Tyl was waiting for a recommendation—Do I have your permission to open fire? was how a Slammers officer would have proceeded—but this fellow had nothing in mind save the theatrical announcement.
What Tyl didn't expect—nobody expected—was for Eunice Delcorio to sweep like a torch flame to the door and step out onto the porch.
The blast of noise when the clear doors opened was a shocking reminder of how well they blocked sound. There was an animal undertone, but the organized chant of "Freedom!" boomed over and through the snarl until the mob recognized the black-haired, glass-smooth woman facing them from the high porch.
Tyl moved fast. He was at Eunice's side before the shouts of surprise had given way to the hush of a thousand people drawing breath simultaneously.He thought there might be shots.At the first bang or spurt of light he was going to hurl Eunice back into the Consistory Room, trusting his luck and his clamshell armor.
Not because she was a woman; but because if the President's wife got blown away, there was as little chance of compromise as there seemed to be of winning until the brigade from Two arrived.
And maybe a little because she was a woman. "What will you have, citizens?" Eunice called. The porch was designed for speeches. Even without amplification, the modeling walls threw her powerful contralto out over the crowd. "Will you abandon God's Crusade for a whim?"
The uplifted faces were a blur to Tyl in the scatter of light sources that the mob carried. The crosses embroidered in white cloth on the left shoulders of their garments were clear enough to be recognized, though, and that was true whether the base color was red or black. There was motion behind him, but Tyl had eyes only for the mob.
Weapons glinted there. He couldn't tell if any of them were being aimed. The night-vision sensors in his face shield would have helped; but if he locked the shield down he'd be a mirror-faced threat to the crowd, and that might be all it took to draw the first shots . . . .
Desoix'd stepped onto the porch. He stood on the other side of Eunice Delcorio, and he was cursing with the fluency of a mercenary who's sleep-learned a lot of languages over the years.
The other woman was on the porch too. From the way the UDB officer was acting, she'd preceded rather than followed him.
The crowd's silence had dissolved in a dozen varied answers to Eunice's question, all underlain by blurred attempts to continue the chant of "Freedom!"
Something popped from the center of the mob. Tyl's left arm reached across Eunice's waist and was a heartbeat short of hurling the woman back through the doors no matter who stood behind her.A white flare burst fifty meters above the courtyard, harmless and high enough that it could be seen by even the tail of the mob stretching across the river.
The mob quieted after an anticipatory growl that shook the panels of the doors.
There was a motion at the flagstaff, near where the flare had been launched. Before Tyl could be sure what was happening, a handheld floodlight glared over the porch from the same location.
He stepped in front of the President's wife, bumping her out of the way with his hip, while his left hand locked the face shield down against the blinding radiance. The muzzle of his submachine-gun quested like an adder's tongue while his finger took up slack on the trigger.
"Wait!" boomed a voice from the mob in amplified startlement. The floodlight dimmed from a threat to comfortable illumination.
"I'll take over now, Eunice," said John Delcorio as his firm hand touched Tyl's upper arm, just beneath the shoulder flare of the clamshell armor.
The Slammers officer stepped aside, knowing it was out of his hands for better or for worse, now.
President Delcorio's voice thundered to the crowd from roof speakers, "My people, why do you come here to disturb God's purpose?"
Through his shield's optics, Tyl could see that there were half a dozen priests in dark vestments grouped beside the flagpole. They had a guard of orderlies from the House of Grace, but both the man with the light and the one raising a bull-horn had been ordained. Tyl thought, though the distance made uncertain, that the priest half-hidden behind the pole was Father Laughlin.
None of the priests carried weapons. All the twenty or so orderlies of their bodyguard held guns.
"We want the murderer Berne!" called the bull-horn . The words were indistinct from the out-of-synchronous echoes which they waked from the Palace walls. "Berne sells justice and sells lives!"
"Berne!" shouted the mob, and their echoes thundered BERNE berne berne.
As the echoes died away, Tyl heard Desoix saying in a voice much louder than he intended, "Anne, for the Lord's sake! Get back inside!"
"Will you go back to your homes in peace if I replace the City Prefect?"Delcorio said, pitching his words to make his offered capitulation sound like a demand. His features were regally arrogant as Tyl watched him sidelong behind the mirror of his face shield.
The priest with the bull-horn leaned sideways to confer with the bigger man behind the flagpole, certainly Father Laughlin. While the mob waited for their leaders' response,the President used the pause toadd,"One man's venality can't be permitted to jeopardize God's work!"
"Give us Berne!" demanded the courtyard.
"I'll replace—" Delcorio attempted.
GIVE give give roared the mob. GIVE give give . . . .
Eunice leaned over to say something to her husband. He held up a hand to silence the crowd. The savage voices boomed louder, a thousand of them in the courtyard and myriads more filling the streets beyond.
A woman waved a doll in green robes above her head. She held it tethered by its neck.
Delcorio and his wife stepped back into the Consistory Room. Their hands were clasped so that it was impossible to tell who was leading the other. The President reached to slide the door shut for silence, but Lieutenant Desoix was close behind with an arm locked around the other woman's waist. His shoulder blocked Delcorio's intent.
Tyl Koopman wasn't going to be the only target on the balcony while the mob waited for a response it might not care for. He kept his featureless face to the front—with the gun muzzle beneath it for emphasis—as he retreated after the rest.
Chapter Fifteen
"Firing me won't—" Berne began even before Tyl slid the door shut on the thunder of the mob.
"I'm not sure we can defend—" Marshal Dowell was saying with a frown and enough emphasis that he managed to be heard.
"Be silent!" Eunice Delcorio ordered in a glass-sharp voice.
The wall thundered with the low notes of the shouting in the courtyard.
Everyone in the Consistory Room had gathered in a semicircle. They were facing the porch and those who had been standing on it.
There were only a dozen or so of Delcorio's advisors present. Twice that number had awaited when Tyl followed Eunice out to confront the mob, but they were gone now.