The Dogs of God Read online

  I found their room’s door open and Merida’s body stretched across the threshold. His M-24 was missing. There were bullet holes in the opposite wall. Even twisted in death, I could see his throat opened, ear to ear, just like Ellie Longbaum’s. Dark arterial blood streaked the corridor.

  That’s when I realized—whoever had done Longbaum and the guards wasn’t just a killer. They were an assassin. No self-indulgent flourishes, like with Barstow. No wasted energy.

  Cold.

  Efficient.

  A soldier?

  Shuffling came from inside the kids’ room. I hopped over Merida’s body and flattened against the corridor wall, pointing my revolver at head height just outside the door. I wasn’t in any hurry to go in. The assassin would be coming out soon enough.

  Like I’d conjured him, Trask emerged with Merida’s M-24 in hand, a hungry look on his face.

  I pulled the trigger.

  Crack!

  But he’d ducked—a soldier’s instinct. My shot went over his head.

  Trask brought his rifle around.

  I threw a couple more shots wild to keep his aim shaky and dived for Longbaum’s door.

  Crack-crack!

  The door slid aside and I dived through.

  Bracka-bracka-bracka!

  Trask peppered the wall behind me.

  “Too slow, GI Joe!” I taunted, shucking the three spent cartridges from my hand-artillery and thumbing in fresh slugs. He should’ve charged before I could reload, but Trask’s training worked in my favor. His job was to accomplish the mission. That required planning. And patience.

  “Where are they, Fischer?” he called. I could tell he was pissed. Good, I thought—emotion and efficiency are age-old enemies. “Where are those goddamn kids?”

  I’d run a little diversion of my own. The new “safe house” I’d set up? Trask had found fuck-all; Merida had died guarding an empty room.

  “Come on in here,” I said, taunt turned up to eleven. “I’ll tell you face to face!”

  I flicked the revolver’s cylinder back into place.

  “You have no idea what these kids are worth,” he said. “I’ll split the contract with you. Fifty-fifty!”

  Confirmation received of something I’d suspected. There was an official hit on the twins. By which faction, I wondered. Great. More mystery.

  “I’m getting paid well enough to protect them,” I said, knowing the offer for halfsies was a lie. And this fake negotiation wouldn’t last much longer. He’d do the math any second and decide he needed to charge my position. I had to somehow get the advantage on him—a better-armed, better-trained, slightly younger, and definitely uglier enemy. Time to think outside the pine box.

  I went flat on the ground and perked up my ears. More shuffling in the corridor. Body armor scraping against the deck.

  I peeked around the corner and found Trask propping up Merida’s body like a shield. Going prone behind cover.

  He saw me.

  I closed one eye to aim.

  The M-24 came up.

  I fired.

  Crack!

  The rifle lurched, pinged by my slug.

  A shick-ping! sound when Trask pulled the trigger. My lucky shot had hit something vital on the M-24.

  Rising, I fired again.

  Crack-crack!

  One shot hit Trask high in the shoulder. He dropped the useless rifle, rolling over and fumbling for his sidearm.

  “Get up.”

  He looked up to find me standing over him, my .38 pointed at his head. His hand went still, absent his own pistol.

  “From this distance, I’m pretty sure I can’t miss,” I warned.

  Trask raised himself carefully to his feet, then brought his right hand up and, wincing, the left one tied to his shattered shoulder. Backing up, I motioned for him to move into the corridor.

  “Which faction sent you?” I asked. “Qinlao? Rabh?”

  “Can’t say.” Sweat was forming on his brow as he stepped over Merida’s corpse. A dark stain was creeping out from under his armpit.

  “Sure you can’t. Why’d you kill Barstow and not the kids? Doesn’t make sense,” I said, his last three kills in mind. “And why the butchery?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Sure you didn’t.” I was getting annoyed at the bullshit. “You know this is it, right? Mother Universe is calling. No need to hold secrets now.”

  He swayed a step forward, pain evident on his face.

  Another diversion.

  Trask leapt at me. The hand attached to the wounded shoulder batted my revolver aside. It clattered against the wall. His good hand produced a combat knife from behind his back. I jumped out of reach like someone had vented the deck to space behind me.

