by John Bowers
Horace Cowan sneered.
“You don’t know anything. The idea is sound, it just hasn’t been administered correctly.”
“And it will under the Chairman’s rule?”
“Yes. The trouble with those other countries you mentioned is that the leaders got greedy and started keeping everything for themselves.”
“And you don’t think Kenny Saracen will do the same? He’s a capitalist, didn’t you know? He has billions of terros stashed away. How do you think he funds your little revolution?”
Horace Cowan’s eyes widened in surprise, and just a little fear.
“How do you know his name?”
Nick smiled.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“We have him. We caught him in the building lobby yesterday, right after you were captured. Like the brave freedom fighter he is, he was running away. He was going to let you take the fall for him.”
“That’s impossible! He wasn’t even here!”
“Shall I bring him in here? Would you like to see for yourself?”
Cowan sat shaking his head, unwilling to believe it.
“He couldn’t have been in the building! He was four hours away, in…” He stopped, his face flushing red. “You’re lying.”
“If I’m lying, you’re dying. He was in the lobby. Where was he supposed to be?”
Cowan sat breathing hard, blinking rapidly.
“I don’t believe you. You don’t really have him.”
“We not only have him, but he’s singing like a little bird. You know who he blames for all the bombings? All the terrorist attacks?” Nick leaned forward and pointed a finger at his chest. “He blames you, Horace! He says it was all your idea.”
“That’s a lie! He never said that!”
Nick shrugged. “Fine, he never said that. Tell it to the judge at your sentencing.”
“There won’t be a sentencing! You’re lying!”
Nick sat back and yawned, as if it were of no consequence.
“Hang onto that thought. It should keep you company at night over the next, oh, fifty years.” He shoved his chair back. “You said you didn’t want to talk to me. Well, okay, then. Don’t talk. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“You really need to keep up, Horace. After the first two bombings on Alpha 2, the governor passed an emergency terrorism act. You didn’t hear about that?”
“I didn’t hear shit, because you’re making it up!”
“Probably Kenny didn’t tell you, because you might bail out on him if you knew.”
Cowan stared at him, his mouth half open. Unwilling to believe him, afraid not to.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Emergency Terrorism Act. ETA for short. But since I’m making it up, you probably don’t want to hear about it.”
“You bastard! You motherfucker!”
“That’s right. Okay, then, I’m going to lunch. I’ll have your worms sent in.”
“Wait! What—what is this em—”
“Emergency Terrorism Act? It’s pretty basic. Regular criminals have certain protections under the law. The right to remain silent, the right to representation, the right to a speedy trial…you’ve heard of those, haven’t you? Well, the governor has decided that terrorists aren’t real criminals. They’re just pond scum, little pieces of shit posing as human beings. That’s what happens when you blow up innocent people, or when you recruit innocent girls and get them killed. You lose all sympathy from even the most liberal bleeding hearts. Terrorists have no friends, no sympathizers. Everybody hates them and just wants them dead.”
Cowan leaped to his feet, but staggered as the cuffs jolted him sharply. He dropped into his chair again, gasping.
“What are you talking about!” he demanded. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about a suspension of civil rights for terrorists. You have no legal protections, no presumption of innocence. Since you were caught in the act, you don’t even get a trial. You’re already guilty. Your sentencing has already been calendared. You’ll be doing fifty to life on Syracuse Island.” Nick grinned. “Have you seen Syracuse Island? It’s the only Federation prison on Alpha Centauri, located in the middle of the river about twenty miles from here. I’m told it’s like a dungeon…cold and damp, no heat, no exercise yard, not even windows. Once you go in, you don’t come out for a long time, and if you do…well, you won’t be the same.”
Nick pushed his chair back and got to his feet. He picked up his hat and placed it on his head.
“Okay, Horace, that’s all I wanted to tell you. I’m going to lunch now. Enjoy your worms.”
With a victorious chuckle, Nick walked out the door.
***
Marshal Bridge was waiting in the dark room.
“Son of a bitch, you got him to talk to you.”
Nick nodded. “Didn’t learn much, except that Saracen is probably hiding out about four hours from here. Problem is, which direction? That’s pretty vague.”
“Camarrell is four hours south of here by maglev. He could be holed up there.”
“Yeah, but it’s a big town. He could be anywhere.”
“It’s a starting point. I’ll alert the Marshals down there.”
“Okay. In the meantime, I think I gave Horace enough to think about for a day or two. Let it eat at him for a while and maybe he’ll give us something more concrete.”
“I think he might.”
“If I might make a suggestion?” Nick grinned. “Make sure he gets nothing decent to eat. We can’t really feed him worms, but something flat and tasteless three times a day, with no salt and no spices, would be just about perfect.”
