by David Ryker
“Sadler left me a trail to follow.”
Cootes raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“She got a tattoo, just like the one that merc had on Ganymede — exactly the same. Same UV-ink code hidden in it, too. She got it for me to find.”
“Go on.”
“She had a cyber-doc poking around in her eyes, too. We managed to track him down—”
“We?”
“An SB Half-Breed they put on me. Green or not, she’s proving hard to shake. She’s sharp though, and I could use someone watching my back on this one.”
“What’s her name?”
“Arza. Erica.”
“Arza?” Cootes’ eyebrows shot up. “Not related to Ferlish Arza?”
Ward looked at him, trying to read the surprise in his expression. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
Cootes laughed a little. “Decorated SB investigator, now senior advisor to the UMR Defense Committee.”
Ward smiled briefly. “Who knows — probably. Got a pretty Swedish wife?”
“Yup.”
Ward stuck his bottom lip out. “Good to know.”
Cootes sighed, knowing Ward wouldn’t say anything else on the matter. It wasn’t really pertinent, anyway — though to Ward it was interesting. “So, the doc,” Cootes continued. “You need me to see what I can dig up?”
Ward shook his head. “No, he’s dead.”
“Am I going to like this?”
“Do you ever like anything?”
“You didn’t shoot him, did you?”
“No.”
Cootes smiled a little. “Well, that’s a start.”
“We got to his clinic — he was already there, shot to pieces. Freshly so, too. Whoever did it knew we were coming and went back to tie it all up.”
“Sadler’s accomplices? The shooter?”
Ward nodded. “I’d bet on that horse. These guys are smart, and connected, and well-financed, too. They tried to put us in a frame. Left the murder weapon, coated the place in GSR, called in the SB on us.”
“Why didn’t you surrender yourselves? Show your badges?” Cootes was playing devil’s advocate. He had to get the whole story before he made any moves.
“We didn’t have a chance before they started shooting. They were looking to sew it up there and then, stamp out the trail and us with it — stall out the investigation long enough for the prime minister to get back, and then…”
“Pop.” Cootes nodded slowly. “So you think there’s a leak at the SB?”
Ward shrugged. “A leak, or someone’s been greased. Me and Arza only found out about the cyber about thirty minutes before we got there. Someone must have been watching us, or listening in — or, I don’t know — seen that a magic eye clocked us going into a different doc’s. They realized we were close and then reacted. Still, takes some pull to get that many wheels turning so quickly. I just want to know how deep this runs.”
“Okay. Is there anything else I need to know?”
Ward thought for a second. “Do the numbers one, seven, eight, three, one, two, one, eight mean anything to you?”
“One, seven, eight…”
“Three, one, two one, eight.”
He lifted his eyes memorizing them. “Nothing leaps out. I’ll think about it and let you know.”
“Thanks. Could be nothing, but I’ve got a feeling it isn’t.”
Cootes nodded. “All right. I’ll see what I can find out. In the meanwhile… Hell, there’s no point me telling you to keep your head down, is there?”
Ward lifted his head and stared out over the city. “Not really.”
“Shit, well then, at least try not to get yourself killed, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You always do, Miller.”
“Stay safe, Cootes.”
“Stay by the phone. I’ll reach out soon.” He turned back toward his car, a sleek black affair that looked like a scarab beetle, glinting in the sun, and got in.
He peeled away quickly in a cloud of dust and sped off down the highway, leaving Ward alone with the smell of cooking rooster meat and a sinking feeling that the day was far from over yet.
9
Ward wiped his mouth and tossed the greasy napkin into the trash can that Bluk kept next to his trolley, and then took off up the hill toward his bike.
He threw his leg over and let things turn in his mind, moving on autopilot as he did. Was something about that tattoo that he was missing? He could visualize it in his head, but without being able to see it on his phone again, it was like all memories, skewed by the very thought of it. He regretted for a second smashing his and Arza’s communicators, but it had been the right call. They couldn’t be traced back to the safehouse, and leaving them intact would just make it easy for whoever picked them up to sift through their lives. No, it was definitely the right call.
Ward sighed and cranked the bike, pulling back on the throttle and swinging onto the highway. Whoever had put a hit on them had missed their chance, and it would be tough to get them in the crosshairs again — firstly because Ward was expecting it, and secondly, because they’d tried to make it look like an accidental, and justifiable, shooting. Just gunning him down on the street wouldn’t be easy to cover up. So as long as he didn’t back himself into any corners, he figured he was reasonably safe, though he wasn’t going to stick his head above the parapets unless he really needed to.
He started threading his way back through the city toward the coroner’s office before he knew where he was going. He needed to get in to see Sadler again, check out her tattoo, snap a fresh picture. Get his brain working. Now that he knew the code was for him, he hoped seeing it in situ would help get the wheels in his head turning.
He pulled up on the next street over, just before an intersection, and circled the block on foot toward the coroner’s. He wanted at least two routes to his bike and at least four to choose from after that. He wasn’t taking any chances this time. In the safe house, he’d swapped out his jeans and riding boots for a pair of utility pants, lighter and more forgiving, and a set of lightweight tac boots. They were easier to run in — that much was certain.
