Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking that the rest of this guy’s bones, what’s left of them, they look good. Old guys, they lose bone mass and density just like women do. His teeth don’t look so good. Nothing as dramatic as the posts, but the densities vary and that’s”—she shook her head—“that’s kind of weird.”

  “So maybe he didn’t drink his milk when he was a kid and that explains his teeth. Or maybe he ate a lot of candy.”

  “Then his long bones shouldn’t be so good, and he ought to have fillings. Only his bones look fine, and he doesn’t have fillings. And this tooth”—she pointed to a left rear molar—“it looks almost ready to fall out.”

  “Maybe it got damaged in the fire, or the blast.”

  “Mmmm.” She was rooting around her instrument tray then came up with a long, curved clamp without teeth. She caught his expression. “I just want to look.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t a tooth doctor.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she said. She gently sectioned a bit of ligament, spread the mouth wider, then eased the clamp around the sooty tooth. “Don’t want to rock on the other teeth and break them, got to pull straight . . . got it,” she said, pulling out the clamp. A large, corrugated, pitted surface of a rear molar was held firmly in place. “No post,” and then she turned the tooth over. “Oh, my God.”

  The fire had cooked the capsule hidden inside but not completely destroyed it. The gelatin was brown as melted sugar for caramel.

  Ramsey said, “You know? This just keeps getting better and better.”

  15

  1445 hours

  They found Troy’s glasses and, a little farther on, Troy’s bike smeared with dried blood, a scrap of khaki tangled in a sprocket. If Noah had any doubts about last night, he knew: this was for real.

  He was sweating even though it wasn’t that hot, and he felt water-weak. His arm was much worse. He’d taken down the dressing, right before he’d left his house. The wound was ugly: purplish edges and some kind of yellow, gooey crud in the center. The surrounding skin was warm, almost hot, and red. He did the peroxide the way Sarah had and the ointment, tears running down his cheeks by the end. On the way to the graveyard, he felt every bump and thump his bike made all the way into his teeth.

  Troy was white as salt—from his diabetes or fear, or both, Noah didn’t know. Troy said, “Maybe we ought to tell Joey’s dad. You know? It might be evidence.”

  “Yeah, and then what?” Noah’s head hurt, and his ears rang. “It’s too late to do that. We just wash off the blood and that’s that. Like it never happened.”

  “Yeah?” Troy bent, plucked something from the grass. He held up a brass shell case. “What about this? You going to tell me that there wasn’t any guy shooting at us? Someone who shot you?”

  “Could be anybody’s brass,” Noah said. It sounded dumb: Anybody’s brass.

  “Don’t be dumb,” Troy said. “They can match the brass. They do it all the time in cop shows. Maybe we should go down to the graveyard. There might be something there that we can show to Joey’s dad.”

  “Are you nuts?” Noah’s head was spinning. “We don’t tell anybody. We don’t do anything. We came to get the bike. We got it. So let’s hide your mom’s bike and get out of here.”

  “Then he gets away with it.”

  “And who cares? Look, we tell, and then what? What if they don’t catch him? What if the blood doesn’t tell them anything? What if he comes after us?”

  “Maybe Joey’s dad can send us away somewhere, or something,” Troy said. He paused. “Something.”

  Pain and fever made Noah cruel. “Yeah, maybe that’s okay for you. You don’t like your home, or your mom. But I kind of like where I live.” He was lying, of course, and he felt like a heel when Troy’s eyes filled.

  Troy swallowed, and when he spoke, his voice was watery. “Yeah? Well, at least my dad didn’t kill himself.”

  The words were like a slap. Noah went cold all over. He didn’t know whether to burst into tears, or hit Troy so hard that, maybe, he’d break something: Troy’s nose, a tooth. Just to draw blood.

  But before he could do anything, Troy’s face crumpled. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes, you did,” Noah said, but the moment was past, and he felt something in his chest loosen. “You meant it. That’s okay because”—he swallowed past the lump in his throat—“I think he did, too.”

