“Lucky,” I said, pointing at it.
“Didn’t feel like it at the time. I’m going to have a hell of a bruise. But yes, sir. It could have been a lot worse.”
“Let me get Mac to the evac point to make sure he actually goes, then we’ll get a team and see if there’s anything left up there.”
I wasn’t optimistic.
Chapter Twenty-One
We picked through the wreckage but found mostly slag. Mac’s take had been correct—they’d used some serious incendiaries. The residual heat had kept us away for three hours before finally cooling enough where we could approach. Not everything burned. It never does. But sifting through melted polymers and twisted metal would take time and better equipment. Entire rooms had been jumbled together in the explosion, and I couldn’t work out even a general idea of the facility’s purpose. There were computers—nothing left to those now—and some stuff that looked like lab equipment, but that might have been me projecting my bias.
Fader took a lot of pictures while also fiddling with the program that Mac had given her to track my movements, which seemed to amuse her. A couple of industrious soldiers used a beam to lever some of the larger pieces of junk up, hoping to find some undamaged stuff underneath, but just found more charred ruins. Whoever had rigged it to blow—possibly Hubic—had known their business. Still, I hoped that something here, paired with what we got from the prisoners and potentially the enemy casualties, would provide a link.
Ahwed gave me an initial list of the prisoners and enemy casualties. They hadn’t identified all of them, but they got a hit off Hubic’s fingerprints. Unfortunately, he was among the dead, so the burning questions I had for him would go unanswered. I wanted to talk to the prisoners, but Oxendine would play that by the book and keep it with her interrogators. Instead, I discussed the way forward with Fader. We’d backed away from the wreckage but stayed inside the perimeter the military established. They’d sent another company of soldiers out from the dome once the situation became clear, and small groups of people milled about. They’d trampled down a lot of the jungle, making it easier to traverse.
“They’re not going to let me anywhere near the prisoners, but I’m going to want a full copy of the interrogation sessions. I don’t want the summarized version—I want a transcript.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fader. “Did you know that with this thing I can tell what direction you’re moving? This could come in handy. It would be nice to know your boss could never sneak up on you.”
“I think Ganos is rubbing off on you,” I said.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be.”
“Why won’t you get access to the prisoners, sir?”
“This was a military op, especially once people started shooting. Oxendine bent the rules to let me go on the mission, but I used up that card. I can’t press her again the same way. Especially when she has the professionals on staff. I like to consider myself a good interrogator, but I don’t have any credentials to back that up.”
“We might be able to get the interrogators to ask some of your questions if we feed them through the right channels.”
“Good idea,” I said. “First, I want to know who they work for. Any connections we can draw between these people and Humans First, EPV, or Caliber would be critical. Especially if we can connect them to more than one.”
“Roger, sir.” Fader made a note in her device.
“I also want to specifically ask them about Hubic. I want to know each prisoner’s connection to him, but more important, I want to know his story. He’s dead, so they don’t have to worry about protecting him. That might work in our favor.”
“You know, sir . . . there might be a way around Brigadier General Oxendine on this.”
“I’m listening.”
“The one guy is going to be in quarantine for a while. I don’t know if the military will supervise that or if it’s strictly medical, but either way—”
“Mac will be there, which gives me a perfect excuse to be there as well. Brilliant. I should have thought of that.” Nobody would tell me I couldn’t check on my own man. Even Oxendine would let that one slide. “That’s good. The faster I get something from the prisoners, the faster I can confront the people who are really behind this.”
“Doesn’t the military take over now, sir? There’s a clear violation of the law. There was a firefight. They have to act.”
“I’m not sure they can. Ecological law isn’t the military’s purview. It’s the governor’s. So to enforce it, Oxendine would have to go to the governor.”
Realization dawned on Fader’s face. “After we snuck out to do the mission without telling him.”
“Yep.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“I’m not sure. Probably not what we want him to.”
“You still think it’s Caliber, sir?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to be hard to prove. The hack . . .” I needed to think about that. The military had been hacked again, and I doubted it came from inside this time. In theory, that shouldn’t happen, but we spent a lot of time fighting enemies with fewer capabilities than our own. The ability for a technological peer—or superior—to breach our systems might be a systemic issue that we hadn’t discovered because of a lack of competition. But I couldn’t do much about that at the moment. I’d need to see if Ganos saw anything. “I want to confront Zentas and get him to talk, but I need proof before I try that. He’ll be a tough mark. He won’t be intimidated, and I won’t be able to bluff him into thinking I know something if I don’t.”
Fader scrolled through something on her device. “They aren’t kept at the military base. The hospital has a specific quarantine area. Apparently, exposure is a common-enough problem.”
“Let’s go, then. You can pass the questions to the interrogators for the other prisoner after.” The blown facility would change things for the military, and I’d need to talk to Oxendine about that, but anything she did would take time. I’d get only one shot at the prisoner.
