Obsidian's War The Winter City

It was down time at Fort Apache. After Gel had incautiously revealed, in passing, that he had never even turned on the oven in his apartment, Medic Alyssa and Flight Lieutenant Nilsen had taken it upon themselves to teach the rich kid how to cook. The two ladies showed him how to turn on the oven in the mess hall and then read the instructions on the side of the food packages to know what temperature to set and how long to cook the food.

“Why does the meat need to rest after cooking?” asked Gel, reading the instructions on the side of one such packet. “We’re about to eat it. Why can’t it rest after we’ve eaten it?”

There was a knock on the door.

“Whoever that is should know it’s a mess hall,” said Gel. “They should just come in.”

“We’re too close to the port exit here,” said Alyssa, “and if there’s no one on the exit they knock on this door.”

The knocking was replaced by a hard pounding as the person on the other side lost patience. Gel finally got up and opened the door on a man who looked as if he had stepped out of an old television detective series complete with leather jacket, frizzed hair and even sunglasses, although the lighting was dim.

“Finally! Where’s the Port Commander, arsehole,” said this apparition.

Gel thought about slamming the door in the face of this rude newcomer, but then thought he would just start knocking again.

“This is the mess hall door, you open it and come in,” said Gel. “As for the port commander as far as I know he’ll be in the main bar, that way.” He pointed off to his right. “Ask at the bar. If that doesn’t work, try his personal quarters in the officers’ barracks on the far side of the fort.” Then he slammed the door.

“That guy probably wonders why doors get slammed on him,” he muttered. “Now, why does meat have to rest? This sounds unmilitary.”

“Because the juices have to redistribute through the meat,” said Alyssa. “Otherwise, they flow away and it’s not as tasty.”

“The meat is still warm enough for cooking to happen, even after it leaves the oven,” said Flight.

They had put the meal in the oven and the ladies were talking Gel through cutting up vegetables when, Sylvester, the ex-Imperial Marine turned bodyguard to Port Commander Captain Edge walked in.

“Captain Edge wants you to come and see him, sir,” he said.

“Now? I’m just cooking dinner.”

“I’m sure the ladies can handle it, sir,” said Sylvester.

“It’s the first I’ve heard from the man for more than a week. Is he asking me or ordering me?”

“Ordering, sir.”

“Oh, very well,” said Gel. “Save me some, ladies.”

“What’s the urgency?” Gel said to Sylvester as they walked through the fort complex.

“A detective has come from Lighthold. He’s the one who wants to talk to you.”

“Black jacket, frizzy hair and wears sunglasses inside?”

“That’s him. Thinks a lot of himself.”

“Any idea why he wants to talk to me. I’ve been a good boy - lately.”

Sylvester chuckled. “When I was a sergeant in the marines if any of my squaddies said they’d been good I knew the MPs were about to come.”

They came to a meeting room in the fort admin headquarters where Captain Edge sat with the newcomer detective. This gentleman had removed his sunglasses, to reveal deep set, intense eyes, and was examining a number of documents spread out in front of him, including what Gel took to be his service record, complete with the picture of him taken when he mustered in.

“Good evening, Captain Edge.”

“Lieutenant Obsidian.”

“It was you who opened the door,” said the detective.

“It was you who called me an arsehole,” said Gel. “Just because you didn’t realise it was the door to a mess hall, so you were meant to open it and come in, is no excuse for abusing the person who has to get up to open it. Who are you, anyway?”

“Your arse is grass and I am the lawnmower,” said the detective.

“I heard that in a very old movie once,” said Gel. “Are you really a lawnmower?”

“I’m your personal arse lawnmower, shithead, like I said.”

“Now you’re being rude again,” said Gel sitting down, although he had not been asked or directed to do so. “No need for a lawnmower around here. It’s all snow outside.”

“There was a suspected kidnapping,” said the detective, ignoring him.

“Where – here or on Lighthold?”

“Lighthold.”

“And you’ve come to Dimarch, claiming to be a lawnmower, to ask questions about it?”

“We found your fingerprints in the van.”

“What van?”

Gel now knew why the detective was asking questions but was certainly not about to admit anything.

“The van used in the kidnapping.”

“You said before ‘suspected’ kidnapping, so now someone has been kidnapped.”

“We have reason to believe there was a kidnapping.”

“I see. Who was the subject of this suspected kidnapping?”

“I’m asking the questions here, shithead.”

“Just answer his questions, lieutenant,” said Captain Edge.

“Pardon me sir, but you can’t order me to answer questions to a civilian police officer. You are a civilian, aren’t you, lawnmower?”

“I can order you,” said Edge.

