Read Online The Darkness of God: Book Three of the Shadow Warrior Trilogy by Chris Bunch - Free Book Online Page A

agenda.”
    “Good. At any rate, one reason I won’t talk to you about how gunnies like me were such noblemen in our youth, when the world was young and every day promised a new fool to hijack, is I got the same lecture from some other old bastard back then. I read me a little history, and found what he’d said to be complete codswallop. Goons is goons, as they say. And I suppose we all end up romanticizing the past.”
    Walsh dropped ice cubes into a glass, poured from a pitcher. “I’d dearly love to be saltin’ it back with you,” he said, letting a bit of false sentiment into his voice, “but the stomach won’t stand for it. Most of it’s synth lining, but still I’ve got to live the clean life. At least they don’t have me on pablum yet.”
    Walsh walked out of the bar-cubby down a long, high-ceilinged hall, into a drawing room with bookcases and tables holding ship and machine models. On the walls were testimonials to Walsh’s virtues. He motioned Wolfe into a large leather chair, sank into one across from him. “Admire my digs?” he asked.
    “Imposing,” Wolfe allowed.
    “Glad you didn’t say you liked this pile of rubble,” Walsh said. “Damned cold and hard to heat. You know why I choose to live here instead of somewhere comfortable?”
    “Because you want to impress the gunsels?”
    “That,” Walsh admitted. “But there’s something else. When I was a boy, my mother used to come here. At the time the place was the home of a shipbuilder. A hard, hard man named Torcelli, who’d cut his way to the top and wasn’t about to let anybody get up beside him. My mother was one of his mistresses. She brought me here twice. Torcelli saw me, and got uncomfortable about something. I’ve wondered if I’m his bastard, but I doubt it. Mother wasn’t exactly the choosiest with her attentions, and his seed would’ve been weak by then.
    “But the place took my mind, and I never let it leave me. I guess that gave me some sort of visible goal, eh? Get on top my own way, then buy this relic and restore it to prove I’m at least as good as Torcelli was. Better, since I’ve been here longer.”
    Walsh drank water. “Not that this matters,” he said. “But when you retire, or anyway step back from the day-to-day battles, you find yourself thinking back. Wondering what made you do this, do that, and what you gained or lost from it.” Walsh looked out a window. “See, over there, by the lake? My elk. There’s six of them. Had them brought in from Earth. Ungainly bastards they are, and they’re hell on my roses. I guess I’ll have a roast one of these years, eh?” He put his glass down, leveled his eyes on Wolfe. “Even though he didn’t bother to clear it with me, I can’t say I disagreed with Aurus’ wanting to kill you. You
did
put a dent in his immediate plans.”
    “A man who can’t hang on to what he has doesn’t deserve it,” Wolfe said.
    “I’ll agree with those sentiments. Ruthlessness is an imperative in my organization — and, I truly believe, in any other thriving organism. However, some feel that you’ve gone a bit far, a bit fast.”
    “I didn’t see much of anything in my way,” Wolfe said.
    “At the level you began at, that probably is true. Even Aurus had begun to slacken off lately. However, that doesn’t mean you can make that assumption about anyone and everyone.”
    “Such as you.”
    “Such as me. I may be old, but I’m still a far bigger shark than you, sonny. Don’t ever forget that an old tough is merely a tough that’s gotten old.”
    “I try not to underestimate my opponents,” Wolfe said. “Or to judge everyone as an opponent without reason.”
    Walsh waited a moment, then nodded. “You aren’t stupid,” he said. “Take a look at the walls, and tell me what you see.”
    Wolfe obeyed, walking slowly through the drawing room, examining a holo here, an old-fashioned photograph or framed tab story there. He lingered at one, which showed Walsh, not