“Okay, might as well get this done while we’re here. Full debrief for the board, omitting anything of a level 1 classified nature, of course. Just audio so keep eating.”
And so, we did. From all that happened on Golan IV to some of Captain Argo’s involvement and our crash landing in pirate territory. Between us, Mason and I managed to cover the salient details in as brief an account as possible and Alice listened to it all. The food vanished and the clock turned. As I got up to pour us some more drinks from the world’s largest liquor cabinet, Mason finished with his account of the taking of the Aurelius even though he failed to add that he was off his head on combat meds at the time.
“That’s all?” asked Alice, reaching to turn off the recorder. We nodded and I passed her another gin. “The files will fill in the gaps I guess.”
“They should,” I added.
She turned off the device and let out a long low whistle. Then she examined her drink and found it to her satisfaction, gingerly sipping at it.
“Some of it I knew,” she said. “Some I didn't. You've been through the wringer. Poor Jack though. I'll have many letters to send tomorrow. Families. Other organizations. You took some serious losses.”
“We did,” said Mason. “But a lot of lives were saved too.”
“Yes, they were.”
Outside the wind was blowing hard, sending sheets of driving rain across the glass that ran in strange curving streams. I could see my reflection in it, and I turned away.
“Formalities aside,” I said. “Let’s talk about Angel.”
“Okay.”
“What happens now?”
Alice opened a drawer and took out a manila envelope, casting it onto her desk so that it slid towards me.
“Officially you're all supposed to be on a three-week psyche evaluation at the company retreat in the hills. As we're new here I took the liberty of buying up some prime real estate for just this reason. Nice place, overlooking the most beautiful pine forests you've ever seen.”
“You don’t expect us to go now, do you?” cried Mason.
“On paper, you're legally obliged to.”
“And off paper?” I asked.
“Three weeks, that's all I can give you. After that, you'll be expected to report for duty following a full physical. In that time, you'd be exempt from any kind of interrogation or surveillance because of medical grounds. It's the only leg we have to stand on given that treason trumps every other protocol we ever bought. At least your mental wellbeing buys us some time.”
“To prove her innocence,” I said. Alice nodded. “You don’t think it can be done through the courts?” She gave me a sardonic ‘what do you think?’ kind of smile and drank some more. “I guess not.”
“Look at it this way – the case is so cold it’s frozen. How many years since the war? And her accuser has sat on it for this long? I don’t buy it, and neither will Aleksei. I can already hear him saying ‘who have you pissed off this time?’.”
“What about Carter’s theory that Argo might have something to do with it?”
“Directly?” she asked. Mason shook his head. “Stirring up the pot, so to speak? It’s possible and he might be the first place to start given that his fleet has just reported in from some backwater galaxy in the middle of nowhere.”
“Intact?” I asked, remembering his date with the alien ships.
“Apparently according to the morning news feeds but don’t expect a full report from the Admiralty any time soon. Short of announcing world peace the Navy would never discuss matters of that nature with the civilian population.”
“We might have to ask him ourselves,” said Mason, turning to me. I grinned.
“Hold your horses,” said Alice, her cheeks rosy with alcohol. “You’re officially at the retreat.”
“What can you do about that?” I asked.
“I can do what all good big sisters can – get their little brother out of the house without Mom and Dad knowing.”
“I like it,” said Mason.
“You will. But it’ll only be for three weeks. If you can’t find good hard evidence we can use, then I wouldn’t expect to see Angel alive again. Do we understand each other?”
“Perfectly,” I said. “About that…” She shook her head.
“No chance. In the eyes of the Protectorat, you could be just as guilty as she is. For treason cases, only her assigned legal representative will be allowed access and I'll be paying a lot of credits to have Aleksei be that person.”
My heart sank a little. I’d have preferred to see her myself before leaving the planet, even if it was just to reassure her that we were working on her behalf. Alice, ever the perceptive sister, looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
“I know,” she said. “I’d have liked to have seen her too but for now she’s out of our reach. Don’t worry, she’ll be looked after. We've got friends in the penal system. If there's any hint of trouble, we'll probably hear about it before it happens.”
“We should probably worry more about whoever is stupid enough to try and hurt her,” said Mason, laughing.
2
Not long before dawn, we separated; Alice to her own apartment where no doubt a certain ex-Martian soldier was waiting for her and we to a higher floor reserved for guests as a kind of in-house hotel. It was pure luxury with more of that lavish décor we'd already witnessed but certainly no cats in sight. Outside my room, Mason stopped.
“Set your alarm for eleven,” he said. “I noticed the sign for the gym on our way up here. Things will look better after we’ve made some gains.”
“I’ve yet to see you bench with that contraption,” I grinned, pointing to his chest. He scratched it again and shook his head.
“Even without it, I'd still lift heavier than you, pal. Get some sleep and you might be more in tune with reality by eleven.”
He turned to go but I stopped him. Something was bothering me.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Angel was a sniper, right? On Mars?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Hardly the best gig for an espionage trick.”
