Both men nodded vigorously. You didn’t say no to Prime Minister Marueck when he was in this kind of mood, regardless of how absurd his command. As the lift stopped spasmodically at the main floor of the palace, Marueck stepped out, followed by his three guards. Walking directly to his offices, and finding only his secretary in the outer office, he said, "Cancel all my regular appointments for the rest of the day."
"Yes sir. I reached Professor Tiksetti and told him that his appointment has been canceled. He said that he had just heard about the explosion on the news, and asked when he might reschedule. I told him that I would call when you found time to see him."
"Good. Of course I don’t expect to ever find the time."
The door to his inner office suddenly opened and several maintenance workers came out pulling ‘oh-gee’ dump carts loaded with pieces of broken building materials. Several others were still sweeping up, and filling more carts. Marueck walked into the office and watched as they cleaned. Other maintenance workers arrived and began covering the hole with temporary, prefabricated panels. Marueck, still covered in white plaster dust, quickly tired of watching the banal activity and walked to his quarters in the palace to take another shower and change into clean clothes.
When Marueck returned to his office an hour later, the maintenance people were just finishing up and his Security and Intelligence ministers were waiting nervously to give their reports. He motioned to them to follow him into his office and take seats in his informal conference area. He paced the floor in silence until the last of the maintenance people had gone, and the door to the outer office was closed.
"Well, Minister Lisaul?" he said, looking at the Minister of State Security.
"Excellency, the blast was caused by a ground transport filled with explosives. The explosion left a crater over two meters deep. The transport had been painted to look like one of our own grounds maintenance vehicles. We found the real transport parked at the recycling plant, and the driver’s body was discovered beneath a tarp in the rear of the vehicle. He’d been killed several hours earlier. Whoever took his place was an exact duplicate. He even knew the names of the guards on duty at the gate and joked with them before driving to a place opposite your office. He must have known that you were in the building and normally at your desk at that hour. It appears that he was able to walk off the grounds in all the confusion. That’s all we’ve been able to learn so far. My people are continuing to follow up leads."
Marueck nodded and looked at the other man. "Anything to add, Minister Deruuw?"
"My people are tracking down all known and suspected dissidents. No one has claimed credit for the attack yet, but as soon as they do, we’ll move in and arrest everyone associated with that group. We’ll find out who perpetrated this attack, but it will take some time. In the meantime, security has been doubled and everyone entering the grounds must now submit to the retinal test that we’ve only required of people entering the palace."
"A little late for beefing up security."
"We’ve never had an attack on the palace grounds before, and the ID badge was always adequate. I apologize and offer my resignation, Excellency."
"I’ll tell you when I want your resignation, Deruuw. Right now all I want is the head of the individual or individuals behind this attack on my person. But make sure that we’ve drained every last bit of useful knowledge from the head before separating it from the body. Understand?"
Both men nodded and replied, "Yes, Excellency."
(end of Chapter 1)
I hope that you've enjoyed this brief look-ahead into the series.
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