Come and Take Them by Tom Kratman

Author:Tom Kratman [Kratman, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Military, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781451639360
Google: VGmpmQEACAAJ
Amazon: 1451639368
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2013-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

I’ll have earned my pay for the next fucking year if I get you a mole inside the Peace Fleet, thought the assassin, flying to the island on an airplane rather than a cheaper but slower airship. But even the girl was unable to say how long she’d be there. Time was a wasting asset.

The airship touched down without accident. The island lived off of tourism these days, so there was no shortage of a taxi to take Khalid to the hotel. The hotel had been a problem, largely because they had no cheap, unostentatious rooms. Khalid had at least been able to wrestle a small suite from them, where they had tried to saddle him with a large.

In the plane and in the taxi, he alternated his time with studying the composite drawing of the girl and trying to figure out a way for her to keep in contact once contacted by him.

The best he’d come up with was a dead drop e-mail account, with only the draft folder being used, and that only if she came back to Terra Nova again. In the airport at Turonensis he picked up half a dozen novels, in the sure and certain expectation that the very same half dozen would be available at the airport on Teixeira. He wrote a single number inside the cover, one through six, in each of the ones he’d bought in the former airport, then repeated those for the ones he purchased in the second.

“Best I can do, under the circumstances.”

Hotel Edward’s Palace, Island of Teixeira, Lusitania, Tauran Union, Terra Nova

Clever girl, though Khalid, clever sergeant, too.

The picture was fair, but less than perfect. Even so the large red flower in her hair, that was a dead giveaway. And she was alone, sitting in the hotel restaurant, reading a magazine. She wore a very attractive ecru silk dress, empire waisted, with a thin, red, tubular trim.

Khalid, always a mix of caution and boldness, tossed caution to the winds. He walked to her table as if he belonged there, sat down, and said, “Foxtrot . . . lima.”

“Alpha tango,” she replied. Even though she’d rehearsed this meeting in her mind fifty times, the knowledge that she had just come so much closer to her goal set her voice to quivering and her heart to pounding.

“Wonderful,” said Khalid. “If anyone you know comes over, or even gets in a position to see us, say, ‘How dare you sit down with me uninvited? Get away.’ Got it?”

“I think so.”

“How long do you have here?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered. “My high admiral—”

“What?”

“My high admiral.”

“There is only one high admiral.”

“Yes, I know. I’m her cabin girl.”

“Oh, dear God.” Now it was Khalid whose heart pounded. “I don’t think Fernandez has a clue who he sent me to meet.” In most unKhalidlike fashion, the assassin threw his head back, softly crying, “Oh, God! Oh, God! Do I just rush you out of here for debriefing or send you back for whatever purpose Fernandez might think of.

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