by Patty Jansen
They nodded and took my descriptions and pictures of Robert, but I wasn’t sure they took me seriously.
The net I was trying to cast for Robert had so many weak links. I couldn’t imagine that the Exchange would want to slow their schedule in order to do the checks necessary to make sure that he didn’t escape. I still had no idea what identity he was travelling under. Security at the airport was not particularly tight and there were many ways of getting into the building.
It was not the first time that I’d found the bureaucracy and lethargy of the Barresh authorities frustrating to deal with.
We were tired and filthy and the best thing we could do was to go home, have a bath and the rest and wait until the others arrived. Maybe it would be a good idea if I looked at those urgent messages that Devlin said had come in for me.
There wouldn’t be a flight to Athens until after dinner.
So we took the solar plane back to the gamra island because, fortunately, that was where it belonged, and just the thought of having to catch the train made me tired.
The tiny service airstrip was on the eastern side of the island, already half-covered by the lengthening shadows of the buildings along its western side.
The island’s operations and maintenance manager seemed relieved that the plane was back in one piece. I wondered what powers of persuasion Thayu had used to borrow it.
We walked home across the leafy avenues without saying much. No doubt the madness would start again as soon as I opened the door to the apartment.
Indeed, when we came home, Devlin had already picked up though the signal of my reader that I was in the building, and he met us in the hallway.
“I’m so glad that you’re back,” he said. “The news just keeps piling up. The messages, too.” He did not usually get flustered any more, so I knew that the situation was worse than normal. Then his cheeks coloured. “I’m so very sorry, Muri. You must be tired.” He was looking at my trousers which bore splatters of mud and beisili sperm and green smudges from climbing over mossy boulders.
“I am tired, but it’s urgent, so I’ll have a look.”
“Do you need me?” Thayu asked.
“Not immediately. I’ll join you in the bath soon.”
She went into the hallway and I followed him into the hub where he opened a considerable list of messages. All of them were marked urgent. I scanned the names of the senders. Most of them were from Margarethe Ollund. There was a single message from Jasper. It said, Need to see you urgently. I wondered if that invitation still stood. Actually, the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that if Jasper wanted to see me, it might be best to play hard to get for a while, even if only to see how desperate he got.
Margarethe mostly asked for details about Robert. I replied to her with a single message asking why she was so keen to have him back, which I knew she wouldn’t answer.
I was afraid that I was going to have to visit in order to find out. Not only that, but if and when we caught Robert, I would probably have to escort him to Rotterdam. Until this had happened, I hadn’t realised how much I’d avoided Rotterdam since the incident where vice president Danziger had almost wiped my citizenship, after I’d let Asha solve a non-Earthly problem on Earth in the best way the Coldi military could: by nuking it from orbit. In the few years since then, I’d dodged the questions, the legal implications and the politics associated with that attack by not going there. I didn’t work for Nations of Earth anymore.
The moment I set foot inside the compound gates, the sharks would be waiting for me, ready to blame me for everything that was wrong with the Earth-gamra relationship.
Damn, I really didn’t want to go to Nations of Earth and face a grilling over who I worked for and how I’d betrayed Earth and worked for the enemy.
Ezhya was not the enemy. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t see that.
Arguing was a lost cause, because they only saw Help! Aliens! and their opinions never grew any more nuanced than that. I’d tried to explain. I’d failed miserably.
Damn and crap.
I was about to shut down the inbox when I noticed Devlin hovering around.
“Yes? Is anything else the matter?”
“Well,” he said, and hesitated. “I know you’re really busy, and this isn’t the highest priority, but while you were away I discovered something that I think you might like to see.”
My heart sank. Devlin always had a wonderful way of understating a problem.
“All right, then, let’s have it.” I wondered if Thayu was in the bath yet and if I should call her so she could hear this, too.
Devlin sat next to me. He opened up a projection with lines of text. “Do you recognise this, Muri?”
I frowned at it. “That looks like a message I sent to Amarru before we left. At least the main part of it. I’m not sure what all the bits of code at the beginning are.”
“I wasn’t sure either. These little messages showed up in the directory that you left intact in the office account that was compromised.”
“But the office doesn’t send my messages.”
“No, but somehow, the bug that you received in that message about archiving managed to use the office to break into your gamra account and captured this.”
“They could skim the Exchange feed and read this anyway.”
“They could, but what makes this unique is that it captures the message before it leaves the house and therefore captures all your passcodes.”
Shit. “You said earlier that the code opened an outside link?”
“Yes, that’s where it send these bits. We’ve traced it.” He showed the map to me. I knew the location on the southern side of the island. Jasper Carlson’s warehouse.
