by MJ Blehart
There was not time to return to the ship and leave Kara with Yael. She could have had her stay with the car, but Onima was not comfortable turning her back on her either - so Kara remained at her side.
Trusting Jace to keep an eye on Kara as well, Onima led them into the office building.
Unlike most of the offices they had visited in the past, this building was not secure. In the foyer there was a fountain, benches, and a plaque providing information about the structure.
Just past that was a hologram with the building directory. Onima consulted it, allowing the streaming water of the fountain to calm her.
“Here it is,” she said. “Looks like Cornelius Consulting is on the third floor.”
The trio got onto a lift and went up to the appropriate office.
As they entered the hallway, it was clear that the third floor had two businesses on it. Cornelius Consulting was to their left.
The three entered the office. A pleasant non-binary person greeted them immediately with, “Welcome to Cornelius Consulting. How can we help you today?”
Onima flashed her digital warrant card. “Marshal Onima Gwok, CBI. My companions and I would like to speak with Vladimir Bettani.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we do not,” Onima said.
They nodded and tapped a screen Onima could not see. “Mr. Bettani? Yes, sir, there is a marshal from the Confederation Bureau of Investigation here to see you.”
The receptionist either had an implant or had an unseen earpiece. They replied to a voice she could not hear, “Yes, sir. I will send them in.” They looked at Onima. “Marshal Gwok, go down the hallway behind me to the right. Mr. Bettani’s office is the last door on the right.”
“Thank you,” Onima said.
Trailed by Jace and Kara, she made her way down the hall to the office indicated. The hallway walls were made of transparent aluminum or some similar material, but they all had been shaded so you could not look within. Of course, those within might have been able to look out.
Reaching the last door, she knocked.
“Enter,” a strong male voice called from the other side.
Onima tapped the panel beside the door, and it opened to a sizable, well-appointed office.
Standing beside his desk was a sharply dressed man of average height, familiar from the hologram of him she had seen. Despite being an older gentleman, he was considerably handsome.
He offered his hand as she approached. “I’m Vladimir Bettani.”
“Marshal Onima Gwok.” She shook his hand, then gestured. “Deputy Marshal Kara Martinez. Special Consultant Jace Rojas.”
Bettani shook hands with Kara, but only inclined his head politely to Jace. Then he gestured to the chairs before his desk. “Please.”
Onima and Kara took a seat. Jace stood just behind and between them. Onima was glad Jace had let Kara take the seat, but realized it was likely as much his deferral to non-clones as it was the need to keep an eye on Kara.
“What can I do for you, Marshal?” asked Bettani, taking his own seat.
“We have some questions related to a present, ongoing investigation,” Onima began. “Tell me, what was your position in the New Earth Exoplanet Alliance?”
Bettani leaned back, chuckling. “Long time since the NEEA ceased to be. I served in several capacities for the government over the years. But I was serving as the minister of education on the Alliance Council Committee when the war ended the Alliance.”
“Since that time, have you had any contact with any former NEEA associates?”
“No,” Bettani said. “The Alliance is long-defunct, and my ties to it gone more than a decade.”
“Of course,” Onima said. “But after the Alliance ceased to be, you moved on to new ventures. Surely some of them have as well, and have worked with you since?”
“No,” Bettani replied without pause, “can’t say they have.”
“What can you tell me about your relationship with Gray and Chuang’s company directors?” Onima questioned.
“Gray and Chuang....” Bettani said wistfully. “Haven’t heard that name in a while. I’ve no connections with the company, let alone any directors of it that I know of.”
“Are you, perhaps, familiar with Kaji Ivanov? Gabrielle Nikosi? Charles Mahgoub?”
“No,” Bettani replied, drawing it out. “Can’t say I am.”
“Well, that’s odd,” said Onima, “because we have reason to believe that you have been in contact with each of them in the last year or so.”
“It’s possible,” conceded Bettani, “but I talk to a lot of people, in my line of work.”
“Which is what, exactly?” asked Kara.
“I am an independent consultant for high-level business executives and planetary government officials. I offer solutions for workplace issues, staff placement, and overall team harmony,” Bettani said. “Public life gives one a lot of insight into how to handle and work with people that the private industry is more than happy to pay for.”
“That sounds fairly lucrative,” Kara remarked.
Bettani smiled. “It’s done well for me. Frankly, private life has been far better than public life ever was.”
“You don’t miss the public life?” asked Onima. “Politics?”
“Not at all.”
“Mr. Bettani,” Onima continued, “do you associate with clones at all in your present line of work?
“Hardly ever,” Bettani said, eying Jace. “They can’t afford me.”
