The Last Campaign (The Near-Earth Mysteries)

by Martin L Shoemaker

  When I had worked my way through a crowd of onlookers, I saw what had them all so interested: a face-off with Nick on one side, and Vile and Ammon on the other. Vile had more than a head of height advantage over Nick, and she was more muscular to boot, but I had no doubt who would win in a fight. Nick had years more practice on her, and he fought dirty.

  I cut my way through the crowd. “Excuse me, this is police business. Excuse me, excuse me.” Once I got up to the confrontation, I said, “All right, break it up. Public Safety does not need whatever is going on here.”

  Nick said, “Rosie, I have to—”

  “It is Ms. Morais, Founder, and you have been told to move along.”

  “Oh, give me—”

  “You have been told to move along. Come with me, sir!” I grabbed Nick’s arm and pulled him away, and I found a maintenance shaft down to the next level. My police chief’s credentials opened the shaft. “Get down there, Nick, right now,” I said, “before I stuff you in there myself.” He climbed into the shaft, and I climbed down behind him, sealing it above me. “Over to the left.” I pointed to the maintenance access for the space that ran between the levels. “Nick,” I said, but he interrupted me.

  “Rosie, I—”

  I interrupted him in turn. “You ‘Rosie’ me one more time on duty, and I will have you thrown into the brig!”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Morais,” he said, dripping sarcasm.

  “And do not pull that on me either. The condescension is no better. I am on duty as police chief, and I have a responsibility, and I cannot have you undermining it.”

  Nick opened his mouth to say something more, but then he stopped. He thought better of it, I hoped, and then he tried again in a lower, more relaxed tone. “I’m sorry, Ms. Morais, but I need to get in there. Public Safety is destroying all the evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  “This fire was not an accident, I’m sure of it.”

  “How so?” I could not help myself. I wanted to know the truth as much as he did, no matter how angry I was.

  “That fire is in MMC, Martian Machine Co-Op. They’re a group of specialists who pooled their funds for tools, so that they could bid on bigger machining jobs and share the work back and forth. Lately São Paulo Mutual says there has been an unusually high rate of industrial accidents in there. They can’t pin it down, but they’re sure somebody in the co-op has been having a severe run of bad luck—too much to be random.”

  “So you think this fire was staged?”

  “I’m not guessing—”

  I cut him off. “You’re investigating, I know. But that is what you are thinking.”

  “If it is, they’ve escalated. Everything up to now has been small claims of broken equipment, lost time, personal injury; and they kept it very close to the edge of plausible, so São Paulo had nothing the computers would flag as a problem. But their human auditors grew suspicious, and they asked me to take a look.”

  “I thought you were planning the survival school?”

  “Let’s not talk about that right now. This is more important.” I could tell from his look and his tone that he had something to say about the school, but I did not push it.

  “Look,” I said, “we need to worry about safety first. We cannot have you in there while DPS is still securing the place.”

  “They can loan me a hazmat suit, and I can go in and be just as safe as them.”

  I shook my head. “You know better. They have insurance risks to worry about, too, and you are not covered on-site, hazmat suit or no.”

  “But damn it, ma’am, they’re spraying fire foam! They’re evacuating the place, tromping all around, dragging hoses around. Is there anyone on that team who has ever even investigated an arson?”

  There was not, I had to admit, so I shook my head. But then I said, “Nick, that is not part of my responsibility. First I have to worry about the safety of the city. Second, I have to worry about the safety of anyone caught in the fire. Third, I have to worry about the safety of Public Safety personnel. Fourth, I have to worry about civilians in the area, you included. Preserving evidence is way down the list on my priorities.”

  “I thought you were the police chief,” he said. “Chiefs investigate.”

  “Chiefs protect and serve. Protect is first.”

  Nick looked at me for several seconds. “I’m not going to change your mind on this, am I?”

  “No, Nick, I am sorry.”

  “All right,” he said, “But as soon as they’re done, I want access to that site.”

  “Space it, you are not giving orders here.”

  “All right, Ms. Morais, I request access to the MMC facilities as soon as I may safely be allowed.”

  “I will consider it, as soon as the site is declared safe, and my people have performed whatever investigations we need.” I tried to smile. “Since a reliable source tells me this might be a crime scene.”

  Nick looked at me. He does not smile easily, and he did not even try, but at least his tone was conciliatory. “Could that reliable source assist in the investigation?”

  I did not want to cause trouble with Nick. “I think he can accompany the investigation if he keeps within his boundaries. I do have some pull with the mayor’s office for that.”

  It took more than two hours for the head of Public Safety, Harrison Wright, to declare the MMC complex safe and the fire contained. City planners and civilian architects tried to reduce the amount of flammables in a Martian city—generations later, everyone in space still knew the legends of the Apollo 1 fire—but it was simply not practical. Virtually everything is flammable under the right conditions. And too many compromises had to be made, so fire was always a concern. A city carved in rock did not have to worry about buildings burning down, but the contents could be extremely flammable.

