A Phule and His Money (20 page)

So how was she going to take advantage of her discovery? There was no question that she was going to take advantage of it-you get an edge, you take it. That was how the game was played. It would be sweet revenge to finally take the Fat Chance away from him after all he'd done to balk her.

A lot depended on which "Phule" was the impostor, of course. She wasn't about to make an overt move against him if he was actually here to counter it. She'd already had a lesson in the Legion's brand of hardball, and didn't want to repeat it. But if the fellow over in the Fat Chance was the double...well, that might be a very different story.

It shouldn't be hard to figure it out. Phule could afford to hire somebody good enough to pass a fairly close inquisition. Still, there'd be things Phule hadn't briefed the double on, questions he wouldn't be able to answer if somebody caught him off his guard. She wouldn't even have to confront him in person. A phone call could tell her who she was dealing with, if she knew the right card to play. But she had to have the right card before she called.

"Holo off," snapped Maxine. The picture abruptly winked out of existence, and the room fell silent. The holo hadn't used to interfere with Maxine's thinking, but that had been when she'd had Laverna to do a lot of that thinking for her. Now she realized that she'd been an idiot to buy Phule's line about his butler eloping with her assistant. Most likely he'd taken them both with him. Well, that wouldn't be hard to find out, either. And when she'd found them, there were favors she could call in. That was one of the advantages of running the Syndicate's favorite resort. She'd been generous with free rooms, free meals, special seats at shows for visitors from other Syndicate families-paying forward in anticipation of future need. Now it was payback time, in more ways than one.

She tried to remember who she knew on that planet-what was its name again? She must not have been paying close enough attention. Well, if she turned the holo back on and watched another twenty minutes the news story would cycle back again. No-she hired people to do that. She'd order somebody to turn on the news and take notes while she figured out what to do about Phule. She picked up the comm handset and pressed a button.

Unexpectedly, it didn't ring. Instead, after a few moments, a synthesized voice came on. "There is no answer at the extension you are calling. If you wish to leave a message, please wait until..." She broke the connection, cursing. She wasn't used to getting recorded messages, or waiting. What the hell was she paying these clowns for, if they weren't there when she needed them? That had never happened with Laverna.

She thought a moment about trying another extension, then slammed the handset down. She felt like shaking things up, and she was going to start by finding the lazy goon who'd been supposed to answer that call and reminding him who was boss here. It had been a while since she'd had to do that, but she hadn't forgotten how. The guy on the other end wasn't likely to forget it, either, once she'd finished with him. She stepped toward the door, a grim smile on her lips.

The door opened before she reached it.

She stopped, astounded. Nobody else was supposed to be able to open that door. She was reaching for her weapon when a man stepped forward and said, "I wouldn't do that, Mrs. Pruett. We have the place surrounded, and the penalties for attacking a Federation agent are very severe."

"Federation agent?" she gasped. She recovered her aplomb almost immediately. "What the hell are you doing in my private quarters? You're out of your jurisdiction. Lorelei law says I'm justified in blowing you away for breaking and entering. Get out before I do just that."

"I'm afraid you're mistaken-this is my jurisdiction," said the man, and he flipped open a wallet to show a holo-ID. Below the letters IRS it read, Roger Peele, Special Agent. "The Federation allows localities a good bit of autonomy in criminal and civil law," said Peele solemnly. "But the tax code applies everywhere."

"Tax code? You can't bust me for taxes," said Maxine. "I'm the one who called and tipped you off about the Fat Chance. It's those damned Legion crooks you should be after, not me."

"We make our own decisions about whom to go after," said Agent Peele. "We are looking into the situation at the Fat Chance, and we will deal with it in our own time. Meanwhile, we have good reason to believe that you are systematically underreporting your income. I will ask you to come with me, Mrs. Pruett-we have quite a few questions to ask you."

"I'm not answering any questions till I see my lawyer!" shouted Maxine. "Now get out of here before I call Security."

"We have your lawyer and your security people already in custody," said the agent. "You can talk to them down at headquarters." He held out his hand, palm up. "Now, I suggest you surrender your weapon before you find yourself in even more serious trouble."