Chapter 9
Saturday, May 6, 0445 (CC)
Trimmer Springs – Alpha Centauri 2
Nick’s pocket phone roused him out of a sound sleep Saturday morning. Suzanne stirred and twisted onto her side, the sheet stretching over her lovely bottom. Nick blinked at the phone and answered it.
“You must have said something that got to him,” Marshal Bridge told him. “Horace Cowan is ready to talk.”
“Did you get anything good?”
“Not yet. He only wants to talk to you.”
“Shit.” Nick rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had barely got home last night. “When do you want me to come in?”
“Right now would be good. I’m sorry as hell, Nick, but we need this intel.”
“Yeah, I know. No problem.” Nick checked his watch. He could take a hovercar but it would be noon before he arrived. It was barely seven in the morning now. “I think the first train leaves in an hour. I should be there by ten.”
“Thanks, Nick. We’ll have him ready for you.”
Nick disconnected and pulled himself out of bed. Suzanne rolled over and gazed up at him, her long blond hair tousled.
“Really? I had plans for you today.”
He looked down at her, saw the bulge of her magnificent breasts, and felt a deep regret.
“I hope it didn’t involve spending the day in bed.”
“Not the entire day, but a good part of it.”
“Ohhh.” He pressed a hand to his head as if in pain. “Sometimes this job just requires too much sacrifice.”
She flipped the sheet back and swung her long legs out of bed. She sat up.
“I guess I can push everything back one day, but you’d better come home tonight.”
“If I don’t, somebody is going to pay.”
She stood up and kissed him, then gave him a leisurely hug.
“Get going. Catch this bastard so we can get back to a normal life.”
“We have a normal life?”
“Maybe not, but it’s normal for us.”
He grinned and returned the kiss.
“Keep the bed warm. I’ll get him.”
Lucaston Department of Corrections, Lucaston – Alpha Centauri 2
> Horace Cowan was sitting at the same table in the same interrogation room where Nick had last seen him. His left eye was black and swollen where Nick had clobbered him, and the bruise on his forehead from the shotgun barrel had turned a dark purple.
But the arrogance was gone. Cowan looked despondent. Nick stepped into the room and laid his hat on the end of the table, then pulled out the chair and placed a boot on it; he leaned over and rested his elbow on his knee.
“Good morning, Horace. How’s your weekend going?”
Cowan only glanced at him, then lowered his gaze to the table top.
“Are they treating you okay? Getting plenty of sleep? Enough to eat?”
Cowan shifted in his chair but didn’t respond.
“How’s the food? Enough salt on the worms?”
“The food’s okay. You lied about the worms.”
“No, I just put in a special request on your behalf. I asked them to give you some real food until you decided whether you wanted to cooperate.”
Cowan looked pained, but didn’t reply.
“So what am I doing here? Was there something you wanted to say to me?”
Cowan was silent another few seconds, then his eyes met Nick’s.
“Were you telling the truth? About the Chairman?”
“About having him in custody? Absolutely. Why would I lie to you?”
“And he’s telling you that everything was my idea?”
“That’s what the man said.”
“Tell me what he said, so I know if you’re telling the truth.”
Nick removed his boot from the chair, pulled it farther from the table, and sat down. He crossed one leg over the other, giving his holsters room to hang free.
“That’s not the way it works, Horace. You don’t get to make the rules. In a situation like this, we ask the questions and you answer them. Then we compare what you say to what Saracen told us. If the stories don’t match, then we know one of you is lying, and we stop being so nice.”
“How does that help me? If he’s lying and I tell the truth, the stories won’t match.”
“We look for more than just matching statements. We look for facts. We compare the statements with what we already know, and whichever one matches those facts is probably closer to the truth.”
Cowan frowned at the table top again.
“Here’s the bottom line, Horace—when we have a case with more than one suspect, and they all point fingers at each other, we usually cut a deal with one of them in return for his testimony against the others. Saves time and court cost, and whoever makes the deal gets out of prison a whole lot sooner. Decades sooner.”
“How much time would I get?”
“It depends on what charges are filed. In your case, we’re looking at multiple counts of murder, terrorism, crimes against humanity—shit, I can only imagine what else they’ll come up with. If you go down for all of that, you’re looking at fifty to life, with life being more likely. And if we decide you planned it all, that you were behind the ARMO movement…God help you.”
“And if I cooperate?”
“You’ll only be charged with the crimes we can prove you were involved in. If all you did was recruit a few girls and pull a shotgun on a U.F. Marshal, you might get away with ten years. It’s up to the Federation prosecutor.”
Cowan rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. He sat there a moment, breathing hard. Finally he looked up.
“I’m not the brains behind ARMO,” he said in a shaky voice. “None of it was my idea.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“Ken’s. Shit, I’m too dumb to think of all the stuff we pulled. Ken is a fucking genius; his IQ is way higher than mine.”
Nick nodded, his expression neutral.
“What about TERMO and MARMO? Were you involved in those groups as well?”
“They’re all the same thing. The only difference is the location, what planet you’re on.”