The hospital smelled like every other hospital I’d ever been in, and there had been more than a few. It looked the same too. Some things never changed, no matter where you went. I stopped at the information desk and asked about Mac. Fader had already pulled up the schematic and knew where we’d find him, but I wanted to be on record as asking about my soldier in case someone checked. Oxendine seemed like the type who might do that. Receiving directions, we headed to the quarantine area, which resembled the rest of the hospital, except the room doors on either side of the hallway had seals reminiscent of airlocks. Two armed soldiers stood outside one of the rooms, marking the prisoner’s location like a flashing sign. The prisoner’s name was Mbabe, and he had no prior arrests in any system we could find. We’d called that in to Ganos to check, so I trusted the information. His local record listed him as a construction worker, certified for outside-the-dome work, who was employed by a small subcontractor called External Solutions. They worked for another company called Dynan Enterprises, who did most of their work colonyside for a larger company called—of course—Caliber.
I looked in the window of the unguarded door on the opposite side of the corridor to get an idea of the setup. A hallway lay behind it, connecting three separate rooms, all with see-through walls, all empty. What great luck. That meant that Mac was on the other side—the same side as the prisoner. I glanced over at the soldiers, two women, one tall and dark, the other short and light skinned. Both tried to pretend they weren’t watching me. I didn’t blame them. It wasn’t like the prisoner would try to make a break for it from quarantine, making their role largely a formality. That worked in my favor, so I leaned into it.
“Is Sergeant McCann in there?”
“Yes, sir,” said the tall soldier. She had an extra stripe, which put her in charge. “But our orders are that nobody goes in or out.”
I put on my best confused face, trying to project it to the soldiers without saying anything. Ki
nd of a “Wait, I can’t go in?” expression. I didn’t like to lie to soldiers, but I would if I had to. I’d try honesty first though. I didn’t ask if they knew who I was. I could see on their faces that they did. That helped. “Sergeant Mac got hit while protecting me on a mission. I’ve got to check on him. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” That much was the truth. More, it was the perfect story. Soldiers all wanted leaders who would check on them if they got hurt. Many of them had those leaders and would expect them to be let through.
I was counting on these soldiers to feel the same way.
The tall soldier glanced at the short one, who nodded. “You need to put on a mask, sir. The hallway in there is supposed to be clean, but better safe than sorry. And you can’t enter his room without full bio gear.”
“Can he hear me through the glass? If so, I don’t need to go into his room.”
“Yes, sir. There’s a speaker.” That presented a small problem. If I had to use a speaker to talk to Mac, I’d also have to use one to talk to the prisoner. The soldiers might not see if they faced out, but they might look through the window to check on me. I’d have to play it by ear. Fader had disappeared but now showed up with a mask in her hand.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I’ll wait out here, sir.” She inclined her head slightly toward the two soldiers. She’d try to keep them busy while I went inside. The more I worked with her, the more I liked her.
The soldier keyed a code into the door pad and pulled it open for me. I went to Mac’s room first, both because it was the right thing to do and it fit my story. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad, sir.” His voice sounded a little mechanical through the speaker, but even with that I could sense his good spirits. “They gave me the good drugs.”
I laughed. “Feeling no pain, huh?”
“Nope. Good thing too, given all the places they’ve jammed tubes.”
“I don’t even want to know. They give you a timeline?”
“Two days, sir.”
“Could be worse.”
“Could definitely be worse. They’re treating the wound at the same time as they’re doing the cleanup of the contamination, so I should be close to a hundred percent when I get cleared.”
“Sounds good. But you take your time. I’ll be careful, I promise.”
“Sure you will, sir.”
“Can the guy in the other room hear us?”
“Hey, asshole!” Mac looked at the guy in the next room as he said it, and the guy turned toward him. “He can hear me, at least. You need me to pass him a message?”
“Can he hear me? I need to ask him some questions, and it will go quicker if we don’t have to relay.”
“I can hear you,” Mbabe said. “Is this where you threaten to come in and unplug my tubes if I don’t cooperate?” I could barely hear him through the glass and the speaker, but it worked.
“Of course not. If I wanted to threaten you, I’d tell you that Mac here is going to wait until nobody is around, come over there, and beat your ass.”
“He’s tied up to a machine, same as me.”
Mac held up his arm and pulled out one of his IVs. “Huh. Look at that. It slipped.”
“You know you probably need that,” I said.
Mac shrugged. “They’ll give me a new one once you leave.”
“This is some bullshit,” said Mbabe.
“Look, I just want to ask you some questions. No threats. Mac was just screwing around.”
Mac glared at the guy. He wasn’t helping. Or maybe he was.
“I want full immunity.”
“You got it. Everything I’m authorized to give.” That was nothing, but I didn’t feel the need to include that detail. The guy had been shooting at me a few hours back. Unlike with the soldiers, I felt fine about lying to him.
“What can you give?” Smart guy, I’ll give him that.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“So, figure it out.”
He thought about it. “Yeah. All right.”
“Did you work at the dome out in the bush?”
“Yeah.”
“How long has it been operating?”
