He gave a modest shrug. “Your word?”
“My word.”
“Thank you.” He bent forward and kissed her on the forehead. “And if you need someone there at the birth…”
“Oh, Rammy.” The tears were threatening to return. “It couldn’t be anyone else.”
***
Justine had just reached the elevators at the end of the Senate Hall’s long east wing when the alarm went off. She turned around to see doors opening all along the wide corridor, staffers looking around in puzzlement. A bright amber strobe was flashing above the door to Ramon DB’s suite of offices. “No,” she breathed. Shock turned her muscles to ice; she couldn’t move. It’s him! The assassin. He’s here.
“Priority call from Senator Ramon DB,” her e-butler told her.
“Authorized,” she gasped through tightened throat muscles.
“Justine.”
“Rammy! Rammy, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, shit, it hurts.”
“What does? Has he shot you?”
“Shot me? It’s my chest. Dear God. I hit my head when I fell. I can see blood.”
“Your chest?”
“Yes. Mitchan is trying to get me to drink water. Damn fool.”
“Let him help.”
“Not if he starts bringing out defibrillator paddles, I won’t.”
Justine started to run, pushing past the interminable number of people flooding out into the corridor. She was halfway there when three paramedics emerged from the freight elevator and shouted at everyone to get out of the way. An automated crash cart sped after them, followed by two nursebots.
“The emergency team is here, Rammy. They’re coming.”
“Oh, good; finally, some decent drugs.”
“How could you let it get this far? I told you, I warned you to watch your diet. Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Nag nag nag. It’s not so bad. At least I remembered to back up my memorycell this morning.”
The paramedics rushed through the door leading to Ramon’s office suite. Justine followed them in, hurrying through the anterooms where apprehensive junior aides and interns stood transfixed in their doorways, their faces locked in to frightened expressions.
Ramon was on the floor in front of the teak bench they’d just been sitting on. He had caught his head on the arm as he fell. Blood from a bruised gash just below his eye was soaking into the carpet. Mitchan, his chief aide, was kneeling beside him, eyes damp with anxious tears. A glass had been knocked over, water diluting the patch of blood.
One of the paramedics propelled the aide aside. Ramon’s robes were loosened. The paramedics began to apply plastic modules to his skin. Small arms unwound from the nursebots and began to press nozzles and needles into Ramon’s flesh.
Justine stood behind the crash cart, trying her damnedest not to look apprehensive. She could see how difficult it was for him to breathe. Every time his chest rose in shallow judders he winced. Bubbly drool was running down his cheek. Their eyes met.
“Toniea Gall will take over as head of the African caucus,” he wheezed painfully.
“Don’t talk, Senator,” one of the paramedics said. She covered his face with an oxygen mask. He pushed it aside. “Watch out for her,” he said, staring intently at Justine.
The oxygen mask was pressed back insistently. The paramedic held his hands down. “Senator, you’ve had another heart attack.”
“Another!” Justine squawked. She was furious with him, and frightened.
Ramon gave her a sorrowful look above the mask.
“We’re going to sedate you, Senator,” the paramedic said. “You will have to undergo rejuvenation this time. Your heart cannot sustain you any longer. Your doctor told you that.”
Text appeared in Justine’s virtual vision. GALL IS NOT AN ALLY. NOT FOR YOU. SHE WANTS THE PRESIDENCY. SHE WILL NOT INVOLVE HERSELF IN CONTROVERSY, NOT ON THIS SCALE.
“I understand,” she said softly.
I’M SORRY, JUSTINE. I WOULD HAVE HELPED, YOU KNOW THAT. GO TO CRISPIN, BUT BE CAREFUL, HE’S A WILY OLD SWINE.
“Yes. I will, Rammy.”
One of the nursebots slid a needle into his carotid artery. He blinked rapidly.
COME AND VISIT ME WHEN I’M YOUNG AGAIN.
“Every day, I promise.”
