She didn’t catch the movement at first. A passing skimmer obscured matters, followed by the rowdy procession of some Family progeny out on a prowl. But as Jani returned her attention to her duffel, she caught the shadow flicker in the doorway across the street. The fidget of someone who thought themselves better hidden than they actually were.
Jani freed a meal bar from the morass with a flourish and removed the wrapper. Bit into it with apparent relish and continued her saunter down the street. She had traveled two blocks south of Armour Place. Her original destination had been a people-mover stop that she didn’t often use. Now, however, she veered west toward an area of commercial buildings.
The quality of the safety lighting deteriorated quickly. Soon Jani could only track her stalker by the occasional distant footfall. Whoever it was remained on the other side of the street, well back and out of sight. During daylight, Jani conceded, they could have tracked her for blocks without her knowledge, since they seemed to possess a decent grasp of basic shadowing. But night had proved their enemy rather than friend, as their step echoed along the deserted street.
Jani continued to wend deeper into the commercial pocket until follower and followed were the only two people to be seen. When she encountered a narrow alley between two shuttered buildings, she slipped down it. Once she reached the end, she nestled into the shadows, and waited.
For a time, all was silence but for her breathing and the beat of her heart. Then Jani heard the staccato scrape of leather sole on scancrete; the sound stopped at the mouth of the alley, then began again, drawing closer and growing louder as her follower approached. She reached into her duffel for her parchment opener, then let the bag slide to the ground. Her hand tightened around the blade’s handle. She waited.
The steps quickened as they approached the end of the alley. Stopped as the stalker surveyed the darkness. Then they resumed, slowly, one long, low crunch after another, drawing nearer.
Jani waited until the sounds drew alongside. Slightly ahead. She tensed to spring—
“Jani? Are you back here?”
—and pulled the knife back just in time as she barreled into Roni and they tumbled onto the hard, cold scancrete. “You jackass!” She rolled away from her and swore again as she banged her right knee against the sharp corner of the building. “Why the hell didn’t you announce yourself!”
Roni lay flat on her back. “I trusted you.” She tried to lift her head and shoulders, groaned, and sagged back down. “I let you have a look at the idomeni ambassador’s letter, and you fed me back a fake. I want the real letter back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bull.” Roni struggled to a semi-sitting position and pressed a hand to the back of her head. “To add to my joy—I’ve spent most of the day in an emergency meeting—concerning some missing documents.”
Jani braced against the building and worked to her feet. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Roni looked dazed; her hair stuck straight up in places. “I waited for you by the bookstore for over three hours. When you didn’t show, I hung around. I saw the Haárin tilemaster enter your building carrying a bag. I saw him leave without it. I know you have those documents. Where are you taking them? I’m not too thrilled with you right now, so I suggest you give a straight answer.”
Jani freed her duffel from its hiding place and hoisted it to her shoulder. The blade, she slipped into her jacket pocket for easier access—she had never seen the glittery look in Roni’s eyes before, and she didn’t want any surprises. “Like I said before, I don’t know what you’re—”
“Jani.” Roni produced the female vocal version of Declan Kilian when he had had enough. “You and Tsecha are being set up. Now do you want to get to the bottom of this, or don’t you?” She handcombed her hair, to little effect. “Look, you show me what you have, and I won’t flag down the first green-and-white I see and have you arrested for possessing stolen property. Favor for favor—what do you say?”
“I just want to find out what the hell is going on.” Roni lurched in her seat as the people-mover pulled away from the curb. “The Exterior Exec Wing has shut me out for weeks. I can’t raise Ulanova on the ’port. And forget Beddy-Boy Lescaux. He’s much too important to deal with the likes of me.”
Jani looked up from her examination of her duffel. Her self-appointed partner had suffered a good scuffing from her tumble in the alley—cheek scratched and reddened, chin coated with a smear of blood. She’d cracked the back of her head against the scancrete, as well—a tuft of blood-matted hair marked the site of a scalp injury. “I still think you should stop by Neoclona to get your head checked out.”
