by Dan Moren
Despite his age – his eyebrows and hair had gone ash gray – the man stood ramrod straight, and from the way his eyes tracked compatriots it was clear that his faculties were no less sharp for his removal from the field of battle. In some ways, Eli reflected, the man reminded him of the general. Well, they’re both Illyrican, so that’s not too shocking.
“You think the envoy will touch base with him?”
“I think that Dubois is the kind of guy who likes to know what’s going on in his patch. He’s worth keeping an eye on.”
“I hope you don’t expect me to introduce myself. My days of sticking my head in the lion’s mouth are, well, never.”
With a roll of her eyes, Taylor snagged a flute of champagne from a nearby tray, and with a too-sweet smile at Eli, latched herself onto a nearby group in animated conversation about the state of the galactic economy.
Eli sighed and picked up a glass as well, staring wistfully at it. It’s probably not poisoned, you idiot.
“Vintage not to your taste?” said a voice from his side. “I can’t blame you. Give me a good burgundy any day. But I suppose beggars can’t be choosers.”
The voice came attached, Eli discovered, to a middle-aged white man with short, thinning gray hair. In younger days, he’d probably been quite muscled, but the years had turned much of that to bulk, though Eli wasn’t sure he’d call him fat. Certainly not to his face. He was about of a height with Eli, and there was something of a twinkle in his eye that made Eli think of a kindly uncle – the one that doesn’t miss a trick, and wouldn’t dream of selling you out.
“Cheers,” said the man, raising his glass and taking a sip.
Eli raised his own glass. “I’ve… I’m afraid I’ve given up drinking.”
“Really?” said the man, smacking his lips. “How terrible for you; I find I need at least a few rounds to get me through these tedious affairs.” He paused, and looked somewhat abashed. “I’m sorry, that was insensitive, wasn’t it?”
“Not at all,” said Eli, trying on a wry smile. “But I have to admit, I feel out of place at one of these things if I’m not holding a drink.”
“Ah, yes. Social conventions and necessities. Believe me, I completely understand.”
“You go to a lot of these, then?”
“Afraid so.”
“Any survival tips?”
The man pursed his lips. “Get to the food early, stay on the sides of the room, and – as much as possible – let everyone else do the talking.”
Eli gave a judicious nod. “Wise council, sir.”
“Harry Frayn,” said the man, transferring his glass to his left hand and extending his right.
“Pleasure,” said Eli, making the same switch. “Elias Adler.” They exchanged a firm handshake.
“Nice to meet you, Mr Adler.”
“Eli, please. Mr Adler is my father.” Something about saying that tickled his funny bone.
“Eli. So what brings you here?”
“To Bayern or to these glorious surroundings?” Eli asked, waving his glass at the room at large.
“Either. Both,” said Frayn with an indulgent smile.
“Business for both.”
“Ah. And what line of business are you in?”
“The exciting world of repulsor coil technology. And now I’m sure you wish you’d picked someone else to talk to.”
Frayn laughed pleasantly. “Not at all. You know, there was a time when I thought I’d become an engineer. Even went to school for it, but it turned out that I hadn’t been blessed with much skill at maths – and by ‘much’ I mean ‘any.’”
Eli allowed himself a small mental sigh of relief. One of these times I’m not going to be so lucky. “Me neither,” said Eli. Which was true – math had been his biggest challenge at the academy. Despite computers that could make calculations in a fraction of the time – and with much more accuracy – than the human brain, there was still a fair amount of number work involved in piloting. “I’m mainly on the business side these days, anyway.”
“Sad to say, I don’t have much of a head for that either,” said Frayn, laughing again.
“So what do you do, Mr Frayn?” said Eli. “Wait,” he continued, lifting his glass-bearing hand to point at the man. “Let me guess.” His eyes narrowed, sweeping up and down his conversation partner’s attire.
Frayn’s suit was cheap, that much he could tell. It fit as though it were designed for a slightly slimmer man. Rental. Plus, he was almost positive that the bow tie was a clip-on.
