“It is entirely understood that you may feel you do not want to get involved by making a statement which may be used as evidence in court, and if you choose not to do so, that will be respected. You will have our thanks for assisting us in preventing serious quantities of DPC from reaching the streets of our worlds.
“You may be assured, also, that the innocent have nothing to fear from us. Our forensics team will come aboard your ship informally, in normal rig, unarmed.”
He glanced at the other officer, who nodded confirmation.
“Of course,” he said, “if you want us in the full boarding party rig, we’ll be happy to oblige. We’ll pose for souvenir holos too if you like. If tea is offered, by the way, we prefer ginger chip and choconut cookies.”
He smiled brightly and Alex stared at the camera, ignoring his second in command’s jokey demeanour.
“After 2200 tonight,” he stated, “tea and cookies will no longer be on the agenda. If you have even the smallest quantity of cargo aboard your ship which you now realise may be of doubtful provenance, I urge you to contact us. Thank you.”
A curt nod, and the image flicked off, leaving a follow-on recording playing of the boarding operation on the Fancy Free.
Chok felt confused. He watched the seizure footage with an air of bafflement, punctuated by shock when the crate turned out to contain more than a hundred kilos of raw Rainbow.
“I anticipate,” Director Torres glanced at her wristcom, “fifteen minutes before the first ship calls and asks for inspection.”
Chok looked at her, feeling helplessly out of his depth. “Isn’t that a good thing?” he asked. “If there are more drugs on other ships, obviously we want them to be found. And perhaps the Fourth can identify the cargo and the ship that brought it in, and they’ll go off after them, then, and leave us in peace.”
Director Torres gazed at him with a kind of pity just discernible under her cool manner.
“Those drugs,” she pointed out, “came through this station. It is extremely unlikely that such a cargo was processed without the knowledge of at least one member of your Karadon Freight division. Von Strada has found one crate sold to a freighter under guise of being uncustomed cindar. He says he knows of “at least three” others. I believe he knows exactly where they are. This grace period is more than giving freighters an opportunity to avoid prosecution. He wants evidence from them, statements he can use. When he has enough – and I have no doubt he’ll get it – he will use that evidence to apply for extradition of suspects.” She looked steadily at him.
“You do not need to be racing around the station trying to stop people leaving, Mr Dayfield,” she said. “That is already a lost cause, and a minor loss of revenue which is not of concern to The Board. You should be talking to your legal team, and making decisions on what you are going to do when von Strada files extradition papers.”
“Oh.” There had been fourteen incidents of extradition papers being filed during Chok’s time as executive manager. Because the station had the same legal status as an independent world, the League had to apply for extradition of its citizens. Eleven of the fourteen extraditions Chok had dealt with had been very straightforward. They were “detain and return” papers relating to passengers on liners who were wanted for serious crimes on their worlds. In some cases they hadn’t even needed to act on them, since the mail-courier bringing the extradition request had encountered the liner en route and passed a copy to the captain. The passengers had already been put under arrest before the liner arrived, and had never set foot on the station anyway. The few who had made it onto the station before the extradition papers had caught up with them had been arrested by security and put aboard the next ship home, job done.
The other three cases, however, had been more complicated. They had all originated from Customs and had involved Karadon staff. Customs had claimed that they had sufficient evidence to arrest them on suspicion of drug trafficking. The legal division had considered that evidence and, as per company policy, conducted hearings in which the members of staff were represented by their own lawyers and union reps.
One of the applications had been rejected on the grounds that the evidence put forward by Customs was so flimsy it would never stand up in court. Another had been accepted, in theory, although when they sent security to fetch the member of staff to inform him of that it was discovered that he had already left the station, somehow, departing on a freighter that had left some hours before. Customs had gone after it, but to no avail. Starships could pass just minutes apart without being able to see one another. You might not see another ship for weeks even on a busy space lane, and any ship that chose to disappear entirely had only to turn off route and cruise away.
The third extradition request had been approved, too. Chok had felt bad about that one. He felt a fatherly sense of responsibility for his staff, and had felt obscurely that he’d let poor Blinda down, seeing her being taken off the station to be handed over to the Customs ship. She was only a PA in the Freight office, and it seemed very unlikely to him that she could have been offering to sell freighters crates of drugs. She had probably, he thought, been joking, and some idiot freighter skipper had thought she was serious. He had been grieved, a few months later, to hear that a court had found her guilty of soliciting a felony and sent her to prison for three years.
“Well, I suppose we follow due process, don’t we?” he asked, doubtfully.
“Indeed.” Director Torres sipped her tea and set her cup down with a neat little clink of expensive china. “There are, however, many different ways of following due process, from expedited to tortuous delays.”
She was right, of course. They could go through “due process” in a matter of hours if they really wanted to, or drag it out for months. The legal team had any amount of delaying tactics at their disposal. The easiest of them was insisting on receiving paperwork from distant worlds, and the lawyers could keep playing that game almost indefinitely.
“Yes.” Chok looked searchingly at her, trying to see some hint of what she wanted him to do, but her expression was unreadable. “What would you advise, Director?”