“Will you stop changing the subject?”
“Are you seeing double?”
“I can see you as clear as day.” Roni glared at her sidelong. “Why did you duplicate that letter?”
Jani looked out her window in time to see a ComPol skimmer pull alongside. “I wanted to flush out whoever wrote it.”
“Well, you sure flushed something, didn’t you?” Roni probed the back of her head, and winced. “You know what was the main comment I heard around the offices today? That it was a shame that the wrong person got shot.”
“I didn’t realize Lucien was that well liked.”
“He isn’t.”
The ComPol skimmer dogged the people-mover for half a block before speeding up. Jani watched it flit ahead of the lumbering vehicle and accelerate, warning lights flashing. “Like you said, someone is trying to set up Nema. I wanted to take the heat off him—whether people thought he’d actually composed the precis or not, they’d still use it as they saw fit. I thought the faked Brandenburg Progression would work, at least for a week or so, until I could figure out who was going after him.” The ComPol lights disappeared into the distance, and she relaxed. “I took the chance that you wouldn’t scan it as soon as you got your hands on it again.”
“I scan that damned thing daily. It’s become a hobby.” Roni yawned. She wore a burgundy band-collared shirt beneath her charcoal trouser suit—the vivid colors accentuated her wounds. “I mean, it was a great idea. Take a Commonwealth document and twist it just enough to make it look as though an idomeni tried to fake it. Folks get so excited about catching an idomeni forgery that they don’t stop to think whether the information in the document is worth a damn.” She glanced at Jani a little less angrily. “What tipped you off?”
“I don’t believe Nema would bother to sneak that sort of information. He’d tell us outright, and blow the consequences.” Jani twitched a shoulder. “You?”
“I think he’d have done a better job. Any idomeni would have—they sure as hell wouldn’t have tripped up on the damned initiator chip.” Roni lifted one of her feet so she could study her shoes. “You even scanned the soles. You really are paranoid, aren’t you?”
The Registry tower loomed ahead. Jani gathered her duffel and stood carefully. She had sustained less obvious injuries than Roni—a battering to her sore knee and a bruised elbow—but they combined to make her every movement a pleasure. “We’re getting off at this stop.”
Roni caught the view out the window, and shot Jani another hard look.
Jani shouldered her duffel as defiantly as she could with an elbow that delivered sparks along the length of her arm every time she moved. “I’m completely within my rights as an investigator-at-large.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have an explanation for everything.” Roni stood, and dabbed at her chin. “How do I look?”
“Like you just got rolled in a darkened alley.”
“Gosh, I wonder why.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
Jani looked around the waiting area that served the private side of Registry, which was empty but for her, Roni, and the bright young face that asked the question. “No.” She forced a smile, and gazed down at the receptionist with as much benevolence as she could muster, considering. “But as a member of Re
gistry, I am entitled to use the labs whenever I wish.”
“Oh, I’m not questioning that, Ms. Kilian!” The young woman offered more of the wide-eyed Registry homage that Jani had not yet gotten used to. “But you’ve been through so much with the shooting and all and our lab staff is on meal break now and I’m sure one of the supervisors would be happy—”
“Jani?”
Jani restrained the urge to lay her head down on the desk as the familiar drawl wafted through the air. Instead, she turned and did her best to look wide-awake. “Dolly.”
“We’ve heard all kinds of awful things. Glad to see none of them are true.” Dolly walked toward them from the direction of the lift bank. “That being said, what are you doin’ here?”
Jani glanced at the wall clock. “I could ask you the same question.”
