Elijah stared at him over the rim of the dipper. “And how grateful is that, Skeen?”
“I’m sorry, Baron, I don’t understand.” “Grateful enough to double your tithe to me?” Elijah asked.
The toadie nearly swallowed his tongue.
“I…I…” he sputtered.
“Come on, Skeen,” the baron goaded, “you know you owe me your worthless life. If it wasn’t for my patronage, you wouldn’t have a scrap of bread to your name. You and that brainless wife of yours, and all your brats, would starve to death without me. You know, looking at your pin head missus and cross-eyed offspring, it makes me wonder if there ain’t a bit of rad taint coming out in blood there somewhere.”
The sec men smirked as they watched the toadie
squirm.
“Of course I’ll pay.”
“Not only that,” Elijah said, “you’ll get down on your knees and beg me to take your jack.” He scanned the faces of the other coattail riders, the middlemen who fed off his bounty. “And what about the rest of you?” he said. “Don’t you have anything to say? Aren’t you grateful that I saved your miserable skins with my ‘wisdom and insight’?”
The toadies bowed and fawned and assured him that they were just as grateful as anyone. Shooting hateful glances at Skeen, they agreed to double their taxes to their lord.
“An excellent morning so far,” Elijah said to his sec chief as they swept out of the ops room.
“Yes, sir,” Murchisson agreed. “Real profitable.”
A phalanx of armed sec men fell into step behind them as they headed for the elevator. They were about halfway there when Murchisson spoke up again. “Baron,” he said, “the boys all been pestering me, wanting to know what you’ve got in mind for the yellow-belly Cawdor.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Elijah told him. “I need to spend some time with the Apocalypticon. Got to review my options.”
The baron, Murchisson and a dozen sec men bunched into the elevator car. As it started to inch its way down to the lobby, Elijah turned to his sec chief and said, “Murch, I want you to send some patrols outside the wall. Look for any sign that stickies passed through during the night. Start the patrols in close and
have them gradually fan out, but keep them in sight of the berm at all times.”
“Better to be safe than sorry, sir.”
“If they find anything, I want to know about it at once.”
Then Elijah noticed one of the sec men standing off to the side. The guard was staring at his own boot tops, trying to become invisible. “Rad-blast it!” the baron shouted at his sec chief. “What the hell’s Lester doing up here? He’s supposed to be serving time on the wheel today.”
“I’m on my way to report for punishment now, sir,” Lester said.
Elijah stared at the two men standing beside Lester. They, too, were trying their best to vanish. And they had reason. The baron recognized them as Gill and Hylander, Lester’s bunker mates, the other dilwads responsible for allowing a prisoner to bring a weapon into his royal presence. “Murch,” Elijah said, “I want you to send these two south. Have them run down and check on the damage to my way stop, if any.”
Gill and Hylander looked at each other, then at Lester, who wouldn’t meet their gaze. None of them said a word. Because of Lester’s screwup, it was death sentences all around if there were stickies about.
The crew split up when the car reached the lobby. Gil and Hylander got out first, stepping to one side to let Elijah and a half dozen sec men pass by. Murchis-son and three other sec men remained in the elevator, which was carrying Lester to the subbasement.
As the baron exited the lobby, his sec team stepped forward, creating a living shield on all sides of him. They escorted him in formation to the bank entrance. He left them there with orders to guard his back. Once inside the one-story building’s foyer, the baron lit a torch. He walked past the tellers’ counter and proceeded through the barred, stainless-steel gate to the vault door. Only he had the combination to the lock.