Talina—taking in the now-owl-eyed marines—said, “You getting this? We’re not the enemy.”

Both women, still scared, nodded, looking really miserable.

Kalico stepped out, saying, “I’ve got this, people. ’Bout time I went and set the IG straight about some things. Now, I want you all to sit your butts back in the seats. This is Corporate business, and me and my people will take care of it.” She paused. “Besides, it really pisses Inga off when the furniture gets busted up and she’s left having to mop a lot of blood off the floor.”

That was greeted by guffaws; even Hofer—who’d pushed his way to the front—was slapping backs as people backed away, most of them calling cheers for Kalico Aguila.

“Inga!” Kalico shouted. “I’m buying a round for the house. Put it on my tab.”

That brought another groundswell of shouts and calls of approbation.

Talina vented a breath she’d been holding for too long. “Shit. That was close.”

At the end of the bar, Cinque was watching with a most-focused concentration.

“Ma’am?” Ituri asked, a sheen of perspiration now visible on her brow.

“Let’s go,” Kalico told her. “And if you’ve got a brain in your heads, you make it look like we’re best of friends. Otherwise, that blood Inga’s going to be cleaning up will be yours.”

Chapter 72

  72  

Colonel Stanley Creamer didn’t like it. Not one little bit. Everything about this mission had gone seriously wrong. It began the moment Board Supervisor Aguila humiliated him and relieved him of command. That was followed by news that his patron, Chad Grunnel, had been found murdered. Damn it, of them all, Creamer assumed that Chad would be the one to come out on top. Not that he’d bet all his chips on the guy—he’d made overtures to Bart Radcek, too—but from Creamer’s reading of the tea leaves, none of the others were as well-qualified to take over the administration of Port Authority. Then came news of Bartolome’s death. Seriously? Two of the families had their operatives taken off the board?

Of course, he got still got snippets of information from his marines. But they were just snippets. He’d never been close to them. That wasn’t a commanding officer’s place. He gave the orders, they followed them. Nor was it fitting for a man of his rank to sit around with them and drink tea. A colonel’s role demanded the decorum appropriate to rank, not as a habitué of the gunroom, and he never debased himself to the degree of exchanging the banal banter, sordid jokes, and grab-ass common to the lower ranks.