‘Very well.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You should get there and back including a search within a couple of hours, three at most. We’ll have a catch-up then. Murria will have sweated something out of Celanthus by then and the search teams should have finished. Even the custodes might have something to report if they’ve shifted their arses sufficiently.’
18
It was freezing, but at least the snow had stopped and the road had cleared into two sets of grey lines in the white landscape. We were only two weeks from Saturnalia and then the solstice. As my breath plumed in the sub-zero temperature, I prayed we wouldn’t have an even worse January.
I spotted Daniel’s long wheelbase parked under trees some twenty-five metres away from the entrance to Dubnus’s mother’s place.
‘Morning,’ Daniel said, pulled off his helmet and kissed me on both cheeks. Somebody gave a low whistle, abruptly cut off. It didn’t mean anything. Daniel was one of my closest comrades-in-arms.
‘Any sign of activity?’ I asked.
‘None, but I sent a scout forward and she saw a light on in one of the tower rooms.’
‘Okay. What do we know about the mother?’
‘Malendra Dubna, works in Aquae Caesaris, manager in a scientific consultancy, unlikely present. No partner. Subject’s father, Gnaeus Varus, lives in the city, unlikely present.’ Daniel closed his notepad.
‘You happy to take the back?’
He nodded and tabbed off down the road with four of his team. I’d brought Atria and Livius, my two best optiones after Flavius. We’d give Daniel five minutes to get into position.
‘Have you seen Flavius this morning?’ I said to Atria and Livius while we waited, trying to avoid the icy drips from the trees.
‘He had a good night and was going to the physio today,’ Atria answered. He’s furious about missing all the fun.’ She grinned. Livius dug her in the ribs and smiled back at her. A ping in my ear. Daniel was in position.
‘Right, let’s go put an end to Dubnus’s own fun. If he’s here.’
A short driveway led to a single-level extended farmhouse which had at least one wing going back at ninety degrees. On the front, at the other end, a large round tower, older than the rest of the building judging by its cruder stonework. No light from any of its small windows and none from the main building. We huddled in the shrubs waiting for any reaction.
‘Aquila Zero to Aquila One. Anything?’ I whispered.
‘Negative,’ replied Daniel.
‘Proceeding into main building. Meet you there. Out.’
I took a good breath, flicked my fingers at the other two and we ran for the wall by the main door. Atria hovered by the hinge, Livius by the door edge, me behind him. I nodded and he stepped back, raised his booted foot and rammed it against the lock. The door quivered but didn’t give. He unslung a nylon bag, fished out a short metal tube the size of a forearm, flipped the handles up and rammed the lock. We were in.
We panned around the open-plan area, our weapons ready. With my fingers, I signalled Livius left and Atria right. I went straight through to the kitchen area and the half-glazed back door. I couldn’t see anybody outside.
‘Aquila Zero, suggest you come here.’ Livius’s voice in my ear. I trotted through the sitting area to a small hallway with a convex exposed stone wall – the tower. In the middle was a solid metal door.
‘Merda,’ I said. ‘Can you open it?’
‘It looks solid, but I can try round the latch area,’ Livius said. ‘Sometimes the frame can be weak as well. Stand back, ma’am.’
He swung the door ram with maximum force, but it just made a dent. Livius dropped the ram, ripped his gloves off and rubbed his hands.
‘Merda, that’s hard.’ He examined the lock area. ‘That’s been reinforced to bank standards. I bet that’s a solid door, not just the usual hollow one. We need a specialist.’
‘Call one stat.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Atria letting Daniel in through the now unlocked back door.
‘Problem?’
‘Yeah, short of blowing it up completely, we can’t access this tower.’
‘Well, there might be another way in. Fancy a climb?’
It was lower than the inner courtyard wall of the old fortress building we’d raced up only three weeks before, and rougher built so had many more foot- and handholds. Just under the eaves of a slate roof was a window with a wooden balcony. Our target. I doubted that Conrad would object to us scaling this wall. We were climbing in light battle dress but I abandoned my weapons other than my faithful Glock and my knives. It was easy-going until the first bullet flew past my eye.
‘Covering fire,’ I shrieked as I scuttled sideways. I looked down. The troops on the ground ran for shelter into the shrubs then sent off rounds in the direction of the window. A few more metres and we were under the wooden balcony under the window which followed the curve of the tower. I tugged on the wood with my gloved hand and part of the balcony floor came away easily enough. Rotted through. Damn. I watched as the piece dived to the ground.
I climbed higher so I was level with the balcony rail and put my foot on it, tentatively at first, gradually shifting more of my weight onto it. It held. I closed my eyes for an instant in relief. Both Daniel and I were sheltered by the curve of the tower, but the moment we got to that window, whoever was in the tower would see us and shoot us.
The covering fire was less frequent, but more precise. That had to be Livius. He was aiming at the crosspieces on the window to weaken them. If that glass was toughened or armoured, we’d be stuffed.
A volley from below. I pointed to myself with one finger, to Daniel standing on the opposite rail with two. I whispered into my comms set.
‘Let’s do it.’
