by Piers Platt
“I don’t know. I never really talked to the security guys.”
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” Rath said.
“Really?” Paisen asked, sarcastically. “Is it the corpse on the lawn, the comms jamming, or the wide open front door?”
“There may be injured people in there that need help,” Beauceron pointed out.
“We could send in a drone to scout it out,” Rath suggested.
“No point,” Paisen said. “With our signals jammed, we wouldn’t be able to control it or access its feed.”
“Perhaps it’s not us they’re jamming,” Beauceron suggested. “Perhaps the attackers just wanted to ensure that Senator Lizelle’s security detail couldn’t call for help.”
Rath sighed. “Could be. I don’t know. I say we pull back, notify the cops, and let them investigate. If Lizelle’s alive, they’ll want to get him off-planet ASAP. We can try to intercept him when they take him to the spaceport, or at the orbital transfer station.”
Paisen shook her head. “Neither of those are high probability scenarios for us. Too much risk, too many variables.”
“This whole thing feels like a trap,” Rath said. “What do you want to do?”
Paisen pursed her lips. “Spring the trap.”
They bounded forward in pairs, one group providing cover while the other moved. In less than five minutes, they had traversed the grounds of the estate, and found themselves at the foot of a sweeping granite staircase that led up to the front door. The corpse they had spotted from the overwatch position lay at the top of the stairs. Rath moved up the stairs, and stopped short of the top, pushing the body over onto its back. The man wore a suit and tie, and Rath saw an ID card hanging from a clip at his waist. He held up the badge so that the others could see it.
“Senate Guard,” he mouthed, then shouldered his auto-rifle and knelt at the top of the stairs, covering the mansion’s front entrance.
Paisen knelt behind him and tapped his shoulder a few seconds later; he stood and jogged to the building, flattening himself against the wall to the right of the blasted door. He nodded to Paisen, and she took up a position on the opposite side.
“Three, two, one,” she counted.
Rath turned the corner first and swept right, heading for the near corner of the entrance hall. Paisen was right on his heels, and split left. Each stopped in their corner, scanning the room.
“Clear,” Rath said quietly. He counted three more bodies on the floor.
“Martin,” Paisen whispered.
Beauceron and Dasi stepped inside – the detective had refused to carry a weapon for the mission, and Dasi had followed suit, having never fired a gun. The young woman gasped when she saw the bodies.
“Stay behind us,” Paisen told them.
They cleared the ground floor in five minutes, and were halfway through the second floor when Rath stopped mid-stride. He gestured at the others to stop moving.
“Did you hear that?” he whispered.
She shook her head.
“It was faint, but I thought I heard a foot-fall,” Rath said.
Then both of them froze.
“Yeah, I heard that,” Paisen replied. “Upstairs.”
“What?” Beauceron whispered.
Rath held up his rifle and mimed cocking it, then pointed his finger at the ceiling. He followed Paisen back out of the room. She took the lead on the staircase, placing each foot carefully, one at a time, rifle trained on the landing above. She crouched as her head neared the level of the floor, and taking a deep breath, popped up for a quick look.
Two different guns opened fire; Paisen threw herself down flat on the stairs, and the bullets cracked past where her head had been only moments before. The rounds continued to smack into the wall above them, raining down plaster.
“Two of them,” Paisen told Rath, under the noise of the shooting. “Look like security personnel, in doorways on opposite sides of the hall. I saw Lizelle, too. He’s alive.”
The fusillade stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
“Dasi?” a voice called. “Dasi, was that you?”
Rath pointed at Paisen, who was still mimicking Dasi’s appearance, per their original plan.
“He saw your face,” Rath whispered.
Paisen smiled. “Charl?” she called, in Dasi’s voice. “Tell them to stop shooting!”
There was a prolonged, whispered argument from the top of the stairs, and then Lizelle called out again.
“Dasi, my men are understandably nervous right now. Can you come up here, please?”
“Slowly,” one of the bodyguards yelled, “with your hands where we can see them.”
“I’m not alone,” Paisen called. She motioned for Beauceron and Dasi to climb the stairs.
“Who else is there?” Lizelle asked.
“Friends. The people who rescued me from Fusoria.”
Paisen shifted her face back into one of her non-descript cover identities, and then tapped Dasi on the chest.
“You take it from here,” she whispered.
Wide-eyed, Dasi stood up and hesitantly peeked over the landing. She saw Lizelle standing behind one of the Senate Guards, his face a mixture of relief and fear. Farther down the hall, another body lay face down; a backpack sat next to it.
“Come all the way up,” the guard ordered, keeping his pistol pointed at her.
Dasi glanced briefly back at Paisen, and then finished climbing the stairs, stopping partway down the hall.
“Test her, sir,” the bodyguard said.
“Dasi,” Lizelle said. “I need to know you are who you say you are. When we were here last, I told you about something my mother called ‘God’s pinball machine.’ Do you remember what that was?”
“Lightning,” Dasi said, without hesitating. “We were out on the balcony having a drink—”
But Lizelle had already pushed past the guard – he grabbed Dasi and hugged her hard.
