“Radko?” Han’s voice.
A bright light was shined into the alcove.
“Turn the light out,” Radko said. She nearly added “no names,” but that would draw attention to the fact that he’d used hers. “I said I’d call if I needed help.”
“Van Heel couldn’t see you out here,” Chaudry said. “This section’s not covered. And H—”
“No names,” Radko said, sharply. Between them, they’d give the whole team away.
Chaudry looked first at Han, then to EightFields. “He said Eightfields pulled a blaster on you. We thought.” He didn’t say what he thought.
If Han had recognized the movement, there was a good chance security had seen it.
“Let’s question him elsewhere.” Radko gestured with the blaster. There was only one safe place, and that was the aircar. She called up van Heel. “We’re bringing him in. Be ready for us.” He’d recognized them and would be able to describe them, but she didn’t feel safe in this alley right now. “Give me your comms,” she ordered EightFields, and waved the blaster impatiently in his face when he didn’t hand it over immediately.
He handed it over. She tossed it into the alcove, hard enough to shatter it, then jumped on it as it bounced back, and kicked it back in.
“She really likes to be sure,” Han said to Chaudry.
“Comms are harder to destroy than you realize,” Radko said. “Come on.”
The back door of the club opened as they reached the corner. Her heart sped up. Two bulky security men made their way down to the alcove.
Van Heel dropped the aircar into the street. “Hurry, this is illegal.”
Radko waited until Han and Chaudry were in the aircar, then shoved EightFields in and followed so close, she stepped on his heels.
Van Heel took off straight upward. Han, Chaudry, and EightFields fell; Radko, more used to speedy maneuvers, kept her feet. She patted EightFields down, checking for weapons.
EightFields hardly noticed. He was staring at Chaudry. “I know you. You’re the people at Callista’s shop.”
“You do not,” Chaudry said. “I don’t even look the same.”
Radko moved the blaster threateningly up to EightFields’s throat. “Tell us about the report.”
“Go ahead, shoot me.”
“I wouldn’t shoot you dead. Just enough to cause you so much pain you’ll want to tell me.”
“Go ahead. I’m used to pain.”
It sounded like the truth.
Chaudry made a sound that might have been shock. “Do you like pain?”
“Of course not. But I’ve been beaten before. Starved. Burned. Shot.” He looked at Radko as he said that.
“I’m happy to shoot you, too,” Radko said.
“Of course you are.”
“If someone treated you so badly, why didn’t you report them?” Chaudry asked.
“Why would you care?” and there was bitter truth in the words.
“If you allow yourself to be a victim,” Han said. “You will always be a victim.” He seemed to have forgotten he was part of this mission and reverted back to the policeman he would have been on Lancia. Radko thought he might have been good at his job.
What had Vega given her as a team?
Linesmen. Who didn’t always make the best soldiers, but they were damned good at what they could do.
“I don’t care how much you were bullied,” Radko said. “And you don’t either,” to Han and Chaudry. “We’re here to do a job. Let’s do it. Now,” to EightFields. “Tell me about this report before I shoot someone in frustration.”
EightFields laughed. “I wish I’d never seen that report.” He sobered quickly, then looked at them speculatively. “But you were buying it, weren’t you?”
There wasn’t any point denying it, and if he’d been jumping at Redmond soldiers earlier, it was probably even beneficial. “Yes. Did you keep a copy?”
“I didn’t even know what it was. It was just a comms Adam was fussing about.” He took a deep breath. “I have to explain some history; otherwise, you’ll think I’m crazy.”
Radko looked at van Heel. “Are we okay with pursuit?”
“So far.”
She was after Adam. She didn’t really care about the report Daniel had sold to OneLane, but if they could relax him by letting him talk, maybe he’d let slip where his brother was. Provided they didn’t run out of time.
“Go on,” Radko said.
“Thank you.” He settled into his seat, lance straight, like a soldier. “I hate Adam. I always have.” She heard the truth of it in his voice and suspected that Adam might be the source of the pain EightFields had been speaking about earlier. “He made my life a misery when I was a boy. That’s why I joined the fleet. To learn how to fight.”
If he was trying for sympathy, he was certainly getting it from Chaudry. Radko couldn’t read Han’s face. Van Heel looked skeptical.
“I’m doing okay, actually. I was up for team leader.” He stopped and took three quick, shallow breaths. “I hated Adam so much that when I was about fifteen, I spent three months following him around, trying to find something I could use against him.”
Radko hoped this story was going somewhere.
“Back then, Adam was spending more than his allowance. Than both our allowances combined. He stole one of Mother’s necklaces—Radiance of the Night, it was called—and took it down to Callista’s shop. I followed him there.”
Named necklaces were priceless.
EightFields’s voice turned reverential. “Have you seen Callista? Isn’t she something? She was my first crush. I kept going back though I had no money to buy anything. I must have spent my whole youth in that shop. I propositioned her once.”
Radko raised an eyebrow.
“She turned me down. You remind me of her, actually. Ice queen.”
“Thank you.”
“I think she liked that I liked her. Adam visited occasionally. I was there often enough. I saw him go out the back. I used to ask her what he wanted, but she told me to mind my own business.”
“So you tried to impress her by selling stolen goods?”
EightFields shook his head. “Adam came home to attend a function. Two hours before we were due to leave, a captain arrives with a full team as an honor guard. He wants Adam to finish something because they were about to get a twelve, and they—” He stopped, and stepped back. “What?”
Radko hadn’t moved. At least, she hadn’t thought she had. “A twelve?” The chase had suddenly become personal. Her pulse pounded from the instant adrenaline rush.
“I don’t know what it is, either. But Adam and the captain were excited about it. There was this massive fuss as they signed over the comms, like it was the most precious thing ever.”
“Did Adam talk about it?”
“To me? Of course not. But he boasted about how important the work was, and it took a whole team to deliver it. Adam invited the captain to stay for a drink.” EightFields paused, took a deep breath.
“I was up for promotion. Team leader. The captain mentioned it. Adam—” EightFields swallowed. “I turn up at work next day to start team-leader training and find I’m out of the program. That I’m unfit to be in charge of people. It’s signed by the captain from the night before.”
“So you decided to get your own back?”
“Not then. They placed me on special leave because no one knew what to do with me. My old position had already been filled. So I go home, and what should I see when I walk inside, but Adam’s precious comms on the table. And no one around.” He scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “That’s when I took it. I went straight around to Callista’s shop.”
“Didn’t you think you’d get caught?” Radko asked.