  When Wright finally gave me the okay to investigate, Nick was standing at my shoulder, practically bouncing with energy to get in. We followed the DPS inspectors in. The MMC facility was three levels of mills and lathes and assembly lines and stereoliths and other equipment, rising through the maintenance space between levels and up to city level 2. Wright gave us a walkthrough of what his team had found so far.

  “It looks like the ignition started here,” he said, “in this waste bin. Paper and film used to wrap raw materials during shipping. It looks like from there, hot gas escaped upward.” We had started at the MMC office, where the different partners in the co-op met and organized. “From there, hot gases, not quite incandescent, boiled up above. They pooled under some flooring.” He pointed up to where the flooring had burned through. “It’s just grid flooring with a carpet laid down for appearance, and the carpet went up. And that spread rapidly throughout that floor, then bits of hot carpet dropped back down. And after that, it was a mess.”

  Nick looked at the carpet underneath our feet. “This is pretty burned too. No one was in here to notice any of this?”

  I glared at Nick. I did not want to chew him out now, but later . . .

  Wright answered, “Founder, there has been a slowdown and a lot of the partners were off doing other work. So the whole facility had been shut down for maintenance. We’re thinking maybe some part of that caused a spark in the first place.”

  Nick shook his head. “You’re reading the fire wrong.”

  “What?”

  “The carpet up there is the same as down here, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Up there, quick, hot ignition went through and just gobbled up carpet. Dripping pieces came down here.” Nick pointed around. “Right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But look at the carpet here. It’s barely singed.” Nick pointed at the ground. “It’s in a small area, almost like a path. And if you look closely, you can see the direction of propagation is toward the waste bin, not away.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  Nick frowned. “Thirty years of investigating fires, Wright. Trust me, that fire came from those offices ove
r there.”

  “We haven’t even been in there yet,” Wright said. “The offices were sealed, and there are no working cameras in there.”

  “That’s suspicious,” Nick replied. “Wright, get your people to check the offices. Rosie, I told you we needed those hazmat suits. All right, everybody who’s not in a suit, back away!” Nick looked around. “Let’s get over into that testing chamber! Move, move, move! You too, Wright. When your people crack that office, I don’t want anybody outside without a suit. Tell them to be ready, it might still be hot.”

  “Do it,” I said.

  So we all crowded in the testing chamber, Nick sealed the door, and Wright’s people opened the office door. When they did, a big flash of light blinded us through the testing lab window. Wright’s team were ready, quickly doing fire suppression and putting the flames out.

  “How’d you know?” Wright said.

  Nick answered, “I was pretty sure that something had burned in there; and what’s left would be hot, pressurized gas without enough oxygen to ignite. When you opened it, poof. Someone lit a fire in there and sealed it up to make sure it did its job. In the meantime, they lit the rest of the fire to cover things up.”

  “You can’t know that,” Wright said.

  “I can’t, but that’s where we’ll start investigating.”

  “No, Nick,” I said. “That is where I shall start investigating. You are here as a courtesy, remember.”

  “Yes, Ms. Morais,” he said. “But the office should be clear now. We should go look in there.”

  I glared at Nick, opened the test lab door, and went out. We looked in the office. It was a mess, but I had seen enough fire investigations myself to know that Nick was right. The quick flash we had seen had been a secondary ignition. Everything in the office had burned pretty badly before then. Including the corpse we found.

  12. THE CRIME SCENE

  “So it was arson?” Anthony looked at Nick as he asked the question, and I bit back my urge to shout.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “Indicators are that it is arson, and your police force is investigating it.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Anthony said. The three of us sat in his office, looking out over the surface of Mars. “You’re right. Still, I’m happy that you have expert civilian assistance.”

  What could I say? That I did not need any help? That I would turn down an expert? A founder? Even here in private, just the three of us, that was the wrong thing to say. “I will take any assistance we can find, Mr. Mayor.”

  “I’m happy to hear it,” Anthony said. “Arson makes that death murder. That’s two in three months here in Maxwell City, plus the accidental deaths from the poisoning incident. That’s more than we’ve had in almost the past decade. Tara Rockford is already having a field day with this; and her interview with Grace, it was brutal. Do we know who the victim was?”

  I checked my comp. “No reports from the lab yet, Anthony.”

  “Tell them to run a DNA test for Manuel Ramos,” Nick said.

  “Ramos?” Anthony said. “He was the organizer of the co-op, right?”

  “Yes, and he pretty much ran the place, and he worked in that office. He’d be the first one to test. If it’s not him, then we can go through the others; but I’ve been looking for Ramos as part of my investigation, and he’s proving difficult to find, so . . .”

  “So that is a pretty good first place to check,” I agreed, trying to ignore Nick’s trampling in my area.

  Anthony was confused, but I knew things he did not. He looked at Nick and asked, “Your investigation? What investigation is that?”

  So Nick explained about the high rate of insurance claims.

  “Really?” Anthony said. “It does sound connected. All right, ma’am, you need to start digging into Ramos and that side of things. Nick, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside from it for now.”