“I would advise,” she said, “that you make the right decision.” She gave a thin, humourless smile. “You may also wish to make enquiries as to why Karadon Freight, with everything that’s going on today, has already logged forty six per cent more usage on the garbage disposal system than usual and issued seventeen spoiled cargo destruction dockets.”
Chok took in the implications of that, and turned pale.
“Are you suggesting that they’re getting rid of drugs, down there?” He shook his head, a man in worried denial. “I can’t believe it – won’t believe it. I’ve worked with most of them for years, Director. They’re good, hard working people. If there was anything like that going on, I’d know! And Durb Jorgensen would be on it like a shot! I know he’s not the most congenial of personalities, but he’s an excellent manager, involved in every aspect of the Freight division.”
He saw the slight, ironic quirk of her eyebrow, and protested, “You can’t mean that you think Durb Jorgensen would be involved in anything like that! He’s a member of the Board!”
She looked at him curiously and saw nothing but heartfelt sincerity in him, a rock solid belief that a manager who sat on an executive board was somehow above suspicion. He might, at a push, concede that it was theoretically possible that a senior executive might, say, be guilty of some irregularities in tax accounts, but the notion that they might be involved in drug trafficking was just out of the question. When the senior executive concerned was someone he’d worked with for more than a decade and respected professionally, it was clear, he could not even entertain the possibility.
“Well, you must follow policy on the evidence presented.” she said.
The thought passed through Chok’s mind for the first time that he wasn’t paid enough for this. He knew a momentary yearning to follow Marto’s example, to say, “I quit!” and get on the
next liner out of here. It was only a momentary yearning, however, as his sense of responsibility and professionalism re-asserted itself. He had to stay. He was the boss.
“All right,” he said, after it became apparent that that was all she intended to say. “I’ll go and talk to the legal department, then.” He swallowed his tea, grateful for its steadying warmth. “And,” he added, as he got up, “I’ll call in at Freight.”
Director Torres gave a slight nod, more dismissal than approval. As he left the boardroom, she poured herself another cup of tea.
Chapter Eight
The first ship to request an inspection did so twelve minutes later. The ship concerned was the Swiftsure Mica. Swiftsure Logistics was a franchise operation. Investors bought the ships on lease agreements and paid franchise fees. In return, they got the use of Swiftsure’s intersystem network of offices that were supposed to obtain cargo for them, discounts on ship insurance and so forth. They were known amongst spacers as Scamsure because nobody yet had ever managed to pay off the lease-loans, other by selling their franchise to some other sucker.
The Mica’s skipper, Tap Diringo, was not such a sucker. He worked for a group of suckers, a group of groundsiders who’d fallen victim to Scamsure’s glossy publicity and formed a cartel to buy shares in a franchise. It wasn’t a job he expected to last long.
The Mica was, therefore, something he saw as a temporary command, with nothing like the protective instincts most skippers had for their ships. He also had a high degree of trust in Alex von Strada. They’d never met, but Fleet people Tap had a high respect for had told him a lot about the Fourth’s skipper. One officer had joked that anyone even attempting to persuade Alex von Strada to go back on his word would get his “What’s that vile smell?” look, and if they were really unlucky, a lecture on his views on professional and personal integrity.
So, Tap called the Heron.
“As far as I know, everything in my hold is clean,” he said. “But I don’t want to take the slightest risk with that, so if you can check it without breaking the quarantine, you’re welcome to come and check anything you want.”
Within a few minutes, Heron took him up on that, with one of their shuttles heading over to the Mica. The crews of the other ships watched alertly for the twenty eight minutes that the boarding team was there. Their shuttle had barely disengaged before signals were bombarding the Mica, wanting to know what had happened, what it had been like. Tap’s laughing response did more to reassure them than any amount of official guarantees could have.
“They’re a right crack,” he reported. “Had me in fits. That nanoscanner of theirs is amazing. Oh, and they bring their own biscuits.”
The message was clear, and understood by all the spacers. Those who were willing to cooperate with the Fourth would get the friendly visit with the laughter and cookies. Those who weren’t could expect the half-ton combat suits and handcuffs.
By mid afternoon, the Heron had three teams out doing inspections. A couple of hours later, an announcement that they had found drugs aboard the cargomaster Gentala caused a sensation. The Fourth, however, were as good as their word. They took away the crate from the Gentala’s hold and accepted, without any pressure, its skipper’s decision not to make a statement. They gave him a letter of indemnity, confirming that skipper and crew had assisted in the discovery of drugs concealed aboard the ship without their knowledge, were not liable for prosecution for any offence, and had the gratitude of the Fleet.
A lot of shuttles went to the Gentala after the Fourth’s boarding party had left. Other spacers went to look at the space where the crate of drugs had been, comfort the skipper and read the indemnity for themselves. Some of the ships that had been hesitating called the Fourth, after that. Trust and good faith was being established, and only the most paranoid still argued that the Fourth was setting them up.
Fourteen more freighters arrived during the course of the day, too, and were absorbed into the situation. Some of them jinked when they saw the Heron, hesitating to go into parking nodes, but they were quickly reassured by other ships. One of the moments that made Alex smile, that afternoon, was when the comms tech passed him a copy of a signal from one of the freighters in port to another that was hesitating.
