by Ian Whates
“How may I repay you for this favour?” he asked.
Sula suppressed a smile. She had her list well prepared.
“The secret government maintains a business enterprise used to transfer munitions and the like from one place to another. It’s operating under the cover of a food distribution service. Since food distribution is about to become illegal, I’d like to be able to operate this enterprise under your protection, and without the usual fees.”
Sula wondered if she was imagining the hint of a smile that played about Sergius Bakshi’s lips. “Agreed,” he said.
“I would also like ten Naxids to die.”
One eyebrow gave a twitch. “Ten?”
“Ten, and of a certain quality. Naxids in the Patrol, the Fleet, or the Legion, all of officer grade; or civil servants with ranks of CN6 or higher. And it must be clear that they’ve been murdered – they can’t seem to die in accidents.”
His voice was cold. “You wish this done when?”
“It’s not a precondition. The Naxids may die within any reasonable amount of time after Julien is released.”
Sergius seemed to thaw a little. “You will provoke the Naxids into one massacre after another.”
She gave a little shrug and tried to match with her own the glossy inhumanity of the other’s eyes. “That is incidental,” she said.
Sergius gave an amused, twisted little smile. It was as out of place on his round immobile face as a bray of laughter. “I’ll agree to this,” he said. “But I want it clear that I’ll pick the targets.”
“Certainly,” Sula said.
“Anything else?”
“I’d like an extraction team on hand, just in case my project doesn’t go well. I don’t expect we’ll need them, though.”
“Extraction team?” Sergius’s lips formed the unaccustomed syllables, and then his face relaxed into the face he probably wore at home, a face that was still, in truth, frightening enough.
“I suppose you’d better tell me about this plan of yours,” he said.
There were three sets of people who had the authority to move prisoners from one location to another. There was the prison bureaucracy itself, which housed the prisoners, shuttled them to and from interrogations and trials, and made use of their labour in numberless factories and agricultural communes. All those with the authority to sign off on prisoner transfers now consisted entirely of Naxids. Sergius apparently hadn’t yet got any of these on his payroll, otherwise Julien would have been shifted out of the Reservoir by now.
The second group consisted of Judges of the High Court and of Final Appeal, but all these had been evacuated before the Naxid fleet arrived. The new administration had replaced them all with Naxids.
The third group were Judges of Interrogation. It was not a prestigious posting, and some had been evacuated and some hadn’t. Apparently Sergius didn’t have any of these in his pocket, either.
Lady Mitsuko Inada was one of those who hadn’t left Zanshaa. She lived in Green Park, a quiet, wealthy enclave on the west side of the city. The district had none of the ostentation or flamboyant architecture of the High City – probably none of the houses had more than fifteen or sixteen rooms. Those buildings still occupied by their owners tried to radiate a comfortable air of wealth and security, but were undermined by the untended gardens and shuttered windows of the neighbouring buildings, abandoned by their owners who had fled, either to another star system or, failing that, to the country.
Lady Mitsuko’s dwelling was on the west side of the park, the least expensive and least fashionable. It was built of grey fieldstone, with a green alloy roof, an onion dome of greenish copper, and two ennobling sets of chimney pots. The garden in front was mossy and frondy, with ponds and fountains. There were willows in the back, which suggested more ponds there.
Peers constituted about 2 per cent of the empire’s population, and as a class controlled more than 90 per cent of its wealth. But there was immense variation within the order of Peers, ranging from individuals who controlled the wealth of entire systems to those who lived in genuine poverty. Lady Mitsuko was on the lower end of the scale. Her job didn’t entitle her to an evacuation, and neither did her status within the Inada clan.
All Peers, even the poor ones, were guaranteed an education and jobs in the Fleet, civil service, or bar. It was possible that Lady Mitsuko had worked herself up to her current status from somewhere lower.
Sula rather hoped she had. If Lady Mitsuko had a degree of social insecurity, it might work well for Sula’s plans.
