Nexus: Ziva Payvan Book 2

by EJ Fisch

  Whoever stood behind him must have given some sort of signal because Vax and the other man emerged from the shadows and converged on him. The man watched him carefully from behind the barrel of his pistol while Vax frisked him quickly but thoroughly. She removed his gun from its holster, holding it down at her side while keeping her own trained on him.

  The two of them stepped back to make way for the mysterious third member of their party. Zona recognized him as Skeet Duvo. He too was armed, but his attention was focused on a data pad rather than his weapon. Zona caught a glimpse of his own photo on the screen along with his Royal Guard credentials.

  Duvo studied it for another second or two, glancing between Zona and the screen, before holstering his pistol and motioning for his associates to do the same. “Sorry about that, Agent Zona,” he said. “A person can never be too careful these days.”

  “Understood,” Zona replied. “I appreciate the caution.”

  “I’m Sergeant Skeet Duvo,” he said, offering his hand. “This is Officer Zinni Vax—”

  Zinni dipped her head and handed Zona’s gun back.

  “—and this is Ryon Kittner, Payvan family friend.”

  “Pleased to meet you all,” Zona said. “If you don’t mind, we should get straight to business. I’d like to think I didn’t come all the way from Haphor to stand around in an empty landing bay.”

  “Believe me sir, you didn’t,” Duvo said, motioning for Zona to follow as the three of them opened a door and entered a hallway that ran below the house. It looked like any other basement – the rooms that were open contained various machinery and workbenches. The ones that were closed had complex locking mechanisms on the doors, and Zona wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what they contained. A stairwell rose up at the end of the hall, leading up to the ground floor. The area around it was furnished with a sofa and exercise equipment.

  “Does this have to do with Payvan or Shevin?” Zona asked as he followed them up to the living room.

  “Both,” Duvo replied, though Zona barely heard him as his gaze fell upon Veya Shevin standing in the kitchen with her baby. She was talking with another woman and the two of them put their conversation on hold when the agents entered.

  “Mrs. Shevin!” he exclaimed. “By the five moons, I’m glad you’re all right!”

  Veya watched him for a moment as if she wasn’t sure who she could trust, a concept that had become all-too-familiar during the past few days. “SSA Zona,” she said. “Have you heard from my husband?”

  “We’re all in the dark here,” Sergeant Duvo said before he had a chance to respond. “The director thinks we can solve this puzzle a lot faster if we work together.” He nodded toward the other woman with Veya, a heavier-set emilan lady with rich purple streaking her dark hair. “Marshay, if you please.”

  The woman nodded and took Veya by the arm. “Come on, my dear.” The two of them disappeared into one of the bedrooms down the hall and were followed momentarily by Ryon.

  Duvo and Vax moved into the sitting area and motioned for Zona to make himself comfortable on one of the plush sofas. Over the course of several minutes, they relayed to him a series of facts that had supposedly been given a green light by Emeri Arion himself. Zona’s mind raced as he attempted to process everything – just as something began to make sense, a new detail threw a wrench into it all and he felt like they were starting from square one.

  “So you think Payvan is still alive?” he asked when they were finally done.

  “We know she is,” Officer Vax said, “but for now we’re operating under the pretense that she’s not. Either she staged her death or Tarbic actually tried to kill her. Regardless of which is true, the galaxy is supposed to think she’s gone and we need to keep it that way.”

  Zona nodded. “And you said she was seeking my agent?”

  “According to Veya, Ziva appeared at the Shevins’ home about eleven hours after she allegedly died,” Duvo said. “She was looking for Kade, claiming someone was after him. She sent Veya and the baby here to keep them safe until this all blows over.”

  “And how exactly did she know someone was after him?” Zona asked, not sure what to think.

  “That’s where Lieutenant Tarbic comes in,” Officer Vax replied. “In order to know about the bird phrase, he would have to have been in contact with Ziva at some point. And in order to have known Kade was in trouble, she would have needed someone on the inside.”