I stared at the dot, heart thudding. Jasper Carlson had lived in town for a long time. He’d been here longer than I had, since before Seymour Kershaw, my ill-fated predecessor. I thought back to that strange visit of his to the hospital, when he’d come to tell me about Clovis’ smuggling, which was essentially true but not really, since the diamond business seemed to be Robert’s contribution that Jasper was keen to pin on Clovis. He’d given Thayu enough information to trust him so that she would leave me with him alone with no listening devices. He could have strangled me during that time. But he hadn’t. He’d saved my life by letting me use his pet Tamerian. Then he’d offered more information and another meeting.
He had a high status with the Trader Guild, and worked for the Courier’s Guild, which—wait. That data-selling business that was skimming low-grade information off my office account had an account at the Courier’s Guild.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
“Muri?” Devlin asked.
“He’s the one who sent me the message with the bug,” And I was almost certain that the skimmed information would be going back to Earth.
I went into the hall. “Thayu, can you come here?”
There was no reply.
The living room was empty; the bathroom was empty. I found her in the bedroom, face down on the bed, still in her dirty clothes. She was fast asleep.
I backed away quietly, but I hadn’t been quiet when I came in, and those rolling doors mad a lot of noise. She stirred and opened her eyes.
“What? Did you say something?” Her voice sounded slurred.
“No. It can wait. I didn’t know you were so tired.”
“I forgot to bring my supplements on the trip.”
Her red-coded poisons. Did that mean she had been without the entire trip? “You could have asked the others.”
“Yes, but I used to do without all the time, and I used to be fine.”
“I think maybe you didn’t realise before that you weren’t fine.”
“Maybe I’m just getting older.” She met my eyes. She said nothing else, but I sensed what she meant with this remark.
“I absolutely promise that when this is over, we will see Lilona.” And then I remembered I’d vowed not to ask favours from t
he candidate’s partner before the election. Damn.
She was right. It was getting ridiculous. If one looked for an excuse not to do something, there was always an excuse.
She asked, “Did you want to talk to me?”
“I did, but . . .”
I was tired, too. I decided to let both Jasper and Robert wait until the others had arrived back home and we could formulate a plan. My whole life was crashing down around me, and I had no energy to repeat the whole story twice, and have the same discussion twice. We went in to the bathroom, washed quickly and went back to the bedroom, where we curled up against each other and slept.
I was wakened what seemed barely five minutes later by someone coming into the room.
“Cory.”
It was Nicha, silhouetted by the light in the hall. It was almost dark outside. He retreated. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
I sat up. “No, it’s all right. We should get up anyway. When did you come back?”
There was a lot of noise in the hall: rattling of wheels on the tiles, thuds of items hitting the ground, footsteps, the echoing of voices. Ayshada babbling.
“Just now. We’re just dumping all our stuff in the hall. Eirani says there will be tea soon.”
Tea was always good. It might even involve cakes and bread.
Nicha left, and I sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing my face. Damn it. What was the time?
I went to the window and peeked between the curtains. The sky was darker than it should be for the time of day. The thunderclouds that had built during the day had spilled over the city.
I sat on the bed and watched Thayu sleep. She was strong and formidable, but not indestructible. I decided to leave her. The others would be equally tired. They would have a quick snack and go and clean up before we came back for dinner followed by a strategy meeting.
As quietly as I could, I found clean clothes and sneaked out of the room.
As I should have known, tea was an understatement to describe the variety and quantity of food on the table.
Everyone was in the living room. Eirani bustled around with the teapot and for once didn’t complain about getting the floor dirty.
“I’m so glad that you’re back,” she said. “It gets so terribly quiet when all of you are gone.”
The nanny was also there with Ayshada and he lapped up the attention. Outside, it started raining, punctuated with the occasional flashes of thunder.
Between us, we talked a bit about business anyway. I asked Nicha where the three Pengali were, and he said they had to return the boats to their owner.
“Did the Thousand Islands people give you any trouble?”
“They hung back once we were close to the city. I suspect they’re going to wait until after dark.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. But at least I’d let the Barresh city guards know about this impending invasion.
“Any sign of our man?” Nicha said.
“No, but I visited Clovis again. I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened between those two.” I told him about the things Clovis had told me and the things I had worked out between the lines.
Nicha sucked in a breath.
“I need to discuss a few other things before we go to bed. There’s a shuttle tonight. I really hope that if Robert tries to get on it, the Exchange security check will recognise him and stop him.” I hated that we couldn’t be involved with this. “Most importantly, Nich’, we’re going to have to escort Robert to Rotterdam when we catch him.”
He listened quietly to my thoughts about this, nodding every now and then.
Then a voice at the door said, “Why is everyone in here without me?”
Thayu.
She looked sleepy, mussed up and confused.
“You didn’t wake up when Nicha came in to call us, and I thought it best to let you sleep. We were going to start with the meeting after dinner.”
She sat down next to me. Then she had to be filled in about the events since we’d come home, and the gathering turned into a rolling meeting anyway, where Eirani and the kitchen staff kept up the supplies of food and tea and people would take turns to duck out quickly to freshen up and get changed.
