Chapter 21
They sat in silence for long minutes. NG felt a trickle of sweat run down his ribs. It was hot anyway but to sit there under the gaze of the Man sent his internal temperature soaring.
"The guild," the Man said, "has never before in its entire history been betrayed." He let that well known fact settle like thick fog between them before continuing. "Guild agents working for a Wintran corporation against Earth..."
NG sat quietly. There was no need to emphasise the damage that had been done. Media had been working overtime to mitigate. And he would swear Legal were enjoying it. Sometimes the best results come out of the worst situations.
"Explain to me how you missed it, NG."
The Man was playing games with him. He knew fine well exactly when NG had found out and how but he was pushing him to admit it out loud.
"And your decision to tip off Jameson," the Man said, "giving information to him about the request to send Hilyer to Abacus."
NG nodded but kept quiet.
The Man poured more wine, filling the two goblets to the brim. "Do you defend that decision?"
"I do. Under the circumstances I considered that I had no other choice. They contacted me as soon as they realised their facility had been infiltrated. Jameson was furious. It didn't take much to work out that it must have been our people. There's no one else capable of it." He paused, then reluctantly added, "I didn't anticipate the strength of the force they would send to Abacus."
"This is a dangerous game you've been playing, NG," the Man said, throwing his own thoughts back at him.
"Isn't it always?"
-
They were wearing full assault gear. And Kase looked very much alive and well.
"You're shitting me," Pen said and grabbed the board. "That's Martha? Man, LC said you were nuts to let her go."
"I was nuts to have ever gotten involved with her. It was Kase and Martha that extracted me after the crash."
"Yeah, well it looks like they've got ulterior motives."
"How did they find me? I didn't tell anyone where I was going."
"Your ship," Pen said and took another document from the envelope. It was a tatty piece of plastic sheet, the type they printed out invoices on when someone wanted more proof than an electronic record. "You said you didn't know who to trust at your guild, well you were right to be paranoid for once. Your ship's up there for repairs, right?"
"Not my ship," he protested.
Pen glared him to shut up. "You said she was in for repairs? Major repairs, you said. Life support, shields, jump drive. You said she'd taken direct hits when she got you off that planet? She lied to you."
Hil looked at the invoice. It was a dockyard inventory, the type of anonymous ID guild ships used when they were out on a tab but it was definitely Genoa. And it was for a simple refuel and restock, minor repairs to the landing gear.
"I don't understand."
"Damn right you do understand, bud. You told me all along. You don't know who to trust at the guild. Well, I'm telling you, you can't trust your ship and you can't trust those two extraction agents."
"Genoa's not my ship," he said again, holding onto the window ledge as they swerved to take a side track off the main road.
"Whatever she told you, she was lying," Pen said. "Did you contact her from my house? The house at the market?"
He had that vague memory of half-waking and telling her that LC was there. He nodded, feeling stupid and ticked off that he'd been so stupid and was still being stupid. He'd thought he was calling out to Skye and he'd trust her with his life, but even so, even knowing the guild had been compromised, he would never have thought to suspect a ship.
Pen handed him the board. "Look at the rest of the footage," he said.
Hil flicked it on. The film started out hazy from the smoke and tear gas they'd thrown in but the image cleared up as it dissipated. He looked at the faces of the people scouring Pen's place, a meticulous, fast-paced search, coordinated with precision. He watched, detached, watched himself and Elenor run for the basement a fraction ahead of the intruders who went efficiently from room to room, guns up. Kase and Martha weren't leading the mission. They followed in last, at a distance, almost casually.
The jeep was picking up pace, Pen leaning over to speak to the driver.
Hil ignored them and looked back at the board. He tracked back to the beginning and watched, freezing at each face as they passed the different camera angles. Something was niggling and it wasn't just that Martha was there. He didn't recognise any of the other faces. If it was a guild operation, he should have known some of the other agents. He didn't know all of them but he would have thought he'd see some he knew. Kase and Martha were the only two who were obviously guild. So who the hell were they working with? It clicked into place as soon as he thought of it. He back tracked again and let it play, freezing on a face with piercing grey eyes.
Elenor was watching. "Who's that?" she asked softly.
Hil stared at the still, chill settling in his stomach despite the heat. "He was one of the guys that picked me up on Abacus. He said he killed Mendhel."
Pen snapped his head back towards them. "It's him? You're sure?"
The sense of betrayal formed like a physical lump in Hil's throat, anger seeping through every cell. His voice was strained. "Martha's been working with them the whole time. She rescued me from them after I crashed."
"And Genoa," Elenor said, "the ship? She's been feeding them information?"
Pen took the board. "Okay, this changes things."
Hil stared at the board. He'd been warned not to trust the guild and he'd known. Deep down he'd known. That it was Martha hurt but his grief over Mendhel was still tied firmly in anger so he wrapped Martha up in with that and controlled his breathing carefully. "It doesn't change anything."
