Hayson erupted, rushing at me from across the room until I could smell the whiskey on his breath. "Allies! Allies ask for help, not force each other. I would have helped you, Nidess. I stand by the agreements I make, you traitorous piece of dis!"
I felt no guilt. He pretended his rage was indignation, but really he was angry because I placed him in a fight he could have otherwise avoided.
I looked up into his face and held his gaze. Hayson was a frightening man, powerful and overbearing like a mabian soldier, but right now I was more afraid of forces above him. I was struggling for my life in the mouth of a kraaken, and I would have used Hayson's corpse as an oar if I had to.
"Will you do what I ask?" I said.
Hayson took one step backward and smacked me in the face. "I'll do what you ask you cankerous little frak, because I don't have a choice. Then I'm gonna take out every last one of these sick pieces of dis until there is no one left to threaten me. And then I'm coming for you."
Even before I hit the back of the sofa I could taste blood. "No. It's too risky." My lip felt as if someone had dragged a fish hook across the flesh. "These guys are powerful, and even if you don't start another internal war in the SP, we'll die before those agents."
"And I assume you have a better idea?"
"I'm going to let Colson do it."
Hayson's face looked like a gulper fish shoveling ocean krill into its mouth. "What?"
I explained to him everything I'd left out of the report. That Colson's real name was Ruby Lemmiston, that she had killed more than just Kenrey, and my hypothesis that these individuals had all raped her, or at least been present during the rapes.
"And I'm going to catch Ruby," I said, "and you and I can relax with no enemies and a lot more friends."
"She's a fracking serial killer," Hayson said.
I nodded. "One of the best I've ever seen."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "And you can arrange this?"
"Get me the names as fast as possible and yes. I'll also need a tablet registered to the SP, but no one in particular."
Hayson pulled me to my feet. "Why should I trust you?"
"Have you seen me fail yet?"
He paused before shaking his head.
"You need to do your best to keep us alive until I can pull it off."
"Alright."
"Use only people you trust completely. If what we're doing gets out then the whole thing is over." As he suffocated a drunken belch I felt it necessary to elaborate. "No network, all this has to be done the old fashioned way."
"Get out."
Once again I thought about asking for his help with Pressen. I needed Bensol removed before Pressen could get the stolen evidence from her, and still I was no closer to locating her. Now with the SP pedophile ring as well, it seemed too much for one man, but at this juncture I trusted Hayson less than ever. Our alliance relied on the appearance of strength. If he thought I was weak, he might try and use the evidence to destroy me, attempting to dissociate himself from me in the eyes of the SP. It wouldn't work, but I couldn't trust him to know that.
I retreated slightly. "When you get the name of the superior, get one of your guys to book out several rooms of the Attari Baths in Palias for two days from now under his name." I handed him the address written on a piece of paper.
When I got back, Becky looked at me as if I was a soldier returning from a war zone. "What happened to your face?"
"Hayson took exception to my conduct."
Sikes opened his draw and pulled out one of his dusters. "It's clean, use this."
The three of us went back down to the laundry room. I had reconsidered the necessity of the journey as it was improbable that the listening devices in my office were higher caliber than the ones in the President's palace – even under the circumstances, taking steps above my unconscionably expensive interference device was recognizably paranoia – but it would look stupid if we didn't do it again when I dictated the plan of action.
In front of a machine full of murky brown water that looked as if someone had been washing my slider, I explained the plan, careful not to openly specify that I'd deliberately put Sikes' uncle in danger.
"So..." said Sikes, when I finished. "Effectively what you're suggesting is that these people are too powerful to run away from, so the sensible course of action is to fight them."
I laughed. "If they're dead they can't hunt us. Your uncle will give us the names we want tomorrow."
"So what should we do until then?" asked Sikes as we left.
"Go do something you enjoy," said Becky, "for tomorrow you may be dead." She grinned at Sikes as if she were the one chasing him.