Ramon gave his office a last confused glance, and closed his eyes. SEE YOU IN EIGHTEEN MONTHS.
***
He spent a day and a half infiltrating the arrays of the huge Park Avenue apartment block. By himself he would never have managed it; he had to use several cohorts who were more adept at manipulating human electronic systems. Rich humans took their security very seriously indeed, using the most advanced and sophisticated arrays to guard themselves.
With the false data in place, he arrived by taxi at the block. Two doormen stood outside the wide entrance with its gull-wing canopy, wearing traditional uniforms of long coats with brass buttons, and white gloves tucked into their epaulets. They saluted as he went through the revolving door into the vast marbled art deco lobby. The stern-faced concierge behind the curving reception desk was not so accepting. He had to tell the man his current identity and who he was supposed to be visiting, which was checked against today’s list. With his legitimacy confirmed, the concierge permitted a brief smile before escorting him to one of the elevators.
Once the mirror-inlaid doors closed, he quickly placed his hand on the i-spot and changed the elevator’s instructions. It took him all the way up to the fortieth floor.
The door to Senator Justine Burnelli’s apartment had been the most difficult for the cohorts to infiltrate. Her Grand Family had installed their own systems in the apartment, which were even more secure than those of the block. He stood in front of it, waiting patiently for the sensor to scan him. The door clicked, and swung open.
He wandered through the vast rooms with their museum horde of furniture and art. While he was in the dark dining room with its five-hundred-year-old mahogany table the maidbots began their daily cleaning routine. Dozens of them emerged from their alcoves in the utility room just off the kitchen, and started to vacuum, polish, and sanitize. They ignored him, moving around his feet as he continued his inspection. There were no staff in residence to supervise them; the Senator always brought them in with her from their family’s Rye country mansion. Often she would stay overnight by herself.
When she did return, there would be some bodyguards with her, either the family’s or Senate Security. They would be watching for an external threat. He simply had to wait until they had all settled for the night.
Eventually he decided on the Senator’s own bedroom as the best place to wait for her. He sat on the bed to begin his vigil.
He’d been waiting for over twenty-four hours when the apartment management array received an encrypted order from the Senator to permit access to a technical support team from Senate Security. They arrived two hours later, three of them with a pair of cases each, which were full of additional security equipment. He watched them through the apartment block’s sensors as they parked in the underground garage, then took the service elevator.
As they rose up to the fortieth floor he walked into the kitchen. The refrigerator was built into the wall, a metal cabinet two meters tall with double doors. He opened them and swiftly took all the food out, then removed the shelving, leaning it against one side. The food packets were piled together on the bottom. Even then, there was easily enough room to accommodate him. He activated his force field at its lowest level to maintain his body temperature, and sat on the pile of food, closing the doors behind him.
He heard the team enter the apartment, their cases trundling along behind them.
“Christ, will you look at this place,” one said. “It’s like something old royalty would have.”
“Check out the view.”
“Hell, man, I can’t even afford TSIs of anything like this place.”
“Rich bastards, they’re all the same.”
“You sound like one of them.”
“One of their aides, more like. The senators I’ve actually met aren’t too bad.”
“They all make me sick. You know Piallani gets through four girls a week? Hookers with like these freaky reprofiled kinks, she ships them in from phase three space. They’re even down on her schedule as an entertainment expense. Taxpayer foots the bill.”
“You’re kidding.”
“The self-righteous ones are worse. Have you seen the way Danwal treats his staff?”
The team moved off deeper into the apartment, making assessments and working out an installation scheme. It took them seven hours to strengthen the apartment’s security. Additional arrays were aligned with the existing ones, and supplementary sensors wired into the apartment’s net. Software was updated.
He couldn’t use his own active sensors to determine the specific nature of the hardware they set up, but he heard enough to understand the basic system parameters. Anyone who used the elevators would immediately have their data files scrutinized by Senate Security. Birds that flew past outside would be examined. Even guests would be constantly observed as they moved around inside the apartment.
