by Eric Thomson
With that, he walked away, heading for the main house.
“Come with me please,” Collette said, scattergun now slung over one shoulder.
The building’s interior appeared modern and streamlined, almost like that of a luxury hotel, in contrast to its quaint, almost dated exterior. Decker and Talyn saw little more than a corridor with cream-colored walls and tasteful images of Cimmerian landscapes. One of the many doors stood open, and Collette waved them into what was the suite’s living room.
She indicated two inner doors, also open.
“You’re free to choose either bedroom or both. Each comes with an ensuite. You’ll find refreshments in the pantry. As Hadar said, you’re confined for now, so there’s no point trying to leave the suite. The windows are sealed, and I’ll lock the door when I leave. Do you have any questions?”
Talyn shook her head.
“We’ll be fine, thanks.”
The young woman turned on her heels and left. As promised a soft mechanical snick seconds after the door slid shut proved it was locked. Decker and Talyn examined the three rooms and both ensuites in silence. They found video pickups in each and gave the hidden watchers long stares.
“We have a voyeurism problem,” Decker announced once he and Talyn met again in the living room. “Unless you want to give this mysterious chief executive’s security detail a show, we should keep things decent.”
“So I noticed. It’s comforting to know our allies don’t stint on security measures.”
“Meaning we did?” Decker slipped out of his jacket and tossed it over a chair. “Gustav was particular about where I could place surveillance nodes.”
“Particular or peculiar?” Talyn asked with a smile. “It’s just as well. If a visual record of his proclivities ever becomes public, it would kill the Collective. But that will change once we return home.”
**
“The resemblance to Eva Cortez is remarkable.”
“It is,” Hadar Wilborg replied, watching the live video feed from Decker and Talyn’s suite. He stood alongside his superior in her second story private office with its wall-sized display. “And the identification chip registered as being issued by the Mission Colony government. His too, though we weren’t able to secure images of Piet Yorik as a basis for comparison. Are you sure someone murdered Cortez the evening before your arrival there?”
“Assistant Commissioner Bujold certainly seemed to think so when I spoke with her. The attending constables found her unconscious beside Eva’s body, knocked out by a needler. Someone also shot Eva with a needler but using lethal darts. Bujold fingered a man and a woman calling themselves Corbin Peel and Sherri Zadeck as the likely culprits. They were waiting for Eva in her townhouse living room. But I doubt the police will find either of them. Professional assassins will have left the star system under another identity.”
“Cortez was in a relationship with a senior Constabulary officer? I don’t know whether to be worried or impressed. Did Bujold describe the suspects?”
“She did, but they’ll be wearing different faces by now. The man was, large, muscular, and square-faced, in his late forties, with short dark hair and the aura of a military veteran.”
“A description that could easily apply to Yorik.” He gestured at Decker’s image. “Other than the hair.”
“The woman was in her fifties, lithe, also dark-haired, but shoulder length, with unremarkable physical features, but Bujold called her a predator.”
“Like Cortez, then, but not quite as striking.”
“Both also resemble the mercenaries who boarded Thebes at the Ventano spaceport, the ones who saved me from abduction by fake Howlers. They shook the tail Gudrun’s team put on them with almost insulting ease and vanished somewhere in downtown Howard’s Landing, never to be seen again.” Magda Annear touched her communicator. “Gudrun, join me in my office, please.”
“Collette said our guests reminded her of people she’d seen recently. Let me call her. Perhaps studying them at a remove might trigger her memories.”
“Too many resemblances in too short a time,” Annear said in a soft tone, eyes switching from Decker to Talyn and back. “If that’s not Cortez, her companion isn’t Piet Yorik either.”
“Bujold knew nothing of his status?”
“No, but if those two killed Eva, they’ll have done the same to her security chief.”
“And thereby decapitated the best choice as our ally in the Mission system, making it useless to our near-term strategy.”
The door opened behind them.
“What can I do for you, Sera?”
