Rafe lowered himself into his seat. Deep inside, a little thrill of victory kindled. He crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and tried to keep the win off his face.
"I want your assurance that everything I tell you will be in the strictest confidence. You'll tell no one." Leon leaned forward. "That includes my father."
Rafe hated ethical dilemmas, and he stared one in the face. He owed Aaron Goldman an explanation, but he had to do whatever he could to stop bloodshed at the station. He heaved a sigh. "All right."
"I'm being blackmailed, have been for years. And now I think maybe the blackmailer is trying to kill me." The CEO leaned back, watching him.
Blackmail Rafe could believe. Leon's inappropriate behavior with women surfaced in the tabloids almost like clockwork, and his business practices defined sharp. But murder? Had he gone off the deep end?
"Who's the blackmailer?"
His brother-in-law laughed, a bitter, defeated sound. "There's the rub. I've spent a million credits trying to find out. Maybe I should have hired you instead of First Security."
"If you don't know his identity, how do you make the payoffs?"
"I don't. The blackmailer never asks for money. It's always 'favors' of some kind."
Unconsciously, Rafe pulled the little rubber ball from his pocket and rolled it between his palms. "What kinds of favors?"
"Hirings, firings, letters of recommendation, canceling or signing contracts, buying this station. None of them make the least sense. Some of them are probably misdirection meant to muddy the water. I've picked apart the lives of everyone involved and been unable to turn up any connections. I've sidestepped unpleasant consequences, smoothed over ruffled feathers on the EcoMech board when it impacted the bottom line."
"Until the station purchase."
The CEO nodded. "I could see from the beginning that it was a disaster in the making."
"So you arranged to set up my father to take the fall."
"Yes." Leon showed no contrition. "I've suspected for some time that the blackmailer might be trying to force me from power. I had to follow directions without putting myself in jeopardy. But when we boarded the station and things became violent, I began to rethink my conclusions. What if the station purchase was all a ruse to get me out here and kill me?"
"How could your blackmailer know for certain you'd come?" Rafe asked.
"Whoever it is, they know me, know how I operate, where I'll be."
Years of blackmail, while his brother-in-law chased a phantom. His curiosity soared. "What do they have on you?"
Leon's expression hardened. "None of your business."
"Where does Levine fit?" Rafe walked the little ball over and under the fingers of one hand and then the other, thinking that his brother-in-law's theories had some gaping logic holes.
"If he's involved in all this larceny, then maybe he has some connection to the blackmailer, maybe he has information that I can backtrack. Hell, if he can pull off all this fraud, maybe he's my blackmailer." He set his empty glass aside. "I want to question him—before he's handed over to EA. I'm sending the mercs in tomorrow to get him, even if I have to dismantle the station section by section."
Rafe wondered whether Levine would make it to EA custody if the CEO got to him first. "The miners are also quite anxious to have him. And they aren't too thrilled about your security troops."
Leon's eyes glittered. "Then I'll have to make them more receptive. Before the mercs board, I'll announce a million credit bounty for Levine unharmed."
That might keep the man from harm, but Rafe thought it might also cause the miners to turn on one another in pursuit of the bounty. And what if Levine did have an accomplice? How would he or she react? Uneasiness walked with tiny cold feet up his spine. He had to beat Leon to the station manager.
"There's a chance someone worked with him," Rafe said. "If that person fears exposure, your bounty may cause a change of loyalty."
"An accomplice?" Leon rose from his chair to pace again. "You have definite proof?"
"Nothing admissible as evidence," he admitted, "but some things don't add up."
"Not good enough. I'll take my chances finding Levine. I'm not chasing some damn ghost anymore. I've done enough of that." Leon stopped in front of him. "What will you do?"
"I'm going back to hunt for Levine and his accomplice. It's what I promised the miners." Rafe rose, careful to make sure he was steady before letting go of the chair. He looked the man in the eye. "Let's make a deal."
His brother-in-law's expression sharpened, suddenly all business. "What kind of deal?"