Macnamara drove Sula to the kerb before the house. He was dressed in a dark suit and brimless cap, and looked like a professional driver. He opened Sula’s door from the outside, and helped her out with a hand gloved in Devajjo leather.
“Wait,” she told him, though of course he knew he would wait, because that was the plan.
Neither of them were looking at the van that cruised along the far side of the park, packed with heavily armed Riverside Clique gunmen.
Sula straightened her shoulders – she was Fleet again, in her blonde wig – and marched up the walk and over the ornamental bridge to the house door. With gloved fingers – no fingerprints – she reached for the grotesque ornamental bronze head near the door and touched the shiny spot that would announce a visitor to anyone inside the house, then removed her uniform cap from under her arm and put it on her head. She now wore her full dress uniform of viridian green, with her lieutenant’s shoulder boards, glossy shoes and her medals.
Her sidearm was a weight against one hip.
To avoid being overconspicuous, she wore over her shoulders a nondescript overcoat, which she removed as soon as she heard foot-steps in the hall. She held it over the pistol and its holster.
The singing tension in her nerves kept her back straight, her chin high. She had to remember that she was a Peer. Not a Peer looking down her nose at cliquemen, but a Peer interacting with another of her class.
That had always been the hardest, to pretend that she was born to this.
A female servant opened the door, a middle-aged Terran. She wasn’t in livery, but in neat, subdued civilian clothes.
Lady Mitsuko, Sula concluded, possessed little in the way of social pretension.
Sula walked past the surprised servant and into the hallway. The walls had been plastered beige, with little works of art in ornate frames, and her shoes clacked on deep grey tile.
“Lady Caroline to see Lady Mitsuko, please,” she said, and took off her cap.
The maidservant closed the door and held out her hands for the cap and overcoat.
Sula looked at her. “Go along, now,” she said.
The servant looked doubtful, then gave a little bow and trotted into the interior of the house. Sula examined herself in a hall mirror of polished nickel asteroid material, adjusted the tilt of one of her medals, and waited.
Lady Mitsuko appeared, walking quickly. She was younger than Sula had expected, in her early thirties, and very tall. Her body was angular and she had a thin slash of a mouth and a determined jaw that suggested that, as a Judge of Interrogation, she was disinclined to let prisoners get away with much. Her dark hair was worn long and caught in a tail behind, and she wore casual clothes. She dabbed with a napkin at a food spot on her blouse.
“Lady Caroline?” she said. “I’m sorry. I was just giving the twins their supper.” She held out her hand, but there was a puzzled frown on her face as she tried to work out whether or not she had seen Sula before.
Sula startled Lady Mitsuko by bracing in salute, her chin high. “Lady Magistrate,” she said. “I come on official business. Is there somewhere we may speak privately?”
Lady Mitsuko stopped, her hand still outheld. “Yes,” she said. “Certainly.”
She took Sula to her office, a small room that still had the slight aroma of the varnish used on the light-coloured shelves and furniture of natural wood.
“Will you take a seat, my lady?” Mitsuko said as she cl
osed the door. “Shall I call for refreshment?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sula said. “I won’t be here long.” She stood before a chair but didn’t sit, and waited to speak until Lady Mitsuko stepped behind her desk.
“You have my name slightly wrong,” Sula said. “I’m not Lady Caroline, but rather Caroline, Lady Sula.”
Lady Mitsuko’s eyes darted suddenly to Sula, and then she froze with one hand on the back of her office chair. Her mouth parted slightly with surprise.
“Do you recognize me?” Sula prompted.
“I … don’t know.” Mitsuko pronounced the words as if they belonged to a foreign language.
Sula reached into a pocket and produced her Fleet ID. “You may examine my identification if you wish,” she said. “I’m on a mission for the secret government.”
Lady Mitsuko pressed the napkin to her heart. The other hand reached for Sula’s identification. “The secret government …” she said softly, as if to herself.
She sank slowly into her chair, her eyes on Sula’s ID. Sula sat and placed her overcoat and hat in her lap. She waited for Lady Mitsuko’s eyes to life from the ID, and spoke.