“Look at the people Hadar brought in and tell me if they seem familiar.”
Gudrun Mariano approached the display and carefully studied each of them in turn.
“Their faces are unfamiliar, but his size and build remind me of the one who called himself Ned Sarkin. The woman?” Mariano shrugged. “She could be anyone.”
“Such as Sarkin’s companion, Lena Taryen?”
“Certainly, Sera. Do you think it’s them?”
“Perhaps. But Sarkin and Taryen were false identities as well. I’m sure of that.” Annear tapped an elegant fingertip against her lips. “If I wasn’t aboard Thebes and didn’t speak to Bujold, we might well be treating her as the real Eva Cortez. Because of our tame assistant commissioner’s involvement, information on Cortez’s murder was kept closely held. We might not have found out until well after accepting her as the real Eva.”
“Ah, Collette, there you are.” Wilborg glanced over his shoulder when he heard footsteps in the hallway. “Come in and feast your eyes on our impostors. You said they seemed familiar. Perhaps observing them in a quiet setting might jog your memory.”
Several minutes passed in silence while both Collette and Gudrun Mariano mentally stripped the prisoners of their current outer shells.
“I’m about to make a gut call,” the former said, turning to Wilborg. “The big guy eerily reminds me of another large, strongly built man, that Fleet anti-terrorism officer I followed from Howard’s Landing yesterday. Allyson lost track of him and the woman near the Archeron harbor front.”
Annear’s eyes lit up.
“It makes sense now. Kerlin’s assassination by a railgun-equipped sniper, Cortez’s murder at the hands of a man and a woman who left Bujold alive. Another man and woman, deadly pros beat off the abduction attempt aboard Thebes without knowing who I was and promptly vanish less than an hour after landing. Who appears the same day with no one noticing their arrival on Cimmeria? A pair of Special Operations Command anti-terrorism experts tripping over themselves to help those Gendarmerie idiots. They also vanish, this time shortly after arriving in Archeron. And now, a reincarnated Eva Cortez and her goon show up on Kusan Exports’ doorstep. I bet they interrogated and killed Alek on Mission Colony. It’s the only way to connect him with you, Hadar.”
“So you believe we hold — what the hell are their names again?”
“Major Zack Decker and Commander Hera Talyn,” Collette said.
“Thanks. You think the big guy is a Marine Corps major and she a Navy officer? The two who miraculously showed up on the day we began Operation Cerastes? And that they’re responsible for knocking the Mission Colony Freedom Collective on its ass?”
“I’m well past the point of believing in coincidences. There’s an easy way to tell whether he’s the same one who fought off my husband’s hired thugs aboard Thebes. Right after the attack, he got a good look at my face. I saw something strange in his eyes. Shock, perhaps. As if I reminded him of someone dear or dearly departed.”
Mariano nodded.
“I saw that as well, Sera. The woman too though her reaction wasn’t obvious.”
“And if they are Fleet operatives? Do we kill them and dump their bodies into a ravine?” Wilborg asked.
“Heavens, no. They can be immensely useful.”
“If they’re Fleet, Sera,” Mariano said, “they’ll be conditioned against interrogation
, which means any attempt to use drugs will cause their deaths. Torture will do the same, but not as quickly. And with a much bloodier mess.”
“I wasn’t thinking of interrogation.” Magda Annear’s smile sent a cold shiver up Wilborg’s spine. Not for the first time he questioned Louis Sorne’s wisdom in putting his considerable wealth and influence behind her plans to transform Cimmerian and Rim Sector politics. “For one thing, I want to see how far they’ll take the masquerade. Notice how calm and unworried they appear? Rather interesting under the circumstances, no?”
Wilborg glanced at the display again.
“That behavior is precisely what worries me. Ordinary people don’t take imprisonment with such aplomb. If they’re SOCOM officers, they’ll be superbly trained fighters, capable of using their hands as deadly weapons, and experts at escape and evasion.”