Maxine cursed. But she handed over the weapon and went quietly. She'd owned a casino long enough to tell when her luck had run out. Today, it had come up snake eyes.

General Blitzkrieg knew he was in trouble the minute he heard the commotion in his outer office. There was only one person with the chutzpa to charge into his office and demand to see him without an appointment. "I know he's in there, Major. Now, you can stand in my way and get run over, or you can step aside and let me in. Either way, I'm going to see him, whether he likes it or not."

Blitzkrieg wished, not for the first time, that he had gotten an office with an emergency exit for these situations. But that would only postpone the inevitable. Like a trip to the dentist, this confrontation could be put off only at the price of worse pain later on. He pushed a button on his intercom and said, doing his best to sound nonchalant, "Major, no need to detain Colonel Battleax. Send her right in, if you will." It sounded phony even to him.

The door opened and Colonel Battleax marched in. Through the open portal the general caught a glimpse of Major Sparrowhawk, whose expression indicated that she was no happier at being made the scapegoat for the delay than Colonel Battleax was at being made to wait. He was going to pay for both those mistakes, he realized. Sometimes he wondered what good being a general was if it afforded no protection from subordinates.

"Good morning, sir," said Colonel Battleax. That was some small relief, he thought as he returned her very proper salute. At least she was going to observe the forms of military courtesy. Beyond that, he was unlikely to. find this a pleasant interview.

"Have a seat, Colonel," he said, returning the salute. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?" Keep up the fiction that you're glad to see her, he thought, and maybe she won't bite your head off this time. He didn't put much trust in that notion, though.

Colonel Battleax settled into the chair facing Blitzkrieg's desk. "I've been watching the news, General," she said. "You've been pulling strings again."

Blitzkrieg feigned surprise. "What are you referring to?"

"A news story from Landoor. It seems there were shots fired at the spaceport, presumably by antigovernment rebels."

"Landoor...that name is familiar..."

"Of course it's familiar," said the colonel, losing patience. "You went horse-trading to the Joint Chiefs to get a Legion company posted there as the peacekeeping force. You don't do that so often that you're likely to have forgotten it, unless you're getting senile even faster than anyone thought. You sent Phule's Company-Captain Jester's Company-to Landoor."

"Why, yes, I suppose I did," said Blitzkrieg. "It seemed a feather in the cap for the Legion..."

"Don't pull that guff on me, General," said Battleax. "Jester was a complete nonentity until he ordered that strafing on New Atlantis, as it was called then. You've taken his subsequent rise as a thorn in your side. Now you transfer him to the one place in the galaxy where there are people with a bigger grudge against him than yours. You expect me to believe this is unpremeditated?"

"Why, yes...er, no..." Blitzkrieg turned red. "Damn it, Colonel, what are you getting at?"

The colonel stood up and leaned forward over the general's desk. "General, it's time you realized that, whether or not you like Jester, he's a rising star. If you'd accepted that all along, the entire Legion would have gotten credit for everything he's done. Instead, he's the shining exception. I can't think of another Legion unit the Joint Chiefs would've been willing to put in such a sensitive position. Now if he falls on his face, he'll take the entire Legion down with him. You may not be able to see beyond your own nose, but those of us who can aren't going to let you get away with it." She glared at him, then straightened up and added as an afterthought, "With all due respect, sir."

"This is preposterous," said the general. "I deny it all, of course." He was sweating.

"Frankly, General, I didn't expect anything else," said Colonel Battleax. "If Jester comes a cropper on Landoor, there are some of us who will see that blame for it comes back to roost where it belongs. So I suggest you do whatever you can to insure that nothing untoward does happen to him."

Blitzkrieg shrugged. "Really, Colonel, I don't see where this is any matter for great concern. A Legion captain ought to be able to take care of himself. If he can't, that's a pity, but ultimately no reflection on us."

The colonel nodded, grimly. "Very well, sir, if that's how you intend to play the game, that's how it'll be played. Good day, sir." She saluted and left the office.

