"Very well, Captain. We can continue this discussion in your office. Where I intend to demand that you relieve Mr. Garibaldi of his duties as head of Babylon 5 security and hold him under arrest. He was ordered explicitly and repeatedly not to get involved in the Ortega case. Now I discover that he's been questioning my witnesses! Getting himself involved in a situation that he clearly isn't capable of handling." He flashed Garibaldi a brief unsympathetic glance. "In fact, removing Mr. Garibaldi from his position might be said to be for his own good."
Sheridan had seen the look. He snapped, "That won't be necessary, Commander. Your request is denied. Mr. Garibaldi has just been injured in the course of carrying out his duties as head of security, investigating a murder on this station. He has every right to question suspects or witnesses to this crime, whether or not you consider them 'your witnesses.' Particularly since it seems that you've been questioning every other man, woman, and alien on Babylon 5."
Wallace blinked, looked back at Khatib. He seemed uncertain. "What murder?"
"A salesman from Earth was killed recently. A man named Yang."
"Yang?"
"That's right. Why? You don't know anything about this case, do you? This man named Yang?"
Quickly, too quickly, shaking his head, "No. The name means nothing to me."
Garibaldi's head lifted a few centimeters from his pillow, staring at Wallace with avid interest.
Sheridan went on, unnoticing, "Then it won't interfere with your own investigation if the Babylon 5 security office tries to track down his killer? Since the two cases aren't related. As you claim."
Wallace took a slight step backward. "Of course not. I can see I might have . . . been misinformed."
"Yes, you might have," said Sheridan. He looked at Torres, who was standing motionless and looking like she wished she were invisible. "Lieutenant, you can escort the commander from Medlab."
Gratefully, Torres said, "Yes, sir. Commander, if you'd come with me?"
Wallace turned to leave, ignoring Torres, but Garibaldi, sitting up on the treatment bed, couldn't resist. "Say, Commander. If you do come across any leads on the Yang case, you'll let me know, won't you?"
Wallace said coldly, "Of course."
"I'll do the same for you, too. We ought to help each other out, shouldn't we? Seeing as we're in the same line of business."
Wallace didn't answer, but Khatib shot Garibaldi a silent, deadly look.
"That's a nasty one," he thought to himself as they left, followed at a safe distance by the lieutenant.
"Thanks, Captain," he said out loud.
Franklin looked satisfied to see Wallace leaving. "I think we should all leave Garibaldi to get some rest, sir."
"Just a few minutes, Doctor. If I can speak to Garibaldi alone."
"I think I'm feeling dizzy," Garibaldi muttered, closing his eyes.
"Flash it, Garibaldi. And to hell with Commander Wallace. I want to know what's really going on! I talked to Torres, and she says you do think this Yang case is related to the other one. You know something, and I want to hear it!"
"I swear, Captain! I've got next to nothing! Every time I think I've got my hands on a lead, it turns into smoke." Garibaldi paused. "All right, you want to know why I think there's a connection? Because I can't find out a thing! No one will talk.
"This is my station. I mean, I have connections here, people that I can talk to, who'll talk to me. But this time, when I was still looking into the Ortega case, before you ordered me not to, I got nowhere. Nobody knows nothing. They won't talk. All right, so when I started asking around about this guy Yang, I got just the same thing. Nothing. Nobody's talking. They're afraid, Captain."
"Afraid of what?"
"That's what I don't know! Only it all seems to point to Mars. I did find out one thing, that Yang was from Mars. He was involved in something people don't want to talk about. And Ortega was from Mars. He was a suspected terrorist, no one wants to talk about that. He came to Babylon 5, he was killed. Yang came to Babylon 5, he was killed. One more thing. We've got no record of Ortega coming onto the station; the station records on Yang were falsified."
Sheridan said nothing, but he was listening, at least.
"Everything else is just crazy speculation."
But the captain wasn't going to let him leave it at that. "What kind of crazy speculation?"
