"Someone fiddled video on the last night we know Levine was alive, and only three people had high level permissions to do it: Roshal, Browning, and Miss Patty," she said, glad they wouldn't be fishing the corpse out of the vat themselves.
"The video edits could have been done by Levine before he was killed. Maybe he thought he could hide and flee later. Nonetheless, Yuri, Ed, and Miss Patty are also the people most likely to have known about the fraud." He logged on his nanocom. From the corner of her eye, Kama made note of his password.
"I asked Greg to review the airlock video footage and make a list of all the arrivals and departures from the station from early evening the day before we arrived until nine the next morning when we docked."
He scooted across the couch until his hip and shoulder touched hers, and he held the tiny nanocom screen so she could see it. He smelled of new clothes and soap, and his body radiated heat like a blast furnace. She tensed at his contact and ignored her quickening pulse. She was a creature of intellect and did her best to deny her own baser instincts, but she had an uphill battle while sitting next to his sensual body.
She forced her eyes to the nanocom screen, which displayed a list of time-stamps followed by names and links to video clips. McTavish started at the top of the list. In the first clip, a fire-breathing hag in an Oasis' jumpsuit stepped off the mail ship ready to kill someone or fall asleep standing. She watched her video-self silently converse with Browning, while Miss Patty hauled away the mail trolley in the background. She wished McTavish weren't seeing this footage. I look like Ganesh's ugly sister.
"That's the ship I came in on," she said. "It delivered mail with the cash chip. If we assume that only Levine would hide the chip in his quarters, then we know he was still alive at this time."
McTavish opened a file time-stamped 1:15 a.m. The footage wasn't great—none of it was—but they couldn't mistake Browning's hulking figure as he entered a docking bay, squeezed through the airlock hatch, and swung it shut behind him, leaving the station.
"Greg made a note about this clip. He says he can't find another clip where Browning returns, but Browning met us when we docked."
"Interesting," Kama muttered.
"Yeah?" he said.
Kama gave him a grim smile. "When Browning rescued Greg, he said that he hadn't been off the station in a week."
"Ah. Food for thought."
McTavish scrolled through the list and opened another file. This time, the window showed the familiar footage of Levine's scrawny figure sauntering into the airlock and slipping through, never to be seen again.
"Greg's put another note in about this one. I think we'll need to see it on something bigger than the nanocom screen."
Kama took the nanocom from him and plugged a device into the output port. Levine's vid screen came to life, displaying a larger version of the image on the nanocom. She could see that Greg had manipulated the video clip to illustrate a point.
The area next to the airlock expanded to fill the screen, hazy and unfocused at first, then abruptly pinging into sharpness. The panel displayed station time, seconds ticking lazily away. The vid zoomed in again, until there were only two things on the screen—the clock next to the airlock door as Levine made his escape, and the time-stamp automatically pasted onto the video by the recorder.
"They don't match. They aren't even close," McTavish noted. "Someone used some old footage of Levine leaving the station days or weeks ago and pasted it into the footage of the night he disappeared, covering up what was really there from one-thirty to three-thirty in the morning."
"Browning must have returned sometime in that window, which is why your nephew can't find the video."
She opened a new video file. Same dull airlock shot, empty and inert. They read Greg's notes.
"This is video from a different airlock camera the same night that Levine disappeared, taken about eleven-thirty."
The video zoomed in on the clock next to the airlock door. Big, foreshortened numbers ticked along, this time matching precisely the video time-stamp in the corner. Tick, tick, tick, went the airlock clock. And then the figures stopped, frozen at the same time while the video time-stamp ticked onwards. For twenty seconds it went on, the airlock clock frozen while the video time-stamp ticked further out of sync with each second. Then, abruptly, the airlock clock jumped, bridging the gap to match the video time-stamp, and both ticked on as if nothing happened.
Kama exhaled slowly. "Does that mean what I think it does?"
"Someone tampered with it," McTavish said. "They pasted the same frame over and over again into the original footage, covering something up."
"But what?" Kama wondered. "Someone arriving or leaving? Who?"
The next video in the queue showed Roshal and her leaving to fix Todd's mass spec, and then the shipping manager coming out of the runabout bay, followed by Davy Todd, Juan Rodriguez, and herself. A dozen more closely bunched files showed the stampede of miners returning to the station, probably as a result of Browning's orders.
Kama poked the nanocom and opened the final file.
"Skip this one," ordered McTavish, reaching for the nanocom.
"Why?" she asked, moving the device out of his reach.
"It's my arrival with Leon; it won't be useful. Shut it off," he repeated, his voice irritated.
What had McTavish done that instigated his beating? It must be something he didn't want her to see. Perhaps he was embarrassed about how he'd behaved. But she wanted to know which of the miners had done it. Curious, she let the file play on.
A different scene—the station's spacious main docking bay. Browning, Miss Patty, and Roshal stood in a line, facing McTavish, Greg, Goldman, and another man she didn't recognize; a secretary or assistant from his downtrodden appearance.
This camera was better than the others. Their clothes, especially Roshal's stained yellow shirt, stood out jarringly against the grey metal and peeling paint of the dingy backdrop. She'd barely realized the videos were in full color before, but here the image was clear enough to show the sweat trickling down Browning's forehead. Mouths moved silently, and bodies tensed.