I grasped my Glock in my right hand, pulled my half visor down to protect my face and threw myself through that window left shoulder first. The glass exploded. The crash of it nearly deafened me. Daniel thumped in after me. Glock ready, crouching, I was catching my breath, but nobody was there. An old-fashioned rifle lay on the floor. The door was ajar.
Advancing cautiously, Daniel went through. I was right behind him but I didn’t see the iron bar swish through the air and thump Daniel on his helmet until too late. He dropped like a bag of grain and fell, bumping down a spiral staircase.
I shrank back into the little room. Two options: wait for reinforcements or try to reason with whoever was wielding that iron bar. Neither appealed so I took the third option and launched myself straight through the door at the iron bar wielder.
Dubnus. Of course.
He fell back onto the stairs, arms and legs akimbo. The iron bar clattered down the stairs past Daniel’s slumped body, glancing off it and disappearing. I swung my head back just in time to see Dubnus spring up and come at me. I stepped back, tripped, forgetting there was a step up, and recovered by rolling back into the room. My elbow cracked on the hard floor and the Glock fell from my nerveless fingers.
Merda.
Dubnus swooped on it. He thrust the barrel into my face. I froze.
‘Not so clever after all,’ he said. His voice was triumphant.
I said nothing. No way was I going to rise to that.
‘Can’t hack it when it comes to it, then?’
‘We’re not finished yet,’ I replied.
‘Even you aren’t dim enough to think your friends will get through that door for days. I should have finished you and Flavius in Montreal when we knocked that girl over in the metro station. But you didn’t show up and we didn’t have time to hang around.’
‘What do you want, Dubnus?’
‘A safe passage out of here, then out of Roma Nova.’
I actually laughed. ‘You have to be joking. ’
‘I don’t think so. I’ve got enough stashed away abroad to live very nicely.’
‘They’d come after you. But you know the rules – no hostages, so you can kiss your ass for that way out.’
‘Y
ou think they’re going to let me harm their little princess? Mitelus? Your grandmother the senator? The imperatrix?’
I strained not to blink. No, they must not deal with this heap of shit. But I had to stall him for a few more life minutes.
‘Tell me something, Dubnus, why do you hate me so much?’
‘You haven’t worked it out, have you?’
‘No, I’m too dim, as you said.’
‘You took my job.’
‘What?’
‘You sailed into it after your escapade on that mountainside shooting at a few poor sods doing their time in Truscium.’
‘They were breaking out of prison and their leader was a vicious murderer.’
My half-brother, Jeffrey Renschman, who had wanted to destroy me to take our father’s money.
Dubnus whacked my forehead with the pistol butt. Dazed for a moment, I shook my head.
‘I was in for that officer vacancy when, thanks to you, Robbia was chucked out,’ he continued. ‘But you parachuted into it from being a scarab. You hadn’t slogged your way up for five years. My cousin Vara said that job was mine, then there you were, Little Miss Privilege. I nearly got you on that rope bridge.’
His eyes glittered.
‘Well, I’m not going to miss this time.’
I flinched and put my left hand up as if to ward him off. He took aim. He could hardly miss at this range. Gods. In a nanosecond, I snatched my carbon knife from my back waist holster and hurled it at him. He shrieked as the knife embedded itself in the back of his right hand. I flung myself flat on the floor as the Glock fired.
He writhed on the floor, the fingers of his left hand clawing at the knife and eyes streaming. Jumping up, I recovered my pistol from where it had fallen out of Dubnus’s hand. He was attempting to struggle up, so I drove my fist down onto his nose. Bones crunched. He screamed and clutched his face with his good hand. I pulled my knife out of his right hand. He thrust it into his opposite armpit and rocked from side to side.
‘Turn over,’ I shouted at him. He stared up at me with hatred in his eyes. I stuck my pistol in his face. He released his hand and tensed. ‘Don’t even think about it, Dubnus. You nearly tipped me off that rope bridge to my death in the valley below, you’ve beaten and injured my colleagues, you’ve framed an innocent woman and conspired against Roma Nova. One hint of a wrong move and I’ll shoot you like the pig you are. Or I could watch you bleed to death from that knife wound.’
Although his hand and face were covered in blood, and probably hurting like Hades, he wasn’t in any real danger. A few moments ticked by. He slumped. I holstered my weapon and turned him over with my foot. I knelt and cuffed him, then grabbed a field dressing from my sleeve and bound it tight over a pressure pad round his hand. The bleeding had slowed, but I didn’t want the medics giving me a hard time.
A groan behind me. I craned my neck round the curve of the spiral staircase. Daniel was sitting up, struggling with his helmet strap.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Oh, a little tap with a toy stick,’ I said and grinned at him. He stuck his tongue out at me, then grinned back. I studied his face. He looked okay, but paler than usual. I’d make sure he went for an X-ray all the same. Dubnus had really thumped him hard.
A ping in my ear.
‘Aquila Two. Everything good in there, Aquila Zero?’ Livius.
‘Affirmative. One casualty, slight bleeding, one military mild concussion. Both for evac. Looking for the key. Back soon. Out.’
