Salvation

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Yeah.” Toby nodded solemnly. “That’s her.”

  “She ran at you—then what?”

  “Picked me up. She was really strong. Then it happened, the bomb. It went off.”

  Yuri could see the moisture glinting in the boy’s eyes; he was starting to withdraw. It was too vivid, too terrifying. “Now this is important, Toby. I need to know about what happened after. What happened to the woman?”

  “They took her,” Toby said simply. “She was hurt bad. There was…was blood. It was all over her.”

  “The police took her?”

  Toby nodded, silent as he relived the memory.

  “What did they take her away in?”

  “Big car. Bigger than a normal police car. Same color, though. They carried her into the back, along with the other bloke.”

  “Another man? Was he injured, too?”

  “I guess.”

  “Did they say anything to you?”

  “Just that I’d be okay. He said they’d called the paramedics.”

  “The policeman that talked to you, what did he look like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Was he black, white, Indian, Chinese? Short guy, tall guy?”

  “I don’t know. He never took his mask off.”

  “What sort of mask, Toby?”

  “They were all in armor. It was black. You know the dull kind of black.”

  “I do, Toby. Thank you.” Yuri stood up.

  “You finished?” Ben asked.

  “Sure. Hey, Toby, you did okay. You’re lucky to have a dad like this.” He watched as the Reardons went into the lift.

  “Threw them into the back of a car?” Kohei said skeptically.

  “Savi told us she was with Ketchell and Larik. But there were more activists scouting ’round for them.”

  “So it was likely Ketchell or Larik who was caught in the blast with her. Everyone else would have got lost fast.”

  “They were both badly injured. Let’s start with admissions to hospital emergency departments.” Yuri let out a reluctant breath. “And morgues.”

  * * *

  —

  Yuri’s office had full access to all the information from more than a dozen primary medical networks across Australia. Their reports covering the last week were open, swamping a pair of his desk screens. The Security Department G5Turing was even running a real-time scan through hospital emergency department files for a Jane Doe matching Savi’s description. So far it had turned up precisely zero. Savi had effectively vanished from the digital world the moment the bomb went off.

  He was more concerned by Connexion Security’s own logs. Kintore’s files of first fall day had been deleted from the Sydney office’s servers, transferred to New York under Poi Li’s authority. Yuri’s repeated requests to review the drone videos of Fountain Street had been blocked. There was going to have to be a showdown with Poi Li, and soon. Savi had taken the worst of the blast, protecting Toby Reardon. She needed treatment—if she wasn’t already dead.

  And the Sydney department was running another eight current operations, which all required his complete attention, all as important as the infiltration of Akkar’s group. Those agents were depending on him as well. He dropped his head into his hands and massaged his temples. The text of the screens was out of focus no matter how many times he blinked.

  The three empty coffee mugs lined up underneath the desk screens made him sigh. According to Boris, his mInet, he’d been in the office for eighteen hours straight. Yuri did not lose his own operatives. It weighed heavily on him. His people had to trust him, they had to know he had them covered. Everyone in Connexion regarded him as a real hard-ass, which he strove to be, but with asking people to undertake dangerous missions came responsibility. And Yuri took that very seriously indeed.

  There was a swift rap of knuckles on his door, and Kohei Yamada came right in without waiting. “Sorry, chief, we have an incident outside. It’s odd.”

  Yuri frowned and glanced over at the window, slightly surprised to see bright morning sunlight pouring down the skyscraper canyon of Sydney’s central business district. “What’s happening?” Boris hadn’t alerted him to any crowds gathering on the street below.

  “Callum Hepburn is in reception. He’s refusing to leave until he sees you.”

  “Why do I know that name? Is he one of our targets?”

  Kohei grinned. “No, chief.” His mInet threw Callum’s picture on the wallscreen.

  Yuri peered at a young red-haired man with a mildly bewildered smile on his face as he shook hands with Ainsley Zangari himself. Boris backed it up with a biography file. “Riiight…he cleared up Gylgen. I remember.” Connexion’s Emergency Detoxification team had been headlining the news streams after the potential disaster at Gylgen had been averted…until Icefall took over media interest. “What’s he doing here?”

  “No idea. But he’s started shouting quite loudly at our people when they asked him to leave—most impolite.” Kohei pointed at the screen. “Given who he knows, I thought it best we shouldn’t just sling him out on the street. He’s angry about something.”

  “But—”

  “Publicity, chief. We don’t want it.”

  “Fuck it. Bring him up here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Kohei, I want two uniformed staff outside my door.”

  “Way ahead of you, chief.”

  Yuri spent the intervening minutes reviewing Callum Hepburn’s file. It was ordinary enough, except for one entry concerning Gylgen, which was classified higher than Yuri’s rating could access. He raised an eyebrow at that.

  Callum stomped into the office. On his pale skin, the red flush of anger was very pronounced.

  “Mr. Hepburn, please, have a seat—”

  Callum marched over to the desk and put his hands down on it hard so his face was thrust over the screens, glaring down at Yuri. “Where is she?”