“Pardon me, sir, but you cannot. There are limits to an officer’s powers. That’s one of them. Compelling anyone to answer questions in an investigation where they’re a possible suspect – and I assume from the way lawnmower has been talking I am a suspect - is a serious matter. I’m not refusing to answer questions, mind you, just showing curiosity about the alleged crime. I’m allowed curiosity.”

“You sound like a lawyer,” said Edge, disgustedly.

“I was a lawyer before I joined the salts, sir,” said Gel. “Admittedly I was patents and trademarks and didn’t get to practise much but I’ve since learned to appreciate criminal law. It’s proved useful.”

“Like when you’re accused of murder,” said the lawnmower detective.

“That sparked my interest, I admit. Have they arrested anyone over Mr Olsen’s murder?”

“Murder?” said Edge.

“One crime at a time, Lieutenant,” said the detective. “I was asking you about your fingerprint in the van.”

“This van on Lighthold where I haven’t been for weeks?”

“This van was involved in an incident where a woman was seen on the floor of the van apparently unconscious, and a person matching your description was seen holding a gun.”

“Sounds dramatic,” said Gel. “Is holding a gun a crime?”

“It can be,” said the lawnmower detective. “We also traced the video surveillance of the mall and found you and several others apparently following a woman who matches the description we were given.”

He paused.

“And..” said Gel after a few moments. He knew that police sometimes used silence as an interrogation technique, hoping the suspect would fill the silence with a silly statement, but he was not about to fall for it. “What happened then? You’re just getting me interested.”

“I want you to tell me what happened.”

“But it’s your story? You’ve put a lot of work into this. You were able to trace the van?”

“I’m asking the questions here.”

“Then ask one. You say you’re a lawnmower and you want to be taken seriously?”

“Stop calling me lawnmower.”

“You haven’t bothered to give me your name, as in a proper interview,” said Gel. “First thing any detective does in an interview is introduce himself and show his credentials. All you’ve said to me is that you’re a lawnmower. What else am I expected to call you?”

The detective grumpily took out his identification and flipped it open on the table, then slapped one of his cards beside it.

“Detective Senior Constable Ben Lewandowski, of the Lighthold Police Authority” said Gel, reading the card. “Just senior constable. I would have thought they’d send at least a sergeant out all this way to ask questions.”

“I’ve got rank enough for you,” said Lewandowski.

Gel sighed. “I’ve no doubt, but to me you’ll always be a lawnmower. Let’s cut this short. I’m sure Captain Edge has better things to do.”

Edge glared at Gel but said nothing.

“I’m guessing you guys traced the van,” said Gel, “and found people still in it. These are all guesses. But you didn’t find any unconscious woman, or guns or anything more incriminating than maybe shoulder holsters.”

Both Lewandowski and Edge were staring at him.

“You interrogated the people in the van but got nothing and had to release them puzzled. You also couldn’t identify the woman and there were no missing person reports that even began to fit the description you had. Under the scenario I’m thinking of I guess the people you found all had police or security backgrounds, which would have made it more puzzling.”

The Eye had access to Lighthold police reports and Yvonne had told Gel this in a subsequent meeting.

“Maybe,” muttered Lewandowski.

“You had forensics do a thorough check of the van, found my fingerprint, identified me through the armed forces records and realised I’d previously been accused of murder.”

“We also found you’ve been associating with one Theo the Turd,” said Lewandowski, reading from the file, “a known hit man for a major Five Ways mob.”

“A hitman?” said Edge. “He’s on staff here?”

“Squad Leader Theodore Turgenev is serving with one of the third regiment companies on this base, sir,” said Gel. “A magistrate gave him a choice between joining the Salts or prison, and he took the Salts. He has proved a useful man in a fight. Back on Lighthold we share an apartment.”

“That really got our attention,” said Lewandowski. “Theo the Turd and the police go back a long way.”

“That’s not my concern, Detective. Back to this alleged possible kidnapping. Where did my look alike – as it wasn’t me, it must have been a look alike - come in the crowd following this woman?”

“You came last.”

“Maybe, and this is just a guess, my look alike was following others who were following this woman.”

“Were you following them?”

“I wasn’t following anyone – that’s just my guess about what my look alike was doing. I can also guess the kidnapping is a dead end and the woman is fine.”

“So you say,” sneered the detective.

“Like I said, that’s my guess take it or leave it, and if you’re going to sneer at me Senior Constable Lawnmower then the interview ends here. Unless Captain Edge has some further use for me…” Gel stood up.

“You were a lawyer?” said the captain, in a tone that implied that it was a ridiculous thing.

“Yes sir, patents and trademarks, as I said. Lawnmower has my service record in front of him, which will set out my previous history.”