Blitzkrieg leaned back in his chair. That hadn't gone so badly, he thought. Still, best to keep a closer eye on the Landoor situation. If Jester got in trouble there, he might be able to devise a way to burnish his own reputation by riding to the rescue. Yes, that might be a very satisfactory way to profit from his enemy's distress. He'd have to keep it in mind.

"He's gone where?" Lieutenant Armstrong's disbelief was written plainly on his face. He'd just poured his first cup of coffee, so his normal stiff bearing hadn't quite had time to set in.

"Here's the note he left with Mother," said Lieutenant Rembrandt, shoving a piece of paper at her fellow officer. "At least he left a note-I'd have liked it a lot more if he'd told us in person, though."

"We'd have tried to talk him out of it, which is why he didn't ask us," said Armstrong, glancing up from the note. "He has Beeker and Rev along, I see. Do we have any idea where specifically they've gone?"

"The rebel headquarters is somewhere on the mainland," said Rembrandt. She waved a hand vaguely. "We don't know exactly where. Mother couldn't find any intelligence reports on it. The captain had already asked her. I was glad to hear that-at least he didn't set out completely blind. But the rebels haven't been enough trouble to justify close surveillance, up until now."

Armstrong frowned. "No satellite intelligence?"

"The satellite network here is pretty rudimentary," said Rembrandt, wearily. "The captain learned that when he was looking for that secret government project. There are a couple of old weather sats, dating back to the mining days, with add-ons for GPS and communications. But nothing military."

"Nothing? Didn't these people just have a war?"

"Sure," said Rembrandt. She walked over to the coffee urn and topped up her cup. "But remember, with only one nation on this world, they didn't have an enemy to keep tabs on. When that civil war broke out, their economy had collapsed, and neither side had off-world allies. It was a low-tech war all around-no armor, no air force, no long-range missiles. And no intelligence sats. Even after the war, the Army peacekeeping team never took the rebels seriously enough to spend the money on sats."

"Well, I guess we should be thankful for small favors," said Armstrong. "At least nobody's got enough firepower to overwhelm a single Legion company if they decide to start shooting. I guess that's an acceptable trade-off for the extra set of eyes."

"I agree," said Rembrandt, adding a dash of cream to her coffee. "Except we still need to figure out where the captain's gone. If an emergency comes up, I want to talk to him before I do anything drastic."

Armstrong looked up from his coffee cup. "I don't see how that's a problem," he said. "We can zero in on their wrist communicators, right? Or is there something else you haven't told me?"

"You got it. Everybody except the captain left their communicators behind," said Rembrandt. "And he's turned his off. I think he didn't want the rebels to get their hands on advanced tech if they decided to take him prisoner. One communicator won't do them much good; they need two or more to get any advantage from them."

"Rats," said Armstrong. "So we can't get in touch with the captain unless he initiates the contact."

"That's the story," said Rembrandt. "We better hope that nothing happens until he decides to come back."

"We better hope the rebels don't decide they've got a useful hostage on their hands," said Armstrong.

"Yeah, I thought about that, too," said Rembrandt. She drained her coffee and set down the cup. "Maybe you better get over to the comm center and see if you and Mother can figure out some alternate way to track down the captain."

Armstrong picked up his coffee cup and rose from his chair. "I'll get right on it," he said. "Let you know if I hear from him."

"Right," said Rembrandt. She watched Armstrong leave, then turned to the day's schedule. She'd be running the company in the captain's absence-this time without even Beeker's help. There had better not be any emergencies while she was in charge. She expected to have her hands full finding the captain.

They found the rebel base by following a bayou that led deep into the mainland, passing a little trading post, and turning up a broad jungle trail that rapidly became narrower as the lush vegetation closed in. Various stinging and biting insects closed in, as well. If the trail had been a bit better, it might have been possible to outrun them. As it was, the passengers spent half their time swatting pests. Phule wondered how the rebels managed to control the insects-or whether they simply put up with them as part of the price for their freedom.