"Are you going to shoot me?"
"I'd rather not get blood all over the dining room, but if you bat an eyelash crooked, certainly I will. Applewhite would hate the cleaning, but he is very discreet."
"What, then?" "I was rather hoping we could step outside, you could have a final cigar and a brandy or whatnot, and we'd… part company there."
He was serious. Goswell was going kill him. After cigars and brandy.
Not while he had a knife in one hand and a pistol inches from the other hand, the old fool wasn't. He would distract him and bet on his younger reflexes. It was the only way.
"Well, all right. If that's how it is to be. I think I'd like one of the Cubans and maybe a snifter of the Napoleon—"
With that, Peel lunged.
"All I see is the one," Fernandez said. "You want me to put a couple of rounds in him? Pick a spot and say when."
Howard considered his options. The guard had a submachine gun slung and ready, and he might cut loose if he heard a twig snap. Subgun pistol ammo wouldn't pierce their SIPEsuit armor, but it would surely make enough noise to warn people in the house they had company. So would a flash-bang or puke lights. Howard had been expecting a firefight, and in that case, you did what you had to do to control the situation; but so far, with no shooting, it seemed possible they could pull this off without anybody getting blasted. He'd rather do it that way, considering how delicate the politics were. Michaels had gone out on a limb a few times for Howard, the least he could do was return the favor.
"I'm moving up," Howard said. "I'll get his attention. While he's focused on me, you take him out. Nonlethally, if possible."
"Copy nonlethal, E5."
Howard crawled to within twenty yards of the house, then fifteen. The guard was turning and heading in his direction, and he had to attract and keep his attention long enough for Julio to get to him and choke him out.
He needed a noise that would make the guard curious but not afraid. A cat's meow might do it. He did a pretty good imitation of a kitten looking for its mama. Even if the guard was some kind of pervert who liked stomping kittens, he'd have to see it before he did that. Should be enough time for Julio.
"Meow. Mew. Mew. Mew!"
Sure enough, the guard started heading his way.
"Mew! Mew!"
The man grinned. "Kitty! Here, kitty, kitty. Aw, you lost in the rain? C'mere, I'll dry you off."
Good, he was a cat lover.
It was going to work. And it might have, if somebody hadn't fired a shotgun inside the house just then.
The guard spun toward the door, saw Julio coming at him at a dead run, and whipped his gun up.
Well, shit, Howard thought. Then he opened up with his own subgun, a triplet into the guard's back. The guard wasn't wearing armor. He went down.
"Go!" Howard yelled into his comset. "Back to Plan Able!"
Peel looked at the bloody hole in his belly, felt the burn of the lead, and knew he was not going to recover from this gut shot. Thick smoke clouded the lights, the burned-powder smell was awful, and from the floor, he wanted only one thing: to take fucking Goswell with him. He grabbed at his pistol, pulled it free—
Goswell stepped closer and aimed the shotgun at Peel's face.
"Sorry," Goswell said.
The next explosion blew out Peel's lights forever.
Howard rolled through the door and into the kitchen. He came up ready but, save for Julio, already on guard, they were alone. He pointed down the hall, and Julio nodded.
They cleared rooms. When they got to the study, there was a body on the floor next to a portable computer. The dead man wore portable VR gear. They rolled him over and saw his face.
"Bascomb-Coombs," Julio said. "Deader than last week's liberty."
"Yes."
Over the headset, Howard heard somebody outside suck in a harsh breath.
When they got to the dining room, they found the second corpse, a messy one with half its face blasted away, and an old man sitting at the dining room table with an open double-barreled shotgun in front of him. White smoke hung like dense fog in the room.
"You shooting black powder in that thing?" Julio asked.
The old man was Lord Goswell. Howard recognized him from his pictures.
"You don't look like any of the security boys I know. Americans, are you?"
"Yeah, we're new," Julio said. "What happened here?"
"Major Peel went mad, I think. He killed Bascomb-Coombs and came for me. I had to shoot him, I'm afraid. A terrible business."
Peel and Bascomb-Coombs, both dead. Howard shook his head. "Jesus."
Over his com, he heard Cooper echo that word. Or maybe it was Fiorella.
Julio said, "Where is Ruzhyo?"
The old man frowned. "Who? Oh, you mean the new Russian fellow Peel hired? I expect he's around somewhere. He was here earlier."
"Stay here," Howard said. "We'll be back. Heads up out there people, Ruzhyo is still loose."
They headed out. Michaels, Fiorella, and Cooper were covering the back, and Julio said into his com, "E4 and E5 are coming out the back door. Nobody shoot us."
As they stepped out into the yard, the rain stopped. The heads up in Howard's helmet lit with a flash on channel tac-2. He toggled the second com unit on.
"E5, this is P1. We have secured the perimeter."
"Copy, PI. Keep half your unit there, and send a squad our way. We have one unfriendly loose and running around, armed and the worst of the bunch. Stay awake."
"Copy awake, E5."
Howard said, "Split up. Commander, you are with me. Cooper and Fiorella, you are with Fernandez. Do what he says. Let's go find him."
From where he stood, hidden by the outbuilding's corner, maybe five meters away, Ruzhyo could hear the American's voice, though he could not quite make out the words. Five of them, and more out in the fields and doubtlessly on the way. They were wearing body armor impervious to his weapon, and it was unlikely they would flip up their visors or remove their helmets, knowing what had happened to their men who did that the last time they had tried to take him. He was outnumbered, outgunned, and outflanked. Once upon a time, he would have considered those things a personal challenge. Not tonight.
He might bank a shot under a visor with jacketed bullets, but the.22s were soft lead and wouldn't bounce well, though they would spatter if they hit a hard surface. Possibly he could blind one, but that wouldn't do him much good.
The only other weak points were the gloves, which were of thin Kevlar so they could have relatively unimpeded use of their hands. But a broken bone in the hands would hardly be fatal.
No, if he wanted to live, best he take his chances in the fields. Run, and with luck get past the line and away.
He sighed. He could have run a long time ago. He could be back in Chetsnya by now. But that wasn't really home without Anna. Wherever she had been had been his home. With her death, he had been cut loose, adrift, a sere leaf blown by the winds of fate.
He sighed again. Enough of this.
He unfolded the trigger from the umbrella's handle and stepped out from behind the cover of the building and into a cone of light. The five were only a few meters away, backs to him.
"Save yourselves the trouble," he said.
They turned almost as one, all of their guns leveled at him.
"Drop it!" one of yelled. "Drop the — the umbrella?"
He saw them relax slightly. He had given up. They had him.
He snapped the umbrella up and started point shooting.
Howard felt the impact of the bullet on his weapon, and when he tried to return fire, the subgun fired one round, which was way low, then jammed. He let it go and snatched at his revolver.
He heard the others yelling, though he couldn't separate the voices in the LOSIR from each other or the people standing close to him.