Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  “Any progress?” he asked us.

  “Not yet,” replied Veraldi. “Harewood claims he doesn’t know anything about anything.”

  Thomas snorted. “The video doesn’t lie.”

  “Even so,” I added, “I get the impression he believes what he’s telling us.”

  Veraldi gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean, believes?”

  “Think about the Nightwatch,” I replied. “They were all infected through their dataspikes, right?”

  Thomas seemed intrigued. “You’re suggesting that he isn’t himself when he commits these crimes? That he’s under some sort of remote control?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing is impossible, I’ll put it that way. An updated version of August Marcenn’s technology, designed to take over a human brain temporarily. The malware is probably inside his dataspike right now and is only activated when he gets the command from his handlers.”

  Veraldi didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know, Tycho. It sounds far-fetched, even to me. The Nightwatch were all incurably insane, remember?”

  “Technology evolves all the time,” I pointed out. “All it takes is someone with the will.”

  He shook his head. “What if Byron Harewood is a sleeper agent? He could have joined the Arbiter Force for cover and was activated only recently, when his handlers needed him.”

  Thomas gave both of us an exasperated look. “I’d like to reiterate one thing here. The evidence all points to a single obvious conclusion, that Byron Harewood is part of the conspiracy. Anything and everything beyond that is mere speculation. Since the evidence indicates that he is part of the conspiracy, the logical conclusion is that Byron is playing for time now that he’s been apprehended. You won’t get the truth out of him without additional pressure.”

  “We’re putting on the pressure right now,” Veraldi commented. “He thinks he’s going to be charged with the most serious crimes imaginable. Multiple life sentences at best, death at the worst. That's enough to scare just about anyone. ”

  “The Eleven can probably offer a great deal of protection,” Thomas returned matter-of-factly.

  I shook my head. “The Eleven don’t protect anyone, as Byron knows perfectly well. Jovani Pang was Solovyov’s son, and they executed him to keep him from talking. Now that Byron’s been captured, he’s on his own. If anything, they’ll kill him to keep him quiet.”

  Veraldi nodded. “I agree. In the end, he has to see it. We’re the only friends he has right now.”

  I shuddered at the thought of having Section 9 as your only friends. It didn’t seem likely to end well for Byron Harewood.

  “I’ve gone back and forth on Byron,” I mused. “I used to blame him for the murder of Gabriel Anderson’s widow, and I thought he was responsible for trying to frame me. But when I saw him in the back of that truck outside Edward Yeun’s apartment, I just couldn’t buy the idea that he had become a professional assassin. I know the man pretty well. I don’t think he was acting down there. Nothing struck me as anything less than genuine. Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it all.”

  “That’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t need to.” Thomas was looking at me with annoyed patience, like he was explaining the situation to a small child for the third time. “The situation doesn’t require you to make a subjective assessment. All you need is the evidence, and the evidence all points in the same direction.”

  Ignoring his disdain, I forged ahead. “Byron’s capture was too easy,” I muttered, recalling the night’s earlier events.

  “It’s not that big a surprise,” Veraldi replied. “You had strong support, a heavy field team, and you took him by surprise. When everything lines up like that, it’s supposed to be easy.”

  I shook my head. “This man was a trained Arbiter. His attack on Edward almost succeeded, and at one point he had us both pinned down. Compared to what I saw on that day, this arrest was just too simple.”

  Thomas folded his arms. “What are you suggesting exactly?”

  “Byron getting caught could be part of a bigger plan,” I explained. “He, or whoever is pulling his strings, could have allowed it to happen.”

  “I doubt that,” said Veraldi. “How would Harewood have known you were coming? He isn’t getting out of here, so I can’t see what advantage they could have gained. Let’s stop going around in circles. We have a suspect in custody, we can threaten him with major charges, and he’ll have to come around and tell us the truth. He doesn’t want to be convicted of treason.”

