Her Majesty's Western Service (40 page)

Yeah, and there were wanted posters of him in Dodge.

“I think he’s supervising the fueling,” he called back.

A second later, a man appeared in the doorway. Tall
and lean, with messy brown hair, in Air Service uniform and—

“
Vice?
” demanded Specialist Third Rafferty. “
Vice Perry
?”

“Specialist Rafferty?” demanded Perry. A chill going down hi
s spine.

Anyone from Hugoton would know about the reward. To get busted
this close
to success?
This damn close?

No. They’d finish refueling soon. Lift. Retrieve 4-106 before a pursuit could be organized. Richardson and Fleming would delay it, make sure resources weren’t available.

But Rafferty – and the man with him, Senior Airshipman Duckworth – did not look like bounty hunters who’d scored. Rafferty was grinning broadly – unless Perry was wrong, he was at least slightly drunk. Duckworth looked more sober, and there was an uncertain smile on his face.

“Vice, we was here to look for
information
about you. Didn’t expect to score a face-to-face with you and the pirate our very selves!”

“Have a drink,” said
Ahle, offering Rafferty the bottle of rum.

“Don’t mind if I do, cap’n,” said Rafferty with a grin. He t
ook a long swig from the bottle and handed it to Duckworth, who took a much shorter swig and stepped over to hand it back to Ahle.

Rafferty, still grinning like an
idiot
who’d scored, took one of the comfortable bridge chairs and planted himself in it. Duckworth was still standing in the entrance, looking uneasy.

“Come in, since you’re here,” said Perry. In the doorway, Duckworth could run and cause trouble. Seated – Perry didn’t know if he could draw a gun on one of his own men, but…

I will get 4-106 back. This close, I am not going to fail
.

Duckworth sat down.

“So where you been, Vice? And what’re you doing sticking your head into the lion’s mouth in Dodge, sir?” Rafferty asked.

He pulled a flask, took a drink, offered it to
Ahle. The pirate captain took it, had a drink, handed back the flask and again offered her rum bottle.

“We’ve been all over the place,” said
Ahle. “Good of you two to show up. We could use men.”

“Use men for what?” Rafferty asked eagerly.
He took another swig from the rum.

“We only got sixty-hour passes,” said Duckworth.

“You can stay. I’m going with the Vice wherever he says.
Told
you it was a covert operation, mate!”

“We might be back within sixty hours,” said Perry. Or… well, what
else
was he going to do with these two?

Draw on them?

“Sixty, seventy, eighty,” said Rafferty. “Worst they’ll do is chuck you in the brig.”

“Rip your props off,” said Duckworth.

“Got `em back before, don’t I? Vice, what’s it you want to have us do?”

“We’re going into the mountains,” said
Ahle. “Simple cutting-out operation. Take 4-106 back to Hugoton. Vice clears his name, I get—what I’ve been promised—and
trust me
, your commanders are going to look the other way at your coming back a bit late if it’s in the missing airship.”

“You got a lead on 4-106?” Rafferty asked. “That was the whole of why you ran, right? To track her down. Nobody steals a Denny-Neuvoldt without being pursued!”

“When we finish refueling,” said Perry, “we’re going straight there. And we really could use a couple more competent airshipmen to handle the trip back. You coming?”

“Oh,
fuck
yeah, sir. Coming with you all the way.”

“Duckworth?”

“It’ll be a lark,” Rafferty insisted.

“You’re a
fugitive
, sir,” said Duckworth uneasily.

“He’s one in name only,” said
Ahle. “You’ll be up for a promotion or something if you help. We’re coming straight back to Hugoton. And…”

“We ain’t got a choice in the deal,” Rafferty clarified.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you have,” said Ahle. “May as well make the best of it, Airshipman – Duckworth?”

“If you – if you really insist, Vice,” said Duckworth.
“But sir, you swear this is really legitimate Imperial business, sir? With respect, sir – I may cross the line now and again on minor disciplinary stuff, but I’m no damn traitor. Sir. Without meaning, sir, to imply, sir, that you might be. Sir.”

“Of course he’s no damn traitor, Ducks!” said Rafferty. “Any more than you or I am. He’s an adventurer, is all, and now
we
get to be!”

“Now
you
get to be,” Duckworth muttered.

Nolan came back to the bridge.

“You have guests?” he asked.

“Two of my old crew,” said Perry. “Looking for you, apparently, and found us.”

“Still a price on your head, ain’t there?” asked Nolan uneasily.

“They’re coming along, now,” said
Ahle.

Rafferty grinned. “Fuck yeah.”

“When do we lift?” Perry asked.

“I was going to say: Fueling’s done and that ice won’t keep forever. Now, unless you have any objections.”

“Now,” said Perry, “would be good.’

“Jessie,” said Nolan to one of his crew, “find these two a cabin for the night. Vice-Commodore, sir, we ought to be in Denver by mid-morning. Ought to find a
few more men there. And from there, to take back your ship.”

“To take back my ship,” said Per
ry. “Ahle, hand me that rum. I think we can all drink to that.”

“You get a good price for those crawfish?” Perry asked Nolan as they took off from Denver, a day later and with eight more men aboard.

“Prearranged contract,” Nolan said exuberantly. “
Man
, I’m not used to those! Paid for the trip and then some – and then some more! Guaranteed, if we made it on time, which we did.”

