Текст книги " The Price of Glory"

Автор книги: Уильям Кейт

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

15

Veering suddenly, Grayson vaulted a garbage can, then dove directly toward the Marik soldier. A sound buzzed under his chest as something struck his left leg a numbing blow. "Watch out!" the standing man yelled, and then Grayson was rolling across the ferrocrete pavement in a tangle of legs and arms.

He came up with all of his strength and mass behind the outthrust heel of his hand, smashing up into the jaw of the standing man and sending him sprawling back into the refuse cylinders in the alley. A plastic radio handset splintered on the walkway at his feet. Grayson spun and started to run, but his left leg nearly gave out.

Marik soldiers were shouting from down the alley. Grayson noted quickly that at least two were down, caught by the sonic bolt that had nearly felled him in mid-flight. His own left leg tingled where it had caught the fringes of that beam. Forcing himself to stay on his feet, he hurried his way down the street and into the crowd with a lurching gait.

There was no safety in the crowd, he knew. There were people all around him, farmers and laborers for the most part, all dressed as he was, but his limp made him stand out from the rest. If that weren't enough to give him away, then the wild-eyed look of desperation on his face would probably do it better. He was going to have to find a place to hide until the effects of the sonic bolt wore off.

Following a side branch of the street he was on, Grayson came to a broad, ferrocrete plaza, with an open park beyond. Though the park was close to the center of Helmdown and its unexpected crowds, it would provide him with temporary sanctuary. There were people here as well, but not so many of them. Many were couples, strolling slowly or lying on the gray-green grass under spreading hostlepines, while they talked, read, or kissed. A low stone wall along the edge of a sculpture garden was occupied in various places by couples or solitary figures enjoying the shade from the surrounding buildings.

Seated on the wall, Grayson felt he would not look out of place. Neither would the dragging limp of his leg, now tingling furiously with the pins and needles of returning sensation, mark him out. He leaned back and pretended to study the art displayed in the sculpture garden. Grayson knew little about classical statuary, though these looked like something he'd once heard referred to as Rim Worlds Neo-Realist. The forms seemed to represent either nude women or dying warriors, and they must once have been colored in realistic tones. That would have been in the days when the garden had first been opened, long before the nuclear death of Freeport and so much more of this world. The colors were faded now, except for bits and pieces, and the forms were waterstained, pollution-marred, and overgrown with moss and weeds. The shade trees that once had surrounded the garden had long since been cut down, and except for the half-hidden statues, the place had the look of an overgrown abandoned lot.

A pair of soldiers hurried purposefully across the ferrocrete plaza from the direction Grayson had just come. He ignored them as he pretended to admire the statuary, but kept his head angled in such a way that he could watch the soldiers out the corner of his eye. The chances were that none of them would recognize him, for no Marik trooper had seen him except as a blur or a running form in the distance. Still, the man holding a radio, the one he had hit—and probably the man who had been crouching at his side as well—had gotten a good look at his features. If they were sharp enough, either of those two might recognize him.

These were two different soldiers, however. They wore heavy black-purple clamshell armor and dark-visored combat helmets instead of felt caps. Each carried an assault rifle cradled uncertainly in nervous hands. They entered the park hesitantly, their helmeted heads turning this way and that. Twice the sun glinted from their visors as their gaze swept past him, but Grayson remained calm and unmoving. After a second, one of the troopers took his comrade by the arm, and pointed across the garden toward the buildings beyond. Then the two broke into a trot, parting waist-deep weeds as they zigzagged past still forms of nymphs and dying warriors in what they imagined was the direction of their prey.

Grayson didn't move, but continued to survey the park. He wasn't sure how intelligent was the search being mounted for him, but he was taking no chances. A moment later, two more armored and helmeted soldiers followed with slow deliberation along the trail of the first two. Grayson couldn't tell for certain whether all four were working together, but it was a possibility he could not afford to discount.

He decided to stay put for a while.

A man walked up to a spot on the wall some five meters from Grayson and sat down. He was an old man wearing the tunic and boots of a laborer, and holding a knobbed walking stick in his veined, gnarled hand. His beard was white, his scalp bald, but his eyes were clear and remarkably blue. As Grayson looked across to him, those blue eyes caught his. There was no recognition on either side. Grayson had never seen the man before, but he did detect a flash—the merest suggestion—of comradeship. Or was it simple curiosity?

