Diplomat at Arms by Keith Laumer Read Free Book Online Page A

technician
worked quietly.
    Retief paused by one, an elderly man in a neat white
coverall, with a purple spot under one eye.
    “Quite a bruise you’ve got there,” Retief commented heartily.
“Power failure at sunset,” he added softly. The technician hesitated, nodded,
and moved on.
    Back in the car, Retief gave Jake directions. At the end of
three hours, he had seen twelve smooth-running, heavily guarded installations.
    “So far, so good, Jake,” he said. “Next stop, sub-station
Number Nine.” In the mirror, Jake’s face stiffened. “Hey, you can’t go down there—”
    “Something going on there, Jake?”
    “That’s where—I mean, no; I don’t know.”
    “I don’t want to miss anything, Jake. Which way?”
    “I ain’t going down there,” Jake said sullenly.
    Retief braked. “In that case, I’m afraid our association is
at an end, Jake.”
    “You mean . . . you’re getting out here?”
    “No, you are.”
    “Huh? Now wait a minute, Mister; the corporal said I was to
stay with you.”
    Retief accelerated. “That’s settled, then. Which way?”
     
    Retief pulled the car to a halt two hundred yards from the
periphery of a loose crowd of brown-uniformed men who stood in groups scattered
across a broad plaza, overflowing into a stretch of manicured lawn before the
bare, functional facade of Sub-station Number Nine. In the midst of the
besieging mob, Sozier’s red face and bald head bobbed as he harangued a cluster
of green-uniformed men from his place in the rear of a long open car.
    “What’s it all about, Jake?” Retief inquired. “Since the
parasites have all left peacefully, I’m having a hard time figuring out who’d
be holed up in the pumping station—and why. Maybe they haven’t gotten the word
that it’s all going to be fun and games from now on.”
    “If the corporal sees you over here—”
    “Ah, the good corporal. Glad you mentioned him, Jake. He’s
the man to see.” Retief stepped out of the car and started through the crowd. A
heavy lorry loaded with an immense tank with the letter H blazoned on its side
trundled into the square from a side street, moved up to a position before the
building. A smaller car pulled alongside Sozier’s limousine. The driver stepped
down, handed something to Sozier. A moment later, Sozier’s amplified voice
boomed across the crowd.
    “You in there, Corasol. This is General Sozier, and I’m
warning you to come out now or you and your smart friends are in for a big
surprise. You think I won’t blast you out because I don’t want to wreck the
plant. You see the tank aboard the lorry that just pulled up? It’s full of
gas—and I got plenty of hoses out here to pump it inside with. I’ll put men on
the roof and squirt it in the ventilators . . .”
    Sozier’s voice echoed and died. The militiamen eyed the
station. Nothing happened.
    “I
know you can hear me, damn you!” Sozier squalled. “You’d better get the doors
open and get out here fast—”
    Retief stepped to Sozier’s side. “Say, Corporal, I didn’t
know you went in for practical jokes—”
    Sozier jerked around to gape at Retief.
    “What are you doing here!” he burst out. “I told Jake—where
is that—”
    “Jake didn’t like the questions I was asking,” Retief said,
“so he marched me up here to report to you.”
    “Jake, you damn fool!” Sozier roared. I gotta good mind—”
    “I disagree, Sozier,” Retief cut in. “I think you’re a
complete imbecile. Sitting out here in the open yelling at the top of your
lungs. For example: Corasol and his party might get annoyed and spray that
fancy car you’ve swiped with something a lot more painful than words.”
    “Eh?” Sozier’s head whipped around to stare at the building.
    “Isn’t that a gun I see sticking out?”
    Sozier dropped. “Where?”
    “My mistake; just a foreign particle on my contact lenses.”
Retief leaned on the car. “On the other hand, Sozier, most murderers are