“You would be advised not to have anything further to do with Theo the Turd,” said the detective.

“Your advice is noted, Detective,” said Gel. “Next time I see Theo I’ll give him the Lighthold Police Authority’s regards. As for socialising with him we’ve been in tight spots together - parties on Lighthold.”

***

The social event was not a distinguished one. Gel had not wanted to go. Athena/Heather was not free and he had become interested in a new role playing computer game, but Theo had his own reasons for not turning up to the party by himself.

“You owe me, man,” he had said. “Remember the suit flash thing you forgot to tell me about and I took one in the lungs? Time to pay back.”

The house had once been grand in the ante-bellum American Southern style of two storeys with wide verandas, and Greco-Roman pillars stretching to the roof. Now the plaster on the columns was worn through in places, the balcony railings had turned rusty, the veranda tiles chipped, and maintenance had been neglected to the point where the structure had been condemned for demolition. The people who communally rented the house reacted to this news by putting ice in the downstairs laundry wash basins and invited everyone over, included most of the immediate neighbours to head off complaints about the noise.

When Gel arrived with Theo at the Fiveways address, pack of beer in hand, he realised that even in black tee shirt and scruffy slacks he was over dressed compared to the run of party goers, who had spilled out onto the verandas and once carefully tended garden. Being clean shaven and with a military hair cut further marked him out among the distinctly shaggy crowd.

As he walked in Gel’s attention was caught by a flash of light and looked up to see a man with pale complexion, long, silver blonde hair and white tee shirt, with his arm around a woman in a grey, silver-speckled off the shoulder club outfit that just reached the top of her legs, a sharp contrast to the jeans and tee shirts of the rest of the female party goers. She had a mass of reddish-brown shoulder length hair and, as near as Gel could make out at that distance in the dim light, seemed very pretty.

As he looked a bear of a man with a shaggy beard detached himself from one of the pillars where he had been drinking with friends.

“You bringing narcs here now Theo,” said this vision, inclining his head slightly to indicate that he meant Gel.

“Nah, he’s square,” said Theo. “He’s in the Salts with me. We share traps.”

“Umph!” said this worthy, then he nodded at Gel and went back to his pillar.

“You’re in,” said Theo. “Said you’d need me to vouch for you.”

“You dragged me here,” said Gel. “You said you needed someone to go with.”

“To get in. Single guys are just seen as bad somehow, but once you’re in it doesn’t matter.”

“I feel almost alien,” said Gel.

“Unis,” sneered someone as they worked through the crowd, meaning they had been to university rather than the standard vocational colleges, and that was not good. However, after that, apart from a few puzzled stares from the guys and some tentative smiles from the girls, Gel was ignored. Then Theo deserted him for a girl, vanishing upstairs, and Gel was left to wander the huge house wondering what he was doing there.

After desultory conversation with one group who declared themselves friends of Theo but had little else to say, Gel decided he might as well tour the upper story before abandoning the party. Theo had earlier indicated that he would probably be going home separately.

He looked into one room, door wide open and quieter than the rest, to find several party goers stretched out on tattered sofa and chairs and even the floor in stoned bliss. The one person still functioning was the girl in the club dress Gel had seen on the veranda, sitting in a large chair with stuffed cushions, attractive legs drawn up in front of her, smoking what at first glance appeared to be an ordinary cigarette but instead of tobacco, the cigarette contained some substance laced with hashish, a product fashionable among ladies. Close up she was high cheek-boned pretty, had brown eyes that sparkled with intelligence and, Gel guessed, mildly stoned.

“I can see your chin,” she said, pointing at the offending part of Gel’s anatomy with the hand holding her joint. She spoke with a light Five Ways accent, which people from Earth might have thought sort-off New Yorkish, pronouncing coffee as caw-fee and dog as dawg.

“Is that a problem?” asked Gel. “I can’t do much about it just now.”

“It’s okay as chins go,” said girl, after a moment’s consideration, waving her hand dismissively, “you can keep it”.

Gel looked at the others in the room.

“They’re all gone,” she said, waving her joint at her fellow party goers. “Way to enjoy the party, guys,” she told them, “get here and crash out.”

“You haven’t crashed out,” Gel said.

“Always a chance someone worth talking to might come in,” she said. “I’ve seen you somewhere. You going to tell me your name stranger?”

“Gel.”

“Gel what?”

“Gel Bandon.”

“Bullshit, it’s Brandon,” she said, amused. “Now I remember, you were with Theo in that Spice Bar and Grill shootout thing. I looked at the news feeds on it ’cause I know Theo. There was an old picture of you on them. You come from one of the mega rich families. Obs.. Obs..”