  They fell into a miserable silence, broken only by Troy’s snuffling. Finally, Troy swiped a rope of clear mucus from his nose and rubbed his hand on his jeans. “This is what happens in movies. You know? People turning on each other when they get scared.”

  Noah felt as if it took all his strength just to nod his head. “Yeah. You know why, don’t you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Troy’s eyes were wide as saucers. “I got a real good look at him, and you know who he looks like? Walks like? The hair?”

  “Yeah. I do,” Noah said. “He’s one of us.”

  “Yeah, you’re telling me?” Troy sounded small and scared and his voice came as a whisper. “He’s my doctor.”

  16

  1530 hours

  Ramsey was exasperated. “Look, if you’re so fired up, why don’t you guys just assign an agent to work alongside this, this . . . what’s her name again?”

  “Kodza.” The tiny shimmer that was Garibaldi’s holo, projected from Amanda’s office computer where the call had been routed, looked positively cheerful. “Dani Kodza.”

  “So why not assign one of your people to work with this Kodza woman and be done with it?”

  “No, no.” Garibaldi moved his head in an emphatic negative. “We can learn much more if you and Sheriff Ketchum’s men front for us. Besides, you, Detective, are the best possible person for this job. A disgraced cop—no one’s going to believe that you’ve got access to the john much less the Bureau.”

  “Well, gee, thanks a lot,” Ramsey said, getting hot.

  Ketchum broke in. “So what can you tell us about her?” Ramsey and Amanda had shown him the tooth when he’d gotten back after making his call to the crime scene techs. “She high up or what?”

  “We’re not quite sure. We do know that she was born off-world, on Dalkeith, and seems to have been all over the Prefecture.” Garibaldi turned away a moment, and his hands extended out of sight, probably accessing data on a computer. “Now what’s interesting is her travel. We have a couple of reports indicating that she traveled to . . . just give me a sec . . . here we go. Port Mosby, Xinyang, Itabiana, and, finally, Nykvarn.”

  “Is that important?” Ketchum asked.

  “Maybe. Port Moseby is in Lyran space, right by House Kurita and the Ghost Bear Dominion border. Xinyang is the prefecture capital in the Benjamin Military District. Itabiana is a Clan Sea Fox clearinghouse world and part of Nova Cat’s territories. And finally all of these are on a straight shot to Nykvarn, and from there, it’s just another jump to the Periphery.”

  “So?” Ramsey was still ticked about the disgraced cop crap. “So what?”

  “Detective Ramsey,” Garibaldi began, though he might as well have said, Now, now, little boy. “Those planets are within the sway of Kuritan space. Now we know that House Kurita has moved to reclaim worlds ceded to The Republic. At this rate, Dieron will fall and they’ll succeed. We hear that Katana Tormark is quite the warlord.”

  “So?”

  “So, what did Kodza do out there? Some of those worlds are also Clan.”

  “But they’re all different clans,” Amanda said. “Call me slow, but so what?”

  Garibaldi put a finger to his lips as if warning himself against being precipitous. He said, “It’s no secret that with Prefecture X buttoned up, the various divisions of government here on Denebola might start making moves to shore up influence. Everyone’s heard of the ghost knights, of course, and the Bureau believes the exarch has planted moles and agents in as many places as possible in the Inner
Sphere.”

  Amanda and the two men glanced at one another. “So you’re suggesting that this Kodza is a mole for the exarch?” Ramsey asked.

  “Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.”

  “Oh, well,” Amanda said, “that was clear.”

  “All we know is that Kodza was obviously on some sort of mission.”

  “Even I can figure that,” Ramsey said. “Do you know anything else?”

  “She’s never been married, doesn’t have any children and no living relatives. Beyond that, we’d appreciate anything you can coax out of her.”

  “Now you want us to spy for you?” Ketchum asked.

  “All you need to do is report on the progress of the investigation. Give us whatever Kodza tells you, let us crunch the data, and see what comes up. She’ll probably have her own shadow or ghost agent, and that agent will likely be doing his own reconnaissance. It would be nice to know who he is.”