Greg wandered away from the main group, and his face turned upward, staring into the camera with a bored expression. McTavish looked sharply off-screen and shouted something. He shoved his boss and the assistant back toward their own vessel. Then he lashed out like a snake, snatching the boy back and flinging him toward the airlock.
He charged the first two attackers who rushed on camera, weapons swinging, and took them down. His speed and grace amazed her, hands and feet blurring with a professional, deadly economy of movement. She watched, open mouthed, shame casting it's shadow over her.
She'd thought him a desk jockey, a pretty face born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a smarmy corporate type whose own behavior triggered the miners' attack. But he'd done nothing, said nothing to provoke them. In the video, a consummate professional pulled his punches, tempered his strikes, temporarily disabling when he could have killed; a humanitarian facing a murderous mob.
Kama couldn't imagine how he'd been so badly hurt—until he sacrificed his defensible position to rescue Greg, only to be jumped from behind. His attackers swept over him like hyenas falling on a downed gazelle. The hatch swung shut, abandoning him to the pack of predators, and he disappeared under the kicking, clubbing mass.
The enormity of how she'd misjudged him burned through her, leaving her throat raw, chest constricted. She'd thought him a helpless fool, a dandy, beaten senseless by a few burly men who didn't like how he'd greeted them. He'd proved himself a biblical David set upon by a host of Goliaths, and he'd defeated them in the end not with his fighting skills, but by his forgiveness, his willingness to help them despite how they'd punished him, his heroic rescue of Warner. Tears filled her eyes.
Beside her, McTavish stared at the screen. His knuckles were white on the coffee cup, and his breathing sounded ragged. He jerked to his feet and headed to the bedroom with hurried strid
es.
She'd been an idiot. Why hadn't she listened when he'd asked her to stop the video? He didn't need to be reminded of a beating like that, nor of his abandonment by his brother-in-law. He deserved—and had—her respect. Her hands clenched in her lap. Moorhk, moorhk, moorhk! What had she done?
When he returned, he looked exhausted and slumped at the far end of the couch, huddled in on himself.
"Are you okay?" she asked. Dumb. Of course he isn't.
He stared at the coffee table and nodded, nothing like okay. She slid along the plastic couch until she sat a hand's breadth from him, wanting to comfort him but uncertain about whether he'd accept it.
"I'm sorry," she said, the words sticking in her throat. "I've been dead wrong about you. I made assumptions based on stereotypes instead of looking at the man in front of me. And now I've wounded you further by playing the video. You deserve better."
To her surprise, his distress worsened. What kind of brainwashing had his family put him through that after all he'd done, he still thought he was inadequate? When he didn't look at her, she punched his shoulder. That got his attention.
"Moorhk, you're supposed to be a gentleman and say you forgive me."
His eyes registered bewilderment, and then he gave her a sheepish grin that didn't quite cover his torment. "Sorry. I'll try harder to be an evil corporate bastard in future."
She heaved a sigh, glad to see his sense of humor recovering, even if his hands still shook. "Time for the heavy lifting. Only two hundred files; no problem. I wish we had more time."
"Captain Benson will try to stall the security forces, but it won't give us more than an extra half hour."
Kama chewed her lip. "We need more than that if we're going to delve into the background of everyone on the station. Maybe I can delay the cruisers at the gate if they haven't come through already."
She checked the time on her nanocom. Not yet midnight. She'd make it if she hurried. Samir wouldn't like it. Hastily organized missions had high risks of exposure. And if he found out that McTavish knew about their capabilities—well, too bad. She coded a message and dropped it in the queue for immediate transmission.
"How can you stop them?" McTavish asked.
She flashed him an evil grin. "The jump gate is about to have an issue with its computer systems. They'll have to stop all incoming and outgoing jumps until the problem gets resolved."
McTavish gave her an incredulous look. "But their systems are impregnable. Besides, you can't take down the jump gate just to stall Leon's cruisers. Think of the havoc that wreaks for thousands of people who depend on the traffic getting through."
"How does a little inconvenience for thousands weigh against catching a killer? I don't know how you do the math, but for me, the choice is clear."
"And the person doing the nobbling? How much is twenty years in prison worth?" he argued.
She glared at him and passed a stick drive. "I'll need a copy of your files to work with."
He frowned back, but provided the files.
She pulled on her gloves. "System security here isn't great, but the place isn't exactly crawling with hackers, either. I'm going to look over the files on the crew just to be safe, but I still think Browning, Roshal, and Miss Patty are our primary suspects because of the computer access level required. You can start with the three of them."
"We have a lot of ground to cover. It makes more sense for both of us to focus on the suspects of greatest interest."
She plugged the stick drive into her nanocom and lifted her hands. The first file opened on the vid screen, drawing McTavish's attention. With a twitch of her right hand, she adjusted the page size and line length. Then she set the page speed to one page every ten seconds and focused on the screen, gradually speeding up until she'd halved the time, and halved it again.
"You're not really reading those, are you?" he asked.