“Obsidian.”

“Obsidian, yeah, that’s it. Didn’t think it was Brandon.”

“Makes you smarter than a lot of other girls. Mostly they accept Brandon. How do you know Theo?”

She smiled. “’Course I’m smarter – way smarter than a lot of guys too.”

“Don’t doubt it,” said Gel.

“I know Theo from around,” she said. “Lot of girls know Theo. Once you fend him off, he’s not such a bad guy to say hello to. News feed said you’d been kicked out of the family fortune.”

“That’s right. Dirt poor now.”

“That’s bullshit too. You rich guys always have money somewhere.”

“I’m poor. Just my army pay.”

“You’re full of shit, Obsidian.” She dropped ash from her joint on a saucer next to her.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” said Gel.

“You didn’t ask.”

“I’m asking now.”

“It’s Even.”

“Eve?”

“No, Even, as in even steven, or maybe Evenstar, or some Lord of the Rings bullshit, or maybe mum tried for Eve and put an extra ‘n’ on the end. I think she was stoned when she picked it, or at least she can’t remember why she called me that. As you can see,” she waved her joint, “I’m keeping up my family traditions.”

“Some traditions are worth more than others,” said Gel eying the joint. He had tried such things at Uni but had decided they weren’t for him. “You never thought of changing you name to something more conventional, Emily, say, or Samantha.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want lovers calling me Sam, and Emily sounds like I should be giving home making advice.”

“Just a few options,” said Gel.

“Enough of the getting to know one another crap,” she said suddenly, sitting up. “You wanna fuck?”

“With that tall, platinum blonde boyfriend of yours somewhere close by?” Gel said, taken aback. “I saw you guys on the balcony out there when I came in. He had his arm around you, and I don’t think he’s a relative… or the sharing type.”

She smiled and lent back again. “You’re smart too,” she said. “Not many guys pass my first test.”

“That was a test!” said Gel. “Quite a test. I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

She smiled.

“What’s happening here?”

Gel turned to see the tall blonde boyfriend eying him suspiciously. Up close he had the sort of ice cold blue eyes that might stare down the barrel of a gun.

“I was just suggesting other first names to Even,” said Gel. “She doesn’t like Samantha or Emily.”

The man relaxed and shrugged. “The name’s weird.”

There was a ruckus, a man and a woman yelling, further along the corridor – about where Theo had disappeared to when they first arrived.

“Excuse me people,” said Gel and walked towards the noise.

He found two women peering curiously through the open door of what proved to be a bedroom, with the bed against the far wall. A woman lay on that bed clutching a sheet to herself, watching in alarm as a stark naked Theo grappled with two of the shaggy haired party goers.

***

Gel and Hartmann watched the security camera as the shipping container previously flagged by Hartmann as suspicious was offloaded by Gel’s old friends, staff sergeant Bradley and Private Karimov.

“Sergeant Bradley altered the unloading sequence and its place in the dock, sir,” said Hartmann. “It’s now to be placed in the stack near this back exit.” He pointed to a floor plan on another monitor.

“So it is,” said Gel, “and it’s on the bottom where access is easier. We’ll wait for the container’s legal cargo to be unloaded then check it out. Unfortunately, we’ll have to get the MPs involved.”

This time MP Lieutenant Grier was more amiable, at least to the extent of not being overtly sceptical about everything Gel said. This was partly due to Colonel Lee ordering him to co-operate, but also because he had also been looking for arms shipments without any luck and welcomed the new lead.

“Suspicious container, huh?” he said.

“No idea what we’ll find, Lieutenant, but the container should have more cargo than seems to have been unloaded.”

“Secret compartment, sir?” said Grier’s deputy, Squad Leader Emily Dawlish, who had proved more switched on than her boss in Gel’s earlier encounter with the police unit.

“That’s the betting, Squad Leader, but of course we won’t know until we examine the container, before it’s returned to Lighthold.”

As even Grier could see the sense in that, he, Gel and Dawlish were soon down on the docks, having checked that Bradley and Karimov were in the Fort Apache bar. Gel paced out the length of the container then opened it and paced out the interior. Sure enough, the interior seemed to be shorter than the exterior.

“Seems colder than usual,” grumbled Grier.

“The refrigeration is still on,” said Gel. “The cargo was meat concentrates, but the power supply should have been disconnected as a matter of routine when the cargo was taken out.”

“This staff sergeant Bradley and Private Karimov must have made sure that the power remained on,” said Dawlish, “but why, sir, arms don’t need to be refrigerated?”

“True, squad leader. Let’s get this interior wall down and see if we can get some answers.”