“And during the war?” Onima pressed. “Did you work with clones much during the war?”
“I was the minister of education. Clones were not much part of public education.”
Onima did not relent. “Are you aware that clones across the galaxy have been afflicted by an engineered virus?”
“Why would I know anything about that?” asked Bettani.
“To be perfectly frank, Mr. Bettani, we have reason to believe,” Onima began, “that your connection to the NEEA was not as you claimed it to be—that you served quite a different roll. Our present investigation has led us to believe that you may have been working with Gray and Chuang directors to make use of the many remaining clones across the galaxy.”
“That’s preposterous,” Bettani said without ire.
Onima would not have wanted to play poker or any other game involving bluffing with him. He was utterly calm and collected.
Bettani continued, “When the Alliance was disempowered after the war, I moved on. I made my peace with that long ago and have made a good life for myself here.”
“That goes without question,” Onima remarked. “How many homes do you own on Aarde?”
“Four,” Bettani replied.
“So, you’ve done well for yourself in the past decade,” Onima said.
“Yes, I have,” Mr. Bettani agreed.
“Excellent,” Onima said, hoping the slight deviation had put him a bit off his guard. “Now then, Mister Bettani, did you ever meet with a deputy director of Gray and Chuang named Palmer Cadoret?”
“Can’t say I have,” Bettani answered.
“Have you ever, in your consultant’s role, worked with Gray and Chuang?” Onima asked.
“I would have to check my records,” Bettani said, “but I have no recollection of doing so. But they do have a lot of offices all over the galaxy, as well as numerous affiliates under different names. So, maybe.”
Now Jace cut in. “If, say, there were some kind of a conspiracy that might restore NEEA leadership and overthrow the AECC, you’d have no knowledge of such a crazy idea, right?”
Onima had become quite good at obfuscation and bluffing. While her approach was largely standard procedure, and likely similar to what Kara would do, Jace was the only one of the three of them who could ask such a blatant question.
“Your clone,” Bettani addressed Onima coldly, “seems to think he can address me rudely. Did you bring him along to insult me?”
“No,
Mr. Bettani,” Onima replied. “He is a special consultant to the Bureau at this time. But you have to admit, that is an intriguing question. Don’t you think?”
Bettani snorted. “When did the CBI start working with conspiracies? The Alliance is gone and has been for a decade. The Confederation took their role and does what they do. A conspiracy to overthrow the Confederation? That’s rather farfetched. Yet you suspect I would know something because I was part of the Alliance government?”
Before any of them could respond, Bettani arose from his desk. “I believe you three have wasted quite enough of my time today. I have business to take care of. Please leave. Now.”
“I have a few more questions,” Onima started.
“And if they are as inane as those you have already asked me, I have no further time for you,” Bettani said. “This interview is over. Please see yourselves out.”
“Mister Bettani,” Kara spoke up before Onima could say anything more, “I have a message for you.”
“I beg your pardon?” Bettani said.
“Well, it’s not from me,” Kara informed him. “It’s a message from Jiro Rand.”
Onima’s heart seized in her chest. She had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she had been taken for a ride and was about to suffer for that.
“What are you doing?” Jace asked Kara, not hiding his own stunned reaction.
“My job,” Kara replied, nonplussed. “Mister Bettani, Director Rand wanted me to tell you that he believes you may wish to leave the planet. You should know that ours is not the only team investigating this matter, and you have become a person of interest. Hence, it may be best that you depart.”
Bettani resumed his seat and tented his fingers on his desktop. “Well, Deputy Marshal, I do appreciate that warning. Of course, I have never fully trusted Rand, nor his motivations. But I do appreciate the warning you give me nonetheless.”
The door to the office opened, and eight figures in all-too-familiar blue armored shells with black helmets filed into the room.
16
The eight figures in blue armored shells marched into the room, rifles at the ready, and formed a semi-circle around the trio.
Jace turned to look at them. This was becoming far too common an occurrence.
“Like I said before, this interview is over,” Bettani stated.
“Sir?” one of the armored shelled figures said. The helmet clearly included a voice modulator, as Jace could not tell if they were male or female. “Do you want us to shoot?”
“While, ideally, that would be best,” Bettani said, “making a mess in this office is far too problematic. Though the soundproofing is excellent in here, eight rifles firing repeatedly is going to make a lot of noise. And I would want nothing less than overkill for my guests. But no, as much as my preference is the direct approach, that also will raise questions which would bring more CBI agents in here.”
“How do you want us to handle this?” an armor-shelled figure asked. Jace found it disconcerting that he couldn’t tell if it was the same one who’d spoken before.
