Blood Avatar

by Ilsa J. Bick

  Kodza smiled, like a carnivore sensing prey. “Very well. Who is your contact in the DBI?”

  “No, no,” Ramsey said. “We’ve done a lot of giving. You go first. Who is your ghost agent?”

  “What is this . . . ghost agent? A clandestine operative, yes?” Kodza snorted. “You read too many spy thrillers, Detective.”

  “Oh, well then, since we cleared that up . . . I guess we’re done talking. But I got to hand it to you. You’re very good.” Ramsey eyed Ketchum. “You remember what I asked her? The very first thing before we got sidetracked?”

  “Yeah,” Ketchum drawled. “I do.”

  “Well, thank God,” Amanda said, “because I don’t.”

  * * *

  Things stalled. Kodza made noises about leaving, and Ketchum started herding her toward the door. “You coming?” the sheriff called. “Dinner?”

  Ramsey waved him on. “Ten minutes.”

  “Better not be longer than that. The longer that sack of your unmentionables is in my patrol car, the more the stink . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah. Go.”

  When they were alone, Amanda said, “What was all that about? The stink and his patrol car?”

  “Uuuhhh.” Ramsey was embarrassed. “It’s, uh, it’s nothing. Just got to find a place to do my laundry . . . jeez, I don’t want to talk about my dirty underpants.”

  “That makes two of us,” she said, coolly.

  He thought there might be a touch of humor there but wasn’t sure. “Listen, about this afternoon, about Doc . . .”

  “Drop it,” she said. “I was wrong. You were just doing your job.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.” Then: “What happened to John Boaz? I heard he was pretty banged up. He was still upstairs until just awhile ago.”

  “Ahhh . . . Well, what did he say happened?”

  “He said he slipped on a puddle of oil in the parking lot and bashed his face against his cruiser. He said you were right there and got help.”

  “Ah, yeah, well, yeah, that’s what happened. So . . . how bad is he?”

  “Banged up?” She mulled that one over. “Well, the smash won’t improve his looks. He’s awfully lucky he didn’t lose a couple of teeth.”

  “You know, that’s what I told him.”

  “Yes, he said that, too.”

  “Did he say anything else? About what I said?”

  She shook her head. “But I can guess. Let me tell you a little secret, Detective. The next time you kick a guy’s feet out from under him, think about the nasty bruise you’re leaving. A good forensic pathologist picks that up right away.”

  “Ahhh, man . . .”

  “Relax,” she said, patting his arm. “Your secret is safe with me. That was a long time coming for Mr. Boaz, anyway. There’s only one thing I wish.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I wish I was there to see it,” she drawled. “Musta been real purty.”

  * * *

  Amanda said, “I kind of like the way you and Ms. Kodza got at it.”

  “Yeah? Tell that to Kodza.”

  “Mmmm.” Then: “You know, I can tell you why the legate might be in a lather about Poly Tech.”

  He was startled. “You can?”

  She nodded. “Did a little detecting on my own since you guys didn’t. They have one very interesting division involved with biogenetics. Little things like giving parents a choice about whether a child has blue eyes or green.”

  “But eye color doesn’t turn a profit.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Most people—most parents—are interested in two things: sex determination and intelligence. Parents would pay a lot to make their kids smarter.”

  “Only problem is that it’s illegal as all hell,” Ramsey said.

  “And with good reason. We’ll forget the obvious: a population skewed toward men without enough women. But can you imagine a world where every child is a Kerensky, or another Htov Gbarleman? Society would collapse. Every society needs an undereducated, low intelligence undercaste to do the scut work.”

  “That’s kind of harsh,” Ramsey said.

  “But true,” Amanda said. “What do you think is under that bell curve, anyway?”

  Then she added, “By the way, what was the question she didn’t answer?”

  “Ah. That. I asked her how come Limyanovich got killed so people would notice. Think about it. You kill somebody, you usually don’t advertise unless Limyanovich was an example. You most certainly don’t want the legate to sit up and take notice, or the Bureau. Blowing that car was like sending up a flare.”

  He thought of something. “Didn’t you say you were going to check the DNA?”

  “Yes. Gee, whiz.” She made a disgusted sound. She started for her lab. “Between Doc and Boaz and now her, I got sidetracked.”

  Ramsey followed. “It won’t be ruined, will it?”

  “Shouldn’t be.” She was fiddling with a transparent plastic machine of some kind that held a clear gelatin-looking substance suspended between what Ramsey thought were two poles, one negative, and the other positive. “But I do want to get this report done and Limyanovich out of here. . . .”

  “Yeah, I noticed you didn’t say anything to Kodza about the other blood type, or that false tooth—or the capsule.”

  “Didn’t want to give away the farm before I was ready,” Amanda said, but she sounded distracted and a little puzzled. She’d pulled up 3-Ds on a computer: a series of what looked like radiographs, only the clear gel was now black streaked with white bands arranged in vertical ladderlike rungs.

  “What is that?” Ramsey asked.