The new scanners were all active models; it was only the metal shell of the refrigerator that was shielding him from them. If he climbed out, the alarm would sound immediately. He couldn’t connect to a cybersphere node to tell his cohorts what had happened. The system would detect the emission, and the new software would route any call through Senate Security’s RI.
All he could do was stay in the refrigerator. He didn’t mind, he was in place and concealed, he had food for several days. The person who used to be Bruce McFoster settled down to wait for his target.
***
That morning, most of the news shows carried the item about Senator Ramon DB unexpectedly going into rejuvenation. Alic Hogan put Alessandra Baron on one of his desktop screens, keeping the sound low. She had three Washington-based analysts in the studio, talking about the political implications. They were being cagy; with the Senate more or less unified in its response to the Prime threat, social and economic policy had essentially been sidelined. The main speculation was on who would take over leadership of the African caucus. Toniea Gall was clearly the front-runner, although the Mandela Dynasty hadn’t publicly come out in her favor.
Tarlo knocked on the door and came straight in. “Something you might want to hear, Chief.”
“Thanks,” Hogan said. His e-butler muted Alessandra Baron. Ever since Senate Security had placed the observation request, Alic had taken to accessing her when she was on. Why Paula Myo wanted her watched was something he hadn’t yet fathomed. Baron’s show was actually quite excellent, with frontline investigative reporting as well as the standard society gossip, and she clearly had some very high-level political contacts. Her researchers were as tenacious as any police detective when they found the whiff of scandal or financial shenanigans. None of which gave him reason for the observation mission. Despite having the confidence of the Admiral, who had ranted about the request being a deliberate Burnelli-inspired provocation, Alic just couldn’t see that. Paula Myo wasn’t the kind of person who acted maliciously. That was one of the reasons he’d actually kept the observation going properly. Despite all the grubby politics, there might be a result at the end of the day; if so, he wanted the Paris office to share in the credit. If it did turn out to be a red herring, he couldn’t be blamed for allocating the resources.
Tarlo sat in front of the desk, a broad smile on his tanned face. “Got a result from the Shaw-Hemmings warrant. This time we may have a more substantial lead. The money came from transferable DRNG government bonds, which are like million-dollar bills; you can carry them anywhere but you need an authorization code in order to redeem them. They were hand-delivered to the finance company offices on Tolaka. According to their records, the authorization code was then downloaded to their manager’s office.”
“I didn’t know people still used methods like that.”
“Chief, the finance industry has more clandestine ways of moving money around than any black market arms dealer.”
“Why not use a onetime account?”
“They’re current, and we can access them with a warrant. So get this, those DRNG bonds were issued thirty years ago.”
“How cold is that?”
“The Guardians think it’s icy, which is a big mistake. The DRNG treasury is notoriously reluctant to grant law enforcement agencies access to its records. But in today’s climate…You’d have to apply to the treasury direct, which you can do through their finance minister. I thought the Admiral’s office could ask. We might also ask if they sold any other bonds to the same buyer.”
“Okay, I’ll get that sorted.” He glanced at the screen showing Baron. She had got Senator Lee Ki in the studio for an interview, the pair of them looking relaxed and comfy, as if they were out on a date. “How long do you think this treasure hunt is going to be?”
Tarlo gave a small shrug. “To be honest, I can’t remember ever getting past three links in the chain before. Maybe we got lucky with the bonds. Too soon to tell.”
“All right.” Alic had wanted to hear they were on the verge of breaking the case wide open, that the Guardians’ entire financial structure would be exposed, neutering them entirely. Childish, he told himself tetchily. He glanced out at the open office, trying to see the various teams at work. Over half the desks were empty. “How’s Renne behaving?”
“Come on, Chief, you know she’s the best Investigator this office has.”
“All right. I appreciate loyalty.” Alic gave the man a sympathetic smile. “So is there any progress on the Martian case?”
