He swung into the street leading past the warehouse he wanted, brought the carrier to a violent, shuddering stop.
A bright actinic flash, that left ghosts dancing behind his eyes, proclaimed nasty business afoot a half block beyond his goal. The old site had not been renovated. The Sangaree obviously were not using it.
"Stand by, men. Looks like we've found him." There was another flash. He eased the carrier over so it would not block the street. "Everybody out. Stand easy."
He used a pencil to scratch a diagram on the pavement. He was amazed at how easily the Old Town layout came back. It had been years... "Nick, you and Clair come in this way. Klaus, take Mike and Will and come in from over here. Kraft and I will go straight up the street. Test your comms. Okay. Move out."
Bright lase-weapons continued their ineffectual duel. BenRabi and Kraft stalked forward, clinging to shadow, till they spotted one of the duelists.
Moyshe studied the fire patterns.
Three gunmen were besieging a warehouse. One man was shooting back from inside. He had skill enough to keep the three pinned.
"They must have lost somebody already," Moyshe guessed. The besiegers seemed to be in the grip of a crisis of nerve.
"Maybe they're keeping him pinned for somebody else."
"Maybe."
The situation looked a little strange. The man in the warehouse was not behaving like Mouse. Mouse would not waste time sniping. He preferred the attack.
"What do you see?" Moyshe asked. His man was looking around with infrared nighteyes.
"There's just three of them. Funny. They look like pirates."
"What? Give me those." Moyshe took the glasses. Kraft was right. The besiegers wore McGraw jumpsuits. That made no sense. This was enemy territory for McGraws.
Could be Mouse inside, though—if they were pirates. They were working with the Sangaree now. Maybe Storm was hurt... Whispering to his handcomm, Moyshe moved teams into position behind each sniper. "Ready? Shoot on my mark. Shoot!"
It did not go well. The Seiners did not have what it took to do a man first hand, in cold blood. They allowed a vicious exchange of fire before dropping two of the men. The third escaped only after taking wounds no cosmetic surgeon would ever repair.
And still Moyshe worried. It seemed too easy.
He was changing. He was hardening into the paranoid hunter Bureau had made of him. He did not recognize the shift right away.
"All clear, Mouse," he called.
Ozone stench and the smell of hot brick assailed his nostrils. Sudden steam surrounded him, rising from a puddle left by the programed rain of the dinner hour. A quick pair of lasebolts had missed him low and high. He scrambled for cover.
"What the hell is the matter with that bastard? Has he gone hyper-bent? Give me that stunner," he snapped at Kraft, who was too scared to move. "He must be hurt bad. Here. Take this." He shoved his own weapon into the Seiner's hands. "Come on. Get yourself together. You've got to help." To the other teams, via handcomm, he snarled, "Draw fire, you guys. And I mean give it to him. I'm going to stun him."
A stunning would not please Mouse, but benRabi considered the alternatives even less pleasant.
Beams on low setting tickled the ochre brick of the warehouse, bluing the night weirdly. The whole street crackled and flickered and came alive. Legions of shadows danced like spooks at midnight. The return fire became erratic and completely ineffective. Moyshe pinpointed the source, armed carefully, held his trigger stud down. "Get over there," he growled at Kraft.
The stunner's spine-tingling whine continued till several Seiners pushed through the warehouse's street door.
Minutes later, from the window, someone shouted, "You got her, Moyshe."
"Her? What the hell do you mean?"
"It's a woman. You got her clean. Don't look like there's any nerve damage."
A stunner sometimes played hell with its victim's nervous system. Death or permanent damage could result. It did not happen often.
"Is it Strehltsweiter?"
"No. Come on over. She's coming around."
"What about Mouse?"
"Ain't no sign of him."
A woman, he thought as he started walking. What the hell? There were only two women involved in this business. Amy and Marya. The man would have screamed if this were either of them.
The Sangaree woman was on The Broken Wings, though. Of that he was convinced.
The woman was leaning out the window, up-chucking, when Moyshe entered the room whence she had been shooting. Her shoulders slumped with defeat. Moyshe watched her from the doorway. She seemed vaguely familiar from behind.
"Chief's here, lady," one of his men said, his tone not unkind.
The woman pushed herself off the sill, turned.
"Alyce!"
The name came out a strangled toad croak.
"Thomas."
Hammers of darkness pounded his brain. Hands as light as the wings of moths tried to bear him up. A voice asked, "What's wrong, Moyshe?" from several light-years away.
Despite the additional impact of seeing the woman in the flesh, the episode ended in seconds. Cold, shaking, benRabi fought for self-control.
She deposited her behind on the filthy window sill. Her breath came in shallow, difficult gasps. Her face remained curiously immobile despite its obvious effort to portray a variety of emotions.
Shock? he wondered.
He looked inside himself.
He was shocked. Shivering, he tumbled into a dusty old chair, stared at this impossible ghost of a romance past. His thoughts swooped and whirled through a realm of chaos. His soul cried in torment as it had done so constantly during his ancient introduction to the Seiners. All the demons he had thought fettered with his starfish's help were now breaking their chains and howling up from their dungeons. The inexplicable mind-symbol he called the image of the gun flashed in and out of existence like some barbarous neon advertisement for mental disease.
He did not pass out again. Neither did he regain his emotional feet. He fought what was happening in his head, fending it while trying to analyze.
There was something a little changed about all those old spooks. They were not quite identical with their predecessors. Had time eroded them? Helped them grow older and more mellow? What?
"Moyshe? What the hell is wrong?" Klaus demanded. "Woman, what did you do to him?"
Moyshe heard. He did not respond. What could he do? What could he say? To Klaus or Alyce. He had not expected to see her again, ever, even in the tight social environment of Luna Command. Certainly not out here on the fringes of Confederation, a thousand lights from the scene of their passion and pain. It was too wildly implausible a coincidence... Yet there she sat, as agonizingly real as death itself.
He ground the heels of his hands Into his temples, feeling the precursor pain of a savage headache. He gripped his stomach where his half-forgotten ulcer was coming to sudden, unpleasant life. His thoughts churned and sprayed like wild white water. His very brain seemed to be sliding on its foundations. Barriers came crashing down. Viewpoints shifted. If he did not grab something as he whipped past, his soul would be left a fanged wasteland as lovely and desolate as a bombed-out city.
He caught a glimmer of what was happening. He shied off like a whipped dog. He clamped down, shoving a hundred mental fingers into the sodden dikes. If he could just hold on till he found Mouse...
"How are you?" Alyce asked.
Her voice was different. It was older. Less musical. More hardened by life.
Her question had no meaning. It was just noise meant to break a fearful silence. He did not immediately respond. His men watched him with wonder and uncertainty, uncomfortably aware that they were on the brink of seeing a soul laid bare.
"I'm fine," Moyshe finally mumbled. "How're you?"