“We require your cooperation,” she said.
Lady Mitsuko slowly extended her arm and held out Sula’s identification. “What do you … What does the secret government want?” she asked.
Sula leaned forward and took her ID. “The government requires you to transfer twelve hostages from the Reservoir Prison to the holding cells at the Riverside police station. I have a list ready – will you set your comm to receive?”
Speaking slowly, as if in a daze, Lady Mitsuko readied her desk comm. Sula triggered her sleeve display to send the names of Julien, Veronika, nine prisoners chosen at random from the official posted list of hostages, and – just because she was feeling mischievous when she made the list – the Two Sticks’s Cree cook.
“We expect the order to be sent tomorrow,” Sula said. She cleared her throat in a businesslike way. “I am authorized to say that after the return of the legitimate government, your loyalty will be rewarded. On the other hand, if the prisoner transfer does not take place, you will be assassinated.”
Mitsuko’s look was scandalized. She stared at Sula for a blank second, and then she seemed to notice for the first time the holstered pistol at Sula’s hip. Her eyes jumped away, and then she made a visible effort to collect herself.
“What reason shall I give for the transfer?” she said.
“Whatever seems best to you. Perhaps they need to be interrogated in regard to certain crimes. I’m sure you can come up with a good reason.” Sula rose from her chair. “I shan’t keep you,” she said.
And best regards to the twins. Sula considered adding that, a clear malicious threat to the children, but decided it was unnecessary.
She rather thought that she and Lady Mitsuko had reached an understanding.
Mitsuko escorted her to the door. Her movements were still a bit disconnected, as if her nervous system hadn’t quite caught up with events. At least she didn’t look as if she’d panic and run for the comm as soon as the door had closed behind Sula’s back.
Sula threw the overcoat over her shoulders. “Allow me to wish you a good evening, Lady Magistrate,” she said.
“Um, good evening, Lady Sula,” said Lady Mitsuko.
Macnamara leaped out to open the door as soon as Sula appeared. She tried not to run over the ornamental bridge and down the path, and instead managed a brisk, military clip.
The car hummed away from the kerb as fast as its four electric engines permitted, and made the first possible turn. By the time the vehicle had gone two streets, Sula had squirmed out of her military tunic and silver-braided trousers. The blouse she’d worn beneath the tunic was suitable as casual summer ware, and she jammed her legs into a pair of bright summery pantaloons. The military kit and the blonde wig went into a laundry bag. The holster shifted to the small of Sula’s back.
The van carrying the extraction team roared up behind, and both vehicles pulled to a stop: Sula and Macnamara transferred to the van, along with the laundry bag. Another driver hopped into the car – he would drive the car to the parking stand of the local train, where it could be retrieved at leisure.
As Sula jumped through the van’s clamshell door, she saw the extraction team, Spence, Casimir and four burly men from Julien’s crew, all bulky with armour and with weapons in their laps. Another pair sat behind the windscreen in front. The interior of the van was blue with tobacco smoke. Laughter burst from her at their grim look.
“Put the guns away,” she said. “We won’t be needing them.”
Triumph blazed through her. She pulled Macnamara into the van and then, because there were no more seats, dropped onto Casimir’s lap. As the door hummed shut and the van pulled away, Sula put her arms around Casimir’s neck and kissed him.
Sergius and the whole Riverside Clique couldn’t have managed what she’d just done. They could have sniffed around the halls of justice for someone to bribe, and probably already had without success; but none of them could have convinced a Peer and a judge to sign a transfer order of her own free will. If they’d approached Lady Mitsuko, she would have brushed them off; if they’d threatened her, she would have ordered their arrest.
It took a Peer to unlock a Peer’s cooperation – and not with a bribe, but with an appeal to legitimacy and class solidarity.
Casimir’s lips were warm, his breath sweet. Macnamara, without a seat, crouched on the floor behind the driver and looked anywhere but at Sula sitting on Casimir’s lap. The cliquemen nudged each other and grinned. Spence watched with frank interest.