Devlin came in as well, and talked about the link going to Jasper’s warehouse. We debated whether or not we needed to take any action, whether we thought that Jasper could be hiding Robert. I told them about how Jasper had come into the hospital and alerted me about the smuggling.
I still didn’t understand the relationship between those men. We discussed the possibility that Jasper was some sort of secret police. No one knew. I was supposed to be the expert on that front.
Sheydu said it wasn’t our business, and she was right about that. I apologised for getting them all involved, and in the same breath said I couldn’t have done things differently.
Nicha agreed with me that we’d invested too much time in it to waste all our acquired knowledge.
We did have so many other things to do. And we had to cover part of Melissa’s job—
Thayu checked her reader. Her eyes widened. “You were right. He was hiding in Clovis’ house.”
She showed me the screen, where two men made their way along the veranda of the house. Robert, sans beard, was carrying his bags.
I got up. “Everyone, to the airport now.”
CHAPTER 22
* * *
WE ALL JUMPED UP. We’d been lazing and relaxing, and suddenly everyone was awake.
I started organising my team.
Thayu was coming. Nicha was coming. Both had bathed and looked reasonably rested. Veyada had needed to deal with some legal issue upon his return and hadn’t had time to clean himself. He looked exhausted, but would not be left behind.
“This could be dangerous,” he said. “We all need to go.”
He was right. And I was glad of Veyada’s continued contribution to my team. He had become very dear to me.
I went into the bedroom and donned the horrible armour again, strapping on my gun. Thayu had three guns, all visible and charged. Two on her arms, one at her hip. She’d have a selection of zappers, stunners and knives in her pockets. Her belt bristled with listening, code-breaking, viewing and spying equipment.
We waited in the hall for the others to get ready, while Thayu arranged for the plane again. Then I asked Devlin to get us a water taxi.
He frowned. “But I thought you were using the plane.”
“We are, but the water taxi company is Clovis’. I want him to think that we’re falling into his trap. The driver that will turn up will have orders to deliver us somewhere other than the airport, or delay us until the craft has left.”
Comprehension dawned on his face.
“When the driver calls that the taxi is ready, tell him we’re coming. Then do nothing for a while. When I give you go ahead that we’re in the city, go downstairs and pay him and tell him we changed our minds.”
We left the apartment not much later, a quiet, stealthy group armed to the teeth.
For a group this size, of course, we needed two planes.
As added problem, the thunderstorm still hadn’t cleared. In fact it looked like a second front was about to hit us. Squalls of wind tore at the small craft as they took to the air. The outside was made from sturdy fabric, and at times I could feel it being pushed inwards by the wind.
I sat in the co-pilot’s seat next to Thayu, and she had trouble keeping us on course. The other craft was somewhere behind us, but I could only see them on the radar. Ahead of us, the lights of the city shone through a thick veil of rain.
Then the rain hit us, and I saw nothing anymore. Thayu was flying purely on instruments until we were almost on the ground, and the glow of the floodlit tarmac appeared underneath us, much closer than I had expected. The landing was a bit rough, but nothing like when we landed on the beach.
The parking spots at the area near the terminal each contained a couple of rings embedded in the concrete. As soon as Evi opened the
door—letting in a cloud of drops and humidity—Thayu threw out the tie-down straps which we used to secure the plane to the ground by the eyelets in the wings and tail so it wouldn’t be blown over.
Then we made our way towards the building. Rain came down in sheets, reducing visibility to barely a couple of steps in front of us. Judging by the noise, a fairly large aircraft was going through engine tests. A cloud of mist and drops thrown up by its downward jets lashed into our faces, whipped up by the wind. There was a second shuttle, too, with a lot of activity from vehicles and people surrounding it.
“That’s the one,” Nicha said, pointing at the closest craft.
It was hard to see through the driving rain. I didn’t think they were up to letting passengers board, but they had definitely turned on the engines.
“We better be quick,” Thayu said.
We ran the last part of the way to the terminal.
The large hall was packed full of people, the windows fogged up with the humidity. A shuttle from Kedras was due as well as the regular service from Miran that came in a few times a day. Passengers and families and friends alike were all waiting. Everyone was wet and a couple of cleaners with mops were wiping the floor.
We spread out in teams, keeping in contact with each other through our feeders. I went with Thayu, while Deyu and Evi were going to check the passenger records. Not surprisingly, Robert’s name did not come up.
Any names that look suspicious? I asked.
How do names alone look suspicious? Deyu said. There are over one hundred and fifty people listed. Some of them are waiting here, but some will be over in the main hall. I can’t check the names before I know which face belongs to it.
And we had no access to that part of the job. Not only that, I didn’t trust that the Exchange security checks were anywhere near adequate.
We went to the public waiting area, where people sat on every available seat and on the ground, and stood waiting between the seats. It was hard to see who would be passengers on the craft and who would travel on other flights or who were there to see off friends and family.