Her Majesty's Western Service (31 page)

Then corrected himself. Her man had known –
she
knew – that he was an Imperial Vice-Commodore. He hoped nobody had noticed the chills that ran down his spine at that; he’d never imagined the underworld having resources, information like that implied.

Surely any intelligent person would focus their efforts through legitimate channels, rise honorably as his parents had, as
he
was – or hoped he still was – doing?

The outside of Denard’s was discreetly upsca
le, but the inside wasn’t the slightest bit discreet about it. They passed through a couple of extravagant anterooms and into an – air-conditioned! – room that stank faintly of expensive cigar smoke. The furniture, including the long bar that ran down one side of the long room, was expensive mahogany decorated with what seemed like real gold.

At midday, it was about half-full, two thirds women in expensive frilly dresses of bright silk; one or two of them carried parasols, indoors. The men wore suits, for the most part, black and white, a few in white-vested black suits. There was none of your trashy wannabe-airshipman fashion here; pure class, through and through, with about fifty percent more class added on for emphasis. It
felt
like a bordello.

Unitas guided them to a table at one side.

“Drinks while you wait?”

“Rum.”

“Of course.” A liveried flunky had followed them to the table. “Rum, for the captain. For the Vice-Commodore?”

“Just iced water, thank you.”

“Something we don’t serve, I’m terribly sorry to say. How about Scotch on the rocks?”

This wasn’t a place to get drunk, or even buzzed.

It probably wasn’t a place to make enemies, either.

“Heavily watered.”

“Very well, sir.”

Unitas left them as the drinks arrived. Perry took a cautious sip. Well up to Fleming’s standards, and past Flight Admiral Richardson’s; this was close to the best Scotch he’d ever tasted. A single-malt with a light, peaty flavor.
He took another, appreciative sip. From the look of her, Ahle was enjoying her rum just as much – more, because she was at ease here. She’d been here before, she’d said, but never been granted an audience with the infamous Miss L.

A
heavily-tanned man in a tricornet – a
tricornet!
– appeared, came over to the table. The rest of his dress was as idiosyncratic as his hat: double-buttoned red coat, bright white pants, knee-high boots with wholly unnecessary buckles that could only have been solid gold. A cutlass hung by his side.

“If it isn’t
Karen Ahle,” he said. His accent was Australian. “And her renegade Air Service Vice-Commodore. It’s good to see you alive, Captain.”

Ahle
rose, extended the back of her hand. The man flamboyantly kissed it.

“If it isn’t
Captain Brian Carbin,” she said.

“Her renegade Air Service Vice-Commodore,”
Carbin addressed Perry. He’d been carrying a glass, and he raised it. “To true love, Vice-Commodore. And to the wrong side of the tracks.

Manners required Perry to touch his glass to
Carbin’s, which contained a bright pink concoction with an umbrella.

“To true love,” he agreed, thinking of Annabelle. “A wonderful thing.”

“A lot of people are wondering how you escaped Hugoton but your officers didn’t make it,” said Carbin. “One might have thought you’d have brought at least
one
along with you.”

“I tried,” said Perry. “But the place is an Imperial stronghold.”

“In the same cells as they were, no doubt.” Carbin was a lot more serious now. “And yet, none of them escaped. While your crew was wiped out by, shall we say,
unknown assailants
.”

“And?”
Ahle asked.

“Your accounts in Sonora don’t have to be split so many ways as they had, did they?”

Ahle became equally cold.

“What are you implying,
Carbin?”

“I’m not the first to speculate. I’m the first to see you, though, and raise the matter.”

Unitas coughed discreetly behind Captain Carbin.

“
Captain, Vice-Commodore? The madam will see you now.”

From what he’d heard of her, and gathered, Perry had formed certain expectations of Miss Lynch. From what he’d experienced so far working for Fleming, at some level he’d expected to be proven dead wrong yet again. It was almost disconcerting that this time, his expectations of Miss Markell Lynch had been absolutely dead right.

She was a blonde woman with an elaborate hairdo, dressed
very
expensively in a corset and light jacket. Attractive and in her early forties, her high-heeled boots lay crossed over one another on the top of a broad oak desk in an office that rivaled Fleming’s for luxury. She waved an ostrich-feather fan in front of her face as Ahle and Perry entered.

“So Fleming finally saw fit to call on me, did he?
Sit down. Drinks?”

“No, thank you,” said Perry, before
Ahle could ask for more rum.

“Captain
Ahle?”

“Another rum, thank you.”

“You heard the lady,” Lynch said to one of the elaborately-carved wooden panels.

The door behind them opened – had Unitas really closed it? – and another flunky came in with a glass of the same color of rum
Ahle had been drinking in the entrance room.

“So,
Ian Fleming sent you. I’m not remotely surprised that he did at this time; I’ve been expecting it ever since that spy war began. What specifically can I help you with?”

This
woman was probably very good at playing the back-and-forth game, thought Perry, better than he was and probably better than Ahle. You didn’t play to an opponent’s strengths; he’d get straight to the point.

“We’re looking for a stolen line-class airship designated DN 4-106,” said Perry.

A smile came across Lynch’s face.

“For a moment,” she said, “I was afraid you were going to ask me something hard.”

You know where it is?