“Doesn’t rule out assassination though.”
“True, but she was also a pilot.”
“For a spell. What are you getting at?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. Something’s niggling at me though, something I’m trying to recall but it just won’t come.”
“Sleep on it. Like I said some gym time won’t hurt the old brain functions will it?”
“Only if you drop your ass again.”
“We had Titan food for supper – we should be okay.”
“We better. Goodnight, man.”
I went into my room and barely noticed how well stocked it was until I’d showered and sat in a towel to dry on the edge of the bed. Alice had intended for us to stop here all along and some of my usual stuff, toiletries, drinks etc. were in ample supply. I made the most of it, pouring myself a generous glass of vodka and adding ice from the mini-fridge built into the wall near the door. Then, sitting back down, I let out the breath I was holding and tried to think it all through. The alcohol I’d already had since leaving the Helios was now taking effect and I felt my mind drifting towards images of Angel. There were feelings that hung on the edge of reason that willed me to ignore all that I knew in favor of their serpent-charms.
I emptied the glass and changed into t-shirt and shorts, lying out on the bed to think even less about Angel and more about the next few days and what we were going to do about a charge of treason against one of our own. The exact opposite happened and as sleep washed over me, I thought I could just detect the faint scent of lemon tea and that natural perfume she sometimes wore on her days off.
“Real helpful,” I said to myself. “You’d have made a great detective, Carter.”
At eleven I was ready for the knock on my door, or perhaps the cannon blast that struck it; Mason liked to make sure the occupant of anywhere heard him when he knocked.
“You ready?” he said, already in his gym gear.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You look like shit,” he laughed.
“Struggled to sleep. Let’s get this over with and have some breakfast, okay?”
“Sure.”
Down we went, taking the elevator to the third floor where an empty gym of machines and free weights waited for us.
“Makes a change,” said Mason, starting up a treadmill and beginning to warm up. “Apart from our ship most places are rammed at this time of the morning.”
“I have a suspicion that it’s no accident it’s empty just when we needed a workout,” I said. “My dear sister will have engineered this I suspect.”
“She did,” said a voice behind us and, strolling up to the empty machine next to Mason, she started a brisk jog in tight-fitting workout pants and a loose tee. I caught him looking at her side-on and made a mental note to play the ‘that's my sister!' card the next chance I got.
“Is this normal for you?” I asked her.
“No,” she replied. “I usually come here before going home, maybe around seven-thirty or eight. I figured you’d want to go early so I closed the place until after lunch.”
“Considerate,” I said. “Fancy benching with us?” She snorted a laugh and increased her pace.
“Other than the obvious fact that I’d out-lift either of you in a heartbeat-”
“Go on then,” said Mason with a wry grin on his face. “Put your credits on the table and let's see what you've got.”
Alice smirked and rolled her eyes. There was something between the two of them that made me anxious. They'd never been that flirty before.
“I don’t do weights if I can help it,” she fired back. “Not good for the company image to have a muscle-bound woman in charge. Our clients might mistake us for liberal feminists or something.”
“In charge?” I laughed.
“Because you didn’t want to be, oh my little brother!” she cried. “Don’t make out I forced you into it.”
“I’ll let you have that one.”
“And you’ll let me have the next one too – Aleksei has been to see Angel. He’ll be here at 12.30 to brief us. Don’t be late. My office.”
“Come on then,” said Mason. “Let’s get on with it.”
True to his word, he smashed his personal best on the bench and made me look like a pussy. For all the years I’d known him this was nothing new, but I rather hoped he’d have at least one bad day after his extensive surgery. I was destined to be forever second best and as he grunted approval at his own performance, he wasted no time in mocking mine.
“FARGO spine my arse!” he laughed. “Is that all you’ve got?”
I half-rolled half-fell from the bench and got up, flexing my arms about until the pain eased off.
“Come on,” I protested. “We stayed away from weights on the Helios until we landed. I’m rusty.”
“That’s what you’d call it, is it?” he grinned. “Come on, let’s finish the workout and get ready for this brief. I’m eager to find out what this guy knows.”
We knocked out the rest of the upper body push sets and dashed back upstairs to get cleaned up. Then, throwing on a hoodie and jeans with my TRIDENT INC. cap to hide the knotted mess of hair on my head, I met Mason on Alice’s floor just as Aleksei arrived. A quick glance at myself in a mirror just outside the elevator reminded me that my beard was out of control and I was long overdue a trim. At that point personal grooming was just about bottom of my priority list.
Aleksei Rokossovsky was a name I only knew from company paperwork. He was one of, if not the best, legal co-ordinator outside of Earth Gov.'s own cadre and Alice had not exaggerated when she talked about spending a lot of money to have him working on our behalf. He was Martian born but had been a strong opponent of the war, arguing that Mars' long history with Earth and its cultural and commercial links, forged over many years, should not easily be broken. Alice had known him in part from her days in logistics and when we'd begun the company, a large amount of our start-up funds had gone into having his name on our books.