So, the question is: who wears a rental tuxedo to an embassy cocktail party? Especially when, by their own admission, they went to a lot of them. Someone who doesn’t make a lot of money. That much was for certain. So, some sort of support staff? He’d be tempted to say military, but then the man would simply be in dress uniform; security was another guess, but he wasn’t exactly cut from a formidable template. So probably some sort of diplomatic staff? But by all rights he should have his own tuxedo. Unless this event caught him by surprise – as though he were dispatched hastily. His pulse quickened.
“Am I that much of an enigma, Mr Adler?” said Frayn, his eyes amused.
Eli smiled in return and tried to tamp down on the adrenaline flooding his body. “A bit of a puzzle, I must admit. Civil servant?”
Frayn made an impressed noise. “Well done. Got it in one.”
“What branch? I presume not accounting, from your admitted lack of mathematical facility?”
“That would be a cruel fate, indeed. No, I’m afraid it’s much more boring than that. Paperwork, filing, forms filled in triplicate. That sort of thing.” He smiled. “But, let’s not talk about work.” He glanced over Eli’s shoulder. “Now that we’ve passed the polite small talk phase, I hope you’ll pardon me for being so forward as to ask about that most striking woman you came in with.”
Eli craned his neck, catching sight of Taylor talking with gusto to an assortment of folks wearing extremely expensive clothes indeed. She’d maneuvered herself to have a perfect view of the ambassador and the group he was talking to, which was mainly composed of other military officers.
“Ms Mulroney? She’s my head of public relations.”
Frayn shook his head. “You must do very good business.”
“She’s extremely talented. Honestly, I don’t know where I’d be without her.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” said Frayn, taking another sip. “Well, I must ask you to introduce me before the evening’s out.”
Eli’s mouth snapped shut. Wait, is he asking for an introduction introduction? Like a man-to-woman introduction? It hadn’t taken Eli an advanced degree to conclude that there was unfinished business between Taylor and Kovalic, but a sudden vision of Kovalic’s reaction came to mind, and he had to consciously stop himself from wincing. Still, the man was a civil servant and, unless Eli missed his guess, recently arrived on Bayern; if he wasn’t the envoy himself – and wouldn’t that be a stroke of unearned luck – maybe he was part of the envoy’s staff? He could be a valuable source of information; Taylor would know what to do.
“I’m certain that could be arranged.”
“Excellent. How about now?”
“Uh, now?”
“No time like the present,” said the older man, raising his glass. “I can’t think of anything that would enhance our conversation more than the company of a lovely woman. Can you?”
“I-I suppose not?” This was not going as planned. He could have really used Tapper’s advice, but he couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask him without excusing himself. And Frayn didn’t seem the type to let go of an idea after he had hold of it. “Hold on just one sec, while I grab one of these… canapés,” said Eli, seeing a passing waiter bearing a tray. He made a beeline for the hors d’oeuvres platter, surreptitiously reaching down to trigger his comm.
“Hey,” he hissed, “this old guy wants me to introduce him to Tay… Tara. What the hell do I do?”
“She can hold her own, k
id,” Tapper’s voice crackled over the comm. “Give me a call when he takes a shine to you.”
“But–”
“Have fun, matchmaker. Out.”
Eli sighed. Then again, what was I expecting: something helpful? Mournfully, Eli plucked an appetizer off a passing tray, and was about to pop it in when Tapper’s admonishment came back to him. Instead, he cradled the tiny hawk-shaped arrangement of caviar and cracker in a napkin, and headed back to Frayn. The older man was waiting, his eyebrows raised.
“Uh, delicious,” said Eli, raising the bite-sized morsel. “Really, you should try one. In fact, want mine?” He proffered it to the man, who raised a hand.
“Very kind of you, Mr Adler, but I’ll pass.”
With a shrug, Eli turned towards the last place he’d seen Taylor, only to find that she had departed that group. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen at all. She’s slipped away to hack the computers, was his first thought. Which meant he needed to keep Frayn distracted for a little bit longer.
