by Blaze Ward
Steafan Sìoltach, First Officer. Well dressed and calm. Alone, but again, at least five cameras watching, plus however many extra microphones and scanners in the suite.
Rob’s hands were still cuffed, but in front of him now, resting on the table at the end of a three foot chain that would let him drink from a cup if they’d given him one.
Sìoltach had a mug of coffee in his hands that he placed on the far corner of the bolted-down table, out of reach. He also had a file folder about an inch thick with papers and probably other incriminating details.
Who knew what was illegal enough on 6940 Draconis that the authorities would actually do something about it? I mean, technically, the laws here weren’t that different than Ramsey, back home. But the enforcement left questions and ambiguities.
The new interrogator took the other chair and they stared at each other for a few minutes. Rob smiled more than the First Officer did, but that was just the play here. They wanted something, information most likely, rather than just shooting him in the back of the head.
“So is this on Finn’s orders?” Rob asked simply, breaking the silence.
Sìoltach grimaced, aware that he might have already lost control of the interrogation, just from Rob’s friendly tones, but not ceding an inch.
“Does it matter?” the man finally replied.
“Yes,” Rob kept smiling. “Because if it does, the three of us should have a conversation without all the witnesses that will leak information you might want controlled in the future.”
“I see,” the man didn’t, but it was a nice phrase to fill in the blanks.
But it also let Rob know that things were maybe bigger, deeper, and uglier than he had expected. Whatever he had expected.
“And bringing Finn down here to talk won’t help?” the man asked.
“You trust your information security with everyone on the other end of all those cameras?” Rob asked. “Nobody going to pick up a comm and walk outside to make a quick call five minutes afterwards?”
That one hit home, but Rob had expected it to. Most government offices leaked like sieves on the best days. Bureaucrats were never paid enough in their own minds, and rich folks found it a cheap investment to provide a little side income for information. Occasionally, you even had ideologues with axes to grind.
Rob doubted the latter here, but someone would have put spies in place, or recruited some. Hell, he would have.
“And you think it would be worth the time and effort?” Sìoltach asked.
“You had me politely arrested and brought in,” Rob said. “That means you want to talk. Personally, I’ve been waiting for the call, but didn’t want to jump the gun, if you folks didn’t end up being smart enough to put the pieces together.”
Always the smile. Play the tough guy, but professional and understanding. Nothing prevented Sìoltach from just shooting him right now and leaving his body in a dumpster, except that new itch that maybe there was something more going on here.
Something that might upset all those careful calculations someone did yesterday when they issued a warrant for someone named Roberto Segura.
Handsome Rob leaned back and waited. Processing would be like the stages of death. It always was with people in this situation.
Faster than Rob expected, the man pulled out a comm from the inner pocket of his jacket and pushed a button.
“You home?” Sìoltach asked when the other end answered. “Bringing someone to see you. Wants to chat.”
Sìoltach hung up and fixed Rob with heavy eyes. Not angry, but hard and unforgiving.
Always the smile.
“Someone get me the keys and a fresh set of cuffs,” Sìoltach announced to the room.
Rob leaned forward conspiratorially.
“You’ll also need my wallet,” he whispered carefully. “You won’t find what you need, but it’s in there.”
“Uh huh,” Sìoltach replied.
A few minutes passed and the door opened. Three of the four goons from before, with shock wands and terrible smiles entered.
Rob stood as directed. Remained perfectly still as they unhooked him and then cuffed his hands in back again. Sìoltach had left, but now returned, eyes promising pain if this was all some terrible ruse.
Rudely, the man was holding Rob’s own pulse pistol in one hand. Hopefully someone had determined that it worked just fine. Terrible to have them think the weapon was a fake and shoot him on a lark.
Sìoltach argued briefly with the cops, including the fourth one who had been out in the hall, in case Rob bolted for the door, but won and ordered them back to barracks. Or whatever cops did when they weren’t beating up suspects. Probably a donut shop nearby.
“I will shoot you, if you give me any reason at all,” Sìoltach promised as he grabbed hold of the cuffs.
“You want answers, First Officer,” Rob looked back. “I’ll provide some, but not in the public square. Simple as that.”
Rather than heading out to the tram station again, Sìoltach led him into a side corridor and into a section of the station Rob had never visited before. He had a rough idea where he was, and could backtrack perfectly to the police station, but would have had to pass through five secured portals to get there and didn’t have the right tools.
Nigel and Roxy would have been able to get here pretty quickly, but they were like that.
He and Sìoltach ended up at a door in what looked like an upscale housing block.
“Stand here,” Sìoltach stood Rob in front of a door and rang the bell.
The door opened a moment later and Rob was facing Finn Fukui and a bolter pistol.
“This better be good, Segura,” the man growled as he stepped back.
Sìoltach gave Rob enough push to get him going.
“You have no idea, Governor,” Rob promised.
20
Finn kept the punk across the room as Steafan moved him in and sat the guy down on a chair pulled in from the dining area and turned around backwards. They left his hands cuffed.
The room was secured and had been swept this morning. The door was locked and Steafan had dropped all the locks into place.
“Who are you working for?” Finn demanded, still holding the bolter in the punk’s general direction.
