“Well,” Flint said, sounding businesslike, as if he were concerned rather than trying to manipulate the system. “I’m afraid we have a problem there.”
“Don’t tell me they’ve taken the baby,” Reese said. “We haven’t finished the negotiations. Did they just go to that hotel and take the kid?”
“No,” Flint said, wishing he were dealing with Carryth. Carryth, at least, seemed reasonable. “I just wanted to remind you that we have no legal right to hold on to Ennis.”
“What?” Reese said so loudly that Wilder flinched. He looked over his shoulder, then seemed to realize that the discussion didn’t concern him. His shoulders rode up and down in an obvious sigh, and he turned back toward the door where he had last seen his wife.
“We can only keep people for twenty-four hours without cause,” Flint said.
Carryth stroked his jaw as if Flint made him think.
“What about the Wygnin warrant?” Reese said.
“So far, they haven’t proven that the child they want is the one they had.” Flint made sure he sounded confident about this. He was buying time again, but didn’t want to be too obvious about it.
“Much as I don’t want to admit it,” Reese said. “If the Wygnin were right about Mrs. Wilder, then they’re right about Ennis.”
“But they can’t prove they’re right,” Flint said, “and that’s all that matters to us.”
“Plus there’s no guarantee that they are,” Carryth said softly. “They may have jiggled the warrant with Jasper Wilder just so that we would make this assumption about Ennis Kanawa.”
Reese shot him a panicked look. “They’re not that cunning.”
“We don’t know,” Carryth said. “We try not to deal with them any more because we don’t always understand what they’re thinking.”
Reese swore. “If we let that kid go, and then they prove that he’s theirs, we could be in a lot of trouble.”
“We’re supposed to respect the Wygnin’s laws on their soil,” Flint said, making his voice stay calm. His heart was beating wildly. “They can respect ours here. We can’t hold this family any longer than we already have. In fact, we’ve had that boy longer than we should have.”
“He’s right,” Carryth said. “You have to let them go.”
Reese’s panic seemed to grow. He glanced at the door that held Wilder’s attention, probably still seeing Wygnin in front of it. “So if the Wygnin bring the right warrant, who is going to deal with them?”
“You are,” Flint said.
“Probably in court,” Carryth added.
“Why did this land on us?” Reese asked. “Why couldn’t Earth have picked them up, or Mars? How come we got this case?”
Carryth met Flint’s gaze but neither man spoke. Flint wondered how Reese would react if he knew that a lot more cases would be coming their way unless someone stopped Disappearance Inc.
Reese ran a hand through his hair. “Am I supposed to notify the Wygnin of this?”
“No,” Flint said. “When they bring the proper documentation, you let them know we followed our laws.”
“What if I notify them anyway?” Reese asked Carryth, deliberating turning away from Flint.
“Then you wouldn’t be acting in the best interests of the city.” Carryth gave Flint a sideways glance. Carryth obviously knew Flint was playing at something, and was going to help. “If someone could prove you failed to follow our laws strictly out of self-interest, it could be enough to get you fired, maybe even disbarred.”
Reese swore. He glared at Flint. “Let them go. But make sure they know they have to come back here the minute we summon them.”
“I will,” Flint said.
“You’d better.” Reese pushed past him and headed into the conference room.
Carryth started to follow, but stopped just before he got to the door. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do,” Flint said, and hoped he wasn’t deceiving anyone—especially himself.
Twenty-eight
A knock on the door made Jamal start. His gaze met Dylani’s. She looked terrified. Ennis burst into tears.
He was cuddled against Dylani’s shoulder. She had been walking him around the room, trying to soothe him. He’d been fussy all morning, but this was the first time he’d broken into complete sobs.
The knock sounded again. Jamal was shaking. They were finally coming to take Ennis from him. He knew it. These last few hours, while precious, had just been the beginning of his personal hell. He would remember them always as the last time he’d failed his child.
“They know we’re here,” Dylani said as she patted Ennis on the back. Her head tilted toward Ennis, whose cries could probably be heard in the street.
Jamal knew she was right. There was nothing more he could do. Somehow he had thought they would give him more time. He would be able to find a solution and feel like he’d done more than beg.
But he was out of time.
Ennis was out of time.
Jamal pulled the door open. Flint, the detective who had taken them to Ennis in the first place, stood outside.
“So soon?” Jamal asked.
Flint didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “May I come in?”
Jamal wanted to say no. He wanted to close the door and hide his child, but he did neither. He stepped aside, and let the man who was going to take his baby into his hotel room.
“I have to record this conversation,” Flint said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
Jamal shrugged. Ennis was still crying. His wails would be the dominant sound on any playback, not that it mattered. The officials probably just wanted this recorded in case anything went wrong.
“Go ahead.” Dylani sounded resigned. But she gripped Ennis so tightly that the boy was beginning to squirm.
“I have a few questions to ask you about another investigation that I’m doing,” Flint said.
Jamal shook his head slightly. For a moment, he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “What?”
