Not the police, Radko corrected herself. The military. Redmond wasn’t treating this like a civilian murder gone wrong. They were treating it like a military problem. Even at OneLane’s premises, there’d been no local police. It had been a wholly military exercise.
The report had been co-branded with Redmond military. How far were they prepared to keep the information secret?
Han was more recognizable. It might be smart to keep them out of sight if she could. Radko looked nothing like Chen. Best if she did it alone.
“Van Heel, can you get the feed from inside the club? Han and Chaudry, stay in the aircar with van Heel. If I need you, I’ll call. Keep an eye on me.” With luck, she could be in and out quickly, without any need for backup.
She waited while van Heel hacked into the club feed. Even the screen inside the club showed their faces, with the words DANGEROUS KILLERS in large letters underneath.
“Have you ever had to kill anyone?” Chaudry asked.
She wondered, for a moment, if he was serious, for she and Vilhjalmsson had decimated a team of soldiers.
“Before today, I mean.”
“I’m not an assassin.” Not yet anyway. If she came across Vilhjalmsson again, it might be a different matter. Murdered in cold blood. “I have killed people.”
“Don’t you mind?”
“I don’t think about it.” She didn’t. It was her job. She was good at her job.
“I’ve killed people,” van Heel said. “Three of them. If you think about it, Chaudry, it gets to you. Don’t persist.”
Radko was glad Chaudry hadn’t harmed anyone earlier. Around about now, he’d be starting to feel bad.
“Thank you,” Radko said to van Heel, and glanced at Han, who’d probably killed his first enemy today, too.
He knew what the look was for. “I felt nothing.”
That just meant it hadn’t hit him yet.
“Got it,” van Heel said, and switched the camera view to pan on the patrons. They found EightFields with a group of people who laughed at every joke he made. Radko had had friends like that when she was a girl. The Yves Han that Radko had known as a child would have friends like that.
But she didn’t know this adult Han at all.
Which reminded her. “Han.” She took out her comms and tossed it across.
He caught it with his right hand.
“What do I do with it?”
“Nothing.” She took her comms back. “Testing your reflexes.” And his handedness. This spacer she had in her team showed a strong tendency to right-handedness.
Yet linesmen were always left-handed, and Yves Han had spent ten years with House of Sandhurst.
Ten years. Was he the real Han or wasn’t he? If he was the real Han, but wasn’t a linesman, then why had Iwo Hurst kept him on? Because he could be useful? Or because the man in front of her wasn’t the same man Hurst had trained?
She was starting to suspect he wasn’t the same man.
She pushed that question away. Tonight, they were here to get information from Daniel EightFields. She tucked her blaster into the back of her trousers and pulled on her jacket. Loose enough and thick enough to hide the bulge. “Don’t come after me unless I really need help.”
She swung out of the aircar.
The nightclub was fashionable and expensive, full of shiny, glittering surfaces, and a lot of flashing lights. Radko bought herself a drink and turned to look around the room.
EightFields’s friends were drunk. Their laughter overloud, their interactions with other patrons bordering on nuisance. In contrast, their host looked stone-cold sober, and he twitched every time someone entered the bar.
He twitched when Radko entered but relaxed when she ordered her drink. He twitched even more when a group of uniformed fleet officers entered and didn’t relax until they’d passed through into a private room.
A man with something to worry about? And from the way he looked broodingly at the screen every time Radko and the others appeared there, it might have something to do with Callista OneLane. Even if it wasn’t his brother’s report, Daniel EightFields had bought or sold something to OneLane, and he was worried he’d get caught.
The woman closest to EightFields called for another round of drinks. EightFields paid with an absentminded flick of his comms. Radko couldn’t tell if he always paid, or if he was just inattentive tonight.
Radko finished her drink and wandered over. “You’re Adam EightFields’s brother. Am I right?”
He looked at her, and there was no welcome in his eyes. “Who’s asking?”
“A friend of Adam’s. I haven’t seen him in months. Where is he nowadays? I’d like to catch up with him sometime.”
Daniel EightFields shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care.”
She pushed her way in between the drunk woman and EightFields. “Of course you do.”
“Hey,” the woman said.
“What’s more,” Radko said, quietly, under the other woman’s protestations, “you’ll tell me, or I’ll mention your visits to OneLane.”
She felt the hardness of a blaster shoved into her side. “Say anything, and I’ll kill you,” EightFields said.
Good. He had something to hide. She didn’t move. If EightFields was desperate enough to pull a weapon on her, he’d use it, despite the consequences. “Why don’t we go outside. They’ll have security watching the patrons. If someone sees your”—she indicated with her chin, but didn’t look down—“they’ll call the police.”
He looked around.
“Your friends are too drunk to be any help.”
He stood up. “They’re not real friends, anyway. The first sign of trouble, and they’ll be squalling for a team leader.” He stood close to her as they exited. “Do anything to draw attention to us, and I’ll kill you as soon as we get outside.”
“Trust me, I want to draw attention to myself as little as you do.”
EightFields led the way out through the back. The staff seemed to know him, for they let him go through.
“You’re well-known here.”
“Comes from being one of their best customers.” The back door led directly onto a street. “Keep walking. Straight ahead, then turn left at the black hole.”
Black hole was an apt description. Radko hesitated before she stepped in.
Van Heel couldn’t follow her here with the cameras. She’d have to assume she had no backup. She turned as she entered and chopped down and snatched the blaster out of EightFields’s suddenly inert hands.
He cried out. There was a squawk from the end of the lane. Or alcove, really, for it only went in two meters. A light flicked on. Two indignant faces peered at them from the end of the space.
“Find your own place.”
“Get out,” Radko ordered, pushing EightFields up against the wall so he couldn’t escape with them. He struggled. She wondered if she could hold him.
“We were here first.”
Radko waved the blaster at them.
Another squawk, but they scrambled out, grabbing their clothes as they ran.
EightFields stopped struggling. “You’re stronger than you look.”
“You’re not so weak yourself. I’m going to step back, let you go. Do anything stupid, and I’ll shoot.”
EightFields stepped back into the alcove. “What will you do with me?”
“Where is Adam?”
“Why Adam, of all people?”
Instead of answering, she said, “Did you sell the report to OneLane?”
“What report?”
They heard running footsteps, pounding toward them. Radko stepped into the alcove beside EightFields. “Give us away, and I’ll kill you.”
The footsteps stopped.