  Yuri glanced over at Kohei, who was standing in the doorway, curious and amused. “I don’t respond well to people shouting at me, Hepburn. So you need to back off, calm down, and tell me what this is about.”

  Callum paused for a moment, then took his hands off the desk, straightening up. “Savi Chaudhri. She’s missing. Where is she?”

  Training allowed Yuri to keep his face expressionless, but only just.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of that person.”

  “Bollocks. She’s one of your covert agents. She went undercover for you. She didn’t come back.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Callum breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring. “She’s my fiancée. She went undercover after our holiday. It was supposed to be for five days. It’s double that now. No way does anyone stay out of contact for that long.”

  “Your fiancée?”

  “Yes. And yes, I know she’s supposed to inform you lot so I can be vetted. But it was a whirlwind thing. So…what’s happened and where is she? Just tell me she’s safe, and I’ll piss off and leave you alone.”

  Yuri could read the anxiety burning away behind the man’s anger. “Okay, it’s like this. If one of our agents is undercover, they have specific contact protocols. That includes several emergency methods of alerting us if they get into difficulty. If we had received one of those alerts, then we would extract them at once.” He spread his hands: the reasonable man. “It’s been quiet around here.”

  “Like bollocks it has. There was a riot out at Kintore when the Icefall started. Were her students there? It’s the kind of stupid stunt those morons live for.”

  Once again, Yuri was startled by how close the man was to the truth. He was furious with Savi for compromising herself so badly—and for what? An impetuous fling? When he tracked her down, her career with Security was over. “What students?”
<
br />   “She was…monitoring student groups for you, playing spot the radical. Are they the ones who protested Icefall?”

  “No. No student groups Security watches were there. And you have my word on that.”

  “So where is she?”

  “Look, I appreciate your concern. This is your fiancée, you’ve every right to be worried. But all of my personnel are accounted for. So I’m sure she’ll be calling you as soon as she surfaces.”

  Callum stood still for a long moment, processing what he’d heard. “All right, then.” He nodded as if he was generously letting Yuri off a felony charge. “I’ll give it a couple of days.”

  Yuri watched him walk out of the office. “You’re welcome,” he told the empty doorway.

  Kohei came in. “Did I hear that right? They’re engaged?”

  “So it would seem. And someone like Hepburn isn’t going to lie about that. He’s a fool; he sees the world in black and white.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Only one option left now.”

  Yuri knew he should wait until he’d had a sleep, at the very least. His rumpled shirt, stubble, tired eyes, all spoke of someone not making the best decisions. But this couldn’t wait any longer.

  * * *

  —

  Poi Li’s Manhattan office was in one of Connexion’s downtown buildings, a temporary location until the new American headquarters was built overlooking Central Park. Like Yuri, she didn’t put a lot of weight on expensive fittings as symbols of status.

  Somehow he wasn’t surprised that she was in there, working away in the middle of the East Coast’s night. Very few senior management worked their physical office time zone’s standard hours.

  “You look like crap,” she said as he came in.

  “Thanks.”

  “Tea?”

  “No. I’ve had enough caffeine today.”

  “I recommend chamomile. Very gentle.”

  He shook his head, trying to ignore the irritation. “We have a problem.”

  “You and I would be out of a job if there were no problems in the world.”

  “Very Zen. It’s Savi Chaudhri.”

  “Your infiltration agent?”

  “Yes. You’ve got her, haven’t you?”

  “No. Why do you say that?”

  “I went back over our detention records,” Yuri said. “I was surprised.”

  “In what way?”

  “Akkar’s idea was a good one. Using the power drop-out while the super truckez were recharging would’ve created a reboot window for Julisa’s rogue control program. They would’ve taken over the ancient G3Turing drivers and had themselves the world’s greatest demolition battle, smashing those brutes into each other and every other piece of equipment out there. Some of those things weigh over fifty tons. Everything would’ve been wrecked.”

  “I know,” Poi Li said. “I was in active ops when Tarli worked out their methodology.”

  “Yes. And that was when we all realized how many activists they would be sending to the old airfield. That’s also when you stood down the original arrest squads and the Arizona Search and Engage team was brought in. Your decision, your authorization.”

  “You originally tasked the Australian internal suppression force with the arrests. I judged they weren’t large enough, nor capable, for a hundred and twenty odd fanatics. Quite rightly, as it turns out. S and E handled containment and detention very well.”

  “They were a bit too efficient; they scooped up Savi as well. They didn’t know she was our asset. I’d like her back, please.”

  “We don’t have her.”

  “Have you even checked?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Arizona S and E were given the code for her tracker. We don’t have her.”

  Yuri sat back in the chair and gave her a careful look. “Is this a dark rendition operation? Is that it? Have we got them stashed away at some Guantanamo in North Korea, or something?”

  “That would only multiply our problem, wouldn’t it? You can’t hide that many people and not have anyone ask where they are. We’d have to let them go or bring them to trial eventually.”