"Frak you, Becky. They'll go for you before they go for me."
Sikes departed like a man determined to cross the highest summit in the Line of Knives, and Becky watched him leave ruefully before turning to me. "Shall we go for a drink?"
I called for a taxi. If we were about to die, then I wasn't about to spend my last hours gassing myself on my own vomit. "Any suggestions?" I didn't want to look at Molvinos again, and my head hurt too much to think of somewhere else.
"How about Cosy Moe's?"
"Never heard of it, sounds good."
Moe's was considerably less flash than Molvinos, and quieter. The tables were old, and the ceiling was decorated with dried hops smelling faintly of air-freshener. I bought us two drinks, mine non-alcoholic, and we sat down at the back on a fold out table that barely extended away from the wall.
We both sipped our drinks. I wanted to ask about last night, but I could not summon the fortitude. She seemed to be waiting for the question, but still the words wouldn't come. I gazed around the room, examining the pictures in wooden frames on the wall. No one used wood anymore, so most likely it was fake.
"We need to discuss last night." I felt lecherous, sitting opposite a beautiful girl a decade my junior. "I know you said you don't want a relationship, and if that's the case I won't take exception to it, but..." I trailed off unable to conclude the thought. "Basically, I'm confused."
She stared up at the yellow flowers on the ceiling. "I told you I got kicked out of school when I was a kid, but I never told you it was for a boy; one cycle above me, and cleverer than anyone in the state. Not every girl's dream with his scruffy blond hair and teeth that might have been hit with a club, but he made me forget my problems. I would have followed him anywhere. So when he quit school and joined the protests against Clazran coming to power, I went with him."
My glass slipped from my hand, sloshing purple liquid onto the table as it landed with a thud. "You marched during the Season of False Mercy!"
She nodded. "I cared about the cause, but not that much. As far as I could see, Clazran was no worse than Granian, and we'd had him for thirteen cycles. I was there for Solson – although at the time I deluded myself otherwise. For three months Clazran let us parade around Blay square, sign petitions, and protest in the streets. Then the Rapture happened.
"People started disappearing with no explanation. Neighbors would wake up to find the house next to them empty, or husbands might come out of the shower to find their wives had committed suicide. Children were orphaned in droves until those that were left either fled or did Clazran's work for him. There were some who fought, but Solson didn't last that long. I went over to his house one morning, and he and his father were nowhere to be seen. There was no sign of a fight, but I never saw him again."
I put my hand on hers as she had done for me when our roles were reversed. "I'm sorry."
She looked away. "Now we have that guillotine to remind us of his mercy."
Blay Square. The archaic symbol of ruthless oppression sat in the very center of Main Street, a monument to Clazran's power.
"After the Rapture they wouldn't let me back to school," said Becky. "The headmaster knew my relationship with Solson, and he didn't want to get involved. So instead I spent my days working in kitchens and streets, wherever I could work for as long as they we
re willing to pay me."
I chewed my lip as I listened. I'd never met anyone involved in the Season of False Mercy. It was commonly believed that they were all dead. "So why did they never come for you?"
"I don't know. But while I can never forgive Clazran for his role in what happened, neither can I forgive myself. I let myself be led into that massacre by someone more aware of what they wanted, and it would be the same with you. I want to make my own way."
"I would never put you in danger," I said, leaving off that currently the reverse was true.
"You know what I mean. If we were a couple, I would be forced to submit to your beliefs." She smiled. "We are too different. You bend in the wind, building yourself a fortress capable of weathering Clazran's stay, but that isn't me. Sure as Cythuria, I won't sit back and let him continue to allow child rape."
Words caught in my throat. I looked around to make sure nobody could hear us. There was a couple seated opposite each other two tables down that might have been able to hear us were they listening, but bouts of laughter and their constant touching of each other suggested they weren't. Nonetheless, I lowered my voice. "I can change. I could be a better man." Though I did not believe it. I wasn't even sure that Solson was a better man. He was dead now, and his contribution to society had been little besides. I was alive.
