“Lot of blood there, ser.”
“It took a moment for me to find the dressing, Officer,” Stefan volunteered. “I’ve contacted the embassy, and they have a doctor waiting.”
“The embassy?”
Van extended his datacard. “I’m Commander Albert, military attaché to the Taran embassy. I’d had a meeting with my counterpart at the Argenti embassy, and we were headed back when this happened.”
Despite his earlier concern about Van’s injury, the young constable was most thorough in his questions, asking and reasking about the same details.
“…you say a pipe hit him. How hard might that have been?”
“…and you just kicked him?”
“…about that stunner once more. You say that the one with the shattered knee had that?”
Van kept his answers short and the same, and after what seemed a good hour, the two constables finally let Stefan and Van leave the scene—long after the three attackers had been carted away by a groundwagon.
As Stefan drove back toward the Republic embassy, Van thought over the attack.
Why would anyone attack him? Since he’d arrived on Gotland, he’d done almost nothing, except meet a few people and write reports and analyses for the ambassador. He’d probed into nothing except Commander Cruachan’s reports. Could the attack have been mistaken identity?
It clearly hadn’t been for theft. The three had wanted him, and no one else.
He’d have to think more, because at the moment he couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone on Gotland would want him dead—or captured.
Then, too, the meeting with Colonel Marti had bothered him, not because it hadn’t gone well, but because it had. From what Van could tell, Colonel Marti didn’t at all fit the profile conveyed by Cruachan’s reports, except in physical terms. Was that because Cruachan had not been that fluent in Hispyn? Or because Cruachan had seen more than Van had?
Van honestly couldn’t tell. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before he could. And before he had some idea about why he’d been attacked.
Stefan’s report to the embassy must have been circulated, because a number of people were waiting in the hallway on the upper level as Van came up the ramp after the doctor—whom he didn’t know—checked the wound, sprayed it with nanites, and re-dressed it. Van carried the bloody outer jacket over his right arm.
Cordelia Gregory’s mouth opened as she saw Van and the dark bloodstains across his lower sleeve. “Stefan said…what did they do…to you?”
“Three young fellows tried to rob us. They didn’t much care if I survived the attempt.” Van offered a twisted smile. “But they got a little too close.”
“You didn’t hurt them, did you?” asked the second secretary. Her eyes narrowed.
“Not too much. The local authorities have them in custody.” Van wasn’t about to explain.
Sean Bulben said nothing. Nor did either of the aides Van didn’t know.
Van made his way to his office. He could have gone to his quarters, but all he would have done there was pace. He laid the uniform jacket on the corner of the table desk, thinking that he’d need a replacement, and settled into the chair behind the desk. Trying to ignore the muted throbbing in his arm, he considered about how to get the information he needed from the netsystem.
There was a knock on Van’s door. He could sense a feminine presence. “Yes?”
“Commander…I heard…”
“You can come in, Emily.”
Clifton eased into the inner office. Her eyes went to the bloody jacket on the corner of the desk, then to the dressing on Van’s arm. “Are you all right?” She shook her head. “That’s a stupid question. How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s a glancing gash from a disc-gun—deep enough and long enough for a lot of blood. Almost no muscle damage.”
“Stefan said you took on three toughs and disabled them all.” She paused. “He said you almost killed two with your bare hands.”
Van almost shrugged, but didn’t, offering a sheepish expression. “I have a temper. I get angry when people I don’t know try to ambush me.”
“What if that’s the point?” Emily asked wryly.
“To get me angry enough to commit murder?” Van took a deep breath. “I hadn’t thought of that. It’s possible…but I don’t have any idea who would want to.”
“Maybe it’s not you. Did you ever think of that?”
“I’d thought about mistaken identity, but you think that it’s more to discredit the embassy.”
“Tarans have a reputation for being hotheaded. Things are tense in this part of the Arm right now. What if the Revs or the Kelts wanted to discredit us?”
“The Kelts are as hotheaded—”
“Even better,” she suggested.
Van nodded. “It’s possible.” And it was a better explanation than he had. That was certain. He smiled. “What time tomorrow?”
“Do you still want to go…tomorrow?”
“I don’t see why not. Walking around and looking at an old governor’s palace isn’t going to do much harm. The wound is more bloody and painful than really damaging. A long fairly shallow cut. It’ll bother me more if all I do is sit around and think about it.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely. The place doesn’t open until ten hundred. What if we leave the embassy at nine-thirty? Or is that too early?”
“Hardly. I’m a morning person.”
“Then I’ll see you then.” Van offered a smile. He was actually looking forward to seeing Cliff Spire.
“I’ll be ready.”
After Emily had left, Van eased back in his chair. She’d had a good point about his not being a target personally…and perhaps she was right. Yet…if she were, and he’d just happened to be in the wrong position at the wrong time, what was really going on in the Arm that had created tensions that high? They’d been high for a century. What was different now?
Chapter 15
Van did not sleep well, even with the pain-suppressants in the wound dressing. Nightmares about the Regneri combined with the attack by the unknown cruiser and assault by the three men, until his dreams were a pastiche of violence, underscored with puzzlement. At six hundred he finally got up, showered, and dressed in