“My god, Dasi … they told me you were dead,” the senator said. “And then they attacked me! Here, in my own home.”
“Who did?” Paisen asked, stepping onto the landing.
15
Paisen moved slowly, and kept her rifle pointed harmlessly at the floor.
“Sir,” the guard warned Lizelle, shifting his aim to cover Paisen. “Get back behind me, sir.”
Lizelle let go of Dasi and stepped back, but stayed in the hall. Carefully, Beauceron and Rath joined Paisen on the landing. The senator studied them each in turn.
“I presume you are the three persons responsible for the attack on Fusoria?” Lizelle asked. “In that much, at least, it seems the Group has been honest with me.”
“Who attacked you?” Paisen repeated.
“The Janus Group, of course,” Lizelle told her.
“Why?” Rath asked.
“Because the director of the Group has ambitions to expand the organization well beyond what it was originally intended to be. And I dared to oppose her.”
“So it’s true,” Beauceron said, “the Guild is a Senate-sanctioned organization.” He shook his head in chagrin. “How can you justify cooperating with them?”
“Cooperating?” Lizelle asked. “No, Detective. The Senate established the Guild.”
“What? Why?” Beauceron asked.
“To save lives. To save humankind from itself,” Lizelle said.
“I don’t ….” Beauceron shook his head in disbelief. “How could the Guild possibly be considered a force for good?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” Lizelle asked. “It’s not an easy truth to hear.”
“I think we deserve to know,” Beauceron said.
“Very well. Years ago, a handful of pragmatic senators realized that the Federacy and Interstellar Police were inadequate in maintaining peace and order. They were trying to fight crime and terrorism with both hands tied behind their backs … while the terrorists and criminals followed no moral code, and were willing to resort to any means neces
sary. Those founding fathers realized that a small, secretive organization could be applied, like a scalpel, to the tumors that are bound to arise in every society.”
Beauceron scowled. “An organization of killers, executing citizens – innocent people – without due process, under the orders of the very people who were sworn to represent them.”
Lizelle nodded. “It’s morally reprehensible. But it works.”
Beauceron opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it.
“It’s true,” Lizelle continued. “You benefit from it without even realizing it. Answer me this: what happened almost immediately after humankind had settled the known planets?”
“The Colonial Wars,” Rath answered.
“Correct. The planets went to war over resources and territory in the First Colonial War. So we founded the Senate, in order to resolve disputes between planets diplomatically. And after the Second Colonial War, the Interstellar Police were established to enforce the laws impartially.”
“It didn’t work,” Rath told him.
“It almost worked. But it still wasn’t foolproof. A veteran policeman went back home on leave, and was reminded of the injustices that still existed on his home planet.”
“Anders Ricken,” Beauceron said.
“Yes. Anders saw a rather draconian government in power, he saw his own family suffering under that oppression, and decided to use his power and position to try to bring that dictatorship down. And in the process, he inspired like-minded police on several other worlds to challenge their own governments. They were good, smart people – idealists who just took their police training to its logical conclusion. They saw injustice and wanted to help the citizens of their worlds, and so they fought to free them. It was the longest of the Colonial Wars, and the bloodiest. And how did it end?”
“With the establishment of the Internal Affairs bureau,” Beauceron said.
“No,” Rath said, shaking his head. “I studied this, years ago. There was already an Internal Affairs division, but they couldn’t pin anything illegal on Anders for months, and by that time the rebellion had already spread too far.”
“That’s true,” Lizelle agreed. “The conflict was on the verge of ending several times, but Anders always managed to rekindle it. As long as he lived, so did the revolution. A small group of senators realized this, so they found an experienced hitman in prison, freed him, and sent him to kill Anders. ‘The First Contractor,’ you might call him. Those three senators learned two lessons from that. They learned that you can end a war – and by extension, prevent one – by killing a single man. But they also learned that mere criminals lacked the subtlety they required. Killing Anders so dramatically had made a martyr of him. What they should have done was simply made him disappear. Then his followers would not have known whether he died or merely abandoned the cause and fled. No body, no martyr. And from that final lesson, the Janus Group was born.”
“Kill one, save millions?” Rath asked.
“No. Save billions.” Lizelle gestured at Beauceron and Rath. “The two of you are opposing sides to the same coin. Detective, you are sworn to protect and serve – the sheepdog, if you will. But when you fight the wolves, you have to play by the sheep’s rules – and they constrain you. We needed our own wolves. An organization outside of the rules, by its very definition and composition. But it serves the same purpose as law enforcement does – to maintain the peace.”
“I wasn’t killing people like Anders,” Rath argued, “they weren’t enemies of the government. My contracts were from jilted husbands and criminal organizations trying to silence witnesses.”
“Most of them probably were. Assignments like that ensure that the Group remains self-funded, so that tax-payer dollars aren’t required to keep it in operation.”
“But war still happens,” Rath insisted. “I was nearly killed on Jokuan trying to escape a battle, and thousands more died in that city.”
“You were the asset on Jokuan?” Lizelle asked. “Interesting – the galaxy truly is a small place. You did prevent a war, you just didn’t know it. Your target was waiting for transport off-world, where he planned to broker an alliance between Jokuan’s rebels and factions on other planets. That localized conflict could have spread and become a full-blown interplanetary war out in the Territories. But no war broke out, in large part due to our decision to send you there, and your successful prosecution of that mission.”