Garibaldi rubbed his head. "Like, who Yang really was. What he was here for. Look, it's just a crazy theory, all right? But I've been talking with Ivanova. You know how she traced the leaks in that transport routing data back to Mars? Well, she figures there might be somebody from Earthdome in on it, covering it up. So it could be that Ortega wasn't a terrorist, that he found out about the deal, and the bad guys in Earthdome tried to shut him up. So they send an enforcer after him, but something goes wrong, the enforcer gets killed, too."
"And Yang was the enforcer?"
"That was his line of work, from what I've heard."
Sheridan was frowning in thought. "But then, after all the probing around he's done, questioning everyone on the station who's ever been to Mars, why wouldn't Wallace know about Yang?"
"I think he does."
Sheridan looked at him and the shock snapped his eyes wide.
Garibaldi nodded. "Just then. When you mentioned Yang's name. I was watching Wallace's faceand that snake, Khatib's. They knew. They knew about Yang, all right. They just didn't think we knew. And they weren't happy about it."
For a moment, they both considered the implications of that in silence.
Then Garibaldi went on, "So say we've got Earthforce officials mixed up in something dirty. Some guy finds out about it. He's got, say, names, dates. He's dead, the enforcer's dead, but the information hasn't shown up. You don't know if he's passed it on. So maybe you send another enforcer to find it. An enforcer with authorization"
"Direct from the Joint Chiefs? Come on, Garibaldi!"
"Hey, didn't I say it was crazy?"
Sheridan paced a step away from the bed, stopped, turned around again to Garibaldi. "I mean, I wondered about Wallace, I admit it. His tactics. Enough to question Earth Central about him. And you saw what I got back! I mean, the Joint Chiefs, Garibaldi. Direct from Admiral Wilson. You're spinning conspiracy theories all the way up to the High Command!"
"Yeah, I know. Why do you think I didn't write it up in an official report? Why do you think I tried to keep the whole Yang business quiet?" Garibaldi sighed. "Only, there's one more side to it."
Sheridan looked as if he didn't want to hear it, then waved for Garibaldi to go on.
"All right, the bad guys send their investigators. They discover that the guy with the information met with a certain Earthforce officer. And it's the same Earthforce officer who just filed a report with Earth Central pointing right to their dirty dealings. And the first thing the investigators do is call for that officer's arrest."
Sheridan clenched his fists. "I can't go to Earth Central with this! You know I can't! I've got my orders! Direct from" He didn't say it. "Dammit, Garibaldi, this is crazy! I don't believe it. You said ityou don't have any facts to back this up."
"Yeah, I know." Garibaldi sighed again, rubbed his head where it ached. "And there are other problems.
Like, who just zapped me with a shock stick and stuffed me in that locker? And who killed Yang?"
"The same group?"
Garibaldi shook his head, winced. The drugs were starting to wear off at the edges, letting the pain in. "No. I had a lot of time to think about it, in there. And I don't think so. They could have killed me easy enough, if that's what they'd meant to do. No, it was a warning."
"You mean, stop asking questions, or you'll end up like Ortega, stuffed into a locker?"
"Something like that, yeah." Garibaldi paused a moment, thought about it. "No. Whoever took care of Ortega was a pro. Whether it was Yang or not. But he didn't care much about the body being found. In fact, he might even have meant it like they did meas a warning
."
"To someone," Sheridan agreed.
"But whoever killed Yang, they didn't want the body found. In fact . . ." he paused again, "in fact, they'd probably be real upset if they knew it was identified. And that somebody was investigating the murder. I'll bet that'd be kind of a shock."
He met Sheridan's eyes, knew they were both thinking the same thing.
"And that kind of changes everything," Garibaldi said slowly. After a moment, he asked, "So now what do we do?"
Sheridan's jaw tightened. "I don't know about all this other stuff, Garibaldi, all these conspiracies. But we still have an unsolved murder on Babylon 5. That's a fact. And, like I told Commander Wallace, I can't overlook a murder on the station where I'm in command."
"And Wallace just admitted that the Yang case isn't related to his investigation," Garibaldi added with a certain tone of satisfaction. "So I guess it's up to us to find the killer."
