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.He slapped his head, angrily.Nothing about the case made sense!“It’s odd,” he said, softly.He turned to walk back to the living room.“But if he killed himself, what happened to the knife?”“Point,” Isabel said.They returned to the body and inspected the surroundings, but found no sign of the knife.“He couldn't have hidden it before he died, not with that slash in his throat.Someone else definitely killed him, probably to cover their tracks.”“It looks that way,” Glen agreed.If Nards hadn't been anything more than an easily-bribed official, the Nihilists would have killed him to ensure he couldn't betray them afterwards.It was so common that he honestly wondered why anyone would accept a bribe from the Nihilists.unless, of course, Nards had had no idea who’d bribed him.“Or maybe there’s something else going on.”He sighed.“Get the bodies bagged up,” he ordered.He reached for one of the bags, then opened it up and eyed the body, wondering how best to tackle the job.The bodies would be contaminated, damaging the chain of evidence, no matter what they did.It might be harder to secure a conviction.“We’ll take them home.”“Of course,” Isabel said.She took a smaller bag and started to walk towards the stairs.“And.”She broke off as a deafening explosion shook the entire house.“The hell.?”Chapter Twenty-FiveImperial Marshals, by contrast, worked cases that extended beyond a single planet in the Empire.A Marshal commanded vast authority; in theory, they were superior to both policemen and guardsmen wherever they went.However, their authority was not always recognised by their so-called allies.- Professor Leo Caesius.The Decline of Law and Order and the Rise of Anarchy.Belinda spun around and swore out loud as she saw the vans explode into a fireball.She gripped her weapon as the mob appeared, swarming out of the nearby houses and heading towards them with deadly intent.Mobs were always dangerous, particularly in close confines where there was nowhere to run.She cursed under her breath, then snapped a command to load weapons as the mob came closer.“We have to get out the back,” she snapped, thinking hard.There was no point in trying to stand and fight, not with only a handful of men.“Hurry!”Two of her men looked to be on the verge of panic.She slapped them both, hard enough to sting, then shoved them towards the door.The lack of real training was harming them now, she knew, although training for mobs was never easy.There was something brutally primal about the sheer force of a mob that scared people to death, even though they had training and weapons and even powered combat armour.But if they’d had armour, she knew, they would have been safe.The only problem would have been keeping her men from tearing through the mob like paper.The Marshals looked up in surprise as she urged her men into the house and through the kitchen.One of them, a middle-aged man with a reassuring air of competence, tossed her a questioning look.Belinda motioned for him and his partner to start moving, then gabbled out an explanation.“There’s a mob approaching the house and the vans are gone,” she snapped.What had destroyed the vans? They weren’t tanks, but they were heavily armoured.Did the locals have antitank weapons or homemade RPGs at their disposal? “We have to get out of here.”She hit the emergency beacon, summoning help, then followed them out the rear door.The back garden was a desolate wasteland, the grass dying through lack of care.Belinda had no time to take in the sight; ahead of her, there was a wall that was high enough to pose a real barrier to some of her team.She pulled out an explosive charge, cursing their lack of training as she keyed the trigger, then darted backwards.The sound of the explosion would reveal their position to anyone who wasn't already sure of where they were.Moments later, the wall collapsed as the charge detonated, sending pieces of shattered brick flying everywhere [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]