She shook her head, seeing the deceit as clearly as I did. "I wouldn't want you to even if you could."
*
The next morning, I awoke to a message from the PI I had following Pressen. It was the four words I had been dreading for so long but done nothing to prevent.
He has the evidence.
The evidence I had specifically denied the existence of in a bid to free a now convicted terrorist. A story was one thing, any fool could make a claim, but proof of my guilt was quite another. Even if I found Ruby and killed her, Clazran could not turn a blind eye to that. I would be a traitor and we only had one fate for those in The Kaerosh.
I had got too caught up in catching Ruby. She occupied my every waking thought, and Pressen had been cast aside even though he offered the greatest threat to my survival. That was how my mind worked, always focusing on what was interesting or challenging, rather than what was necessary. And now Pressen had the evidence.
I could no longer delude myself that I could wait until I was in the SP to deal with him. This demanded immediate action. Within days, Pressen would publish, and then I would be finished. I had no choice but to see the goblin, the creature who had most probably given Pressen the story in the first place.
I looked at my tablet, but there wasn't time. I was supposed to be in work an hour ago, and Hayson had made his feelings on my tardiness clear.
He was perched on his desk like a man who would never look at whiskey again. "Are you ever going to arrive on time?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "I got you the name. There is only one man overseeing the operation – he watches everything regarding this pedophile ring of yours – kill him, and he'll stop sending people to kill us." He paused. "At least until they choose a successor."
He handed me a slip of paper with two names on it, one of which I recognized. "The top name, Rezir Loshe, is the sick frak you want to kill. The second guy is a boss, or at least that's his codename. They don't come much higher up the chain of command than this guy, and he's a known contact of Loshe. If he asks to meet, Loshe should be there."
"And the tablet?"
He picked up a box with a brand new tablet in it off the desk, cupping it in both hands. "If anyone ever finds out you have this, it won't just be Loshe trying to kill you. The entire SP will come down on you like the jaws of a dragon. My advice is to destroy it immediately."
I nodded. "Did you book the bath house?"
"Private bath rooms 8-10. You're going to need more men than the three of you if you're hoping to catch the mutant in a place that big. I'll give you a few extra officers I trust. I already told Wolsad to report to Sikes, but I'll group together a few more, and tell them to wait for you in briefing room 32. How are you planning to get Ruby there?"
"The fewer people that know the better. If I need you, I'll call and make some innocuous report containing the word gun, in which case meet me at Molvinos as soon as you can."
"Don't frak this up, or I'll make sure you're dead before I am."
I unwrapped the tablet walking back to my office. Only the SP had tablets that didn't need registering. The watchers remained unwatched. I typed the message: Rezir. Meet me at the Attari Baths, Room 9, tomorrow P:30. Huke.
Now I had to wait and see if Loshe would respond. If he was incredibly suspicious he might think it was a trap from someone inside the SP, but that made no sense. SP black ops liked to kill people before they ever knew they were in danger, not send them suspicious invites to public places.
For a split-click a bleeping sound made me think Loshe was responding, but the noise came from my other tablet. Sikes and Becky were back with the new pimp. It was time to put the other side of the plan into effect.
I joined them outside in a police slider van. As we had basically abducted a man, it was parked in one of the less used streets that were mainly vacant because not even the homeless wanted to live in buildings so close to a police station.
The pimp sat with both hands behind his back, his arms the width of cannons, his cheeks scarred by adult acne, and a thick layer of grease covering his hair like wet spaghetti. As if the Kaeroshi winter were a myth, he wore nothing more than a cotton T-shirt over his rib vest, showing a sequence of skulls eating each other in a ring. He couldn't have looked more stereotypically revolting if he was drooling through a toothless mouth and masturbating over a murdered whore.
I sat down opposite him and exhaled slowly as Sikes rolled the door shut. "Can we get you a coat, Mr. Oldan?"
