by John Appel
She jabbed her finger at Teng’s chest again. “I don’t care how you do it, what pretext you come up with, or whose desk you have to prostrate yourself in front of, make it happen. Get her off my station.”
She gave him credit; it took a full thirty seconds before he broke. “I’ll have to clear it with my superiors,” he said.
“You can inform your superiors. Do not mistake this for a suggestion, or a negotiation.” He nodded, looking unhappy. “But first you’re going to turn the suspects you swept off to God knows where over to Constabulary custody.” Yanking criminals out of the corridors and hiding them from her on her station, probably in the military installation in the hub, was too brazen an act to let stand.
The captain started to open his mouth to object but she rolled right over him again. “I’ve got the attack on video record, and goddammit, I have jurisdiction here. My people need to be the ones interrogating them so that evidence can be put in front of the magistrates.”
His resolve collapsed. “I’ll make the necessary calls,” he said.
“You have two hours,” she snapped. “You will coordinate with Detective Sergeant Imoke for the custody transfer. Sergeant?” Imoke stood to attention. “You will escort the captain to a place from which he can contact whomever he needs to and remain with him until it is accomplished. M. Valverdes or Lieutenant Zheng will see to any support you require.”
Imoke nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And if it isn’t done in two hours,” she said, eyes fixed on Teng, “you will arrest the captain for obstruction of justice and lock his ass in a shielded cell.”
Imoke grinned and gave her an informal salute, two fingers to his right brow. “Yes, boss.”
Teng bristled. “You’re overreaching, Commissioner,” he snapped.
“Maybe,” she said, without moving. “But your superiors don’t like to operate in the light. The media is already carrying stories about the brawls in the corridors, and rumors are already flying about the intrusion into the service passage being attempted sabotage. If word were to get out that this was a flubbed intelligence operation? Worse, if this jeopardizes the referendum?” She gave an elegant shrug. “The person on the scene and all that. Sacrifices have to be made sometimes, and we know who’ll be the one on the pyre.”
They glared at each other for a full ten seconds before he finally gave in. “Very well. I’ll make the arrangements. But with your permission, I’ll deal with Ogawa in the morning. Her injuries will keep her out of trouble until then. The Commonwealth people have taken her to the Consulate for the night to complete her recovery.”
She considered that, then nodded. “That’s acceptable. Meanwhile, you and the Detective Sergeant can sort the matter of the prisoners out.” She turned to Imoke. “And I expect you to get some rest once the prisoner transfer is complete.”
Imoke cocked his head before responding. “I’d like to defer my rest period until after Saed Tahir’s funeral,” he said.
Oh, right. “Of course, Sergeant, that was thoughtless of me. I’d forgotten you knew M. Tahir. I will see you there, then.”
Imoke saluted again. “Yes, boss.” He took Teng by the elbow and escorted the spy from the room. Toiwa followed them out and turned for her office.
She was halfway there before it hit her. That’s the first time one of the old hands has called me ‘boss’. The epithet was a mark of respect from subordinate to superior among the Constabulary, of respect that had been earned, not simply respect for one’s position.
Well, it’s a start.
CHAPTER NINE
Meiko
Commonwealth Consulate,
Ileri Station, South Ring
Meiko woke in dim light, feeling warm and soft. She felt soft, warm air around her face and bare forearms, with a soft, warm blanket tucked round her body.
On the upside, she had experience with waking up in a treatment bed without precise memories of how she’d arrived there, or why. The downside, of course, was not knowing whether she was in friendly hands or not, and just what they were pumping into her. She felt no pain. That was good, although given the cast on her left arm and the fact she’d been hit with a shock palm—she remembered that much—she suspected that she ought to feel something.
Alone, maybe? Monitored? Definitely. She took a few slow, deep breaths to clear her lungs and help center herself, then opened her eyes to take stock of her situation.
She looked right and discovered an IV line attached to her hand. She traced the line as it snaked up her arm into the bag hanging next to her bed and read the AR tags identifying it as a standard mix of painkillers and nanosurgeon nutrient solution. Wait, I can read the AR tags? She glanced down at her left wrist, looking for the djinn which had to be somewhere on her body if she could access augmented reality, then realized it was snugged around her right arm with the IV line running over it in blatant disregard for standard medical procedure. She relaxed. Only friendlies would let her keep her djinn. But which friendlies?
She blinked rapidly three times and her ocular implants switched from passive to interactive mode. The first thing she checked was her location and discovered to her surprise that she was in the consulate’s infirmary.
That was either very good or very bad, but it was certainly better than ‘abducted by unknown assailants on foreign territory,’ which had seemed likely when she was being pummeled by anonymous goons.
The door opened and a stocky, forty-something enbee with long frizzy hair, wearing a medical robe and brandishing a diagnostic wand, sauntered in. “Good evening, citizen,” ze said, and busied zerself with the diagnostic wand. “I’m Doctor Tran. Lie still, please.” Diagnostic scans and their interpretation occupied the next few minutes, followed by a brief rundown of Meiko’s injuries and prognosis. Doctor Tran ticked off the issues one by one. “The arm is the worst. You’ll need to keep the cast on for twenty-four hours, and keep your arm in a sling, while the nanosurgeons finish with the forearm fracture and the torn deltoid. The ribs aren’t too bad, just bruised. Those and the intercostal muscle damage from the shock palm should be all right by morning.”