  Moving in fast, Trask did that leap-dart-stab right, leap-dart-stab left thing knife fighters do. I stumbled backward, trying not to trip. I flexed my right wrist, and the spring blade appeared. Pausing, I showed Trask my profile. His blade went by on the right, and I stabbed my blade forward.

  It went in under the armor and deep into his left kidney. But Trask was hyped on adrenaline. He shook it off and brought his knife around with a vicious backhand. I jerked away, barely avoiding getting stuck, pulling my blade from his gut.

  “Fuck!” he shouted.

  He tried the stabby thing again, but he was clumsy with pain. I threw a leg out, mucking up his lunge, and Trask fell, knees cracking on the floor.

  I thrust my blade into the base of his spine.

  Trask howled, collapsing onto his stomach.

  “Which faction sent you?” I hissed again, kneeling my full weight next to the knife in his back. He cried out. “Are you working alone or with a partner?” McGuire came to mind. Yanking his sidearm from its holster, I put the barrel to the back of his head. “Tell me while you still can, and I’ll hurry this along.”

  Trask’s keening, primordial pain tried to become laughter. He made to lever himself up, throw me off, but his arms had lost their strength. His legs weren’t moving at all. When he managed to muster a sideways smile, his teeth were sheened with red.

  “You’ll never know, Fischer,” he gasped. Was that a dead man’s bravado, or because he didn’t know the answer?

  I twisted the blade still buried in his lower back. Trask mewled a tortured sound.

  “You sure?”

  “I don’t know!” he gasped, his words wet. “Encrypted. No contact.”

  Huh. That made sense for a freelancer. Not everyone was on retainer like I was for Tony Two-point-oh. And Trask had no reason to protect his employer now. He knew his debt to Mother Universe had come due. I had one more question.

  “Alone, or—”

  “Alone! Alone!”

  I pulled the knife out. Trask didn’t make a sound. He was fast becoming, as the Bard would say, a grave man. I turned him over and asked, while I still could, “Why Barstow? Why so savage?”

  Why would a military man be so inefficient? Morbid curiosity, that.

  But his gaze was glazing over with something only ghosts can see.

  I jabbed my spring blade into his gut.

  “Gah! Stop.” Each word, weaker than the last. “Stop…please.”

  “Why Barstow?”

  “I—” Again the light dimmed in Trask’s eyes. “—didn’t…”

  I twisted the blade. I needed answers. The twins’ lives might depend on it.

  No reaction. Just more blood.

  “Didn’t…kill…”

  Trask was dead. Footsteps stomped down the corridor. Skrivanek and his staff. I stepped aside and let them have the corpses.

  With his terminal breath, Trask had insisted he hadn’t murdered Barstow. He’d had no reason to lie. I’ll take a dying man’s word over a living man’s any day. Dying men have nothing left to gain by lying.

  But someone had done for Barstow. If not Trask, then a second killer still stalked the Dream. I was fairly certain they had no designs on the kids, if only because the twins were still alive. I
gnoring Skrivanek’s demand for an explanation, I hurried to my quarters just the same. That night without sleep and recent events were catching up with me. I had to key in the code twice to release the lock.

  “We heard shots,” Ligeia said as soon as the door slid aside. She was sitting on my bed, with Lucius beside her. She held his hand. They both stared, wide-eyed, as if waiting to hear what happens next in the bedtime story.

  I caught them up.

  “But who would want us dead?” Ligeia asked.

  Oh, I dunno. I thought. Everyone who’s ever met your brother?

  “Someone with means,” I said, suddenly too tired to think. “Assassins like Trask aren’t cheap. Your brother will find out.”

  Lucius turned his head.

  “I was speaking of Tony.”

  Was that a half-smile of relief breaking on Ligeia’s face?

  The crisis passed, Lucius’s default programming wasted no time kicking in.

  “Can we get out of this shithole now?” he demanded. “I can’t breathe in this fucking closet!”

  Ligeia squeezed his hand, and a second later, the kid was calming down. Maybe he’d remembered his manners. It’s nice to be nice to someone who’s just saved your life.