“Start by disarming them,” Bettani ordered.
There was nothing Jace could do. Two of the armor-shelled figures ambushed him, patting him down and removing his datacard and sidearm. Resistance would have gotten him—and probably Onima—killed.
Two figures each were taking Onima and Kara’s weapons and datacards. The remaining two stood ready to shoot anyone who moved wrong.
Having done their business, the armor-shelled figures returned to the semi-circle formation and resumed pointing their rifles at the trio.
“How should we do this?” one of them asked Bettani.
He had arisen from his chair again but remained on the other side of the desk. “As much as I would like to tell you to take them below and shoot them once you get there, they are agents of the AECC,” Bettani mused. “So, their total disappearance—or someone finding them with plasma blasts all over their bodies—will bring more agents here. That is more trouble than it’s worth.”
He began to pace, and Jace realized Bettani didn’t know what to do.
“It’s not too late for you to change your mind here, Mr. Bettani,” Jace said.
Bettani gave Jace a cold, unpleasant look. “If I want the opinion of a damned clone, I’ll give it to him.”
“The CBI will go a lot easier on you, Mr. Bettani, if you give us information on Gray and Chuang’s involvement in this plan,” Onima said.
“Take the marshal and her pet clone out the back way,” Bettani ordered, ignoring Onima, “and take them somewhere an ‘accident’ gets them killed. Leave their bodies where they will be found by local authorities. That should minimize the CBI’s further investigation.”
“There is another team that has you marked as a person of interest,” Kara pointed out.
Bettani chuckled. “That was a clever ploy on your part, Deputy Marshal. But I am well aware that’s simply not true. Marshal Gwok’s team is the only one on this path—hence why if she meets an untimely death, the investigation dies with her.”
As the armor-shelled figures advanced on Jace and Onima, Bettani coughed and said, “Take the deputy marshal as well.” He smirked at Kara. “It’s entirely probable you do, in fact, work for Rand. But I know who is in his inner circle and who is not. You, my dear, are not. And if I am mistaken, better to ask forgiveness later. Good try, though.”
As the armor-shelled figures took hold of the trio, Bettani added, “Don’t forget to put a signal dampener on them. I don’t know if any of these three have implants, so better to be safe than sorry. Bye now.”
Jace’s arms were pulled roughly behind his back and secured by cuffs of some sort. Onima and Kara were treated the same, and all three were marched out of the office.
In the brief few seconds he was in the hallway, Jace considered shouting. Were the other workers aware of Bettani and what he was doing?
But it didn’t matter because the nearest armor-shelled figure covered Jace’s mouth as they cleared the hall.
They were marched into the office opposite Bettani’s and up to what appeared to be a cupboard of some sort—until it was opened to reveal a lift.
Four of the armor-shelled figures got in first, then Onima, Jace, Kara, and the final four. It was crowded as the door closed, and Jace could feel two or three rifle muzzles pressing against him.
Jace tried to catch the eye of either Onima or Kara, but both, he could tell, were focused on the guards around them.
Three unarmed people against eight in armored shells. Jace saw no way out.
The lift stopped, and the doors opened. They emerged in an underground parking lot not too dissimilar from the one beneath Bettani’s residence.
The trio were pushed toward a hovervan. The side door was opened, and three of the armor-shelled figures climbed in, then pushed their prisoners inside. Three more climbed in behind them.
The broad side-door was closed, and two of the armor-shelled figures got into the front. As they settled in, they removed their helmets.
From behind it was impossible to tell gender, as both still had head coverings that left only their faces visible. But the one in the passenger seat had a female voice as she said, “Let’s take them to the waterfront. There are a couple of warehouses we can choose from where their accident would be utterly plausible.”
Jace felt the hovervan power up. It accelerated toward a tunnel.
He looked around them. He, Kara, and Onima were surrounded by the armor-shelled figures, though a couple of them had grown more relaxed as the van started to move.
His team was in trouble.
Onima was looking from guard to guard, probably trying to find a weakness to exploit.
Kara’s eyes were on the floor of the van, with a look of what seemed to be grim determination. He could guess what she was feeling.
But then the unexpected happened. Kara looked up and right into Jace’s eyes. The look on her face didn’t change in any way.
But she winked at him.
17
Onima had found herself in bad situations before.
Once, on Phaethon Beta, Onima had been pinned down in a firefight between religious zealots and the local law enforcement authority.
The zealots had been attempting to create a Christian theocratic order to establish a home where they could persecute anyone who didn’t live up to their doctrine. However, it had taken them almost a hundred years to establish a political foothold on even the local level.