They found four, small restraining studs on the container’s back wall which could be popped out with an old fashioned screw driver and another small protrusion which they could hook into with the screw driver to take the entire wall down.

“Huh!” said Grier on seeing the contents of the secret chamber, “doesn’t look like arms to me.”

***

As Gel watched, Theo landed a classic palm strike with the heel of his palm, arm and shoulder lined up behind it as they had been trained in the Salts, making one opponent reel back onto the bed, blood dripping from his nose. But then the other man rushed in, head down, pinning Theo against the wall and kneeing him in the testicles. Theo yelled and dropped to the ground where his opponent kicked him savagely in the side. The first opponent clutching his bloody nose got off the bed to kick Theo from the other side.

“My girlfriend you arsehole,” he said.

“I’m not your girlfriend,” said the girl on the bed.

“Okay, that’s it,” said Gel, stepping forward. “You’ve made your point. Let him up.”

“Keep out of it, uni,” sneered the second opponent, glancing back at him. He was an ill-favoured fellow with a bushier beard than most and lank hair that hung down on both sides of his face. But his shoulders were broad and he moved like a fighter.

“Can’t do that,” said Gel mildly.

The ill-favoured man turned and rushed at Gel, swinging. He was fast but the soldier, who had been expecting a punch, moved his head to let it sail by then shifted his weight and counter punched hard on the side of his opponent’s skull. All those years of martial arts training at his grandfather’s insistence was paying off. The man staggered back then snarled and rushed at Gel who sidestepped again, grabbed his opponent’s right arm then pulled and turned so that his whole body fell on the elbow joint pushing it down and forcing the rest of his opponent’s body to fall with it. Gel pushed himself up, pinning the elbow joint to the floor with one arm, then put his foot on it and stood. All the time his full weight was on the joint, trapping his opponent who was cursing fearfully.

As he stood up another man rushed him, spitting vile curses on “unis”. Gel struck him hard on the Adam’s Apple with a standard karate fist strike and the man reeled away grabbing his neck and choking. Another man in the now crowded room, who had been hoping for a chance to kick a “uni”, hesitated. Theo’s first opponent, blood flowing freely from his nose, glared at Gel but opted to back off while Theo picked himself up. Gel realised this sordid drama had attracted an audience including Even and Even’s blonde boyfriend who had forced his way into the room.

The boyfriend grinned at him. The grin reminded Gel of a tiger, but the man was being friendly enough.

“You were the main guy in that Spice Bar and Grill shootout,” he said, holding out his hand. “My name’s Boris.”

Gel shook the man’s hand, careful to keep his weight on his opponent’s elbow joint, as something stirred in his memory.

“Bad Boris? You’re well known in Fiveways aren’t you?”

In fact, Bad Boris was the area’s most feared enforcer. Now he shrugged and grinned, pleased that his name had been recognised.

“Had my moments ’round here,” he said. “Never did three in one go, though. Impressive.”

“It was a military thing, not a gang enforcement thing,” said Gel. “And I walked into it blind. I wasn’t expecting a fight that day. You guys w’d plan your hits, I guess. The mark is walking around and then suddenly he’s dead.”

Boris shrugged, again. “Something like that.”

By that time the other party goers crowded into the room had realised who Gel was and distain had turned to awed whispers.

“Excuse me a moment,” Gel said to Boris and turned to Theo who was now leaning against the bedside table clutching his vital bits. He realised that his friend’s shorts were close to him on the floor and used his free foot to kick it to him. “Get dressed Theo. Pants and shirt. Carry your shoes.

“You coming with us or staying here?” he said to the girl on the bed.

She thought for a moment. “Come with.”

“Then get dressed. Maybe ask one of the ladies here for a hand.” Gel turned back to Boris. “Can I ask a small favour?”

“Depends on the favour.”

“This guy,” said Gel, indicating the man on the floor who was still promising to inflict all sorts of damage on Gel the moment he was let up, “do you know him?”

“Sorta. He’s got some beef with Theo. But I can’t off him for you.”

“No, no, I don’t want that. Just stand on his elbow until we’re clear.”

“I can do that,” said Boris, amused.

A few minutes later Gel led the two others out of the room and passed the other party goers who, realising that the entertainment was over, were returning to their conversations. Some stared at Gel as the ‘shootout guy’.

“Interesting to meet you Even,” said Gel, as he passed her on his way out. Theo had recovered enough to hobble along beside him.

“Interesting is it,” she said, arching one eyebrow. “Humph! You’re full of shit, Obsidian.”

“So much for that party,” Gel told Theo when they got back to his car. “Time for you to go back onto deployment, where it’s less dangerous.”