Protector: Foreigner #14, page 31
Cenedi was going to have an extensive word to say to the young gentleman’s aishid, Bren thought. They were all young. Cajeiri was hard to tell no. Thank God they hadn’t had a shot fired through that window.
“The second shot was from a member of Lord Tatiseigi’s Guild, who fired from an assigned position to try to stop two fugitives along the back of the house. Lord Tatiseigi’s man did not pursue. This was his order—not to leave his post for any reason.”
Two fugitives.
Algini was silent a moment. “Taibeni are coming up, part of them through the woods. The western camp has riders out now to sweep the perimeters.”
One would not want to be in the fugitives’ situation. Tatiseigi’s herd was locked in, stout doors and heavy bars assuring that herd was not going to break loose and take after the Taibeni, who were going to be fanning out along the hedges, through the woods, and looking for a scent trail—
Once the mecheiti found it—it was going to be an ugly business out there. The fugitives couldn’t run fast enough—no one could. They could try the powder, they could try shooting from ambush, and they might bring riders and mecheiti down—but not all of them, not before the riders would run them down and the mecheiti would take them apart. They’d saddled fast—the Taibeni might or might not have the war-caps on those tusks, but with or without, they were lethal. He didn’t want to see the result. But it was a near certainty he would have to. They needed to know whose these men were.
He sat down, feeling his way by the table edge. In the house, everything was quiet.
“Unfortunate,” he said. “The Taibeni aren’t going to go half-measures. The Taibeni value their animals—and control in a hunting herd is on a thin thread, as it is. If they try that powder trick again—we may not have anyone to question.” He heaved a sigh. “I’m sorry about this.”
“Seems to us your security is handling the problem.”
“I’m very glad they are.”
“Any bets it’s the Kadagidi?”
“We have no few choices.” Tano turned the lights back on. “Are we clear, Tano-ji?”
“Not yet,” Tano said. “But this floor is clear.”
It was late. It had been late before the trouble began. But there was no chance they were going to go to bed until they had answers. And Supani had stood up, standing at the side, but back on duty, the room having guests. “Tea?” Bren asked Jase. “It seems we’re going to be a while at this.”
“There’s a chill,” Jase said. “Not sure whether it’s the night or the events.”
“Tea,” Bren said, “all around.” Supani nodded and set about it, Koharu moving to help him, while Tano and Algini talked to someone who presumably was in touch with those outside.
“It’s not the way the Kadagidi normally go about things,” he said to Jase, “up close like this. Usually it’s sniping from a distance. Political maneuvering. However, they’ve been pretty well confined to their own borders this entire year. The people can come and go, but Aseida’s been bottled up—not his bodyguard, but Aseida himself. If he’s picked this time to make a nuisance of himself to Tatiseigi, it’s a bad time.”
“Not part two of the grandfather’s assassination.”
“I don’t rule anything out—from either side of that matter. If it’s a probe—they already suspect their answer. And finding that out’s fairly inevitable. We only figured the Malguri story to last a few days, as is—possibly not past a Kadagidi spy on the road here. There’s a reason the Taibeni met us at the train station. They were sweeping the area before we got there, and they’ve been watching the road between Kadagidi and here. The Kadagidi have their own train station, two of them, one in the township, one closer to the Kadagidi estate. It’s not as if they need to be using the road past Tatiseigi’s estate. As far as I know—it’s not been an issue.”
Koharu poured tea for them, as Supani was doing the same for Kaplan and Polano. Bren took a sip.
“The Taibeni have located them, nandiin,” Algini said. “The signal is located but not taken.”
Damn. A complication?
“What do you think is going on, Gini-ji?”
“One rather suspects,” Algini said, “that our problems are up a tree.”
• • •
They could have the lights on now, Nawari said as he arrived, and kindly turned them on.
Cajeiri was relieved that the alert seemed to be winding down, and he drew easier breaths with Nawari in the room to look things over. He trusted his own aishid, that they could take care of things if they happened, but he by no means wanted things to happen tonight, with gunshots going off. He had heard that sound all too often in his life, and one could not trust being absolutely safe even on the second floor.
And his guests were impressed and seemed reassured, now that the light was on. Nawari walked around with his rifle in hand—Nawari was lean and particularly good-looking and very professional-looking in his glance over things.
“Good you had the lights out,” Nawari said.
Antaro said firmly, “The moment the alert came, Nawari-nadi.”
Nawari looked at the window latch, took a look outside, moving the filmy curtain with his hand, and looked satisfied.
Then he looked at him. “One understands you recovered the parid’ja, nandi.”
Cajeiri took a careful breath: Nawari would not chastise him or his aishid in front of his guests, no.
But he could not let his aishid be pulled aside for a reprimand, either. “Nawari-nadi, I ordered it. We heard the mecheiti. And then we heard Boji scratching at the window. We had turned the lights out.”
“We put the lights out immediately when we heard a disturbance,” Veijico said, which was right. “Records will note we notified security simultaneously.”
“Then Boji tapped the window,” Cajeiri said. “He makes this sound. My aishid was very careful. They opened the drape from the sides, we had the lights out, and we did not open the window but a crack. I had an egg, and Boji came in on his own.”
