By this time, Pal had raised his voice, and half the tables were looking in their direction. Ivanova quickly stabbed her fork into a slice of pancake in an attempt to pretend the conversation was of no particular importance. But her hand froze as she lifted it. There in the restaurant doorway, glaring at her, was Lieutenant Miyoshi.
"Uh-oh," murmured Ivanova. "There's trouble."
But it was too late now to pretend nothing was going on.
In a spirit of defiance, she turned back to her dinner companion. "I think I'll have some more of that hot sauce, Mr. Pal."
Because things were certainly getting hot enough around here lately.
An hour or so later, after meeting with the captain, Ivanova came into Garibaldi's room in Medlab to find him seated on the edge of his bed, contemplating the floor. "I thought you were supposed to be resting."
"So I rested. I feel fine now. Time to get back on my feet."
She looked him over. "You don't look so fine. What's that on your head?"
His hand went to the place. "This? Oh, that's nothing, it looks worse than it is. I just hit my head when I fell."
"When they zapped you with a shock stick."
"I guess you've been talking to someone."
She nodded. "The captain."
"What else did he tell you?"
"Not too much. Somebody grabbed you, stuffed you in a locker. Made it look like the way we found Ortega. He thinks it's a warning not to go around asking questions. Thinks it was a terrorist group. Only ..."
He heard the hesitation in her voice. "What?"
"Well, I found out something today. If it's true. I still don't know what to think. But I just had dinner a while ago with the pilot of that transport we brought in this evening. His name is Pal, he's some kind of official with the Transport Pilots Union. They're suspicious of the raider activity, too. And a cover-up. But . . . they think it's some kind of major fraud on the part of the mining corporations. That certain transports are set up with a fake cargo, something that has mass but no real value. Then they file a false insurance claim and sell the real cargo on the black market. Garibaldi, if he's right, the profits could be in the millions! More than I ever thought."
"He has proof of this?"
She shook her head. "That's the problem, he says they don't. But they're going to try to get it. Crack open the cargo crates and see what's really in there."
"Isn't that illegal?"
"I think they're trying to arrange something with their insurance company. Anyway, I got the impression they don't much care by now. All the raids, all the losses they've taken, no one doing anything about it."
Garibaldi sank back onto the bed. He rubbed his head. "They're going to open up the crates? But wait a minute. That doesn't make sense. They couldn't count on every raid being successful, could they? So what happens when these fake cargoes get to where they're going? What happens when the buyers open the crates and find junk? Wouldn't that expose the whole scheme?"
Ivanova's expression sobered. She hadn't considered that. But . . . "Unless the buyers were in on it?"
"Maybe," Garibaldi admitted.
"But the main thing is, they suspect the same thing we do. Someone is selling out those transports. And somebody from Earth Alliance is covering it up."
"Yeah," Garibaldi agreed, "but it still doesn't tie in the rest of it: Ortega, Wallace, Yang."
"Yang?"
"The other guy who was killed, remember? I told you about him. We found his foot in the recycling system?"
He briefly explained the recent confrontation with Wallace and his discussion with Sheridan afterward. "He thinks the whole thing sounds crazy. You've got to admit, a conspiracy going all the way up to the Joint Chiefs?"
But Ivanova had seized on one fact. "Wait a minute! If this Yang worked for the minesso did J. D.! He was a mining engineer, I think. So, you see, there is a connection! "
"Maybe," Garibaldi admitted slowly. "I don't know. My source wasn't what you'd call real reliable. But there's one more thing."
"What?" Ivanova demanded when he didn't say anything.
"Wallace made a mistake," Garibaldi said slowly. "He was caught by surprise when the captain mentioned Yang's name, and he said he'd never heard of him. And he was lying. I'll stake my career on it, he's lying. But the thing is, he denied there was any connection between Yang and Ortega, between the two cases. We've got orders from high up in Earth Central not to interfere with the Ortega case. But Babylon 5 security is free to track down whatever we can find out about Yang."
