“Totally untrue,” Ben said, turning to the woman and actually smiling. “On you, mademoiselle, it is merely what other perfumes strive to be.” Grace looked at her Lone Cat. Had he gone totally crazy? “Grace, do you not remember Betsy Ross?”

Grace looked closer at the woman under the straw hat. The interloper stood, made a formal curtsy, then hiked up her dress, giving a good eyeful, and rummaged around her waist for something. With a slight victory yell, she pulled out a flat block which, when unwrapped from a reeking cloth, turned out to be an unusually large ’puter.

“I have here the full download of Alfred Santorini’s personal files. Brilliant of him to turn off the Net. Most of his security went down with it. Left his files wide open once I cracked his encryption. Here’s everything you need to know about his little operation.”

“What’s the most important thing you found?” Grace asked.

“My old master always used to say, ‘Follow the money,’ so here’s the money,” Betsy said, and brought up a spreadsheet. “Or here’s the money,” she said, bringing up another. “Or it could be this or that,” and two more screens filled with numbers, then flashed away. “I’ve been in a few ops that ran two sets of books, but four! Santorini’s way twisted.”

Betsy frowned for a moment, then shuddered. “By the way, we are killing this bastard, aren’t we? ’Cause if you folks aren’t, I’ll do it myself. He dies. Slow and very dead.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Grace said, “that’s the plan. You have the proof in your ’puter that says we should kill him.”

“There and a few other places,” Betsy said, started to rub at her hip, then stopped herself. “Just so long as we’re agreed that bastard dies, I’m in this with you all the way.”

“What do you make of those spreadsheets?” Ben said.

“I’m sure an accountant will find all sorts of funny money in them, but taken as a whole, they point in too many directions. This one,” she said, bringing one up, “is what you’d expect him to send to his boss at Lenzo Computing. Nice, easy-to-swallow numbers for not a lot of activity.”

She flipped to a new screen. “This one has a lot more in it. For example, he lists his acquired properties. Seems that all the property that got into tax arrears was sold at auction. A very private auction. He bought it for not even pennies on the C-bill. Even that was covered by a loan he wrote himself on the Allabad Mechanics and Agriculture Bank. He’s gonna make a killing when Lenzo Computing moves here.

“But then there’s this one,” she said, frowning at the screen. “I think it’s for if he gets in trouble and has to call for help, say Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner and his Stormhammers. Here he sells a lot of stuff at a discount.”

“And the fourth?” Ben said.

“A whole lot more interesting. Note the bottom line,” Betsy said, pointing at a blank space on the sheet. “There is none. Everything gets converted to cash-producing holdings. And there’s another change. The mercs go from the cost side of the sheet to the asset side. All their property’s there, but no costs.”

“Troopers have to be paid,” Ben said. “No avoiding that!”

“He thinks he can. Santorini sends a lot of e-notes to the Roughriders’ adjutant. This one didn’t get sent. He wrote it the day things started to go bad, so maybe he was saving it. He asks the adjutant to take on a cook from Santorini’s staff.”

“The mercs are that hard up for staff?” Grace asked.

“The Major was trying to hire my maid services.”

Grace scowled. Hanson hadn’t come across to her as the kind who couldn’t keep his hands off the help. Betsy shook her head. “What I really think he wanted was info from Allabad. Anyway, I turned down the job offer in a chatty letter that told him stuff that would have cost him a pile of stones if he was paying my usual fee. He came right back with another nice, friendly note, and we kept up the chat, me feeding him intel before he asked for it. But why would Santorini send a cook?”

“He knifed the Governor and Legate,” Grace pointed out.

“And if he declared the mission accomplished and called for a victory dinner, there might be few survivors if his cook had orders to poison them,” Betsy said as if she were practiced at that.

“That wouldn’t get every merc,” Grace pointed out.

“No, but it would get so many that even his Black and Reds could sweep up the leavings.”

“The mercs would take bloody revenge,” Ben growled.

“Not if Santorini shot the cook and told everyone he was one of the terrorists the mercs had been fighting,” Betsy said slowly.

“A profit-and-loss sheet that turns the mercs’ equipment into a source of annual income for Santorini and that letter makes for pretty damning evidence,” Grace said.

“Now all you have to do is tell that to Hanson. Good luck,” Betsy said.

A specialist manning the long-range radio in the corner sat up, took the earphone off one ear, and stood. “Grace, Ben: The mercs are pulling out of Dublin Town, heading this way.”

“How long till they get here?” Betsy asked.

“Tomorrow,” Grace said, looking back at her map table.

“Uh, ma’am, a Black and Red column, battalion-sized or larger, is skirting Lothran,” the specialist added.

“Looks like Santorini has everything headed north,” Ben said.

Grace tapped Dublin Town on the map. “The mercs are coming out. I’d have expected them to wait until early morning, but this will put them here around noon tomorrow or, if they push all night, just after first light.”

“Count on them pushing,” Ben said.

“It’s the Black and Reds that are the question. They can take the road to Amarillo through Dublin Town, following the mercs, or go due north until the road forks just short of Nazareth and heads east along the Colorado River to Amarillo.” Grace shook her head. “This doesn’t fit together for me.”

Betsy traced the road lines with her long fingers. “Santorini would never put his Special Police under the mercs. He knows Hanson won’t string up civilians.”

“A separate approach march would keep them out of each other’s hair for a while,” Ben said. With one hand he traced the route between Dublin Town and Amarillo. With the other, he covered the dogleg route between Lothran and Amarillo.

“Could the Black and Reds try a push into the valley along the west side?” Betsy asked.

“Not after our fight at Nazareth,” Ben said. “I am not saying they all are bad. But the ones sent out so far have not demonstrated much skill against armed resistance.”

“Santorini has some good MechWarriors he picked up drunk or deep in gambling debts,” Betsy said. “The head of his shock troops was a captain in a ’Mech unit—don’t remember the name. He got off-planet one jump ahead of a firing squad for rape. I think he’s found his calling with Santorini,” Betsy said, this time massaging her left breast.

Grace started to say something, then swallowed it. Betsy would talk about what happened to her in Allabad when she wanted to and not before. We’ll get all those bastards, Grace promised herself.

“I have an idea,” Ben said.

“You haven’t been dreaming while I’ve been standing here,” Betsy snapped.

“Only about you, my fine, raven-haired beauty.”

“Nova Cats don’t take a vow of chastity, do they?”

“I certainly didn’t,” the albino said.

“So this isn’t just a waste of air. Good, keep it up. The girl likes it. Somebody show me where I can get a bath. I have a sudden need to be clean.”

As Betsy left with a guide, Grace leaned across the table. “Now can I talk to Hanson. Tell him what I know. Certainly he can break a contract with a client who isn’t going to pay him. A client who is planning to kill him and his mercs at the victory party.”

“That is certainly good cause to break a contract. However, Grace, you cannot talk to him just now.”

“And why not?”