  “I guess I agree,” I told them. “Even so, I don’t think his involvement in this plot is any kind of coincidence. There’s more going on here.”

  “He lost his job as an Arbiter,” Veraldi said, speculating. “He wouldn’t be the first security professional to become a mercenary, and his medical discharge wouldn’t even be a barrier for the right employer. To get access to his skills, they’d pay to fix him up, and he’d be grateful to them for giving him a career again. We ought to assume his motives are simple. Most motives are.”

  “Maybe so,” I conceded. “But even with that, I don’t think it’s a coincidence. What if it’s the Eleven trying to send us some kind of oblique message?”

  Veraldi shrugged. “You could be right. Even if you are, though, it doesn’t change anything. We still need to apply the most basic type of pressure and wait for him to crack. We’ll leave him alone for a little while, let him think about what his future holds for him. No matter how grateful he may be to Worth and Solovyov, the sheer reality of a treason charge is heavy shit to have hanging over your head.”

  We left Byron alone in the basement and sat out in the living room discussing the case. If the people involved in the conspiracy weren’t quite so powerful, we wouldn’t have been waiting for more evidence to make our move. Oliver Worth would have been assassinated, and the conspiracy would simply have died on the vine.

  Under the current circumstances, however, it wasn’t quite so simple. If the Speaker of the House for the North Atlantic States was killed by an assassin, the chances of a war were nearly as high as if the Sol Federation Secretary-General was assassinated. Instead of a black ops spy agency, we were being forced to handle this more like law enforcement officers—gathering evidence bit by bit before we revealed it to the world.

  “I don’t like having to wait like this,” Veraldi confided.

  “You’d rather just handle it with your knives?” I asked him, smirking a little.

  He grinned back. “I’d rather handle just about every situation with my knives. Wait, I’m getting a notification from Byron’s dataspike.”

  We had used an override to reroute Byron’s messages to us. To our shock, he only had the most basic security. It was in line with the amateurishness we’d seen from this crew all along, but it was still surprising.

  “Take a look at this,” Veraldi told us. “I think it removes all doubt, Tycho.”He relayed the message to my dataspike. It was from Oliver Worth.

  Here’s everything you need. Stay the course, we’re close to victory here.

  The message was followed by a complete itinerary for Secretary-General Claudette de Beauvoir for the signing of the Sol-6 Treaty in Bruges.

  “They’re ready to move,” I replied.

  “Except that we have their hitman.” Veraldi smiled from ear to ear, clearly pleased with our success up till now. Without their primary assassin, would the conspirators even be able to go ahead with their plot?

  Another message

  Harewood in custody. We’ll take it from here.

  Veraldi let out a sharp curse.

  “They must have a backup team,” guessed Thomas.

  Veraldi stood up and started pacing with his hands behind his back. “Let’s figure this out. They’re planning to kill the Secretary-General during the signing ceremony. How will that stop the treaty? If they’re moving forward with the signing, then the decision has already been made.”

  “It’s not quite that simple,” replied Th
omas. “A number of the signatories were far from certain and were convinced mostly by personal allegiance to de Beauvoir herself. If the Secretary-General is killed before the treaty is signed, then ratification will almost certainly be postponed. Those who were unsure could then find excuses to back out. Especially if war breaks out, as it well might.”

  “That won’t happen. We’re heading to Bruges,” Veraldi decided.

  He subvocalized a message to our shared channel. Everyone pack their field gear and a travel bag. We’re heading to Bruges within the hour.

  What about Edward Yeun? asked Andrew. I mean, the Section 3 guys are here, but one of us should stick with him.

  The implication was clear. Section 3 was helpful, but their people weren’t as skilled as ours and Andrew wasn’t sure they could keep Edward safe.

  They’ll have to do, Veraldi replied. We’ll do the same with Byron. We need all hands on deck in Belgium. They’re about to make their move.