Garibaldi started to get to his feet, but Ivanova put out her hand to stop him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"They hid my uniform somewhere around here."
"You're not leaving here?"
"No! I just want something in one of the pockets."
Ivanova told him to stay put and searched out the uniform herself. "All right," she said, handing it to him, "what is it?"
"This," he said, pulling out the holo card with Yang's picture. "I meant to ask you before if you could identify this guy."
She activated the viewer and gasped suddenly as Yang's holographic image coalesced. He was a man with Oriental features, middle-aged, with a heavyset face and dark eyebrows. "That's him! That's the man in the ready room! He brushed right past me as he came out of the head!"
"Where he'd just left Ortega's body," Garibaldi said, nodding. "This is it. This is the guy who killed him. Now we know for sure."
Ivanova snapped the image off, shuddering. "If I could only just remember," she said in a whisper. "If I only knew what J. D. was trying to tell me. Then we'd know."
"But we don't. We don't know for sure. Not yet." Garibaldi's face was set into lines of grim determination. "But I'm going to find out."
CHAPTER 20
"Commander Ivanova!"
She looked around to see who was calling her. It was the next morning, she was just crossing the Zocalo, and the first thought she had was a recollection of Garibaldi's warning. But she dismissed the thought of assassins attacking her in the middle of the most public place on the station.
And the person approaching was an unlikely assassin, wearing a business suit, a young woman with severely cut black hair, with the look of the up-and-coming junior corporation soldier, putting in her time in space to earn a transfer to the seats of power on Earth. "Commander Ivanova?" she asked again.
"Yes, what can I do for you?"
"I'm Luz Espada, agent for Universal Underwriters here on Babylon 5. Could I speak with you about an important matter? I think Mr. Pal has already mentioned it to you. Perhaps if I could buy you a cup of coffee?"
Even without the offer of coffee, Ivanova would have agreed at once. Espada got them a secluded table in a small, expensive cafe.
"Commander," she got right to the point, "I spoke last night with Mr. Pal, and he suggests you might be able to confirm some suspicions which have come up lately concerning the raids on shipping. That there may have been insurance fraud on a very large scale."
"That's possible, yes," Ivanova admitted cautiously. "You understand, though, anything I say is unofficial, unconfirmed by Earthforce. In fact, they might even deny it."
"Which makes the whole situation rather more complicated, yes," Espada agreed. "But anything you can contribute would be appreciated."
Briefly, Ivanova outlined the data search that had led her to conclude that information on shipping routes was being sold or transmitted to the raiders. "It wasn't really very hard to dig this out, once I started asking the right questions," she concluded. "That's when I started to wonder if there was any official involvement, someone in Earthforce in on the deal, helping cover it up."
"Yes," Espada nodded, "that's essentially the same conclusion we're starting to reach."
Ivanova frowned, confused about something. "If I'm right, the pattern I found shows that this has been going on for at least a year. Would it take the insurance companies so long to start to notice a pattern of fraud?
I thought your industry was on the watch for this kind of thing."
"Well, of course we are. But as a matter of fact, the Kobold's cargo would have only been the third such loss for Universal within the last year. Two losses would have been consistent with the general level of raider activity lately. I don't believe there was an investigation. Or, if there was, it was inconclusive. Three times, though. That starts to look like a pattern."
"You only insured the cargo? Not the ship itself?"
"That's correct."
"Is that usual? To have the ship insured by one company and the cargo by another?"
"Oh, very common." She tapped her wrist link, a design very similar to the Earthforce model. "Computer, do we have the data on the Kobold?"
"The cargo transport vessel Kobold, 1,500 tonnes, is owned by Instell Shipping, Inc., a subsidiary of Aegean Enterprises. It is insured by the TransGalactic Assurance Corporation."
"And who shipped the cargo?" Ivanova asked tensely.
Espada queried her computer and got the answer, "Property of AreTech Consolidated Mines."
"Is that a Mars corporation?" Ivanova asked.