“The guest house is locked tighter than a maximum security prison, Hadar. Besides, I don’t intend to place myself within arm’s reach. Or do you place such little faith in the security team Louis’ people provided?”
Since Mariano and Collette Chaskel were still within earshot, Wilborg shook his head.
“Of course I trust our security. It’s the finest money can buy on Cimmeria. But I’d rather avoid risks at this juncture. Who else but you can challenge Calvo and his administration effectively once the chaos we’re unleashing makes their weakness and incompetence clear for all citizens to see?”
“Your concern for my welfare is touching, Hadar. But even SOCOM officers can’t do much if they’re locked up. No one’s ever escaped the guest house.”
“Experience is no predictor of future performance in this case, Magda. Our previous guests were of a more innocuous variety.”
A faint tap on the doorjamb drew Wilborg’s attention.
“Yes, Allyson?”
“I finished examining their things. Her weapons are high-end but fairly common. Anyone with enough money can buy them. His dagger is a genuine Pathfinder blade, and the blaster came from a Shrehari weapons manufacturer. Both communicators were made by Cavani Electronics and haven’t been modified in any way I can detect, but I pulled the power packs anyway. Scans of their bags reveal no hidden compartments, and the IDs were not tampered with.”
“That our equipment can tell.”
“Of course, Ser Wilborg. It’s a well-known fact among private security firms that certain branches of the Armed Services enjoy a technological advantage over almost everyone else in the Commonwealth.”
“Thank you, Allyson.” He turned to Magda.
“What are your intentions?”
“Invite them for lunch in the guest house dining room, as if they remain valued associates. But feel free to take every precaution you consider necessary.”
“My first precaution would be to ask whether face-to-face is necessary, Magda.”
“Oh, yes. I need to know whether they’re the same pair Gudrun and I met aboard Thebes.”
“And you’re hoping for a reaction when the one who calls himself Piet Yorik sees you again, this time in radically different circumstances.”
“Just so. It would confirm I’m correct and our guests are impostors. Bring their personal effects to the dining room as well.” She touched a set of controls, and six images appeared on a secondary display, three men, and three women.
“Remarkable how they can change their outward appearance at will. But you cannot disguise certain things.”
— Thirty-Five —
Knuckles rapping on the doorjamb and a polite, “Chief,” yanked Caelin Morrow from her absent contemplation of the Howard’s Landing waterfront. She swiveled her chair around and gestured at Master Sergeant Bonta to enter the office.
“What’s up?”
Bonta grimaced.
“It could be nothing, but since we’re talking about Super Spooks One and Two, I thought you should know.”
A faint smile crossed Morrow’s lips at hearing Bonta’s nicknames for Talyn and Decker, though she hadn’t yet figured out who was One and who was Two.
“Let’s hear it.”
“The location signal from their communicators cut out abruptly a few minutes ago. This morning, the Navy satellites tracked them from the Archeron harbor to Kusan Exports. It stayed there for about half an hour, then left town via the main south road before turning off onto a secondary well beyond the outer suburbs until they reached the country lodge belonging to Pavel Yagudin and Magda Annear. Shortly after that, the signals vanished.”
Morrow leaned forward and placed her elbows on the desktop, hands joined.
“Isn’t that interesting? What do you think?”
“I don’t have enough data for an informed opinion, Chief. But considering Magda Annear is the niece of Bronwen Annear, whose corporation owns Silfax or what little is left, I find it hard to fathom she would be involved with the DSA in any fashion. Silfax’s destruction cost the Annear family hundreds of millions not to mention the casualties.”
“Then why did the satellite lose contact with both of their communicators?”
“They went rogue?”
Morrow nodded.
“With Hera Talyn that’s always a good possibility. But then there’s the small matter of Magda traveling aboard Thebes when she can afford the best suite in the most luxurious starliner.”
“Maybe Arno and I should dig into Sera Annear’s life; find out if she’s been keeping the wrong company.”