The man's eyes tracked back across the park in the direction the soldiers had gone, then back to Grayson. He shrugged then, as if to say, It's a strange world.

With that brief eye contact to lead him on, Grayson decided to venture further. He stood up, gingerly putting his weight on the hit leg, happy to find that the numbness and tingling were almost gone. He walked a few steps over to the old man, then sat down again. "Good morning."

" 'Morning to you, young feller." The man's voice was clear and strong.

"I'm new in town," Grayson said. "What's with all the soldiers?"

"Them? Some sort of flap with the new landholder, they say. They came in a week ago and took over. I hear the landhold at Durandel's been leveled."

"I've . . . heard that too. But why?"

"Beats me. I don't care for politics, myself. 'Long as the new landlord keeps the peace and keeps the tax collectors off my back, I'm happy." The man's eyes narrowed. "Wouldn't be that those soldier boys were after you, son, would it?"

"Not that I know of. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don't know. You come in here, limping . . . like maybe someone had nabbed you with a tingler. Then you sit there showing a truly remarkable interest in these perfectly awful sculptures while the Captain-General's best line troops go racing past. I don't know. Call it a hunch. Or a wild guess."

Grayson decided to change the subject. "What's all this about papers and a document center?"

"You arenew in town. That's the first thing these johnnies did when they came in. Everyone has to have papers, like this." He reached into his tunic, fumbled with an inside pocket, then withdrew a flat wallet. Opening it, he withdrew a single, folded sheet, printed on one side. "Actually, this is all there is. Paper ... not papers. Name . . . date . . . birth . . . mother . . . father . . . occupation . . . the usual bureaucratic dreck. You don't have yours yet, eh?"

"First I've heard about it."

"Might explain why those soldiers yonder were interested in you . . . but then, they weren't after you at all, were they?"

Grayson rubbed his leg. The numbness and tingling were nearly gone. "Well, I'd better get a move on."

The old man watched him with a keen, lively intelligence. "You'd better, eh? And where to?"

Grayson smiled. He could picture himself telling the gentleman that he was setting out in search of the resident Lyran Commonwealth spy!

"Oh, just a guy I have to see. Business."

"Ah. Business. Well, you find any business in this town, you come back and tell me." His eyes twinkled with the beginnings of a smile. "The again, if you don't find any business, you might want to tell me, too. Mebee I can help."

Grayson had the strange feeling that the man was laughing at him. His words made no sense, probably the maunderings of an old man on the verge of senility. Nodding toward the gentleman, he stood up. "Yes, well, I'll see you later."

"Yes, I daresay you will."

His confrontation with the old fellow left Grayson shaken. The trip into Helmdown had been so carefully planned, but the man's careful banter, his apparent or pretended knowledge of Grayson, was unsettling. Grayson abandoned any attempt to look the part of a Helman farmer and hurried back toward the center of town. Hogarth Street was not far from the Council House, and he found it easily after consulting one of the electronic maps positioned at strategic corners throughout the town. The crowds were thinner there, though plenty of people were still about. Grayson wondered if so many strangers were in town because they had come to get papers, or because they were curious about all the Marik soldiers from the DropShips. Perhaps it was both.

The name of his contact was Jenton Moragen, whose Moragen Emporium was reputedly one of the most respected mercantile firms in Helmdown. Though not large—the company's personnel register recorded 52 people on its payroll, including those working offworld– it had been an important part of Helm's economy under Moragen's great-great-grandfather, almost two hundred years before.

According to Grayson's informant, it had been Moragen's grandfather who had begun to act as a conduit of information from Helm to the Lyran Commonwealth. Jenton was merely carrying on the family tradition, both as businessman and as spy. Little enough happened on

Helm to warrant the attention of Katrina Steiner or her officers on Tharkad, of course, but there had been occasions for Moragen to show his usefulness. Once, when agents of the Draconis Combine had been showing an unusual interest in Helm several years before, he had written up a report for transmission to Commonwealth space, then thoughtfully sent a copy to the District Office of the Captain-General.

The Marik aide who had told all of this to Grayson had laughed. "Jenton is an old friend of our governor there on Helm. Listen, you want to get to know the governor, go ask Jenton to introduce you. They'll sucker you into a game of three-handed trovans and clean you out!"