"If I identity your blackmailer, you'll shield my father from any fallout on the station purchase." He waited, fighting to keep his face and body relaxed.
Leon's brow furrowed and his mouth thinned. "He treated you like shit. Why do you care what happens to him?"
"Do we have a deal?" he pressed. When the CEO nodded, a sense of heaviness lifted from his shoulders. "Before I go, I'd like the personnel files you got from Galaxy."
Leon tapped a few commands into his nanocom. "Done. It's been sent to your mail."
The CEO swept up the stick drive and marched to the lounge door. He stopped in the doorway without turning around.
"Be careful over there, McTavish," he blurted before disappearing down the hallway.
Rafe accessed the ship's network on his loaner nanocom and downloaded the personnel records supplied by Leon along with replies from his earlier inquiries. He'd have another long, sleepless night ahead of him while he sifted their contents, looking not only for Levine's accomplice, but also connections to Leon's blackmailer.
His running shoes seemed to weigh fifty kilos each, and the lounge grew monstrously large. He made it to the door, but the few meters of corridor to the airlock stretched like an endless ribbon.
Benson came out of nowhere and supported him.
"Is there nothing we can do for you, sir?"
"There is," Rafe said. "Move your vessel to the other side of the station. You're parked next to the munitions bunker."
The captain's eyebrows raised. "Yes, sir."
"And it would be helpful if you could have a small communications problem tomorrow when those security cruisers arrive, something that delays Mr. Goldman from communicating with them for as long as reasonably possible. Don't put yourself in any risk of firing, mind."
"I'll see what I can do, sir."
"Rafe. Call me Rafe."
He staggered into the runabout and dropped into the copilot's seat. Browning took one look at him, blew out his cheeks, and reached over to fasten his harness. As they started the trip back, Rafe kept his attention on the nanocom, reviewing his new data and hoping it would keep his mind off the queasy way the coffee floated in his stomach. He should have asked the captain for a barf bag.
He got half-way through the folder on Janice Fisher before his eyelids felt too heavy to keep open, which shouldn't have been possible in zero gravity where they weighed nothing. Interesting. He'd think about that just for a minute…
***
The bump of the runabout setting down on the deck jolted him awake. Browning helped him stumble out of the craft. The medic and Yuri waited outside the bay with the trolley, and he had to admit that he was glad to see it. As he eased down onto it, a tall, blond miner walked up. He held an icepack over his nose, and blood streaked the front of his shirt.
Browning glowered at him. "Swede! What the hell happened to you?"
The miner waved an arm down the corridor. "We were watching soccer on the vid in the rec hall. Some of the boys backing Juventus got a bit out of hand, and the next thing I knew a fist landed in my face. I hightailed it out of there on the double."
The medic lifted the ice bag and examined the miner's nose. "Not broken, lucky for you." He returned to the trolley and pushed it forward.
The smelter supervisor swore under his breath. "Yuri, see that Mr. McTavish gets back to the infirmary safely."
"Hey, Swed
e, who's ahead?" Roshal asked. Rafe thought he saw a sneer form under the big miner's ice bag.
"Aerosaurs. Your good friends from Caligo are up by two. Babangida scored both."
The shipping manager looked like he'd bitten into a lemon. "Babangida? Shouldn't even be playing," he mumbled.
Rafe gestured at Roshal's bright yellow shirt, with its detailed black and green reptile logo. "I thought you were an Aerosaurs fan."
The man snorted. "I back winners. Caligo were odds-on for the win, but I had a tip from one of Caligo's physios. He said Babangida was gonna miss the final with a back injury."
"Guess you were tipped wrong, huh?" Rafe said, but got no reply.
The group walked in silence away from the runabout bay.
"Take me to the admin office," he said, thinking of the work ahead sorting through the personnel records and background checks. It seemed an insurmountable task in his present state. Maybe with the trappings of a work environment around him, he could stay awake long enough to get through it all. Fatigue weighed on him like a suit of chainmail.
"No way," the medic replied. "You're headed back to the infirmary for dinner and a good night's sleep."
