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Trojan Horse

Page 29

by R. M. Olson


  “I’m sorry, Ivan,” Masha said, removing her gaze from Tae deliberately. “The plan was still in the initial stages. I didn’t foresee Olyessa joining forces with Grigory, and I believed once the plan was set, I’d have time to inform the rest of you. I did not believe it would be necessary for Zhenya to join Grigory’s people to pull this off. And I certainly had no way to foresee that Zhenya would be instructed to kill Tae’s friends, nor that they would choose not to do so.”

  She glanced at Zhenya. “I assume you’ll hear if Grigory believed what happened?”

  “Of course,” said Zhenya. “Although I suspect within twenty-four standard hours, he’ll no longer be in a position to hurt you. Nor will Olyessa. But I’ve come to understand how, in a profession like yours, you want to keep off the sensors.”

  Masha nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Wait,” said Tae. “How do we know that Zhenya won’t go straight back to Grigory?”

  Zhenya turned and smiled at him. “Tae. You know me better than that, I hope. Grigory is finished. You finished him. He’ll never come back from this.” They shrugged. “Why would I go back on my bargain for a man who will almost certainly be dead in a few standard weeks’ time?”

  They turned to Masha. “Masha. You and I have some catching up to do, I think. I’ve got some loose ends to tidy up, but I’ll call you on your com later.”

  She nodded, somehow managing to keep her expression pleasant, and Zhenya slipped out the door.

  “So,” said Jez at last, once Zhenya was gone. She was clearly trying to sound jaunty, and failing badly. “If those bastards lost everything, what happens to the pleasure houses now?”

  Masha turned and gave her a slight smile, even though looking at her sent a small stab of pain through her chest. “I believe that’s up to the new owners.”

  Jez looked at her for a moment, then dropped her eyes, a small, humourless smile on her face. “Well, so much for taking the damn pleasure houses down, I guess.”

  Galina turned to Masha as well, her eyes narrowed. “Masha,” she said, and there was a controlled anger in her voice. “I agreed to help you take down the pleasure houses. But you’ve just sold them to the highest bidder, haven’t you? These new owners, are they as bad as Grigory? Olyessa? Do you think they might think twice about leaving children to die in alleyways, or will it just be a matter of profit to them?” There was a bitter harshness to her words.

  Masha raised an eyebrow, biting back a small smile. “As for whether they’re better than Grigory, I personally believe they are, although opinions may differ,” she said. “The owner is a shell company, the shares of which are held by another shell company, which in turn is held by a partnership made up of two other shell companies. I won’t bore you with details. But the ultimate owner of these pleasure houses, Galina, is you.”

  Galina stared at her.

  “If you’d like,” Masha amended. “It is myself, currently, but I believe you would be the person best suited to oversee taking them down. If that is what you want.”

  Galina was still staring, her face gone suddenly bloodless, and it appeared that Jez was supporting her now, rather than the other way around.

  “Are—are you telling the truth?” asked Galina finally. Her voice was hoarse. “Please. Don’t lie to me about this.”

  “I’m not lying, Galina,” she said, with a slight smile. “I can sign the documents over to you tonight. Ownership will not come through until the banks on Prasvishoni open for business tomorrow, which—” she glanced at her com, “I believe will be early afternoon tomorrow here.”

  Galina swallowed hard, and for a moment Masha wondered if she’d actually faint.

  Jez was staring at her too. They all were, in fact.

  “Masha,” said Lev carefully. “How did—”

  “You don’t imagine I took all the funds that Olyessa provided and put them into that account, do you?” she asked.

  It was always slightly gratifying to see Lev surprised.

  “When she transferred the money, I repurposed the bug Tae created, that Jez used to steal information from Olyessa’s man on the casino ship. It drained her account, and I used the excess funds to purchase the shares in the leveraged pleasure houses.” She paused a moment. “Galina. I assume you’ve thought about how you’d go about dismantling this place?”

  There was a long, long moment of silence.

  Finally Galina said, “I’ve been thinking about that since the day I left this hell-hole.” Her voice was so quiet that it was barely audible, but there was a hard edge to it.

  Masha nodded in satisfaction.

  If Galina didn’t have the entire pleasure district closed down by this time tomorrow, she’d underestimated the woman.

  “Well,” she said at last. “I believe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for us to get some sleep while we can. If we want to take advantage of our brief respite, it would be best to get off-planet as soon as possible. I have a few things to take care of here before we go, but the rest of you may as well get some sleep. I have a feeling we won’t be getting much sleep very shortly.”

  “Wait,” said Jez, her expression changing to one of horror. “Wait. My ship. Olyessa can—she can just—”

  Masha glanced at her quickly.

  She still couldn’t quite meet the pilot’s eyes.

  “Jez,” she said. “As I promised, you will not lose your ship. The system she installed on your ship was nothing but a forgery. I swapped the chips out while we were still on Olyessa’s base.”