  Ketchum raised his hands like a cop stopping traffic. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. How are we supposed to figure out who the ghost agent is? You guys have all the intelligence data. We got nothing.”

  “Correction,” Garibaldi said. “You will have Kodza. Wait for something to happen. Sometimes these ghost agents get themselves into trouble. But it’s just as likely that the agent might be a sleeper already embedded in the community.”

  Ketchum and Ramsey glanced at one another. “Already here?” Ketchum asked.

  Garibaldi explained the common practice of inserting operatives well before they were needed and integrating agents into a community. “Sometimes this sleeper agent thing runs in families. Then, all that’s required is a contact to activate them, and they go to work.”

  “So just how does this help us?” Ramsey asked.

  “Maybe no help at all. Maybe the agent’s a sleeper, maybe not. But you and me and Ketchum, we’re playing on the same team. It’s the legate’s office we don’t trust. Spies are everywhere. Perfect time to take out the prefecture governments.”

  Amanda said, “I’m not so sure that wasn’t the exarch’s plan.” When Ramsey and Ketchum turned to look at her, she said, “Think about it. Levin’s pretty much left people to fend for themselves. But that has to mean that his resources are stretched. So he buttons up and hunkers down. He’ll be back—but by then things will have shaken out, and he may have fewer personalities to deal with.”

  “She’s got a point,” Ramsey said.

  Ketchum cleared his throat then pursed his lips, as if debating how to continue. “Okay, I want to ask a question here.” He squinted narrowly at Garibaldi’s image. “Do I get any kind of say about whether I want to cooperate with you fellas? I mean, seeing as how this is my jurisdiction and all.”

  “In a case of this magnitude, with a potential spy? I’m afraid not. You boys don’t play ball, then we’ll do it another way. And, Sheriff, you don’t want to lose in the next election.” Garibaldi showed a set of picture-perfect teeth in a humorless grin. “Do you?”

  17

  1530 hours

  The boys found two more shell cases, but not the fourth. Then they retrieved Troy’s bike, hid another—a woman’s bicycle—and left.

  Gabriel waited. When he was sure they were gone, he backed out of the tree house, took the steps very carefully, his right leg complaining but not as badly as before. He spent fifteen minutes searching for that fourth piece of brass. He didn’t find it.

  He debated the wisdom of another call then decided he didn’t have a choice. He hooked a bud to his right ear, tapped a channel.

  And then the Handler was there against a background of voices and, he thought, music. “Yes?”

  He kept it short but told the Handler everything. “Now they’ve got the bike with my blood on it and a piece of my trousers, and they’ve got brass from my gun.”

  “Yes, but they are scared, correct? So they will wash the blood away and no one will be the wiser. As for your casings, they have touched them. So there will not be useable prints and all they will be able to say is that someone fired at them.”

  “But I think I hit one of them.”

  “And nothing has come of it. So most likely you did not.”

  Gabriel remembered the third shot and a scream. “No, you’re wrong.” He had never contradicted the Handler before, and he waited for an explosion of anger. But none came. He said, “It’s that they’re too scared to go for help.” Then, more boldly: “We need to talk.”

  “What is there to discuss?” The Handler’s voice was like chipped ice. “When the one you hit comes to the hospital, you will take care of it. You will have to take care of all of it.”

  This, he really hadn’t expected. Killing Limyanovich was the mission. But this . . . “You’re asking me to kill a kid.”

  “No, no,” the Handler said. “I am telling you to kill both of them.”

  18

  1545 hours

  “Frederic Limyanovich.” The woman on the holovid was fair-skinned, with an oval face framed with light blond, almost white, hair that curled at the nape of her neck and around her chin. Her eyes were almond-shaped and a very light blue-silver. Her accent was noticeable but not heavy, though her speech was a little stilted, as if she were parsing her words just so. “He is . . . was the brother of Vladimir Limyanovich, a very wealthy, very influential businessman. His company, PolyTech, primarily deals in biotechnology: medical advances, things of this nature. He has no idea why his brother would travel to Neurasia. They have no business interests in New Bonn that he is aware of. Surely, the condition of his brother’s body suggests that Frederic Limyanovich was not there for his health.”