  “What?” Nick asked.

  “This is now an active police investigation. You’re familiar with the rules regarding that. You need to give Rosie”—he caught himself—“Ms. Morais and her people room to work. So any questioning you’re going to do, any investigation, you’re going to have to clear it with her. Stay out of her way, and anything you find you report to her.”

  Nick did not look at me, keeping his eyes on Anthony as he answered, “Yes, Mr. Mayor.”

  “All right. Ma’am, I guess this is where your career really takes off,” Anthony said. “Find out what’s happening, please. We need to shut this down fast.”

  “Yes, Mr. Mayor.”

  Nick and I got up and left. We got in the elevator to go down into the main city, but I stopped it at the first floor.

  “Come with me,” I said. “We need to talk. Alone.” Before he could raise an objection, I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him over to the small municipal garage next door to Admin. I went up to the dispatch desk. “We are signing out a crawler,” I said.

  “You don’t have suits,” the clerk behind the desk answered.

  “A short trip. My responsibility. Do it.” He looked like he was about to object again. I just stared at him. “Do it.”

  He got us the crawler. We climbed in, waited for the garage lock to cycle, and drove out onto the Martian surface. As soon as we cleared the driveway area, I stopped the crawler, shut down the comps, and turned to Nick, my face feeling hot. “Stop it, Nick,” I said.

  “I don’t—”

  “Stop it! You know damn well what I am talking about.”

  “Rosie, I was just trying to help.”

  “You were not. You were trying to run things. You were trying to take charge just like you always do. Apparently I was not clear enough before. You are a damn good investigator, Nicolau Aames, but I am better. And this is my responsibility and my case.”

  “It’s a big enough case that it needs both of us.”

  “It does, but I am the one who has to direct it. You would never have put up with this on your ship. You shot down admirals who tried to usurp your command.”

  “And we see how that turned out for me.”

  “It turned out exactly the way you planned it, so do not give me that bullshit. You heard what Anthony suggested. If you are going to go out and investigate this, and I know I cannot stop you, you are going to keep me in the loop for everything. You are not going to keep any secrets. You are not going to follow up on any special leads that you tell me about later. You shall tell me about it as it happens, or you can go back and work on survival school . . . which is what I thought you were doing in the first place. What is up with that?”

  “What’s up with that,” Nick answered very coldly, “is that I’ve gone as far as I can by myself. This was supposed to be an us project, not a me project, and it’s not safe for me to take the next steps without a partner. My partner has gone and gotten herself another job.”

  “That was not my choice. Anthony needed me. Maxwell City needs me.”

  “You always had a choice,” Nick said.

  “You are saying I made the wrong one?”

  “No, damn it. I’m saying that the one you made has consequences. The choice you made has costs, and our survival school is one of them. That was a wonderful dream. I was looking forward to it. And now . . . ?”

  Nick did not answer his implied question, and I did not have an answer either. We just stared at each other.

  Finally I looked away. “And now I have a job to do. A murder to solve. We shall talk about this later.” I turned the crawler around and took us back into Maxwell City.

  The next day, I burrowed into the MMC investigation. As angry as I was at Nick, I also knew he knew his job. And that was only confirmed when Marcus’s report came in: the burned corpse was Manuel Ramos.

  Anthony had hired a science team, and he told me to walk them through the basics of arson investigation. I was surprised how ill-prepared Maxwell City was for the level of crime that we actually experienced. There had never been arson here before that we knew of; but without
investigators, how could you really tell? We needed chemists to analyze traces from all the surfaces from the fire. A number of labs in the city could do the testing, but they needed to gather the evidence according to proper forensic procedure.

  We had never had a forensics department before. Marcus’s position as coroner was as close as we came; but until recently, his work had been more administration than investigation. It was time to change that, and it was my reluctant duty to instruct him.

  I arrived at the entrance to MMC. It was a completely different scene from the day before: no crowds, and no Nick. But one thing was the same. “Hello, Lieutenant Vile.”

  “Hello, Ms. Morais.” Vile pointed at the patrol officer blocking the door behind her. “Lawson and I have the door here covered. The other doors are bolted, as per your orders.”

  “Good work, Vile. How are the electronic screens?”

  Vile tapped her comp. “All probes negative. Nothing’s getting in.”

  I almost smiled at her naivete. A skilled hacker could bypass any screen, given time. But ours were pretty good, certified for forensic containment.

  I looked around. “Any sign of the examiner and his team?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet.” So I waited, trying to calm my nerves. Punctuality had never been one of Marcus’s strong points.

  A few minutes later, Marcus walked up, followed by the lab technicians Anthony had contracted: a digital specialist, a videographer, a chemist, an engineer, and a field investigator. An inspector from Public Safety joined them.

  “Ms. Morais,” Marcus said, extending his hand.

  “Dr. Costello,” I said, shaking his hand as I nodded to the technicians. “It is good to see you.” It was a polite lie: it was good to see him, a brief flare of nostalgia; but at the same time it was uncomfortable after the way things had ended between us.