Lone Wolf Read Online Free PDF

just stand back and watch him die. Easy and, in the grand scheme, probably a very smart move.
    But at the moment probably not the best political move. Killing during a council is somewhat frowned upon, and hardly the best way to win friends and influence people. So instead of the throat, I jab the baton into his solar plexus, but nowhere near as hard as I want to. He says whoof, sits down abruptly—missing his chair by a meter, so sorry—and ceases to pay attention to the proceedings.
    Out of the corner of my eye I see something like a leather-covered wall coming up on my flank. “It’s chill,” I tell Box quickly, stepping back out of striking range of Ranger. As coolly as I can manage, I crack the baton tip against the ferrocrete wall of the ops room to release the ferrules, then collapse it and slip it back into my pocket. Hands nice and visibly empty, I turn back to Blake. “You were saying?” I ask.
    For an instant the big man’s lips move in what could almost be a smile. His laser-beam gaze is steady on my face. He was expecting something like this, I realize. He orchestrated the whole thing as a kind of test. But a test for who: for me or for Ranger? If for me, did I pass or fail? Fail for goading Ranger, or pass for dropping him? Who the frag knows?
    “I was saying, you vote against war,” Blake says coolly as though nothing at all’s gone down. “Why?”
    “Too expensive,” I shoot back. “Too high a cost, too little return.”
    “What about rep?” Fahd snarls.
    I could be politic here, but something—maybe it’s the look in Blake’s eyes—tells me that’s not the way to play it. Time for a risk, maybe. If I win, I’m into the inner councils, suddenly increasing my value exponentially. “What about it?” I fire back. “Your way, the rep we get is that we’re stupid for wading into a costly war we could have avoided.” Fahd the weasel’s face goes white, and I know I’ve made another enemy. Busy day. I consider stopping there, but whafuck? “You want to stroke your ego,” I tell Fahd directly, “go beat the drek out of someone who’s not going to bloody your nose. Cut a deal with the Ancients, like Vladimir says, but go butt heads with the Eighty-Eights.” I name one of the local Chinese-style triads. “They’ve been getting too frisky anyway.”
    And there are Blake’s laser eyes burning into my skull again, and I feel like he’s counting my fillings or sifting through my brain. For an instant I’m drek-scared that maybe he’s a shaman or a hermetic who can actually read my mind. But I put that one aside immediately. If Blake could do that, he’d have done so already, and I’d be suffering from a nine-millimeter migraine right about now.
    The silence stretches painfully, and I feel the irrational urge to babble just to fill time. But before I lose it, Blake nods slowly. “The Eighty-Eights,” he muses, “yes. An object lesson to others, hmm?” He smiles at Vladimir, who nods too. “You’ve got a free hand to approach the Ancients leadership about compensation,” Blake tells his advisor. “It’s your baby.”
    Then the leader turns to Fahd, and the weasel seems to shrink back from the boss’ speculative gaze. Again the silence stretches, then Blake taps the table top with a forefinger—a major display of emotion for him. “There will be no reprisals against the Ancients,” he says firmly. “None. I’ll hold you responsible for telling that to him." He gestures to the still-unconscious Ranger. “But, I want some raids against the Eighty-Eights. Hit them hard, hurt them. And make sure the street knows who’s doing it. Tell him that, too.”
    The gang boss pauses, and this time there's no mistaking the faint smile. “And tell him I think he should use Larson here as a major asset,” he adds.
    From the way Fahd is looking at me, I can imagine just how that message is going to get presented to Ranger. I keep my face expressionless as I glance at Blake. The