Assassin on Centauri B (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 7) by John Bowers

Author:John Bowers [Bowers, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FTL Press
Published: 2017-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Nick followed Kozel Petreykin and his companion, who still hadn’t spoken, across the casino floor toward a bank of elevators. Nicola started to accompany them, but Kozel stopped her.

“I don’t think you want to see this,” he told her. “Wait at the bar until Russo is finished.”

They stepped into a lift and Kozel gave a voice command for the top floor. He was an inch taller than Nick, with textured silver hair and broad shoulders. The cut of his suit coat suggested he was muscular, but the coat couldn’t conceal just the beginning of a gut. His companion, by contrast, was perhaps five feet nine, wizened and shriveled. He looked about fifty but might have been older—or younger. His skin was darkened by solar radiation and his features had a pinched, mean look. Nick suspected he might be from Sirius.

The lift opened onto an executive floor. Offices lined the corridor as they stepped out, and at one end Nick saw an open doorway that led into what looked like a control room; like the circular dais downstairs, it was packed with electronics and holo-screens.

Kozel turned left, away from the control room. At the end of the corridor he unlocked an unmarked door and pushed it open. Beyond the door was a short flight of steps leading down to an intermediate level, where another door awaited. Kozel unlocked this one as well and stepped aside to let Nick enter. As Nick stepped through, he knew the time had come…

You will be expected to prove yourself. Or kill. Maybe innocent person.

The room was bare concrete with a sloping floor that led to a drain in the center. Half a dozen empty chairs were scattered about, some of them overturned. In the center of the room, near the drain, one chair was occupied. The man sitting in it was about thirty-five, medium build, muscular, and his face looked like hamburger. Clearly someone had already worked him over. He seemed to be dozing, with his chin on his chest, but stirred slightly when he sensed their presence.

“Who is this?” Nick asked.

“This man is a traitor,” said Kozel’s companion, his accent confirming Nick’s suspicion that he was Sirian. “He has violated his oath to the Confederate government and betrayed our friendship with Beta Centauri. He is under a sentence of death.”

“You will put him down,” Kozel said to Nick.

Nick frowned, still staring at the prisoner in the chair. His mind was racing.

“What did he do?”

“If you work for Bratva, you do not need to know why. You follow orders.”

“I understand that, and I’m okay with it. But when I eliminate someone, I like to know the reason for it.”

Kozel frowned, but the Sirian nodded approvingly.

“I kin understand that. What he did, he misrepresented hisself when he came to work for my company. He is part of another organization back home that sells slaves without proper licensin’; he used his relationship with me to gain influence with Bratva so he could undermine my business.”

“We suspected his intentions for some time,” Kozel added.

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