“Mr. Zentas, the man in charge of—”
“I know who Mr. Zentas is. I’m asking what that has to do with your investigation.”
Now it was my turn to pause. “He requested the investigation.”
“I’m not aware of that. Why would he do that?”
“You’ll have to ask him,” I said. Did she really not know? I wished I’d gone to her office so I could get a better read on her.
“I will ask for guidance right away,” she said.
“Great. Until then, could you tell your lawyers to be more cooperative?”
She hesitated. “I think I’ll wait for clarification first.”
“What? Why? Why would I lie about this?”
“Please don’t take it personally, Mr. Butler. It’s my job to run operations for Caliber on Eccasis. What we want here is to get back to work. We have a completed investigation that should allow us to do that. Opening a further investigation only serves to cause more delays.”
I wanted to bang my head against the wall. “If you cooperate, I’ll be able to finish faster.”
“Once I contact the corporate office for guidance, I will let you know.” She hung up.
Well, shit. That didn’t help. Zentas not informing Stroud was interesting though. It didn’t seem like the type of thing that would be an oversight. I wondered what it meant.
I arrived at Caliber to find that Stroud hadn’t gotten an answer yet, or if she did, it hadn’t filtered down to her staff. They did fulfill my request for interviews but put their own spin on it to keep as much control as they could. They had me set up in one of their conference rooms. I had privacy with each of my subjects, but Caliber almost certainly had listening devices in the room. I assumed that the employees knew it too, which gave me a double challenge. First, anything I learned would go straight to Caliber leadership, and second, employees, knowing that, would be unlikely to share anything that might displease their employer. It wasn’t ideal, but I took what they gave me and tried to do my best with it.
After three interviews with Caliber personnel who had been on the mission when Xyla Redstone disappeared, I had confirmed my suspicion that I’d get nothing of value and was ready to give up. They’d been coached on what to say, or at least they had the same talking points. They were polite but provided nothing I didn’t already have.
Thankfully, I knew something that the Caliber lawyers didn’t: I already knew who I wanted to talk to, and she was my fourth interview. Mae Eddleston’s file said she was in her early thirties, but her unblemished pale skin and short dark hair combined with her thin frame to make her look about twenty-two. I made sure to ask her the exact questions that I asked the others, and she gave the same answers until I got to the question about if she knew Xyla Redstone outside of work.
She hesitated, then said, “I knew her a little, but we weren’t close.”
I didn’t push her, pretending instead to accept the brush-off the same way I had with the others, but her tone and body language confirmed what Fader had found in Redstone’s text messages. They were friends. I hoped nobody at Caliber picked up on it.
I finished the rest of my interviews, trying to find anyone else who might have something to say, but none of them did. To an outside observer—like those at Caliber watching—it probably seemed like a wasted morning, and it was, to some extent. I hadn’t learned anything new. But I’d introduced myself to Eddleston, which would make it easier to talk to her again.
Later that evening, after work hours, I sent my whole team to find her. I sent Ganos because she was young and might be able to relate to her. I sent Fader because she was efficient and would find a way when others couldn’t. And I sent Mac because I may be slow, but I can learn a lesson. I’ve had too many people who might have had something to tell me turn up dead or missing in the past several years for me to take any chances. Mac had taken to openly carrying a rifle. If the authorities had a problem with that, they hadn’t said anything. Hopefully he wouldn’t scare Eddleston off. We weren’t kidnapping her, just asking her to chat in a less monitored location.
Unfortunately, we had nowhere to bring her except to my quarters, and if anyone followed my team, they’d probably see it. At least they wouldn’t hear us. I’d found a scanner in the box of hi-tech gear that detected electronic listening devices, which I used to scan my apartment. I found three, which should have pissed me off but didn’t. At least I knew the playing field. My first thought was that they were the governor’s equipment, since it was his guest quarters, but I couldn’t rule out the military. They might not even have put them in there specifically for me. Maybe someone wanted to listen in on all the governor’s guests. Either way, whoever installed them didn’t have ears anymore. That itself would tip the eavesdroppers off, but there was nothing for that.
Ganos entered with Eddleston, hanging back so that the other woman could take the lead. Eddleston looked around, not trying to hide it. She wore a loose pink print shirt that hung from her petite frame and she had her short hair clipped back away from her face. “They sure took care of you.”
I shrugged and tried to look guilty. “Yeah. I didn’t ask for it, but I’m not complaining.”
“I’d say not.”
“Thanks for coming,” I said.
“I felt like it was the right thing to do. For Xyla.”
“You did know her, then?”
“We were friends.” She paused as her face tightened. “Yeah. We were pretty close.”
She’d said otherwise earlier, which told me that she understood the situation the same way I did. She couldn’t talk at work, but here she could. “You want to sit down? Can I get you something to drink?”
“You have whiskey?” she asked.