“Good idea. See if you can trace her recent travels as well.”
“What about Decker and Talyn?”
“We keep an eye on the satellite feed for fresh location signals and wait.”
“At some point, we have to tell Colonel Joubert about this fresh development, sir.”
“And that our two vaunted anti-terrorism officers are running an undercover operation in the Gendarmerie’s jurisdiction without Cimmerian approval or oversight, not to mention that they’re currently at a residence owned by Senator Annear’s daughter and son-in-law? Let’s wait until the Super Spooks call us with concrete evidence.”
“Yes, sir. Keep in mind we’ll need to ask our Gendarmerie contact for their dossier on Magda Annear, and considering who she is, they’ll be reluctant to admit they even keep a dossier, let alone share it with us feds no questions asked.”
“Understood.”
**
“It looks like Magda Annear’s been a bad girl,” Bonta said when she and Galdi entered Morrow’s office shortly before lunch.
The image of a laughing Annear and smiling Louis Sorne, Cimmeria’s most infamous financier and opponent of star system sovereignty appeared on the main display.
“This was taken by the Howard’s Landing Herald during the Locarno Conference two years ago, not long before Sorne became a guest of the Cimmerian correctional system. They seem rather chummy, considering Magda’s mother and aunt Bronwen loathe him.”
A thin smile tugged at Morrow’s lips.
“It speaks well for them.”
“Plenty of more or less honest politicians, financiers, industrialists, and senior bureaucrats from every star system in the Rim Sector attend the annual Locarno Conferences,” Galdi replied. “As they’ll be doing later today when this year’s edition starts with a cocktail party. They glad-hand each other, put on insincere smiles, and pretend they don’t consider everyone else a bunch of damned crooks. It’s a self-congratulatory festival for those in the Rim Sector who presume to control our destiny.”
Morrow snorted.
“Please, Arno. Don’t hold back. Tell us what you really think.”
“Locarno Conference pictures are innocuous, sure,” Bonta continued. “Though it’s telling neither Senator Annear nor her sister Bronwen attend them, even when the Senate is in recess and Nerys is on Cimmeria instead of Earth. They keep excellent attendance records, by the way. Louis Sorne only skipped Locarno once he became an inmate although Fast Tony still shows up on behalf of his boss and the Foundation. But there’s more.”
“This one comes from our Financial Crimes Division, taken during the investigation that led to the evil old goat’s conviction. They took hundreds, showing Magda and Louis in various restaurants or strolling along the fjord. More than can be explained by mere social calls among peers.”
“Did Financial Crimes open a dossier on Magda?”
“No, Chief. They looked but found nothing suspicious to hang on her or Pavel Yagudin, who never attended the Locarno Conferences. Whatever Magda’s dealings with Sorne, they weren’t related to the shenanigans that put him away.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, Chief.” Galdi grimaced as he scratched his luxuriant beard. “We know Sorne’s been meddling in political affairs across the sector and our Naval Intelligence friends think he wants to become the Coalition’s main man along the Rim. Why would the daughter of a Commonwealth senator known for defending sovereign star system rights be consorting with a man opposed to everything her mother believes in?”
A new image replaced that of Annear and Sorne dining in one of Howard Landing’s most expensive restaurants, this one of Magda and a thin, dark complexioned, gray-haired man. They were in deep conversation.
“Fast Tony.” Morrow made a face.
“Antoine Hakkam is her godfather and Magda sits on the Deep Space Foundation’s board of directors. This comes from the Howard’s Landing Herald again — last year’s Foundation annual general meeting.”
“Why do I get the feeling Nerys and Magda might no longer be on speaking terms?” Galdi wondered. “Or Bronwen and Magda for that matter.”
“Any other unsavory acquaintances?”
“I’m not sure about unsavory, Chief, but she also seems friendly with Titus Termoli, our favorite zaibatsu’s Rim Sector Executive Vice President.”
Morrow suppressed a groan.