  * * *

  As we approached the Sol Federation building in Bruges, I turned back to the southeast. The Hotel du Lac was just visible in the city skyline. Section 9 headquarters once stood two hundred meters below it. Now, it was a warren of plasticrete-filled tunnels sealed away to bury what had once been the nerve center of the Federation’s sword and shield.

  Mistakes are unacceptable, Veralidi began. The Sol-6 Treaty is to be signed in the assembly chambers with the entire system watching. There’s going to be a heavy foreign presence with their own personal security, in addition to the multiple terran agencies and Federation assets on-site. Any of these people could be our assassins.”

  All the more reason we should be posing as Section 1, Raven suggested.

  Remember, we aren’t operating at full strength, Thomas replied. We have no real pull here. Security is too tight for us to chance falsifying another org’s credentials.”

  That’s right, Veraldi agreed. We’re here unofficially, and that means no weapons. We’ll need to use soft skills for this mission. Our primary objectives are to identify the threat, then either neutralize it or notify those who can. Tycho and Raven, I want you to monitor the public access areas. Andrew and I will circle through the staff areas. Thomas, do you have the security feeds?

  I do, Thomas confirmed. In fact, I see you crossing the front plaza as we speak.

  Good. We all know what we need to do,” said Veraldi. Time to do it.

  23

  Raven and I walked through the east side of the building on our way around to the observation hall in the rear. All along the way we brushed against security personnel from across the system. Federation Peacekeepers, Arbiters, and Intelligence Section 1 agents were the most visible by intent. More clandestine were the personal security details of off-world dignitaries and their guests. The coordination, interop, and verification of so many disparate groups—all with differing security priorities—was making this an altogether difficult and dangerous task.

  Raven subvocalized a message to me. This much security seems like diminishing returns.

  I thought the same thing. No one trusts anyone else, I replied. They’re here to sign a peace agreement with guns in hand.

  Makes our job impossible, doesn’t it?

  I wouldn’t say that. What makes you think so?

  Raven dodged around a Peacekeeper distracted with his dataspike. What happens when the shooting starts? she asked. How does anyone know who the bad actors are?

  We walked through the crowded halls, taking it all in. Reading the body language of every person that came and went. Even knowing that the enemy had the tactical advantage, I found it hard to believe that they would succeed with their plan. We were, after all, Section 9. Worth’s people were a vaguely amateurish gang of political plotters trying to start a war to satisfy their own ambitions.

  Let’s move to the observation hall, suggested Raven.

  Agreed. I don’t see anything happening here.

  The observation hall overlooking the assembly chamber was packed. Not quite wall to wall bodies, but it took a lot of delicate weaving to navigate the crowd. Everywhere I looked, reporters and their news affiliates were vying for the best viewing spot in order to snag a leg up on their competitors. Cameras and smiles flashed from all corners of the room, and I had to work to block them out and focus.

  Thomas sent a message over the shared channel. Tycho, there’s a man in the corridor to your immediate left. Two meters tall with a blond beard. Do you see him?

  I see him. He was standing less than a meter away from me, pacing with a faraway look as if on his dataspike. He looks like a spook to me.

  This was a subjective assessment to say the least, but the man stuck out from the other attendees because while he wore a press badge, he wasn’t anywhere near the action, and he didn’t have a crew in sight.

  As I walked by the bearded man, he gave me a measuring look. I continued past him but he remained in the corridor.

  Keep an eye on him, I said to Thomas. He might be Section 1 in soft clothes, but we can’t afford to be wrong. If he moves, I want to know about it.

  I came to a stop at the railing, looking out over the assembly chamber. The space below was filled with diplomats and heads of state, and the podium where the Secretary-General would soon stand was lit by a muted spotlight. People were milling around in the gallery, and the reporters who stood along the same railing were palpably anxious for the once in a lifetime event to begin.

  When I turned away to head back down the hall to Raven, a group of reporters moved up from behind me. One was a tall man with dark skin, but I didn’t get a good look at him until I turned around and scanned their faces.