"Their operations are all on Mars," Espada told her. "The company headquarters is on Earth."
"What about the other two raider losses you mentioned? Did their cargoes both include morbidium? Were they shipped from AreTech, too?"
Espada looked at her. "As a matter of fact, they were."
"But Universal doesn't insure all AreTech's cargoes, does it?"
"No, I don't believe so." Espada pulled out a portable data screen from her case and plugged it into her link. Figures scrolled onto the display. "No," she said slowly, "it seems that AreTech deals with a number of different companies."
"Is that . . . usual, too?"
"It's not unusual, no," Espada said. "In cases of cargoes so valuable, and vulnerable, a company might ask several insurance carriers to bid on the coverage of each shipment, to minimize costs. Also, from our side, it tends to minimize the risks, spread them out."
Ivanova had a strong sense that she was onto something, that any moment now it was going to break throughthe key to the whole situation. "Then no single insurance company would be likely to notice a suspicious pattern of losses?"
"Not unless they compared figures," Espada agreed. "And industry policy is to keep that information confidential. To keep the other companies from undercutting our bids."
"So a company like AreTech Mines would know about this policy?"
"I'm sure they would be aware of it, yes."
"Ms. Espada, what Mr. Pal spoke to me about involved a rather . . . far-reaching conspiracy, if it's true. He mentioned selling strategic metals on the black market. How much money might be involved in that? An amount large enough to bribe Earthforce officers?"
"Commander, the current official price of a single ingot of morbidium is twelve hundred credits. On the black market, you could probably get six times that price today. And we're talking about tons. Shiploads."
"I see," said Ivanova.
Espada's lips compressed with worry. "Commander, unsettled times are very bad for the insurance industry. And lately, things aren't looking very settled at all. There are governments preparing for war. Alien races attacking each other. The demand for strategic materials is likely to be insatiable, and that will keep driving the prices higher. This doesn't look good."
Ivanova was about to agree wholeheartedly, but before she could say so, a voice came over her link: "Commander Ivanova. Security wants you to come to docking bay 18 right away. There's an incident with the crew of a transport, and they've asked for you."
"I'll be right there." Then she asked, "What transport is it? The Kobold?"
"That's it, Commander."
"I'm on my way." She stood up quickly. "Excuse me, an emergency."
"Of course," said Espada. As soon as Ivanova had turned to go, Espada returned her attention to her data screen and started to go through the figures again.
Ivanova took the tram down to the docking bay, wondering how serious the disturbance was, if she ought to stop and get riot control geara flak jacket, at least, or a weapon. But the security officer in charge, Ensign Torres, told her over her link that it wasn't necessary.
"The situation isn't violentnot yet. But they want you here. The transport's crew asked for you specifically. As an intermediary, I suppose."
She could hear the uproar almost as soon as she reached the docking area, angry voices raised, echoing in the vast spaces where the largest ships were docked. There was a security detail on the scene, she saw when she came closer, but none of them had weapons drawn, which was a good sign. Ivanova was glad to see that Garibaldi hadn't somehow dragged himself out of his bed in Medlab to take charge of the situation. They probably had him sedated.
Torres beckoned her over, looking relieved. "Glad you're here. Do you know what this is all about?"
"No!" She had to shout to be heard over the shouts of the ship's crew, gathered at the cargo hatch in an attitude of repelling boarders, do or die. "What's going on?"
Torres pointed across the bay to the dark, menacing figure of Lieutenant Khatib. "He's got orders from Commander Wallace to search the transport's cargo. But the crew claims we've abducted their pilot and they won't let him into the ship. Khatib orders his own security detail to use force, but the detail won't do it without confirmation from Babylon 5 command. Khatib says it's mutiny. I think he'd shoot the whole squad if he could."
Mutiny? Ivanova thought. "Where's the captain?"
"He's in conference with the Narn ambassador. There's been another incident with the Centauri. They're talking about declaring war or something. The captain's mediating."