When we entered her office, Alice was pouring coffee from a porcelain pot into delicate white cups on saucers. She looked up as we entered and Aleksei turned from the window he was staring out of and smiled. Tall, thin and dressed in a perfectly fitting grey suit, the legal backbone of Angel's defense looked formidable. His jawline appeared to have been carved out of granite yet a glint in his deep jade eyes softened those hard edges. He wore his salt and pepper hair swept back, revealing a sharply defined widow's peak on the top of a weathered brow.
He came towards us and extended his hand. We shook. Fingers of steel cords gripped me, and I returned the pressure.
“Aleksei Rokossovsky,” he smiled. “You must be Carter. I'm assuming there's a first name to go with that.”
“Don't ask,” laughed Alice. “He's made me call him by our last name since he was six.”
“A pleasure,” I said. “This is Mason.” They shook and Alice began handing out the cups before we all sat down.
“The kitchen will send up a late breakfast shortly,” she explained. “In the meanwhile, we should make a start – I know you have a busy day ahead, Aleksei.” He tilted his head in a graceful gesture. He was smooth; every twitch of muscle fiber seemed perfectly used. He reminded me of a performer, an actor who knows that every single action he makes is being assessed and marked.
“Tell me first, how is Angel?”
“She's being held at a high-security detention center, isolated of course, but it has a good reputation. Although I still do not have access to the entire case yet, what I do know tells me that we're dealing with something much bigger than Angel or even TRIDENT INC.” He took up a tablet and began tapping at the screen, rattling out dates, times and co-ordinates for key locations on Mars during the war that he showed were within Angel's AO at the time.
“So far, she's not been formally charged, which is good news. But they’re building a case and this is just the beginning. They had enough to arrest her with but that does buy us some time.”
“What exactly is she accused of?” I asked.
“Treason,” he said. “Vague, isn’t it? But that’s all they’re offering right now. They have her at several key locations where alleged incidents of collusion with the enemy took place. They have a number of names that they’re keeping to themselves, names of Martian informants and a few Earth Gov. brass that I suspect may be behind the accusations in the first place.”
“All this for Angel? Is no one else implicated?”
“Angel is the start. She admits that she was the pilot for several ‘dark’ missions but claims she knew nothing about their intentions, which is to be expected from a pilot; it’s not her job to ask, just to fly. Others are involved but I haven’t been privy to their names yet.”
“So, what's the next step?” asked Alice.
“Once the information is given to me, I can begin formulating a defense. Until then we'll just have to sit tight.”
I looked at Mason who shook his head. Sitting tight wasn't a phrase we used often.
“Did Angel say anything else?” I asked. Aleksei sipped his coffee with such gentleness that he barely seemed to take any.
“Would you like my honest answer or the rhetoric of a qualified representative of the law?”
“Both.”
“The law first then. In my opinion proving her innocence is what your credits are paying for but in cases like this with such far-reaching effects for those involved, success is a remote possibility. She's at the bottom of the proverbial hill, deliberately, and as we all know excrement is subject to the laws of gravity.”
“But?”
“As a friend of TRIDENT, and of Alice, my belief is that she's holding back. I believe that from her expression and choice of words she's protecting someone or something and she's willing to suffer in order to continue that protection. Even, perhaps to death. This may not appear to
be, but is in fact, good news.”
“So what should we do?” asked Alice, looking grave.
“I can only buy you time. I have the ability to string out the case, take my time so to speak, but in the end without knowing what really happened on Mars and Angel's true involvement, eventually, the Prosecution will succeed, and she will be executed.”
“You're that sure the case will go against her?” asked Mason. He nodded and barely a hair moved on his head.
“Do you believe that Earth Government would be willing to try and convict say, a General or an Admiral of the Fleet over a lowly pilot who works for a private response team?”
“I take your point.”
“Indeed. Right now, public opinion of the Martian war has changed and history will soon rewrite itself with Earth as the villain. The last thing the President will want is another scandal about a war she's trying to put behind her administration. I'd even go as far to say that if word got out that somehow Earth Government, through negligence or intention, passed over a chance to end the bloodshed earlier than it did, it would shake the very foundations of power.”
“Which might actually be a reason to do so,” I said. Aleksei grinned and suddenly I felt like both his best friend and his worst enemy. I hoped I'd never find myself sat in court with him on the prosecuting side.
“Generally speaking, most 'crimes' have a trail to follow. Either money or power or lust. We can rule out a sexual element, perhaps, but money and power coupled with two warring Governments? I know where I would begin to look.” Aleksei glanced at his comms unit and sighed. “My apologies, Alice. I will have to pass on the meal.”
“Perhaps dinner then?” she offered, rising to her feet.
“Tonight?” Another look at the sleek and elegant unit on his arm. “Yes, that would be possible.”
“Salvatore's at eight.”
“Wonderful. I would very much like to see your partner again. We didn't finish our discussion on the ruins beneath Olympus Mons.”
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