Third World (19 page)

Roy’s voice broke in just then and he
couldn’t make it out.

“
One at a time,
please.”

With his mouth open just a little bit,
Newton pulled his hand off his earpiece.

Turning slowly, as if to order another
drink, he turned, rotating left, and found himself eye-to-eye with
the very man he had just been watching as he carefully picked up a
small jug of beer, a beer glass, a glass of wine and a couple of
coasters from the bar.

The voices in his ears practically
screamed, and Newton flinched slightly, reaching up quickly to turn
the volume down a little as the fellow self-consciously made his
way over to the table and put the refreshments down.

Before the man’s back was turned,
Newton snapped his helmet visor down and had a quick look to
confirm it.

Sure enough, the display was telling
him that there was a ninety-five percent probability that they were
looking at Trooper Henry Stinson Maloney, who had failed to return
from a forty-eight hour leave, twenty-two years ago while in Her
Majesty’s charge and care.

Something flipped over inside of his
guts. Whether that was his dinner or not, he wasn’t quite
sure.

For a long moment, Newton was frozen as
the young lady came back and sat down. The man, foaming glass of
beer already poured, lifted it in toast as she responded in kind
with her wine glass.

The troopers were right there and all
hot for action. His duty was clear, in fact he could see it all in
his head.

They wouldn’t be coming back
empty-handed, although he was sure that was what everyone had
expected.

He had no choice. He had a
responsibility. There was no going back now.

Dammit.

***

“
Polly—” Hank was feeling
better about things, if nothing else they were having a good
time.

That was certainly promising, but he
was struggling to say something more, to give her some little hint
about how he felt, and maybe try and feel her out about exactly how
she felt about certain things, when her eyes unfocused from his and
looked at a point just off of his right shoulder.

When the big hand came down and clamped
on, right beside his neck, squeezing tight in a good strong grip,
it sent a jolt of internal electricity through Hank and he
half-stood and half-spun before he even realized he was getting up.
The big trooper shoved him back into the seat.

There was some talk, too, but it barely
registered what they were saying. Then he heard it.

“
Sir, you are under arrest,
by authority of Queen’s Bench Warrant number…” The rest just
spieled off into a series of meaningless letters and
digits.

The big hand forced him down into his
seat as Polly’s face went all stark and white and her eyes were as
big as saucers. The other two, a trooper and an officer by the look
of him, stood right there, the little one with her assault weapon
pointed right at Hank’s head and the officer with his hand on his
sidearm holster.

“
Sir, we’d like to ask you a
few questions. If you’d just come with us, perhaps we could avoid
an unpleasant scene.” The mouth moved and words came out but Hank
was in a state of funk, or shock, or simple inability to comprehend
what these people wanted.

“
I’m sorry? I—I don’t
understand.” He sat in the chair and looked up at the officer as he
moved around to where Hank wouldn’t have to twist his neck so much
and the camera pickup could get a better look at that
face.

Oscar kept his hand clamped right where
it was. One look was enough for Hank. Trooper Barnes looked
on.

Her weapon was at the ready, as she
stood well off to one side. Hank’s pulse shot up and his guts
sank.

Oscar had a scar across the bridge of
his nose and came in at a hundred and ten kilos. He was so close to
two metres tall it wasn’t even funny. He could be
intimidating.

“
Sir, I’ll have to ask you,
very politely and I hope you appreciate that, to sit still.” Oscar
clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer.

The man just stared at Lieutenant
Shapiro with eyes sick with something, but thankfully with a lady
present and a crowded room of innocent civilians, he made no
attempt to bolt. He seemed to be totally flabbergasted by his
arrest, and right in the middle of nailing what looked to Newton
like a pretty good thing.

The probabilities were still well over
ninety-five percent. He would have liked a hundred percent, but
twenty-two years was twenty-two years. Newton wondered if that
might be something of a record for apprehending a deserter.
Probably not, he decided.

“
What’s your name, sir?”
Newton hadn’t exactly been trained in police work, military or
otherwise, but the game was a familiar one, from video and
books.

“
Hank Beveridge!” The man
clamped his jaws shut and his face was all red.

His face and eyes worked, and when he
looked at the lady, there was such painful
embarrassment.

The music went silent. The room was
very quiet and then the mutter and murmur of several hundred
throats began to swell as the rest began to catch onto what was
going on. The crowd rearranged itself into an unbroken semi-circle,
crowding up uncomfortably close now, and it was definitely time to
go judging by some of the faces and several comments easily
understood although a bit muffled as they came from the back of the
pack.

“
All right, sir. Let’s go.”
The man stared at him. “Let’s take a little walk.”

“
Where? Where are we
going?”

Newton didn’t really have an answer for
that yet. With a gesture at Barnes, who came over to take the
suspect’s other elbow, they got him up and out of the chair and
quickly put the restraints on him.

“
All right, Buster, let’s
go.” Oscar was enjoying this perhaps a little too much, but Newton
felt the sudden weight of responsibility crushing down on
him.

Newton took the man’s forearm, cuffed
behind his back as it was, and led him along.

Barnes stepped boldly towards the front
rank of spectators with her weapon held across her chest, and they
reluctantly parted, making rude comments and asking questions.
Newton’s breath caught in his throat, but she was suddenly
magnificent.