"And Garibaldi's in Medlab." And I'm no longer in the chain of command, Ivanova added to herself, but Torres certainly understood the situation well enough. "So you're in charge?"
"I'm senior security officer on duty. But he Khatib won't take my order to leave the docking bay. He wants me to order my team to attack the transport. Of course, I won't do it. And they the transport crew refuse to disperse. They're armed, Commander, but so far they haven't done anything. And they've been asking for you."
"Right." Ivanova nodded, grasping the situation in its simplest terms: one more crisis. Fine. She knew how to deal with a crisis. "Who's their speaker?"
"The tall dark guy. Copilot. Name's LeDuc."
"Right." Ivanova said again, advancing past the security line to confront the Kobold's representative. "Mr. LeDuc, I'm Commander Ivanova. You asked for me?"
"Commander! Yes! I'm glad you're here. Mr. Pal said he trusted you. Now they've got him somewhere. What's going on around this station?"
"I'm not sure yet. But I'm trying to find out. What happened to Mr. Pal? Who's got him where?"
"Security! They took him away!"
"Under arrest, you mean?"
LeDuc pointed in Khatib's direction with a look of open hostility. "He comes up to Pal, says he's from security, a special investigator, wants to ask a few questions. Pal says he doesn't have time, we've got a scheduled departure, we're already off schedule, he's already talked to one of the officers on the station, he doesn't have anything more to add.
"He says that doesn't matter, his questions are different, and if Pal doesn't cooperate he'll order our departure canceled. Can he do that, Commander?"
Ivanova frowned. "Not on his own authority, no. Not directly, at least."
"That's what Pal told him, told him to flare off. Then this guy says Pal's under arrest, and he grabs him like this." LeDuc demonstrated, bending his own arm back. "Some of the crew was with him, they say, hey, what's going on, but this security guy pulls a weapon and says if they interfere, they're under arrest, too, for obstructing justice.
"So they go back to the ship, I call the security office to protest, they say they'll check on it, but I don't get any answers, just a runaround, you know what I mean, Commander?"
Ivanova nodded.
"So,
about an hour later, he shows up at the ship with this security detail, and now he says he's going to search the Kobold. Well, I say he's not going to set one foot on our ship until we get our pilot back, and our clearance for departure, because, I tell you, Commander, you saved our butts out there at the jump gate, and I was glad to see you then, but now I can't wait to get off this station, if you know what I mean."
Ivanova thought she felt the same way, sometimes. This might be one of them.
But LeDuc went on, "So he says the ship isn't leaving this docking bay 'til he checks out the cargo, and I say he's not coming on board the ship until they release Pal"
Ivanova figured she had the general picture. "So what we have here is a standoff, right?"
"Right. And we decided to call you in, because Pal said you could be trusted, at least."
"Right."
Ivanova looked across the security cordon at Khatib, who glared back at her. Right. "Look," she told LeDuc, "the officer who arrested Mr. Pal isn't in charge here, the ensign over there is. And she's not going to order our security forces to do anything drastic. There won't be any violence unless you start it."
LeDuc shook his head fervently. "We don't want trouble, Commander, we just want our pilot back and our clearance off this place."
"Fine. I'll see what I can do." Without much hope of success, she went up to Wallace's aide, who stood with folded arms as close as he could get to the ship's cargo hatch. "This isn't getting anyone anywhere, is it, Lieutenant Khatib?"
Khatib sneered down at her from his superior height. "You have no authority here, Commander Ivanova. You're not in command."
"No, I'm not, but neither are you, Lieutenant. Ensign Torres is the officer in command here, and I know she's not going to order Babylon 5 security to use force in a situation like this. So it seems to me that it's time to negotiate, and the crew of the Kobold have asked me to speak on their behalf. They want to know where their pilot is and they want him back with all his working parts in order, if you know what I mean."
"The pilot will be released when Commander Wallace is finished with him. And after I've searched this ship. I have my orders, and they don't include negotiation."
Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois) Page 14