  “Gel electrophoresis,” she said, still studying the 3-Ds. “DNA’s got a negative charge, and so you run specific sequences against controls in an electrical field through an acrylamide gel. Essentially, you’re measuring speed. Larger pieces move more slowly. The number and position of segments in each lane form a DNA fingerprint.”

  “Okay,” he said, but he wasn’t sure he understood. “So is this okay, or what?”

  She paused just long enough so he knew everything wasn’t okay. “Every peak matches,” she said, “except one.” She pointed to a thin white band near the very bottom of the gel. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Is it, like, contamination?”

  “Maybe.”

  He caught the tone. “But you don’t think so.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you want to do?” Ramsey asked.

  She thought a second. “Well, I can’t release the body, not without clearing up this discrepancy. So I’ll run it again. I’ll also run mDNA, mitochondrial DNA, see what I come up with.”

  “Mitochon . . . ?”

  “Yeah. Mitochondrial DNA is specifically passed along the maternal line. Too complicated to explain right now, and you have to get going. Hank’s waiting.”

  Ramsey didn’t want to leave. But he sidled to the door, said, “You want to, I don’t know, maybe have a drink or something later on?”

  “Sure. We can go to Good Time Charlie’s.”

  “It an okay place?”

  “No, it’s a dive. But if you want to drink on a Sunday, that’s where you go.” She drew a quick map. “Ask the page operator to beep me, and I’ll meet you.”

  “Great.” Ramsey turned to go then came back. “We got so hung up on the DNA, I forgot. Can you pull up blood types from the hospital database?”

  “Why? You want to know if Doc’s got AB blood?” When Ramsey nodded, she said, “The hospital can’t release that information without a warrant—you know that.”

  “If I get a warrant?”

  “Then you take it to admin and they’ll do it.”

  “Fair enough.” He paused. “Ah, listen, about tonight. You’re not worried? That people . . . ?” He trailed off.

  “You mean am I worried that people will see me with the same man two nights in a row and wonder maybe, I don’t know, if I’m sleeping with him?
”

  “Hey, wait, I didn’t—”

  “Are you saying that you’re not interested in going to bed with me?”

  “No.” Now Ramsey was alarmed. “Hey, no. Jesus, I didn’t say that.”

  “So, Jack?” She slipped her arms around his waist, and because she was so tall, looked him in the eye. She smelled like roses. “Would you like to go to bed with me?”

  He said, “Is this one of those multiple choice questions, or true-false?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  32

  2030 hours

  The encounter with his father left him sweaty and feeling vaguely filthy, like he’d been contaminated. He’d showered in water as hot as he could stand. Now, naked, moisture wicking away from his skin and his cat rumbling against his bare thighs, Gabriel sat before his computer, watching as Limyanovich’s revised files popped up on his screen. Ah, and so what had Amanda found . . . oh, this was interesting. The DNA was being repeated, just as he’d hoped but—he frowned—something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong.

  He reread the files twice then sat back in his chair as he worried the information. Amanda had taken the amplified DNA from PCR and run a gel. But if he’d really ruined the PCR ahead of time, she’d have noticed. But Limyanovich’s DNA looked as if it had survived the temperatures to which he’d exposed it. If he was reading this right, there was an anomalous peak: DNA that didn’t correspond to anything. Then it hit him.

  Something hidden in Limyanovich . . . in more than one place.

  He picked up his sat-link, said the number and waited for the connection.

  “Yes?” said the Handler.

  “It just hit me,” he said. “Limyanovich’s cover was Poly Tech, right? So what if this data isn’t in a crystal at all? What if it’s encoded in Limyanovich’s DNA?”

  “Explain to me this PCR.” The Handler was silent as he rattled off the information. When he was done, the Handler said, “And you are saying that additional DNA . . .”

  “Might interfere with the primers, yes. There’s some anomaly, some difference in Limyanovich’s DNA that Slade doesn’t understand.” When the Handler didn’t respond, he added, “You have to admit, that would be right in keeping with their mentality.”

  “Yes, I agree. The problem is the deviation from pattern. All previous information transfers were via data crystal. On the other hand, couriering information in DNA would be like taking out an advertisement, yes? Doing so would alert anyone who managed to capture one of their operatives exactly where to look. For all we know, this is precisely what they wish us to think.”

  “But we could be wrong. We’ve been so focused on getting the three crystals that we’ve overlooked the fact that the enemy might have adapted.”

  “True. Even if you are right, what do you propose?”

  “We have two choices: steal some DNA ourselves, or let Slade do the heavy lifting. You can bet she’ll sequence this stuff. When she does, I’ll have it and then I can apply the information to what we have from the crystals.”

  “And if the DNA is nothing but garbage?”

  “It won’t be. It’s something.”

  “We shall see. So what are your plans? With the boys?” The scratch of a match and then a quick inhale as the Handler lit up. “Although now anything you do is more complicated. There is this new person in town, someone from the legate’s office.”

  “Yes. You think they’re . . . ?”

