Rath's Trial (The Janus Group Book 4)

by Piers Platt

  “That’s fine,” Hawken reassured her. “I’ll be handling the media stuff. You can stay totally behind the scenes. What do you say?”

  What do you think, Six?

  >>>I think this represents a unique opportunity for us. We could make a significant impact serving on such an important team.

  Hell yeah, we could.

  Dasi stuck her hand out. “Count me in.”

  37

  Rath was already awake when the jailhouse guards came to his cell on the morning of sentencing. He stood and faced the bars, and waited patiently while they attached his chains. At the loading dock, the guards transferred Rath to three members of the courthouse transport team, signing him over via an electronic custody form. He didn’t recognize two of the guards from the courthouse team – normally the same crew handled moving him to and from the jail each day. One of the new guards, a woman, caught Rath studying her, and looked away.

  Rath felt his pulse quicken, but he kept silent.

  The other new guard headed for the pilot’s seat, while the female guard led Rath through the open rear doors of the air van, seating him in the back along a bench lining the wall. She took a seat farther along the bench on the same side, standing her auto-rifle between her knees. The third guard, a man Rath recognized from previous trips, pulled the rear doors closed and sat across from them. Through the reinforced glass window, Rath saw the driver take his seat up front, and start the van.

  The jailhouse loading bay door opened, and the van pulled out smoothly. As they turned onto the street, two Interstellar Police cruisers joined them, one taking up an escort position to the front of Rath’s van, the other falling in behind. They followed the police cruiser in the lead, which stayed at ground level, motoring through light traffic.

  Rath let his head rest against the steel wall of the van, feigning sleep. Through half-lidded eyes, he watched as the van followed the usual route back toward the courthouse. Then he heard a faint click from the female guard next to him.

  That sounded like a rifle safety selector lever.

  Rath eyed her casually, but she was looking forwards, at the road ahead of them, through the pane of glass separating the passenger compartment and the driver. Rath followed her gaze, and saw the police cruiser ahead of them make a left turn, onto the block that housed the court building. The van did not turn, however, and instead accelerated suddenly, going airborne.

  Here we go.

  The guard across from Rath noticed their deviation from the planned route a split-second later. He turned to question the driver as the female guard swung her rifle up. Rath shifted his feet forward, using the chain between his ankles to pin the barrel of the man’s auto-rifle against the floor. The female guard fired a stun round into the guard’s arm, stifling his cry of protest. He slumped over onto the bench.

  “Paisen?” Rath asked the female guard. She ignored him, and banged her fist on the divider wall twice, signaling to the driver, and then clambered past Rath and opened the rear doors to the van.

  “What are you doing?” Rath had to shout to be heard over the rushing wind. Behind the van, he saw the two escort police cars were close behind them, lights flashing. So much for a nice, quiet escape without anyone noticing.

  The woman ignored him, and took hold of the unconscious guard, and before Rath could stop her, she slid the man unceremoniously out the back of the van.

  “What the fuck!” Rath yelled. They were over the desert now, and the van had descended, but the guard’s body still dropped several hundred feet before crashing into one of Scapa’s sand dunes. Rath struggled to his feet, hunching to stand inside the cramped van. “I said no casualties!” he shouted.

  The woman fired a long burst of gunfire into the nearest police cruiser, and Rath saw a thin line of smoke streak out of the car’s hood. She glanced at Rath, scowling, and pushed him hard back down onto the bench.

  “I don’t know who ‘Paisen’ is,” she said. “But you need to stay seated and shut up for right now.”

  * * *

  At the wheel of the stolen police cruiser, Paisen swore.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she asked, rhetorically.

  “You know him better than anyone,” Vence pointed out from the passenger seat. “You think he’s trying to bust out on his own?”

  “He does like to improvise,” Paisen allowed. “But this is just sloppy, even for him.”

  She saw the van doors burst open, and a second later, a body tumbled out.