“I’m on-call this week. Resident expert to all and sundry at any time of the day or night.” Dolly looked a little rousted herself. She wore another flowing outfit, crystal blue silk that matched her eyes. Not what Jani would classify as stay-at-home clothes—somewhere in Chicago, an expensive dinner grew cold on its plate. “I saw your names come up on the entry board and realized you’re just the people to help me with my own little dilemma.” She held her hand out to Roni, her gaze flicking over her roughed-up visage and disheveled clothes. “Hello, Ms. McGaw. You’re the Exterior Chief.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Roni bubbled. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.” She grinned in starstruck rapture, then winced as her damaged face complained.
“Well, Doll, you tell us your dilemma and we’ll tell you ours.” Jani laughed, a single short hack. “Dolly’s Dilemma. Dolly’s Dreadful Dilemma. Dolly’s Dastardly Dreadful Dilemma.”
If Dolly felt any trace of good humor, she kept it to herself. “I remember a few times in Rauta Shèràa when you pushed yourself until the exhaustion made you silly. That never boded well for anybody.” She turned and headed for the lift. “Let’s adjourn to my office, shall we?”
“I was in the middle of a lovely supper when I received a call from Registry Security. The bottom has apparently dropped out at Exterior. They’re missing some paper.” Dolly walked to her sideboard and took a decanter from the liquor service. “The most interesting thing they had to say was that you were involved.” She turned to look at Jani. “You and a staffer at the idomeni embassy.” She poured a generous serving of gin, then dropped in a slice of lime and a few cubes of ice. “Does this have anything to do with that other matter you came to see me about?”
“Madame Aryton, I am also involved in that other matter.” Roni glared at Jani, but turned professionally serious by the time Dolly returned to her desk. “Independent of Ms. Kilian, I have been trying to determine whether the alleged idomeni letter has any relation to certain other Exterior documents. Unfortunately, my experience with idomeni documents protocols isn’t as extensive as it should be.”
Madame? Jani stared at the scratched side of Roni’s face, but was pointedly ignored. Therefore, she concentrated on picking up the thread Roni held out to her and weaving her part of the tale. “Ms. McGaw is consulting with me concerning these protocols. I’m comparing them to a wide range of humanish documents as a means of instruction.”
Dolly sipped her drink, then set it down on the desk. She crossed her hands in her lap, every centimeter the dignified Family Lady. But her mind worked in circles—her acceptance into the Academy had depended on that ability, as had her survival in Chicago. “In other words, these documents that Exterior Security believes were taken by the idomeni—”
“—are right here in my possession.” Roni hoisted Jani’s duffel and patted it proprietarily.
Roni’s revelation would have stopped a less-nimble mind, but it didn’t even cause Dolly to tap the decelerator. “But why didn’t you sign them out, Ms. McGaw? Exterior Security has no record of you doing so.”
“According to Exterior policy, I’m exempt from that requirement. I have to remind Security of this on a regular basis, since it’s not a policy of which they approve.” Roni grimaced as she lowered the duffel back to the floor—apparently, not all her injuries were cosmetic, after all. “The builtin assumption is that I am cleared to see any piece of paper in the place.”
“But is Jani cleared as well?” Dolly shot Jani a skeptical look. “My understanding from Exterior Security was that she would have to make several jumps in esteem to qualify as persona non grata.”
“Roni only shows me what I’m cleared to see.” Jani watched Dolly’s posture, the way she held her hands. All directions at once. She knew the barrage was coming, she just wished she knew Dolly’s mind well enough to know where she’d strike first. “I have Yellow clearance at Treasury and Orange at Commerce, so I’m not completely off-the-street.”
Dolly paused to take another sip of her drink. “Roni? May I call you Roni?” She swirled her glass and smiled as Roni nodded and sat up expectantly. “What happened to your face?”
Jani sat back as easily as she could and watched Roni’s jaw and neck tense.
“I’m not the most graceful thing on two feet, Madame.” Roni grinned sheepishly and brushed a smudge of dirt from her sleeve. “I missed a step leaving a restaurant this evening, the results of which you can see.”
Dolly’s clear eyes never left Roni’s face. “Did you fall on top of Jani? She appears a little bedraggled herself.”