Paisen cleared her throat. “You’re defending an organization that just tried to kill you.”
“I am,” Lizelle said, turning to face her. “I misjudged the director – she’s a ruthless woman who has forgotten her place, and lost sight of the fact that the Group exists to serve the government, not its own fiscal aims. The Group remains a crucial weapon, it has simply fallen into the wrong hands. It’s critical that she be … removed. But the Group will remain, and continue its mission, for the good of the galaxy.”
“How can you defend them at all, when they killed Khyron?” Dasi asked, a tear rolling down her cheek.
Lizelle was taken aback; in his fervor, he had nearly forgotten about Dasi.
“Dasi, you have to understand … it’s for the greater good.”
Dasi looked at him in horror.
“At what cost?” Rath asked quietly.
“We know the cost,” Beauceron spat. “At the cost of countless innocent lives.”
“And the lives of the contractors,” Paisen pointed out. “But either way, I’ve had enough of this philosophical debate. Tell us where to find this director, Senator, and I’ll kill her myself.”
Lizelle studied her. “And when she’s dead?”
“I take my money and disappear. You can do what you want with the Group, I don’t care.”
Lizelle considered her offer for several seconds. Then he sighed.
“There are three of us on the Senate committee. For our safety, our identities are hidden from the Group, and each of us is entrusted with a different secret of the Group. That way, should the Group seek to eliminate the Senate oversight committee, the surviving members know enough to expose the Group, or dismantle it completely, if necessary. But individually, we don’t know enough to bring it down, without the consent of our peers. I know the name of the family that runs the Group in stewardship for us. My colleagues know the location of Group Headquarters, and the access codes to Group financial systems.”
“So tell me her name,” Paisen said.
“Siya Nkosi,” Lizelle replied.
Beauceron caught one of the Senate Guards glancing subconsciously back at the body on the floor. The guard and Beauceron locked eyes for a second, and then the guard looked away, hurriedly. Beauceron frowned.
“… but Nkosi will take precautions as soon as she hears I survived the attack,” Lizelle was saying. “She will anticipate me sending someone for her. She’ll go to ground.”
“Where?”
“Group Headquarters. You’ll need to talk to the other senators to find out where it is.”
“Which senator knows where the Group is headquartered?” Rath asked.
“I don’t know – we keep it a secret who knows what. You’ll need to see both of them.”
“Fine,” Paisen agreed. “So who are they?”
Lizelle hesitated.
“You have to understand, their identities … it’s perhaps the most dangerous secret in the galaxy. I’ve spent my life protecting it. I suspect I’m still alive because Nkosi hoped to capture me, and torture me for their identities, so she could eliminate them next. I was prepared to take my own life to keep them secret. If Nkosi were to ever learn it … there would be nothing stopping her from murdering us all, and turning the Group into her own private army.”
“I can keep a secret,” Paisen assured him.
“Can you? Will you give me your word that the secret dies with you?”
“Yes,” Paisen agreed.
“The word of an assassin.” Lizelle smiled ruefully, shaking his head. “I thin
k we need something a bit more reliable. How about this: once you find and kill Nkosi, I will make sure you’re paid what you are owed. You and your friend,” he pointed at Rath. “And I’ll ensure they stop hunting all of you. That will be the end of it.”
“Deal,” Paisen agreed. “Nkosi’s head, in return for our money and safety. Now tell us who the other senators are.”
“Paisen,” Beauceron said. “I don’t think—”
“Martin, this deal doesn’t concern you,” she interrupted. “I never agreed to help you expose the Group. You’re on your own for that.”
Beauceron eyed the two Senate Guards. “In that case, I don’t think we should all know the identity of the other senators.” With exaggerated care, he drew his notebook from his pocket, slowly showing it to the bodyguards. “I’m going to bring this pencil and paper to the senator, so he can write down their names and share them with my colleague,” he told them.
Beauceron walked slowly across the room. As he moved, he took a longer look at the body down the hallway, but he could see little of it, aside from the backpack next to it. When he neared Lizelle, Beauceron held out the notebook, but it slipped from his hand, tumbling to the floor.
“Sorry,” Beauceron said, stooping down to pick it up. He handed it to the senator and then backed away, hands in the air. The bodyguards watched him closely.
Rath caught a glimpse of something on the floor, where Beauceron had dropped the notebook. He zoomed in using his eye implants, and saw a small metal disc with the letter B painted on it. Rath glanced sideways at Beauceron.
What the hell are you playing at, Martin?
Lizelle scribbled in the notebook, tore out a page, and then walked over to Paisen.
“Do we have a deal?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” she agreed.
He held out the paper, and she took it. All eyes were on Paisen as she unfolded the paper and silently read the names, but Rath’s expanded peripheral vision caught movement, and he looked over to see the body down the hallway push itself up from the floor. He brought his rifle up, an incoherent scream of warning on his lips, but the bodyguards were already firing, stun rounds punching into both Rath and Paisen.