Kanai recounted his one-sided conversation with Reger.
"Could this just be the setup for some kind of elaborate trap?" Bernhard asked when he'd finished.
"He's been sulking ever since we slapped his nose a month ago."
"I doubt it. He's smart enough to pull something like that, but he doesn't strike me as being actor enough to foam-mouth that convincingly."
Bernhard hissed between his teeth. "Great. Just great. Where the hell could new blackcollars have come from? Never mind. Wherever they're from, we've got to track them down before they trigger a flash fire that'll crash everything. I'll alert the rest of the team, see if we can find a trail. Reger give any hint as to where they might have gone?"
"Only that they apparently took one of his cars to travel in." Kanai pursed his lips. "Bernhard, what chance they've been brought in by one of the other bosses as a counter to us?"
"And stumbled into Reger's territory by mistake?" Bernhard swore softly under his breath. "I hope to hell that's not it."
"Yeah. Well... we meeting at the usual place?"
"We are; you aren't. Whatever's going on, I don't want you away from the contact phone. New data could come in; the damn blackcollars themselves might even get your number and call."
"Okay." Kanai looked at his watch. Three-fifteen a.m. "The usual emergency comm setup?"
"Right. I'll check with you periodically for nonemergency news. Sit tight and watch your back."
"Sure. Good hunting."
Carefully Kanai folded the phone and replaced it on his nightstand. Just as carefully, he stepped to the window for a cautious look outside. Pure reflex, and faintly ridiculous besides—the sensor web around his house would have picked up any intruder long before he became visible.
Any normal intruder, that is. Could a blackcollar team circumvent the web?
Kanai shivered. Were the new blackcollars indeed merely another set of hired hands? Or could they still be fighting the Terran-Ryqril War? And if the latter, what would they think of the course Kanai and his fellows had taken?
It doesn't matter what they think, Kanai told himself fiercely... and knew it was a lie. To see his own self-disgust reflected back by the eyes of those who had not shamed themselves would be a humiliation he wasn't prepared to face.
If they came for him now, and offered him the choice, he wondered if he would have the nobility and the courage to perform the seppuku of his ancestors.
No one moved in the street outside. Letting the edge of the curtain fall, Kanai went to his closet and began to dress.
—
The bar closed at three a.m. sharp, and the half-dozen remaining customers had staggered out by three-oh-five. It was another half hour before the barman emerged, locked the door behind him, and trudged toward the single remaining car in the lot. Lathe let him get within two steps of the vehicle before rising from his concealment on its far side. "Good morning," he said conversationally. "You remember me, I trust."
The barman froze, and in the faint starlight Lathe could see the other's mouth working soundlessly.
"I see you do," the comsquare nodded. "Phelling, wasn't it?"
Phelling finally got his vocal cords unstuck. "What do you want with me? I got nothing against you."
"Maybe we've got something against you," Skyler suggested, coming up on Phelling from behind.
"You and this Reger character."
Phelling seemed to shrink. "Oh, sh—look, sir, I don't have anything to do with him—really."
"You just act as fingerman?" Lathe suggested.
"What? Hey, look, I had to call his people in when you came on with that smuggler slidetalk."
"Maybe," Skyler said darkly. "Maybe you were just looking forward to shooting down a couple of helpless strangers."
"No! No, I swear—"
"And at any rate," Skyler interrupted, "you're the only one available to use as an object lesson."
Lathe gave that a few seconds to sink in. "Unless you want to tell us where we can find Manx Reger, that is," he said.
Phelling turned wide eyes on the comsquare. "I told you—I'm not part of his organization. If he's not home I don't know where he could be. You've gotta believe me."
"No, we don't," Lathe said. "But for the moment we'll settle for his home address."
Phelling opened his mouth, closed it again. "His... home address? But... you've been there. I mean, you tore up the place a month ago, didn't you?"
Lathe exchanged glances with Skyler. Their first positive confirmation that there were indeed other blackcollars operating in Denver. Doing... what?
For the moment, the question would keep. "Let's just say we've been out of touch with the other blackcollars in town," he told Phelling. "The hows and whys don't concern you. What concerns you is that we want to talk to Reger and you're going to show us the way."
Phelling had apparently gotten stuck half a statement back. "You trying to get in touch with the other blackcollars—is that it? Hell, that's easy. Their contact man Kanai goes to the Shandygaff Bar in Central Denver on Tuesday nights to wait for new business—"
"We'll get to them later," Lathe cut him off. "Right now, all we want is Reger. Let's go."
Phelling licked his lips. "I... yeah, sure, I'll take you there. Sure. The place isn't a secret."
"Good." Lathe sent a brief tingler message, and a minute later Hawking drove their appropriated car into the lot. "Get in," Lathe told Phelling as Skyler opened the front door. "Let's have your keys first."
Wordlessly, the barman handed them over and climbed in, Skyler getting in behind him. Lathe tossed Phelling's keys to Mordecai as he and Jensen emerged from their backup concealment. "No memory slips, Phelling," the comsquare warned, sliding in behind Hawking.
A minute later the two cars headed southeast into the night.
Chapter 7
When the cat's away, the ancient adage ran through Taurus Haven's mind, the mice will play.
The cat being Prefect Galway, of course. It was now just five days since the hidden 'port spotters had seen Galway sneak aboard a Ryqril Corsair and disappear into the sky. Bound for Earth, presumably, and certain to arrive before the Novak. If the collies there opted for the heavy-handed approach...
Haven put the thought firmly from his mind. The best way to help Lathe now, he knew, was to do his job properly. And to make sure the rest of the mice did theirs.
The other mice being Capstone's unemployed and increasingly frustrated youth... and Haven had to admit that this little mob scene Dayle Greene had set up was the finest peaceful demonstration Plinry had ever seen. The crowd gathered around the Hub's floodlit east gate numbered at least six hundred, perhaps one in ten holding a sign or lighted torch against the black of night. They were being quiet, for the most part, listening as their spokesman brandished their list of grievances and called on the guards lined up inside the mesh gate to come out and accept the paper.
None of the Security men had taken him up on the challenge. Nor, Haven thought as he studied the half-hidden faces behind the mesh, did any of them look as if they intended to.
His tingler came on: Hammerschmidt approaching in car. Haven grinned tightly and began working his way unobtrusively toward the front of the crowd. They'd read Hammerschmidt correctly, all right, down to the last decimal. Galway would never do anything so stupid as coming out of the Hub to face down a mob, but his second-in-command had always had more idiot pride than was good for him. Hammerschmidt would come out, all right; with luck he'd at least have enough brains to bring a carload of troops out with him.
The assistant prefect's car arrived at the gate a minute later, and a short but animated argument seemed to take place between Hammerschmidt and the guard captain. The captain apparently lost, and Hammerschmidt's driver maneuvered the car to point at the center of the gate. The mesh slid open just enough to pass the vehicle, closed immediately behind it. Capstone's Security men had had a mob get past the wall once before and were clearly not interested in repeating the experience.