“Come here, please, Mr. Jurgens.”
Jurgens walked over to where Purny was standing. She pointed at the audio/video pickup exposed from the lamp on the side table.
“Would you care to explain this?”
“I don’t understand, madam.”
“Explain why our hotel room is bugged. Here.”
She pointed at the exposed pickup.
“Here.”
She pointed at the pickup hanging from the ceiling light fixture. She grabbed Jurgens by the hand and dragged him along, pointing them out as they went.
“Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.”
The last three were in the bedroom.
“You got some pervert on the night shift who likes to watch your guests fuck? Is that it, Ralph? Or some scat-boy who likes to watch people take a shit?”
“Madam, I assure you I had no knowledge–“
“I assure you that’s a load of crap. We were put in this room deliberately. By you and your staff. All well and good. I’m an investigative reporter for Galactic News Service, and you can rest assured this incident will figure prominently in an exposé article I’m writing on Dalnimir.”
“Madam, I implore you–“
“Then tell me why we were put in this room. Who called you?”
Jurgens looked around at the bugs. He clearly didn’t want to say anything in range of any of them.
“Very well,” Purny said. “Makes you nervous the boss is listening, huh? Fine. Put us in another room. We’ll sweep that room while you watch. Then you can tell me just what the fuck is going on here.”
When they had been moved to another room on the same floor, and the bell hops who moved their luggage had left, Culligan swept the room carefully.
“It’s clean,” he said to Purny.
Purny turned on the manager.
“OK. Out with it. Who called you?”
“Madam, I beg you.”
“Look, Mr. Jurgens. It won’t do any good. I am going to get to the bottom of what is going on here. I will expose who’s behind this. And there are no pickups in this room. When I track them down, they will never believe you didn’t tell me. You’re only hope right now is to tell me what’s going on and hope I get to them before they get to you.”
Jurgens looked around desperately, as if seeking a route of escape. Purny gave him one. She signaled Culligan in VR, then spoke to Jurgens.
“Mr. Jurgens. Tell me what’s going on. Who called you. Then walk out of the hotel and go on two weeks’ vacation. Camping somewhere remote. Don’t tell anyone where you’re going. I’ll even give you a little toy to help out.”
Culligan handed her a small device, about the size of a deck of cards, and she showed it to Jurgens.
“Personal VR suppressor. Put it in your front shirt pocket, this end up, and turn it on here.”
She pointed at the switch.
“They won’t be able to track you by your VR signal.”
She pulled it back.
“But if you don’t tell me, you can’t have it. And they’ll still think you told me.”
Reports And Reactions
“Well, now we know,” Purny said after Jurgens had hurriedly left.
“Yes. Dalnimir Bureau of Police.”
“Whose director reports directly to Knowlton.”
“Well, we don’t really have anything on Director Dennler and Planetary Governor Knowlton,” Culligan said. “Jurgens said it was Mitch Golden who called him. Dennler’s assistant director.”
“And the odds Dennler isn’t behind this are exactly zero.”
“That was all splendidly done, by the way.”
“So have we stirred things up enough yet?” Purny asked.
“Well, we’ve only been on the planet for five hours. That’s a good first day’s work, though.”
“So what’s next?”
“Start poking around,” Culligan said. “Looking into police records and such. All above board and public.”
“This is all going to get messy fast, isn’t it?”
“Probably. I do hope Mr. Jurgens survives all this.”
“I do, too,” Purny said. “He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I thought about some kind of protective custody under Imperial law or something, But what are the odds the Imperial Police here aren’t corrupted?”
“Zero. There’s likely no way this could be going on without their collusion.”
“So I decided Jurgens is better off going to ground on his own.”
“That’s probably true,” Culligan said.
“Question is, Is there any institution on Dalnimir that isn’t corrupted?”
“Probably not.”
“Not even Imperial Navy or Marines?” Purny asked.
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
They were both lost in their thoughts for a moment.
“Actually, there may be one,” Culligan said. “Uncorrupted institution on Dalnimir, that is. The Imperial Guard is incorruptible. Always has been. I don’t know if they have any presence on Dalnimir, though.”
Culligan got a distant look on his face, then snorted.
“One guy. An Imperial Guard captain on detached duty to the Imperial Marines.”
“Yeah,” Purny said. “We had those guys once in a while. They’re on detached duty, but they wear the fourragère.”
“Well, one guy isn’t going to do us much good at the moment.”
“How big is the Marine detachment here?”
“Division,” Culligan said.
“Really?”
“Well, it is a provincial capital. It’s a provincial detachment.”
“OK. That makes sense,” Purny said. “Who’s commanding?”
“Major General Phillip Daltrey.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Don’t forget,” Culligan said. “He’s likely been subverted.”
“I know.”
She sighed.
“This makes Julian seem simple. At least there we knew who the enemy was.”
Culligan and Purny filed reports that evening. Of course, they both filed reports with Section Six. Purny also filed a report with Galactic News Service’s Investigative Reporting Division, her organization for her current cover assignment. The reverberations from these reports would ring all the way to Center and back.
