"Someone should have noticed the ventilation sensors weren't registering—" Skyler began.
"I know that!" Bernhard snapped. "We were busy fighting an invasion at the time."
He stopped abruptly, and for a moment the only sound in the booth was the muffled background hum from the rest of the room. "Sorry," he muttered at last. "It still hurts, sometimes."
Lathe nodded. "We've all got memories like that. So... you ran interference for the evacuation?"
"Such as it was." Bernhard shook his head. "I don't know what the idiot in charge thought he was doing—if the gas was seeping into the base, he should've realized the air outside would be rancid with the stuff. Even with the masks enough got into most people's skin to affect them. I don't think more than fifty out of the eight hundred we got out lived more than six months afterward."
Skyler grunted. "Sounds like Denver itself was damn lucky."
"It was a pretty heavy gas," Kanai said. "Stayed in the valleys around Aegis for the most part. But you're right—the Ryqril could easily have destroyed the city if they'd wanted to."
Lathe shifted his eyes to the oriental. "Were you in the base, too?"
Kanai shook his head. "I was on bodyguard duty in Athena. They were using us a lot for guard and civilian-control work at the end."
"Really?" Skyler asked, cocking an eyebrow. "Seems a waste of talent."
"What else were they going to do with us?" Bernhard returned sourly. "The war was lost, pure and simple. Why save us for guerrilla activity that would never take place when they had the immediate problem of crowd control?" He snorted and swore under his breath.
Lathe felt his own jaw tighten in sympathetic response. The Plinry blackcollars had taken their own share of contempt after the war from a populace who understood neither their abilities nor their limitations. But the military people of Aegis and Denver ought to have had more sense. "I know how you feel," he said to Bernhard. "You just have to keep remembering that it's that selfsame underestimation that's let us survive this long in enemy territory."
Bernhard regarded him coolly. "Maybe that's how you survived, Comsquare, but we got tired of being mistaken for sheep long ago. Everyone in Denver knows what blackcollars are and what we can do."
"Including the government?" Skyler asked.
"Of course."
"And they let you alone?"
Bernhard's eyes dropped briefly to the table. "We have what you might call an unwritten nonaggression pact with them," he said. "We don't hit government targets, and they don't bother us."
Lathe stroked his dragonhead ring. "That includes Ryqril targets, too, I suppose?"
"Yes, though given that the base outside Aegis and the town a couple of klicks farther on are the only sizable ones in the area, that's hardly a major consideration."
"Interesting. I presume you remember the oath you took when you were given that ring?"
Bernhard looked back up, his eyes blazing into Lathe's. "The war is over, Lathe. Over and done with, and we lost. What comes now is survival, by any means available. I don't need your permission or your approval, and I damn well don't want your quixotic preachments. My force can't do anything against the Ryqril, and I'm not going to throw their lives away to satisfy some outdated notion of honor. Understood?"
"Understood," Lathe said evenly. "So are you going to take my job or not?"
Bernhard inhaled deeply, the anger fading from his face as he did so. "You'll get your list of names, sure. And then you'll get out of Denver."
Lathe raised his eyebrows. "Or else?"
"Consider it our fee. And I mean it."
"I'm sure you do. Understand in turn that we're not leaving until our mission's completed."
"That mission being something that'll get Security all stirred up, I suppose?" Bernhard said sourly.
Lathe smiled. "Join us and find out."
Kanai stirred in his seat, and Bernhard sent a glance in his direction. "I'll have the list for you tomorrow night," he told Lathe. "Be here at eight."
"How about a different meeting place?" Skyler suggested. "This one's getting a bit stale."
"You're too easily jaded." Bernhard snorted. "Aesthetics apart, the Shandygaff's the safest rendezvous around. Anywhere else in the city we'd be in someone's territory, and there could be trouble. I'm sure you'd like to avoid that."
"Doesn't bother us—we're leaving this town soon, remember?" Skyler said. "But if you're worried about it, why don't we go somewhere in Sartan's territory?"
For a split second the corners of Bernhard's mouth tightened. "What do you know about Sartan?" he asked carefully.
"Only that you've done a lot of work for him." Skyler shrugged. "I assumed you'd have free rein in his part of town."
"Um. Well, as it happens, Sartan hasn't got any real territory of his own. Yet. You have any real objections against the Shandygaff?"
Kanai cleared his throat. "I believe a possible objection has just arrived."
Lathe knew better than to turn and look; but Skyler would have a view of the anteroom area.
"Skyler?"
"One of the mobile guardhouses," the other reported. "Probably Chong—the way he's favoring his right arm suggests he's the one Mordecai took out last night. The other one, Briller, seems to be hovering back in the anteroom."
"Both will be armed," Kanai said. "You wearing flexarmor?"
Lathe nodded. "So much for neutral territory."
"I saw Chong when he limped back in last night," Kanai said. "One of the rules here is that you don't pick on the bar's enforcers." He slid his legs out from under the table and stood up. "Let me see if I can placate them—the last thing you want is to draw attention to yourselves with a fight."
"Remind him we can get rougher than last night if we have to," Lathe told him.
Kanai nodded and headed across the room. Lathe watched him stop in front of Chong, took a quick reading of the bigger man's body language, and reached two fingers under his right sleeve.
Mordecai: Report.
Man loitering near entrance; suggest lookout. No evidence of massive Security presence.
So charming Mr. Nash had decided to handle this without official involvement. That was one plus, anyway. "How many men besides Briller and Chong does Nash have?" he asked Bernhard.
"Half a dozen regulars, more on short call," the other said, eyes starting to darken.
"You look perturbed," Skyler said.
Bernhard's gaze stayed on Chong and Kanai. "You assume Nash is after you. He could just as easily be after me.
Lathe thought about that for a moment. Unlikely, but not impossible. "You have any backup men outside?"
"Unfortunately, no," Bernhard said grimly. "I didn't expect it to be necessary. You have anybody besides the one?"
"No, but don't let that worry you." Mordecai: Possible encirclement in progress. Scan for outside troops.
Troops identified, was the prompt response. Four, including doorway lookout. Inadequate visual support.
In other words, Nash's men weren't in solid visual contact with each other, which meant they could be taken out quietly one by one. "Amateurs," Skyler said and snorted.
"That's fine with me," Lathe said. Mordecai: Clear gauntlet quietly. Minimal force.
Acknowledged.
"It's been a long time since I've heard the old tingler codes," Bernhard mused. "Brings back memories.... You think he'll be able to do the job alone?"
"If they don't spot him, easily. If they do, we'll just have to start punching from this side without him. Chong's wearing an earphone—if he twitches, we move."
"But no killing," Bernhard warned. "You kill someone here and the whole city'll be after you."
"If we weren't worried about killing," Lathe said patiently, "we'd have been out of here three minutes ago."
"Just wanted to remind you." Bernhard grunted. "Looks like Kanai's not getting through."
Lathe focused on the distant conversation. Chong hadn't budged, but his expression now resembled a thundercloud and his right hand had taken up residence in a side pocket. "Negotiations do seem to be breaking down," he agreed. "No back door, I suppose?"