“That I do.” I walked to the counter and showed her the bottle, as if asking her approval. Any whiskey drinker would approve, but I didn’t mind showing off. As we took seats in the living area, Fader stayed within earshot, but Mac and Ganos made themselves scarce.
“Did that come with the room? Because that’s a hell of a perk.”
I laughed. “No, I brought it with me.”
“Still,” she said.
I got two glasses and poured us each doubles. “Ice?”
“A little water would be good.”
“That it would.” I splashed a bit of water into each drink and brought Eddleston hers.
“So. Maria said you thought I might have more information. How did you know that?” She asked it casually and put her drink to her lips, but her eyes never left me. This was an important question.
“There was a little hitch in your voice when you mentioned Xyla during our interview at the Caliber facility.” I didn’t feel like I should mention that I’d been through her texts. No need to creep her out. “It made me think that you might have had something else to say. I didn’t follow up on it there, because I didn’t want everybody at the company listening.”
Her shoulders relaxed.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I think we’re good. I want to help.”
“Has anyone questioned you before about the day she disappeared?” I knew they had. I’d seen the transcript in the military’s report. But I wanted to give her a chance to talk about it.
“An army officer did, pretty soon after it happened.”
“Did you tell the officer the truth?”
She shrugged slightly. “Yeah, I answered what he asked.”
“But,” I prompted.
“But he didn’t ask the right questions.”
“And you didn’t volunteer information?”
She sipped her drink. “This is wonderful. No, I didn’t volunteer. He didn’t seem interested. He gave me the impression of someone going through the motions. And I didn’t have anything solid anyway. Just a feeling.”
I could see that happening with an investigating officer. People want to know you care before they tell you things, and the officer would have been assigned the task as an additional duty. N
obody liked that. “You didn’t mention it to anyone else?”
“Who would I tell? Caliber? I know this much: They wanted to get the incident behind them as fast as possible. When the military closed the case, well . . . Caliber definitely didn’t want to hear my theory and potentially reopen it.” That corroborated what Stroud had told me.
“I want to hear it. You want to tell me about it?”
She thought about it.
“I’ll do my best to make sure nothing gets back to Caliber,” I said.
“It’s not that,” she said. “I don’t really like the job anymore, anyway. If they fired me, they’d be doing me a favor. I’m just trying to figure out how to say this without coming off like a conspiracy nut.”
“Would it help if I told you that I’ve seen enough ridiculous situations that I’m not ever going to judge someone who has an idea that’s a bit out there?”
She smiled. “Okay—I’m just going to lay it out. You can make of it what you will.”
“I appreciate it.”
She nodded. “The first thing that drew my attention was the gunshots. A lot of them, but in a really short time period.”
“About how many?”
“Fifty? Maybe more? All in about ten seconds. Then silence.”
I made a note, not because I needed it but to demonstrate my interest. “Did you recognize the type of weapon?” It was a long shot, but I had nothing to lose.
She thought about it. “There were two different sounds. Most of the shots were bangs, but there were a couple of pulse shots, too. Two, I think. Maybe three? At least two.”
Interesting. “Do you know if there’s a standard for who carries what weapon on a team?”
“I’m not sure there’s a rule, but it’s pretty much the same with every team. The security guys—the non-skilled members of the groups—they always carry rifles. They look like that one there.” She pointed to a Bitch.
“How many security personnel travel with a team?” I could have looked it up, but it gave her something easy she could tell me and got her used to answering my questions.
“Four technicians, two security.”
“Do the technicians carry weapons?”
“I don’t. But we can, if we want. I’m just not comfortable with it. Some carry pulse pistols.”
That made sense. They were light and easy to use. “Did Xyla carry?”
She shook her head. “No. She’s a . . . she was . . . a xenobiologist, like me. None of us carry weapons. It’s our job to protect the wildlife, not kill it.”
“One xenobiologist per team?” I asked.
“Usually, unless there’s a specific need. There are only a few of us colonyside. Wildlife protection isn’t really a Caliber priority, if you know what I mean. We’re mostly here to figure out ways around the protectionist rules.”
“You don’t sound like you approve.” I wouldn’t expect her to, as someone who studied living things.
She shrugged. “It’s a job. Academic work doesn’t pay nearly as well.”
I didn’t fully buy that, but I let her keep the illusion. “What happened after you heard the shots?”
“After the shooting stopped, we all kind of froze. Nothing like that had happened before—not to me, anyway. Not to most of us. All that shooting meant something must be out there. And the things that someone might shoot at . . . well they aren’t good.”
“Do you remember your immediate thoughts about the threat? What came to mind first?”
“My first thought was ursagrans. They’re like a cross between a bear and elephant. I even remember listening, to see if I could hear one crashing through the bush. If you’ve ever been around one . . . it’s like this rumble and you can see the lower canopy moving from a distance.”
“You said that was your first thought . . .”