Grayson found the Moragen Emporium without any trouble.

Posted over the door, with its tack-welded electronic lock, was a notice that could be read from clear across the street: CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE MILITARY GOVERNOR.

Closed! There was fine print on the notice, but Grayson did not want to appear too curious about that door or its sign. A sudden chill gripped him. All around him were tall, blank-windowed buildings, behind where there might be hidden watchers, men with vision-enhancers, recorders, and radios for alerting other men on the streets. As casually as possible, Grayson continued his walk along the opposite side of the street from the Emporium. The building had been freshly whitewashed, and the electric sign above was intact, though the power was off. It looked as though it might have been closed only the day before.

He made his way on down Hogarth Street until he found its junction with Victory Way. Then he walked north for several blocks, back to where the crowds were thickest, not far from the Council House and the booth of Captain Biggs. The plaza known as the Condordiat joined Victory Way, and on the corner was the sign advertising the Skyway Travel Bureau.

Skyway Travel had been located on this corner for nearly seventy years. The manager was a respected Helmdown businessman named Wilkis Atkins. Atkins had been born and raised on Helm, though his parents had come to that world fifty standard years before from Robinson, in the Federated Suns. The same aide who had told Grayson of the owner of the Moragen Emporium had described Wilkis Atkins as Helm's resident agent for House Davion's Federated Suns.

It was less likely that House Davion would be willing to help an out-of-luck mercenary company on a world as far removed from Davion territory as Helm. Yet, without being immodest, Grayson knew that the Gray Death Legion had made a name for itself in the past three years, and the rich and powerful House Davion was bound to have noticed the Legion's rise. If Grayson could make contact with someone well-placed on a Federated Suns world, perhaps the Gray Death Legion could win a mercenary ticket serving Hanse Davion. It was reputed among mercenaries that House Davion did not pay as well as the other Great Houses, but were fair in dealing with those in their employ. Certainly, it would be worthwhile to talk with Atkins.

That was not to be, however. Skyway Travel had the same "CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE MILITARY GOVERNOR" sign that had been posted over the Moragen Emporium. This was too much to be coincidence.

The words of the old man in the park came back to him, and Grayson knew a moment of stark terror. The man had known, had known that Grayson was looking for Moragen or Atkins, had known that their businesses were closed down!

"Mebee I can help," the old man had said. Mebee, indeed!Grayson turned so sharply that he collided with a laborer in the crowd close behind him, mumbled apology, and made his way south again along Victory Way. The old man had said to go see him, and Grayson intended to do just that!

* * *

Alard King paused in front of the weathered, native stone building and looked both ways. The crowds had nearly vanished in this, a residential portion of Helm-down on the northern outskirts of town. The land here rose sharply, and King was breathing heavily after his stiff, fifteen-minute climb up the narrow streets. Behind him, the open street gave him a view of the town spread out below the hill, and of the spaceport beyond. He could make out the forms of all six DropShips there, glittering gray-silver in the sunlight.

King had removed his bulky tunic and traded it for an elegantly cut merchanter's blouse and cape from a canvas bag he had worn under the baggy tunic. With the tunic now in the bag, and the bag slung over his shoulder, he felt considerably less conspicuous than in the farmer's garb. Alard knew he looked the part of a good-looking young merchanter come to town on business.

The buildings in this hilltop district tended toward pastel colors and open architecture rather than the unrelieved whites and browns and blocky facades of the city proper. By Helman standards, most of these residents were wealthy. The area, known as Gresshaven, was largely reserved for the owners of businesses, members of the professional elite, and the wealthy merchants of Helmdown.

King touched the door announcer and an electronic voice said, "Yes?" Slowly and precisely, King replied, "Shogyo de kite imasu. "

"Dare desu ka?"the voice behind the speaker said.

"King desu ga. "

"Wait."

There was a long stillness, and then an electronic lock clicked and the door slid open. A young man with hair so blond it was almost white looked out, glanced past King into the street, then looked back at the Tech.

"You are here on . . . business, you said?"

"Please. I need to see the mistress of the house."

The blond man's eyes narrowed. "Things are . . . difficult, just now."

King smiled. "You don't believe I have business here?"