“Sorry, not a thing. Nobody can think what they needed that data for. We gave the whole problem to the technical panel we’d assembled to try and make sense of the equipment we intercepted at Boongate. I mean, the two have got to be connected, right? Maybe the Martian data will help them make sense of the weird force field components.”
“Good idea.”
Tarlo smiled. “Renne suggested it.”
“Okay.” Alic grinned in good-natured defeat. “Get your ass back out there to work. I’ll let you know about the DRNG treasury records by end of play today.”
“Thanks, Chief.”
The way he said “chief” almost made Alic believe he meant it.
The alley was in a run-down area of Paris. Narrow and shabby, no different from a dozen others within a square kilometer. Tall commercial buildings lined either side, inset with barred windows and secure metal rollers across the loading bays. Halfway down it there was a door, smaller than the rest, made from solid planks of walnut, and coated in gray paint, e-shielded on the inside. During the day it looked like it might open into some old shop storeroom, though it was always shut. In fact, it was the entrance to a club. There was no sign outside, nothing to say what it was. If you had to ask, you weren’t trendy enough to get in.
At two-thirty in the morning, the queue of hopefuls stretched halfway along the narrow unsanitary alley. The glamorous, the important, the famous, and the merely rich all shuffled their feet together, bitched about the cold and the indignity, ingested, inhaled, and infused a variety of narcotic substances, peed against the walls, and waited for some small miracle to grant them entrance. They weren’t going to get it. The unremarkable gray door was guarded by two huge bouncers, stripped to the waist so they could show off the stylish bulbous chrome scabs of their metallic muscle boost implants, like retro-futuristic cyborgs.
Paula walked straight up the alley to the front of the queue, eliciting murmurs of amazement and hostility in equal measure. One of the bouncers smiled politely, and lifted the velvet rope for her. “Have a good evening, Ms. Myo,” he said in a thunderstorm whisper.
“Thank you, Petch,” she told him as she slipped past. He was nearly twice her height.
Music so loud it was on the threshold of pain; black walls, floor, and ceiling producing a darkness that made you squint, until the rig above the mastermix DJ flared with blindingly intense holographic pulses; bodies crunched up so tight you could feel other people’s sweat rub off on you as you squeezed past; Sahara heat; drinks priced contemptuously high; a dance floor so crowded that all you could do was wriggle in imitation sex—apart from the five people in the middle who weren’t imitating anything. Nobody looked over twenty-five; boys dressed in chic suits; girls in wisps of designer cloth.
Paula shoved her way aggressively to the bar. Thankfully, she didn’t have to shout herself hoarse for a drink. The barkeeper nodded welcome and immediately mixed her a peach sunset.
She sipped it, and stood on tiptoes to look out over the outlandish and expensive hairstyles. In among all the high fashion, Tarlo’s navy uniform was instantly noticeable. Two minutes’ more shoving and she was at his side.
“Hi!” she screeched.
The tall black girl he was grinding up against gave Paula a serial-killer sneer. It didn’t look right on a face so staggeringly beautiful.
“Boss!” Tarlo grinned in surprised delight.
“Need to talk to you.”
He gave the black girl a dirty kiss, and shouted something directly into her ear. She nodded reluctant agreement, shot Paula a final blood-vendetta glare before wobbling off on high heels.
Together they made their way over to the end of the bar. Paula took another peach sunset; she could almost feel herself dehydrating. It was always hellishly hot in here.
“How are you doing?” Tarlo shouted.
“I’m annoying Admiral Columbia.”
Tarlo raised an iced bottle of Brazilian beer, and put it to his smiling lips.
“Best job in the galaxy.”
“Just about. I need a small favor.”
“You don’t even have to ask, Boss, you know that.”
“There’s an old case I want you to look into for me. You remember the Dudley Bose burglary? It was before the Second Chance flight.”
“Vaguely.”
“We checked it out at the time and it seemed to be nothing. Now I’m not so sure. There was a charity involved, Cox Educational, which might be a front for illegal money laundering. I think it was used by a politically connected crime syndicate.”
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