Worth took a breath before continuing. “You’re right, of course. Absolutely right.”
They went on like that for a little while, but eventually whoever Worth was talking to announced that he had to go, and they said their goodbyes.
Veraldi turned to look at us. “This investigation into Worth is already paying off. We now know who’s behind the plan and why they’re doing it.”
“We still don’t know anything about the connection to the Eleven,” pointed out Jones.
“You’re right, we don’t,” he replied. “Still, I think we have enough to move this into high gear.”
It looked like we’d finally made some headway and were on track to bringing the case to a close. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
21
We held our next meeting with Edward Yeun at the Section 3 safehouse so Thomas could attend in person to share new information.
Yeun was in the living room, engrossed in something with an expression of pure focus. My footsteps must have alerted him to my presence, however, because his eyes refocused on the room a few seconds later. “Reading up on Go strategy,” he explained.
I nodded but didn’t say anything. Perhaps his losses to Andrew had bothered him more than I realized.
“So,” he continued. “How’s it going?”
“Things are looking up and we’ve come into some interesting information. Turns out the plot is being organized by Oliver Worth.”
His eyes got big. “Meaning it’s not just the cabinet ministers.”
“Correct. Worth has a lot more to do with it than they do. They’re being blackmailed. Not that it excuses anything. But Worth is an enthusiastic participant.”
He shook his head. “It’s hard to see how this ends without a war.”
“I’m afraid that’s what we’re headed toward,” I agreed.
Veraldi and Jones came in together, followed by Raven a few minutes later. The only person who wasn’t in the living room was Young, not counting the missing Andrea.
“Where’s Thomas?” asked Andrew, sweeping a gaze over the room and frowning.
Vincenzo shrugged. “He must be in his bedroom. Someone probably ought to go check on him.”
“I’ll go get him,” volunteered Raven, deliberately passing close enough that we touched as she went by.
Within a matter of seconds, the sound of her fist hitting Thomas’ door, followed by muffled shouting, reached our ears. Andrea had always taken on the difficult task of managing Thomas and his prickly personality. The prospect of an unmanageable Thomas suddenly loomed large in my imagination, and I realized how much Andrea’s presence had done for us where he was concerned.
“That’s one approach,” muttered Andrew.
Finally, the pair joined us in the living room, her face a strange mix of irritation and amusement. Thomas, on the other hand, only looked irritated. “Well, everyone. Raven has informed me that we’re having a meeting.”
Andrew sighed. “Thomas, you’re the one who called the—”
Veraldi interrupted. “I understand you found something out for us?”
“Of course, I found something out for you. That’s what I do. That’s what I was doing, in fact, when I was interrupted a few moments ago.”
Raven smiled sweetly. “Boot. Face,” she said, obviously reminding him of whatever she’d threatened him with to get him out here.
He took a step back. “Since you’re all here, I am certainly happy to fill you in. I have completed my analysis of the video files.”
“What video files?” I asked.
“From the state security apparatus,” he replied, somewhat haughtily. “I would have thought that was obvious.”
“Things aren’t always as obvious to us as they are to you,” Veraldi pointed out, taking on Andrea’s role of keeping Thomas buttered up. “Why don’t you just assume the rest of us don’t know anything and explain what you found.”
Thomas smiled for the first time. “Ah, standard procedure then. Very well. My analysis of the security video files shows former Arbiter Byron Harewood to have been present at the prisoner transport attack. He didn’t take a leading role this time, as you’ll see.”
The video in question arrived on my dataspike, and I wasted no time in playing it. As Thomas had said, it was Byron. As much as I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, there was no mistaking the man’s identity. He was standing on an overpass crossing the M22, apparently speaking to one of the bikers that had attacked us.
“I don’t get it.” I shook my head, more in amazement than disbelief. “The man I worked with never broke a rule in his whole damn life. The idea of him as a criminal mastermind just doesn’t make sense.”
“Think of Katerina Capanelli,” Veraldi pointed out. “She went from being the field commander of Section 9 to becoming an assassin for Ivan Solovyov. Somehow, the Eleven can be quite convincing.”
“Solovyov did his best to convince me too,” I replied. “But I’m having a hard time buying this.”
Veraldi frowned. “If I remember correctly, you didn’t see him as such a saint when you were actually working with him.”
Okay, maybe it did make sense on some level.
I recalled my own suspicions about Byron. At one point I had been confident he was a traitor, responsible for the death of Gabriel Anderson’s widow Sophie. Something about the whole affair still felt off and I couldn’t shake it. Some time had passed since Sophie’s death, and my primary memory of Byron was of a man who lived every moment by the book.
“Point taken,” I conceded. “Did you find anything else, Thomas?”
“Indeed I did. Harewood has recently appeared on the surveillance network in Norwich. The video showed him as the single occupant of a vehicle heading out to the countryside. I sent a drone, and it followed Harewood to a secluded farmhouse outside the metropolitan area.”
Veraldi raised his eyebrows. “We know where Harewood is?”