  When I finally did, I was so confused by what I saw that I just stood there staring at him for a few long seconds. Byron Harewood was back at the safe house in London, handcuffed with a bag over his head. So what was he doing here in the city of Bruges, smartly dressed in a suit and tie?

  I stood there blinking, trying to process something that just didn’t make sense. When he saw me looking at him, Byron’s doppelganger cocked his head to the side. Then he grinned at me lazily, as if to say, “the game is up.”

  He pulled his jacket off and dropped it on the floor, and I saw immediately that this was not Byron Harewood. This was instead an Augman, an artificially modified professional killer. Their existence was all-but-illegal, but they were frequently used by organized crime for especially challenging assassination jobs. I slipped my jacket off as well, knowing exactly what was about to happen. We might have Byron Harewood in custody back in London, but there was every possibility that this imposter was the one we’d actually wanted all along.

  With his augmented body, the assassin didn’t need to bring a weapon with him. He was the weapon.

  I subvocalized a message on our shared channel. Contact observation hall east.

  That was all I had time to say before I had to throw my arms up to block a kick to my face. His prosthetic leg snapped out like a whip, and I caught it on my elbow. There wasn’t any pain—my limbs were just as prosthetic as his, after all—but the kick still staggered me, forcing me to sink my weight just to keep from getting knocked over.

  I wrapped the leg with my arm, then twisted my upper body to throw him face-first to the floor. He hit a cameraman on his way down, and the two of them went sprawling in a tangle of limbs. Somebody screamed, and reporters started running. I had to dodge someone trying to take a picture of the fight, then someone else trying to escape the scene. The Augman sprang up, as sudden as a jack in the box, and snapped a punch at my face.

  Only my limbs are prosthetic, so if that punch had connected, I would have been knocked out immediately. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have any teeth left. I leaned back just a little to avoid the punch, and he took advantage of my backward movement to close in on me rapidly.

  His body weight slammed into me and drove me backward into a nearby wall. I felt something crack and wasn’t sure whether it was my neck or not. Now that he was close,
I could put my prosthetic fist into his body. Three punches just under the ribs and he stepped back, grinning like the whole thing was the most fun he’d ever had.

  Those three punches should have broken his ribs. They should have damaged his internal organs. They should have dropped him. But they didn’t really do a thing because his whole upper body was entirely prosthetic.

  I sometimes feel like an Augman, modified to the point where I’m not sure I even recognize myself. Real Augmen are different; the only thing human about them is the brain itself. And sometimes even that has been modified.

  His foot suddenly shot up at me, a push kick followed by an elbow to the temple. I spun to dodge the kick and struck his leg with my elbow. He failed to connect with his own elbow strike, which hit the wall with a crack like thunder. The brick shattered under the impact, but he didn’t stop moving.

  He spun on his feet and launched a jumping kick with his left leg. I blocked it with my right arm and took a step back, and he began a series of attacks that drove me from one end of the observation hall to the other.

  He had the upper hand, and he knew it. In every hand-to-hand fight I’ve had since losing my limbs, my prosthetics have given me an almost unstoppable advantage. Even in my fight with Katerina Capanelli, possibly the most dangerous person I’ve ever met, I not only held my own but eventually killed her.

  That advantage was gone now. The Augman who looked like Byron Harewood could hit as hard as I could, and he had much more ability to absorb my strikes. The only thing I could do was to get my arms in the way, counting on my prosthetic limbs to deal with the incredible impact of his superhuman strength.

  If he landed a hit on my body, a single hit, I’d probably be dead. It wouldn’t be a quick death either, as death would most likely come from organ failure a few days later. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t even think of taking the offensive. All I could do was back up across the room, blocking his shots as well as I could. The fight had only been going for less than a minute, but Raven Sommer would be on her way. When she reached my position, she’d jump on the Augman from behind and we’d take him out together.