“I’m doing some related work on another investigation. I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“What’s going on?” Dylani asked. “How come you people think we’re involved in crimes that have nothing to do with us?”
“It’s just information that I’m after, ma’am.” Flint sounded calm, unlike the man who had warned them that seeing their child again might not be a good idea.
Jamal had an odd sense that something wasn’t right here. He slowly backed toward the window. He wanted to look out to see if Wygnin were below.
“The case I’m working on,” Flint said, “involves Disappearance Inc. It seems they were sold a few months back, and the new owners have decided to reveal Disappeareds whereabouts, for a price. We’ve had a lot of trouble because of it in just the last few days.”
Jamal froze. So that was what had happened. His gaze met Flint’s, and Flint quickly looked away. In fact, Flint moved so that Dylani couldn’t see Jamal’s face.
“So?” Dylani asked, oblivious to her husband’s reaction.
“There are a lot of untrustworthy companies out there,” Flint said. “It makes my job both easier and harder. I’m worried that this could happen again. You don’t understand the difficulties we’ve been through these last few days, and if there are other unethical Disappearance services, well, then, we’re in for a long year.”
Jamal was holding his breath.
“What are you trying to ask us?” Dylani’s voice had an edge to it that Jamal had never heard before. The harshness made Ennis stop crying and look at her as if her words were directed at him.
“Have you heard of Data Services? They’re a Disappearance service, and so far as I can tell, they’re the only ethical ones left. Some of the other services have been contacting people in trouble with various alien groups, but Data Services waits for people to come to them. They seem to be the only ones these days.”
Flint was telling them where to go to get help. Or was he? Jama
l felt very confused.
“I haven’t heard of any disappearance service,” Dylani said. “Have you, Jamal?”
She finally turned to him, and something in his face made her pause. She looked from him to Flint, and then back again.
“What in the—?” She started, but Jamal stepped toward her and put a finger over her mouth, effectively stopping her.
“I haven’t heard of any service either,” he said. “I’m surprised that there are any ethical ones left.”
“Just Data Services, from all I can tell,” Flint said. “You sure you haven’t heard from them?”
“No, we haven’t,” Jamal said.
Flint nodded. “Well then, if that’s all you know, that’s all you know. Thanks for your time.”
“You’re welcome,” Jamal said, keeping his hand over Dylani’s mouth. Ennis played with his finger, the tears forgotten.
Flint grabbed the doorknob as if he were about to turn it, and then he stopped. “One more thing. I’m not sure if you’re aware that under Armstrong law, we can only hold Ennis for twenty-four hours. Since the Wygnin haven’t yet provided us with a proper warrant, you people are free to go.”
Dylani dipped her head away from Jamal’s finger. “We’re done then? They can’t come after us any more?”
“They can come after you any time they want,” Flint said. “But they can’t take Ennis again until they have a proper warrant. Knowing the Wygnin, they’re trying to get one.”
“This isn’t done?” Dylani asked. “Is that what you’re telling us? We can leave but we’ll never be free?”
“That’s what happens in cases like this. As long as they can find you, they will.” Flint said that last directly to Jamal.
The message seemed clear. Jamal went over each piece in his mind. The conversation had to be recorded by law, so Flint was not able to talk freely. He made up some story about a case involving Disappearance services so that he could tell them about a reputable one. And now he was giving them a chance to escape.
Somehow Jamal would find a way to afford it. Even if he could only pay for Ennis’s escape, he would. He would do whatever he could to keep his son away from the Wygnin.
“Good luck,” Flint said.
“Thank you,” Jamal said.
Flint smiled at him. It was a real smile, warm and sincere. He reached out, put his hand on Ennis’s head, and closed his eyes for a moment, almost as if Ennis were a child he knew.
Then he opened his eyes, nodded, and slid his hand down Ennis’s neck to his back, patting it before letting go.
Ennis gave him a bewildered stare. It made Flint’s smile grow even wider. He nodded at all three of them, and left.
Jamal leaned against the door.
“Did I hear—?” Dylani started, but Jamal put a finger to his lips.
He said, “Why do you think he had to record that conversation? So they knew he did his job?”
Dylani mouthed a small ‘oh’ and cradled her son. “Well, if his job is letting us know we can get out of this horrible hotel room, he did just fine. I don’t understand the rest of it though.”
“Neither do I,” Jamal lied. “It doesn’t concern us.”
But it did. It gave him hope. And, it seemed, Flint had bought them time.
* * *
DeRicci had nearly reached the interrogation room when something crashed. She knew where the sound had to be coming from. The Rev.
She wasn’t late. She knew that. She’d been very careful to watch the time.
But apparently their patience was at an end.
She ran the last few yards and found the door to the interrogation room open, the window smashed, and the chair the interpreter had been sitting on sticking out of the wall.
The Rev were in the hallway, smashing holes in the permaplastic with their lower limbs, their emotion collars flared and deep maroon.
DeRicci screamed down her public link for backup. She needed some kind of help here before this spilled into other areas of the Division.
