliced his spinal column through.