"And I won't tolerate an attack on one of my officers," Sheridan went on, his course firmly set. "That's another fact. Now, first thing is to bring in this witness you were talking to just before it happened. What's his name?" He raised his hand to call security on his link, but lowered it when Garibaldi said, "I don't know."
"Don't know his name?"
Garibaldi shook his head, carefully this time. "The way it was set up, he wouldn't talk if I knew his identity. He didn't have that much to say, anyway."
"So how'd you contact him?"
"Through . . . other contacts. Look, Captain, I'm not sure I want to say who it was. These people talked to me because I promised confidentiality. And they know they can trust me. What am I supposed to dobreak my promise? Turn them in?"
"What else do you think they did? They turned you in, Garibaldi! They set you up, they turned you over to . . . whoever it was! You could have been killed. These are the people you want to protect?"
"Yeah, it sounds crazy, doesn't it?" Garibaldi closed his eyes and let his head drop forward. The headache was getting worse again now. And the trouble was, he did want to protect them. Nick, and the others who'd trusted him enough to spill their guts. It was part of being what he wasyou stood up for your sources, you didn't give them away. "Look, I'd just rather ... do this my way. It's my job, after all."
But Sheridan was unmoved. "Your way just almost got you killed. And you're still not fit for duty. No, Garibaldi, this time, things are going to be done my way."
CHAPTER 19
On approach to the docking bay, Escort Wing Alpha pulled back to let the transport enter first, then docked themselves. Ivanova cracked her canopy and climbed out with stiff, cramped legs after hours in the cockpit. She nodded cheerfully to the docking crew and headed to the ready room to take off her flight suit. But first she linked-in to Sheridan.
"Captain, this is Ivanova. We're back, escort mission a success. Transport Kobold safely delivered, no casualties or damage, one raider flamed. Would you like me to report for debrief right away?"
"Can we put that off for a while, Ivanova? We have a situation here. There was an attack on Garibaldihe's all right, he's resting in Medlab. But there are some security-related matters I want to take care of first."
"He's all right? Can I see him?" she asked, alarmed.
"Dr. Franklin says not to worry. But he's tired now. He got kind of banged up. It might be better to let him rest."
Now what was going on? Ivanova wondered. Who had attacked Garibaldi? At least he was going to be all right.
As she went to her own quarters to change, it occurred to her that there was time, then, to meet with the Kobold's pilot. She was curious to know what he had to say.
His name was Pal, a thin, dark man, and he insisted on buying her a late dinner, which Ivanova didn't refuse, as the confrontation with the raiders had restored the edge to her appetite.
"You have no idea, Commander," he said, leading the way to a table in the open-air restaurant, "no idea what a relief it was to come out of the jump gate and find you there waiting for us. Though there were a few seconds before you identified yourselfthat I thought your ships might be the raiders themselves."
"You were expecting an attack, then?"
"Gods, yes! we were expecting an attack. I'll tell you things have been so bad lately, the Transport Pilots Union has been threatening an action. Ground all transports until Earthforce starts to do their job and give us some escort through raider territory." He frowned, cleared his throat, then said nothing as the waiter came up to bring them plates of pancakes rolled around a mixture of chopped vegetables and spices. Pal poured a generous amount of hot sauce over his, bringing the dish to near the combustion point. Ivanova, familiar with the sauce, served herself a much smaller amount.
After the waiter had left, Pal lowered his voice. "The thing is ... I'm on the union's Central Committee. And so I happen to know that as of the date we left Marsport, Earthforce was still 'studying our demands.' That's why I said I was surprised to see you out there. They keep telling us they don't have the resources to provide the escorts we need. They say they don't have the ships. So that's why I'm curious. What's going on?"
"I see," said Ivanova, swallowing a cautious bite of her meal. Hot, but good. "No, there's been no policy change on the Earthforce Command level, I can tell you that. It was Captain Sheridan, here on Babylon 5, who ordered the patrols, just for the territory we cover in Grid Epsilon. And only for certain transports judged to be high risk."