“
What’s he done?” Someone at
Newton’s elbow shouted the question at the side of his
head.

It was a valid question and it deserved
a response.

“
No comment. We have a
warrant.” Newton stopped and looked at the ring of faces, many of
them angry, some of them confused, and some of them no doubt
amused, for there were those in every crowd.

The prisoner had a right to privacy,
among other things…

He spoke up in an authoritative
tone.

“
Ladies and gentlemen. This
man is under arrest. We will brook no interference. Otherwise,
we’re leaving. Now.”

The buzz quieted, but only momentarily
as the band and the bartenders stared in dismay, for they all sort
of knew Hank Beveridge. Off-duty troopers forced their way to the
front, and lined themselves up along each side of their small
party. It was a strangely prideful moment, and he was glad they
were there, no doubt about it.

The local boys, strong working men and
one or two bullies probably, were thinking things over, as a few
short remarks went about in the group of milling people.

He did his best to stare each and every
damned one of them down.

He shouldn’t have had that drink. He
should have brought a finger-print reader, which suddenly seemed a
lot more serious than a shot of whiskey. Newton didn’t care. These
people were no match for them—and they all of a sudden knew it. He
knew because one or two sort of turned away and the talk got louder
and things just seemed looser all over.

Newton Shapiro had won.

“
Right! Let’s
go.”

Also, the question of where in the hell
they were going to keep the prisoner crossed his mind at about this
time.

Chapter Sixteen

What Do We Do With
Her?

Polly followed them out the door and
down the street, a fact Shapiro was unaware of until Oscar said
something.

“
Sir, what do we do with
her?”

“
Huh?”

He looked back and saw that the crowd
was spilling out into the street, but for the most part they were
just standing there watching. He had the impression they had just
avoided an ugly scene by the skin of their teeth and he wanted to
get out of there.

But the young lady was clearly going to
be a problem, and his own people were looking punchy as they tried
to control her without harming her, something not easily done with
the hysterical.

“
Go home, Miss.” He stopped,
but was careful not to touch her in any way or even raise his
voice.

He tried to inject some calmness into
it.

“
There’s nothing you can do
for him.” Barnes had nailed it, although it really wasn’t up to her
to speak.

She eluded Hernandez and Ensign
Spaulding with a quick side-step and a lunge, and tried to force
her way in between the prisoner and Oscar, who contemptuously
shoved her out of the way with an elbow. Newton let go and drew his
weapon. Oscar found that holding his weapon and the prisoner at the
same time gave him few options other than to walk right over her.
The other troops grabbed her and pulled her back, as the crowd
muttered and one or two of the bolder ones headed this way, all
males in his quick survey. She wriggled and yanked around in their
grasp as they cussed and swore with the effort. He engaged the
foremost civilian with a firm look.

“
Keep her out of harm’s
way.”

The man wrapped his arms around her as
she sobbed.

“
I’m sorry,
Miss.”

She was crying and trying to stop them
and she just wouldn’t listen.

The prisoner spoke up.

“
Go home, Polly. Go home.
They’ll just make trouble for you too.” Hank glared at Newton
Shapiro.

There was some unspoken promise there,
and Newton heeded it out of simple respect for another human
being.

“
Thank you.”

The man’s face was filled with hate,
his eyes chilling to behold, but what else could you expect? Newton
didn’t like it much either, but what could he do about
it?

“
All we’re looking for is a
little cooperation.”

The man glared at him.

Newton had his orders, he had his job
to do. It was nothing personal, and of course he could see the
other man’s point of view: this was the worst sort of thing that
could happen to a man. Newton could see that well
enough.

They left Polly standing in the street,
barely under control, calling after them and weeping in the most
heart-wrenching manner.

“
What has he done? What’s
the charge?” She wailed and threw herself into the dirt as the
civilians tried to grab her again. “I want to know what’s going
on!”

“
Yeah, Lieutenant. What’s
going on?”

Shapiro hoped the man wouldn’t become
belligerent, aware the fellow had had a few drinks.

“
Please don’t make trouble,
sir.” Oscar gave Hank a menacing look, and then shut up on
receiving a similar sort of look from Shapiro.

Hank clamped his jaws shut and drew
himself up to his full height. He exuded wounded
dignity.

Newton’s skin crawled with his
miserable duty as they marched their prisoner back to the hotel at
double time, ignoring the looks and remarks of an occasional
passer-by and some people on a porch.

Please, God, please let it be over
soon.

***

It took a while to sink in.

Hank never said a word. All of his
thoughts had congealed into a sheet of ice. His whole life was
over, and escape seemed unlikely. Now that they had him, for
whatever reason, they weren’t about to let him go.

The lieutenant was speaking.

“
We’ll keep him in the cab
of truck two. I want two people with him at all times. He’s on
suicide watch and that means he’s never left alone, not even in the
latrine.”

“
Yes, sir.” Oscar and Barnes
were happy enough to have a prisoner.

Somehow, it made everything seem
worthwhile.

“
He’s not so tough now, eh?”
Barnes was right.

Head hanging, their prisoner stood
there, with tears washing down his face and visibly trying to
control his emotions and not having much luck with it.

“
Sir.”

The man didn’t look up.

“
Sir.”

“
What?” He still didn’t look
up.

“
We’re sorry to spoil your
evening, but we have a few questions we’d like to ask.”