Jani shrugged. “I always look bedraggled, Dolly.”
“No, you do not. You’re a single word in a Commonwealth of paragraphs and one thing you have never been, Jani Kilian, is sloppy.” Dolly set her glass down so that the ice clinked and liquor splashed. “I’m only going to say this once. You’re dexxies who suspect documents fraud, and you’re acting accordingly. A ticklish situation all around, but based on my experiences with my old school tie”—she nodded toward Jani—“I’m inclined to stand back and let you proceed. But you must let me know what is goin’ on because one thing I most assuredly do not like—apart from having to excuse myself from an anniversary dinner with my spouse—is being surprised.”
Jani knocked her fist against her forehead. Her timing with regards to other peoples’ evenings just kept getting better and better. “You and Cairn.”
“Twenty-six years today. We count from the day in prep school when she gave me her late great-grandmother’s wedding ring and told me I was the one.” Dolly offered the barest hint of a smile before the veil fell. “But enough about me and mine. I want to hear about you and yours, and I want to hear it fast, and I want to hear it now.”
Jani looked at Roni. She eventually looked back. They communicated in the same way they worked, via mindreading supplemented by the occasional eyebrow twitch.
Jani opened the negotiations. “Can we talk while we work? Time may be getting short.”
CHAPTER 24
They adjourned to another laboratory in a different part of the building. This time, Dolly assembled the equipment herself, eliminating the need for documents technicians with prying eyes.
The three of them worked to activate and calibrate the readers and interpreters, hands flicking over touchpads, speech reduced to the occasional short question or comment. Soon, all the start-up beeps and clicks silenced and indicator lights showed green.
Roni hauled Jani’s duffel up on a desk in the middle of the room and cracked the closures, only to have Dolly encircle her wrist in a racing-hardened grip. “I’m waiting for that explanation.”
Jani dug into one of the duffel’s side pockets and snatched another meal bar. “A colonial business consortium called L’araignée may be the driving force behind this idomeni forgery. They may have also helped Service Intelligence compile information about my past for a white paper that’s been coursing up and down Cabinet Row for the past few weeks.” She pulled the wrapper from the bar and bit grudgingly. She’d grown sick of chocolate and caramel, but the sensation of a hollow pit where her stomach used to be convinced her that what she wanted had very little t
o do with what her body needed.
“I heard about that.” Dolly released Roni’s wrist with a small smile and left her to examine it, which Roni did with a pained frown. “Well, more than that, actually. I read it. So did Carson.” She leaned against a counter and folded her arms. “After the news of the shooting made the rounds, he called to tell me that he’d double the salary-benefits package if you came to work for him. But then, Carson always did have a wild side.” She looked at Jani. “You feel that the white paper and this idomeni letter are connected.”
Jani bit, chewed, nodded. “I think some commercial factions are combining in an effort to destabilize human-idomeni relations in order to force the Haárin to end their business dealings with the colonies. The financial losses that humanish businesses are sustaining because of the Haárin influx are starting to mount. L’araignée is the name adopted by a Channel World business consortium that formed to fight the influx. It contains, unfortunately, both legitimate and criminal members, and the legit factions don’t yet realize that they’ve made a deal with the devil. By the time they do, several colonial governments will be bankrupted and their business structures irreversibly damaged.”
Roni had wandered from desk to counter. “L’araignée? Sounds like some of the outfits I had to deal with during my colonial stint.” She examined her face in a cabinet’s reflective surface, then stepped to the sink. “They’d be more than happy to help panicky Earthbound bureaucrats force out Haárin merchants, while they skim the cream off every transport payload that leaves a colonial dock.” She ran the water and tried to scrub the dried blood off her chin. “That way, they can destabilize the Commonwealth system and make money off of it at the same time, which to them is the best of both worlds.” She mouthed an “ouch” as her overzealous washing reopened the wound, and held a lab wipe over it to staunch the blood flow.
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