“It’s all right, it’s fine. They’re not after us, they’re after the filth on the station.”
The other freighter had come into orbit and, after more conversation with other ships, put in a request to have their cargo checked before it went aboard the station, just in case they were being used to transport drugs there.
That was exactly what Alex had hoped for. These particular freighters would leave, but they would reassure and inform other incoming ships, first, generating ongoing support. They would spread the word out there, too, that this was the new situation at Karadon. Also as Alex had hoped, the Demella Enterprise was not one of those ships. The rustbucket remained in port, lurking silently in its orbit.
They did get the other drugs handed to them, though. The skipper of the container ship Might of Ferajo called to tell them that he had an “idiot crewman” who’d bought a crate of powdered almond from Leo Arad.
The “idiot crewman” was nearly fainting with fear and distress when the Fourth went aboard. It was normal on freighters for crew to be allowed some small space in the hold for their own cargo. The Might of Ferajo’s cargo space was enormous, but as the lowest rank of deckhand, Jamal Withers was not entitled to any more than one crate. He was eighteen years old and had only been in space a few months, investing much of his pay in what he’d been assured was a sure-fire deal.
The man he’d bought the cargo from, Leo Arad, did not work for Karadon Freight. He was one of several traders with offices on the station, buying and selling cargo on spec. He was well known in the spacer community, a popular and trusted figure. Many spacers had bought heavy cargo from him, something he did with such a jovial manner, on a nod and a wink, that it seemed harmless.
Jamal had certainly thought so, till people were talking about crates of powdered almond actually being DPC. The skipper had come looking for him, asking where he’d got his crate of powdered almond. When Jamal admitted that he’d bought it as cindar from Leo Arad, the skipper cuffed him round the head, made him write a statement, and called the Fourth.
It was Buzz Burroughs who went over to deal with that, since emotions were evidently running high. The Might of Ferajo’s skipper had already fired Jamal and wanted him off the ship. Buzz did not want to bring him back to the Heron – that would look too much like an arrest – and he didn’t think it would be a good idea, or safe, for Jamal to be sent to the station, either. He had to exercise his considerable diplomatic abilities to calm everyone down. Then he made some calls and found another ship willing to take the crewman, recognising that life aboard the Might of Ferajo would be intolerable for him now.
He was also obliged to explain to both the skipper and Jamal that the statement he’d made could not be taken as evidence. A statement made when the skipper had slapped him round the head and was standing over him shouting as he dictated it would not stand up in court for ten seconds. They would, Buzz said, ask Jamal if he really did want to make a statement, tomorrow, when he’d had a chance to calm down, think, and sleep on it.
Buzz was hardly back aboard the Heron and was still writing his report when they found another cache of drugs they hadn’t known about.
It was Unhandy Andy who found them. Like the other super-Subs, he was being sent on searches where they didn’t expect to find anything, with orders just to be pleasant and friendly. He had no problem doing that, at least – it was the official manner he had problems with, becoming nervous whenever he was supposed to be authoritative. Being told to be friendly and cheerful with people was fine, and after his first couple of searches he’d relaxed into it, actually enjoying himself.
His search of the cargomaster Maid of Canelon was very good humoured. They had two crates of tetracitrine aboard, labelled as celeriad s
alt, which they were totally up front about. Andy supervised as a pair of forensics techs ran the nanoscanner on the crates, getting a laugh from the freighter’s crew when they chorused, comically, “No comment!” The Maid of Canelon was attempting to dodge around thirty thousand dollars of import tax by labelling the crates as a low tax product. As Murg had said during the raid on the Fancy Free, however, opinion amongst spacers was very strongly that the eighty per cent tax levied on goods rated “luxury imports” was outrageous, particularly when applied to cindar and tet. Many food production companies were of the same opinion, and there was never any shortage of firms willing to buy a crate of tet, no questions asked.
As the Maid’s crew sat around drinking tea and having a laugh with Andy, he selected some crates from their manifest and left the forensics techs to scan them. One of the items he picked was a half-crate containing high end cosmetics.
It was not a random choice. Andy had been paying attention in the training they’d had about drug trafficking, and he knew that cosmetics shipments from Chartsey were high on Customs list right now as the latest designer toxie came out from the capital. Intoxicating cosmetics were the very latest craze amongst trendy young executives. Andy didn’t expect to find that the contents of the half-crate were anything more than the most expensive kind of export cosmetics. He was almost more stunned than the Maid’s crew when the forensics team reported that the half crate contained “buzz” cosmetics, laced with skin-absorbed intoxicants.
It was quickly established that this had nothing to do with the station. They had bought the cargo at Chartsey, in good faith, from a reputable trader, and it had been on the ship ever since, destined for sale at their home port of Canelon. This, clearly, was a “switch” cargo, with drugs exchanged for genuine products, even perhaps before it had got to the trader’s warehouse. There was consternation on the Maid of Canelon, with sudden anxiety as to whether this would be covered by the Fourth’s amnesty in their search for drugs coming from the station.
Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Page 10