  Amanda said, “Not so fast. We don’t know if this is Frederic Limyanovich.”

  “You have a body, yes? There are teeth? So we will match the dental records. You could send the information now. Then you will see he is the same man.”

  Amanda frowned, and Ramsey tried another tack. “Do you have any information about why Limyanovich was killed? His brother doesn’t know, but maybe they have business dealings . . . ?” He let the question dangle.

  “We are mystified, and the family is shattered. I have been asked by the legate to assist you in your investigation. Of course, this has been cleared with the governor.”

  “Of course,” Amanda said, arching her left eyebrow.

  Kodza spared her a quick, measuring glance. Then she addressed Ramsey and Ketchum. “At all costs, the family wants the killers brought to justice.”

  “Killers?” Ramsey asked.

  A smile flitted across Kodza’s lips. “A figure of speech. I am confident that both you and the sheriff can understand that the family would like to reclaim the body and arrange for burial. I will arrive in Farway by tomorrow evening to assist in this.”

  “Ah,” Ramsey said. “Great.”

  There was a small silence that Kodza filled. “What other evidence do you have pending?”

  Ramsey listened as Ketchum and Amanda went through the list: the jewelry, the autopsy findings. But Amanda glossed over the teeth, didn’t even mention them. Then Ketchum was talking about fibers and hair found by the crime scene people. “And what look like tread marks from a turbocycle,” Ketchum said. “Found the marks in a briar patch about a quarter klick up the road. Our working hypothesis is he was killed somewhere else.”

  “And you found nothing else?”

  “Was I supposed to?” Ketchum deadpanned.

  “No, no, it is just odd that he should be in Farway and even odder that he is dead. One would think that if he was killed . . .”

  “I think the bullet to the head is pretty conclusive,” Ramsey said.

  “Obviously. But one would think Limyanovich had something worth killing for.”

  * * *

  After Kodza signed off, Ketchum looked at Ramsey. “You smell what I smell?”

  “The cover-up, or the fishing expedition?”

  “Both.”

  Ramsey nodded then washed his face with his hands and s
ighed. “I don’t know what’s worse: DBI, or the legate’s office playing games.” To Amanda: “You’re awfully quiet.” When Amanda raised that left eyebrow, he added, “You’re pretty good at that.”

  “It’s genetic,” Amanda said, “and you guys are idiots, which might also be genetic. Didn’t you hear it?”

  Ketchum and Ramsey traded looks. Ramsey turned back to Amanda. “What?”

  “Unbelievable. God.” She huffed out in exasperation. “Kodza asked specifically for the dental information. She wanted the dental records sent right now and yet she’s coming here, no matter what we find. But we already found the capsule, and she doesn’t know that. Only a matter of time before the city lab people figure out what’s in it, and I’m not releasing the body until a forensic odontologist gets his shot.”

  “May not be anything,” Ketchum said.

  “But may be,” Amanda said. “You want to take bets that there’s something else hidden away somewhere? So the question is, what is it about this guy that they don’t want us to find? And why was it so important that he ended up dead?”

  19

  1730 hours

  The only deputy with something new was Boaz. “Eric remembers running a guy out to Cameron Island last week. Remembers because the guy didn’t look quite ready for the weather, you know?”

  “Who’s Eric?” Ramsey asked. They were grouped in the bullpen across from dispatch: the deputies slouching in chairs, Ketchum perched on a corner of vacant desk, and Ramsey holding up the wall next to a window.

  Boaz’s eyes skimmed past Ramsey to the floor and then Ketchum. “Eric runs the ferry. He said the guy wasn’t really dressed for the occasion. This time of year, anyone going over to the island wears a hat, gloves, that kind of thing. But this guy wasn’t even wearing a parka, just a sweater under some kind of black duster, and his boots were way too nice. Like expensive leather, the kind you wouldn’t want to get wet. Description matches this Youssef, or Limyanovich, or whoever he is.”