Austin left the no longer garrulous Borodin, made a circuit of the adjacent rooms without finding any others from the FCL, then returned to his car and drove back to Cingulum. This time the drive was slower to give him time to think as three of the planet’s four moons snaked across the dark sky above.
19
Borzoi Tavern, Cingulum
Mirach
2 May 3133
The Borzoi Tavern was decorated as a Russian hunting lodge, complete with stuffed animal heads on the wood-paneled walls and long oak tables stained with beer. On closer inspection, Austin Ortega saw that the stains were designs embedded permanently into a plastic surface and the animal heads were as artificial as the Russian motif. A bear of a man with a bushy beard worked behind the long bar, his dark eyes roaming endlessly as if they were radar dishes searching out enemies. He kept his hands below the level of the bar, making Austin worry a bit about what he might be holding.
“Good evening,” Austin said to the barman, who only nodded to him. The bartender kept his hands hidden from sight. “Stormy night, isn’t it?”
A stunstick was one thing, but a large-caliber pistol was something else, if the huge man chose to fight. Austin could outrun a man intent on stunning him but had found dodging worked better than running when his opponent carried a firearm. And that was the way Austin felt inside the artificially cozy tavern—if not surrounded by enemies, then by suspicious people who were not in the least friendly.
Or it might just have been that he was so keyed up that everyone looked suspicious. He tried to calm down, but it wasn’t easy.
“Seen worse storms this time of year,” the bartender said. Austin decided conversation wasn’t too likely and went to the back of the long room to sit at an empty table. Both bartender and barmaid ignored him.
He wasn’t here to drink. He was following the hint given him by Dmitri Borodin. He shrugged off his coat and draped it over his chair.
He lounged back and found his mind drifting. He smiled as he remembered better times with Dale, when he had been a recruit standing before Manfred for the first time and, in his haste to dress, had forgotten to zip his fly. He recalled the terror and outright exhilaration he had felt in the MiningMech as he battled the AgroMech on the test range. Those memory fragments were peculiar ones he couldn’t quite fit together. Extreme fear and equally extreme gratification. He might have been killed at the ’Mech plant, but he had been doing what he had been trained to do. And he had been in a ’Mech, even if it had not been modified to carry weapons. Austin had felt complete piloting a real ’Mech.
When the stroll down memory lane began to stumble into such odd paths, he grew restive. Austin forced himself not to look at his watch, but he was sure he had been in the Borzoi for at least fifteen minutes. Past midnight now.
Nothing had happened. The bartender didn’t even shout at him to order or leave, not that the business was particularly good; the Borzoi was empty of anyone else but the staff. Still, what business likes loiterers? Not being forced to order or getting chased out told Austin he was on the right track. Then it hit him. He had to initiate contact, and he had been given the key.
“Can I get a nightcap?” Austin called to the bartender. The man’s bushy eyebrows rose slightly. He leaned over the bar and talked in hushed tones with the barmaid.
“You want anything else?” the bartender asked.
“Just a nightcap.” Austin kicked himself for not speaking up sooner. Borodin had given him a code word and he had not recognized it as such. He should have realized, if these were Manfred’s friends, they would require recognition signals. They wouldn’t know otherwise that he wasn’t bringing the authorities with him.
The barmaid went about her chores, disappeared into the back room, only to return with a tray of glasses a minute later. Another ten minutes passed and Austin half stood when a man bundled like a mummy against the night came in from the street, the gusty wind sneaking inside until the door slammed against the storm. The staff greeted him warmly, all gathering around to talk to him as if he were a long-lost relative, but Austin saw the barmaid cast a furtive glance over her shoulder in his direction. Whatever the newcomer said to her involved Austin.
He wished now that he had come armed. For all that, he wished he had worn battle armor. Finally giving in to his nervousness, Austin checked his watch and saw he had been in the Borzoi for almost twenty minutes. It was time to go. He had hoped Manfred might show up, or someone who could help him get in touch with his friend. Borodin’s recognition code hadn’t amounted to anything. Austin hadn’t even got a drink out of it.
As he came around the small table, the bartender barked, “We don’t close for another hour. Sit down, tovarich.” The man’s voice was gruff, but Austin heard no menace in it, so he sank down and put his hands on the table in front of him. Waiting became increasingly difficult.
Suddenly his eyes went wide and he shot to his feet.
“Manfred!”
The customer at the bar pushed away a heavy scarf from his face.
“Go on, advertise it to the world.” Manfred Leclerc laughed to take the sting out of his rebuke. “You need to learn restraint when it comes to espionage.”
“Spying? Is that what this is all about?”
Manfred seated himself beside Austin and leaned closer so he could speak in an almost inaudible whisper.
“I’m not a spy and I didn’t try to kill you, but you know that. Your father told you as much. The way you came tonight shows you probably ignored him when he told you not to get any more involved.”
“You’re my friend, Manfred. It looks like you need help—almost as much as I need answers.”
“I’m your friend forever, Austin, for all time,” Manfred said, reaching out. He pressed his hand into Austin’s arm. “I’m glad you didn’t swallow that line Elora put out about me trying to kill you.”
“There wouldn’t be any reason,” Austin said. “What happened? I’ve reached the point of believing even Borodin might have ulterior motives.”
“Dmitri?” Manfred laughed. “That’s rich. Dmitri is about the most transparent man I’ve ever seen. Everything is wide-open with him. He serves faithfully and well. Don’t ever mistrust him.”
“Who tried to kill me? And have you learned anything about Dale’s death?”
“Slow down,” Manfred said. He glanced back at the barmaid. She shook her head. “We’ve only got a few minutes before they find us.”
“Who?” Austin was genuinely perplexed.
“Someone with great power who might have forged an alliance off-world that we need to fight,” Manfred said.
“Elora?”
“Of course Elora,” Manfred said. “I thought you understood more of this. You’d better stand clear and let your father’s plans unwind.”
“I want to help. Did she kill Dale? Hanna? Are you saying she framed you? How?”
“That ’Mech was mine, but someone hijacked it,” Manfred said. “That’s why my fingerprints were all over it. I’d spent hours going over it with the techs.” He stared at Austin. “I wouldn’t have had the time away from observation if the FCL hadn’t been transferred and Tortorelli so intent on disbanding us. I was given pointless assignments and no one checked up on me.”
“That’s why my father was so intent on getting rid of the FCL? To give you access to the MBA ’Mechs?”
Manfred nodded. “If the man who hijacked the ’Mech was careful piloting it after replacing the access code cards, he might have only smudged my prints from a training mission I ran earlier that morning.”