He pushed into the cool interior and headed for the front desk. This time, it was manned. A human woman with harsh features, almond-shaped eyes, and black hair pulled back into a tight bun, looked up from the computer screen and stared at him. “Hello,” she said, an air of who the hell are you ringing through her words.
Ward touched his shoulder. He was out of pleasantries. Getting shot at would do that to you. “I’m SB — here to see a body. Anna Sadler.”
“Sadler?” She drew in a long breath. “I don’t know a… Ah, the human? The Jane Doe?”
Ward narrowed his eyes. “She wasn’t a Jane Doe — there was a positive match on her biometrics. I was here last night, I saw the report.”
The woman furrowed her brow and went back to the computer screen. “I don’t see any record of an Anna Sadler being here. We only have one female on the slab currently, but she hasn’t been positively identified.”
Ward growled under his breath. “Let me see her.”
She thought about denying him, or maybe asking for a reason, but the look on Ward’s face put her off. She smiled briefly and Ward took off around the desk.
“I know where I’m going.” He pushed through the door and walked toward the morgue.
The room was empty, the same antiseptic smell hanging in there from the night before. The autopsy table that Sadler had been on was now pristinely clean, bathed in the glow of the overhead halogens.
Ward glanced at it and then passed, heading for the stack of files on the desk. Sadler’s had been there last night.
He leafed through them quickly but didn’t find it.
The woman appeared at the doorway. “I don’t know what you’re expecting to find.”
“Where’s the information on your current cases?”
“There’s a terminal—” She’d barely raised h
er hand before Ward strode over to an upright panel of glass and started tapping on the interface.
“Is this it?”
“Is that what?” the woman replied with an audible indignity at his brusqueness.
“Where’s her file? There’s no record of her.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. As I said, we only have one female currently in our system, and she is a Jane Doe.”
“I want to see her,” Ward demanded.
The woman opened her mouth to protest, but then gestured to the drawers in the wall instead. “Number four. But I don’t know what you’re expecting to find.”
Ward was at the drawer in a second, pulling the clamp open and sliding the slab out. He threw back the white sheet and swore. It wasn’t Sadler. The girl, human, couldn’t have been more than mid-twenties. She looked Asian, her hair was hacked short and her face was blotchy with sunburn. Her lips were cracked, her eyelids crusted with salt. Ward only had to take one look at her hands to know she was a scrubber — an illegal, probably. It was tough to get people onto Mars, but not impossible if you knew who to bribe. There was a trade for it — promise people a better life than they have on Earth, bring them in, put them to work scrubbing on the flats to make money for the smuggler. Then, when they drop dead from exhaustion, there’s no trail and no trace. It was the perfect little evil business, and it was a growing problem on Mars. It wasn’t that common in Eudaimonia anymore, but it was an endemic thing in the developing cities.
Ward threw the sheet back over her and slid the girl into the wall.
“Satisfied?” the woman asked, voice thin and harsh.
“Where’s the coroner who was on duty last night?”
The woman was looking offended now. “His shift finished at eight this morning, but I don’t know what—”
“Who’s the coroner on duty now? Where is he?”
“On lunch, but—”
“Where?”
“Listen—”
Ward brushed her off. There wasn’t time for this. He turned and went through the door at the back of the lab and further into the building.
“Hey, you can’t just—” the woman started before her voice was cut off by the closing door behind Ward. He heard her come through it after him as he searched the rooms one by one, eventually finding the on-duty coroner having his lunch in a bare-walled break room that smelled like egg salad.
He looked up from his sandwich, a Half-Breed with a thin layer of gray hair slicked back to his wide head. “Yes?” he said stiffly, mouth full, staring at Ward’s angered face.
“I’m sorry,” the woman from the front desk said breathlessly, bursting into the room behind him. “I tried to—”
“No you didn’t,” Ward said bluntly, cutting her off. “Now shut up.”
Her mouth flapped and she paled a little, shrinking back to the door.
“You,” Ward demanded, turning back to the coroner, who was now staring up at Ward with the sort of expression that was going to get him punched if he didn’t give Ward the information he needed. “A woman was brought in yesterday — the shooting victim from Xaraniah Square. Anna Sadler.”
“Yes?” the coroner said. “What about her?”
Ward loosened a little. At least this guy had heard of her. “Where is she?”
“Her body?”
“Yes her body. What the hell else would I be asking for?”
The coroner’s face twisted and wrinkled with confusion. “She was cremated this morning.”
“What did you say?” Ward filled with rage.
“She was — I mean, I cremated her. First thing this morning.”
“On whose orders?”
The coroner looked from Ward to the secretary and back. “It was Salva’s order. I have the request if you—”
“Yes. Show me.”
The coroner took another look at his half-eaten sandwich and then put it down, sighing loudly. He pushed back unhurriedly and got up, walking out into the lab.
Ward followed at his shoulder as he approached the terminal Ward had gone to and started churning through pages, huffing as he did.