  “I personally interviewed the only witness for the substation explosion. He told me the Arizona paramilitaries you sent threw her into the back of their vehicle. You have her.”

  “A nine-year-old boy suffering an explosion trauma is not the most reliable witness.”

  “You know I saw Toby Reardon? You’re keeping tabs on me?”

  “There was only one survivor of the Fountain Street attack according to our files. Are they incorrect?”

  “No,” Yuri said, hating the way he was being put on the defensive. “Look, I get that screwups happen, especially on a day as intense and confusing as last week’s. Just let me access the Arizona S and E records. I’d like to see who they processed.”

  “You don’t have clearance for Arizona S and E documentation. They’re an internal outfit we deploy during extreme security events.”

  “I’m a divisional commander, for fuck’s sake!”

  “And that level does not give you clearance to go digging through Arizona S and E files. I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, come on, Poi, you’ve got to give me something. Let me walk down to the holding cells and quietly take her out of there. She’s Security, one of us. She’s not going running to some piece of shit libertarian civil rights lawyer.”

  “Can’t be done.”

  “You do it, then.”

  “Again, we do not have her.”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s what’s being covered up here.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

  “It’s not going to go away, you know.”

  “The file is closed, Yuri. Drop this. That’s a direct order.”

  “It’s not me that’s your problem,” he said softly. “Have you heard of Callum Hepburn?”

  “How is he the problem?”

  “Wait—do you know him?”

  “I know of him. I can’t tell you why. But I can assure you he is a solid Connexion employee.”

  “Not for much longer. He’s going to be trouble.”

  “Really? Has he joined a radical group?”

  “Turns out he’s Chaudhri’s fiancé.”

  Poi Li sat up, all humor leaving her compact frame. “He’s what?”

  “All I know is they went on some kind of screw-fest holiday together in the Caribbean. And a nice diamond ring was the result. They didn’t bother telling the department.”

  “This is unfortunate,” she said. “He carries media weight right now.”

  “Exactly. So let me have Savi. I’ll reunite the star-crossed lover idiots and everything goes away.”

  “I do not have her.”

  “Why are you doing this?” His voice was raised, which was never a good idea with Poi Li. But somehow, Yuri no longer cared.

  “Yuri. Please. We genuinely don’t have her. You have my word on that. I did check. And please don’t call me a liar to my face. That would be bad for both of us. This is closed. Accept it and move on.”

  Yuri took a moment, but in the end he just nodded and said: “Okay.” He simply couldn’t afford to challenge Poi Li. Not directly.

  * * *

  —

  “How did it go?” Kohei asked when Yuri got back to his Sydney office.

  Yuri slumped into the chair behind his desk. Boris switched all the darkened screens back on, which showed the same mass of data as before—and still told him nothing.

  “Question for you,” he said to his deputy. “You’re a criminal, in the middle of a serious criminal act, and someone assaults you. Who do you complain to? And what do you say? ‘While I was trying to sabotage a hundred million wattdollars’ worth of equipment, someone
beat the crap out of me, then threatened me so badly I’m terrified for my life.’ ”

  “You cut a deal,” Kohei said immediately. “You get into the witness protection program in exchange for testifying.”

  “Nice theory. In practice, witness protection is for organized crime informants who can bring down whole cartels. Somehow I doubt some radical hothead smashing up our equipment is going to be given that same deal.”

  “You mean Akkar’s eco-radicals who tried to bust up our super trucks?”

  “I do indeed. They were rounded up by a Connexion Security subdivision called Arizona S and E. It’s a paramilitary group we use for crowd control in bad urban disturbances.”

  “Do they have the authority to operate in Australia?”

  “Yes. They’ve got an office registered here in the building, actually, and a private police license issued by the government. That allows them to detain persons found committing a criminal act. They then hand them over to the local justice department along with evidence of the alleged felony.”

  “Neat,” Kohei said approvingly. “And if the suspects are held incommunicado?”

  “Then who’s going to notice them missing?” Yuri concluded. He massaged his temples again, which made no difference to the fatigue draining the energy from his muscles and thoughts. “There were over a hundred and twenty of them.”

  “Including Savi?”

  “Given the way I was warned off, yes. But…a hundred and twenty people, maybe more. One of them has to have a family or friends kicking up a fuss. Poi can’t vanish them with impunity. Can she?”

  “Were there actually any witnesses?” Kohei asked. “It all happened out at the old airfield. That’s ours.”

  “And New York has all the logs.”

  “Shit, Poi Li’s thorough.”

  “Akkar’s people will be well chosen activists, totally dedicated. The last thing they’ll do before going on a raid like this is tell anyone. So it’s going to be days before anyone even asks where they are. Weeks before there’s any concern raised. And even if you can get some friendly official to start investigating on your behalf, there’s no evidence linking them. No one apart from us knows the size of the group. As self-generating cover-ups go, it’s impressive.”