Nawari looked at Antaro and Jegari.
“The tap is distinctive, nadi,” Antaro said, “and we at no time presented a target.”
“Bear in mind that the window-glass would not stop an intruder, nadiin. —Our allies have deployed riders from both camps, tracking two targets. Do not look out the windows, even after the all-clear.”
“Great-uncle’s herd—” Cajeiri said, thinking instantly of Jeichido out there.
“Shut in,” Nawari said. “Safe and shut into their stable. Our allies are dealing with the matter. There may be unpleasantness. Your guests, young gentleman, should not be confronted with the view.”
He understood, then—he absolutely understood. “Yes, Nawari-nadi,” he said.
“You seem to be in good order here. Are you anxious about being by yourselves tonight, young gentleman? There will be guards in the hall all night.”
“We are perfectly fine,” he was quick to say. “Only no house servant should open our door.”
“That word is already out, for all the house.” Nawari headed the door, and Cajeiri cast a fast look about the tops of the curtains and hangings.
“Please,” he said as Nawari laid his hand on the latch, “please be very careful with the door, Nawari-nadi. Boji is hiding somewhere in the suite, and one does not wish him loose in Great-uncle’s house.”
“One will be very careful,” Nawari said solemnly, and was exactly that, in leaving them alone in the room.
The Taibeni had the mecheiti hunting the intruders.
At least they were not in Great-uncle’s basement.
He hoped there were no more of them.
He faced his guests, who had not, he thought, gotten all of that past Nawari’s Malguri accent.
And he did not want to tell them all of it, about the mecheiti, or he would never get them back near the stables.
“Everything is good,” he said. “All safe.” He glanced at his aishid, very sorry that he had gotten them in trouble. “Nadiin-ji, one regrets—”
Antaro gave a little oblique nod, as if to say, yes, there would be a problem, but his aishid would deal with that for him, too.
“We have Boji back,” she said.
“Wherever he is,” Lucasi said.
But they all sat down to talk it over, late as it was, with his aishid nominally still on duty, still armed, leaning rather than sitting.
And in a little while Boji put his head out from the top of a drape.
“Egg,” Cajeiri said, and Lieidi, nearby and with his eye on Boji, calmly reached into his pocket and produced one. “His egg, nandi.”
• • •
“We are strongly suspecting,” Tano said, still listening to the communications flow, and still with no word what the situation was out on the grounds, “that this infiltration was prior to the sensors going up. It would take a very expert sort to get in here now. I know only four who could attempt it and three of them are under this roof.”
“The fourth?” Bren asked. Jase was doing a shorthand translation for Kaplan and Polano. Algini was checking Banichi’s black box, doing something.
“Far too wise to take off across that meadow with the mecheiti let loose. We believe they were inside, decided to try to get out. At the moment, we are more worried about anyone who may be left inside.”
“Somebody our housecleaning missed?” Bren asked.
“Possibly, nandiin-ji. We have kept staff frozen in place for hours for individual interviews. We have begun to release certain staff, one area at a time, as their personal quarters are searched and cleared. Lord Tatiseigi’s security is proceeding now with a roll call, all staff to report for individual recognition and clearance, and it has been slow. We are not accepting a supervisor’s word without an interview and an examination of identification—we are doing this as delicately as possible, considering we are treading over Atageini prerogatives. We have conducted interviews. We have asked about unlocked doors, pilferage, or unusual behavior, about persons late, or otherwise out of routine. We have had chiefs of staff cross-compare the schedules and duty reports. We are now going over those records ourselves. We have checked the furloughed servants: five groundskeepers who were put on holiday before our visit—three mechanics sent on furlough the day before our arrival. They are registered at the hotel in the township. We have sixteen questionable individuals lodged in a house, under guard, which represents every individual who might know anything about our activity and security arrangements here. We have not had any deliveries, no one coming or going.”
“We are not satisfied with the garage,” Algini said sharply. “It abuts the area where we had the first alarm. We are rechecking.”
“The three mechanics,” Tano said, “normally have quarters in the loft above the service area. We started processing that area this afternoon. The vehicles, the loft, the fueling station, the service pit . . . the searchers say most access doors are painted shut and undisturbed—they opened the plumbing access, and checked for signs of entry, but found none. The place is evidently a dense clutter of tools, pipe, chain, all sorts of things. Four of Cenedi’s men spent two hours going over the place—but we also have had the basements to go through, and the staff checks. The team in charge locked the garage and put a guard on it, then went to check plumbing accesses that branch off from that one.”
“We are not satisfied,” Algini repeated. “We have been through the basements—we are assured the basements have no access at all except through the door in the main hall, and Lord Tatiseigi confirms that is the case, but we have been surprised before by some detail that dates to the last century. The garage holds two dead vehicles besides the current, besides, we are told, every tool and spare part ever needed on this estate, besides plumbing and electrical parts, hose, chain, and parts for an earthmover not in the garage: there are accesses, plates welded shut, painted shut, accesses built over with shelves—the moment we had the second alarm, we unlocked that door and started another search. Banichi and Jago, with Rusani’s men and the original four, are rechecking the place right now. We have cleared the entire house to our reasonable satisfaction. Not the garage. And we are having to proceed with caution, nandi, in the event of some sort of trap.”