  I’m sure it was just the fatigue, but I had the perverse thought to reconsider Trask’s fake offer to split his contract.

  Just my luck.

  Too late.

  * * * * *

  The Delivery

  The Stargazer’s Dream arrived at Titan a day later, and with only one more body dropped—McGuire’s—or found, actually. Trask had killed her in her sleep before coming after Longbaum, and just as efficiently. Like the nanny and Merida, McGuire had an Irish smile connecting her earlobes. More evidence suggesting Trask really had been working alone. More mystery surrounding who’d murdered Barstow.

  I stood with the kids in the lounge as we approached Saturn’s most comely moon. White ice clouds hung over blue lakes of liquid methane. The twins’ coloring and Arctic eyes would fit right in here.

  Prometheus Colony was a work in progress. They were still 3D printing the basics—water treatment, fusion power reactors, basic housing. Eventually, the entire Erkennen Faction would live here, with its swing shifts of scientists and engineers in their think tanks and labs.

  “Mr. Fischer!” Viktor Erkennen exclaimed with a broad smile as we descended the Dream’s ramp. His first-generation Russian accent was on full display. “So glad you made it safely!”

  An affable, rumpled man, Viktor hadn’t changed since Tony had introduced me a decade earlier. Two younger men with clearly familial features walked behind him. SynCorp’s next generation.

  “That makes two of us,” I said, gesturing at the twins. “Lucius and Ligeia Taulke.”

  “Of course I know them!” Viktor bowed formally. “Welcome to Prometheus Colony. I hope you’ll find—”

  “This fucking sucks already,” Lucius said.

  Ligeia took his hand in hers.

  Viktor’s welcoming smile remained, but just barely. His oldest son stepped forward, a lean, hungry look about him.

  “I’m Ra’uf Erkennen. We’ll see that your stay here is as enjoyable as possible.”

  The kids stood quietly, enduring the formalities of introduction.

  “My younger son, Gregor,” Viktor said. The third Erkennen came forward, a second printing of his father. A few more years and pounds, and he’d be Viktor Erkennen reborn.

  “Lucius, Ligeia,” he said to each in turn. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  Ligeia nodded.

  “They’ll need staff,” I began. “A nanny and…”

  Viktor’s face clouded. “Yes, I know. A horrid business, what happened during the voyage. You must still be grieving.” This last he’d directed to the twins.

  Lucius opened his mouth, but Ligeia spoke first.

  “We’d like to get settled in, if we can. It’s been a long—and, yes, stressful—trip.”

  I did a double take. She sounded fifty, not fifteen.

  “Of course,” Viktor said, motioning Gregor forward, who gestured at the children. They followed him toward the colony’s busy docks. I was almost sorry to part company, in a Stockholm syndrome kind of way—almost. In this analogy, I’m the kidnapped party.

  Ligeia turned back. It was like she’d read my mind.

  “Thank you for your protection, Mr. Fischer,” she said, formally and with perfect cadence. Again, not like a teenager—like a woman old enough to be her mother. Grandmother, maybe.

  “Take care, kid. You too, Big Mouth.”

  Lucius didn’t honor me with spoken language, flashing a one-finger farewell instead.

  I smiled. Universal constants are important. They reassure us that Mother Universe isn’t careless and arbitrary when applying her will. Even if she is.

  “We’ll scan this ship from bow to stern,” Viktor promised. “Ra’uf will personally oversee the investigation. We’ll figure out what happened with the butler. Assassins are a nasty…” He caught himself half a sentence too late.

  Waving an understanding hand, I finished his thought. “It’s okay. We are a nasty bunch of assholes.” To Ra’uf: “Purely professional courtesy, of course, but I’d like to know what you find out.”

  “Sure,” he said. “There’s a ship leaving at lunar dawn.” I was sure there was already a berth reserved in my name.

  “Perfect,” I said, knowing I needed to get back to report in with Tony anyway. Close the contract, as it were—which was an odd way to think about protecting the twins. “In the meantime, got a good bar here? I’m parched.”

