Staffan decided it was time to pay Fel a visit. The idiot was asking for it. He couldn’t imagine why the Kig-Yar would try to pull a scam on him, seeing as his family lived here now and his customers knew where to find him, but buzzards were no smarter than humans when they got greedy.
“Sweetheart, can you keep my dinner warm in the oven, please?” Staffan checked his pistol and picked up the truck keys. “I’m going to sort out a misunderstanding.”
Laura looked him over. “You’re not a kid anymore, Staffan. Whatever it is, you need to take Edvin with you.”
“I can handle it. I’m going to see Sav Fel. I’ll call Ed on the way.”
Not many wives would tolerate their old man ruining dinner to go and shoot someone. He had a gem in Laura. But maybe Fel had a good explanation and it wouldn’t come to discharging weapons. Staffan got on the radio and let Edvin know where he was heading.
“You should wait, Dad,” Edvin said.
“I’m quite capable of dealing with Fel.”
“Even so, I’ll drive over. Don’t start kneecapping him until I get there.”
This was a normal day’s business. Staffan whistled to himself as he drove across town, more angry than worried. Sinks had done his job: he’d thwarted whatever security intrusion had been attempted. What if it wasn’t Fel, though? Would Peter Moritz have tried something? He was uneasy about Staffan having the ship. It was technology that Staffan wasn’t familiar with, so he had to follow hunches based on human—and alien—nature. Technology changed, but base motives were as old as time.
Never let them piss you around. Andy Remo’s advice was still as fresh in his memory as it had been decades ago. No second chances. If you catch them trying to screw you and don’t make an example of them, they’ll do it again, and so will everyone else. Start as you mean to go on.
Fel had stolen the ship once. That meant he could—would—do it again if the disincentive wasn’t strong enough. Why am I surprised? It was like a man who left his wife for a girlfriend. The girlfriend always seemed shocked when he did the same to her in due course. How did she think she got him in the first place?
Maybe I should just get a few of the guys together and break Fel’s fingers.
Remo had taught Staffan everything he knew: how to handle a firearm, how to hit a guy so that he stayed down, how to cover his tracks, and how to make money. But the most important lesson had been that rules didn’t exist. You made your own and enforced them. Following all the rules and being an obedient citizen hadn’t done Staffan a damned bit of good. The more he complied, the more the system crapped on him. It didn’t care what had happened to Naomi. The cops hadn’t given a shit about it. The school authority hadn’t either, or the hospital, or his CAA representative, or anyone whose job it was to listen to him and see that his concerns were taken seriously. They hadn’t much cared about Lena, either.
That was the deal, wasn’t it? You obeyed society’s rules, and those same rules would be there to protect you when you needed it. But all he saw around him was that the more you gave the finger to doing what was right, the more you got away with. Then he met Remo, and Remo took him one step beyond that, to the unthinkable place where you could become the person who obeyed no rules at all and dared the rest of the bastards to come and get you.
It wasn’t Staffan’s nature, but anger and grief made the transition far easier. What had he got to lose? Remo had done more to get him through the wasteland of his life than all the useless assholes in officialdom. That was all the proof Staffan needed about right and wrong.
If I met Naomi again, would she even recognize me? How would she feel about her daddy being an arms dealer?
She’d be middle-aged now. She’d understand necessity, that you had to do things sometimes that you didn’t intend or choose. Staffan turned down the road that led to Fel’s compound, ready to do what he had to.
The first thing he noticed was that the gates were open and there were more vehicles inside than the last time he’d called. Maybe Fel was shipping out, then. Good idea: Staffan would wring his chicken neck when he got hold of him. He parked just outside the gates to avoid being trapped if anything went wrong, slipped his pistol into the back of his waistband, and walked into the front courtyard.
Something wasn’t right. There wasn’t always a guard on the gate, not unless Fel wanted to impress someone for a deal, but Staffan didn’t usually walk in unnoticed. A gaggle of Kig-Yar were milling around, arguing and looking agitated. Then they spotted Staffan and fluffed up their quills.
