by Various
They met Ash on the far side of the bar, just a dozen steps from the exit. His trouser cuffs were wet, and he smelled like pels, and he was doing his best to swagger as though he had drunk too much.
“Drop the act,” Veta said. “You’re CID now—and watch Mark’s back. Oscar Squad is everywhere.”
“Affirmative.” Ash straightened his posture and snuck a peek at Olivia. “Is she going to be—”
“She’ll be fine,” Veta said. “We’ll meet you at the suite. Bring the prisoner—and make sure you aren’t tailed.”
Ash nodded. “No worries.”
“And don’t hurt anyone.” Veta pulled Olivia toward the exit. “This is still—”
“A training exercise,” Ash said. “I know.”
Veta led Olivia across a small foyer to an elevator bank, where they gazed into a security panel so the base AI could identify their facial features. A door opened, and they stepped into a steel-walled car. The car began to ascend, and a crisp, androgynous voice sounded from the overhead speaker.
“Lieutenant Bati’s eyes are dilated.” The AI was referring to Olivia by her legend identity—though it was hard to say how much longer the cover would hold, now that the Ferrets had engaged Oscar Squad. “And her pulse rate appears heightened. Do you need to stop at the infirmary?”
“Negative,” Veta said. “Lieutenant Bati will be fine. Just take us to our floor.”
“As you wish, Major.”
The car stopped and the elevator door opened. Veta hustled them down the corridor to their rooms, which were adjacent to each other and across from Ash’s and Mark’s. They quickly changed into service dress and returned to the elevator, heading for the suite they had taken as a safe house. Instead of merely looking into the security panel, this time Veta pressed her palm to the biometric reader in the center.
“Flag Floor Three, Halsey Suite” she said. “Access code Mike Oscar Mike Four Niner, unlogged.”
The door did not open.
Veta’s stomach clenched. Olivia had secured the suite by hacking into the central booking system and reserving it the name of a fictitious captain in ONI Section Zero. It was a clever ploy. Section Zero was ONI’s internal investigations division and therefore the most secretive about its personnel and activities. But Olivia was only half-finished with her Digital Infiltration and Sabotage course, so it seemed all too possible that her breach had been discovered.
Veta repeated the code.
“Your access code has already been verified, Major Keely,” the AI said, addressing Veta by her cover identity. “Lieutenant Bati’s has not.”
Olivia placed her hand on the security panel. “Tango Angel Papa Eight Five.” She hesitated a moment, then the Babble Juice compelled her to add, “But I’m not really—”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Veta pulled Olivia’s hand away from the security panel, then said, “And make certain our access remains unlogged.”
“Of course,” the AI said. “For the next twenty-four hours, there is a log blackout on everything concerning the Halsey Suite.”
The doors opened, and a minute later, Veta and Olivia were inside the cavernous parlor of a large room with a sunken seating salon and a majestic view of the cryovolcano’s gloomy caldera. It had a kitchenette to the left of the entrance and a water closet to the right. Two private bedrooms were arranged opposite each other on separate sides of the parlor.
Veta deposited Olivia on a couch, then retrieved a field kit and ran an analysis on the Gamma’s blood. A code appeared in the readout window identifying the toxin as NTL—a quick-acting form of Babble Juice more properly called nicothiotal. It was a favorite of ONI and other intelligence services because it hit quickly and the outward effects resembled intoxication. But it did have one drawback—an overdose could shatter one’s mind, destroying the barrier between dreams and memories and leaving the subject in a permanent state of hallucination.
Oscar Squad was playing rough.
Veta administered a counteragent and had Olivia remain on the couch while she prepared an interrogation room for the prisoner they were expecting. When she finished ten minutes later, Mark and Ash still had not arrived with the captive. The delay was a bit alarming, but not terribly. They had to be certain they weren’t being tailed, and even if they weren’t, sneaking around a UNSC recreational facility with a prisoner in custody was no easy thing.