  “Of course, of course!” Viktor enthused. “I know just the place. Coldest vodka on Titan!”

  Ra’uf’s smile was thin. Impatient. “I’ll buy.” Even if I was unwelcome, there was propriety.

  All the lovely-to-have-you, too-bad-you-can’t-stay had its effect. I’d just stepped off the Dream but was already itching to reverse course for home. In the meantime, a drink or six couldn’t hurt.

  * * * * *

  The Debrief

  After nearly three weeks away, Earth had never looked so good. The return trip proved much more blissfully boring than the trip out. I’d learned to appreciate that.

  I headed straight to Tony Two-point-oh’s office.

  “How’s life in the killing business?” It was like his security question for me every time we met.

  “Tolerable,” I said, passing him the password.

  Tony nodded. His question had been perfunctory. His expression seemed irritated.

  “Viktor tells me the twins have settled in on Titan,” he said as my butt got comfortable. “Smartest tutors, most luxurious quarters—”

  “Most patient servants?” I snarked.

  He seemed thrown, like I’d broken the rhythm of a practiced speech. A forced smile stretched the skin of his forehead smooth.

  “Yes, Lucius can be a handful, can’t he?” I opened my mouth to release some smartassery, but Tony cut me off. “And, in consideration for that, I’m giving you a bonus. Doubling your commission.”

  Whatever hilarious yet puerile comment had been forming in my head evaporated.

  Twice my commission?

  Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Just ask the Trojans.

  “Thanks, Tony,” I said finally.

  He gave an absent wave of regal acknowledgment.

  “Ra’uf Erkennen,” I said. “He was going to investigate Barstow’s—”

  Tony’s hand landed on the carafe of bourbon next to his Martian paperweight. He poured himself a drink. Only himself.

  “That’s all settled,” he said. “Barstow was a nobody. Nothing to worry about now.”

  Well, it had been something to worry about. Particularly for Barstow’s common-law widow. Right up until Ellie Longbaum had suffered both carotids cut.

  “Okay,” I said giving him a moment to take a lordly sip. Truth is, I was loath to voice my next thought. But I was more reluctant
to leave a loose end untied. “Still, motivation and opportunity pointed to only one person as the murderer. But Lucius, for all his—”

  “I said it’s nothing to worry about.” Tony’s usually steady baritone voice carried the rough edges of marinating in hundred-proof alcohol. “And not part of your contract, Eugene. The bonus isn’t for detective work.”

  I nodded, reading all the signals. Sometimes it takes me a while. Social cues aren’t my strong suit. Tony didn’t want to talk about Barstow. He uses my given name—which he knows I hate—when he wants me to remember who’s on top in our power structure. And he’d emphasized the bonus. Want to keep it? his tone said. Then drop any concerns you might have about Barstow.

  “Okay,” I repeated, knowing when to shut up. He took another sip of his top-shelf bourbon while I sat, dry. Another clue for me. “Well, if that’s all, Boss, I’ve got a date with a couple of bars on the flight deck.”

  The most powerful man in Sol nodded dismissal.

  “Take care, Eugene.”

  * * * * *

  The Bonus

  Tony’s attitude wasn’t surprising. Having a sibling, even a half-blood, as a murderer wouldn’t play well on CorpNet. It wouldn’t be a secret easily kept, with all the faction spies sneaking around. Best to leave the crime unsolved. Eventually, forgotten altogether. And that’s assuming my suspicions about Lucius were even true.

  But the kid was just a kid! Right? Destined to be a Capital-A asshole when he grew up, sure, but…Still, I wondered if searching CorpNet wouldn’t return some local mysteries around Pacific Heights involving skinned cats and squirrels nailed to trees. If Lucius really were capable of what I’d seen—well, short of six feet under, Titan really was the best place for him. Maybe Tony knew that. Maybe that’s why he’d sent him there in the first place. Away from civilization.

  I felt sorry for Ligeia.

  Barstow was a loose end that, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t need tying up. A nobody, Tony had called him. Harsh, but true—Company business would go on. I was sure the Stargazer’s Dream had already been steam cleaned and pressed back into service.