He didn’t wait to be questioned or greeted. “Where’s Fel? I need to talk to him.”
Staffan stood with his hands on his hips, ready to draw his weapon. Kig-Yar reacted to that body language much the same way a human did. They paused, sizing him up. Then a female pushed through the males and stalked toward him, looking murderous. In the sudden silence, Staffan could hear the distant noise of chicks somewhere in the house.
“Where is my mate?” she demanded. “Is this your doing? Have you come for a ransom? I’ll slit your throat. I’ll—”
“Hold on a moment, ma’am.” This had to be the current Mrs. Fel, the female Skirmisher he’d seen on the first visit. “Are you telling me your husband’s missing?”
She looked manic, but then they all did. It was the eyes. “Don’t play innocent with me, flat-face. What have you done with him?”
Okay, Remo time. “Actually, I came to kick the crap out of the thieving jackal,” he snapped. “Has someone beaten me to it?”
One of the males finally spoke. “Fel disappeared last night.”
“What do you mean, disappeared? Has he done something he needs to disappear for, then? Because I’ve got a bone to pick with him about my goddamn ship.”
Mrs. Fel hopped from foot to foot, head jerking this way and that. “Feathers,” she said. She ducked back inside the house for a moment and came out clutching a handful of shiny black feathers. When she held them out, Staffan could see that the shaft and vanes were broken, like they’d been yanked out with some force. Some of the quill ends even looked a bit purple and bloody, so they hadn’t been shed naturally or plucked from a dead body.
“Look,” she said. “I found these on the ground. Someone abducted him. I know it. He went outside to put something in his vehicle and then he was gone. Just gone. Nobody’s heard from him. Nobody knows where he is. He didn’t meet up with a customer as planned last night and he didn’t return. He always comes back. He knows I’ll kill him if he doesn’t.”
She could have been lying, of course. Staffan didn’t have any illusions about Kig-Yar. Maybe she was just doing what a human would have done and standing by her man.
“If you’ve got any suspects,” Staffan said, “I’ll go have a word with them. I’m anxious to see him too.”
“If we had any suspects, we would have run them down already.”
The Kig-Yar flock instinct kicked in when they were under stress. They hunted and fought in packs. This bunch certainly didn’t seem to be acting now.
“You think the Sangheili caught up with him?” Staffan asked.
One of the males cocked a suspicious head. “The four-jaws would have slaughtered everyone before taking him, if they needed him for any purpose. If they didn’t need him—we would have found his body in pieces. So we suspect humans.”
“Or your own kind. Or Brutes. So if you think he’s been abducted by humans, maybe you should look at who he’s been doing business with lately other than me.”
It seemed to stump them. The buzzard had a point about the Sangheili. Staffan had heard they weren’t subtle about prisoners, so even if they’d managed to find Venezia and land without attracting attention, this didn’t look like their handiwork.
“You’ll ask your associates,” Mrs. Fel said. She probably thought he’d obey because he was a mere male. “I want him back.”
Staffan stood his ground. “And you ask yours.
And tell me what you find.”
He headed back to the truck, holding his radio discreetly so that the shiny side would reflect anyone coming up behind him. He really didn’t like turning his back on Kig-Yar when they were that fired up.
If anyone had snatched Fel for an unpaid debt, they wouldn’t keep it quiet for long. That was the whole point. It was what passed for law enforcement here. If nobody knew that retribution quickly followed wrongdoing, then nobody else learned to behave. Staffan drove back along the eastbound road into town and saw Edvin’s pickup coming the other way. He slowed down and pulled over. Edvin passed him to do a U-turn, drove up behind him, and parked.
He jumped down from the cab. “Jesus, Dad, you had me worried. What happened?”
“Fel’s gone missing.”
“Legged it, or been snatched?”
“Sounds more like snatched.”
“Sangheili?”
“They’d have left a pile of hamburger and taken the ship by now. Well, if he’s pissed off someone here, we’ll hear about it fast.”
“Who’d kidnap Fel in his own front yard?”