“Lincolnshire‘s Guardia Civil Interior,” Segura surprised him by replying immediately. “The Service.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Finn asked sarcastically.
“I’m running an operation that is not targeting you or 6940 Draconis in any way, Governor,” the stranger replied calmly. “I can prove it, if you’re willing to talk.”
“Can you now?” Finn let the doubt paint the whole room. “How?”
Segura turned to Steafan now.
“You grabbed my wallet, right?” he asked.
“I did,” Steafan replied. “But there’s nothing in there. We scanned it.”
“Your scanners are junior varsity, First Officer,” Segura said with a hint of disdain. “Useful against amateurs, but not professional grade. If you’re nice to me sometime, maybe over some whiskey, I’ll tell you how to upgrade them.”
That probably stung more than a woman’s slap, from the flinch. Steafan took his job seriously. Finn knew that. Suggesting that waltzing past it was child’s play was a low blow, but it would also guarantee that they both were listening, which was obviously Segura’s intent.
Steafan pulled out the wallet from an inside jacket pocket now. Brown leather. Not too badly aged, but not brand new either. Four inches wide by maybe twice that tall, capable of holding bills without folding them in half.
“Inside, you’ll find a picture of Mrs. Jones,” Segura said calmly. “A cheesecake photo showing her topless and with all the naughty bits artfully shadowed. It was tucked in at the back, but I presume you pulled everything out and cataloged it, so I have no idea where it is now.”
Steafan emptied the whole thing onto the coffee table. Cash, business cards, local photo ID, the othe
r, random things a man accumulates in his wallet over time.
The picture of Mrs. Jones was there. Fantastic, as it showed her kneeling on a bed in a bedroom, turned slightly, playful and smiling at the camera. There were no tan lines at all.
“This one?” Steafan asked sarcastically.
“Yes,” Segura said. “Go into the kitchen and run it under warm water for a few minutes.”
“What do you expect will happen?” Finn asked.
Segura smiled at him now. A real smile.
“The Service printed that picture over the top of my Identity card,” he said. “It won’t scan with anything short of a full X-ray machine, and nobody in his right mind would damage that card if they stole it or found it lost on the sidewalk. That’s a collector’s item.”
“I see,” Finn replied. “How did you get it?”
“The woman only appears to be demure and matronly, Governor,” Segura said. “In her youth, back in the drugs and booze days, she did all sorts of crazy shit. The Service got hold of that photo and used it to disguise my papers. Other agents have other tricks, but since I was traveling with Mrs. Jones, they decided that it would be the perfect cover.”
Finn nodded to Steafan, watched his second best friend disappear into the kitchen. The sound of running water, the air systems, and his heartbeat were the other things Finn heard for several minutes.
Finally, Steafan returned, a look of awe on his face like Finn had never seen before.
“Shit,” was all he said as he handed Finn a piece of hard plastic.
The face was the same. Roberto Segura. Six-Foot-One. One-Ninety-Five. Black eyes. Black Hair. Hispanic genotype. Field Agent, Guardia Civil Interior.
The man was a damned spy. Right here in his living room. Finn was tempted to shoot him, but getting blood out of the carpet was nearly impossible, and Aoki would never forgive him for ruining their living room.
“Why are you here?” Finn growled, deep and angry.
Segura fixed him with those hard eyes and lost all the laughter and comradery that had been there two seconds ago.
“A Salonnian Syndicate has built a semi-secret operational base on the surface of 6725 Lacertae,” he replied calmly. “Not all that far from the borders with both Corynthe and Lincolnshire, especially since 6940 Draconis sticks out like a thumb.”
“And?” Finn prompted.
Segura took a breath and glanced at Steafan before he continued.
“My orders are to see it destroyed, without involving the Lincolnshire navy, or getting Aquitaine to do anything about it,” Segura finally admitted. “To do so, the Service invented the cover of funding a movie. Royo and Jones are out of work and desperate, so they won’t ask too many questions, as long as the catering holds out. Same with Framingham, although your wife has made my mission much more complex by actually finding Longbow artists he likes.”
“That’s not a cover?” Finn asked.
He had been getting regular reports, third-hand, from both Aoki and one of the musicians involved.
“No,” Segura almost sounded disgusted. “Longbow’s suddenly serious about recording a second album, after happily working for Royo doing soundtracks and such for over a decade. So now I have to juggle that as well, because the man mentioned a tour, day before yesterday.”
“So why are you here on Draconic?” Steafan stepped around in front of Segura.
“My hope was that we could recruit one or more local motherships,” Segura said. “As well as a team of armed combat experts, which is where I presume you panicked. The plan was to literally film the entire assault on 6725 Lacertae and include that as stock footage. Same with whatever mothership and crews we could bring in. Royo’s a damned perfectionist, wanting honest to goodness pirates, rather than actors who play them. Under cover of getting him real pirates to pal around with, I was going to go blow up a Salonnian base and let the pirates loot it’s bones clean, like ants.”
“That’s completely insane, Segura,” Finn choked the words out.