“Right. But when I calmed down, it didn’t seem likely. Ursagrans are mostly solitary, and they generally don’t mess with people unless you threaten them. Or if you go near their cubs, which are also huge, so people avoid that. That led me to hominiverts, which are pack animals that resemble extra-large green apes. They can be very territorial, and they’re omnivores. Nobody found the bodies, and ’verts could conceivably haul them off to feed later.”
This time I made a note for real. Eddleston was an expert in the field, and if she thought hominiverts were a potential cause, it bore another look. The military report had cited jungle fauna as the most likely cause of disappearance, but they didn’t go into detail. “You came to that thought later, after nobody could find the team?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “Sorry. It’s been a while.”
“No problem. You’re doing great. Can you think of anything else natural that could have caused a similar situation?”
She pulled a coaster over and set her drink down on it. “Not really. Most of the stuff that will kill you out there . . . it’s not stuff you would handle with a gun. There are insects and small reptiles . . . the variety of poisons is impressive and especially deadly to humans.”
“But security carries weapons, so there must be some use.”
She scrunched her face up a little in a way that showed her doubt. “I guess. But that’s not what felt off to me. The thing that struck me . . . one of our team was missing. Schultz. One of our security guys.”
If I hadn’t been paying rapt attention before, that did it. “Missing how?”
“I looked around—and I remember this clearly—there were only five of us. Our other security person, a woman named Li . . . she was there. She hustled us all into the vehicle and we headed to the other team’s location to try to give whatever help we could.”
“But Schultz wasn’t in the vehicle?” I didn’t know if that was significant or not, but I had a thread and wanted to pull it. I made a note to question Li. She’d driven off with only five in her vehicle, which even a moderately competent security person wouldn’t do when she’d started with six.
“He wasn’t. But he was at the other site when we got there, already searching.”
Odd. I wished I knew the ground. That would help me understand how odd. “How far apart were the two sites?”
She thought about it. “By trail? Maybe a kilometer. I don’t know. Direct line? Maybe a couple hundred meters? I’m not great with distance and direction, but the gunfire sounded close.”
A civilian’s judgment of distance regarding gunshots was unreliable. Noise could be deceptive, distorted by terrain or even wind direction. “Maybe Schultz could have cut through the jungle?”
She nodded. “He had to have. And that’s what he said when I asked him about it. That he heard the shots and reacted on instinct.”
“You asked him? How did he look when he answered?” I wish I could have asked him that myself. I would, now, if he’d been on my list from Caliber. I checked. He was one of two people out of the twelve who’d survived the mission and weren’t available.
Of course he wasn’t.
She scrunched her face up a bit again. “I don’t know. I was kind of freaked out at the time. I didn’t really think it through until later.”
I kept my voice steady and deliberate. I didn’t want to show any disapproval that might stop her from talking. “Do you remember how long it took you to reach the site of the incident?”
“Maybe ten minutes? I’m not sure. It took a while to get our team loaded up. I remember Ivan didn’t want to leave his equipment, and Li was yelling at him to hurry up.”
That answer didn’t help much. Too many variables. It could have been five or fifteen minutes, given her estimate. “Do you remember anything about the site when you arrived? What happened?”
“We all wanted to get out, but Li told us to stay in the vehicle. But someone went out—I don’t remember who—and the rest of us followed. Security started yelling at us and people were yelling back. I think I yelled. It was chaotic.”
“Did anyone look for the bodies?”
“I don’t think so.
They wanted to get out of there, I know that. Then it started pouring. One of those jungle rains where it goes from zero to blinding in about three seconds. Once that happened, everyone jumped back in the vehicles. It’s hard to see in our suits because the face-screens get wet. They’re treated so the water slicks off, but it still causes problems.”
I sipped my drink to give myself time to think. The timing of the shots could have meant a lot of things. Security firing first with their rifles followed by a few pistol shots when the technicians realized the danger—that could apply to any situation. The speed of the incident—that’s what struck me. It happened fast. Fast usually meant planned. And if this was a planned operation, that changed everything. But I didn’t see any way that EPV could get a team out into the jungle that could disable a group of six and make them disappear as fast as it happened.
That made me think about Schultz. I hadn’t thought much about him not being available to interview at the time, but with Eddleston’s information about his role on the mission, it became more significant. Maybe Schultz was working for more than one organization. After all, the bomber had worked another job. “Hold on, I need to check something.” I looked at my list of interviewees and compared it to the list in the official report to find the name of the second person who hadn’t been available for an interview.
“Who is Ortega?” I asked.
“He used to work security,” said Eddleston. “I think he transferred out maybe a month ago.”
“He was on the mission.”
She considered it. “I guess. He wasn’t on my team. You think he’s important?”
“He worked on the third team. To answer your question, I don’t know what I think,” I said. “I’m just collecting fragments of ideas in hopes that I can piece them together later.” It was thin. Two missing people out of twelve didn’t seem unreasonable. People moved on from jobs. The fact that both were security on the mission might be coincidence.
But I didn’t believe in coincidence.
“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to harm that specific team?” I asked.
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