  “Fuck! Was that Rath?” Paisen asked.

  “No,” Vence replied. “I can see him, he’s still in the van. Shit! Incoming!”

  Paisen spied a female guard in the van aiming a rifle at them. She braked hard, but a burst of bullets clattered off the car’s armored windshield, and she saw a line of holes open up across the hood. Paisen banked the car, swinging out of the gunman’s field of fire. She climbed to a higher altitude, staying above and to the left of the van.

  “Warning: engine damage,” the car’s computer cautioned. “Descend immediately for crew safety.”

  Paisen muted the alarm.

  “Rath’s still cuffed,” Vence noted, drawing her auto-pistol and flipping the safety off. “I just saw the shooter yell at him and push him down onto the bench. Didn’t look like they were buddies. You think they’re kidnappers? Hoping to squeeze him for cash?”

  “Whoever they are, they aren’t exactly friendly,” Paisen said. “Get ready: I’m going to drop us back into view.”

  Vence rolled down her window, steadying her pistol against the door frame. “Ready. It looks like they’re heading for that big sand dune.”

  Paisen glanced up from the controls and spotted a large dune directly ahead of them. But as she watched, the dune appeared to shimmer. Suddenly, sand cascaded down the edges of the dune, and the entire hill jerked upwards, as if a large earthquake had struck.

  “What the …?”

  The sand continued to pour off as the dune rose, and a massive metal structure emerged: a spaceship, buried under the sand. The ship’s yawning cargo bay swung open, but two large cannons opened fire at the same time, and Paisen slammed the car’s yoke forward, dropping them into a last-ditch evasive maneuver as the shells ripped past the car. She saw a flash and flinched at the distinctive thunder-clap noise of an explosion.

  “The other police cruiser’s been hit!” Vence reported, bracing herself against the ceiling as the car plummeted earthward.

  Paisen yanked back on the yoke, praying that the car’s damaged engine could handle the stress, and they leveled off mere feet above the ground, still traveling fast. She juked left, then right, then right again, but saw no more cannon rounds – the ship had stopped firing at them. Paisen swerved the air car around. Above, she saw Rath’s van disappear into the cargo bay, and the ship’s engine banks light up. The craft rose, slowly at first, then with the sudden acceleration of an object going ballistic. In moments, it had disappeared into the blue sky above.

  “What. The. Actual. Fuck,” Vence observed.

  “I don’t know,” Paisen said. “But we need to get the hell back to the city and dump this cruiser. Rath’s on his own, for now.”

  38

  Beauceron felt a rush of cold air and started awake. He flinched as he saw a form bending over him in the darkened spaceliner cabin.

  “What …?”

  The shadowy form straddled him, pulling the blanket back up, and he felt warm skin pressed against his own. Soft, naked skin.

  “Atalia?” he asked.

  “Hush,” she said. “I’m horny, and you’re here – let’s not make a big deal out of this.”

  She took his hand, and placed it on her breast.

  “But—” he started, and then her lips were on his, and he stopped talking.

  * * *

  The corporation, which went by the name Legacy Ventures, was on the eighth floor of a small office building a short ride away from Proxis II’s spaceport. Beauceron and Atalia rode the elevator
up in silence. He caught her eye and blushed.

  Atalia sighed. “If I had known you were gonna be so awkward about it …”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “It’s just sex,” she scolded him.

  “We’re partners,” he said. “It could affect our professional relationship.”

  She laughed. “Only if you continue to make a big deal out of it.” But she smiled at him, warmly, and Beauceron thought he saw the hint of a blush on her cheeks, too. He felt a flutter of excitement in his stomach. He tried to ignore it.

  “We shouldn’t do it again,” he told her.

  “That’s not what you said in the shower this morning,” she reminded him.

  The elevator doors slid open, and they consulted the floor map, turning and walking down the corridor. The door to the office stood open, and they had to stand aside to let a uniformed man wheel a hand-cart of boxes out.