How
could
this woman in New Orleans,
however
excellently-informed, know where his ship had vanished to? That was insane!

“I can also give you the last known location of Theron Marko, the man who stole it. I imagine Mr. Fleming would be
very
interested to learn that.”

“He would be,” said Perry.
“Are you going to tell us, already?”

Lynch smiled.

“Certainly. But I need a small favor from you first.”

“What kind?”

“Nothing substantial. I simply need you to obtain important documents from one of the better-organized mercenary units in the South. Events have piqued my curiosity.”

“Buy them?” Perry asked.

“I could buy them myself if they could be bought. The Special Squadrons have vices; they have rather a lot of vices. Those vices do not include corruption on any substantive level.”

“Plenty of fucking other ones, though,” said
Ahle.

“Technically,” said Lynch, “
rape and murder are sins, not vices. I know they wiped out your family; I was in Raleigh then. You
do
know what they call Heinrich Himmler, correct?”

“The Butcher of Raleigh,”
Ahle muttered.

“What they did to Wake Forest, they did far worse to Raleigh,” said Lynch. “I was there at the time. But one depersonalizes
and allows the memories to pass. Are you willing, Captain Ahle, to engage these people?”

“I was already p
lanning to,” said Ahle.

“Vice-Commodore, do you want your airship back? Do you want your airship back sufficiently as to go to Missouri and get me what
I
want?”

“This wasn’t the deal,” said Perry. However nasty these Special Squadrons guys were, they were still
employees of an ally! How far did things have to
go
?

“It’s the deal I’m offering you,” said Lynch. “Satisfy my curiosity and I’ll satisfy yours.”

“You owe Fleming a favor already.”

“He must have misspoken. I owe him a
hearing
; that’s what the black chip means. I’ll talk to his people, which I’m doing now. I’m offering you a quite reasonable deal. Center place in an already-planned operation where I could just use a couple of experienced people to execute the meat of. Do you want to or not?”

“I want to,” said
Ahle immediately. “Hadn’t expected to mix pleasure with business.”

“Hold on,
Ahle,” said Perry.

“No. This is the best deal we’re going to get from her.”

“I’m said to be honorable,” said Lynch, a faint smile on her face.

Documents. Documents could be replaced.

Who would this woman in turn sell them to, though?

What kind of
secret plans would the Special Squadrons
have
, though? They were a mercenary unit whose job was regional counterinsurgency, an ongoing task you rarely needed specific major plans for. Something about the negotiations they were involved in, nothing too substantial. Important to the shady underground, not to anyone else. Blackmail, not treason...

“You swear you’ll give me the location of 4-106. That you know it and you’ll give it.”

“It’s in a certain canyon in Colorado, at present,” said Lynch. “I’ll give you a map when you give me the Squadrons’ plans.”

“
You’ll hand over the map first.”

“We have a deal, Vice Commodore,” said Lynch. “You’ll head for Missouri tonight.”

Chapter Thirteen

Interviewer:               Your name and rank at the time of the action, please.

Subject:
              Jason Cordova, mister. Commodore – they called me a colonel – of the Republic of Texas Air Force. I commanded my Armadillos.

Interviewer:
              Who were the Armadillos?

Subject:
             
Cordova’s
Armadillos, baby.

Interviewer:
              Right. Who were they?

Subject:
              Are they. We’re still around and kicking ass.

Interviewer:
              Right. Who?

Subject:
              My ship, the
Lone Star
. Jennifer Atkinson and the
Squeeze.
Bill Snider on his
Scimitar of Silence
. Paula Handley on
The Vorpal
. Shirley Meier on the
Pith and Vinegar
. Richard Evans on the
Dread Wyvern
and Peggey Rowland with her
Five Speed
.

Interviewer:
              And what happened in the incident we’re referring to?

Subject:
              First I’m going to have to give you an overview. We’d been on service to Texas for the last couple of years, and at the time they were balls-deep with Sonora in the territory the old USA called ‘New Mexico.’ They’d taken Santa Fe and General Houston was trying like hell to withdraw his Second Army from Alberquerque before it got encircled, too. The damn Sennies knew it and were pressing hard.

Interviewer:
              So what were you facing?

Subject:
              All the Tex ships had withdrawn, leaving just us. Expendable, they obviously figured. Mercenaries. So we had our seven and shit-else. The enemy had at least twenty line-class ships over Alberquerque, and a dozen more escort-classes.

Interviewer:
              So what happened?

Subject:
              You know perfectly well what happened. They made two films about it. We whipped `em but good. Four times our weight and we wiped `em out. Completely. Your troops didn’t have to surrender; they withdrew in good order and whupped some Sennie ass along the way.

From an oral history interview, Clovis Media Center, 1960.

Unitas and
eight other men were in the airship’s cabin with them, a small, sleek private ship named the
Marlyville Zephyr
, that was right now speeding through the afternoon at two thousand feet over Louisiana. Bayous unfolded below them, but Ahle had more important concerns than the scenery.

She was finally getting a crack at the Squadrons! She’d waited her entire adult life for this; it was what she’d hoped to do with 4-106, hit the bastards with
real
force, take out a measurable amount of their strength and ideally their top officer, the man who’d killed her family, Heinrich Himmler.