* * *
It was ridiculously easy. I rifled through Dubnus’s pockets, avoiding his feeble attempts to kick me. Nothing. But as I stood up, I spotted a row of hooks above the desk and there was the key dangling directly in my sight line. Telling Daniel to watch Dubnus, I trotted down the spiral stairs to the beaten earth ground floor.
‘Stand back from the door, Aquila Two,’ I ordered Livius via my mouth mic. I inserted the key, turned it three times, seized the handle, depressed it and opened it to a group of astonished faces. A civilian kneeling with a drill in his hands gaped at me. ‘Oh, have I spoilt your fun?’ I said.
Livius chuckled and gave me a hearty tap on my outer upper arm. He took a step back and let the medical team through.
19
‘It was about a job?’ Conrad sounded incredulous.
‘I had the impression it was boiling for some time. He missed out twice on promotions, but scraped through on his senior’s recommendation each time. Guess who? And he had the nerve to say I was advancing through privilege!’ I glanced at Conrad. ‘I’m not, am I?’
It gnawed away at me when I was tired and sensitive to pointed remarks about the unit commander being my contracted partner.
‘No, not at all. If anything, I’m a little harder on you. That’s why you and Daniel ended up in the cells for a week for disobeying standing orders about that damned wall.’
Which was now fenced off.
* * *
The justice minister’s trial was short but sensational. Vara’s file was solid and the imperial accusatrix was suitably unctuous as she asked the court for the maximum penalty.
Nonna didn’t comment much about it. I guess having such a key member of the government go down for corruption hit them all. Dubnus’s hearing was mercifully a court martial, press excluded. Vibiana was composed as she answered questions about her deposition, but as she left the room, she looked at me and frowned. No change there. All the charges against her were deleted. Lurio didn’t make any comment when he confirmed it had been done. I was still sore at him for not telling me about the justice minister gagging him.
Conrad wouldn’t tell me much about his brief interview with Vara afterwards, but he didn’t think she’d be much longer in post. Apparently, she’d made him swear again that all documents had been destroyed and all recordings deleted. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Fausta still had copies.
I went home the evening after Dubnus’s court martial, tired into my bones. At the supper table, we talked about nothing in particular, but just as the meat was served, a wave of nausea ran up my throat and I just made it to the bathroom.
* * *
‘You not only climbed that bloody wall, you let me send you on a mission while you were pregnant?’
I thought he was going to explode, but he sat stone still. Nonna said nothing, but Helena took a gulp of wine and stared at me.
‘I didn’t have the faintest idea until I did a test the morning Monticola came to lunch.’ I looked into the distance, then back at my food. ‘It’s not as if I was a long way along. And I was perfectly healthy with Allegra.’
‘You’re grounded then, training and admin only.’
‘Hello, I’m pregnant, not ill.’ I glared at him. ‘And would you treat any other woman soldier differently?’ I had him there.
‘If I may?’ Nonna’s cool voice cut through the rising heat. ‘Carina is perfectly correct. She should be effective for at least another eight weeks. I went out into the field when I was pregnant both times and only stopped when I became operationally impacted.’
Conrad went to say something, but glanced at me instead, a puzzled expression on his face. Like me, he couldn’t have believed what he’d heard. Helena turned her stare from me to Nonna who was eating her food as if she hadn’t dropped a bombshell.
‘Both times, Nonna?’
‘Your mother was my only living child, but there was another who was lost in the shades before she entered the world.’
Nonna had told me about my mother’s father, her childhood, her growing up and meeting my father, although I was sure she had left a load of the grimmer details out. But who was this other baby’s father? I looked at Conrad who made a tiny shake of his head. Helena’s eyes widened and she gave a tiny shrug. I looked at Nonna, but she gave me a grave, closed look. No way was she going to tell us more. I didn’t have the nerve to push it.
She beckoned a servant and instructed her to bring some of her best Brancadorum ch
ampagne.
As the bubbles ran to the top of our glasses, mine regrettably only half filled, Nonna proposed a toast.
‘Macte to you, Carina and Conrad, for a successful mission and congratulations on the forthcoming addition to the Mitelae of Roma Nova.’
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INCEPTIO first chapters
* * *
Enjoy CARINA? Read how Karen Brown first came to be in Roma Nova and how she became Carina – the start of the adventure…
I
The boy lay in the dirt in the centre of New York’s Kew Park, blood flowing out of both his nostrils, his fine blond hair thrown out in little strands around his head. I stared at my own hand, still bunched, pain rushing to gather at the reddening knuckles. I hadn’t knocked anybody down since junior high, when Albie Jolak had tried to put his hand up my sobbing cousin’s skirt. I started to tremble. But not with fear – I was so angry.
One of the boy’s friends inched forward with a square of white cloth. He dabbed it over the fallen boy’s face, missing most of the blood. Only preppy boys carried white handkerchiefs. Aged around eighteen, nineteen, all three wore blazers and grey pants, but their eyes were bright, boiling with light, cheeks flushed. And their movements were a little too fluid. They were high. I dropped my left hand to grab my radio and called it in. Passive now, the second boy knelt by the one I’d knocked down. The third one sat on the grass and grinned like an idiot while we waited. If they attacked me again, I had my spray.
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