"Oh, your use of Japanese, your mention of the word 'business'—they were perfectly correct. But there has been some trouble. The military occupation forces have been rounding up all foreign agents in Helmdown, real and suspected. Madame's house in town has already been closed down."

King's face showed alarm. "Is Deirdre all right?"

"The Mistress is well. As yet, they do not seem to have made the connection between Madame's business interests in town with those here in Gresshaven, but we must be . . . cautious."

"Understood," King paused, considering. Then he removed a ring from his pouch, one he had kept hidden from his Gray Death comrades. It was a heavy, ornate gold ring with a raised relief of a dagger set against a fleur-de-lis. "Then give her this. Tell her that Alard King, special personal representative of Duke Ricol, of the Draconis Combine, mustsee her."

The servant's eyes widened when he saw the ring.

"Immediately, sir."

"Tell her it-is a matter of life and death," King added.

16

Grayson followed his guide down the winding stairway. The old man walked slowly, but the light here was so dim that even with a far younger and more nimble guide, Grayson would have had to move with caution. The ceiling was low enough that he had to stoop to keep from hitting his head. The stone walls were dank with moisture.

It had not, after all, been luck that had brought Grayson together with Victor Wallenby on the stone wall along the statue garden. Wallenby had seen Grayson making his way from the alley where he had escaped the Marik soldiers, and had been sufficiently intrigued by the younger man's appearance to decide to investigate more closely.

"Of course, I knew you were needin' help," Wallenby had explained when Grayson found him again in the park. "I could tell you weren't from around here."

"But how did you know?"Grayson had asked in exasperation. He'd looked around the plaza area at the other civilians, most wearing shapeless, homemade clothes identical to his own. "I'm dressed just like a farmer . . ."

"Ah!" Wallenby's eyes had twinkled. "But that's just it, young feller. You obviously weren'ta farmer. Look at those hands! Not a callous on 'em."

'Oh, come on! You couldn't have checked my callouses from across the street, when you said you first saw me!"

"Nope. But I could see a young guy dressedlike a farmer. And I asks m'self . . . why's a young buck come to town wearin' his everyday work clothes from the farm?

An old guy like me . .-. sure! I wear this because it's comfortable . . . and I'm too old to play dress-up! Your father, forty standard years old and hands calloused like these"—he held up his own gnarled hands—"Who does he have to impress with his clothes? But you? I could see as the farmer's son, maybe . . . but not in thatoutfit. No, the farmer's son would wear his good clothes to come to town. Impress the girls! Show off to the other farmers' sons how much money he has in his pockets! You? You don't even havepockets in those baggy things!"

"So, how did you know I was looking for the Steiner . . . ah . . . representative?"

"The Steiner spy? I didn'tknow, for sure. But I figured it had to be either the Davion or Steiner folks. They both have their businesses here, in the central part o' town. I didn't figure you were lookin' for the Liao spy. He's clear over by the spaceport. And the Kurita spy, well, she does her business out in the well-to-do part of town . . . and if you was to wander in over there wearing hick clothes like those, I'd figure you were a lot crazier than you looked! Course, she's got a place in town—or had one, until yesterday afternoon—but she still mostly caters to the rich folks. I doubt that you could get past her front door looking like that."

"Well, I'm not interested in any spy of Kurita's. Or Liao's. I was told that a man named Jenton Moragen might be able to help me, but when I found his place closed up, I thought I'd try Wilkis Atkins."

"Steiner or Davion . . . right. I knew it! I had you spotted from the moment I laid eyes on you! You arenew at this kind of thing."

The twinkle in the old man's eye robbed his words of any offense, and so Grayson smiled. "I'm afraid so. You claimed you could help me. Can you tell me if Moragen was arrested? His emporium was closed."

"Yep. Marik soldiers went in and shut him down two days ago. But he'd heard they was comin' and lit out before they got there. Same for Major Atkins."

"Why did the soldiers close them down?"

"I dunno . . . except that something hellacious big has been happening here, ever since the Marik troops came in. I wouldn't wonder if the Marik generals have something big cooking here, and they don't want the other House governments to get wind of it. Of course, the best way to stir up a feller's interest is to try to arrest all his friends in the very town where you're tryin' to keep a low profile, but . . . Well, governments ain't generally known for their brains, I guess."

Grayson had stared at the man, hands on hips. "But who the hell are you,anyway? Another spy?"