The driver kept off the limited-access expressways and onto the smaller streets where he had options. Even so he managed to get stuck in traffic. The van inched forward as the minutes ticked by, and then the driver cursed.
“Damn! Roadblock ahead!”
In an instant Sula was off Casimir’s lap and peering forward. Ahead she could see Naxids in the black-and-yellow uniforms of the Motor Patrol. Their four-legged bodies snaked eerily from side to side as they moved up and down the line of vehicles, peering at the drivers. One vehicle was stopped while the Patrol rummaged through its cargo compartment. The van was on a one-way street, its two lanes choked with traffic: it was impossible to turn around.
Sula’s heart was thundering in her chest as it never had when confronting Sergius or Lady Mitsuko. Ideas flung themselves at her mind, and burst from her lips in not-quite-complete sentences.
“Place to park?” she said urgently. “Garage? Pretend to make a delivery?”
The answer was no. Parking was illegal, there was no garage to turn into, and all the businesses on the street were closed at this hour.
Casimir’s shoulder clashed with hers as he came forward to scan the scene before them. “How many?”
“I can see seven,” Sula said. “My guess is that there are two or three more we can’t see from here. Say ten.” She pointed ahead, to an open-topped vehicle run partly up onto the sidewalk, with a machine gun mounted on the top and a Naxid standing behind it, the sun gleaming off his black beaded scales.
“Macnamara,” she said. “That gun’s your target.”
Macnamara had been one of the best shots on the training course, and his task was critical. The gunner didn’t even have to touch his weapon: all he had to do was put the reticule of his targeting system onto the van and press the go button: the gun itself would handle the rest, and riddle the vehicle with a couple thousand rounds. The gunner had to be taken out first.
And then the driver of the vehicle, because he could operate the gun from his own station.
A spare rifle had been brought for Sula, and she reached for it. There was no spare suit of armour and she suddenly felt the hollow in her chest where the bullets would lodge.
“We’ve got two police coming down the line towards us. One on either side. You two—” she indicated the driver and the other man in t
he front of the van “—you’ll pop them right at the start. The rest of us will exit the rear of the vehicle – Macnamara first, to give him time to set up on the gunner. The rest of you keep advancing – you’re as well-armed as the Patrol, and you’ve got surprise. If things don’t work out, we’ll split up into small groups – Macnamara and Spence, you’re with me. We’ll hijack vehicles in nearby streets and get out as well as we can.” Her mouth was dry by the time she finished, and she licked her lips with a sandpaper tongue. Casimir was grinning at her. “Nice plan,” he said.
Total fuckup, she thought, but gave what she hoped was an encouraging nod. She crouched on the rubberized floor of the van and readied her rifle.
“Better turn the transponder on,” Casimir said, and the driver gave a start, then gave a code phrase to the van’s comm unit.
Every vehicle in the empire was wired to report its location at regular intervals to a central data store. The cliquemen’s van had been altered so as to make this an option rather than a requirement, and the function had been turned off while the van was on its mission to Green Park. An unresponsive vehicle, however, was bound to be suspicious in the eyes of the Patrol.
“Good thought,” Sula breathed.
“Here they come.” Casimir ducked down behind the seat. He gave Sula a glance – his cheeks were flushed with colour, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. His grin was brilliant.
Sula felt her heart surge in response. She answered his grin, and then she felt that wasn’t enough. She lunged across the distance between them and kissed him hard.
Live or die, she thought. Whatever came, she was ready.
“They’re pinging us,” the driver growled. One of the Patrol had raised a hand comm and activated the transponder.
The van coasted forward a few seconds, then halted. Sula heard the front windows whining open to make it easier to shoot the police on either side.
The van had a throat-tickling odour of tobacco and terror. From her position on the floor she could see the driver holding a pistol alongside his seat. His knuckles were white on the grip. Her heart sped like a turbine in her chest. Tactical patterns played themselves out in her mind.