“So, you never mentioned what brought you to Bayern. I presume you’ve just arrived from… Illyrica?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, then he laughed. “The accent is a dead giveaway, I suppose.”
Eli smiled apologetically. “I’ve got an ear for them.” Frayn’s was a middle-class Illyrican accent – not the rarified tones of the upper crust, nor the rougher intonations of the working class. That fit nicely with the civil servant angle. And while his voice didn’t have any of the distinctive tinges that came from those raised on the Illyrican colonies, it also made sense that a civil servant would be coming from the capital.
“Yours, though,” Frayn was saying, waving his glass-bearing hand around, “is a little harder to place, Mr Adler. It’s a fairly flat Galactic Standard, but do I detect a hint of the colonies?”
Goosebumps rose on Eli’s arms, despite the warmth of the room. Hoist by my own petard? I didn’t even know I had a petard. “A little bit,” he admitted. “I was born on Caledonia, but my family emigrated before the war. I grew up on Terra Nova. So, I guess you could say my accent’s a bit of a mutt.”
Frayn made an “ah” with his mouth, nodding. “Very interesting. I’m not sure I would have guessed Caledonia, to be frank. It’s usually more… distinctive.”
“Yes. I found on occasion that it was a bit of a disadvantage to being taken seriously.”
“A shame. You should never have to hide who you are.”
Eli plastered a smile on his face, even as he tried to quell his racing heartbeat. We’re just making conversation here, he reminded himself. Nobody knows who Eli Brody is.
“Your charming companion seems to have found herself some esteemed company,” said Frayn, nodding at a spot behind Eli.
Turning, he caught a glimpse of Taylor, who had apparently just been hidden behind someone else. She’d negotiated her way into a circle that appeared comprised mainly of Illyrican military officers – and Ambassador Dubois.
“She does move fast,” Eli muttered to himself.
“What?”
“Um, like I was saying – she’s very good at her job.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” said Frayn, peering over at her. His eyes had taken on a speculative look once again, and Eli found there was something about it that racked his nerves just in the slightest. This guy might just be a civil servant, but he’s a sharp one.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt the ambassador,” Eli began.
“Nonsense,” said Frayn, “come along.” He strode off towards the crowd.
This is not getting better, Eli thought, but he had little choice other than to trail along in Frayn’s wake. His eyes scanned their path, hoping he could find a fire alarm to trigger or a waiter to accidentally bump into, but the distance was enough to require a conspicuous running tackle.
“…situation is entirely fluid,” one graybeard general was saying as they got within earshot.
“I’d be surprised if these rabblerousers lasted beyond a week,” put in another man, who wore the uniform of a naval admiral. “They can’t possibly expect to hold any ground.”
“Forgive my lack of knowledge,” Taylor said, smiling at the others, “but I had heard reports that these self-styled ‘freedom fighters’ were quite well organized. Is that not so?”
“Propaganda,” scoffed Dubois. “The Commonwealth put that forth to legitimize their own under-the-table support of the group.”
Frayn didn’t hesitate, but stepped right up to the circle around the ambassador, and smiled politely. Eli tried to conceal the mortification in his face, wondering what the hell this assortment of high-ranking military officials were going to think about a middle-aged man in a cheap suit ingratiating himself into the corridors of power.
“Pardon me for interrupting, Your Excellency,” said Frayn, sketching a quick, rough bow, “but might I borrow Ms Mulroney here? I promise to return her in the same condition.”
Eli glanced at Taylor, who was studiously avoiding his eyes. Her smile held, but it had lost some of its sincerity and he could almost swear that her face had gone just the slightest bit pale. Maybe it’s just the lights.
To Eli’s surprise, Dubois simply waved a hand. “Of course. A pleasure talking to you, Ms Mulroney.”
“The pleasure was mine, Mr Ambassador. Gentlemen.” She executed a flawless curtsy, then took the arm that Frayn offered her, laying her other hand near the crook of his elbow. The two of them strolled away, and Eli was left with little alternative but to fall into step with them.
