The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 3

“I’m coming in,” the console reported in the voice of Johann Vierziger.

Moden looked up at Margulies. “Was he out with the major?” he asked.

“Just out,” Barbour murmured before the security lieutenant could respond. “The major’s still at the port.”

“Waiting for us to answer him,” Moden realized aloud. He got up from the console. “Go ahead, Bob. Do the personnel check. Two hands’ll get the data out quicker.”

He grinned. “And anyway, you’re going to have kittens if I don’t let you play with your lady, here.”

When Margulies pulled the door a crack open, Vierziger entered the lobby of Hathaway House wraith-swift. He looked at the men at the console. “You’re succeeding?” he asked.

“So far, so good,” Barbour murmured as his fingers danced over the keys. He didn’t look up from his work, the two parallel half-screens of data which he was correlating.

“I’m glad somebody’s doing something useful,” Vierziger said in a voice of bridled fury. He walked into the saloon alcove.

Margulies turned so that her sergeant was within the arc of her vision, though she instinctively avoided focusing on Vierziger. Tonight he gave the impression of a door glowing white with the fire behind it, restrained until something happens to destroy the panel’s integrity. After that—

“You!” Vierziger said. “Larrinaga. What are you doing here?”

The local man looked at the dapper Frisian. For a moment Mary Margulies thought Larrinaga was going to make a smart remark. She knew she wasn’t fast enough to stop Vierziger if that happened, she didn’t think any human being was fast enough.

Larrinaga swallowed and said, “Nothing, I suppose. That’s all I’ve done for a long time.”

“Get up,” Vierziger said. Larrinaga blinked at him.

“Get up!” Vierziger repeated, his voice cutting like a bread knife honed to a wire edge. His left hand reached for Larrinaga’s throat.

Georg Hathaway rose from his chair and backed away, mumbling to himself. Larrinaga jumped to his feet. “Are you going to kill me?” he shouted. “Go on! That way maybe I’ll see Suzette again!”

“Johann—” Mary Margulies said. Her arms were out to her sides; her hands spread wide.

Vierziger slapped the local man, an open-handed blow only to the cheek. It cracked like a pistol shot and knocked Larrinaga to the floor.

“Vierziger, slow down,” Sten Moden said, stepping from the console into the bar alcove. His manner was neither threatening nor afraid. He moved like a storm blowing off the sea.

With the same hand he’d used to slap, his left, Vierziger reached into his purse. He tossed several credit chips onto Larrinaga’s chest.

“There you go!” he said. “Three hundred thalers, enough to get you off this cesspool of a world and off to somewhere that you can be a man again. Do you want to do that? Do you want to be a man?”

Larrinaga got to his feet. “I am a man, Master Vierziger,” he said in a raspy voice. He met Vierziger’s eyes, and that took balls even if he really wanted to die. Margulies knew there were worse things than death, and she was pretty sure that Johann Vierziger had seen some of them.

Moden stood quietly, arm’s length from the pair of men. The situation was under control. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself by moving again.

Larrinaga gathered the credit chips in his hand and offered them back to the Frisian. Vierziger didn’t move.

Larrinaga put the money on the table at which he’d been sitting. “Thank you for the offer,” he said. “I don’t choose to leave Cantilucca while …what remains of my wife is here. But I’m not going to buy our house back by sitting here and cadging drinks, am I?”

He stepped around Vierziger because the Frisian wouldn’t shift to let him by. Larrinaga nodded to Moden and to Margulies. “Thank you for your hospitality, Georg,” he called to Hathaway. “I won’t return until I’m able to pay down my bill, though.”

He pulled open the front door and was gone. The mark of Vierziger’s hand on his sallow cheek blazed like a flag.

“Oh my goodness,” mumbled Georg Hathaway. He set upright the chair that had fallen over. “Oh my goodness!”

Moden sat down beside Bob Barbour. When things were serious, the big man seemed more like a force of nature than a human being.

Margulies let out a deep sigh of relief. She looked at Vierziger and shook her head ruefully. “You know,” she said, “I gotta hand it to you, Johann. You may just have saved that silly bastard.”

Vierziger looked at her. She remembered what she’d thought about the things he’d seen. “Nobody can save another person,” he said, so quietly that Margulies thought perhaps she’d imagined the words.

Vierziger walked to the staircase. “Niko!” he called. “Come down here, please, with your kit. We have work to do.”

Sten Moden glanced at the security lieutenant. He raised an eyebrow. Margulies shrugged.

Daun appeared at the top of the stairs, trying to buckle his equipment belt one-handed. The other hand held his larger equipment case and the sling of his sub-machine gun.

“What’s up?” he asked, jouncing down the steps.