Emil would have liked to take a layer of flesh off someone for this, but he was alone in his office. It was an unprepossessing place. Front area for a receptionist he had brought with him from St. Legier, an office for him, a pair of conference rooms with maps and pictures, plus a small kitchenette and bathroom in the rear.
Homey, without his people having to be any more exposed to outsiders than necessary. Technically, as Imperial agents, they were supposed to be operating with the cooperation of the locals, but Emil trusted those fools about as far as his old bones could throw them on a good day.
That might have bit him in the ass now.
He slammed the handset of the comm down hard enough that it probably cracked under his hand, but Emil was past caring.
He rose from his desk.
“Conference room!” he roared. “NOW!” and stomped that direction.
Lunch time, so it was him, the young woman who handled communications and reception, plus only Sergey, who had been doing something instead of having a martini.
“Alert everyone,” he said to Sergey. “Get them down there immediately. With descriptions. Start passing out bribes to random passersby. Flash fake badges if you have to. Flood the area and find me something. Go!”
Sergey took off like his tail was on fire.
Emil turned to the young woman. Katherine, though he rarely thought of her in those terms. Young as an agent, but smart. Possibly another Hummingbird, another Carlota Rojas, another thirty years down the line when she was no longer pretty but still brilliant until some fool came along and forced her out of the field.
Could he change that?
Doubtful. Karl VII was a well-intentioned man, and Emil had heard good things about the crown prince, but Fribourg was far more than those two men. It was a great river that would take generations to change, and Emil suspected that too many people—after he was gone—would draw entirely the wrong lesson from Rojas.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
“You will take charge of all communications,” Emil decided, elevating the woman in his own mind, for what little good it might do tomorrow. “Do not wait to contact me with questions. You know the policy as well as I do. Use your best judgment, understanding that speed is more important than accuracy.”
“Sir?” she asked in a gaspy, surprised kind of voice.
“A good plan today beats an excellent plan next week,” Emil quoted from an ancient admiral whose name he had forgotten. “I will be in the field, trying to chase Rojas down. You will handle everything here. Questions, Katherine?”
She paused for long enough that she was rifling through various scenarios and ideas in her head.
“No, sir,” she said after a moment, transforming somewhat into a more confident woman.
He supposed that was also his fault, having had so little interaction with her, though she was trained equal to the man around here, lacking only experience.
Had he screwed up there as well? What might a woman’s perspective have given him, in chasing down a much more dangerous woman?
Emil made a note to explore that question much later.
Right now, someone had finally located Rojas. She was either taunting him directly, or had tired of the game and just wanted someone to kill her so she could be done with it.
He would be happy to oblige.
Emil rose and took a step before stopping. He turned back to Katherine.
“Alert local military and gendarme forces,” he instructed her. “Use my credentials to inform them that this might turn into a chase, and that she might finally try to escape the planet, having been trapped for so long.”
“Their response, sir?” Katherine asked.
“Kill her,” Emil said simply, turning back for the door.