Meiko nodded. “Thank you. I’m familiar with the recovery regimen.”
Tran snorted. “I should think so. Your medical records are... illustrative.” Ze peered down zer nose at Meiko. “Your musculature is overall in good condition, but you’ve been in microgravity for a long while, and at your age it’s going to take you a bit longer to recover than you may be used to.”
“Hmm.”
“Light activity for two days. Local days, so fifty-four hours,” Tran said in what Meiko thought of as ‘Medical Imperative’ voice. “Your file says you’re a capoeirista?”
“That’s my primary discipline. I train in some others.”
“No weight-bearing moves, or strikes, or heavy blocks with the left arm for two days, but you can do stretching and such on the second day. As long as you take the supplements to keep the nanosurgeons fed, that is.”
Meiko made the appropriate affirmative noises, and Tran affected to believe her before sauntering out. “If you’re back in my infirmary before three days have passed, I’ll pop you into a body brace,” ze warned before exiting.
Tran’s joking threat still hung in the air as Kumar entered, followed by a man in his early thirties. He looked like a young Menti Uwais, the famous martial arts vid star from Meiko’s youth: the same wolfish smile and shock of black hair, the same broad chest and muscular arms. His walk told Meiko he, too, was a trained fighter, and she wondered what his style was.
His social profile provided a bare minimum of information: Femi Teng, it read. An Ileri citizen, but no listing for his occupation or affiliation beyond that. That put her on guard; he almost certainly worked for Ileri intelligence in some way.
“Good evening, Meiko,” Kumar said. “I’m glad you’re awake. We have things to discuss.” She came to the foot of the bed. “Are you feeling well enough to talk?”
“I believe so
,” Meiko said. She opened the AR window for the bed’s controls and raised the back until she was sitting nearly vertical. “Who is our visitor?”
“Captain Femi Teng, Ileri Planetary Security Directorate,” the man said in a lush baritone voice that under other circumstances—say, over drinks at a beachside bar—Meiko would have enjoyed listening to. For a while, anyway. “Your case has been assigned to me.”
“My case?” Meiko asked, feigning ignorance.
“Your activities after leaving the Consulate,” Teng said as Kumar pulled a chair up to her bedside and slid into it. Teng remained standing near the foot of the bed. “There’s the physical assaults during the disturbance outside the Consulate—”
“Self-defense, during the riot outside the Consulate, which endangered Commonwealth citizens, as well as the station’s populace,” Kumar interjected.
“The riot, just so.” Teng waved a hand nonchalantly. “I’ve watched the recordings. It’s indeed all self-defense, but nearly all the other individuals involved were detained and statements taken. Most are still in custody, being processed. We’ll have to get some kind of statement from you for the official record since Commissioner Toiwa”—his face twisted as he said the name—“is proceeding absolutely by the book where this is concerned.”
“Sending a message,” Kumar murmured.
Teng nodded. “Just so. She’s putting the One Worlders and everyone else on notice that nobody gets to throw that kind of party on the station without consequence.”
“A statement seems reasonable,” Meiko said, and she felt muscles relax she hadn’t realized were tense. “But I take it there’s more.”
Even the man’s frown looked charming. How the hell does he work in Intelligence? He’s far too memorable. Maybe the Ileris had him working the entertainment and media sectors?
“Unfortunately, when you took measures to evade the station security monitoring network, you violated a number of, shall we say, arrangements, between our governments,” he said. “While the matter might normally be resolved amicably through informal channels”—just between us spies—“the attack on your person puts that out of the question. Since the Constabulary got involved, that is, making it a matter public record. There’s also the matter of your incursion into the maintenance passage. The station services director is quite irate.”
Meiko glanced at Kumar, trying to gauge her reaction. The intelligence chief, for her part, looked relaxed but alert. She’s heard this already. Would Kumar back a wayward subordinate who triggered this kind of reaction from the Ileris?
“The incursion, as you put it, was hardly intentional,” she said in the most persuasive tone she could muster. “I was fleeing from multiple armed assailants, in point of fact.”
“Yes. Well, that’s immaterial, at least in the eyes of station services,” Teng said. He cleared his throat. “Or the Commissioner, who insists that you leave the station at the earliest opportunity. The services chief endorses this demand.” His lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. “She went on about it at some length, in fact.”
Wait, now I’ve pissed off the people who are responsible for my air? That’s a first. She glanced at Kumar, who sat watching the pair, saying nothing. No clue from that sector, then. She considered various gambits and settled on the most direct. “Why?” she asked Teng.
“I tried to persuade her otherwise, that we could let you remain on-station with a permanent escort. But the pot is near to boiling, with the membership vote imminent, the Commonwealth warship Amazonas inbound, and the One World party gone sub-nova.”
“But what does that have to do with me?” Meiko asked.