"I have work to do, and I can't do it in bed," Rafe protested.
"Read my lips. Rest or die."
"I'll sit still, I promise." He saw the stern look on the medic's face. No concessions there. "Can I at least have a table in the infirmary?"
"You do what the medic says," Browning ordered. Shouts, jeers, and banging came from a cross corridor. The smelter supervisor hurried in the direction of the noise, Swede trailing in his wake.
"Just what I need, more customers," muttered the medic. "Yuri, can you get our friend here back to the infirmary? And don't let him near the admin office." He abandoned the trolley and ran down the corridor after the two departing men.
Yuri replaced the medic behind the trolley. It lurched forward, nearly toppling Rafe and sending a lancing pain through his chest. He gasped and clutched at the side of the trolley.
"Sorry about that," the lanky shipping manager said, voice devoid of any apology. "I would have taken you to the EcoMech ship if I'd known you were going."
"It was a spur of the moment idea," he said. If the man thought he could still hold Rafe up for a ten thousand credit transport fee, he was delusional.
"Us guys started talking while you and Ed were gone. You got a point. We've decided to go back to work. If we own the station, we'll be making some money, and if we don't, EcoMech will have to pay our wages. Either way, we win."
They pitched around another corner, passing so close that the trolley clipped the wall. Rafe snatched his hand back from the edge just in time to prevent it being banged, and another pain streaked through his chest, stopping his breath. He began to doubt he'd make it to the infirmary and wondered whether the shipping manager drove his space tug with the same carelessness, God forbid. Maybe he should be glad he hadn't fled the station with Roshal.
Collecting his thoughts while he shifted to stabilize his balance, he considered the man's words. If the miners returned to work, all those ships would scatter into space, and one of them might have Levine aboard. He couldn't let that happen. In the morning, Leon would announce his search. He just needed the miners to hold tight until then.
"There's no doubt in my mind that EcoMech is the rightful owner of the facility, and as the CEO of EcoMech, Mr. Goldman has asked that the miners wait to resume work," he temporized. "That's what I'll recommend."
"What? I thought you said we needed to show Goldman what good workers we are. How we gonna do that sitting on our butts? I bet he's pissed about his welcome, and he's gonna fire us all."
They stopped at a lift. When the door slid open, Roshal drove the trolley in hard, smacking it against the back wall. Rafe's head spun and his vision fuzzed around the edges. He wished the medic were in the lift with him instead of the lunatic currently driving the trolley. Afraid he might topple off and worried about his sudden dizziness, he eased onto his back and braced his feet high up the wall. The blurry edges receded, but the bruises on his back screamed their complaint. This had become the trolley ride from Hell.
"Hey, you don't look so good," the shipping manager commented.
He snatched his feet off the wall and got them braced on the floor of the trolley a split second before the man rattled it out of the lift. The corridor they'd come into looked familiar, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Only a short distance more to the infirmary.
The miners needed their paychecks, and they needed something to do to keep them out of trouble, but he had to keep them close. He hated saying it.
"The best thing for the miners is to follow Mr. Goldman's instructions. Everyone should wait on the station until he sends orders."
"Yeah? Well, the guys aren't gonna go for you flip-flopping like that. They're gonna think you're a turn-coat, that you sold out to EcoMech, especially after you ran off to Goldman's ship. What do think they're gonna do if they decide they can't trust you?"
Rafe felt again the beating delivered by the angry miners and thought about Greg waiting for him in the infirmary. Had he made a terrible mistake keeping the boy on the station?
Chapter 12
"Vishnu!" Kama murmured, and leaped up from the spare infirmary cot.
McTavish lay on his back, knees bent to fit on the trolley, eyes closed, faint sheen of perspiration coating his pasty skin, looking as dead as a living person could look. At her oath, his eyes opened, and he grinned at her despite the pain and fatigue on his face. Roshal watched while she and Greg helped him into bed.
"Didn't we have a chat about you taking care of yourself?" she admonished.