“Well no, not yet.” Thomas blinked a few times as if confused by the question. “We know no such thing. I am the one who knows where Harewood is.”
Veraldi scowled and the room went quiet. He stared at Thomas as though he might chastise the other man but shook his head instead. “I suppose you’re right, Thomas. You know and we don’t. Why don’t you tell us where Harewood is so we can pick him up?”
* * *
Several hours later, I found myself in the Norfolk countryside, with another member of the Inspector General’s Office named Quentin Pike. There were other Inspectors in hiding all over the property, acting on a warrant Veraldi had acquired for us.
I was tasked with organizing the raid to arrest Byron Harewood. I was the only Section 9 agent involved in the raid, perhaps to reduce the chatter in the office about our tight-knit group of Inspectors. Veraldi had assigned me to pick a team of people, plan the strategy for the raid, and get the team in place.
I observed Byron’s farmhouse from the staging area a kilometer up the road from his property. There’d been no sign of anyone entering or leaving, and even through the monocular I couldn’t find anything to suggest there was anyone home except Byron.
“See anything?” asked Quentin.
“Negative,” I replied. “Let’s send in the missionaries.”
The missionaries were a pair of agents whose job was to knock on Byron’s door and engage him in conversation. If he didn’t just open fire on them as soon as they got close, then the rest of us would be able to close in on the house while he was distracted with them.
Quentin subvocalized the order. Alpha-2, you’re up.
I found myself holding my breath as they approached the door. They got there without looking too obvious and knocked. No answer.
The Inspectors covering the back were ready in case Byron tried to escape that way, but he didn’t make a run for it. The two missionaries knocked again, and the front door finally opened, albeit slowly. Byron poked his head out, looking confused by their presence but unconcerned. For
a man involved in a plot to start a war that would engulf the solar system, he didn’t seem too worried about strangers at his doorstep.
Something was nagging at me. This was where I would have expected—if not panic—a smirk or some tell that gave away the fact that Byron thought he was in control. Instead I only saw genuine confusion.
One of the two agents reached out and grabbed his wrist, and the other one had him cuffed before he could pull back. The motion was smooth, and Byron was in custody less than twenty seconds after opening his door.
“They’ve got him,” I reported. “Everyone move in.”
From every direction, Inspectors General left their cover and descended on the house. By the time I approached his front door, Byron still hadn’t figured out what was going on. He wasn’t resisting either. He just stood there in his doorway, staring at us with wide eyes. It was only as I was getting closer that I realized he didn’t know me as Jean-Paul Baudri, Inspector General. Until we had him in a private location, I couldn’t afford to let Byron see me, because he might call out my real name and blow my cover in front of all my coworkers. Just as I turned, I noticed him looking in my direction. Was it already too late?
A black car pulled in, and more Inspectors jumped out. I stepped around behind the car, and Quentin Pike found me there a moment later.
“Everything okay, Jean-Paul?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m just going to put off the first contact.”
Something like suspicion tightened his features for a moment, but he didn’t press the issue. “Okay. Look, I heard you don’t want him in our regular holding cells?”
I nodded. “This is a sensitive case. That attack on the highway could only have been carried out by a sophisticated network. I’m going back to my vehicle. I want you to bring him there. I’ll transport him for questioning.”
“This is really unusual,” he protested. “It goes against protocol.”
“It’s how Guiado told me to handle it,” I said with a shrug.
By giving him Veraldi’s cover name, I could buy myself some time, but eventually the hierarchy of the Inspector General’s Office would want to know what we’d done with this man. I was really pushing the limits of our assumed identity as Inspectors General, but there was no other way to get the time alone with Byron that Section 9 would need.
“Okay, Jean-Paul. If the higher ups come down on us, it’s your ass.”
“Understood,” I assured him.
He didn’t look convinced, but he went off to do what I’d asked him. Twenty minutes later, the door to my car popped open again. They shoved Byron in the car, pushing his head down so he wouldn’t bump it on the doorframe. Then Quentin reached in and belted Byron in place securely.
Byron still wore a bewildered expression, and he was starting to look more than a little scared. His hands were cuffed in front of him, and little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
“You okay in here with the suspect?” Quentin asked.
When Byron heard that word, his head swiveled and he looked right at me.
“No problem,” I replied, hoping Byron would keep his mouth shut long enough for me to pull this off.
I exhaled in relief when Quentin closed the door. The second he did, I turned to find Byron staring at me with what looked like incomprehension.
“What the hell are you doing here, Barrett?”
22
It was an awkward ride back to London with Byron. The last time I’d seen him had been in the city of Sif, a strange and almost lawless place where he had done his best to kill me. I’d killed his partner instead, and he’d been forced to live with it when all the charges against me were dropped. I had often wondered if he bore me a grudge because of that, but I could only assume he probably did.
“What am I doing here?” I repeated. “That should be obvious by now. I’m taking you into custody.”
“How can you take me into custody?” he demanded. “You’re a murderer, Tycho.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Not under the law.”
In recent days, I’d been unable to think of Byron as a professional assassin because he had always been such a straight arrow. Now that he was sitting right here in front of me, I vividly remembered my old suspicions.