  “Tarbic was supposedly working with Dasaro, though he told us it was on Ziva’s account,” Duvo said. “For a while there, we thought he’d been lying to our faces, but now that we’ve heard what Veya has to say, we’re more inclined to believe him.”

  “So you think Tarbic and Payvan are together, wherever they are,” Zona confirmed. “And you haven’t heard anything from my man?”

  The sergeant’s wild orange hair bounced around as he shook his head. “The last record anyone has of Agent Shevin’s presence is from the night of the break-in at RG headquarters.”

  Zona rested his chin in his hand and sighed. “I still can’t believe he would have hacked into my system. I should have had his access card temporarily deactivated. I honestly never thought he was a threat.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Vax said. “We just need to know what’s in those files that he wanted to get his hands on.”

  “It was research, bits and pieces of information that had been trickling into the RG office. I’d been looking more closely at the death of Eason Fromm.” Zona dipped his head and groaned. “I’ll admit Shevin’s theories got me curious. I started doing a little digging of my own, hoping to get some closure, and I’d saved my findings with the rest of the current case files for easier comparison. They were included in the files that were accessed.”

  “Could they be what Shevin was after?” Duvo asked.

  “Sergeant, you have to understand that I conducted this research with the utmost secrecy. Nobody knew about it, especially Shevin. And even if he did, those files are heavily encrypted. Kade’s good with computers, but it would still take him days to get into them if he ever managed to at all.”

  “What did they contain?” Vax pressed.

  Zona hesitated. “Information on Payvan and Dasaro,” he replied. “I had a feeling that there were problems between them for reasons nobody else knew about. She was captured and tortured by Cobian pirates three years ago, correct?”

  The way his words affected the other two agents was unnerving. They watched him with wide eyes, unmoving. “What of it?” Duvo said.

  Zona told them everything.

  -75-

  Kat’s Hideout

  Chaiavis

  Aroska and Kade stood in the garage with the overhead door open, having been summoned downstairs by an angry transmission from Ziva. They caught sight of Kat’s green aircar and were startled to see three passengers in it. Ziva sat in the back seat with the stranger as Kat piloted the craft.

  As they neared, Aroska recognized him as a Cobian, known as a cousin to the Haphezians despite the fact that the two species had absolutely nothing in common. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Cobi orbited the Noro star on the same path as Haphez. Each civilization viewed the other as a foe, though the Cobians were no match for Haphez’s military presence.

  Aroska moved aside and motioned for Kade to close the door as the car entered the garage. Ziva leaped out before it had even stopped moving and tossed him a communicator that apparently belonged to the unconscious prisoner. “I want to know who the hell he was going to contact on that!” she snapped.

  He only needed to glance at the outgoing code once before he gave her an answer. “This is the number Dasaro gave me when he enlisted my help in tracking you down.”

  “How did he find me?” Ziva spun in a circle and swore under her breath.

  “He isn’t looking for you!” Kat exclaimed, just as tense. “Bosco told me they were there for me right before he…before he…” She choked on her own words.

/>   “Before he what?” Aroska asked, unsure if he really wanted to know.

  What came next was a fast, high-decibel explanation of what had transpired from each woman’s point of view – Kat was distraught and Ziva was just plain mad. Aroska caught the important details: Dasaro was on the planet, Bosco was dead, and Ziva had stumbled upon the Cobian pirate as he stalked Kat in the street. They’d fought, explaining her blood-soaked shoulder and why he was unconscious.

  “If Dasaro is looking for Kat, this guy must have been reporting to him,” Kade suggested after a rather uncomfortable silence.

  “That’s about all he’d be good for,” Ziva growled. “He’s nothing but a scout – Dasaro would want to bring us down himself if it came down to it.”

  The Cobian began to stir and Ziva seized him by the arm and dragged him out of the car with Kat’s help. They shoved him to his knees on the garage floor where he sat for a moment, head drooping, struggling to gather his bearings.