His grin broadened, and he held up his arms. "Look, Ma, no new bruises!"
Roshal ambled over to peer at the dozens of filmies taped to the wall beside Rafe's cot. Kama wished he'd clear out. They couldn't talk with him hanging around, and anyway, he gave her the creeps.
Browning barreled into the infirmary, invectives flying. The medic followed, oblivious to the torrent of swearing.
"God damn idiots! They oughta know better than to start throwing punches," the smelter supervisor grumbled.
Kama didn't know what he was on about, but from the thunderous look on his face, she wasn't about to ask. The last thing she wanted was to hear about more violence on the station. She'd be glad when she got back to Earth and away from all the testosterone-driven aggression. Just give her a little climate-controlled cubbyhole by herself with a connection to the Net, and she'd be happy.
Browning stopped by Warner's cot. "How's he doing?"
"Still sedated," the medic replied. He checked McTavish's med bracelet, then hung another bag of synth blood.
"Ohh!" Kama sassed. "Dinner!"
The medic lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. "No, Miss Patty'll bring dinner directly."
If she makes anything half as good as those scones, we're in for a treat. Then she remembered Levine's body floating in the tank and the tubing leading to the strawberry plants growing on the tables. She put a hand to her mouth and swallowed her rising gorge.
Browning crossed the room to stand beside Roshal, staring at the wall covered in filmies. "What's all this mess?"
"Art project," McTavish said. Kama stifled a laugh.
The shipping manager said, "Looks like the blueprints for the station. What do you need those for?"
"Since my friend won't let me out for a tour, I've gone the virtual route." McTavish waved at the medic. The man shot him a dirty look and pushed the trolley out the door.
Roshal looked at McTavish like he didn't quite believe what he heard, or maybe didn't understand. He sauntered over and stared at the unconscious Warner a moment, and then strolled out without saying goodbye. Kama shivered. The smelter supervisor waved his farewell and followed.
"Don't forget my table!" McTavish called. He waved at the filmie display. "I see you've been busy. Well done."
Greg rushed forward with a sti
ck drive. "Here's the list you asked for. When will we start the search?"
His uncle looked distinctly unhappy. "Mr. Goldman's security forces will be conducting the search tomorrow morning."
Kama sucked in a breath. "I knew he couldn't be trusted. He'll barge in here, guns blazing, and we'll have a riot on our hands."
McTavish gave an ironic laugh. "More like bank account blazing, but we'll still have a riot. He plans to offer a one million credit bounty for Levine if he's brought in alive."
"A million?" Greg breathed. The boy got a starry-eyed look. "Will I be allowed to search?"
Rolling her eyes, Kama realized it wouldn't matter anyway. No one would collect, but a snipe hunt of epic proportions might keep McTavish busy while she tracked alternate prey.
"I think our focus is better placed on finding Levine and his possible accomplice before Leon's forces arrive tomorrow," he said.
She sighed, wishing he'd just keep his mind on Levine while she smoked out the killer and probable partner. She needed to ensure the silence of anyone who'd seen the Oasis contract. She didn't need to dodge 'Mr. Security Partners CEO' every step of the way.
"What about the rendezvous ship? Who owns it?"
He snorted. "No one. It doesn't exist."
Kama chewed her lip. Another false trail. She thought it might be, after finding Levine's body. She'd hoped it would keep him busy longer, though.
"So who do you think it is?" Greg asked. "You must have suspects, right?"
"Yeah," his uncle replied. "About two hundred suspects. But probably it'll be one of the managers who have access to the business system. Miss Patty is my pick. As Levine's assistant, she'd have to be blind, incompetent, or both not to know what was happening. And she could open Levine's quarters. Everyone will have to be checked, of course."
Miss Patty. Kama saw the logic. The station manager wasn't a big man, and for all her age, the assistant seemed strong enough to bludgeon Levine and dump the body in the hydroponic vat. With administrator rights on the system, she had easy access to the Oasis contract. Tension crept up Kama's back and stole into her neck.
Calculated Risk Page 12