He had never seen the garage—there was a drive, a cobbled spur off the wide sweep of the drive at the front door, but it was offset somehow from the frontage, not apparent from the approach, and its east wall, also inset, was screened in shrubbery, vines, and an arbor—which he did think of when he thought about the nearness of the garage to their trouble spot of the afternoon. There was the shrubbery, the arbor—and a very long stone’s throw removed from that, the little woods started, with its little path for walks on summer days. That woods was what he had been looking at when they had the first alarm. The garage, behind its camouflage, he did not even recall as a stone wall. The two upper floors rose above what looked like just part of the landscaping. A place out of mind. Never visited. Lord Tatiseigi himself had probably never ventured into it—just stepped into his car at the front door. Get rid of the old tools? They had met Lord Tatiseigi’s notions that old was perfectly good, that getting rid of what one had paid good money for was just unthinkable . . . the mechanics had had help in that accumulation.
Maybe, he thought uneasily, they should just call the mechanics back from the township and have them go through the place. They probably knew what belonged there, and didn’t.
Damn, he didn’t like it.
“What’s the story?” Jase asked him. “I missed some of that.”
“The mechanics’ quarters. It’s apparently a cluttered mess and it’s right near where they had the first alarm. They’ve searched it once. They’re increasingly sure that’s where we need to look, and Banichi and Jago are in there now.”
Banichi and Jago were good, but Tano and Algini were the demolitions experts. He’d feel better if it were Algini in there doing the bomb search. If it was Kadagidi mischief, even an assassination attempt, it was one thing. But if it was Shadow Guild—
Scratch that thought. What he knew now said that the Kadagidi were the Shadow Guild, or as good as, and that group didn’t stick at civilian casualties, explosives, wires, damage to historic premises—anything to take their targets by surprise and anything to create fear and panic. They couldn’t claim they hadn’t hedged Guild regulations themselves: Tano and Algini had taken out two rooms right here in this house, eliminating one of Murini’s mainstays.
He hoped to God the Shadow Guild hadn’t returned the favor.
What did it take to get a load of explosives into Lord Tatiseigi’s estate, between packing off the resident mechanics to the township and the dowager’s men doing a massive security installation?
Before their security revision—it could come in as a load of foodstuffs.
He sat and sweated, listening to what he could overhear from Tano and Algini—not wanting to say or do anything to distract anybody, and wishing they would hear from the Taibeni. He hoped they had gotten information out of the intruders. He hoped they were in shape to talk, and that, even if they weren’t forthcoming with information, they could find out what they were. That alone—
Then again—the routine homecoming for Lord Tatiseigi would have involved the touring car and the truck.
If they had not used the bus, Bren thought with a slight chill, if they had come in at the train station and called to be met by the estate truck and that huge open car, as Tatiseigi always traveled—and if drivers who were not the regular Atageini drivers showed up—
Tatiseigi would have taken alarm at once. But he might not have had time to do more than realize that fact.
God.
He did not interfere in a Guild operation. He had sworn it to himself in the Najida affair; and already violated it. His mind kept racing, actually hoping that that was the case, and that it did not involve explosives. But he kept his mouth shut. His team had to investigate what bore investigating, and find out, not guess.
Algini took a deep breath, reacting to something he’d heard. Then: “The Taibeni have them, nandiin-ji,” Algini said. “Two of them. Guild. The Taibeni are bringing them back.”
Have them. Not killed them.
“The report is they climbed a tree, and surrendered, though there was a lengthy negotiation,” Algini said. A pause. Then: “They have asked to speak to you, Bren-ji.”
16
So what did one wear to an after-midnight meeting with men who had attempted one’s life?
A bulletproof vest was the first choice.
Banichi and Jago were on their way—they had broken off the search and sealed the garage. Ilisidi and Lord Tatiseigi also intended to have a look at these intruders: but as Jase put it, four humans downstairs was probably too many, and he had no desire to be a distraction. He and Kaplan and Polano were headed down to the house security station where he could get a report and translate the situation for his two guards without getting in the way.
Bren changed coats for a better one . . . with the weight of his small pistol in the pocket. Tano and Algini waited at the door for him—and now he narrowed his focus to just them. From now on they entered a kind of choreography in which, indeed, it was just him and his guard going down there, to meet up with Banichi and Jago. From here on, it was his aishid in charge: he had to be completely aware of their signals, position himself exactly where they wanted him to be, and believe that he could concentrate on his job only when he was where they wanted him.
If anything went wrong down there, or if they weren’t liking the situation, he’d pick it up in his peripheral vision—by mind reading, he sometimes thought, awareness of them so keen he could feel their reactions right up his backbone. Right reactions for an atevi world. He settled into that, uncommunicative, as they headed for the stairs—Cenedi had asked the paidhi-aiji’s bodyguard to see these prisoners, find out what they had intended, before they let them anywhere near Ilisidi and Tatiseigi, and find out why they had asked to see the paidhi-aiji.
