"Hold it!" Caine snapped. "Don't kill him. We need to know who he was talking to on the phone."
Colvin caught the flailing half of the nunchaku, brought both sticks down to a guard position. Caine glanced around, spotted Alamzad dragging himself slowly from a prone to a sitting position. "You all right?" Caine asked, stepping toward him.
The other nodded weakly, clutching his stomach... and only then did it penetrate Caine's conscious mind that the light bathing the tableau was far too clean and steady to be coming from a flare.
He turned, squinting against the glare. A pair of spotlights of some sort. He stepped out of their direct line, in time to see a shadowy form climb out and away from a larger shadowy bulk.
The bulk he'd tentatively identified earlier as a leftover fighter craft. "Pittman?" he called.
"Here," Pittman replied, coming around into the light. "What do you know? The damn trick actually worked. I was afraid nothing would happen when I flipped the switch."
"I'm glad you didn't get the laser cannon controls by mistake," Caine countered. "Good move, though. All right, Bernhard—you've had enough time to get your wind back. Who'd you call and what did you tell him?"
Bernhard's face was still pained, but he managed a tight smile anyway. "I called for revenge," he said in a hoarse voice. "You're finished, Caine—you and your whole crowd of troublemakers. I've just burned your last bridge out of here."
Chapter 38
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Caine growled, his throat suddenly tight.
"It means I've taken out your base of operations," Bernhard said. Still holding his stomach, he eased himself into a sitting position. "You probably didn't know it, but while we were at his house Reger was stupid enough to tell me that he'd had Jensen redo his sensor net. Thought it would be a deterrent, I suppose. The fool. So. In an hour it'll be dark outside; half an hour after that he'll be dead meat."
Alamzad snorted weakly. "You're the fool," he said. "I worked with Jensen on that net, Bernhard—Security won't get within half a klick of Reger's house."
"Security?" Bernhard's lip twisted in contempt. "Quinn's trained idiots couldn't find their way through a garden patch. No, Security won't be called into the act until Reger is dead and his house a smoking ruin—though after that I imagine they'll find enough evidence linking him to you to take his organization apart down to the bedrock."
"So it was your blackcollar team you called," Caine said quietly, an odd feeling of sadness flowing in to replace some of the tension. He'd hoped Bernhard wouldn't do this. "All right, Bernhard—on your face on the floor. Lathe'll want to talk to you."
"Oh?" Abruptly, the pain left Bernhard's face, and in a single fluid move he was on his feet again.
"And I suppose you beginners are going to take me down to him? Forget it, Caine. I go where I choose—and you haven't got a snowflake's chance of stopping me."
"No, he doesn't," a new voice came from the shadows behind the fighter craft. "But I do."
Caine turned, combat reflexes tensing.
And Kanai walked forward into the light.
"You spoke of bridges," Kanai said, taking a few more steps forward to stand facing Bernhard.
Peripherally, he knew that Caine and Pittman had shifted position to bring nunchaku to bear against him; that Alamzad, still on the floor, had quietly drawn a shuriken. But at the moment none of that mattered. All that mattered was Bernhard and the shame he was bringing upon them all. "Another bridge is at risk here," he told his leader. "The bridge of friendship between us. If you value my loyalty—my presence in your team—you'll call Pendleton back and withdraw the order."
"So you're joining this band of suicidal fools?" Bernhard sneered. "I thought you had more sense, Kanai."
Kanai felt his lip twitch. "I have no intention of joining them, Bernhard—I don't especially like them, and some of Lathe's methods make me ill. But that's not the point. Like them or not, they are blackcollars... and I cannot simply stand by and allow you to betray them."
Bernhard returned his gaze steadily, and in the other's expression Kanai could see that there would be no turning back. Not for him, not for anything else. Bernhard had chosen his path, and nothing but death could turn him from it.
And Kanai felt infinitely old.
"You're getting worked up for nothing." Bernhard said softly. "I haven't betrayed any blackcollars—not really. But without Reger as a base, Lathe'll have no choice but to pull out as soon as they're done here." His eyes flicked back to Caine. "I warned him to get out of Denver, Caine.
This is the price of ignoring me."
"So you pay Reger back for your anger at Lathe?" Alamzad growled. "How noble. True blackcollar spirit."
Bernhard's expression hardened. "And what would you know about blackcollar spirit?" he countered.
"Or about warfare, for that matter? Reger's going to be an object lesson; when he breaks, the rest of the criminal underworld will fall into line that much faster."
"So that you can get your slice of the gravy pie?" Pittman said contemptuously.
"So that we can have the resources to continue the war," Bernhard told him.
Kanai shook his head. "No, Bernhard. Jensen was right—you haven't any real intention of taking us back into the battle. You're just playing games, pretending you're more than just the dead husk of what you once were."
Bernhard's eyes flashed anger. "And you, of course, are too noble to admit defeat when a cause is lost? Face reality, Kanai—we have each other and that's it. Either we stick together or Security takes us apart one at a time. If we can't win the war, we can at least survive."
"To what end? Survival for its own sake? That's no better than death." With an effort Kanai stifled the tirade building up inside him. Now was not the time for a philosophical discussion. "Call Pendleton back. This is your last chance."
"No," Bernhard shook his head.
Kanai let his hand rest on the ends of his sheathed nunchaku. "Then I will."
"You can try. You'll have to get by me first."
Kanai took a deep breath. "I know," he said softly, and started forward. One step... two.... Bernhard brought his own nunchaku into fighting position....
"Stop," Caine said suddenly. "Kanai, back off. It's not worth risking your life for. Reger's not in any danger—all Bernhard's done is to send his own men to their deaths."
Bernhard snorted. "Because of Jensen's big bad sensor system? I see you're not familiar with the term 'keyhole.' "
"You mean the setting up of a section of sensor net that can be deactivated from the outside?" Caine said calmly. "Oh, there's a keyhole there, all right. I presume that's why Reger and Jensen let you know that he'd done the work, so you'd know to look for a keyhole if you decided to betray us."
Bernhard's eyes narrowed. "You're slidetalking," he said flatly. "Reger shot off his lungs, and you're just trying to talk your way out of the hole."
Kanai turned to see Caine shake his head... and something in the other's face sent a shiver up his own back. "You're wrong," Caine said. "Jensen did more than just revamp Reger's sensor net, Bernhard.
He also built a death-house gauntlet into the mansion."
"What?" Bernhard's hands visibly squeezed down on his nunchaku.
"You heard me. A death house, one capable of taking out even blackcollars. So leave him be, Kanai.
If they obey him, what happens is on their own heads."
For a long moment Bernhard stared hard at Caine, indecision rippling across his face. "And you think it's too late to warn them, do you?" he at last. "Well—"