A screen appeared with the words ‘Cremation Request’ at the top. The notes stated that the investigation was complete, no further action was required, and that the body was to be disposed of immediately. It was complete with Salva’s signature and biometric confirmation.
“When I came in this morning, she was already in the incinerator. All I had to do was throw the switch. I never thought that—”
Ward ground his teeth. “Show me her file.”
The coroner sighed loudly again, as though it would make Ward more polite. “All right.” He started tapping on the terminal. After a few seconds, he stopped. “Huh,” he said ominously. “There doesn’t appear to be a record of her on our system. Let me check the paper records.”
He turned and walked past Ward, still not seeing the graveness of what was happening. He stopped at a steel cabinet next to the drawers and opened it, humming gently as he spidered through the files. He finished looking and turned over his shoulder. “That is strange,” he mused, finally looking at Ward. “Her file is empty. There’s no report there.”
Ward’s nostrils flared, his brain churning. “Salva. What did he say when you came in?”
The coroner thought for a second. “I didn’t see him. By the time I got here, he’d already left.”
“Does that usually happen? The lab being left without an on-duty coroner?”
“Not usually, but sometimes these things happen. I may have been a few minutes late — he might have gone a few minutes early. I don’t really see what the issue is, though.”
“The issue?” Ward almost laughed. He wasn’t even going to dignify that with a response. “Salva’s address,” he demanded. “Now.”
“If you tell me what’s going on, then—”
“What’s going on is that if you don’t get me his goddamn address in the next five seconds I’m going to arrest you for obstruction and have you stripped of your license.” There was no need for the threat of violence. The guy had a face like wet dough and just being in the same room as Ward had made his testicles retreat up into his body.
The coroner raised his eyebrows in mild shock and then glanced toward the door that held his half-eaten egg salad. “Fine,” he grumbled, “follow me. The personnel files are in the other room.”
Ward cast a spurious look at the secretary, who was glaring at him, and then followed the coroner. This stunk to high heaven, and though he was trying to convince himself that it might not be the case, he knew that he was going to find Salva dead.
Twenty minutes later when he kicked in the door of his apartment, he found that, as usual, he was right.
Salva had been dead for probably six hours. His apartment wasn’t askew, and there was no sign of forced entry.
He was sitting at his kitchen table, a modest thing with an aluminum top, a single bullet-wound between the eyes.
His bag was on the surface in front of him, open and empty.
He’d marked Sadler for cremation, wiped the electronic file and taken the paper one. Someone had either coerced him into doing it and then double-crossed him, or they’d paid him to do it and killed him, or he’d done it of his own volition, and then been killed. There was no way to tell if he was mixed up in it or if he was just a casualty of whatever shadow war was being waged.
Ward swept the apartment quickly, being careful not to touch anything, and then pulled out his communicator.
He dialed the SB’s anonymous tip line and spoke quickly into the receiver. “I can hear a commotion,” he said, making his voice not his own. “I think someone’s been shot. Come quickly, please.”
He left without another word and rode back to Old-Town, his leads drying up by the second. Whoever was behind this sure as hell didn’t want to be caught with their pants down. But if they were so concerned about loose ends and staying hidden, then why the hell was Sadler gunne
d down in the middle of one of the busiest streets in the city, in the middle of rush hour?
Ward shook it off and got the hammer down, speeding away from Salva’s, rolling the numbers over in his head. There was something in them, but he didn’t know what. He was trying to attach them to dates or places, to incidents, but there was nothing to go on. A million possibilities.
Maybe Cootes would dig something up. He had to start thinking outside the box on this one. He’d head back to the apartment, wait for Arza, and formulate a plan.
He dreamed of Sadler.
The bed wasn’t uncomfortable, and he’d fallen asleep within a few minutes. For years he’d struggled, but now it was easy — a conscious detachment that allowed him to slip into the darkness.
Trying to find peace in sleep was always his goal, but it always seemed so far away. Once he accepted that there was no getting away from the nightmares, the memories tinged with blood and death being rammed down his throat, sleep was much easier, and much more restful.
Sadler was over him, staring down, her dark hair falling in curls around her face. Her cheeks were flecked with dirt, her eyes wide with fear — but Ward was calm, serene even. He wanted to reach up and touch her face, trace its lines with his fingers — let her push her cheek against his palm, but he couldn’t. He tried to lift his hand but there was nothing there — just a dull ache of absence. He tried to move, a flash of panic streaking through him, but he couldn’t. He was cold, the ringing that was making Sadler’s frantic words silent starting to ebb away. Gunfire streaked overhead in the smoke-tinged sky. He could feel Sadler’s hands on his flak-jacket, the picking of rocks against his heels as he was dragged. She was saying something. Something about Earth. About New York, he thought. The taste of blood was in his mouth. He couldn’t breathe properly.
“I’ve always wanted to go,” she was saying. “You’ve been, right?”
Ward nodded weakly. She was grinning, but not really. It was a mask that was doing a terrible job of hiding the fear and dread carved into her cheeks.