Veta took the opportunity to debrief Olivia and was relieved to find her rapidly coming around. But she did not learn much of interest—only that Olivia’s suitor had been sitting at the bar when she arrived and approached her before she had a chance to find a seat.
“And that didn’t raise an alarm?” Veta asked. “He had to be waiting for you.”
“You saw him. Did he look like ONI to you?”
“Not until he dosed you,” Veta admitted. “But a guy that age? What were you thinking?”
“That he liked me and wanted to talk.” Olivia raised her chin. “Is that so hard to believe?”
Veta sighed. “No, actually. Not at all,” she said. Like most Spartan-IIs and IIIs, Olivia had been robbed of a libido by her biological augmentations, and where men were concerned, she lacked normal instincts—and apparently creep radar too. “In fact, you’re way out of his league. When we get back to the Mill, we have some course work to do.”
“I know how sex works. It’s not that complicated.”
“Neither is crossing a street,” Veta said. “But if you wander into either one blindfolded, there’s going to be trouble.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Sure, Mom. Whatever you want.”
Veta was hardly fond of the nickname, especially since the Gammas used it when they thought she was being overprotective. But the door to the suite swished open before she could object, and Mark and Ash stepped into the foyer, now wearing the service dress of ODST junior lieutenants.
There was no one else with them.
Veta stood. “Where’s the prisoner?”
Ash stepped in front of Mark, as though to shield him. “That’s my fault, ma’am. I grew distracted by the casualties—”
“Casualties?” Veta climbed out of the seating salon and started toward them. “What did I say about casualties?”
“To avoid them, ma’am,” Ash said. “But I didn’t cause them. They were already down when I arrived.”
“At the least, the first ones were,” Mark added. “And they weren’t fatalities.”
Veta grimaced. “You’re going to need to clarify that. First ones?”
“Two men, near the end of the bar,” Ash said.
Veta nodded, recalling the two men who had helped the blond server to her feet. “I used them to stall an Oscar Squad operative. How bad are they?”
“They’ll recover,” Ash said. “One guy has a broken jaw; the other one was out cold.”
Veta could only shake her head. She had expected the woman to try slipping away, but not to attack a pair of bystanders. “Go on.”
“Ma’am?”
“Who were the other casualties?”
“Well—” Mark said. He started to step forward, only to have Ash extend an arm and hold him back. “Ash, we have—”
“There was a big guy,” Ash interrupted, “closer to the center of the bar. He was on his knees, holding his back like someone had kidney-punched him.”
Fairly certain Ash was referring to the operative she had dropped—and that he knew it—Veta narrowed her eyes. “Someone had.” She took Ash by the shoulder, then drew him aside so she could scowl at Mark. “Mark, what did you do?”
Mark’s face fell. “You mean besides get stabbed?”
Veta looked him over and saw no obvious wounds. “What are you talking about?”
Mark placed a finger in his collar and pulled it aside to reveal a blood-dotted bandage over his clavicle. The depth of the wound was impossible to tell, but the location was alarming. Had the blade struck just a couple of centimeters closer to his shoulder, it would have severed his subc
lavian artery and killed him in less than a minute.
Feeling guilty for her sharp tone, Veta looked up and spoke gently. “How did it happen?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Ash said, stepping in to shield Mark again. “It wasn’t Mark’s fault. Oscar Squad is way out of line.”
“Ash, stop.” Veta glanced from Ash to Mark and back again, then said, “Please, just tell me.”
A look of resignation came over Ash’s face, and he stepped aside.
“Ma’am,” Mark began, “I was escorting the subject down a service corridor when I was attacked from behind.”
“You were taken by surprise?” Veta was not quite sure she understood the report correctly. “Someone snuck up on you? How is that possible?”
Mark’s face flushed. “My attention was elsewhere,” he said. “The subject was resisting.”
“It was my fault,” Ash said. “If I hadn’t gotten distracted by the casualties in the club—”
An alert chime issued from control panel near the door, then the AI’s voice sounded from the speaker. “Officer on deck.”
Ash and Mark immediately snapped to attention, and, down in the seating salon, Olivia sprang to her feet to do the same.
