Betrayer: Foreigner #12 Read Online Free PDF Page A

to look for Lucasi. Machigi, we are convinced, is not the agency behind the recent attacks in Najida, and possibly he was not involved with other actions that have been attributed to him. We are establishing proof of this and hope to present it soon.”
    Jago nodded, a little bow, and went over to the others.
    “What’s going on?” Barb asked.
    “We’ve gotten permission, we hope, to phone home to Najida. We’ve added, if we can get it in, that we’ve recovered you and Veijico. I can’t promise we’ll get that concession. Local security will be very worried about prearranged signals and verbal code. Things are going to be somewhat tense around here until the lord gets word certain proceedings have been canceled.”
    “Can you get a message from me to Toby?”
    To his brother. Toby had been wounded in the kidnapping incident—and he’d assured Barb that Toby was all right. He wished he were entirely sure that was the case. “No. We can’t. We may not even get the permission to talk about you at all. Excuse me.” He set his cup down and got up and went over to his bodyguard, seeing that Algini and Tano were about to go out the door.
    “Take care, nadiin-ji,” he said to them, wishing at the same time he were going with them. Glad as he was to have recovered Barb and Veijico, he just was not getting his thoughts together with them in the room. He needed somewhere else. He needed a buffer between himself and Barb’s questions, and most of all needed a buffer against her asking him questions about Toby while he was trying to keep his nerves together and think.
    Tano and Algini left on their mission. He didn’t go back to the couch. He tried turning his back on the whole room, standing by the fireside, trying to compose a mental list of things he needed to keep in mind. His computer was back home. He didn’t have its resources.
    Barb, to her credit, took his signal; she sat still and sipped her tea and didn’t talk to him for at least the next five minutes.
    He was framing a course of logical argument, an approach to negotiations with Machigi, what he could imply, what he could offer in the way of inducements—
    A knock at the door announced some arrival.
    Thoughts flew in a dozen directions. Tano and Algini wouldn’t be back this soon. His heart rate kicked up a notch. Barb sat there looking frightened, while Jago’s hand rested very near her sidearm and Banichi stood similarly poised, on the other corner of the room.
    It proved to be nothing more than house staff bringing their belated breakfast, a rather large breakfast on a rolling cart, and they were clearly bent on serving it.
    It smelled good. A lot better than last night’s toast.
    “Just leave it, please, nadiin-ji,” he said, and that had to be that, courteously. The servants would assume what they liked and report him as rude. But they were not going to linger in the room, big-eared and listening.
    “Veijico,” Jago said with a meaningful glance, and Veijico took a plate and took a little of every dish, plus a cup of tea, and sat down and began to eat.
    Barb looked confused.
    “Veijico tries it first,” Bren said. “We’ll wait about half an hour.”
    “I’m starving,” Barb said.
    He felt like saying, peevishly, Suit yourself, but he didn’t. He didn’t say anything, discovering himself in an uncharacteristically short temper. He just turned and went back to the fireplace.
    Barb followed him. “Are you upset?”
    He really, truly didn’t want to argue right now; and he wasn’t in a good mood. But he said, patiently, “I’m thinking. I have to present a case to our host, and I haven’t composed it yet, and there’s nowhere to work but here. I’ll eat when I’m done. It’s all right. I’ll just stare into space for about an hour. Please.”
    She looked a little put out. Barb was good at that. She didn’t understand any activity that didn’t involve discussing the matter. But at least she took a broad hint and went away