  “You—” Jez turned to glare at her. “OK then, why the hell did you let her put it on then? And let me think that—think—”

  “Because I needed your reaction to be genuine, so that Olyessa would believe it,” said Masha quietly. “And I needed Olyessa to have some connection with the ship. Since she installed the chip, the Ungovernable has been broadcasting the location of her base to a number of people I once worked with very closely in the government. People who have a vested interest in rooting out Olyessa’s encroachment. They’ve been biding their time, but I believe that the moment they hear that she’s been weakened, they’ll pounce. I very much doubt Olyessa will find much peace on her base at present.”

  Lev was watching her with that calculating expression of his.

  “Masha,” he said, after a long moment. “This job has been, against all odds, a success. But I’m afraid that our contract with you has ended. We came, before, because we trusted you. That’s no longer the case. This job was to ensure that, despite the fact you set us up, Grigory would not be able to track us down and kill us. And it appears we’ve done that. And so—” He spread his hands. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways.”

  She looked at him for a long moment.

  That moment when she’d pointed the heat gun at his head and fired.

  She hadn’t been certain she’d grabbed the modded gun. And she’d pulled the trigger anyways.

  “Lev,” she said, forcing the tremor from her voice. “As always, you’re welcome to go your own way. But—” She shrugged slightly. “We’ve created the largest power vacuum the system has seen for a very long time. There will be war. There will be people dying in the streets of Prasvishoni, and in the outer settlements. Tae’s friends from university. Certainly they won’t stand by, not based on what I saw of them. Ysbel’s students. I’m sure even in the apartments where we left them, a street war like that will suck in Caz and Peti and the rest. Possibly your family, even as distant as they are from the capital, currently.”

  She turned, so she was facing all of them. “And, of course, that’s not the only thing. There is still the matter of the gas. You’ve breathed it in. Misko and Olya breathed it in. Yes, we’ve bought ourselves a short respite. But it’s only that. We were not able to completely destroy the institutional knowledge, and with a person as intelligent as Lev’s former professor—it’s only a matter of time.”

  “So we’ve condemned our friends.” Tae’s voice was tight with hurt and an
guish and anger. “And what now? You think that will make us come with you?”

  “We’ve only condemned them if we don’t step in and stop it before it begins,” said Masha quietly.

  “And you have a plan to do that.” Lev’s voice was flat and hard.

  She nodded, and gave him a small smile. “I do. However, without your assistance, it will be impossible. As I’ve said from the beginning, I chose you all very specifically.”

  There were a few long moments where no one spoke. Finally Lev turned in disgust, and she could see the anger in his movements.

  “We’ll discuss it,” he said shortly. “We’ll talk it over, and let you know in the morning.”

  She said nothing, just kept her pleasant smile.

  He gestured to the others with a sharp jerk of his head. “Come on. She’s probably right that it would be a good idea to get some sleep, anyways.”

  The rest of the crew filed slowly out of the room. Jez cast a glance over her shoulder as she left, and the look on her face cut Masha.

  When the others were gone, Lev turned back to her. “Masha,” he said quietly. “As always, you played this well. But we are not your pawns, not anymore. If we come, it will be on our own terms.”

  She met his eyes. There was a hard challenge in them.

  She’d chosen him because he was, as he put it, very, very smart.

  And he was no longer on her side.

  But she didn’t drop her gaze, and finally, he turned away, stepping through the ruins of the door.

  She waited until she heard his footsteps move off down the hallway. Then she sank down into Grigory’s chair.

  Every muscle in her body ached with exhaustion, and the rush of adrenalin from earlier that day had faded, leaving her muscles weak and shaky.

  She looked around at the luxurious room, and repressed a shudder.

  She’d prefer to spend as little time in this place as possible. But she had business to take care of, and here she was unlikely to be interrupted by any of the crew.

  At last, grimacing, she tapped her com.

  Zhenya answered immediately. “Masha. I was waiting for you.”

  “They’re gone,” she said, and was distantly surprised about how weary her voice sounded.

  “I’m just coming back from checking in with Grigory,” they said. “I’ll be there in five standard minutes.”

  By the time Zhenya opened the door and stepped into the room, Masha had managed to straighten, holding herself as if she were exactly what she appeared—a simple, competent, mid-level government employee.

  “Masha,” said Zhenya with a slight smile, pulling up the chair Olyessa had been sitting in. “So. Shall we discuss the terms?”

  “The terms, Zhenya, are exactly what I described to you,” she said, her voice sharp.

  “I saved you from the shootout, and you paid me an obscene amount of credits,” Zhenya said, still with that slight smile. “That was the bargain. You convinced me it was a good one when you made it clear that you’d already ruined Grigory. But then you called a second time. To bargain for one last favour.”

  “Yes,” she said, shortly.

  “The lives of a group of street kids,” said Zhenya. Their smile widened slightly. “You know, I was glad you did. I prefer not to kill street kids if I can help it. I would have killed them, because it would have made things much easier, to be honest. I had to work very hard to convince Grigory to trust me without showing him proof the children were dead. But as I said, I was happy to have an excuse not to. Besides, I must admit, I find Tae quite fascinating. It would have destroyed him, and that would have been a shame.” They paused a moment. “But you, Masha. I thought you were all transactional. You had me convinced, you know. And then this. Save Tae’s street-kid friends. And rather than hold it over him, let him think I’d had a change of heart.”