Veta turned to the control panel. “Secure the door.” It was probably someone from Oscar Squad, coming to confirm her Ferret Team’s location. “Access to the Halsey Suite is restricted to current personnel.”
“The restriction has been expanded to all authorized personnel,” the AI said. “Admiral Osman is authorized personnel.”
Veta glanced over to Ash and Mark. “I’ll handle this,” she said. “Not a word.”
The door opened, revealing a tall, olive-skinned woman in a white uniform. She had short-cropped hair and a slender, high-cheeked face wrenched into a grim scowl. Standing behind the admiral were a pair of armed escorts and the square-jawed Oscar Squad operative Veta had incapacitated in the officers’ club. His eyes were wary and his expression angry, and Veta suspected that, had Osman not been present, he would have been tempted to return her kidney shot.
Osman motioned for her escorts to remain outside, then led the operative into the foyer and paused to look around.
“You certainly travel in style,” Osman said. “Even I don’t stay in the Halsey Suite.”
“We needed a safe house.” Veta spoke with an ease she did not feel. Whatever had happened in the service corridor, the incident had to be a serious one to warrant Osman’s direct intervention. “And you’re the one who keeps telling me ‘the only rule is there are no rules.’ ”
Osman flashed a tight smile. “Except for budgets,” she said. “Budgets are like the laws of physics. Break them and die.”
“Now you tell me.” Veta forced a laugh, but did not take much comfort from the banter. The Ferret Team may have been Osman’s brainchild, but the admiral was too tough-minded and analytical to continue investing ONI resources in a program she was starting to doubt. “Not that I mind having you drop by, Admiral, but bringing Oscar Squad along kind of spoils the exercise.”
“We have bigger problems than the exercise.” Osman didn’t bother to introduce the Oscar Squad operative. Instead, her eyes darted toward Mark. “I think you know that.”
“Not if you’re talking about what happened in the officer’s club, I don’t,” Veta said. “We weren’t the ones who roughed up those two bystanders. That’s on Oscar Squad.”
The operative emphatically shook his head. “Don’t try to pin that on us,” he said. “We didn’t touch—”
“That’s enough, Svenson,” Osman said. “Nobody cares about a couple of ensigns getting hurt in a bar brawl.”
“A bar brawl?” Veta was growing confused. Ash hadn’t said anything about that. “Admiral, it was barely a scuffle. There was no brawl.”
“But that’s what the ensigns have been ordered to report, and that will be the end of the matter,” Osman said. “I’m more worried about the situation Commander Svenson observed.”
“Which was?”
“I caught up to these two in a service corridor,” Svenson said, indicating Mark and Ash. “They were hauling a body.”
Veta’s stomach sank. If there was a fatality, her Ferret Team was done for. She turned back to Osman and, trying to buy some time to think, attempted to sound more surprised than she was. “Yeah, sure. Are his jokes always this bad?”
“It’s no joke,” Svenson said. “They were carrying a body. It looked like the big guy who was trying to work your girl.”
Given what Ash and Mark had already reported, Veta did not doubt Svenson’s claim. But there was a lot he wasn’t saying—and she wanted to figure out why. “And you’re not a hundred percent on that? You don’t even know your own operatives?”
“He wasn’t one of ours,” Svenson said.
“Of course he wasn’t,” Veta said. “And neither was that server who was working with him.”
Svenson scowled. “What server?”
“The blonde who helped the guy dose Lieutenant Bati,” Veta said, still referring to Olivia by her cover identity. “She’s one who brought the zantelle. We know the lieutenant’s glass was laced with nicothiotal.”
Svenson looked appalled, then turned to Osman. “No way. We wouldn’t do that, Admiral.”
“I’ll show you the field test.” Veta stepped closer to Svenson, invading his space and pressing a finger to his chest. “You have no idea what could have happened to her if it had taken full effect.”