The interpreter was huddled inside the room, his hands over his head. He didn’t appear to be hurt, but she couldn’t tell from this distance. He wasn’t alone. One Rev remained in there, pounding a spot in the wall between interrogation chambers.
DeRicci had read about things like this. When negotiations broke down, the Rev resorted to violence. Most cultures were afraid of them because they were so big and they could destroy so much so quickly.
The hallway smelled of ginger and rotting melons. DeRicci resisted the urge to put her hand over her face. She tried to flag down a Rev, but they didn’t seem to see her. Instead they continued slamming their lower limbs against the walls.
At first, she thought the reaction was random, and then she realized they were following a prescribed plan, destroying one area before moving onto the next.
She had no idea what to do. In all her years in Armstrong, she had never encountered anything like this before.
She couldn’t even tell which of the Rev had spoken to her before. God help her, her eyes were not trained enough to tell the differences between them, even though she knew there had to be some.
One of the Rev swiveled its head, and its eyes, bulging all the way out of its tiny face, seemed to focus on her.
Then the entire group surged forward, trapping her against a wall.
Twenty-nine
On his way back to the Port, Flint sent a message requesting an interpreter and a room where he could meet with the Wygnin. DeRicci should have been the one to meet with them—she, at least, had studied their culture as her alien-training at the Academy—but he didn’t dare involve her with this.
If it failed, he wanted it to be on him, and him only.
The Port had given him a small conference room not far from interstellar holding. The Wygnin and the interpreter were already inside. Two space cops stood outside, just to make certain everything remained in order.
They nodded at him as he passed them. He didn’t recognize either of them, but he nodded in return. They knew who he was, just like he had always known who the success stories were. Most space cops dreamed of moving up to detective, and few ever got the chance.
Flint had thought it would be such a relief holding this job. He had been so wrong.
He opened the door to the conference room and immediately felt a wave of emotion. Fury, mostly, mixed with confusion and anger.
DeRicci had warned him that Wygnin emotions could be overwhelming, that an unprepared detective could mistake what the Wygnin were feeling for his own emotions. She had been trained to deal with this, to block those emotions. He had not.
He resisted the urge to close the door and try again. Instead, he tried to gather himself as he went inside.
Only two Wygnin remained. They were not sitting. They stood side by side at the head of the table, staring at the door. Flint got the sense that they had planned that emotional assault to throw whoever had come to visit them off balance. Anger rippled through him and he struggled to set it aside, reminding himself that it wasn’t his anger. It was theirs.
An interpreter sat at the table. She was human, but just barely. Her expensive enhancements had left her looking like a Wygnin wannabe. Her hair, skin, and eyes were a matching gold. She was whip-thin, and she held her long fingers against her stomach, the way the Wygnin were doing.
After nodding to her, Flint looked away. She was clearly not an ally of his.
Fortunately, the room was big. If it was small, the emotions would have overwhelmed him. As it was, he was going to have to fight to get through this.
He kept his eyes downcast as DeRicci had instructed. “Thank you for coming,” he said.
The interpreter began speaking, and he felt oddly disoriented. It took her longer to translate his words than it took him to speak them.
Then one of the Wygnin spoke, its voice melodious. “We thought you were going to bring the child.”
“You still don’t have a valid warrant,” Flint said. “
We couldn’t confirm the boy’s identity.”
“But you confirmed the identity of the other child.”
“Yes,” Flint said. The fury was growing. He wanted to clench his fists, shout, do anything he could to get rid of the feeling building inside him. “But the cases are not related, at least so far as we can see. So it doesn’t matter if one warrant was right. The other isn’t.”
“We already know about the problem with the warrant. We are resolving it,” the Wygnin said. “Do we need our attorney again?”
Flint had forgotten that they met with DeRicci and a battery of attorneys. Of course, she hadn’t told him much about that meeting. She never told him much. That was what made their partnership so awful—
This time, he did clench a fist so that he could stop his errant thoughts. They had nothing to do with this. It was just his mind casting about for a reason behind the chaotic emotions he felt.
“No,” Flint said. “I’ve just come to inform you that we had to follow our laws.”
He sounded calm, at least to his own ears. He hoped he seemed calm to theirs.
It felt odd to speak with his head down so that he wouldn’t make eye contact. That was so contrary to his way of doing things.
“What do you mean?”
He thought he heard menace in the Wygnin’s voice, but he couldn’t be certain. He couldn’t trust his reactions to these creatures.
“Under our laws,” Flint said, “we can only hold someone without cause for twenty-four hours.”
“You had cause,” the Wygnin said.
“No,” Flint said. “We couldn’t prove that Ennis Kanawa was the child you wanted. I set him free just an hour ago. I suspect the family is on their way home to Gagarin Dome right now.”
The fury became so overwhelming that Flint felt dizzy.
“You should have notified us of this,” one Wygnin said. As the interpreter spoke, the other Wygnin did too.
It said, “This is a trick.”
“No trick,” Flint lied and hoped that the Wygnin couldn’t detect lies as easily as the Rev sometimes could. “I made a recording of the conversation I had with the Kanawa family. You may listen to it if you like.”
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