Staffan’s gut told him this was all connected with the attempt to hack the ship’s systems, but he couldn’t see how yet. It was a crystal-clear evening, not quite dark, and buzzing with insects in the trees.
“Connect the dots,” he said, leaning on the hood of Edvin’s pickup. “Someone tries to breach the ship’s computer. From here. Via my comms signal. Someone knows me, the ship, and Fel. Would Peter do this? Nairn?”
Edvin shrugged. “Who’s new in town?”
It hadn’t crossed Staffan’s mind before. “Our two marines. They’re certainly pros. But you think they’re up to this kind of stuff?”
“Well, we don’t see many UNSC deserters for years, and then three come along all at once.”
“Three?”
“The Russian guy had a woman with him when he arrived, but she shot through for some reason.”
Staffan wondered what had happened to her. But it was impossible to keep tabs on everyone who came and went. “Well, when it comes to gift horses,” he said, “a thorough dental examination is always a good idea. Shall we go and have a chat with them?”
“I think it would be sensible. Either it’s them, or they’ve got a different set of skills to help us find who’s done it.”
“But how would they know about accessing the ship’s comms?”
“How do we find out stuff? Someone always lets something drop.”
Staffan hadn’t made up his mind whether Mal and Vaz were a problem, a blessing, or just two guys who’d picked the place farthest off the UNSC’s radar to lie low for a while. But his main asset was a battlecruiser, and he had to do everything in his power to hang on to it. Sinks would stop any attempt to take the ship. That bought him some time.
Start as you mean to go on.
If it was one of his own going behind his back, a friend like Peter or Nairn, then he’d have to act. A man in his trade couldn’t afford to show weakness or else he’d be eaten alive. If it was these two new guys—well, he’d deal with them and that would send a message to Earth and the UNSC that they couldn’t walk in and threaten a colony any more easily now than they could thirty years ago.
“Let’s go and have a chat with Mal and Vaz,” he said. “They’re usually in one of the bars, right?”
Edvin nodded. “I’ll call some backup. You’re dealing with marines now, Dad. They make the Kig-Yar look like lovebirds.”
STAVROS’S BAR, NEW TYNE
“When I’m too old to wrestle hinge-heads,” Mal said, “I think I’m going to retire here and open a Black Country restaurant. I’m going to serve gray peas and bacon, chitterlings, brawn…”
“This is all about offal again, isn’t it?” Vaz seemed to have lost interest in his beer. “Viscera. Organs.”
Mal kept an eye on the entrance while Vaz faced the other way and watched the back door that led to the bathrooms. He would have felt better sitting near the door for a rapid exfil, but the tables were all occupied with people who didn’t look inclined to move anytime soon.
“Not the peas,” Mal said. “Or the bacon.”
“But everything else.”
“Pretty well, yeah.”
“Will there be a wine list?”
“I was thinking blue fizzy pop and pints of the local bitter.”
“What’s a pint?”
“Just over half a liter. Do try to keep up.”
“You realize Wolverhampton isn’t technically in the Black Country, don’t you?”
“Why are you pissing on my dreams, Vaz?” Mal tossed a RHSU—Rock Hard Snack, Unidentified—in the air and caught it in his mouth while he filtered the conversations floating around the bar. “A lad’s got to plan for his future.”
Mal carried on eavesdropping. He’d never understand enough Sangheili or the dialect that some of the Kig-Yar spoke, but he could spot names in the gibberish. BB could do the rest. The AI was still lodged in Mal’s radio, monitoring and occasionally passing a whispered comment via his earpiece. Most people here seemed to wear really old models that obviously still worked fine, so Mal didn’t feel too conspicuous. If it hadn’t been for the Kig-Yar and occasionally a Grunt or Brute wandering in, this could have been any bar on Earth in his granddad’s day.
“We should get a pack of cards,” Vaz said. “Or a chess set.”
“Or play I Spy.”
Mal hadn’t had to make so much innocuous small talk with Vaz in years. They knew everything about each other by now and the stuff they really wanted to gossip about was off-limits in public, so it was a struggle. This spook business was a lot more tedious than it looked.
