Ahead of him was a tiny building, next to a shattered lamppost. The building might have been a transport stop or a policeman's watch box.
Movement. Alex's fingers considered the cutdown gun slung in his vest, but found the miniwillygun holstered in the small of his back more subtle. He edged the pistol's safety off, even though no one could have heard the click through the storm noise. Ball of finger touching the trigger, he held it ready, the weapon's muzzle just inside his cloak. Without realizing it Alex centered himself, legs slightly crouched as he moved on, foot coming clear of the ground sweeping in, almost touching his other ankle, then out, weight coming down on the ball of his foot, then the other leg moving forward.
The shadow was man-sized. It moved once more. Lightning shattered behind him, and Kilgour's finger tightened on the trigger. Then he relaxed. The shadow became a man, wearing a hooded ankle-length raincoat. In the flash, Kilgour had seen the man's empty hands outside the coat's sleeves.
Contact.
"An' thae sun break't through th' darkest clouds," he said, cursing himself for his imbecile choice of passwords that had seemed quite clever back in his warm, dry office.
The waiting source—the shipper—should have responded with "So honor peereth in the meanest habit."
Nothing but storm howl.
Over the wall, some meters beyond the watch box, Sten went to Condition Red. The cloak's frogs ripped away, and the cloak dropped away into the muck, as his hand pulled the stubby gun off its harness and his thumb spun the selector down off safe past fire, past burst, to auto, other hand yanking the stock full open, tucked under arm, down on one knee in the slime, eyes moving, moving, for targets.
Perhaps he had seen something. Perhaps there had been a momentary flicker of reflection from above the man, a shiny wire, or perhaps there was nothing.
Kilgour hissed shock, mind snapping orders to his reflexes. Nae, nae, dinnae go doon an' flat, body. Y're i' th' death zone.
Y' hae a couple seconds, lad. More'n enow time.
Contact had not answered, because Contact was very dead. It was somewhat close to normal, in Kilgour and Sten's shadow world, to learn that the oppos were on to your agent by finding him with an extra smile. And hanging by a wire noose from a lamppost wasn't all that uncommon a form of execution. But when the body was propped up, waiting for you at a meet...
Ambush.
Alex snapped the grenade out of his vest pocket, thumbed the impact fuse on, and sidearmed the tiny bomb overhead, to the right, just as he spun into motion, three leaping steps coming for a high jump. He dove forward, airborne, then slammed down on the rain-slick pavement, skating forward a meter, an' Ah need more time i' th' gym, because Ah'll hae bruises ae th' squeeze box t'morrow.
I' there is a t'morrow, he thought, as projectile fire shattered toward the watch box.
Triangulation, Sten analyzed. They've got us from three sides. This is a serious hit... as his finger came back on the trigger and he blew one potential assassin in half.
Cind had gaped for a microsecond at the space where Kilgour had been.
Then Kilgour's grenade, mortared high into the air with heavy-world muscles, hit the brownstone sixty meters above and some meters ahead of her—and detonated.
The front of the building peeled off, bricks cascading over the second murderer, just as Cind's AM2 round made the cascade a decent burial instead of self-defense.
The third member of the team was just bringing the trigger back for his second shot when Kilgour had him in his sights and snapped a round. The round whip-cracked past the third man; Kilgour's mind muttered about clottin' pistols beyond arm's reach, and his left hand had the pistol butt cupped for stability and two rounds double-tapped out—and the third man was dead, as well.
The team was moving—Sten up toward the retaining wall, Kilgour rolling like a beachball across the street toward some rubble, and Cind crouching first in one doorway and then in another. Kilgour jammed the pistol back in its holster and snapped his willygun into firing position.
The thunder from that lightning blast crashed across them, and Sten realized he had been counting in his mind: The lightning burst was only two kilometers away, and a bit more than six seconds have passed since we saw the shadow was a man.
Ambush. Why? Just to tell Kilgour that another intelligence group was watching him? Melodramatic way to announce the info—this contact, even if he had been a genuine smuggler, had given them nothing. Not a very professional organization, either. Pros never hit each other. It wasn't necessary once one had closed off the leak or potential leak.
Whatever. They could analyze who, what, and why later. Now it was time to extract. Run like hell. Sten wasn't worried about Jochi cops showing up—he doubted their dedication to real police work at best and knew damned well they wouldn't patrol this district except in watch-size formation. But it would be embarrassing for the Imperial ambassador to be seen in a vulgar brawl like this.
Sten started up, instinctively taking command even though the run had been Kilgour's thus far.
His mind had time to absorb the klang, his eyes time to see a flicker from behind and above them, on that bridge, and the mortar round blapped into the river mud, muck spraying, but killing shrapnel damped.
Then the automatic weapons opened up. High-rate projectile as bullets sheeted in a wheep into the mire just beyond him, and Sten wriggled back over the wall, rolling, landing on a shoulder; then he saw the muzzle flashes from the third-story window across from him. Willygun up, swearing at the short barrel, lousy accuracy, no time for the sights, he skeet-gunned a long burst through the muzzle flashes, and the weapon kept firing, dead hand on the triggers, as the gunner fell, pulling the gun over with him, the rest of the gun's magazine emptying itself in the sky. Gunfire shattered on from two other guns.
Sten found himself next to Kilgour, both of them trying to marry that wonderful sheltering pile of rubble, a pile that was getting smaller as the mortar's gunner corrected his aim, and a second bomb blew against the pavement.
"Th' bastards're serious, boss."
They were—this went far beyond an acceptable if extreme attempt to remove a problematical intelligence specialist. When the first hit failed, the cover should have disengaged and withdrawn. Whoever these beings were, this was a full-blown military ambush, eager for some Imperial corpses, regardless of the expense.
The army, Sten wondered. No. They weren't players—at least he didn't think so. Not yet, anyway.
Where the clot was Cind? His question was answered as a grenade blew a long-boarded window open, and she shouted, "Covering! Move!"
Sten slammed Alex's butt, and Kilgour was on his feet, hurtling forward and diving into the abandoned shop. Sten sprayed a burst in the general direction of death; infantry muscles took over, and he was dashing forward, coming in as Alex blasted covering fire, and he was through the window, recovering, to one side. Cind came through the window like a bounding Earth marten in the snow, a spatter of rounds accompanying her.
Their momentary shelter would soon become a death trap, Sten knew. At least, he thought, they didn't have to worry about running out of ammunition. Not for a day, anyway—each willygun's tube magazine held 1400 one-millimeter balls of shielded AM2.
Again, the mortar's gunner corrected his aim, and another bomb klanged out of the tube and arced toward them, and Sten gnawed drakh-smelling carpet just like so many rats had before him.
The gunner's range was long—the bomb exploded above them, against the building's face. Bricks avalanched down, just as they had from Kilgour's grenade.