"All right," said Roic.  "Wait'll I take cover behind that gate kiosk, then go out to the end of the lawn and mill around like the others.  Make sure you can be seen from the street, but don't get within arm's length of the drive."

"Wait, what, you want to use me as bait?" said Lieber, indignant.  "I thought you wanted me to identify Akabane!"

"This'll do that," said Roic reasonably.  "Nobody else here is going to go grabbing for you.  Plus it will lure him out of his vehicle and onto the grounds."  I hope.

"Why bother?"

"First, I can't stun him through the side of the van, and second, if nothing else, Lord Mark can charge him with trespassing.  Which will hold him for the night, and by morning it'll be too late."

"I thought that fellow Fuwa owned the place."

"If Lord Mark doesn't own it by now, I don't know him."  Not that anyone did really know him, not even m'lord.  Well, maybe Miss Kareen.  "Go on."  Roic gave Lieber a little encouraging shove, then drifted away unobtrusively through the intermittent shadows to take cover on the facility side of the gate kiosk, out of sight of the street.

Leiber stumbled around quite convincingly among the weeds, albeit at a few meters farther range than Roic would have preferred, looking up and around as if in bewilderment, showing profile and full face.  For a minute, Roic wasn't sure if Akabane would rise to his bait, and was just trying to think of a next ploy, when the van eased past the kiosk.  Roic crouched down in the shadows.

For a horrible instant, he wondered if he'd misjudged the situation—if Akabane just lifted the van to head height and brought it down hard enough atop his victim, Leiber would be in no shape to confess anything to anyone again.  Someone had tried to do that to m'lord once, as he'd told the story to Roic, with several passes like a big stomping boot coming within centimeters of reducing him to a smear on the pavement.  Roic tensed like a runner at the start of a race, getting ready to sprint to his bait's rescue.

But maybe these local vehicles had safety sensors to prevent those sorts of accidents, or maybe Akabane was inhibited by the hundred or so witnesses.  In any case, as its side door slid open the van merely lurched up onto the lawn, cutting Leiber off from the sight of the old folks, who were mostly turned away craning their necks toward the source of the flashing lights.

A dark shape leaped from the van toward Leiber, who recoiled.  Roic took a sweeping knee shot and brought the figure down in a muffled cry of astonishment and rage.  A few swift paces, and Roic was in position to put his favorite low-stun immobilization into the back of the fellow's neck, at can't-miss range.