Teng spread his hands placatingly. “The Commissioner views you as a destabilizing influence.” Kumar snorted. “She’s worried you’ll stir up trouble, and she needs her people on the cases they’re already working or keeping the peace.” She started to open her mouth, but he raised his hands. “I’m sorry, it’s non-negotiable on her part,” he said.
“Surely, M. Ogawa can be allowed some time to recover from her injuries?” Kumar asked, softly. “As long as she remains here in the Consulate?”
“Oh, yes, just so,” Teng said with a nod. “In fact, as far as she knows I’m not delivering this news to you until the morning. I wanted to inform you as soon as possible, though. Professional courtesy and all that.” He smiled, seeming so genuinely friendly and conciliatory that Meiko decided the Directorate kept him around for just these sorts of situations, smoothing things over with other organizations.
“Well, she certainly won’t be going anywhere before then,” Kumar said. “Thank you, Captain. You may consider the message delivered.”
Teng took the hint, and after arranging a time to meet in the morning, slipped out the door. Meiko spotted one of the door guards from the morning waiting just outside her room to escort him out. The trooper nodded at Kumar before closing the door.
Kumar wagged her right index finger and the door frame shone green in AR. “Inconvenient, but not unexpected,” she said. She dragged her chair around to face Meiko. “What did you get before you were jumped?”
Succinctly, Meiko related what she’d learned from Kaki. Kumar listened attentively, particularly when she reached the part about the mysterious attacks and kidnappings. “He seemed quite concerned about the incursions by the new players, whoever they are,” she finished.
“Do you think that’s who attacked you?” Kumar asked.
“No clue,” she replied with a shrug. “The method definitely sounds similar.”
“Hmm.” Kumar tapped her lips. “I do have a source in the Constabulary. I’ll see if they can find out anything after the prisoners are interrogated.”
“Reinforcements arrived in time, I take it?” Meiko asked.
Kumar smirked. “By pure random happenstance, if one believed in such, a pair of private security people were nearby and heard the disturbance. In fact, they’re two of the very small number of civilians authorized to carry weapons on the station. They caught your attackers in the rear and stunned them all before they could make off with you.”
“Remind me to send them a thank-you note.”
Her incoming message indicator blinked, but there was no return address code. Anonymous routing? Through the consulate network? I didn’t think that was possible here. She scanned the header; the message had been sent to Meriel’s box, but the smart agent on that account had forwarded it to her own, and the consulate infonet had passed it through Kumar’s screen, which turned out to be set against outgoing signals. She raised her IV-plugged hand, forestalling Kumar’s response, and blinked the message open.
Sorry you encountered such poor hospitality, she read. My colleagues are still debating involvement,
especially given the public splash, but offer the enclosed in the spirit of goodwill and wishes for a swift recovery. K.
There was an attachment. “I need a sandbox,” she said to Kumar, who raised an eyebrow but called one up from the consulate’s internal infonet server. Meiko tossed the packet into the window Kumar conjured, and the two looked to see what Kaki had sent.
The packet turned out to be ten seconds’ worth of 3D imaging, showing a short, tawny, wiry man with a heavy brow and flattened nose under thick black hair. Meiko recognized the scene immediately. “That’s the passenger-shuttle terminal,” she said. The clip ended with the man framed at the mouth of the boarding tube.
“Stop,” she said, and the image froze. “Magnify.” The image grew to nearly a quarter life-size, and they could read the flight number on the display beside the boarding tube.
Kumar murmured to herself for a few seconds, then turned to Meiko. “He boarded a surface-bound shuttle that departed fifty minutes after the attack,” she said. She inclined her head at the image. “Is that what I think it is?”
Meiko nodded and read the message. “The Fingers think he’s involved, at least, if not one of the assassins himself.”
“Or want us to think so. But I think yo
u’re right. I’ll call the station chief down the cable and pass this on. And get some analysts working on an ID.” Kumar stood and patted Meiko’s shoulder. “I hope this was worth getting kicked off the station for.”
Inspiration flashed, and Meiko seized it. “You know... planetside is off the station.”
Kumar withdrew her hand and stared at her subordinate, arms folded across her chest. “That’s cheeky,” she said.
Silence stretched on for nearly half a minute before Meiko cracked. “You need me on this,” she said. “Do you have anyone else with contacts like mine?” She sat up as straight as she could manage. “This is a win for everyone. I leave the station to make the Commissioner happy. I keep working the case to keep us happy.” Kumar cocked her head. “Fine. It keeps me happy. We can feed this to the Ileris through Teng to make the Directorate happy. We can find the actual killer, which ought to please everyone.”
“Except the dead,” Kumar said dryly.
“Well, no,” Meiko said, feeling her face flush. A prick of guilt lanced her eagerness, guilt about being so focused on pursuing the case, on putting her career to rights, that she’d forgotten about the very real crime which had started this mess.
“I’m inclined to push for it, though,” Kumar said. “It’s one thing to play nice with the locals, but I think the ambassador can be persuaded that simply kicking you back into the box might let the Ileris think they can push us around. We can play up the riot as well, use that to push for a concession if we need to. Yes,” she nodded. “This works. But first”—she reached out to tap Meiko’s shoulder—“you sleep. Dr. Tran will come back to make sure of it.”