He struggled once against the chains before relenting. "You're all gonna die for this."
"If anyone is going to die here it's you, but that won't happen if you co-operate."
He gobbed a big ball of spit onto the floor. "I could kill all four of you with my hands tied behind my back."
I didn't doubt him. Wolsad, the man Hayson trusted sufficiently to give us for help, was as thin as I was short. His sleeves, no wider than a cup of jaffee, hung loosely on his arms, and his head narrowed at the top as if someone had drawn a face on a bottle. Resisting the urge to look around him to see if he had restrained the pimp properly, I began to fill the syringe in my pocket with vansetomia, the same paralyzing solution Ruby used. The network suggested even a tiny dose of it would leave Oldan instantly unable to move his limbs.
I wasn't taking any chances. The van we'd been given would have been well placed at a scrap yard. All vehicles in The Kaerosh had some degree of rust on the outside, but in this van lines of rough brown ran from floor to ceiling, flaking around spots of yellow. It was half surprising the anti-grav kept it hovering.
"There is something we want you to do for us, Mr. Oldan," I said, "and then we'll let you go."
"Piss on it. You'll let me go right now, or I'll rip you all to pieces."
I sighed. The man Rake killed couldn't have been any worse than this. "Listen you dim-witted oaf, none of your friends even know you're here. Help isn't coming for you any time soon, so unless you think you can fight your way loose of those restraints, you either cooperate or you die."
"Wanna see me fight midget?" he said. Metal jingled, something snapped as 130 kilos of muscles rushed at me.
Terrified almost into paralysis, I stuck the needle out just in time for him to run into it, squirting the liquid into his body. His lifeless mass collapsed on top of me, crushing the air out of me.
The vehicle swayed as Sikes and Wolsad pulled his limp body off and placed him on the floor in his own spit. "You alright?" asked Sikes. "Guess we're gonna need thicker cuffs."
My heart still beating to a drum roll, I checked his restraints. The chain and the cuffs had both held as they were designed to, but the bolt at the bottom, itself
more oxide than metal, had sprung from a pit of crumbling brown flakes that wouldn't have had the strength to hold a man half Oldan's size.
I nudged him with the end of my toe. "This isn't working. He'll be out now for a few hours at least, and we never even told him what we wanted him to do. Which one of you arrested him?"
Sikes raised a hand.
"Wolsad, I need you to be a pimp."
Wolsad's face grayed as if he'd been eating rotten fish. "I can't be a pimp. The wife will kill me."
"I just need you to tell the girl, Kathryn, that she has a client tomorrow called Rezir Loshe at the Attari bath houses in Palias."
"What if she doesn't believe me? What if someone comes by looking for him?"
Becky laughed. "Say he's ill to anyone who comes asking, but the girls know we took him, so you'll have to tell them that we arrested him for lewd behavior or something, and you're his replacement. They'll understand your need to lie to clients and associates."
"I don't know," said Wolsad. "Mr. Hayson didn't say anything about impersonating pimps. I should probably go check with him."
As Wolsad made for the door, Sikes dragged him back, forcing him into one of the seats. As Sikes moved away, I rounded on him. "There's no time for that. Hayson wants you to do whatever I say, and those are my orders."
"But it'll be so obvious I don't have a clue what I'm doing."
"You tell the girls you're a temp and get them to help you. In fact, get Kathryn to help you, and let slip subtly that the next day she will be going to the baths to meet Rezir Loshe. Other than that, keep business running as usual."
"I don't think I can do this. Why can't Sikes do it?"
"Because someone might have seen him arrest Loshe. It needs to be you. It's not hard, Wolsad. Most likely the only people there will be a bunch of little girls. They'll tell you what to do. And remember, if you do this right, Hayson will rain promotions on you. This job could be the making of you."
He looked up, assessing me for mockery before he shrugged. "Alright."
The Iron Swamp Page 28