“So now we head off to 4-106,”
Perry said. “Right?”

“We don’t have any other cargo; just your men and your mission. Your Governor is going to make it worth my while to help out, right? I’ve been promising these guys work and all, y’know…”

“I don’t know how these things are arranged,” said Perry, “but…”

“I do,” said
Ahle. “The men get paid fighting wages from lift, whether it was in New Orleans or here. A bonus if there
is
actually fighting, depending on how they individually acquit themselves, to be paid alongside another bonus on successful completion of the mission. Perry’s boss in Hugoton will assure you of that.”

“Fighting wages is what I’ve promised them,” Nolan agreed. “Now, what about me? A favor is a favor and I owe you one, but I’m running an empty ship from this point and that’s going to cost me.”

“Fle– my boss will reimburse you for your costs plus a reasonable percentage,” said Perry. “You have my word on that, as an Imperial officer.”

“If you’re still one, but you came across as a right gent that first time around,” said Nolan. He extended a hand, which Perry shook. “We’ve got a deal,
not as though there wasn’t one before. Now let’s go get your ship.”

Perry allowed himself another vision of triumphant return: Sailing into Hugoton – escorted, of course – with 4-106, touching down with his ship back and his honor restored. It was a beautiful sight and one he’d been sustaining himself on for over a week now.

And now they were finally off to make it happen!

“We’ve got a deal,” he said, as he shook Perry’s hand. That beautiful vision of finally,
finally
succeeding, still dancing in front of his eyes. “Let’s go get my ship back.”

“They should have done it this way
to begin with
,” McIlhan said in a cabin of Jebediah Judd’s streamlined red airship, as it followed the Mississippi north. It was a plain but comfortable passenger cabin with slightly worn brown leather fold-out seats and a presently folded-in pair of bunkbeds. Handcuffed to her wrist was a briefcase, identical in shape and contents to the one that the SS man Skorzeny had managed to lose. “No fanfare. Just ride a damn ship straight into Colombia.”

Marko shrugged.

“People do what they do. They follow the archetypes. Soldiers must wear uniform and do military things, for example,” he said.

Engineers
, thought Ferrer,
must shoot people with machine-guns. Twenty-two year old liveried kids named Philip Riordan
.

He’d taken a life. The shattered face and body of the kid swam back into his mind, yet again.

“You alright, boss?” Rienzi asked.

Don’t show weakness to these guys. Not even to that sick punk
, Ferrer thought. Now he
had
killed someone, how Rienzi could actually enjoy the act – be thrilled by the same feelings that had been coursing through Ferrer’s mind for the last day and a half – filled him with sick wonder.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.

Farm. Farm at the end of this; a nice little farm in the Midwest with a comfortable basement workshop. Grow crops and tinker.

That reminded him.

“Mr. Marko, do you have a moment?”

Marko gave a nod. A pause.

“You two, get out,” Marko told Rienzi and Ferrer. When they’d left, Marko cocked his head.

“Having second thoughts about the killing, huh?”

Ferrer started –
is it so obvious?
– then shook his head.

“Liar. You’ll get used to it. What?”

“My pay,” he said. “I’d feel – a bit more comfortable if I – I know you’ve already given Pratt his first half. Do you think—”

To
Ferrer’s relief, the psychopath actually nodded.

“Of course,” he said
. “You’ll have it shortly. Five thousand Imperial pounds. Should get you your retirement, eh?”

Ferrer nodded.

“With the other half, yes.”

“
Other half the same way as this,” Marko said and giggled.

Alone in the cabin, Ferrer allowed himself to breathe again. This operation was a scary mess, and what if things
did
go really wrong? That they were traveling to Columbus in the first place was a bad thing – this Lynch woman had already fucked things up to some extent. If military strategy was anything like engineering, it involved analysis that took time, planning that took time. The SS were now getting the information they needed – for the necessary planning and analysis – some days later than they otherwise would.

He knew the schedule.
He’d heard something about how SS units were
already
quietly leaving their stations in the eastern part of the state, moving to locations on the Arkansas border.

Columns of tanks and armored cars,
truckloads of mechanized infantry in support, heading to where they would fuel up – and not arm, he supposed they were already armed, it was a part of their existing job – for their sweep toward the objective. Without specific plans for when they reached that objective, or if those plans had been made in a hurried way – then, yes, things were more likely to go wrong.

It’s under control
, he told himself.
Marko and his bosses are clever. They’ve planned things. They know what they’re doing. They’ve allowed for these problems.

The face of the man he’d killed,
the twenty-two-year-old machine-gunner named Philip Riordan –
oh, why did I decide it was necessary intellectual honesty to learn his name?
– swam back into his mind. That had been the result of a problem, of something going wrong. Of her boss deciding that she wanted to know something that was emphatically none of her business.

What else,
a small voice in Ferrer’s mind wondered,
can go wrong?

The only place big enough to gather everybody was the
Red Wasp II
’s cargo hold, an uncomfortable but empty grille. Perry, who had been flying for eighteen years, still found it disconcerting to have a grille under his feet, as opposed to a solid footing where you
couldn’t
see the ground under you. He’d have preferred a briefing hall.

He’d have preferred a lot of things, but you dealt with what you had.
Twelve hours from now they’d be sailing proudly back into Hugoton, and he’d again be able to put on the uniform he’d comfortably worn for his entire adult life. Squadron Thirty-One would know the truth, and…