“Now, now,” Frayn chided quietly, when they’d moved far enough away from the ambassador’s coterie. “I can’t have you talking to diplomatic and military personnel unsupervised, can I, Natalie?”
“So nice to see you, Harry,” said Taylor, her voice sandpaper dry. “I can say with some certainty that I didn’t expect to see you here. Last I heard you were on Jericho Station.”
“Oh, the life of a civil servant isn’t his – or her – own; you know that as well as I.”
Eli’s mouth finally caught up with his brain. “Wait a second, what’s going… with the… who?”
Frayn glanced over his shoulder at Eli, then shook his head. “This one’s a bit new, isn’t he? They just keep getting younger.”
“We make do with what we have.”
“Indeed we do. But it is nice to see you, Natalie. It’s been too long – Hamza, wasn’t it? Three years ago?”
“I believe you were trying to convince the Hanif that it was in their best interests to build ships for the Imperium.”
“And you for the Commonwealth. Little surprise the Hanif decided that they’d like to stay out of it all. I can’t blame them. By the way,” said Frayn, as though it had just occurred to him. “I ran into Simon about three months ago – he was passing through Jericho. The poor fellow’s still terribly hung up on you, you know.”
Eli’s eyes widened and jumped between the two. This guy is good.
Taylor raised an eyebrow, even as her grip tightened on Frayn’s arm. “Your intelligence is taking a bit of a personal bent there, isn’t it, Harry?”
The older man shrugged and smiled in apology. “Mostly we talk shop, but get a few cocktails in him and he does get a bit maudlin. Anyway, please do say hello for me.”
“I’ll pass it along next time I see him. He’ll be glad to know that you seem to be doing well, despite not quite delivering on Dr Fleming’s defection.”
“Fair enough,” said Frayn, nodding graciously. “Now. Detention and extraction requires diplomatic approval and four separate forms. You know how I hate filling out paperwork. So if you’ll just take your… date… here and leave, we can put this whole thing behind us.”
“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Eli growled through clenched teeth.
Taylor smiled. “Eli, this is Colonel Harry Frayn of IIS. And I guess we were just leaving.”
Idiot idiot idiot idiot. Of all the people you could have talked to at this pa
rty, you picked the Illyrican intelligence officer. It all made sense now: the cheap suit, the recent arrival, the “civil servant” excuse. Even the fact that Frayn had chosen to talk to him – he’d seen Eli come in with Taylor. Except Eli had been too dense to connect the dots. So much for Eli Brody, superspy. Taylor’s not going to let me live this one down. He frowned, feeling the comm shift in his ear. And Tapper’s really not going to me live it down.
“Nothing personal, of course,” Frayn assured her. “I’d like nothing better than to catch up, but I can’t have Commonwealth agents walking around an embassy function unimpeded. It just wouldn’t be professional. You understand.”
Taylor patted his arm. “Yes, Harry. Wouldn’t want you to earn any more demerits on our account.”
If that was intended as a slight, Frayn didn’t rise to the bait. Their perambulations had taken them to the rear of the ballroom, where an open doorway let them back out into an embassy hallway, albeit one away from the bulk of the guests.
“Now,” said Frayn, “if you’ll just–”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence before two men in crimson-and-gold uniforms stepped into the room through the very doorway they’d been about to use. Both were officers, Eli noted quickly – flight lieutenants, as he’d once been – and wore sidearms at their waists.
“Really, Harry?” said Taylor. “Armed guards?”
Frayn grimaced and ignored her, stepping up to the men. “Pardon me, lieutenant.”
The man – a big, impressive sort – shook his head and spoke in a deep, gravelly voice. “Sorry, sir. Securing the perimeter; orders are no one in or out.”
Eli frowned as he looked around. A handful of men wearing the same crimson-and-gold uniforms had appeared silently at all of the ballroom’s other doors, though it looked as though none of the crowd had particularly noticed. Something bothered him about their dress, though. He glanced back at the men in front of him, looking their uniforms up and down. Naval dress uniforms are crimson and black not crimson and gold. The only people who wore crimson and gold uniforms were…
Oh, shit.
