Lathe shrugged. "He's a little hotheaded, but reasonably competent," he said. With luck, Bernhard would never learn just how competent Caine really was. Now the trick would be to stall off any attack until the blackcollars outside had been alerted. "But you see now why I want to have some more people like you behind me."
Bernhard took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. "You're dead, Lathe. All of you are—you simply don't know it yet. Security has the edge in numbers, technology, and time, and there's just no way to fight it. We came to an agreement with them a long time ago, but I don't think there's any way at this point for you to do the same. Even if you were willing to. You're dead—and I'm not going down with you. Will you try to get that through your head?"
"If you insist." And Lathe's combat senses were starting to scream at him. "I'll be in touch," he said, moving toward the door.
Beside Bernhard, Kanai stirred. "Comsquare... 755-3984-581. That's my home phone number, if you need anything. It'll probably be tapped, though."
Lathe nodded, mildly surprised and instantly suspicious. But if there was betrayal in the information it wasn't visible in Kanai's eyes. "Taps are easy enough to work around. Thanks."
The attack didn't come as he hurried down the walk to where they'd parked their car. Nor did it come as he drove around the block, picking up Skyler and Hawking and Caine. As they passed block after block of normal traffic, Lathe finally was forced to admit that they'd just escaped from a nonexistent trap.
"So when are you going to tell us what that was all about?" Skyler asked casually as they headed north toward Reger's home. "Just keeping us in practice?"
Lathe shook his head slowly. "I caught something off-key from Bernhard, but apparently I misread him. I thought perhaps Security had already gotten in with an offer he couldn't turn down."
"Such as his skin for ours?" Skyler suggested. "That would be all we'd need."
"Actually, I think it's inevitable," Lathe told him. He was banking on it, in fact, though for the moment it didn't seem advisable to tell the others that. "But apparently that's still somewhere down the line."
"But you weren't wrong about Bernhard," Caine said slowly. "I felt something wrong, too."
Lathe shrugged. "Well, let's not let it worry us. For the moment, anyway, he can't touch us."
—
"Well?" Kanai asked quietly when the sound of Lathe's car had faded into the night.
"Well what?" Bernhard retorted, his face unreadable.
"Come on, Bernhard—we know each other too well for games like this. Something's wrong. What?"
Bernhard held out for a few more seconds, then gave in as Kanai had known he would. "I had a visitor at home this evening just before I came here," he said with a sigh. "One guess as to who."
Something cold crawled up Kanai's back. "It wouldn't have been General Quinn, by any chance?"
"You got it. Just walked right in off the street, bold as a khassq-class Ryq. I didn't even know he had me located—and if he's got me centered, he's got all of us. I couldn't believe it."
Kanai nodded. "He dropped in on me like that, too, wanting information on Lathe. Whatever they're up to, Security's sure worked up over it."
"Yeah," Bernhard growled. "Well..."
"So what'd Quinn have to say? Aside from threatening us if we help Lathe, that is?"
Bernhard's mouth quirked. "It seems to have gotten worse since he talked to you. He's decided that our leaving Lathe alone isn't going to be good enough."
Kanai stared, the muscles of his throat tightening. "No."
"Yes." Bernhard nodded heavily. "No choice, Kanai. As of an hour ago we're officially on the Security payroll."
"We can't do it," Kanai insisted stubbornly. "Bernhard, we can't betray another blackcollar team in cold blood—"
"You think I like it?" the other shot back. "I'm a blackcollar, too, in case you've forgotten. We have no choice, dammit. Our own survival's at stake here—our survival, against bringing down a little sooner a team that's doomed anyway."
Kanai took a deep breath. "I don't give a damn," he said between clenched teeth. "I'm not going to be a party to this. Quinn can go straight to hell—and if you do his snake work you can go with him."
Anger flushed Bernhard's face. But the emotion quickly vanished, to be replaced by weariness. "I understand your feelings, Kanai. I wish to hell myself this wasn't necessary. But it is. You don't have to help, but I at least need you to stand out of the way."
Kanai hesitated. To say no, to break all ties with Bernhard once and for all, to cross over and ally himself with Lathe... but he knew down deep it was all just wordplay. He'd fought too long at Bernhard's side, shared too much history with him and the others. "All right." He sighed. "I'll stay clear. I hope you realize he's not going to be an easy target."
"I agree." Bernhard's eyes searched Kanai's face. "But his allies may not be quite as tough or slippery. Where is she?"
"Who? The Shandygaff woman?" Kanai's lip twisted in contempt. "So you're giving up already on the bull and instead going after the calf?"
"If what she did in the bar is any indication, she hardly qualifies as a calf," Bernhard replied dryly.
"Would you rather some friend of the late Mr. Nash finds her?—and he had a lot of very nasty friends."
"They don't even know where to look."
"You know better than that. Eventually someone will get to her. And... well, I've seen some of the ritual executions that've been done in this town. I guarantee you don't want her to go that way."
No, Kanai didn't, and once more he found himself in a no-win situation. Honor—what did honor demand here?
But for once he couldn't even rationalize an answer to that question. Perhaps because honor had no meaning to a man who'd betrayed himself and others so often.
And was about to do so again. "She's alone in a house about a mile north of the Shandygaff," he said, giving up. "Some place Lathe set up." He supplied the address. "I suppose you'll immediately turn her over to Quinn?"
"I don't know. I'll try to get permission for us to question her ourselves first."
"But if you don't learn anything, you'll let him have her. Sure—I understand."
"Kanai—"
Silently, Kanai turned his back and walked out, suddenly feeling the need for solitude. Solitude, and cleaner air.
Chapter 23
They took her at dawn the next morning—Bernhard and two of his men, entering the house with a silence and speed that had her before she could get to her gun. Hawking, watching from a safe place, was too far away to go her aid and therefore didn't even try, which probably saved his life minutes later when the Security forces appeared to take her from the blackcollars.
"Damn them," Caine snarled, squeezing one of Reger's expensive handmade mugs viciously with both hands. "We shouldn't have let her stay there alone. Dammit, Lathe, why didn't you let us bring her back here, anyway?"
"Because we didn't know if we could trust her," was the comsquare's even reply. Caine glared at him—how could he take this so damned calmly? He opened his mouth to speak, but Pittman beat him to it.
"Didn't her actions at the Shandygaff prove anything?" the other youth demanded. "She risked her life to save yours."
"Not really—we could have taken Nash ourselves." Lathe shrugged slightly. "And you ought to know by now how easily something like that can be staged."
"Maybe this part's been staged, too," Alamzad suggested. "Or is that ridiculous?" he added as Pittman sent him an astonished look.
"Not out of the question, actually," Lathe said. "But I don't see this Security office as being that subtle. No, I think it was the real thing."
"So Bernhard and Kanai have gone over the line," Skyler said, almost as to himself. "You were right about Bernhard, Lathe—just a bit premature. I suppose the next question is what we do about it. If anything."
"Can't we go into Athena and get her out?" Colvin asked. "I mean, she has now pretty well proved herself, hasn't she?"