Kill Ratio

by David Drake

  Yesilkov shot a look at her and then at Yates, coming around the holotank to lean against one of his file cabinets, and said, “That's a positive ID, I guess.” She flicked a thumb at Bradley, still staring wide-eyed over her hand at Malan's file photo.

  He tried the voice commands again, and the data from Malan's file scrolled: nickname, Jantze; birthplace, Capetown. “One of your Afrikaners, all right, Ella,” Yates said as gently as he could.

  “And a Bureau of Utilities employee, to boot - the orange suits weren't missed because, like the truck and the equipment, the guy had a right to be using them.” Yesilkov was leaning forward slightly, all business now. “Next file, okay?”

  “Right.” Yates called it up, still watching Bradley intermittently for signs that seeing these men again was going to be too much for her.

  Yates wasn't normally so solicitous about a respondent, not when he was pursuing an investigation. Protecting Bradley from guys with plasma rifles and dope was one thing; protecting her from holographic images was something else again. He'd just begun to worry that maybe he wasn't as impartial about this case as he ought to be, when Yesilkov swore blisteringly in Russian. He glanced at the tank.

  Yesilkov was already remarking, “Well, there goes the easy answer - this guy isn't Afrikaner. He's Uruguayan, this Trimen. So much for any simple racial motivation . . . not that that's what I was hopin' for, of course.” Again the uneasy glance at Bradley.

  Ella Bradley was staring with wide, unreadable eyes at the holotank. Damn those foolish contact lenses. Yates said, “He's - he was a construction worker, though - same general kind of job. And all sorts of types come out of Uruguay . . . Let's not jump yet, Sonya.”

  “Who's jumpin'?” Again Yesilkov folded her arms over her breasts, changed her mind, and laced her hands behind her head. “Next,” she demanded imperiously.

  Yesilkov could see easy as he could that this was tough on Bradley. But then, so had the kidnapping been. He shrugged minutely and called up the next file.

  This one was another orange-suited Bureau of Utilities worker named Michel van Rooyan. And he was Afrikaner as well. “Now what's your take, Sonya?” Yates asked quietly, seeing Bradley suddenly bring her knee up, hook her boot on the fold-down chair, and encircle that knee with her arms.

  Yesilkov screwed up her wide, Slavic face and fluffed her blond hair with an impatient hand. “Take? From this? We've got three dead guys, two of 'em Afrikaners, one not. Bradley says there were five in all, so two of 'em 're still out there, ain't that likely? Somewhere? Waitin' to try again, maybe?” She grinned wickedly.

  Ella Bradley straightened up and folded her hands demurely in her lap, staring at the screen. “Sam,” she said in a tiny voice, “none of these are the man with the beard ... the man from my table at Le Moulin Rouge.”

  “I know, Ella, I know,” he said, and the gentleness there made Yesilkov curl her lip. “I've got a still from the Beaton tape of the Moulin Rouge dinner - didn't think there was any need t' make you watch the whole thing - “

  “Let's finish with these guys, okay, Supervisor?” said Yesilkov impatiently.

  “Yeah, right away,” Yates said, and headed back to his desk, where he could control the holotank without talking to it.

  From there he brought up the employment records of the three men on a split screen.

  Yesilkov whistled. “No shit, Sherlock . . . how 'bout that? This Trimen wasn't even here when he died. Cute trick, if you can manage it.”

  Yesilkov was right: Trimen, the Uruguayan, had a full employment record up until two weeks before the kidnapping, but had logged out for Downside leave. There was, no matter how Yates tried entering his data - under name, job, visual or retinal or handprint ID - no record of his return through customs.

  Which made him scour the records of the other two, the Afrikaners.

  When they were done going over the data, Yesilkov reprised it: “Okay, let me see if I've got it straight: the two Afrikaners were off-duty, that's nothin' special. The Uruguayan wasn't here a'tall. That's pretty special, but we don't know how these guys could get that special - takes some clout to show up on the Moon without never deplaning from nothin'.'' She cocked her head at Bradley, who'd been ominously silent for far too long. “These guys has got the same kinda connections as our friend Ella, here.”