  Atalia frowned at Beauceron. “What is this, moving day?”

  Inside, no one was manning the reception desk, but they did find another moving company employee stacking boxes in a side office.

  “Is anyone from the company here?” Beauceron asked him.

  “I think so,” he said. “I saw someone in the big office, at the back.”

  Beauceron thanked him. They found the office easily, where a paunchy, harried-looking man sat at a large desk, engrossed in a phone conversation.

  He saw them, and held up a finger. “I understand that,” he told the phone. “Look, I get it – I’m familiar with the redemption restrictions. Just tell me when the earliest possible liquidation date is.”

  He listened for a second. “Well, that’s workable, thank you. There was something else I wanted to chat about, can you hold on one second?” He put his hand over the phone, and eyed Atalia and Beauceron quizzically. “Can I help you?”

  Atalia held up her police ID badge, artfully covering the Interstellar Police logo. “Law enforcement, sir. We just need a minute.”

  The man’s face fell. “Toneo, I have visitors. Can I call you back in a few? Okay, bye.” He hung up and sighed, shaking his head ruefully. “Of course it would be the cops. Just when this week couldn’t get any worse.”

  “Are you moving offices?” Beauceron asked.

  “Moving? No. We’re closing,” the man said. He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. “Unexpectedly, you might say. I’m Skip Waltrin.”

  Beauceron shook the man’s hand before sitting. “Mr. Waltrin, do you own Legacy Ventures?”

  “No,” Waltrin said. “I manage this office on behalf of my clients. They own the company.”

  “What does Legacy Ventures do?” Atalia asked.

  “We’re a family office,” he told her. “Are you familiar with the term?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  Waltrin shrugged. “Essentially, family offices are small corporations that are set up to run the financial affairs for ultra high-net-worth individuals. A family with several billion dollars doesn’t give their money to some two-bit banker or broker to run, they hire a whole team of individuals, and we keep their investments on track, handle tax and legal affairs – a wide range of services. Can I ask why you’re here?”

  Atalia smiled. “This is just an informal investigation – nothing serious. We’re trying to locate a ship that was involved in an incident a few weeks ago. We just want to talk to the folks on the ship, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” Waltrin said. “What ship?”

  Beauceron held up his holophone, showing a picture of the ship from New Liberia. “This one,” he said.

  Waltrin squinted at it. “It’s vaguely familiar. I may have seen a deed to a ship like that years ago, when I took over from my predecessor.”

  “What does the company use it for?” Beauceron asked.

  “My office doesn’t use it,” Waltrin said, with conviction. “We charter private craft from time-to-time for business trips for our employees, but I’ve never seen that ship. Our client may use it, I don’t know.”

  “Do you know where it is now?” Atalia asked.

  “The ship? No,” Waltrin said. “I don’t have the faintest idea.”

  “Where are your clients?”

  “I wish I knew,” he said.

  “Well, who are your clients?” she tried.

  Waltrin sighed and rubbed his temple. “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know?”

  “No,” Atalia told him. “I wouldn’t.”

  Waltrin nodded. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe. But I’ve never met them. I’ve worked at several family offices over the years, and they always put a premium on secrecy, on protecting the family from unwanted publicity or attention. But this place is on a whole other level. Literally no one in this office knows who we work for; never met them, never seen them, don’t even know the family name. We manage a ton of money, some of it gets withdrawn occasionally, we send out quarterly statements and ask for guidance, and we never hear a damn thing. If it weren’t for the periodic withdrawals, I would think everyone in our client’s family had died, and we just didn’t know it. Well, at least until earlier this week.”

  “What happened earlier this week?” Beauceron asked.

  “We got a phone call from the client, who used the correct authorization code, and promptly told me to liquidate every single one of his investments. That would be why we’re closing up shop, here. They fired us, essentially.”

  “Why?” Atalia asked.