“Maybe six, seven months.”
“What did you do out there?”
He stared up at the ceiling, and for a second, I wished I could send Mac in there.
“Who pays you?”
Nothing.
“You’re not doing much to earn your immunity.”
“I’m not doing much to incriminate myself, either.”
“Your job status is incriminating?”
“It might be. How the fuck should I know? Somebody torches a multimillion-mark facility, you have to believe they’re hidin’ somethin’, right?”
“A few hours ago, you were holding a weapon, shooting at galactic soldiers. I think who burned what is kind of a moot point when it comes to incrimination. You’re on my helmet camera with a rifle in your hand.”
“So there’s no way out for me.”
“Sure there is. Give me a bigger fish.” Normally I’d have left and let him stew, but I wouldn’t be allowed back in here once Oxendine found out, so I had to press.
He thought about it. “I didn’t want to fight you.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“They didn’t give me much fuckin’ choice.”
“I saw a gun in your hand, not one to your head.”
“You weren’t there half an hour before the fight.”
I started to snap something back at him but held off. Mbabe wanted to tell me something, and I needed to let him instead of pissing him off further. “What did they do?”
“You saw the facility blow. We couldn’t stay there.”
“Right. But you didn’t have to fight.”
“The fuck we didn’t. If we didn’t delay you, there was no evacuation.”
Well that changed things. “They told you that?”
“Yeah. And after some of the shit I saw them do, I believed them. They’d have left us to die in the jungle.”
I fired my next question quickly. Now that I had him talking, I wanted to keep the momentum. “What went on in that building?”
“Research. That’s all I know. No shit. I don’t know what kind, nothin’ like that.”
“You must have some idea. What did you see? Did you ever see animals brought in there?”
“Yeah, sometimes. The big ape-looking ones. I figured they was puttin’ trackers in them or somethin’.”
My heart sped up a little and my mouth dried. It was confirmation, or at least something close to it. I wanted to follow up, but if I did, he might sense how important it was to me. I didn’t want to give him that edge, so I changed directions. “Did you ever meet a guy named Hubic?”
“Yeah. I know him. What about him?”
“He’s dead.”
“That supposed to matter to me?”
“Not specifically. I just wanted you to know.” Really I wanted him to know he had no reason to try to protect the guy, but I couldn’t say that.
“Okay. Now I know.”
“You have any idea what he did?” In my head, I sensed I was running out of time. The soldiers outside would get suspicious at some point.
“Not really. He was pretty close to the boss though. Always talking to her.”
“Who was the boss?”
Mbabe grunted. “I’ll tell you that the minute I’m walking free.”
“That’s not how it works,” I said.
“It is now. You think I’m stupid?”
I’d hoped. “Tell me this, then. The boss—was she a scientist?”
“Dunno.” He looked at me. “Really. I don’t. She oversaw everything.”
“Was she there today?” If she was, we had her body, unless it burned up in the facility.
“Nah. I haven’t seen her for a while.”
That caught my attention, and I pulled a picture of Xyla Redstone up on my d
evice. It was small, so it would be hard for him to see, but she had a distinctive look—pale skin, short and stocky, dark hair, flared on top. Like a soldier’s cut, but with style. “Ever seen this woman?”
Mbabe squinted, and hesitated. “Nah.” He was lying. I don’t know what made me sure, but I was. Why would he lie? It wouldn’t be to protect Xyla. He’d said he hadn’t seen her in a while. But if she’d been the boss—he wouldn’t want to give that away, because he’d want to protect his immunity deal. I debated the best way to press him on it, but a knock on the door broke my thoughts. One of the soldiers stared in through the window. She yelled, but I could barely make out what she said.
“Time to go, sir.”
I gave her a thumbs-up, then turned back to Mac. “You get well soon. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need you before this is over.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“You want me to send someone in to fix that IV?”
“I’ve got a buzzer. I’ll call them once you’re clear.”
“Mbabe,” I said. “Not a word of this to anybody, or the deal’s off. Got me?”
“Yeah, I got you. Have a nice day.”
He might as well have said, “Fuck off.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wanted to confront Zentas about the facility and his daughter’s role associated with it, but I still didn’t have enough information. I could accuse him of involvement, because his employees were there, but he’d deny it, and I would have spent my ammunition for no result. The thing that irked me was that he knew. No way did a hands-on boss like Zentas not know about a Caliber facility where his daughter worked. Even if he didn’t know about it before her disappearance, he’d have learned after. So then why send me here? It couldn’t be just to offer me a job. Could it? There had to be an easier way to do that.
There was too much I didn’t know, and it made me start doubting my own theory. Maybe she worked there and it had no relation to her disappearance. One illegal action could be unrelated to the other—assuming the Caliber technology was used to kill Xyla, as I believed. But if Xyla truly ran the facility, that would have put her in charge of developing that tech. Even though Mbabe hadn’t seen her lately, she could still be alive, hiding out somewhere else. I wished that I could have gotten an exact timeline from Mbabe on her last appearance.
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