  “I still need them,” said Masha. “I still need leverage to use against Tae.”

  Zhenya raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I can think of several other things you could use as leverage against Tae. In fact, any single member of your crew would be enough. You know that as well as I do. Tae is extremely loyal. All you had to do is convince one of them to come with you, and Tae wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to leave.” They shook their head. “But then again, I’m telling you things you already know, aren’t I? You saved those street kids because you didn’t want to see Tae hurt.”

  She gave them her coldest stare, but she knew well enough that her non-answer was answer enough.

  Zhenya sat back in their chair, smiling slightly. “So. Those are the terms I’d like to discuss. You promised me a place in your scheme. I take you up on that offer.”

  “And what exactly do you want?” asked Masha. There was a tightness in her stomach that made her feel slightly sick.

  She’d worked across from Zhenya long enough. They were a survivor, and they were clever. Far too clever for her to be able to trust them.

  “I’ll watch your next move, Masha,” they said at last, still with that faint smile on their lips. “I’ll watch. And I’ll tell you when I decide I’d like in.” They pushed themselves out of their chair, their movements graceful. “And remember. I know where those children live. I’ll be able to keep tabs on them. I know a lot of people, Masha, perhaps not as many as you do, but enough. They’re alive as long as you keep your side of our bargain.”

  They watched her for a moment, then turned and slipped from the room.

  Masha watched them go, an icy chill lingering in her chest.

  She’d given them far too much. Zhenya had a pull over her now that she couldn’t afford to give to anyone. And she’d known that from the moment she tapped their number into her com and told them she had another bargain.

  But she’d seen the look of betrayal on Tae’s face, back in the casino ship. And she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of seeing it again.

  She shivered.

  This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. That in the end, she wouldn’t be able to put the fate of the system ahead of the fate of these people who she’d brought together to use as tools, but who had somehow become her crew.

  She could have pulled that trigger.

  But she couldn’t have born the look in the faces of the others afterwards.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to push back the cold terror.

  She’d find a way to make this work. Somehow. She’d put too many years of planning and preparation into this to let it fail, and she’d find a way.

  But—

  But this had complicated her plans in ways she’d never counted on.

  Zhenya was very, very clever, and she had no idea what they were after.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  JEZ GLANCED DOWN at Galina as they stepped into the almost-abandoned lobby of their mock pleasure house. Galina’s face was set and bloodless, her whole body practically vibrating with tension.

  They’d stolen some skybikes from the pleasure district, and Tae had hot-wired them, and honestly, she was pretty damn sure that even Tae hadn’t felt bad about that, considering the kind of absolute bastards who frequented the pleasure district.

  Masha wasn’t back yet, but she was pretty sure that Masha would be able to get herself back here just as easily as the rest of them had.

  The thought of Masha was a hard, painful knot in the back of her brain, and she didn’t want to touch it. She didn’t want to think, for one second, about Masha.

  About what she’d done.

  About what she could have done.

  She shook her head. The thing was, everything had worked out exactly how they’d wanted it to, in the end. Even if it wasn’t exactly how they’d planned it, it had all worked out. And maybe she’d been wrong. Masha was good at faking it, hell, that was basically Masha’s entire personality.

  But—

  She shivered slightly.

  But she was pretty damn sure she wasn’t wrong. And the thought was enough to make her sick.

>   She shoved the memory away. She’d deal with it later. When she had time to.

  When she had time to think about the fact that the woman she trusted—who she actually liked, who honestly, she trusted as much as she’d ever trusted anyone in her whole damn life—would have been willing to kill the man who’d become maybe the best friend she’d ever had.

  She took a deep breath. “Hey. Galya,” she whispered. “You OK?”

  Galina looked up at her and tried to smile. “I’m—I’m just a little stunned, I think,” she said quietly, but her voice was shaking.

  Jez put an arm around her and pulled her up against her shoulder, and for a moment, Galina’s body relaxed into hers. Jez closed her eyes and breathed in Galina’s smell and held her, and something inside her hurt, just a little.

  Yes, she’d told Galya she didn’t do relationships. And hell, she didn’t. She’d never done relationships, because before all this crap, when she’d been a smuggler flying solo runs, the thought of having someone who you were stuck with, who you couldn’t get away from, who trapped you, basically, was maybe the worst thing she could imagine.

  But—well, but—the thought of coming back every evening to something like this, to someone whose shape and feel was as familiar to her as the controls of her ship, who she didn’t have to fake anything around, because they actually liked her, the real her, as stupid and impulsive and crazy as she was, who smiled when they saw her and leaned into her when she held them—

  She cut off the thought, and found, for some reason, she was blinking back tears.

  Galina drew in a deep breath and looked up at Jez. There was a small, weary smile on her face, and Jez leaned in and kissed her, and yes, Galya was sexy as hell, but there was something comfortable and comforting in her kiss, something that made the world seem a little more bearable.

  “We should probably let everyone else know what’s happened,” said Lev, from behind them.

  “Probably not a bad idea,” said Radic. Even he sounded tired. “Considering they probably think we’re all dead and they’re next.” He tapped his com. “Alright all you idiots, cut your slacking and get into the lobby.”

 

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