Adele visualized a similar battle—quite small, as battles go—taking place within the precincts of the Academic Collections on Blythe. Her lips tightened. She knew how Daniel felt.
“Large coins are all registered with the central bank,” Adele said. “Every time they pass through a bank, the transaction is recorded. The most recent movement of these—”
Well, at least the one she’d checked; this wasn’t the time to be overprecise.
“—was to Tredegar here in a withdrawal he made personally.”
Policemen wearing body armor and carrying carbines spilled out of the van in a hectoring wave, pushing through the guests in evident disregard for military uniforms and indicia of wealth. “What’s going on here?” said the officer in charge, bellowing at the patrolman standing between Adele and Daniel.
The officer noticed Tredegar. Though his face was hidden behind the visor, there was no doubt of the angry exasperation in his voice as he snapped, “What’s this? What the hell is this?”
“Sir, he’s a prisoner,” the regular patrolman said, standing up to a faceless bully who was doubtless also his superior in rank. “He appears to be behind the attack that—”
“Cut him loose!” the officer said. “Secure him with legal restraints.” One of his subordinates drew a knife whose blade extended as the hilt came free of the clip.
There was a flicker in the air. The knife hand jerked upward, bound to the policeman’s shoulder by a loop of the same weighted cord as had caught and held Tredegar. The line had two ends, after all.
Hogg grinned with absolutely no humor at all. “What the—” the officer repeated, his tone an amalgam of anger and amazement.
Daniel stepped close to Hogg, his back to the Militia officer. “Hogg,” he said, “release the prisoner immediately into the custody of the civil authorities! You know how Speaker Leary will complain if he has to use his influence again to get his son’s servant out of jail!”
Daniel would never have used his father’s name that way for anything less serious than this incident was rapidly becoming. If the officer had acted as he might have tried in the full arrogance of his power—
Adele was again struck by the way Tovera vanished into the background under any circumstances. You would have thought that at least one member of the riot squad would have noticed the pale blonde holding a submachine gun down beside her thigh.
—then anything might have happened.
“Sure, Master Leary,” Hogg said, releasing Tredegar and giving him a gentle push in the direction of the policeman who’d planned to cut him loose. “What’s twenty piastres worth of fishing line and a couple pebbles?”
“I don’t mind you cutting the cord,” Daniel said to the officer in an innocently helpful tone, “but do be aware that it’s sea fishing line which we use in the ocean off Bantry. It’s boron monocrystal, and the tug of your man’s knife blade on a thin strand would very likely have strangled the prisoner if Hogg hadn’t stopped him.”
Daniel’s instinct made him step between Hogg and the chance of lethal danger. That’s not how Tovera would have saved her colleague. And it’s not what Adele would have done either, if she’d still had her pistol.
Three riot policemen began unwrapping Tredegar and their fellow. After a moment, they all flipped up their visors.
“I still can’t believe . . .” Vaughn said, though the way his voice trailed off indicated that actually he was indeed beginning to believe. “Cornelius, you wouldn’t betray me?”
“He wasn’t planning to have you killed, Delos,” Mistress Zane said scornfully. “You’re his golden goose—so long as you ignore your heritage and stay here on Cinnabar! The little wretch planned to kill me and blame it on your niece and Nunes.”
Almost everybody was looking at Zane. Adele saw Hogg grin broadly as he glanced at the prisoner he’d just surrendered. Tredegar’s right wrist was now attached to a policeman’s harness by a flexible restraint. He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket with his left hand and put it to his mouth.
It’s probably the best result.
“Casdessus, get this one into the van,” said the officer, raising his own shield. His face was surprisingly delicate; much of his apparent bulk must have been the armor. “We’ll hold here till the investigative squad arrives, then—”