He wanted to shade his eyes from the headlight glare, but he decided that would be a bad idea. He was better off showing the police a pleasant smile than looking uncomfortable for any reason whatever.
“Put your damned hands up!” the officer repeated. The gun truck stopped ten feet from Hogg’s van; she stood but didn’t get out of the vehicle. “How many of you are there, anyway? They told me there was two civilians and a lieutenant.”
She sounded peevish. Daniel couldn’t see her rank tabs at this distance but she couldn’t be more than a lieutenant. There was nothing obviously wrong about Daniel’s presence here—he had the codes and password, just as he’d said. He’d never known an RCN shore policeman to cut any slack for personnel in the real navy, though, and he didn’t imagine the situation was different on Kostroma.
An unusually loud explosion in Kostroma City made roofing tiles click here in the warehouse compound. The muzzle of the automatic impeller wobbled as the gunner holding the grips flinched. The Shore Police would know just enough about the coup to make them nervous, but that didn’t make the Cinnabars’ situation easier.
“Nobody’s supposed to enter the compound tonight,” the officer said. She remained standing in the cab of her vehicle. “I want you all in line against the front of the building. Everybody in the building come out right now or by God I’ll blow you out!”
“Sir, there’s plenty of liquor here to go around,” Hogg called in an ingratiating voice. “Maybe the lady and her friends would like a case to, you know, make their duty easier?”
“Who are you?” the officer said on a rising note. She unhooked her holster flap with one hand and gripped her pistol with the other. “Who do you think—”
The rating standing behind her in the truck bed leaned forward. He clouted the officer across the head with the butt of his impeller.
The impact sounded like an axe on a tree trunk. The officer’s arms flapped as she flew out of the gun truck and hit face-first on the brick roadway.
The Kostroman who’d struck her pointed the impeller from his waist at Daniel. “You got a problem with that?” he said.
“Hell, why should we save good booze for rich officers who never did anything for us?” Adele Mundy demanded shrilly. “Let’s drink it all ourselves, I say!”
“Too damned right!” Hogg seconded. He hopped out of the van and stumped over to Daniel. “All of it!”
“All right, all right,” Daniel whined in what he hoped sounded like angry resignation. “We’ll say it was hijacked. The way things are tonight, nobody’s going to know the difference.”
Somebody cheered. The Kostroman who’d hit his officer jumped down and started for the warehouse door. The ratings from both the van and the gun truck surged after him. Woetjans and three of her huskier fellows held back slightly to be sure of entering behind the last of the Shore Police.
Daniel put his hands in his waistband and began to whistle very softly.
Adele stood near the door of the warehouse. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have been sure that the activities within were carefully rehearsed.
The van’s headlamp threw a fan of light into the building. The sailors’ figures cut it into wobbling, distorted shadows.
“Now!” called Woetjans. She grabbed the barrels of two impellers and jerked the weapons upward, out of the hands of the policemen carrying them. Dasi hit one on the head with his prybar; Sun grabbed the other from behind by both elbows and ran him headfirst into a brick pillar.
There wasn’t a shot or even a shout in the whole operation. Glass shattered as somebody broke a brandy bottle over a Kostroman’s head, but there were plenty more where that one came from. The Shore Police were down before they knew there was anything waiting for them except cases of liquor.
“All shipshape, sir,” Woetjans called.
“Five of you put their armbands on,” Daniel called. Hogg had gone to the warehouse doorway with his pistol ready, but his master was kneeling over the Kostroman officer. “Adele, come here if you will.”