And theirs weren’t the only reports from Dalnimir headed west into the heart of the Empire.
“Hey, George. Did you see this?” asked Joseph Hammer, Eastern Desk editor for the GNS Investigative Reporting Division.
“No, what’s that?” asked George Entwhistle, senior editor for the IRD.
“Read this report from Jan Purny.”
“Who?”
“You know. That woman Stauss transferred to us,” Hammer said.
“Dieter’s spy?”
“Maybe not. She’s got a hot one. Just read it.”
Entwhistle read the report and swore under his breath..
“A hot one? I’ll say. So who do you think is behind x-raying her luggage?”
“Two guesses. First one doesn’t count.”
“Planetary police again, like the bugging? What a mess. Where’s our Dalnimir office been during all this?”
“Subverted by the politicians, most likely,” Hammer said. “You know how the field office people love being in favor with the politicians. It gets them invited to all the good parties.”
“Well, let’s give her some cover. Send a complaint up to Stauss about his Grand Terran Lines. The hotel, too, come to think of it. That’s probably his. Then register an official GNS complaint with both Grand Terran Lines and the hotel chain. Make it from the Publisher to the CEOs. See if we can’t stir things up from here a bit. I’ll let Mulgrew know it’s coming so he signs off.”
“You want me to notify the local GNS office?”
“No,” Entwhistle said. “They’ll get all in a huff about us not notifying them she was coming in the first place. It’s her story. Let her r
un with it. Hell, she’s gotten more action in one day than they have in ten years.”
He shook his head.
“I thought sure she was some kind of corporate spy for Dieter Stauss. But we may get the most explosive story out of her I’ve seen in years.”
Dieter Stauss also saw Jan Purny’s report. He knew she was actually Ann Turley, of course. He had transferred her into GNS at Gerry Conner’s request. It looked like she and Gulliver had really stepped into a viper’s nest on Dalnimir. What the hell was going on out there, anyway?
He composed stern letters to the CEOs of both Grand Terran Lines and Luxury Properties, Ltd., the hotel chain of which the Capitol View Hotel on Dalnimir was a part, reminding them of both the Empire’s laws regarding privacy and their own corporate policies.
He certainly hoped Ann Turley and Paul Gulliver would be OK, given the nature of what they’d gotten into, but he knew their actual mission orders came from another quarter.
Gerry Conner baited his hook, then cast his line out on the water. The sinker hit with a plop, and the bobber popped back up. He set the lock on the reel, then set the pole in the socket on the gunwale. He sat back comfortably in his seat and logged into his office in Section Six.
Conner read the independent reports filed by Gulliver and Turley. So the warnings had been correct. All was not well on Dalnimir, and it had taken the pair mere hours to prove it. How bad it would prove to be, and how high the rot went, was another question.
Conner wrote a précis and sent it to the Emperor, with a copy to the Empress, and included the raw reports as attachments.
“Your Majesty, General MacFarland is here,” Steven Dillard said.
Dillard was the Emperor’s Personal Secretary, replacing Darrel Hawker when Hawker became Co-Consul ten years back. Imperial General Sean MacFarland was the commandant of the Imperial Guard.
“Be seated, General MacFarland,” Dunham said.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
“You asked for this meeting, General MacFarland. Please go ahead.”
“Yes, Sire. I am increasingly worried about the situation on Dalnimir. I previously alerted you to disturbing reports filed by an Imperial Guard member on detached duty with the Marine division deployed there. His most recent report is the most disturbing yet.”
“I’ve seen his reports, General MacFarland. The situation on Dalnimir is currently being investigated. It has taken some time to get the proper resources on site, but they are there now, and I should know more soon.”
“Is there anything I need to do to assist, Sire?”
“Not at the current time, General MacFarland.”
Dunham thought about it, then continued.
“Let me ask you this, General MacFarland. Your detached Guardsman. He’s a captain, right?”
“Yes, Sire. Captain Daniel Parnell. He graduated the Imperial Marine Academy at twenty-one, six years ago.”
“So it would be early to make him a major.”
“Yes, Sire. Quite early. A brevet promotion for a specific purpose would be more appropriate, I would think. He’s a very capable young officer, and I trust him to act appropriately.”
“Very well, General MacFarland. Take no action now, but you might wish to inform General Trujillo a reserve activation may be necessary.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“A heads-up to Captain Parnell might also be in order, General MacFarland.”
“Yes, Sire.”
“That is all for now, General MacFarland.”
The Emperor and Empress – Robert Allen Dunham IV and Amanda Joy Peters – were in their private living room in the Imperial Residence that evening after dinner.
“Did you see the reports on Dalnimir?” Peters asked.
“Yes. It looks like our long-lost pair from Julian have stirred things up a bit.”
“Three whole months in travel, and a mere five hours after their arrival they’ve exposed the rats.”
Dunham chuckled.
“It’s all that time they spent cooped up on board ship. It’s hard to imagine those two being so confined for so long without using a plasma bottle. Still, they’ve only scratched the surface.”