Pal's eyebrows raised. "And just what do you consider a high-risk transport?"
Ivanova hesitated. How much should she reveal? "We've done a computer analysis of the pattern of recent attacks. Certain routes seem more vulnerable than others.
Certain cargoes that are particularly valuable on the black market. The computer indicates the transports that are most likely to be attacked, based on that analysis, and we send out an escort wing to meet them. So far, at least, it seems to be working."
Pal leaned closer across the table. "And does your computer analysis say anything about data leaks, about routing information being sold to the raiders, about the way they know where these valuable cargoes are going to be coming through the jump gates, and when? Come on, Commander, don't tell me about a random computer analysis! We know better! Someone out there is making a profit by selling us out, making a profit off dead ships and crews! Don't tell me Earthforce doesn't know a thing about it!"
Ivanova swallowed. So she wasn't the only one who'd noticed this pattern in the attacks! "Mr. Pal, I'm only a wing commander at the moment. Earth Central doesn't confide in me at the policy level." She paused. "But, just personally, I think you're right. I'm sure you're right. The raiders have got to be operating on the basis of inside information."
"Oh, they know about it," Pal said darkly. "Earth Central. They just won't admit it. Not to us. And after a while, you know, you start to ask why."
"And?"
"Some of us wonder if they maybe have a reason to look the other way."
Ivanova put down her fork. She wasn't the only one to suspect it! "Mr. Pal," she asked carefully, "do you have any proof for this accusation? Any evidence?"
But Pal shook his head. "Not . . . directly. No. But we've made complaints. Many complaints to Earthforce. Nothing is done. Nothing is ever done! So I thinkone or two officers, highly placed, in a position to derail an investigation, put questions on hold, file complaints where they won't be found?
"And there's another thing," Pal went on. "Some of us have started to wonder about those cargoes. The ones the raiders have targeted? The ones so valuable on the black market, as you say?"
She nodded. "Strategic metals, primarily, these days. What you were carryingiridium, morbidium"
"If that's what we really are carrying. Some of us would like to go back in our holds, crack open those crates, see what's really inside. Is it strategic metalsor slag?"
"Slag?"
"Worthless mass." Pal was using his fork now to punctuate his remarks. Ivanova had forgotten about hers, a
bout her meal. "Think about it, Commander. How much is an ingot of iridium worth? A whole crate of ingots? A ship's hold full of them? What insurance value would you place on a cargo like that?"
"I believe the value is determined by Earth Central, isn't it? The price of strategic metals is restricted."
"Exactly!" Pal exclaimed, stabbing the table. "And if you have this commodity to sell at the official price, and the price on the black market keeps going higher and higher, what do you do? How can you make a greater profit?"
"So they sell to the black market? They bribe Earthforce officials to overlook certain shipments? But what does this have to do with the raids?" she asked, intrigued but confused.
"This is what we think," he said, leaning closer across the table. "For each cargo, there are two ships. One with the real cargo. The other with slag. They pay the raiders to take the false shipment. The real one, they ship to the black market. They get the higher price for the metal, and, for the false cargo, they collect the insured value.
"Simple, isn't it?"
Ivanova, who had already suspected much of this herself, was speechless for a moment. "What does your insurance company think about this?" she wondered finally.
"They also have their suspicions. I've been in contact with the insurance agent here on Babylon 5. We've discussed possible measures to confirm what we suspect." He frowned. "I'm telling you this in confidence, Commander."
"You have my word."
"When we reach our destination, we intend to have the crates unsealed, the contents checked before we deliver it. The insurance agent is trying to arrange for this now. If you like, I'll let you know what we find."
"I would appreciate that," Ivanova said eagerly. "I'd really like, personally, to get to the bottom of all this."
Pal's expression went grim. "Well, I warn you, Commander, the union won't stand for it much longer! Our people are dying out hereships and crews are being sold out to satisfy the greed of rapacious corporations and corrupt officials! We're not powerless, Commander Ivanova. They're making a mistake if they think they can get away with this!"
Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois) Page 13