  Ziva grabbed a handful of his tentacles and yanked his head back, taking a moment to stare into his squinting eyes. “No,” she said, her voice possessing the same gravelly tone that it had when Aroska heard her speak for the first time in Emeri’s office. “He doesn’t know where Dasaro is.” She bent down closer to him, face contorted with more hatred than Aroska had ever seen. “There’s nothing stopping me from killing you right now.”

  “I want to know why he was following me,” Kat muttered.

  Unless it was Aroska’s imagination, Ziva looked disappointed. She glared at the Cobian for a few more seconds before releasing him and standing up. “Fine,” she said, rubbing her hand over the back of her shoulder. It came away bloody. “See what you can get out of him. I’ll be right back.”

  Aroska stooped down and faced the Cobian, gesturing at Ziva as she moved away. “I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re about two steps away from hell itself right now.”

  The prisoner’s only response was a grunt.

  “She said his name is Farag Foda,” Kat said quietly, stealing a peek back at Ziva.

  Aroska glanced to Kade. “See what you can find,” he said, jerking his head toward the computer upstairs.

  “Sure,” Kade said, disappearing up the steps behind Ziva.

  The garage was suddenly silent, leaving Aroska and Kat to stare the man down as he glared at them in return. There was something in Ziva’s case files that had bothered Aroska from the beginning, and now that this was all happening he was reminded of it again. There had been an incident, what, three years ago? Ziva had been imprisoned and tortured in a bunker on Cobi, and it was rumored that she would have died like the rest of her squad if the rescue team hadn’t arrived when they did. The majority of the report had been redacted, leaving him clueless as to how she had been captured, why, and who exactly had been responsible for it. The incident was on his list of things to ask her about, but that was before they’d met Kade and Kat. As curious as he was, Ziva had seemed so miserable lately that he hadn’t had the heart to bring it up.

  Now, considering the fact that Ziva knew the man’s name and how much she seemed to hate him, Aroska couldn’t help but wonder whether Foda had somehow been involved. He sighed and took one last look up the stairs before rising to his feet and crossing his arms.

  “You know Lieutenant Payvan?” he asked.

  The Cobian refused to make eye contact. “Go to hell,” he muttered in heavily accented Standard.

  Now Kat stepped forward, blue eyes like ice. “Tell us why you were following me,” she growled. “What does Dasaro want with me?”

  This time Foda shifted his gaze, though he locked eyes with Aroska rather than Kat. Still, rather than respond, he only shook his head and smirked.

  There was something about that smug face and the knowledge of how angry it made Ziva – for whatever reason – that made Aroska want to strangle him. The fact that he was capable of evoking such a strange, emotional reaction in her confused him. Most HSP agents – operatives in particular – knew better than to outwardly display their feelings. Whatever happened between them had certainly been significant or she wouldn’t have cared the way she did.

  Kat was kneeling in front of Foda now, though the Cobian clearly wasn’t interested in talking. Interrogation wasn’t one of Aroska’s strong points – pushing prisoners for information had been Jole Imetsi’s job back when they’d worked together in field ops. Aroska had, however, picked up on some useful techniques, and he thought himself perfectly capable of getting creative when it came to protecting Ziva and their new allies.

  He rose to his feet without a word and took a grease-stained rag from a nearby shelf. He hurled it to the ground at Kat’s feet and bounded up the stairs two at a time, his thoughts on the large plastic container he had encountered while exploring the kitchen cupboards earlier.

  As he passed the lavatory, he was overcome with the urge to check in on Ziva, and what he saw nearly made him forget what he’d been doing. She stood before the mirror, stripped down to a racerback compression bra, attempting to place an adhesive caura pad over the cut that traced her shoulder blade. She was turned slightly, trying to use the mirror to guide her, but she still seemed to be struggling. That angry, hateful look remained on her face, but there was something new mixed in with it: regret, unless Aroska was mistaken.

