“And if I explain to you exactly what the Espani doctor is doing, then that will set your mind at ease?” Lady Sade passed her empty cup to her silent companion to be refilled. “Do you want to know everything that I know? Do you feel you deserve to be privy to all of my private enterprises? Or is it that you wish to debate with me how I should conduct my affairs? Perhaps you have studied our national politics, the currents of our markets, the tides of public opinion and morale, and you have some suggestions as to how I might better serve my people?”
“No, my lady.” Kella glanced down, a quiet rage simmering in her chest.
“No?” Lady Sade shrugged her slender shoulders as she received her steaming cup. “As you wish. Then you will simply have to trust my judgment in the matter of the doctor.”
“Yes, my lady.” Kella studied the silent man, trying to place him. His face was familiar, probably from the rough portrait sketches in the newspapers that made everyone look vaguely alike. For a moment, the detective considered formally resigning her special appointment. But then what? A knife in a dark alley to silence me, and someone else takes my place as her errand girl? No, I’ve got to stay inside on this one until I know what’s going on. “I’m sorry I disturbed you and your guest, Lady Sade. It won’t happen again.”
Lady Sade nodded curtly and slid back in her seat, just a bit, and turned her body to face her companion, and Kella sensed that she had been dismissed. She stood, smoothed her jacket, and left.
Detective Massi took the long way home, which was one of several long ways she had deliberately mapped out in her mind for various reasons. This particular long way required her to cross several wide open parks and squares that offered no convenient places to loiter in hiding, and carried her past many long shiny store windows that cast enormous reflections of the streets around anyone who happened to walk by. This was a popular neighborhood, one filled with cafes and teahouses and shops peddling both traditional and novelty items from clothing to mechanical toys. During the day, these parks and squares became stages for singers, storytellers, acrobats, and preachers, and in the evenings they plied their trade all the more fervently, but now, in the dark of night, these places stood empty, swept clean by street workers and guarded only by the silent gas lamps sputtering atop their posts.
It took more than a half hour of meandering through open spaces and past reflective surfaces for Kella to spot the dark figure following her. He walked with a male stride, his posture too correct for the business of lurking and sneaking. He moved from shadow to doorway to corner, silently and swiftly. He clearly thought he knew his business. He didn’t.
Kella felt through the pocket of her gray jacket to the only weapon issued to members of Security Section Five: the police club, a slender little bit of wood with a small iron ring screwed into the business end to lend it some extra weight. The detective wondered how threatening a professional killer would find such a weapon. Her hand slipped around to the small of her back and she pulled out a folded knife and she thrust it into her front pocket. At the next corner she paused, kicked her shoes loudly against the stoop as though to clean them, and then sauntered into an alleyway where she promptly flattened herself against the wall and waited.
A moment later the dark figure flowed past the mouth of the alley, so quickly and quietly that Kella almost missed him, but she stepped out into the street and just managed to tap him on the shoulder.
The man in the black cloak whirled about, and though his face remained shadowed by his hood, the gun in his hand gleamed brightly. Kella grabbed the long barrel of the revolver in her left hand and then dealt the man a vicious punch to the throat with her fist wrapped around her folded knife. The man gasped and stumbled, but did not release the gun, and Kella felt the cylinder begin to turn beneath her fingers. She snapped the gun up and toward him, wrenching it free of his grip and then stepped back, brandishing both her unfolded knife and the gun. “Don’t move.”
The man fell still except for the one hand still massaging his throat. Then he broke into a run and vanished down the next alley. Kella sprinted after him, darting down the alley around discarded bits of broken furniture and piles of rags and wide dark puddles. Ahead, she saw the stranger reach the end of the alley and dash to the left down the street. Kella passed the corner a moment later, ducking as the man in black lunged at her, swinging his fist level with where the detective’s head should have been. Instead, his arm whirled through empty space and his wrist connected with the brick corner of the building, and he cried out. Kella snapped up from her crouch and threw two punches to the man’s stomach, and then kicked his legs out from beneath him.
The man fell to the ground on his rear, not so much moaning as growling through clenched teeth as he squeezed his injured wrist with his other hand. Kella knelt down beside him, leaning her knee against the man’s leg, pinning him in place. She shoved the gun in his face as she unfolded her knife blade. “I said don’t move.”
“I can see why she picked you. Even if you are old.” The man’s voice was strained as he tried not to make any more pained noises. “You’re pretty tough.”
“That makes one of us.” Kella pushed back the man’s hood with the tip of the open knife. An unremarkable male face stared up at her in the lamplight. An adult, but of any age. Neither handsome nor ugly. Nothing memorable about him at all. The perfect agent. “Do you have a name?”
“Not when I’m working.”
“Well, you’re not working anymore. Possession of a firearm and assaulting a police officer. You’re under arrest now, and probably will be for some time.” Kella poked inside the man’s coat with the barrel of the gun, but found no other weapons. “You were going to shoot me? In the street? Seems like a good way to attract a lot of attention. Not very assassin-like. You’d wake people up, they’d coming running to see what the fuss was about. You’d only have a few moments to get away or hide.”
“My orders were very specific.”
“Orders? From Lady Sade?” Kella frowned and nodded to herself. “So were you just lurking around the house waiting for someone to kill, or did she have to send out for you?”
The man merely winced as he continued rubbing his wrist.
“No, I didn’t think you’d want to talk about her.” Kella straightened up and glanced around the empty street. “Not to worry. That’s what cells are for.”
The man managed a wheezy laugh. “I won’t talk in a cell, either.”
“Then you can just rot in one. Either way works for me. Come on, up on your feet.” The detective pulled the man up, wrapped her fingers around the sturdy fabric of his collar, and shoved the muzzle of the gun into the small of his back. “All right, let’s take a walk.”
They set out down the street in single file. The man in black tilted his head back with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in making some sort of deal?”
“Only if you and all of your little friends feel like testifying against Sade before a high court.”
The man snorted. “I was thinking of a different sort of deal. As in, you let me go and I tell you where another of my little friends is right now.”
Kella jerked her prisoner to a halt under a streetlamp. “Where?”
“Let me go first.”
Kella slammed the man into the lamppost. “Where?”
He grunted. “I don’t think you have time to play guessing games. We already wasted a lot of time meandering through this neighborhood. My little friend has quite a head start on you, and she’s very motivated to make a good showing tonight. So let me go and I’ll tell you who the target is.”
Kella shoved the man away, turning him so they stood face to face, and then she shoved the gun into his cheek. “Who is it?”
“Look, I know you’re an honest officer. Make the right call. Let me go. After all, I haven’t hurt anyone, and I’m unarmed. You saw to that.”
“Who is the target?”
The man squinted and pursed his lips. “Third district. Some sort of medical machine shop. One of the employees. A girl called Amadi.”
I never mentioned her name. Sade must have a list of the doctor’s employees. Kella tightened her grip on him. “It’s the middle of the night. She won’t be at the shop.”
“No.” The man smiled and took a small step back from the gun. “So my friend is no doubt running around town at this moment, trying to find where she lives. I got the easy job, killing you. I hate research. Questions. Talking. Boring.”
Kella grabbed the man’s shirt and yanked him forward, and brought the butt of the gun down on the top of his head. The assassin slumped against her, unconscious. She pulled out her manacles and hastily shackled the limp body to the lamppost, and dashed away into the city. All the way back to the third district! Kella glared at the road
