The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

Barbour had been sleeping beside his console in the lobby. Coke met the rest of the team, armed and ready, in the upstairs corridor. Below, Mistress Hathaway was talking to the L’Escorial messenger through the viewport in the door.

“I’ll take care of the Astras,” Johann Vierziger volunteered. Like Coke, he wore a cape over his weapons. “Peres feels we’re soulmates, after all.”

His smile was as thin as the corona of a collapsed star.

Evie Hathaway ran up the stairs. “Major Coke!” she called. “Major Coke!”

“Right,” said Coke. “I’ll take L’Escorial. Sten, you’re in charge here—”

He flicked a quick finger at Margulies, forestalling the comment poised between her open lips.

“—and no, I don’t want company, I want a reaction force. If both sides are calling us, there’s probably no immediate danger, but I want all of you ready to move as needed.”

The Hathaways had stopped at the head of the stairs as they saw the Frisians were up and alert.

“Please, Major—” Georg began.

Coke waved his hand. “It’ll be taken care of,” he said. “We’re on our way.” He slid between the locals with more haste than courtesy, though that would have been the Hathaways’ choice had they been asked.

“There’s an envoy from Delos,” Bob Barbour called as Coke and Vierziger passed him. “A Madame Yarnell from the gage cartel on Delos, and she is not amused. From the way the Astra leaders talk, she’s the cartel’s troubleshooter—with the emphasis on ‘shooter.’”

“Why can’t they do this stuff at a decent time of day?” Coke muttered as he helped the sergeant pull open the heavy door.

“Because they’re not decent people, Matthew,” Vierziger said. “Of course, neither are we.”

“You’re the major?” the L’Escorial messenger said as Vierziger pushed past him. Then to Coke, “You’re the major.”

“Right,” Coke agreed, striding across the street. Vierziger headed for Astra HQ at a gliding pace, not quite a jog.

“What’s he doing?” the L’Escorial bleated, running to catch up with Coke but glancing toward Vierziger.

“Minding his own business,” Coke said. “Pray to the Lord that you never find yourself his business.”

He’d expected to find the L’Escorial courtyard full of armed men. Instead, half-dressed L’Escorials were trying to back their armored trucks into the garage beneath the headquarters building. The second-floor barracks was lighted. Coke could hear Pepe Luria shouting for his gunmen to get out by the back way at once.

Ramon Luria stood in the building’s doorway, looking alternately inside and out toward the courtyard. The messenger scampered up to him.

Ramon raised his hand to strike. “You idiot, Pierro!” he shouted. “I told you to bring the Frisian major!”

“He’s—” Pierro shrieked.

“I’m here,” Coke said. The courtyard was indifferently lighted, primarily by the headlights of the armored vehicles. The Frisian in his gray cape was a moving shadow.

“Coke!” Luria cried. “Thank the Lord you’re here! Look, you have to stop your troops coming. At once! You have to hold them back until Madame Yarnell has left Cantilucca!”

“Nobody at Camp Able’s going to make a decision until they have your money in hand, Luria,” Coke said harshly. “According to your paymaster, Suterbilt, that’s still several days. You needn’t have kittens.”

Despite his aggressive tone, Coke felt cold inside. His daily message capsules were shipped by first available transport to Nieuw Friesland, but there was at least a week between sending and receipt. Coke wondered what the Lurias would do to him if they knew he had recommended against taking the proffered contract, whether or not Suterbilt came through with the earnest money.

The Old Man lurched along the hallway toward his son. Gunmen, groggy with drink and gage, were being hastened onto the back stairs by their more alert fellows. Pepe Luria fought his way down the stairwell through them. He wore the firefly controller, but none of the spheres were themselves in evidence.

“She’s coming!” a L’Escorial shouted from the courtyard gate. “She’s coming!”

“Everybody into the basement!” Ramon screamed. He gripped the Frisian’s arm, fiercely and apparently unaware of what he was doing. His hand bumped the muzzle of Coke’s sub-machine gun.

“Oh my Lord!” Ramon cried. “You’re carrying a gun! Are you mad? She said no weapons in sight, none! She’ll—”

Pepe joined them. Ramon turned to his son and said, “He’s carrying a gun, Pepe!”

The youngest Luria looked Coke up and down with the interest of a dog sniffing something dead. “So, you’d be the expensive Major Coke, would you?” he said. “I suppose I needed to meet you some time, since L’Escorial now employs you.”

To his father Pepe added, “It isn’t in sight. But”—Pepe’s eyes were as black as cannel coal. They focused again on Coke.—“hold it so that it’s less obvious nonetheless. I don’t care what the good madame does to you, but she might mistakenly think L’Escorial was involved in your bad manners.”