  All of this registered with him within half a second, but he found he was unable to take his eyes off of her. It wasn’t her bare shoulders, elaborate tattoos, or powerful abdominal muscles that interested him – he noticed these things, but what really caught his attention were the masses of scar tissue that ran down her spine and covered her lower back and stomach. Scarring on such a scale only occurred when the victim hadn’t gotten caura treatment soon enough…for instance, when someone was held prisoner for a week before receiving medical attention. These injuries didn’t appear to be recent, but they seemed much newer than the scar on her face. Perhaps they were about three years old. Suddenly Aroska knew.

  The four or five seconds he’d been standing there seemed like an eternity, and he felt his face flush. Ziva was looking at him now, shooting halfhearted glares his way as she continued her attempts at applying the pad.

  “Need a hand?” Aroska asked, not sure what else to say and not sure if he really wanted to help.

  She didn’t respond. Instead, she slapped the bandage on, content to wear it crooked, and pulled a tank top over her head.

  Feeling awful, Aroska turned and continued his trek into the kitchen. Kade was at the computer and gave him a subtle nod, telling him he’d found something about Foda in the files. Well, this is a fine mess.

  Aroska found the container and filled it with water from the sink. Ziva was just emerging from the lavatory, face and hair damp, as he made his way down the stairs. He heard Kade address her clearly: “There’s something you should see, and I doubt you’ll like it.”

  -76-

  Kat’s Hideout

  Chaiavis

  Ziva wanted nothing more than to go back downstairs and give Foda a taste of his own medicine, but the look on Kade’s face piqued her curiosity. There was no harm in hearing him out, she decided. Considering he was at his computer, maybe he had actually found something of value.

  She approached, feeling almost sick as her fresh cut continued to sting. It wasn’t the pain that affected her so much as the knowledge that Foda had once more managed to hurt her, even after she’d vowed it would never happen again. And now Aroska had seen the scars…he knew, didn’t he? He’d read her files but hadn’t mentioned anything about her imprisonment. In turn, she’d refused to bring it up.

  Kade moved aside to give her a look at the screen. He seemed nervous, fidgety, like someone who was about to bear bad news. Great.

  “I got the rest of Zona’s files open while you were out,” he explained. “It turns out he was doing a little research independent of the case – I don’t think he wanted anyone else to know about it. By the looks of it, he might have actually start
ed taking everything I told him to heart.”

  “This is all about me,” Ziva said, skimming over each of the file headings. She recognized each and every one of the incident reports and mission debriefs. Despite Zona’s high clearance level, many of them were redacted or only partially complete, but the amount of information that remained was enough for any experienced investigator to start piecing things together.

  Kade swallowed. “There seems to be one other common factor.”

  “Dasaro,” Ziva said. She caught his name in several of her own files and there was a separate collection of information about him alone.

  “Search queries for Argall and Farag Foda also came back positive,” Kade said, sounding as though something was lodged in his throat.

  “Argall,” Ziva repeated, not quite a question and not quite a statement. Why would anyone else at HSP have cared about Argall, and how could anyone outside of ops have known about Foda and the incident on Cobi? She looked closer at the timestamps on each file. Some were more recent, and some were from – she did a double-take – three years earlier. Three years. I’ve had this hunch for three years. Kat’s voice: “He and the girl were killed three years ago.”

  “Three years ago is when I first found something on Argall while I was investigating Dasaro,” she said. “That’s when Kat’s father and sister died, and judging by what Zona has collected here, it looks like he believes Dasaro was behind the killing that took place there.”

  “Was that the gist you were getting back then?”

  Ziva paused. “I’m not sure. There was a lot going on and I didn’t have time or probable cause to search any further. All I knew was that he had some sort of operation going on outside of HSP, but I never got a chance to find out what it was.”

  Kade lifted an eyebrow. “But did he know that? Here he is coming after me because he’s afraid I know something I don’t.”

  Ziva stared at the computer screen, attempting to put the puzzle together and see whatever big picture Zona had seen. “Kat has encountered Dasaro’s name just recently as she’s searched for information about her family.”