“You killed my Junior Arbiter.” His jaw was clenched, and his fists were too. If he hadn’t been cuffed, he would probably have done his best to kill me right there.
“I killed that man in self-defense,” I reminded him. “You shouldn’t have come after me.”
“I had a warrant. You were wanted for murder.”
“Those charges were dropped, as you might recall.”
“Oh, I do.” His voice was bitter, and his eyes flashed with unbridled anger. “And now here you are. Cozy new life in a new state. Must be nice.”
It wasn’t as simple as all that, but he didn’t need to know. “Both of us have left the Arbiter Force,” I told him. “And don’t pretend your hands are all that clean.”
Byron’s brow creased in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I had to admit that he was playing his bit exceptionally. If I hadn’t seen the video myself, I might have bought into the lie. “Drop the act, Bryon,” I replied. “No more talking. We’ll save the rest of this conversation for your interrogation.”
He seemed about to respond, then clamped his jaw shut and turned to stare at his reflection in the black mirror of the car’s interior display. The drive to London was mostly silent after that, which I preferred, and when we finally reached the Section 3 safehouse that would be his new home for the foreseeable future, Byron didn’t say a word.
A Section 3 agent was waiting as the car door opened. He reached in and put a black bag over Byron’s head. Byron didn’t resist as he was pulled out of the vehicle and led inside the building.
The agent guided us through a kitchen and down a narrow set of stairs that led into a dank basement. Veraldi waited for us there, leaning against a metal table that had been bolted to the ground.
He gestured at the single chair on the opposite side of the table. “Secure Mr. Harewood, please.”
The Section 3 agent locked Byon’s cuffs to the table with practiced ease and stepped back to act as guard.
It was standard protocol to keep prisoners waiting for a little while before interrogating them, but this time we were starting with the questioning. Sitting there restrained in a dirty basement, Byron didn’t look much like the self-confident Senior Arbiter he had once been. Instead he looked small, defeated, and weak.
Veraldi sat down across from Byron, and I sat to Veraldi’s left.
“Byron Harewood, formerly a Senior Arbiter with the Sol Federation Arbiter Force. Is this correct?” asked Veraldi.
“I’m not answering any questions until you take this bag off my head.”
“I can agree to that,” replied Veraldi, pulling the black bag from Byron’s face. “I’ll tell you this, though. If you give us any trouble, it goes back on and stays that way.”
Some of Byron’s spark came back then. His eyes darkened with contempt, but he offered Veraldi a curt nod. “Fine. To answer your question, yes, I’m Byron Harewood. And yes, I used to be a Senior Arbiter.”
“Let’s start there. Why did you leave the Arbiter Force?”
Byron scoffed. “You should ask the guy sitting next to you. I was medically discharged from the Arbiters after what happened in Sif. After all the fighting, I just wanted some peace and quiet. Someplace where I could forget how badly my country screwed me over by dropping all the charges against Tycho here after he killed my partner. Retired to the countryside and been there ever since. Minded my own damn business and never had any problems until you people showed up at my door. ”
“Is that why you decided to join the conspiracy?” asked Veraldi. “Feelings of bitterness toward the Sol Federation?”
Byron’s forehead wrinkled as he processed the question. “Conspiracy? What conspiracy? I’ve been living
on my pension. I never expected to see Tycho again in my life, and that was fine by me.”
Shaking his head, Veraldi settled in and folded his hands together. “I’d like to believe you, Harewood, really. The thing is, we have you on video. We know exactly what you’ve been up to.”
Byron raised an eyebrow. If he wasn’t as innocent as he claimed, he was an exceptionally talented actor. “I wasn’t aware farming had become illegal.”
Veraldi glanced at me. Byron’s guileless attitude was still throwing me too. He had to know we had incriminating evidence against him, or else he wouldn’t have been picked up like he was.
Turning back to Byron, Veraldi resumed the interrogation. “Why did you participate in the attempt on the life of Edward Yeun and the assassination of Jovani Pang?”
The new line of questioning had Byron jerking back. His gaze went from Veraldi to me, then back to Veraldi. “Assasination? I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ve never heard of those people.”
There it was again. A whisper at the edge of silence, trying to tell me something wasn’t right.
“Let’s table that for now,” Veraldi suggested, switching tacks. “We know about the plot against the life of Sol Federation Secretary-General Claudette de Beauvoir. What can you tell us about that?”
“Nothing,” Byron retorted, his voice starting to rise. When he pinned a look on me, I knew what was coming. “This is your doing. I guess it wasn’t enough to kill my partner. Now you’re coming for me and my reputation. You won’t get away with it. I’ll be fighting this alleged evidence with everything I’ve got because it’s fabricated.”
He was getting agitated, and every word had the ring of truth. I turned to Veraldi. “Let’s take a break for a minute.”
He nodded. “Okay.” We stood up and went out, leaving Byron alone in the room. When we got to the kitchen, Thomas Young was pouring himself a cup of coffee.
Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5 Page 111