“Do you have any doubt, if the planetary police are up to this sort of thing, Mr. Dennler and Mr. Knowlton aren’t involved?”
“No,” Dunham said. “Which likely implicates Provincial Governor Pearson as well. Still, I have no proof.”
“Knowlton is elected. Removing him would cause a stink.”
“And Pearson serves at Sector Governor Gerber’s pleasure. I probably can’t do anything to Pearson without removing Gerber as well.”
“But you can remove Gerber for incompetence even if he isn’t involved,” Peters said. “It’s his job not to let this sort of thing go on.”
“True enough. And removing a sector governor for cause gets the rest to tidy up a bit. For a while at least.”
“But this also means the initial warnings from the Imperial Guard were correct.”
“Yes,” Dunham said. “It was General MacFarland’s young captain on Dalnimir who first sounded the alarm in his reports. That’s the reason we sent Turley and Gulliver out there to look into it in the first place.”
“I saw he filed another report this week.”
“General MacFarland came in to talk to me about that today. I told him to do nothing now, but to warn General Trujillo there might be a reserve activation on Dalnimir.”
“Activate the Marines on Dalnimir?” Peters asked. “But aren’t they corrupted as well? That’s what Parnell’s warnings were about.”
“Yes, but there are two Marines on Dalnimir in whom I have complete faith.”
“Two? Parnell and who else.”
“General Turley,” Dunham said.
Peters eyebrows shot up.
“You going to activate her reserve commission?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“But she’s only a brigadier,” Peters said. “The Marine commander on Dalnimir is a major general.”
“Turley was on the brink of promotion to major general when she retired. And she carried out the Julian operation since.”
“So you make her a lieutenant general. Oh, that would work. It would cause a hell of a stink, but it would work.”
“And if General MacFarland activates the Marines as Imperial Guard Reserve, she reports directly to him. Actually, it may be better to make her lieutenant general in the Imperial Guard.”
They sat for a bit, then Peters spoke up again.
“Do you think Turley and Gulliver are safe?”
“No. Not at all. They’re in grave danger.”
“I hope they’ll be OK.”
“We’ll have to see how it plays out.”
“I need you to see something,” said Dalnimir Bureau of Police director Timothy Dennler.
“What’s it about?” asked Dalnimir Planetary Governor Hugh Knowlton.
“Those two I mentioned – the investigative reporter and the university professor – they detected the x-ray of their luggage. They also detected the bugging of the hotel room they were placed in. They’re raising holy hell, and people here are starting to refuse to cooperate with us.”
“How can they refuse to cooperate with the police?”
“They tell us to get a warrant, or no deal,” Dennler said. “The CEOs of Grand Terran Lines and Luxury Properties, Ltd. are starting investigations. I’m told Dieter Stauss raised hell and they won’t buck him.”
“How did Dieter Stauss get involved?”
“That reporter, Jan Purny, works for GNS, which is owned by Dieter Stauss.”
“Shit,” Knowlton said. “Stauss is really bad news.”
“Other than being filthy rich, what’s so bad about Stauss?”
“Don’t forget who showed up at his father’s funeral six years ago. If he wants to just call the Emperor, he can.”
“Oh, shit,” Dennler said. “I forgot all about that. Well, that just makes this worse.”
<
br /> “Makes what worse?”
“What I wanted to show you. Look at this.”
Dennler pushed Knowlton a short video clip. It was of Purny walking up to the pickup in their hotel room and waving at the camera.
“Hi, fellas. Better tell your boss we’re coming for him and his friends. Maybe they want to get out of town while they still can.”
A chill ran down Knowlton’s spine.
“Fuck.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Dennler said. “And we know she pressured the hotel manager to tell her who ordered them being placed in a bugged room, but she did it off camera, so we don’t know what he told her.”
“Have you talked to the hotel manager?”
“We tried to pick him up, but he’s gone to ground.”
“Did you track his VR?” Knowlton asked.
“We tried to, but his VR is not responding. He’s gone off-line. It may be a personal VR suppressor.”
“Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”
“Now what do we do?” Dennler asked.
“Let me talk to Pearson. See what he thinks.”
Captain Daniel Parnell, Imperial Guard, received a cryptic message on Imperial Fleet Base Dalnimir. He was shocked to see it came from Imperial General MacFarland, the commandant of the Imperial Guard. He was even more shocked by the contents.
To: Captain Daniel Parnell
From: Imperial General Sean MacFarland
Subject: Stand By Pending Orders
Stand by for possible activation of Imperial Guard reserves to render assistance to Imperial officials. Consider carefully who you can trust.
More Stirring The Pot
Howell Culligan walked up to the information desk in the Stolits Police Department headquarters.
“Yes. May I help you?” the clerk asked.
“Records Department, please.”
“Eighteenth floor, to the right.”
“Thank you.”
Culligan took an elevator to the eighteenth floor, and found the records office. He entered and went up to the counter.
“Yes. May I help you?” the clerk asked.
“Yes. I notice some records required to be public are not available in the VR system.”
EMPIRE: Investigation Page 6