  “It's a theory,” Yates conceded. It would take better connections than construction workers usually had, to smuggle someone into the colony. But you never could tell - if a construction worker was drinking with a dock loader regular enough, and that guy had a friend in customs, and there was enough money in it, then somebody would know a flight attendant or a baggage handler . . . the possibilities were endless.

  “What are you suggesting?” Ella Bradley asked Yesilkov woodenly.

  Yates made a mental note never to have these two women in the same place for longer than was absolutely necessary, then said quickly, “Lieutenant Yesilkov's suggesting nothin' about your friends, Ella, except you won't tell us who they are - that doesn't help our confidence. We're trying to keep you out of another one of those trucks, Ella.” Yates heard the plea in his voice and he didn't like it one bit. He'd been wearing some other guy's clothes, for Chris-sake, some guy who had his own damned tailor. He could probably have chased the name down just from that - chased it easier than he could the missing man with the beard who'd been at Ella's table at Le Moulin Rouge, because the man with the beard was in this up to his ears and ready for all comers.

  Of which, if Yates understood what was happening here, Superviser Samuel Yates was going to be one. So he said to the doctor from NYU, “Ella, let's all put our cards on the table. I don't need your friend's name, but it would help clear away suspicion where there doesn't need to be any if we knew how you routed that call.”

  For Yesilkov's peace of mind, for God's sake.

  “Fine.” Bradley's voice was clipped. “I made an unofficial request to the USIA deputy's liaison office at the U.S. Mission. The deputy - Taylor McLeod - was Downside, but his assistant, a friend of mine, cut some red tape for me - just cut through enough red tape that my data request got to the head of the queue at Sky Devon earlier than it otherwise might - “

  “The goddamn United States Information Agency,” Yesilkov said with unhidden distaste. “We're not goin' to get no help from that buncha spooks.”

  ''Listen here, Yesilkova, we can do without your provocative, politicized, and I must say, predictable, comments,” said Ella Bradley.

  Bradley had teeth, that was good to know. And if Yates wasn't mistaken, he'd been prancing around in Taylor McLeod's clothes. He ought to see about getting them cleaned and pressed, in case he had to replace them. Probably cost a week's salary, maybe more. Wrong woman to hit on, if those were McLeod's clothes. Wrong, if you cared how heavy the hitter was when it was your turn on the pitcher's mound.

  Yates wasn't sure that he did care. “You say McLeod was Downside? That it was just his assistant who you're friendly with?” Assistants didn't have the kind of salary that allowed for the duds Bradley had handed him.

  “I didn't say anything that would support the determination you're trying to make, Supervisor Yates.” Bradley's dander was up now. Her face was pinched, and he fancied he could see her fury even behind the mirrored contacts. “I have more than one friend in that office.” But she wasn't going to tell him which friend's clothes he'd been wearing. “Deputy McLeod's Downside for another ten days or so. It's not unusual, the way things work between his office and mine, for my friends there to do me favors when they can.”

  “So McLeod probably doesn't know about this?” he prodded, because it was his job now, and he wanted her to tell him that USIA didn't have any stake in whatever was going on.

  “Which 'this,' Supervisor? They know about the virus, I'm certain. They don't know about the kidnapping, not from me.”

  Yesilkov let out a deep sigh, whether of relief or disgust, Yates wasn't certain, because her next words were: “Bullshit
, they don't know. With luck, unless the lady goes to them, they'll stay out of it. And I wish she would, else me and my kind gets out of it. Before we're 'asked.' “

  “Again,” Bradley said glacially, “I resent the inference. I didn't want to discuss this with you two at all. I certainly haven't discussed it with the office in question. Nor will I, unless I'm convinced that you, the proper authorities, aren't getting results.”

  Teeth and claws. Oh well, Yates, teach you to reach above your station. But she wasn't kidding: she hadn't brought USIA into it. Yates had been with Bradley when all her defenses had been down; you learn a lot about a person, fast, during something like the rescue and its aftermath.

  “We don't want them in it, neither do you. Let's just make sure it don't happen,” said Yates, throwing the colloquialism Yesilkov's way companionably.