“Yes. Yes it is,” the man admitted with a smile. “And so audacious that nobody would ever believe the truth. Rumors and miscommunications would make it look like the pirates took advantage of our filming schedule to go score a raid they could deny later, telling everyone it was just a movie. Royo and Jones would go along, because I’m providing the funding to make what would turn out to be an amazingly-realistic film, and they’re nothing but actors.”
“You want to get us into a shooting incident with Salonnia?” Finn forced himself to be calm.
On the face of it, the man was right. The audacity was so over the top that he could probably pull it off.
“Not Salonnia,” Segura corrected him. “One of the Syndicates, Ahearn & Toledanoi. Plus, you people are pirates, and known to be at odds with your own government, so you aren’t about to listen to orders from Jessica or David to behave if there is money to be made. Finally, you aren’t involved, Governor. This is me and a couple of the local captains engaging in a private business transaction that just happens to mess with one of your competitors while protecting your position. You aren’t trading with that secret naval base in Salonnian space.”
Finn marveled at the enormity of it. The spies had apparently written the script with Royo and Jones in mind, knowing they could swindle a couple of broke actors into doing it. Ahearn & Toledanoi didn’t trade with 6940 Draconis, so while there had been rumors of a new base, they had been muddled up in the general intelligence summaries of problems on the other side of the border.
“So say I were to believe you, Segura,” Finn began, having processed things about as well as he could at present. “And didn’t just throw your ass into a cell or exile you to the surface. Then what?”
“Then I tell everyone I had to pay off hell of a fine,” Segura said. “Please don’t make it too big, because I’ve only got so much budget to work with here, but this situation was not unanticipated. Your people continue to watch me like hawks, as they have been. At some point, Royo or Jones use their charms to bring in a fish big enough, and we go off for some filming. Once off-world, we convince them to really attack someone, playing to their chaotic and juvenile delinquency tendencies and their greed. You have plausible deniability as does Lincolnshire.”
“And you’ve been talking to Nakano,” Steafan said.
“Loosely,” Segura admitted. “We can’t get a straight answer out of him who we works for. I’d hate to hire him to raid his own damned base. Man like Nakano might go for it, with enough money on the table, but he might also blow the entire operation. Too risky to nail down details until we have that one.”
“Kozel wouldn’t talk?” Steafan grinned. “Not that impressed, once she got you into bed?”
“Neither of us was able to even walk straight when we were done. First Officer,” Segura smiled. “Let alone plan a palace revolution. And believe me, I probed her for every opening that presented itself.”
“Last I checked, Okonkwo Nakano was working for Black Aurora,” Finn decided to play along. “At least that’s what my spies have told me. Going after Bergier targets and shipping, as well as the usual piratical things around here, like slipping deeper into Corynthe space or crossing over to Lincolnshire. Does that open the way for you to get deeper into trouble?”
“It does, Governor,” Segura said. “Why the change of heart?”
“You’ll owe me one, son,” Finn smiled cruelly at the man. “Or your Service will. And Nakano is a Salonnian spy, so there’s a damned good chance his masters get pissed at him for freelancing. Plus he might suffer serious damage raiding a Ahearn & Toledanoi base, and end up being less of a threat around here. Be a shame if he had to face a restless crew for a few years.”
“You are a cold, hard man, Governor,” Segura said with apparent respect in his eyes. “And yes, I will let my superiors know we owe you one when I get back. How they’ll deal with it is beyond my control, but my government considers Corynthe to be less of a threat these days, because of Q
ueen Jessica, and have concentrated their efforts on Salonnia. If you want to help, I’m sure they’d be happy to negotiate some funding to cause the Syndicates more grief.”
“What about Fribourg?” Finn asked, calling up a stellar map in his head. “Salonnia is a client of the Empire, and there is peace between all the major players right now.”
“There is a lack of active shooting at each other, Governor,” Segura corrected him. “Salonnia is still run by crime families. Corynthe has a Pirate Queen. The Empire is a fragile place as the man in charge apparently wants to start a war with somebody deep in the galactic interior. We have to protect ourselves from predators.”
“You are a predator, Segura,” Finn said.
“As are you, Governor,” the spy replied.
Finn considered the situation.
“I can’t just return your ID to you with your wallet,” Finn said. “Everything will be cataloged before they release you.”
“Like I can argue with them that you stole a topless picture of Mrs. Jones?” Segura laughed. “They’ll just be mad you did it before they got a chance to make a copy.”
Finn laughed. The man had a point. She was among the most beautiful women in the galaxy, and he could see the rumors.
Aoki would need to know the truth, but that was a given anyway. Especially if Longbow was in a position to mess up Segura’s chance to hammer one of the Syndicates hard enough that they fell over.
“Okay, Segura,” Finn stood and clicked the safety on his bolter. “I’m willing to give you a chance. And yes, the next screw up is probably terminal, so behave accordingly. Steafan, take him back and let him rot in a cell overnight. Figure out a good enough fine to make me happy and get cash out of the man before you release him.”
Steafan took charge of the prisoner and departed as Finn studied the card in his hand.
Roberto Segura. Lincolnshire spy posing as a film producer. About to attempt one of the most audacious cons Finn had ever heard of, with a larger than life cast.