Wallenby had broken into laughter at that. "Hell, no! But I got eyes, ain't I? They ain't shut down yet! And this is a small town ... for all that, it's the biggest city on Helm! I've lived here all my life, which is sayin' something, and when you've been in a small town that long, you get to know everyone. Lots of people from out of town are here the past few days, o' course, but you were different . . . dressed like something you weren't."

"But you know the Steiner representative."

"Yep. Know him well."

"I don't suppose you know what's been going on, here? Why all the Marik troops ... the fighting out at Durandel?"

"Nope."

"Can you get me in to see Jenton Moragen?"

"I dunno. I'll have to talk to him, see if hewant's t' see you.As you can imagine, they're both a bit hesitant about talkin' to strangers, just now. Who should I say is callin'?"

Grayson hesitated. If he told Wallenby his true identity, the old man might be tempted to turn him over to the authorities in hopes of a reward. He didn't want to believe that of the friendly old man, but he'd been badly shaken by how easily Wallenby had seen through his disguise, and he didn't want to take any chances.

"I'd really rather not say. I know Moragen is taking a chance if he sees me. As far as he knows, I'm with Marik counterintelligence. The hell of it is, I learned his name from a Lieutenant Gainsborough, on Janos Marik's staff!"

Wallenby's bushy white eyebrows crowded toward the top of his forehead. "Tell you the truth, old Jules Gainsborough's word'll get you farther with Moragen than lots of others. He wouldn't have told you about either Jenton or Wilkis if he didn't think you had a reason to know. Tell you what. You stay here and let me make a call. Don't talk to anybody." He'd leaned forward on his walking stick, his eyes laughing. "There's too damn many spiesloose out on these streets, and you never know when you'll find y'self talkin' to one!"

Fifteen minutes later, Wallenby had returned, and the two men had walked east, toward the part of town dominated by the old AgroMech industrial facility. The place where they were meeting Moragen wasn't within the plant itself, but located in an AgroMech storehouse close by, where the heavy farming machines were arrayed for inspection and sale by the company that manufactured them. A palm electronic key won them admittance to the main warehouse, a dimly-lit room dominated by row upon row of huge, spindle-legged agricultural 'Mechs. Another locked door had led to a narrow hallway, then to a spiral stairway running down a dank stairwell with wet stone walls.

The room at the bottom looked as though it had been carved from native rock, and it was chilly so many meters below the level of the street.

Two men waited under the pale light of a ceiling fluorostrip, seated at a plastic table in an otherwise empty room. One of them caught Grayson's attention immediately—tall, silver-haired, hawk-nosed, and lean, he had the look of a MechWarrior. The man opposite him was small and plain to the point of dumpiness. He was bald and rubbed the palms of his hands slowly back and forth in an incessant revelation of the strain he was under.

Wallenby gestured toward the nervous one. "This, sir, is Jenton Moragen, of Moragen's Emporium. This other gentleman is the director of Skyway Travel, citizen Wilkis Atkins. Or should I say 'Major'?"

The one identified as Atkins turned his mouth in a sour expression. "I'm not sure you should say anything, Wallenby, in front of this person." Atkins looked sharply at Grayson. "Who are you, sir?"

Grayson took a deep breath. If he had been betrayed—again—there would be no help for him here. He would have to assume that these men were who they claimed to be. If they were deceiving him, he could not see their purpose. Marik soldiers could have taken him easily while he sat in the park, a waiting for Wallenby's return. The thought that Wallenby had gone to call the soldiers had turned that fifteen minutes wait into an eternity.

"My name, gentlemen, is Colonel Grayson Carlyle. Until yesterday, I was lord of the landhold at Durandel, Helmbold. My regiment, the Gray Death Legion, is encamped some distance from here, near what is left of Durandel. I am here to try to learn what ..."

He broke off as both Atkins and Moragen rose to their feet.

"Carlyle!" Moragen said "I toldyou, Atkins! I told you it had to be him ..."

But Atkins was descending on Carlyle, his forefinger raised. "You . . you scum! You have the audacity to seek us out here . . . now?"

Even Wallenby looked shocked. "Him!" was all he said.

"Whoa, there, people," Grayson said, moving back a step. "Every since I arrived on this planet, people have been treating us like renegades, like outlaws, but I can't figure out why. Why not let me in on the secret! Just what the hell is going on around here, anyway?"