  “Detective, if you figure that out, please come and tell me. That’s the only thing my staff has been asking me all week long, and I still don’t have an answer for them. Do you guys know anyone that needs a few billion dollars managed?” Waltrin said.

  “He does,” Atalia said in mock seriousness, pointing to Beauceron. “Got a couple friends that hit it big recently.”

  “Really?” Waltrin asked, looking over at Beauceron hopefully.

  The detective scowled at his partner. “I’ll be sure to pass your information along to them, Mr. Waltrin,” he said. “If we talked to your predecessor, would he know who the client was?”

  “Well, he’s dead, unfortunately – he ran the office for about forty years, before I took over, fifteen years ago. But I’m pretty sure he never met the client, either.”

  “How do you work for a family, and not even know who they are?” Atalia asked.

  “It’s an odd arrangement,” Waltrin agreed. “But apparently Legacy has always been like that, since we were first founded.”

  “When was that?” Beauceron asked.

  “2180,” Waltrin replied. “We’re quite an old company, actually. Two hundred and … what? Thirty-five years now? But all good things must end.”

  “You were founded during the Third Colonial War,” Beauceron pointed out, a slight frown creasing his forehead.

  “Ah … just after it ended, I believe,” Waltrin agreed.

  “Do you think you can find the deed of sale for the ship?” Beauceron asked.

  “Normally, I would tell you I need to see a warrant,” Waltrin said. “I would remind you that one of my main functions is protecting the privacy of my client. But seeing as nothing seems to be normal about this week …” He tapped on his computer keyboard for several seconds. “Real assets … purchase records and receipts … here it is.” He swiveled the screen, so that Beauceron could see it.

  The detective held up his holophone’s camera, pointing it at the screen. “May I?”

  “Sure,” Waltrin said, shrugging. “I’m just going to delete it later anyway.”

  Beauceron took a photo.

  “The Rampart Guardian,” Atalia read off the screen. “Forty thousand tons, infantry landing craft. It was bought the same year Legacy Ventures was founded,” she noted.

  “So it was,” Waltrin said. “That ship’s as old as the company. And you say it’s still in operation? Amazing.”

  Beauceron studied the screen in silence, then scribbled for a time in his notepad. “Do you
mind showing us the other purchase receipts from that time period?” he asked.

  “Okay,” Waltrin agreed. He selected several other files, and then opened them. “This is a fueling receipt – probably for the Guardian. Food and related supplies. More food. Spare parts. Reverse osmosis water purification unit. More food supplies. Tools and equipment. Oh, that’s interesting.” He clicked on an invoice. “Eight cryo-pods. ‘Long-term, reusable, human hibernation / suspended animation modules,’ ” he read. “You know what I think?” the financier asked, rhetorically. “I think our founding family caught the exploration bug. They bought this ship, stocked it full of food, stuck themselves into hibernation, and then headed out for parts unknown. They’ve been out exploring uncharted space for two hundred years!”

  “Perhaps,” Beauceron said, but he was still writing in his note pad.

  “Makes you wonder why they came back – and what they found,” Waltrin suggested.

  Beauceron took a photo of the cryo-pod invoice. “How do you contact your clients?” he asked.

  “An email address,” Waltrin said. “But I’m afraid that’s where I draw the line. I will need to see a warrant for that. Or if you guys want, you can give me a message, and I’ll forward it along to my client. Or former client. Whatever they are.”

  “Thanks,” Beauceron said, standing up. “Detective, did you have anything else?”

  Atalia shook her head. “No. Thanks for your time, sir.”

  “Of course,” Waltrin said. “Let me know if you want me to send that message.”

  Outside, Beauceron stopped on the sidewalk, chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “Well?” Atalia asked. “I can hear the gears grinding in that head of yours, what’s up?”

  “I don’t know,” Beauceron said. “I’m missing something, something critical.”

  “I’m going to get us a cab,” she told him. “You can think about it on the way back to the spaceport. We can think about other ways to trace that ship on the trip to Jokuan.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, barely listening.