Kama flicked her little finger to pause the display. "Yes, of course I am. Otherwise, what would be the point?"
"But…"
"Follow along on the vid." She rattled off the first two paragraphs of the text without taking her eyes off him. "Satisfied?"
"Speed reading and photographic memory. You really know how to make a guy feel inferior," he grumbled. "Please tell me you occasionally need help opening jars."
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small rubber ball, which he rolled between his palms while he read his first report.
Kama returned to her own reading. They couldn't afford to overlook someone. Todd and Rodriquez didn't seem like killers, and yet they had to know the table was rigged to explode. Too risky to have them handle it without being in on the plan. Maybe she could find a link between them and the killer.
A thumping noise, rhythmic and annoying, brought her to a halt. McTavish was hunched over the coffee table, reading from a stack of filmies. He bounced his ball next to the pile, caught it, bounced it, caught it. She went back to her own reading, trying to block the irritating sound, but it was late, and she was tired.
Kama stopped her display again, timed the bounces, and snatched the ball in mid-air, setting it out of his reach on her end of the coffee table and giving him a pointed stare. He mumbled 'sorry' and went for another cup of coffee.
He'd been back perhaps half a minute when she felt the jiggle begin. He bounced one heel against the floor, a fidget that shook the whole couch. Without stopping her reading, she placed a hand on his knee and held his foot down. He mumbled another apology.
A minute later, he was flicking the corner of the stack of filmies with his thumbnail. She heard a sudden crack and a broken triangle of filmie caught her eye as it skittered across the coffee table. He glanced at her, smoothed the filmie, and then shuffled it to the bottom of the pile. He picked up her travel cup and went back to reading. In less than ten seconds, he'd snapped the lid off the cup, pressed it back, and snapped it off again.
"McTavish!"
"Sorry," he murmured, setting the cup aside.
"And stop apologizing."
"Sorry. Sorry." Pink climbed up his cheeks. He looked like a small boy scolded by his teacher.
Kama sighed. "Maybe you should try cutting back on the caffeine."
His color mounted. "It's not the caffeine. I have, uh, some attentional problems… and, um, some issues with hyperactivity."
She stared at him. Then she laughed. "You're ADHD. Well that explains a lot."
He shaded into brilliant scarlet and refused to meet her eyes. She realized too late that he was genuinely ashamed and felt guilty for laughing at him. Without thinking, she tousled his hair. His head snapped up, his expression uncertain.
"The ball isn't a toy, is it?" She picked it up and handed it back.
"No. It's a conditioned stimulus used in conjunction with biofeedback training to help me increase beta brainwaves so I focus better." He gave her a sad smile. "And it keeps my hands busy so I don't destroy things unconsciously."
She waggled a forefinger at him in mock sternness. "Roll it, juggle it, but don't bounce it."
"Deal." He grinned, and her breath caught in her throat. She hated to admit it—that grin was growing on her.
They passed another half hour in silence while Kama finished reading the personnel files for the two hundred miners working at the station, and McTavish juggled his ball and studied the three managers' records. She did a quick run through the managers' files just to be sure McTavish hadn't missed anything. When she'd finished, she stood and stretched.
"Anything interesting?" he asked.
"About what you'd expect out here. Lots of arrest records for petty charges, and a few with more serious convictions. Davy Todd was at Mars Dev when Levine first started there, but only for a short while. No one on the station worked with our prime suspects or Levine before they came here. I didn't see any indication that anyone made videography a hobby. What about you?"
"Browning is every manager's worst nightmare—great at his job but unwilling to manage up to compa
ny goals, and he has a conviction for manslaughter, although he claims it was self-defense. He also lied about being off the station, which doesn't make a lot of sense. You'd think he'd want everyone to know he has an alibi."
"And he argued with Levine the day I arrived, according to Miss Patty," she said.
His interest sharpened. "What about?"
"I don't know," she said. He raised a brow. "I don't. Miss Patty wouldn't tell me, the infuriating old gossip. Maybe you can charm it out of her."
He laughed and ran a hand through his hair. "I think you put the kibosh on me charming her any further, although I admit I'm still not sure where it all went wrong."
She laughed with him, feeling lighthearted despite their grim situation. "And I'll never spirit her away to Oasis, either, thanks to you. You cheated."
"So did you!" he protested, his eyes crinkling with his grin.
He picked up the filmies. "Roshal hasn't held a supervisory position before, and I can't understand why he has that role now, given his performance since I arrived. No video background. The night Greg arrived, he was more than willing to take me to the EcoMech ship if I paid him ten thousand credits, so no loyalty either."
"So that's where you were going," she said. "That's highway robbery! Would you have paid him?"
He shrugged and shifted uncomfortably. "Yes."
Ouch. She'd blundered into painful territory. "Finally a modicum of common sense. I was beginning to wonder whether you possessed any. Get on with it, then. What else did you find?"
"Miss Patty has no qualifications to be here beyond a one-week computer training course she took nine years ago and her experience in her father's business, which isn't saying much. When he died, creditors seized the business before she could file bankruptcy, not that there were any assets left to protect. Then she went to Mars Dev." McTavish drained his coffee cup.
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