Never mind; all they had to do was wait for the next opportunity to get on board Pious Inquisitor, then hand it over to BB. It was slow but straightforward. The only complication was getting to the ship before whoever ‘Telcam had sent to find it.
Mal lowered his chin to his chest and whispered, “How are you doing, BB?”
“Sorry, wasn’t listening. I was just cracking an obscure Kig-Yar dialect unknown to humans. It’s nothing. Only as groundbreaking as solving the translation of Linear B. You carry on discussing edible offal. I’m sure it’s riveting.”
“You’re a cheeky little gobshite.”
Vaz frowned at him. “Peasant.”
“Not you. Him. Our favorite box of tricks.”
“Oh.”
A shadow fell across the frosted glass panels in the front doors, two figures silhouetted by the fading light outside. Staffan Sentzke and his son walked in. Mal should have been used to that face by now, but it had the same impact on him every time.
“Heads up, Vaz. Staffan and Edvin.”
Staffan wandered up to the bar, taking in everything with a casual glance that Mal decided was anything but. Maybe that slight delay before he showed signs of recognizing them was a finely calculated response. This was Naomi’s dad, after all: he might have been over seventy, but he was the raw material from which she was made, and he’d survived in an industry that wasn’t known for its sentimentality. Mal couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.
Vaz nodded acknowledgment at Staffan. “Here they come.”
It was all perfectly normal. Two guys who knew two other guys decided to join them because they happened to run into each other in the same bar. New Tyne was small enough for them to cross the path of everyone in Staffan’s circle in the course of a week, even if they didn’t want to. Two marines still had a novelty value for the Sentzkes. Mal was determined to use it while it lasted.
“Chol,” BB’s voice said suddenly, right inside his ear, just as Staffan sat down. “It’s Chol Von. ‘Telcam’s definitely hired Chol Von.”
“I can’t multitask, mate,” Mal whispered. He hoped Staffan thought he was ending a conversation with Vaz. “How are you two doing today, then?”
“Oh, you know.” Edvin shrugged. “It’s like any business. Enforcing contracts. Dealing with fau
lty purchases.”
Staffan helped himself to one of Mal’s RHSUs and proved that even in the most forgotten and backward colonies, people still had their own teeth. He sounded as if he was crunching bone.
“The buzzard who sold me the ship,” he said. “He’s gone missing.”
Oh. That’s not good. Whatever the reason … that’s trouble.
Vaz did the talking this time. “Because you’re going to find the ship’s got engine problems?”
“Well, if he’s stiffed me, he knows escape would be a sensible precaution.”
“Maybe his previous credit record with the Sangheili finally caught up with him.”
“To the best of my knowledge, Vaz, no Sangheili has ever landed here. I’m not sure they’ve even noticed the place.”
Mal pushed the bag of granite chips across the table to Staffan. “Well, the Kig-Yar have, and a secret’s a secret until you tell someone else, isn’t it?” A little deference never did any harm. Neither did a lie. “So your buzzard got nervous and skipped town. Doesn’t mean anyone actually knows where he is.”
Staffan looked at him for a few seconds too long, just the way Naomi often did. “I mean he was kidnapped. Signs of a struggle. Blood and feathers. Family abandoned. They don’t abandon their nests, you see. The females hop from male to male, but the males generally stick around as long as they’re tolerated. Mrs. Fel’s squawking her head off about it, demanding that I help her find him.”
“Are you making a connection between that and your business with him?” Vaz asked. “The way I see it, you’re not his only customer. He deals in stolen goods. There’ll probably be a ransom demand soon.”
Staffan looked at Edvin for a moment and shrugged, as if he was inviting a comment on Fel’s customer satisfaction rating. “I’d have thought that too—if I hadn’t just done a substantial deal with him, and if there hadn’t been an attempt to hack into the ship’s systems shortly before he disappeared. You see, I’m very thorough when it comes to separating coincidence from cause and effect. I learned it looking for my little girl.”