Svenson did not retreat. “I know how to use nicothiotal—which is why I’d never use it in a training exercise.” He continued to hold Veta’s gaze, but addressed his comments to Osman. “Admiral, if someone drugged the lieutenant, it wasn’t our team.”
“No?” Osman was starting to sound doubtful. “Then who was the server? And the man she was working with?”
“I have no clue,” Svenson said. “All I can you tell is they weren’t ours.”
Veta didn’t believe Svenson for a second, but she was having trouble figuring out what he was trying to hide. Fortunately, she possessed the skills to find out.
“Then we’ll ask the victim,” Veta said. “Where’s the body?”
Svenson’s eyes shifted toward Mark and Ash. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’ll have to ask them.”
“So you can’t actually produce a body?” Veta asked.
Svenson looked at the floor.
“Commander?” Osman demanded. “This is a serious accusation. Do you know where the body is or not?”
“I couldn’t keep up.” Svenson shot a glare in Veta’s direction. “I was too sore.”
“You couldn’t keep up with a pair of men carrying a hundred and forty kilograms of deadweight?” Veta raised an eyebrow. “That’s hard to believe.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s what happened.”
“Let’s assume there’s a reason for that.” Osman’s tone was wry, no doubt because she found it perfectly reasonable that a pair of Spartan-IIIs carrying a body that large would be able to outrun a standard field operative. “Where did you lose sight of them?”
“I never really had them, Admiral. I saw them going around a corner. By the time I got there, they were gone.”
“I see,” Veta said. “Then how do you know the person was actually dead?”
“By the smell,” Svenson said. “His bladder had released. So had his bowels.”
“Not much help,” Veta said. “It’s hard to establish identity from odors. What about signs of a fight? Did you find any weapons or blood, for instance?”
Svenson nodded. “There was some blood spray up the corridor from where I saw them, but it’s not there now.”
“You cleaned it up,” Osman surmised. Standard procedure called for a team in the field to eliminate any trace of a hostile engagement, whenever possible. “Good job.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Svenson said. “But it wasn’t us. By the time we realized we weren’t going to find
the targets and returned to sanitize the scene, it had already been done.”
Osman turned to Veta. “Impressive.”
Now it was Veta’s turn to say: “It wasn’t us.” She couldn’t admit to cleaning the scene without admitting to the homicide, and she wasn’t ready to do that until she knew what Svenson was trying to hide—or at least figured out who the victim and his accomplice were. “Is it worth checking the surveillance feeds?”
Osman looked at Veta as though she were thinking about sending her back to the ONI Trade Craft School.
“We weren’t the only ones who put a block on the officers’ club feeds,” Svenson said. “We assumed the other block came from you.”
“Actually, I was thinking of the service corridor,” Veta said.
“Deleted,” he said. “We assumed it was you.”
“Now, that’s convenient.” Veta quickly turned to Osman. “Admiral, have you considered the possibility that there is no body?”
“There is a body,” Svenson said. “Why would I make up something like that?”
“Well, you are standing in our safe house.” Veta saw Osman’s eyes narrow and knew she’d struck a chord. “And now you’ve had a look at my entire team.”
Svenson turned to Osman. “Admiral, that’s ridiculous. I don’t know what kind of unit you’re putting together here, but letting them turn this training mission into a farce is not going to help them survive in the field.”
“On the contrary, Commander. The only rule is that there are no rules.” Veta gave him a sly smile. “Either you’re proving that—or we are.”
“She does have a point, Commander,” Osman said. “You can wait in the hall with the escorts.”
Svenson’s face clouded with anger, but he merely acknowledged the order and spun toward the door. Once he was gone and the room secure again, Osman turned to Veta.
“So, what’s the answer?” she asked. “Who’s the one being played here?”
Mark immediately stepped forward. “Admiral, there’s something—”
“Mark, I’ll handle this.” Veta pointed him to Ash’s side, then turned back to Osman. “I don’t know what Commander Svenson saw or didn’t see, or whether he’s telling the truth that the server and the other guy were not assisting Oscar Squad. But I can promise you this—nobody on my team did anything wrong.”