General Trond Andersen glanced over his shoulder again and grimaced. He hadn't meant to do that. There was still only a wall there, even though Mikkel Madsen had been staring fixedly at it for over an hour. At least he'd stopped talking. After the second drink he'd started naming them and it wasn't until the fourth drink that he'd fallen silent, but Trond knew he was still seeing them: the dead of Kastrup.
Madsen was seeing the dead behind his eyes because he had an eidetic memory. Trond hadn't hired him for it, hadn't even known he had it until Madsen told him after he'd already accepted employment. Trond had hired him because he was the image of a big dumb Danish farm-boy. And he was that, all but the dumb part.
One of Trond's spies in the Danish Army had alerted him to the man months before, pointing out that he lacked the temperament for the army and was likely to get himself discharged rather soon, and so Trond had been ready when Madsen was broken down to private and ordered back to Bornholm in disgrace. Trond had rushed to the Öresund base and intercepted him three days later, ostensibly arranging for him to be sent on detached duty to the Norwegian Army. That the Norwegian Army wasn't actually aware of this arrangement was a mere detail and Trond had an unexpectedly excellent new agent.
That was four days ago. They'd come to Dalsnes to arrange a job for Madsen, and this afternoon, while they were still being tested for immunity, the word had reached Norway about the massacre at Kastrup the night before.
Trond was a spymaster and knew very well the concept of operational security, but in this the year 80 of the Rash, war among human beings was unimaginable and grosslings didn't read human dispatches. There had been no reason to conceal the disaster and the Öresund base had broadcast the word to every ship within range, not that there were many ships within range, for the static that blanketed the airwaves made it hard to punch a signal through very far. Still, those ships had spread the word to more ships and so it had come to Dalsnes.
The server, Elin, came over with her flask and glanced at Trond enquiringly. At his nod, she refilled the glass in Madsen's left hand. Trond owned this inn, and everyone who worked in it was his agent. When he brought in a man and signaled that he meant to drink the man under the table, they ensured that his drinks were watered and the victim's drinks were full-strength.
In this case the subterfuge hadn't been necessary after the second drink, when Madsen stopped seeing the world around him, and possibly hadn't been necessary from the beginning. The man had scarcely glanced at Trond after they sat down. Madsen was a big man and a soldier, and it was taking a lot to knock him out. Still, Trond thought, looking at his unfocused eyes, he'd be out soon.
Madsen lifted the glass towards his mouth but his grip was too loose and he dropped it in his lap. That drew him back to reality, somewhat, and he blinked owlishly at his hand and then his lap. Good enough, Trond thought, and signalled the bouncers. They were big men, as big as Madsen himself, and they expertly pulled the man from his seat and held him up. “Where do you want him, sir?” Trond hadn't been able to break them of the habit of sirring him.
“Put him in the storeroom.” There was a cot in the storeroom for times when the whole inn was full. It wasn't now, but the storeroom was downstairs and the guest rooms were upstairs. No need to have Madsen dragged up a flight of stairs, and there was nothing in the storeroom but a cot and lot of barrels; he couldn't do much more dangerous in there than fall out of bed. The two hauled the man away.
“Tucked up proper, sir,” one bouncer — that was Adrian — soon reported, almost saluting but not quite. The other bouncer, Elias, had seated himself with his back to the door. Even if he woke up, Madsen wasn't going anywhere.
Trond nodded at Adrian, sat back and sipped his watered drink. His agents had assumed he was drinking with the man in order to question him; he'd better be careful or they might get the impression that he had a heart. Of course his only motive had been to hold on to a good new asset.
When the blood tests were done and they were allowed to enter Dalsnes itself, the town was buzzing with shock and horror at the news: the Danish Army at Kastrup had been wiped out with no survivors. Madsen, then, was quite possibly the last person to leave Kastrup alive, and Trond saw that realization hit his agent like a sledgehammer. The big Dane set off by himself, shouldering past the man who'd told him.
Trond followed. “Looking for an inn?”
Madsen took a moment to realize he was being addressed, looked at his employer as if he'd never seen him before. “Yeah.”
“I know a good one. Let's go there.” Trond strode off and Madsen followed for lack of a better idea. Trond didn't intend to let his agent wander around Dalsnes alone. The inns served the sailors and were right by the water; he would not be the first drunk nor the last to fall in.
Trond sipped his drink and thought about victories and defeats in the long war against the Rash. So many of his comrades had died. Never hundreds at once, not like Kastrup, but hundreds over the years. He'd gone on. Madsen would go on. There was nothing else he could do. There was nothing else any of them could do.
Trond finished his drink and went upstairs to his quarters. There was a thud during the night, but it was only Madsen falling out of bed.