The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“Mistress, gentlemen,” Coke said, bowing over the hand. “These are my associates Master Daun”—he nodded—“and Master Vierziger. As I’m sure you’re aware, we’re part of a survey team for the Frisian Defense Forces.”

“This is a lovely table,” said Niko Daun, stroking first the underside, then the top, of the piece. In fact, the wood was dented and ringed from long use. He beamed a smile toward the Cantiluccans.

Peres sneered at the sensor tech. “Sit down, gentlemen,” he said to Coke. “I doubt we’ll need help from mercenaries, but we’re willing to listen to your offer. Will you try some of my private-stock gage? Or perhaps liquor?”

Roberson glared at the gigolo with impotent hatred. Widow Guzman winced, patted Peres’ hand again, and reseated herself.

“Water for us, I think,” Coke said. He unfastened his cape and hung it over the back of the heavy, leather-upholstered chair. The fuel-air grenade was clipped to his belt again, with the safety tab latched down.

“I wouldn’t mind trying your gage, Master Peres,” Vierziger said in his usual soft, cultured voice. Coke wondered where the little man came from originally. “A demi for a start, if you please.”

“We don’t have an offer for you, mistress,” Coke said. “We’re a survey team, as I said. We’re here to observe conditions on Cantilucca and report on them. I’ll be sending message capsules to Nieuw Friesland on a regular basis, probably daily, while we’re here.”

Vierziger took a pale green stim cone from the tray Peres offered him. “If you have proposals, we would of course forward them to Camp Able,” Vierziger said as he set the injector against the inside of his left wrist and triggered it. “If not, well. We’d have to look for other interested parties.”

It was useful to have two FDF negotiators present, though the team hadn’t been deliberately structured that way. Vierziger was along simply as muscle, as a bodyguard.

Whatever the little man had been in the past, it wasn’t merely a sergeant in the field police.

“Stop this nonsense!” the Widow Guzman snapped. “At any moment, it all could—burn, explode. What is it you’re offering, Major Coke, and what price do you put on your …merchandise?”

“That depends somewhat on the circumstances,” Coke said, nodding at the woman’s candor. Peres hadn’t brought the water Coke requested. He’d have liked something to do with his hands besides spreading them on the tabletop. “How many troops of your own are there?”

Peres frowned, then shrugged. “Eight hundred,” he said. “Nine hundred, perhaps. And we have six tanks.”

“And L’Escorial?” Coke said.

Peres and Roberson exchanged glances behind the Widow’s head. If it wasn’t an ulcer that grayed and twisted the merchant’s features, he was sure on the way to giving himself one.

The Widow Guzman stared toward the far wall. Her eyes were empty and her plump fingers tented before her. Coke thought of Pilar Ortega touching her crucifix as she contemplated bleak horror.

“The same,” Peres said at last. “About the same.”

“Neither of your syndicates have tanks,” Vierziger said with a lazy smile. “For the sake of discussion, let’s assume L’Escorial employs, say, two hundred men more than Astra.”

His smile broadened, sharpened. “Of course, that’s twelve fewer than they employed at this time yesterday.”

The merchant giggled nervously, then choked.

“Details like that make a difference, you see,” Coke said mildly. “Not an insuperable difficulty, but a difference.”

He paused. When he continued, his mind broke the stream of words into thought segments, each as precise as if Coke were taking aim instead of speaking.

“Based on my provisional assessment,” he said. “I doubt my superiors at Camp Able would be willing to hire out any force smaller than a company of infantry and a company of combat cars. Fighting vehicles. To either of the parties on Cantilucca. And that will be expensive.”

Roberson leaned across the table. “How expensive?” he rasped.

Johann Vierziger was examining his manicure. “As a matter of comparison …” he commented toward his almond-shaped fingernails, “ …less expensive than being burned alive in your house, let us say.”

“Approximately three thousand Frisian thalers per day,” Coke said crisply. This was money, not lives. He was out of the mood of stark calculation which had gripped him moments before. “With add-ons, perhaps ten percent over. I estimate that the operation will take forty days, and as much longer as you dally about on your own end getting started.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Roberson blurted. The quoted figure had shaken him from his shell of despair. “That would make the cost of hiring your soldiers equal to the value of the gage the syndicate ships in a half-year! Not the profit, the value!”

“In other words, a quarter’s value of the gage shipped from Cantilucca as a whole,” Vierziger said with a gentle smile. “Since control of the total would be in the victor’s hands. Perhaps your hands.”