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Joseph’s head was hot. From anger. Sheer, unadulterated anger. This was not a new sensation for him, but the intensity was new. There would be hell to pay, starting with the GSS agents who dared to touch his wife. Then their field leaders. Then the Agent-in-Charge.
He continued to make a mental list of everybody in the GSS chain of command. Making lists was not his favorite occupation, but it was something he was good at. It was a way to occupy the time as he sat, bound to his chair.
He paused creating his list. He had made it up to the bureau agent in charge of human resources for hiring the people who commanded the people who would’ve dared to touch his wife. It wasn’t complete but he felt he had enough to begin the work once he got out of this room.
The rest of the list could keep until he could assess Rose’s condition. Then the list might need to be amended.
Which led him to consider the next problem—how to get out of the room. His hands were bound to the chair at the wrist. He tried them. There was no give. Good black steel fiber cords. A common First Age artifact frequently turned up in the vault cities by the Church reclamation teams. Stronger than hemp and far more difficult to cut. It couldn’t be made given the current state of industry, but there was a ready supply available through the Church.
His heat was falling. He felt his blood cooling, as his focus narrowed. Good. That meant his thoughts would become clearer, more precise. Precision and attention to detail were just what he needed now. Vengeance was something he could indulge in later.
His chair was metal, but it wasn’t bolted to the floor. This was an excellent development. He could lunge at an interrogator. If he moved…just so, he could use the chair legs to trip an enemy and then pivot and take out the person by dropping the back chair leg on their head or chest. He’d have to make sure he clearly aimed the chair leg. Getting the chair stuck in a body would not be an outcome that would advance the operation.
The only other furniture in the room was a second chair and a smooth metal table. He couldn’t see much of the chair he was in, but it felt like it was the same as the one he could see. No windows and one door with a sliding opening that was currently shut.
He’d had a hood on when they took him from the church campus. So where was he now? The walls were First Age concrete blocks. That meant money. They were nearly impossible to scavenge from vault cities, and the Church sold them dearly. Fewer still were the masons who knew how to work with First Age materials and make them look this smooth.
Government, then, without a doubt. The Granblue Royal Security Service headquarters in Durleigh, probably.
Taking him to their main campus in the capital of Granblue? Political suicide. What was Caedmon thinking? Did he want the Church to excommunicate him and remove him from the throne? The man he knew and trained was not that stupid or desperate.
But GSS agents trespassing on ecclesiastical grounds was the most serious of incursions. There was no way the King of Granblue didn’t know or authorize that. The Church didn’t care what the nations of the world did as long as they kept the technological proscriptions and stayed off its property when they got up to mischief. It might be as corrupt as the nations it policed, but the Curia preferred its corruption kept apart from that of the world.
Too much he didn’t know. Too many variables that could interfere with his objectives. He didn’t like it, but he, and his list, would have to wait. Until someone came into the room. Someone Joseph would interrogate. Someone who would pay for the delay.
He sat back in the chair. Ten months ago, things had been so clear. His biggest worry had been keeping the herd on the north range from getting thin. That, and making sure the hands didn’t go wild if they had a barbecue to celebrate their hard work.
Right now he had time. Maybe he should go over exactly what had happened since Rose got that stable-mucking telegram. He could almost hear her stopping him — “Language, Joseph” — in mid-curse.
February second. That was the last good day he’d had this year.
Next week on Blood & Iron:
Chapter 5—She’s Coming
They chose a quiet life and called it redemption.
Then a single name unsettles the peace they fought to keep.
And she chooses anyway.
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Now THAT's a hero in a tough spot... 😬💦