"Yes, it does." Pen tapped his knee with the board. "Now we know who they are and where they are, we can find out what they are."
By the time they pulled up at the gates to the encampment, the sun was setting on the desert horizon. Pen had spent the rest of the journey giving urgent, succinct orders to their driver. Hil had let the time drift by, playing games with his breathing and heart rate, and working on his plan. Coming up with the plan took about two minutes. Refining it took about thirty seconds. He told Pen and said he'd need the big pistol back, and Pen said he was mad. He slept the rest of the way.
It was late when they stopped outside tall metal gates which opened for them without much of a delay and they drove into the shantytown. He'd heard about these places but had never been out here before. Pen gave directions and the jeep navigated a winding route through narrow, crowded streets, bumping over potholes and swerving to avoid desert mongrels that ran out in front of them.
"Here," Pen said abruptly, tapping on the back of the driver's seat. "You guys get inside. I'll be right there."
From the look on Elenor's face, Hil guessed she hadn't been out here either. The jeep pulled up and they climbed out. Yan was there holding open a door. He nodded at them and muttered, "Straight down the stairs."
They pushed past a dusty brown curtain and Hil followed Elenor down the steep steps and into an almost exact replica of Pen's den in the city. An array of monitors flickered around the perimeter of the small room, casting white light onto instrument panels and benches piled with tools and unfamiliar equipment. The centre of the den was filled with Pen's favourite type of chairs and sofas, low tables and candles. Elenor slumped into a chair and covered her face with her hand. He was hit by another pang of guilt that he'd brought this to them and lurked by the doorway feeling awkward and intrusive.
It didn't take long for Pen to come crashing down the stairs.
"Okay, we're covered," he said. He brushed past Hil and tossed the heavy pistol at him. "There you go, bud. I still think you're mad. Sit down, you're making the place look a mess."
Hil caught the gun and let a faint smile creep across his face.
"What about the other th
ing?" he said.
"That'll take a while to organise. In the meantime, stay here, stay shielded, whatever you do - don't contact Genoa, I don't want this place trashed as well, and we'll try to track down these corporate bastards. Are you serious about this?"
"It's more of a plan than I've had so far," Hil said and wandered across to the sofas. "And LC gets away. That's the point, right?"
It took five days for Pen to get everything he needed. Hil used the time to run and stretch some flexibility back into his muscles. The desert air was dry and Elenor chided him for pushing his lungs to their limit each time he returned coughing but it was working. He wasn't back to the level he'd been before all this kicked off, but he was starting to get close again. Two of Pen's guys fancied that they could race him but he outran them each time. They beat him in bare knuckle but not without a fight every time, and they all ended up with scuffed knees and elbows from the desert floor, and as Yan taught him a few pointers, they had to up their game to stop him winning. Elenor hated it and Pen laughed a lot. Until they remembered why he was there.
Fighting released some of the tension that was building with being stuck in the desert and running was the only way he could clear his mind. Pen warned him not to go too far outside the safety of the compound but once out there he couldn't help but push it and two days in, he pushed it too far.
He set himself a target of a ridge across the floor of the desert and ran. It was hard not to dwell on Martha and wonder why she'd done it. Their break up had been painfully vindictive on both sides but he couldn't believe that all this was a result of his insensitivity. She'd betrayed the guild, not just him. And as much as she could be irritatingly superficial at times, it didn't fit with the woman he'd known that she'd do this for money. However high the price on their heads had gone, Martha just wasn't driven by that. At least he thought she wasn't driven by that, but as he'd found out, he hadn't really known her at all.
He picked up the pace, angry with himself for not seeing it, stumbled on a patch of loose stones and turned his ankle. He tumbled and ended up in a heap, breathing hard. He hugged his knees and looked around, exasperated, trying to breathe in air that was too hot and clear the fluff out of his mind. Elenor was going to be pissed.
He tested the ankle and decided it would hold his weight. Standing up proved him wrong but it wasn't so bad that he couldn't limp his way back, ticked off and tired.
Half way back to the compound, a trail of dust appeared on the horizon. He stopped and squinted at it. Vehicles. There was nowhere to hide so he limped on, wishing he'd brought a weapon out with him. He had the dampening patch on still and as tempting as it was to break cover and yell out, he didn't want to expose Pen and his operation, whoever it was approaching him.
Worst case was they could be Martha and her new buddies, slightly less worse would be bounty hunters.
He kept a steady pace and one eye on the road veering in from his left. The compound was still a way off by the time the dust cloud turned into discernible vehicles, jeeps he thought, and three of them. They roared up and careered past without stopping. Hil flinched away from the debris they kicked up as they passed, blinking his eyes clear of dust and feeling both relieved and deflated that they hadn't stopped for him. Maybe the universe didn't revolve around him after all.
He'd taken two more steps when one of the jeeps hit the brakes, spun round in a swirl of red sand and headed back towards him.