“Johann, take the upstairs today,” Margulies ordered as her boots hit the tile floor.
Vierziger raised an eyebrow. He looked spruce and trim. Somehow he’d managed to scrub away all the soot and matrix residue which had settled on him during the firefight.
“This is—”he began.
“Not today, Sergeant!” Mary Margulies snapped. “We’re trading today.”
She flashed a near-smile of apology to her subordinate, then to Coke.
“I think I know this guy,” she explained in an undertone. She pointed toward the streetscape in Barbour’s display. “I think he used to drive for me.”
Barbour didn’t comment, but his right hand moved. Half the hologram screen became a facial close-up of the man in khaki.
“Via, that’s Angel, all right,” Margulies said. “Via, he looks bloody awful!”
Margulies’ friend carried a sub-machine gun, but it was slung muzzle-down over his back. His cheeks were hollow and his skin looked flaky, almost mildewed.
His well-dressed companion raised his knuckles to rap on the door.
Hathaway shivered and smiled falsely. “Ramon Luria,” he murmured with a nod toward the holographic display. “Raul’s son, that is.”
The knock was crisp and imperative—three short strokes.
“Let your guests in, Master Hathaway,” Coke directed. “There won’t be any trouble.”
If one of L’Escorial’s leaders had come personally, that was certainly true. For so long as he was here.
The door sighed open. Ramon Luria waved a hand expansively. “Hathaway!” he said. “It’s been too long since I sampled your beer. And you, sir, you’d be Major Coke, I assume? The very person I’ve come to see.”
If you watched Ramon carefully, you could tell that he was nervous. His movements had a birdlike suddenness, and there was a tic at the corner of his left eye. At a casual glance, though, the syndicate boss was utterly relaxed.
“Hello, Angel,” Mary Margulies said from a corner of the lobby. She stood with the sole of her right boot against the wall behind her. “I made a trip out to Silva Blanca just to see you the other day.”
“El-Tee!” the man in khaki said. “Blood and martyrs, Lieutenant! What are you doing here?”
“Same as you, Angel,” Margulies said, answering a more limited question than the one Angel asked. “I’m pulling security while my boss does business.”
Coke suddenly realized why Margulies leaned back against the wall. That way she had an excuse for not offering her hand or her arms to her former comrade.
Angel’s skin puckered and shook because muscles were twitching randomly in response to the commands of damaged nerves. He appeared to have been pulled from his grave to come here—and from the look in his eyes, his worst problems weren’t the physical ones.
“Major Coke doesn’t need security, El-Tee,” Angel said. “We’re all friends here. I was, I was—”
His eyes darted toward Ramon. The syndicate boss pretended not to notice him, instead eyeing the lobby with an avuncular smile.
“I’d been partying a little, I mean, when you guys landed,” Angel rattled out, “or I’d have been over before. I’ve been telling Ramon here and the Old Man, if the FDF wants in, hire them. There’s no better!”
“Angel’s our training officer,” Ramon said, deigning to glance at his companion. “And he assists my son Pepe, our …shall we say ‘war chief’?”
He laughed, a throaty sound and as threatening as jovial. “Angel Tijuca,” he added. “Since I gather not all of you are familiar with our boy?”
“Rather than stand in a doorway,” Coke said, “why don’t we adjourn to the bar.”
He nodded. “I’ll buy the first round.”
Ramon waved the idea aside. He wore rings on all four fingers and his thumb. The bands were set with rubies, diamonds, and what Coke judged was a large amethyst.
“I’m just the messenger, really,” Ramon said. “I came to invite you back to our house to discuss future affairs with my father, Raul. I aid him, and Pepe even more so when he’s home. But the Old Man still makes the final decisions.”
“Your son Pepe isn’t here, then?” Coke said with a bland smile.
“That’s correct,” Ramon answered with no smile at all. “But he’ll be back soon, Major. And you will want to have come to a decision with my father before that time, do you see?”
He bent his lips up at the corners. The warning couldn’t have been more explicit if he’d drawn and charged a pistol.
“I don’t mind discussing my employer’s business at any good location, Master Luria—” Coke said.
“Ramon, please, just Ramon,” Luria said with another glittering arc of his hand.
“—but when we arrived, there was some difficulty with your men,” Coke continued. “And since from the sound of matters last night, people are pretty worked up still, I don’t know that your home would be the best place to talk business. For me, that is.”
“Don’t think anything of it!” Ramon ordered. “Those imbeciles you killed, you did me a favor. With so many in Potosi all together, the men need disciplining or they’ll get completely out of hand.”
“I’m not sure they feel that way,” Margulies remarked from where she stood against the wall.
The veneer of bonhomie slipped from Ramon’s face. “They feel whatever way the Lurias tell them to feel!” he said. “If I, Ramon Luria, tell you that you can visit my home without concern, that is so. Will you doubt my honor?”
“The Old Man doesn’t think it’s a good idea for him to show himself with things like they are, Major,” Angel Tijuca explained with desperate sincerity. “Out in the street, I mean. Like you said, things got pretty excited last night. You’ll be all right, truly.”
Coke shrugged. There wasn’t really a choice about going. He just hadn’t wanted to appear too eager. “All right,” he said. “Mary, you want to tag along?”
“You bet,” Margulies said as she shifted herself onto both feet. “Maybe Angel and I can catch up on things while you talk business with the important gentlemen.”
Niko Daun stepped into the doorway from the kitchen. His action station was first floor, rear; Vierziger and Moden guarded the upper story for now.
“I wonder if I could go, sir?” the sensor tech asked. He already wore the ammo pouch filled with bugging devices. “I’d sort of like to see the place.”
“No, stick around,” Coke ordered. He didn’t want to try planting hardware in L’Escorial HQ while Tijuca was there. Margulies’ friend might recognize Frisian equipment, which could be embarrassing— or worse. “I won’t need a gofer, since we’re just across the street.”
He grinned at the syndicate boss to draw attention away from the exchange which had just taken place. “You know,” he said, “you could have just phoned yourself.”
Ramon waved his hand. “Would you have accepted the invitation had I not shown myself willing to visit you?” he said.
“You’ve got a point,” Coke said. He deliberately checked that his sub-machine gun was on safe. Slinging the weapon muzzle-down across his back, he added, “Let’s go talk to the Old Man, sir.”
Ramon Luria ushered Coke ahead of him through the door marked BOARD ROOM. An old man in red and a middle-aged one wearing a business suit of Delian cut were already seated within.
Instead of wood paneling, the walls of the sanctum in the basement of L’Escorial headquarters were covered with holographic screens. If the equipment had been perfectly tuned, an observer would almost think he was standing at ground level and the building didn’t exist.
In fact, the hardware had all been installed at stock brightness and coverage settings, which varied from unit to unit. One of the thirty-odd screens was dead and three others operated at less than half their proper resolution. The set-up made Coke think of a diorama viewed through distorting mirrors.