  Damn poor tactics, putting these two bitches together. Especially since the Soviet/American angle had come up, somehow. Shouldn't, not normally. And USIA - he wasn't prepared for that. Somebody like Yates didn't even want that bunch to know he was alive.

  But you worked with what you had on hand. Right now that was Bradley and Yesilkov. And lots of unanswered questions that he didn't want ending up on the no doubt immaculate desk of somebody with no Christian name like Taylor McLeod.

  “Can we look at this data one more time, and wrap this up? I pulled strings of my own” - Yates let a plaintive tone come and go - “to get priority on Arjanian's shift. This kind of commo use doesn't come cheap, not in Entry section. But now we've got an illict - unauthorized, anyway - entry involved, I can justify it. So we've got somethin' to thank Trimen for. Let's see what we get if we cross-reference to Records ...”

  “Don't bother,” said Yesilkov, rising with a hand to the small of her back. “Can't check those Afrikaners, not the way we could have checked Trimen if he wasn't here under some kind of cover. You should know, Supervisor.” Yesilkov's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “Yeah, I know - Afrikaners up here get their green cards - resident alien cards and work cards - granted by Latin American countries. Usually because some multinational or other wants it done - special skills, cheap. But I'm going to run an auto check anyhow.” He punched it in to punctuate his words.

  “Let's see the Moulin Rouge still,” Yesilkov prompted, on her feet. She would have paced back and forth if there'd been room in Yates' office.

  “Comin' up,” he promised, and when the likeness emerged in the holotank, a little squeak of distress came out of Ella Bradley's pale mouth.

  Damn, he'd been worried that the sight of the bearded man would give her a double whammy: memories of the dinner that turned into a disaster, and of the kidnapping attempt.

  He was moving toward her, just in case she fainted or something, when Yesilkov grabbed his elbow. “If she wants water, she'll ask for it.”

  Standard interrogation technique. Yesilkov was right - you used this kind of advantage. Never could tell what you might get out of a flustered, distressed respondent. But Yates just wasn't thinking about Bradley that way.

  Yesilkov said, “That the man, honey?”

  And Bradley was so upset she just muttered, “Yes, yes that's him.”

  “Well, here's the bad news,” said Yates, between the two women, waiting for Yesilkov to take her hand off his elbow, which she did then. “You see that blinking cursor under the likeness? Means that we can't ID this sucker. He's not data-matched anywhere in our banks.”

  “How can that be?” Bradley said in a voice like a frightened child's.

  “What about credit card receipts?'' Yesilkov demanded.

  Yates shrugged and said, “Worth a try. We'll see if he paid his restaurant bill. If he did, maybe we've got him. We'll check entry records against restaurant records. . . . Goin' to take a while, Sonya. You want to stay here while I escort Ella home?”

  “I'll get her some bodyguards,'' Yesilkov said, approaching Yates' desk like she owned it, “long as you don't mind me usin' your phone. I need you here, Yates.”

  “I don't want anybody - “ Bradley began.

  “Yeah, Sonya, that's fine,” he said. And to Bradley: “You take what help you can get, and be thankful we're tryin' to keep you alive.”

  Chapter 16 - ENTRY'S PROBLEM

  Yates was still in his office - alone, mercifully - when Arjanian came storming in, looking like hell on wheels.

  Arjanian, Entry Division's second shift supervisor, had a bullet-shaped head, a bulldog's nose, and lips Yates couldn't help thinking about as “slobbery.” He was overweight for this duty and even in Moon gravity, he was so mad he was puffing as he put pudgy hands on his spare tire and glared. “What d'you think you're doing, Yates? Tying up the whole of commo division with your cockamamie restaurant-receipt checks? And on my goddamn shift. What gives you the right to pull priority access because you didn't like your lunch yesterday, fuckhead?”

  “Hiya, Arjanian,” Yates said laconically, leaning back in his swivel chair. Very slowly Yates put one foot up on his desk, locked his knee, and crossed his other leg over it. “Somethin' I can do for you?”

  Yates didn't like Arjanian any better now than ever. If he'd tied up Entry's computer capacity while sifting restaurant records for the bearded guy's name, then well and good.

