War Criminals, Gavin Smith [best novels for beginners .txt] 📗

last shot that got him as well. I’d used two bolts on one of Resnick’s people in the wood.’

‘What happened to Hogg?’ Miska asked.

‘He was dead when I got there,’ Kaneda told her.

‘One of Resnick’s men?’ Miska asked.

‘I guess,’ Kaneda said as though no other possibility had occurred to him.

Miska looked around at the others. Most of them were sat in the mud, their backs against the fungal trees. Corenbloom was conscious. She was relieved that he had lived, at least. Hemi and Mass were sound asleep. The rest of them were watching her with weary, wary eyes.

‘We’ve called for an evac,’ Grig told her. She knew that the Nightmare Squad had been carrying a tight-beam uplink. It appeared that Artemis had chosen to let them leave, allowed their tech to work.

Miska pushed herself to her feet despite protestations from the Ultra.

‘Grig, Mass … Mass!’ she shouted. Mass started awake. ‘With me!’ she snapped. She staggered over to the bodies. She spent a moment or two searching the ponchos until she found Hogg’s. He’d been killed with a knife. It’d been done professionally as well, and, she suspected, very quietly.

‘What’s up?’ Mass asked as he and Grig joined her. He sounded groggy.

‘Did you guys have eyes on each other when you were in the woods?’ she asked.

‘You think one of us did this?’ Mass asked. He sounded more surprised than offended. Chances were it had been one of Resnick’s men, that was the most logical answer. Except something was bugging her. Just as Hogg was about to tell her something about her father, something he didn’t want to say on the boat in case it was overheard, he got killed.

You’re paranoid, she told herself, this was a war.

‘Just answer the question,’ she told them.

‘No,’ Grig answered, ‘we were too strung out, too much ground to cover. We kept it simple. If either Mass or myself opened fire then the rest would join in. When we tried—’

‘Your weapons didn’t work,’ Miska finished for him. Grig just nodded and suddenly all three of them were in shadow as Kaczmar loomed over them.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Mass snapped as Kaczmar held up Resnick’s severed head.

‘I thought you would want this,’ he shouted.

They really did need to do something about his hearing.

‘Yes, yes I do,’ Miska said, ‘Thank you!’

The huge serial killer just nodded.

‘Bean was my friend,’ he told her loudly.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Miska ventured.

‘I want to eat his corpse. Something of him will live on in my colon. It’s what he would have wanted.’

Chapter 21

The Ultra had managed to talk Kaczmar out of eating Bean’s corpse. Just another day in the Legion, Miska thought.

‘Are you actually going to drink blood out of his skull?’ Corenbloom asked. All of them were sat, exhausted, in Pegasus 1’s cargo hold, heading back to Waterloo Station.

‘It’s evidence,’ Miska told him. The disgraced FBI agent nodded.

‘Is that why you’re keeping that prick alive?’ Mass asked. He nodded to where a gagged Torricone had been strapped into one of the fold-down bucket seats. He was still trying to follow his last verbal instructions. Still trying to kill Miska with hate on his face and panic in his eyes.

‘Yes,’ Miska lied. She was too tired and in too much pain to argue with Mass at the moment.

‘Fine,’ Mass said. He groaned as he pushed himself out of his seat. Like everyone else bar Grig, Raff and, of course, the Ultra, Mass was a mass of bruises, minor cuts and some not so minor cuts. Most of them in the back of the ship were a patchwork of medgel, swellpatches and mud. Mass had been one of the legionnaires who’d required attention from a fleshknitter. Miska was pleased to be back in an environment where technology worked again.

‘Hey!’ Miska shouted as Mass punched the bound Torricone in the face. The Ultra was on his feet, interposing himself between Mass and the struggling sequestered Torricone. Mass had his hands up and was backing way.

‘Simple reciprocity,’ he told the prolific serial killer. ‘It’s done now.’ He went and sat down again.

‘Fuck’s sake, Mass,’ Miska muttered, shaking her head. Her arm was wrapped in a medpak-driven medgel cast, applied by the Ultra after the shuttle had picked them up. Artemis had remained true to her word and had let them leave. The Ultra had also reapplied medgel and a pak to the bullet lodged in her back.

Corenbloom was sat on the other side of the cargo bay, slowly drifting off to sleep. He’d been hit pretty hard and had spent most of the fight in the mud.

‘Corenbloom,’ Miska subvocalised over a direct comms link. He jerked awake and looked around for a moment as though trying to work out where the voice was coming from. ‘When we get back I want you and the Doc to look over Hogg’s body.’

‘Why?’ Corenbloom asked. ‘You don’t think it was one of Resnick’s guys?’

‘I think it was one of Resnick’s guys. I’m just being thorough.’

‘Let me get some rest, but then sure.’

She opened a comms link to the Hangman’s Daughter and spoke with her father. It seemed that the ship was under siege.

Miska, four of her mud-covered mercenaries and Raff made their way down the Central Concourse, weapons at the ready. Except Miska couldn’t hold her AK-47 because of her broken arm, so she just had the ageing Glock in her left hand. Her right hand worked just well enough for her to hold onto Resnick’s head.

She had sent the Ultra and the rest of the Nightmare Squad back to the Daughter. She could have done with their firepower if things turned nasty but any way she cut it they were bad press. Kaczmar would get his ear fixed and his (non-human-flesh) meal when they docked somewhere they weren’t going to get lynched. There had been some groaning when she’d ordered them to clean their weapons. She had been worried about the pollen that had adhered to and jammed up