That had been the first night he’d tried to get drunk. But he hadn’t been able to get drunk enough.

Three more DropShips had come down at the port today; more soldiers poured out of them into the city and the surrounding countryside. He had seen them, had gone back and hidden in the shadows to watch. He’d seen transport aircraft, too, and heavy gear—Saxon APCs, Maxim Mk2 Transports, even a Mobile Tactical Command HQ—all of it meant for supporting large-scale field maneuvers, not for city fighting.

And this wasn’t the equipment for a quick raid. It was take-the-whole-planet stuff. He knew the theory; he had studied it, and had been at the top of his class. He had never seen the theory at work until now.

Another betrayal, that.

One ship, and one ship only; that had been the word. He knew distances, and he knew the times to and from the jump points. There was no way additional ships could have come this quickly, even in response to a maximum-priority HPG message. The new ships had to have started on their way before the first ship had even landed.

He buried his face in his hands again. The CapCons had lied to him from the beginning, and he had believed their lies. There was not enough wine in Chang-An to make that better. Maybe not enough wine on all of Liao.

The table shifted under his elbows, and the bench opposite him creaked as somebody sat down uninvited. Unwillingly, he lifted his head, and saw a slender, smiling, ordinary-featured man in a CapCon uniform. The last time he’d seen him, the man had worn civilian clothing.

“You’re a very difficult young man to find these days, Lieutenant Peterson.”

“Go away.”

“Now, now. Is that any way to speak to your benefactor?”

“I have a benefactor? I don’t see anyone like that in here.” He gave a harsh, choking laugh. “Just a traitor and a lying bastard. Respectively.”

The CapCon shook his head, still smiling. “A bit late for second thoughts, I’m afraid. The thing is done.”

He said nothing, willing the man to go away. A useless effort—the smiling man only crooked his finger at the wineshop waiter for another glass. When it arrived, he filled it, unbidden, and sipped, shuddering.

“Dreadful stuff, this. You could do better with us.”

“I don’t think so.”

“We brought our own vintages—the better to toast your name after the first landing.”

The sudden flash of anger cut like a knife through the dullness of despair. “You promised me that my name would never be spoken.”

Smiling, still smiling, the man said, “And it was not. We drank our toasts to the Betrayer of Liao.”

“Get out.”

“All in good time. I came here with a purpose, you know.”

“If I let you tell me about it, will you leave?” He made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. “Go ahead.”

The man reached into the pocket of his uniform tunic and pulled out a card with a name, a rank, and an address printed on one side, and a string of numbers neatly handwritten on the other.

“This is the number for your account on Terra. The agreed-upon funds are there and waiting for you to access them.” He laid the card down on the tabletop next to the wineglass and rose to leave. “As is a bonus of one stone for each Republic citizen killed in the fighting. You see, we are not ungrateful.”

And the smiling man was gone.

He waited, trembling with rage, but the smiling man did not come back. The anger built and built. At length he got to his feet, moving slowly and deliberately. He was holding so much anger, he thought, that moving too fast might break him. He wrapped his fingers carefully around the neck of the empty wine bottle.

“Toasted my name.” He spoke to himself in a steadily rising whisper. “My name. My name.”

He lifted the bottle and threw it against the back wall of the wineshop so hard that it shattered. A few seconds later, the wineglass followed it.

“Not any more.”

The wineshop waiter was staring at him, and he knew it was time to leave—leave the shop, leave the city, leave the world. Daniel Peterson had died on the first day of the fighting in Chang-An. When he figured out who he was now, he’d give himself another name.

He almost left the smiling man’s business card behind on the table. In the end, though, he picked up the card and took it with him. Because it didn’t matter who he was going to become.

He’d always need the money.

28

South of Benderville

Oilfields Coast

Northwind

February 3134; dry season

By noon, the cockpit of Brigadier General Michael Griffin’s Koshi was hotter than a steam bath. Despite the best efforts of generations of designers, the ’Mech had not yet been built that didn’t leave its pilot sweating like a pig. Griffin had been drinking water steadily since early morning, along with extra rations of the specially formulated drinks issued to regular troopers during desert maneuvers, and to MechWarriors any time an extended stay in the ’Mech’s cockpit was required.

It was nevertheless a good thing, Griffin thought, that he wasn’t planning on a brisk bout of hand-to-hand combat any time soon. He knew from experience that after marching the Koshi with the task force all day long, he would leave the cockpit at nightfall feeling—as his grandmother would have said—like he’d been beaten all over with a broom handle.

At least the polarized ferroglass viewports cut out the worst of the glare bouncing off the miles and miles of water and sand that passed for scenery along the Oilfields Coast. The soldiers outside would need protective goggles, which some of them would not wear because of the discomfort or because of the reduction in their field of view, and heavy-duty sun-screen, which some of them would, inevitably, forget. At nightfall, both groups would complain of eyestrain and sunburn, and would rest poorly. Then the next day, it would all begin again—and still they had found no sign of Anastasia Kerensky.

A fruitless search under uncomfortable conditions, Griffin thought, wasn’t going to do any good for morale. But orders were orders, and there was nothing to do but go on.

The radio in the ’Mech’s cockpit crackled. A moment later, a voice came through on one of the secure channels.

“Command, this is Balac Two.”

“Go ahead, Balac Two,” Griffin replied.

“I have an aircraft on visual.”

Griffin felt a stirring of excitement. Were the task force’s long hours of heat and discomfort finally about to pay off? A man could always hope.

“Do you have an ID on the aircraft?” he asked.

“I make it a Donar Assault Helicopter.”

The Donar was a known Steel Wolf unit. Even better, the identification matched with the aircraft the boy had described the night before. Thank you, youngster, Griffin thought. I think we’ve got a hit.

Aloud, he said, “Good work, Balac Two. Have you been spotted?”

“I don’t think so. Looks like he’s doing a routine patrol.”

“Any sight of something that might be a DropShip?”

“That’s a negative. No DropShips.”

“The Wolf has to have come from somewhere. Stick with him, Balac Two; see if you can follow him home.”

“Yes, sir. Balac Two out.”

Brigadier General Michael Griffin was happy. Outside the cockpit of the ’Mech, all he could see was deep blue water out to the horizon on his right hand, and grassy brown sand hills out to the horizon on his left, and the rutted dirt track that was the grandly named Kearney Coastal Highway stretching out ahead. But somewhere beyond all that, at last, lay the object of the past several days’ tedious search—the hiding place of Anastasia Kerensky’s DropShips.

He raised his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Jones on the command circuit. “Balac Two’s spotted our Wolf.”