"I don't think it's his own situation that's pressing on him, Victor. I think—and I'll be the first to admit there's a lot of guesswork on my part—that it's this mysterious other person's situation that's driving most of the timetable here."
"Ah." Victor sat down and took a sip from his coffee. Then, thought about it for a couple of minutes, and then took another sip.
"I'm not about to second-guess you, Anton. So let's put everything on the table when we meet McBryde in two days. Tell him it's put-up-or-shut-up time, and offer the very big carrot of being able to get him and his Mysterious Other off the planet almost immediately."
He nodded toward Yana, who'd taken a seat at the table with her cup of coffee. "The Hali Sowle's back."
Anton drew in a breath. "In other words, you think we should make our exit at the same time. Once the Butres leave the system, none of our alternate means of escape is all that attractive."
" 'All that attractive'?" Victor chuckled. "Anton, unless I miss my guess, the moment the Mesan Powers-That-Be find out Jack McBryde has stabbed them in the back, all hell will break loose. There isn't a chance worth talking about that any of those 'alternate means of escape'—which I could also call the rickety ladders with which to exit a burning skyscraper—will be anything other than a death trap. If he goes, we have to go with him."
"Well . . . true. Besides, I can't imagine we could find out much more by staying."
"Oh, we could. Even before McBryde approached us, we'd already discovered a fair amount and started to develop some promising leads. But I agree there's nothing we could find out if we stayed that comes close to what McBryde will provide us. Besides . . ."
He took another sip. "I was about to tell you. Inez Cloutier just got back yesterday—and she's got a definite offer from whoever the top dog is. Probably Adrian Luff, if we're right."
"Good offer?"
"Better than I'd imagined. There must be somebody out there who knows more about the workings of Saint-Just's field operations than I figured there'd be. I guess my, ah, reputation has preceded me."
"Not as Victor Cachat, I hope?"
"No. Well . . . probably not. Almost certainly not. It's always theoretically possible that they've figured out exactly who I am and are laying a clever trap. But they work closely with the Alignment, obviously—so if they've figured out who I am, why not just report me and let the Mesans right here do the wet work?" He shook his head. "No, they're probably figuring me for another one of Saint-Just's young troubleshooters. I wasn't the only one, by any means. There were at least a dozen others I knew of, and probably two or three times that many. Who knows? Now that Saint-Just's dead, probably no one. If there was ever a man who kept his own counsel, it was Oscar Saint-Just."
"So that's the bottom line. Take it or leave it."
Jack McBryde returned Victor Cachat's flat gaze with what he hoped was an imperturbable gaze of his own.
The fact that Cachat had made what amounted to the ultimatum was a signal in itself, Jack knew. As their negotiations had progressed, Zilwicki and Cachat had fallen into the familiar roles of "good cop/bad cop." McBryde recognized the routine, of course—which Cachat and Zilwicki would know perfectly well—but that didn't really make much difference. The routine was ancient because it was so effective.
All the more effective here, Jack thought wryly, when your option as the "good cop" was Anton Zilwicki! As part of any other pairing except with Victor Cachat, Zilwicki would have been playing the "bad cop."
Cachat was . . . unsettling. And would have been, even if McBryde hadn't known his reputation. There were times when those dark eyes seemed as black as the stellar void, and every bit as cold.
"All right. Here's what I want: passage off the planet for myself and a friend of mine. The friend is male, close to my age, and one of Mesa's top physicists specializing in ship propulsion. More precisely, he's an expert on a new type of ship drive that is completely unknown to anyone else in the universe."
There might have been a slight expression that came to Zilwicki in response to that statement. Hard to tell, on that blocky face. There was no expression at all on Cachat's.
"Go on," said Victor. "And what do you provide us, beyond this physicist of yours?"
In for a penny, in for a pound. Jack had once even looked up the etymology of that old saw. "What I give you is the following: First, the nature and plans of the Mesan Alignment for both Manticore and Haven. Which are, ah, about as inimical as you can imagine."
"Generalities only go so far, McBryde."
"Let me finish. And, second, I can tell you how—in layman's terms; I don't have the background to understand the technical aspects of it myself—the Mesan Alignment asassinated Ambassador Webster, got Colonel Gregor Hofschulte to attempt to assassinate Crown Prince Huan, andgot a Lieutenant Mears to attempt to assasinate Honor Harrington and William Henry Tyler to attack your own step-daughter Berry, Anton. Among other attacks. Trust me, there are more of them—and more successful opss—than you people even guess yet. Including—" He looked squarely at Cachat—"the one which . . . inspired, shall we say, one Yves Grosclaude to kill himself, if that means anything to you."
For the first time since he'd met Victor Cachat, an actual expression came to the Havenite's face. It was a very faint expression, true, but between that little frown and the slight pallor, Jack knew the reference had registered.
Zilwicki was frowning at Cachat. "Does that mean anything to you?"
"Yes," Victor said softly. "Something Kevin's suspected—" He shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't talk about it, Anton. This is one of those places where the interests of my star nation and yours probably aren't the same."
Anton nodded, and looked back at McBryde.
"Okay. And what do you want in exchange? Keep in mind, Jack, that because of the—ah—unusual nature of this partnership between Victor and me, neither one of us can offer you asylum in our own systems. Eventually, I imagine you'll probably wind up on Erewhon, or somewhere in Maya Sector. For the time being, though, you'll be sequestered on Torch and I can pretty well guarantee that one of the very first people who'll be talking to you is Jeremy X. He's not likely to be friendly, either."
A slight smile came to Zilwicki's face. "There won't be any physical stuff, though—you know, beatings, torture, that sort of thing—and you won't even be subject to poor living conditions. My daughter will see to that; and would, even without me talking to her. But there won't be anything fancy or luxurious. Not for several years, at a guess."
Jack wasn't surprised by any of that. And . . . didn't care. Not any longer.
"It's a deal," he said. He took a chip out of his vest pocket and slid it across the table. "Here. I made this up as a sort of . . . good will gesture, I suppose you'd call it. It doesn't have any technical stuff on the assassination technique itself. As I say, the best understanding I have of it myself is only what you might call an informed layman's grasp. Basically, though, it's a new approach to medical nanotech, only this one's virus-based and does replicate on its own."
He saw the surprise—and alarm—in all three of his listeners' eyes, and shrugged.
"I don't know how they arranged it, but everything I've seen from the operational side stresses that they're confident they've built in a control mechanism to keep it from getting away from them. And that they need a DNA sample of the intended 'host' before they can design the weapon for a given mission."