“How many operations were you involved in?”
“Operations? You mean the bombings?”
“Bombings, assassinations, mass shootings, terror attacks, whatever you want to call it. How many?”
“None. It’s like you said the other day—my job was recruiting. I never took part in any of the attacks.”
“You pulled a shotgun on me and Marshal Bridge. What do you call that?”
Cowan flushed.
“Look, nobody expected you to show up in that dining room. When you did, Nadine recognized you and panicked. She said you had spotted her, too, and we had to do something. She was coming apart at the seams, so I had to take care of it.”
“How did you expect to get away? There must have been a hundred people in that dining room.”
“I didn’t have time to think about it. I had to do something before you called in reinforcements. I was hoping everyone would panic and we could make a break down the freight lift.”
Cowan waved his hands in distress.
“You fucked everything up. We weren’t even there for you.”
“What were you there for?”
“We—Nadine—was supposed to shoot up the dining room yesterday.”
“Why? Didn’t Tommy Sandoval already cause enough damage the other day?”
“The Chairm—Ken said we needed to show our power, that even though you had already been hit, and had beefed up your security, we could still hurt you. Another shooting in the same building ten days after the first one would really rock your universe.”
“Nadine was supposed to do the shooting?”
“Yes.”
“What was your role going to be?”
“I was her backup.”
“Her handler?”
“Yeah, if you want to put it like that. Same thing, I guess.”
Nick winced for his benefit. “That’s bad, Horace. That makes you an accessory before, during, and after the fact.”
“But we never did it! Nadine never killed anybody, and neither did I!”
“But you would have. I think it’s safe to assume that, if I hadn’t accidentally stumbled onto you, it would have happened right on schedule. Wouldn’t it?”
Cowan stared at him with glimmering eyes, then shrugged.
“That’s conspiracy, Horace. It’s worth a lot of prison time.”
“How much?”
“A lot, but even more if you had gone through with it. So count your blessings.”
Cowan compressed his lips and stared at his fingernails.
“How did Nadine feel about shooting up a room full of people who had never done anything to her?”
“She was excited about it. A little scared, maybe, but like I told you before, she was a true believer.”
“How many girls are there like Nadine?”
Cowan squinted at him. “Ken didn’t tell you that?”
“Kenny is too busy saving his own ass by pointing the finger at you. So far the only name he’s given is yours.”
“Then maybe I shouldn’t—”
“Yes you should, Horace! Everything you tell us that Kenny doesn’t tell us adds points to your future. Look, you don’t owe that bastard anything. Whether you believe in the cause or not, he’s responsible for you being where you are right now.”
“How do you figure that?”
“A lot of people on a lot of worlds hold political ideas similar to yours, but they don’t go around blowing up innocent people. Ken Saracen does, and all those who follow him, or are associated with him, have thrown away their lives when they didn’t have to.”
Cowan frowned again and swallowed. His breathing became labored.
“What else do you want to know?”
“How many people in the organization, total?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Maybe fifty or so.”
“Fifty! That’s it? All that murder and mayhem by just fifty people?”
“Yeah.”
“Who is second in command?”
“Nobody. Ken doesn
’t trust anyone but himself. He keeps telling us all how stupid we are.”
Nick laughed in consternation.
“He tells you how stupid you are? And you still hang around with the guy?”
“He only does it to get us to try harder. He screams at us when we fuck up, but that makes us put in more effort.”
Nick shook his head in wonder. The shrinks would have a marathon with this guy.
“How many of those fifty people are young girls?”
“Thirty-eight…no, thirty-nine.”
“That’s it? The rest are men?”
“Yeah.”
“Why so many girls? Does Kenny-boy have something against men?”
“He says girls are easier to control. Especially the younger ones.”
Nick laughed. “He obviously doesn’t know much about women. How well does it work?”
“Well, we recruit them—”
“You mean you recruit them.”
“Well, yeah, but I’m not the only one. There are two other recruiters. Anyway, we look for girls around fifteen or so, sometimes a little younger—”
“How much younger?”
“No younger than thirteen.”
Nick felt his jaw tighten, but didn’t reply.
“We look for girls that are unhappy at home. Runaways. You can find them on the street in any large city, lots of them. They’re hungry and scared, and they respond to anybody who is friendly and gives them something to eat.”
“And that’s what you do?”
“Yeah. I just take up with them, you know. Become their friend. Get them a room somewhere so they feel safe at night.”
“You have sex with them?”
“No. You try to screw them and most of them will bail on you. And I wouldn’t do that anyway.”
“No, of course not. You’re a real saint. So how long does this recruiting take?”
“It depends on the girl. Some aren’t suited for the message, don’t want any part of it. I cut those loose pretty quick and start over with another girl. Sometimes you go through half a dozen before you find one that’s right. After a few weeks I introduce her to Ken and he takes over from there.”