Atkins stopped short. "What? You don't know?"

"Damn right, I don't know! That's why I sneaked in here, why I wanted to see you! Somehow, we seem to have pulled the whole Marik army down on our heads . . . but we don't know how, and we don't know why! I came here to talk to you, Moragen, to try to get passage offworld for my people." He didn't mention the loss of the DropShips—there was no reason to admit that particular weakness—but it was common for mercenaries to dicker with prospective employers over transportation.

"You Dastard," Atkins said. "You're going to stand there and deny what you did on Sirius V?"

Grayson felt himself growing cold all over, as though suddenly transported to the chill surface of that ice-locked world. "Whatdid I do on Sirius V?"

"You murdering bastard, you accepted the surrender of the city of Tiantan! You negotiated the surrender, trooped aboard your DropShips, and then blew the living hell out of all five city domes! Damn you, your 'Mechs were holographed smashing through the rubble after the explosion! You blew open five domes! There were twelve million people in that city! Women! Children! Old men! Babies! The ones who didn't fry when you blew the domes choked to death in the frigid, poison air. Have you tried breathing ammonia at fifty below, mercenary? It's not healthy!"

Grayson listened to Atkins' diatribe with growing horror. "I give you my word, Atkins, this is the first I've heard of this," he said when the Davion agent had run out of breath.

"And what is the word of a renegade merc worth these days? I hear they're still digging frozen bodies out from under the rubble. They're finding survivors, too. That you can believe. You might have wiped Tiantan off the map, Carlyle, but you missed enough people that they'll be able to nail you flat out on the ground! And God, I hope they do it . . . if I don't do it first!"

"Hey! Listen to me, man! We took the surrender of the city! We turned command over to the Duke of Irian! We talked to the man's headquarters from the jump point days later, and everything was fine!" Grayson's horror took an even keener edge at the memory of his communications people aboard the Phobosunable to find the Tiantan transmitter carrier wave, and that no one in the Duke's command had wanted to talk with him. He remembered the peculiar behavior of Lord Garth, and struggled to fit that behavior into the pieces of the puzzle that he was hearing now.

"You're saying someone set you up?" Atkins said. "For God's sake, Carlyle, why would anyone do a thing like that? Listen! Your 'mechs were holographed! Your DropShips were holographed! I've seen them, with the Tiantan domes burning on the horizon behind them! The story's been running for two days over the Helmdown news services! Don't you bother to monitor the news?"

Grayson shook his head. In point of fact, BattleMechs were not generally equipped to picked up televised signals. The Deimosor the Phoboscould have done it, but there had been no reason at the time. They had been too busy dealing with the Marik forces at Durandel . . . and later, at Cleft Valley.

"I don't care what was photographed," Grayson said. "Photographs, even holographs, can be faked by computer manipulations."

"Your 'Mechs were seen attacking the ruins, Carlyle."

"Witnesses can be bought, dammit! Or they can be misled! My God, someone is trying to destroy the Gray Death by turning us into outlaws . . . and I can't get anyone to believe me!"

"I don't think anyone is going to believe you," Moragen said quietly. The disdain was heavy in his voice. "You were assigned here as our protector, but that kind of protection we can do without! And I can assure you that House Steiner will want nothing to do with a man or a unit capable of such a monstrous act!"

"The same goes for House Davion, Carlyle. I won't even put in the request, because I know what they would say. Hanse Davion doesn't associate with renegade city killers!"

Grayson thought that Atkins was about to attack him then and there, but the big man seemed to relax slightly. "You can take your filthy so-called regiment and hike it," Atkins said. "Civilized warriors will have nothing to do with you now. Get out of my sight!"

Grayson turned to Moragen, but the small man folded his arms. "I suggest you leave, Carlyle. I am not a violent man, but your actions at Sirius V ignore every tenet of modern warfare ... of common decency! There was no reason to destroy that city ... no reason to massacre those people! Your actions have placed you outside the pale of civilized men . . . and of law."

The silence that followed was as cold as the glacial ice on the mountaintops of Helm. The behavior of the Marik BattleMech forces on that planet was explained at last. The Conventions of War dictated certain formal ways for troops to behave toward one another in war, but renegades—city killers—they were beyond the pale of even unspoken and unwritten laws.