“And there wouldn’t have been anything but a bloody hole in the ground to report at Libert’s precious Academy, if I hadn’t been there,” she said. “The froggie imbecile supposedly in command didn’t even remember elementary tricks like putting out plates of water in the basement to detect the vibrations of sappers trying to dig under the walls. And I had to practically stick a knife in his buttocks to get him to listen.”
“Still, I hear that got exciting,” Heinrich said. “The countermining.”
“Too exciting,” Gerta said dryly, remembering.
—cold wet darkness, water seeping through the belly of her uniform. Squirming down like birth in reverse, and then the dirt crumbling away ahead of her, falling through into the enemy tunnel, slamming against a timber prop, the man’s mouth making an O in the dim light of the lanterns as she brought her automatic up . . .
“What took you so long?” she asked again.
“Well, you were the one who thought there was something to Libert’s ‘methodical’ approach,” Heinrich said reasonably. He lit his pipe and blew a smoke ring skyward, watching as the shapes of dirigibles heading for the landing field passed across it. “We took so long because every time we took a village we’d stop to shoot everyone suspicious, then everyone Libert’s police could winkle out, then waited while Libert appointed everyone from the mayor down to the sewer inspector and checked that things were working smoothly.”
“Got stopped butt-cold outside Unionvil, too,” Gerta said. “By Imperials, of all things.”
“By the Freedom Brigades,” Heinrich corrected. He closed the worked pewter lid of his S-shaped pipe and reached for a sandwich. “Imperial refugees, Santies, some Sierrans, Santy officers, damned good equipment and so-so training. But plenty of enthusiasm.”
“Well, what are we going to do about it?” Gerta demanded. “I’ve been working internal-security liaison since I got back.”
“Two can play at that game,” Heinrich said with satisfaction. “That’s why I’m back here. We’re going to ‘Volunteer’—”
Pop.
The small spiteful crack on the sidewalk outside was almost inaudible under the traffic noise. Gerta was out of her chair and halfway across the lawn with a single raking stride; Heinrich was too big a man to be quite as graceful, but he was less than two paces behind her at the start and they vaulted the wall in tandem, landing facing each way with their automatics out.
A woman ran into Gerta, looking back over her shoulder. She bounced off the Chosen as if she had run into a wall; Gerta grabbed and struck twice, punching with clinical precision. Something tinkled metallically, and the Imperial Protégé collapsed to the brick sidewalk, her face turning scarlet as she struggled to suck breath through a paralyzed diaphragm. Behind her the dense crowd had scattered like mercury on dry ice, leaving a Chosen officer lying facedown. He was doggedly trying to crawl forward when Heinrich stooped over him.
“Lie still,” he said. The bark of command penetrated the fog of pain; Heinrich cut cloth and wadded it into a pressure bandage. “Bullet wound, left of the spine, just south of the ribs. Looks nasty.”
Gerta came up, nostrils flaring slightly at the iron scent of blood. There was no fecal smell, so the intestine hadn’t been perforated, but there were too many essential organs and big blood vessels in that part of the body for comfort. She was dragging the Protégé woman by one ankle, and holding something in the other.
Heinrich looked at it and almost laughed. It was like a child’s sketch of a pistol; a short tube, a wire outline for a grip and another piece of wire to act as a spring and drive a striker home on the single cartridge within.
“What sort of weapon is that?” he asked.
“It’s not a weapon, it’s an assassination tool. One shot and you throw it away; just the thing for killing a straw boss, or one of us on a crowded street.”
Heinrich’s features clamped down to a mask. After a moment he said: “Wouldn’t have thought the Santies would come up with that.”
“They’re nasty when they get going,” Gerta said. “We’ve been finding more and more of these. The problem is tracing back the chain of contacts. This animal will tell us something, perhaps.”