  “Yessss,” said Arjanian with an exaggerated sibilance that sprayed from those wet lips of his. “Give me a straight answer.''

  “What was the question again?”

  “Yates, you better straighten up.” Arjanian took his fists off his hips and made one threatening step forward before Yates' legs came down and his own hand went to his belt line. Arjanian had no way of knowing whether a cross-draw holster might be there, under Yates' jacket.

  The fat guy checked himself in midstride and said, “I want to know why you're tying up the commo computers on my shift. Without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  “Right,” said Yates equably. “I'm lookin' for an ID on a guy who ate at Le Moulin Rouge the night I did ... the night people started droppin' like flies in there. I got a picture of the guy; he had to pay his bill. I'm also” - he held up his hand to forestall Arjanian's next explosion - “lookin' for every other meal this guy ate, and where, and with who.”

  “Whom.”

  “What?”

  “I said, 'with whom.' Shit, never mind, you ignorant bastard. Just tell me what you're doing on this investigation in the first place - it's not Entry's business to - “

  “It's Entry's business, all right - one of the guys, name of Trimen, who got dead in M-M had no Entry records. Get me? Shouldn't have been here; wasn't here, according to all I can find. But he's dead as dead can be, so here I am, in this up to my singed ears.”

  “I still don't see how it's Entry's problem, Yates. And I'm going to make it my business to - “

  “Butt out, is what. It's Entry's problem because the division head says so, and it's my problem because of this.” Yates pointed to his injured left leg as he propped it again on his desk's edge. “Don't get in the way of this investigation, Arjanian.'' The warning in his tone wasn't one Arjanian could mistake. Yates hadn't meant it to be so clear, or so promissory.

  Arjanian actually retreated a step. “You're way too jacked up over this investigation, buddy,” said the fat man, who had beads of sweat on his upper lip now.

  “Don't tell me what I am and what I'm not - or what I'm doing or should be doing about this investigation. The guys with the plasma guns aren't the only ones who're real serious about it.”

  “Yates,” said Arjanian with a long slow shake of his head, “I'm going to - “

  Yates' phone beeped. “You're going to go on your way, mind your own business, and stay out of my data probes.” He grabbed the phone's headset and barked, “What is it?''

  It was Yoshimura, who had a third file ready for him. “Send it through,” Yates told the man on the other end of the phone. “Supervisor Arjanian is just leaving.”

  Arjanian didn't move, and Yates half rose fr
om his chair. Arjanian moved, muttering curses as he pushed through the sound curtain.

  In the holotank a face was starting to form. Behind Yates' back hard copy was beginning to feed from his printer.

  Yates ignored the printout. In the holotank was the face of the bearded man from Le Moulin Rouge. Then he reached behind him, and without looking, grabbed the first sheet of flimsy.

  It identified the face as belonging to one Piet van Zell, who, like the dead Uruguayan Trimen and somebody else named Steeks, had been buying his food in the Strip outside the Transient Barracks.

  Steeks had come up earlier in the evening, in the first round of computer hunt-and-peck that Yesilkov and he had done together. She already had the company police alerted, ready, and waiting to track this guy named Steeks if he used his card again anywhere on the Strip.

  Yates figured it was time to call Yesilkov - congratulate themselves about Steeks anyway. And tell her to add this van Zell guy to the Watch List. He was just reaching for the phone when it rang.

  “Yates?” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Yesilkov. We've spotted Steeks. He got take-out food for a coupla guys and he's carried it to a suit room down that way - number 312. But 312's marked Out of Order and locked up tight.”

  “Don't assume nothin',” Yates said, his slow voice belying his movements as he got a gun and ammo out of his center drawer. “Find out about using the Mechanical control room to override the locks and air system. I'm on my way.”

  Chapter 17 - GONE TO GROUND

  “Look,” protested Piet van Zell as his hands accepted his platter of chicken-rice casserole, only vaguely warm. “He has to tell us more than 'Stay where you are, the Plan needs you.' And then not talk to us at all today.”

  “I know that,” said Steeks, looking at his partner, then down at the meal he had purchased for them on the Strip below, and finally around the fittings of suit room 312. There was no comfort in any of the things the Afrikaner saw.