Cordelia's Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold [159]
"The first obvious question that arises," said Vorkosigan, "is, was the attack ordered by anyone from that establishment?"
"To the best of my knowledge, no. I threw a cordon around the place, once we'd found it, and questioned everyone inside under fast-penta. Scared the shit out of them all, I'm glad to say. They're used to Count Vorbohn's municipal guards, whom they bribe, or who blackmail them, and vice versa. We turned up a lot of information on petty crimes, none of which was of the least interest to us—do you want me to pass it on to the municipals, by the way?"
"Hm. If they're innocent of the attack, just file it. Bothari may want to go back there someday. Do they know why they were questioned?"
"Certainly not! I insist my men work clean. We're here to gather information, not pass it out."
"My apologies, Commander. I should have known. Carry on."
"Well, they left the place about an hour after midnight, on foot, and took a wrong turn somewhere. Bothari's pretty upset about that. Thinks it's his fault, for getting so drunk. Bothari and Koudelka both say they saw movements in the shadows for about ten minutes before the attack. So they were stalked, apparently, until they were manuevered into a high walled alley, and found themselves with six in front and six behind.
"Bothari pulled his stunner and fired—got three, before he was jumped. Someone down there is richer by a good service stunner this morning. Kou had his swordstick, but nothing else.
"They ganged up on Bothari first. He took out two more, after he'd lost the stunner. They stunned him, then tried to beat him to death after he was down. Kou had been using his stick as a quarterstaff up till then, but at that point he popped the cover off. He says now he wished he hadn't, because this murmur of 'Vor!' went up all around, and things got really ugly.
"He stabbed two, until somebody struck the sword with a shock stick, and his hand went into spasms. The five that were left sat on him and broke both his legs backwards at the knees. He asked me to tell you it wasn't as painful as it sounds. He says they broke so many circuits he had hardly any sensation. I don't know if that's true."
"It's hard to tell with Kou," said Vorkosigan. "He's been concealing pain for so long, it's almost second nature. Go on."
"I have to jump back a bit now. My man who was assigned to Kou followed them down into that warren by himself. He wasn't one of the men who are familiar with the place, supposedly, and he wasn't dressed for it—Kou had two reservations for some live musical performance last night, and until three hours before midnight that's where we thought he was going. My man went in there and vanished, between the first and second hourly checks. That's what has me going this morning. Was he murdered? Or kidnapped? Rolled and raped? Or was he a plant, a setup, a double agent? We won't know till we find the body, or whatever.
"Thirty minutes after the missed check my people sent in another tail. But he was looking for the first man. Kou was uncovered for three solid bloody hours last night before my night shift supervisor came on duty and woke to the fact. Fortunately, Kou'd spent most of that time in Bothari's old whore's retirement home.
"My night shift man, whom I commend, redirected the field agent, and put a patrol in the air to boot. So when the field agent finally got to that revolting scene, he was able to call a flyer down on top of it almost immediately, and drop half a dozen of my uniformed bruisers in to break up the party. That business with the shock sticks—it was bad, but not as bad as it might have been. Kou's assailants evidently lacked the sort of, hm, imaginative approach that, say, the late Admiral Vorrutyer might have had in the same situation. Or maybe they just didn't have time to get really refined."
"Thank God," murmured Vorkosigan. "And the deaths?"
"Two were Bothari's work,