  “Trying to ferret us out? I would say that is an excellent surmise. We will have to wait and see if this operative initiates contact.”

  “Mmmm.” Gabriel nibbled on his lower lip. Destroying Limyanovich’s car in such a spectacular fashion had been a calculated risk designed to attract attention, and that seemed to have worked because, now, there was this woman from the legate’s office, this Dani Kodza. “One kid dying, I can make that go away. The other one, Noah . . . he’ll be harder. We want the police to go away, not stick around. If Troy dies, I can make that look like an accident. Noah, I can’t.”

  “Agreed,” the Handler said. “Just so long as this spy Kodza does not walk away with our prize. I am certain this is why she is so intent upon reclaiming the body.”

  “Then I’ll have to get moving on that. Tomorrow night. First, I do the kid. Slade is redoing the test, so I’ve got time.” Then he had a thought. “What if Slade finds the crystal first?”

  The Handler laughed then: a rattling, phlegmy, smoker’s hack. “You really need to ask?”

  33

  2100 hours

  They ate at the restaurant Amanda had taken Ramsey to the evening before. Phil Pearl called during dinner, with dispatch tagging Ramsey through Ketchum’s sat-link. At the mention of Pearl’s name, Kodza’s eyebrows rode toward her hairline, and she might’ve started in if the owner hadn’t chosen that moment to wander by. Ramsey excused himself, dragged his jacket out of coat check and headed outside.

  The night was brisk without the bone-numbing cold of early Saturday morning, and the stars were out again. Ramsey leaned against Ketchum’s cruiser, plugged in his earbud, got dispatch and then there was Pearl. Ramsey said, “Checking up?”

  “Actually, yes. Some jerk-off from DBI talked my ear off this afternoon.”

  “Garibaldi.”

  “That’s him. He said you weren’t that cooperative. Said you were supposed to report in after you met with this legate person, what’s his name?”

  “Her name. Dani Kodza.”

  “Whatever. Garibaldi strongly implied that if you didn’t cooperate, he wouldn’t see this as an example of patriotic macho, or some crap like that.”

  “He’s just pissed that I’m not signing up to play secret agent.”

  “Yeah, well, now he’s pissing on me. Threatened to go to the mayor and then the governor if I didn’t cooperate. Chewed me a new asshole. Imagine my surprise when I sat down for a crap.”

  That made Ramsey laugh. “Did you tell him what to do with his opposable thumb?”

  “Very handy device if inserted and spun upon properly.” There was a pause. “IA’s going to present their recommendations sometime Monday, Tuesday at the latest.”

  “Okay.” Funny, how tight his stomach squeezed. “You got a read?”

  “I’ve got someone on the inside says it’s an even split. There’s a lot of sympathy for you, and not just because of Kevin. You got rid of a monster, and I hope this line is bugged because McFaine deserved what he got.”

  “But that’s not why they hired me. Can’t have those rogue, vigilante cops.”

  “No. Final decision’s the chief’s, of course.”

  “Meaning the mayor, or maybe the governor.”

  “Meaning I don’t know. I know what I think, and I know what I’m going to say.”

  “But they’ll want you to get rid of me. Then you show everybody the police can police the police.” Saying the words made his stomach get cold, and he closed his eyes, feeling a little sick. “You want me to resign, Phil?”

  “No.” Then, stronger: “No. You don’t do a damn thing, Jack. You submit your resignation I’ll use it for toilet paper.”

  “Well,” Ramsey said, “now that you got that new asshole . . .”

  * * *

  They talked about the case, and before he disconnected, Pearl said, “Call Garibaldi. That’ll be one less headache.”

  So Ramsey got dispatch and, in thirty seconds, he was patched through to a secure line on Garibaldi’s end. “It’s Jack Ramsey.”

  “Ah, Ramsey.” Cool, like he’d been buffing his nails. “About time.”

  “I was busy. You know, doing cop things.”

  Garibaldi ignored the sarcasm. “So what do you have?”

  Ramsey went over Dani Kodza, what happened at the hospital, and her shutting down any discussion on motive. When he got to the DNA, he said, “So, I was wondering if there was some kind of connection.”

  “Might be. Hang on.” Garibaldi’s voice got faint as if he’d moved away from his
sat, and then he heard Garibaldi giving commands to his computer. A few moments later, Garibaldi was back. “There’s one little bit. PolyTech’s been quite busy, flying executives toward the periphery. The worlds involved border very close to Clan worlds. We all know the Clans aren’t shy about genetic manipulation.”

  “How would the legate’s office be involved?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe Kodza’s real mission is to uncover Clan influence.”

  “So you think she’s thinking that Limyanovich comes out all this way to barter for information to trade back to a Clanner? Or that there are maybe Clan sympathizers here, in the civilian population? Clandestine Clan groups? That’s . . .” He’d been about to tell Garibaldi how nuts that was but then he remembered something. “Didn’t you say that Kodza traveled a lot on missions that are straight shots to Nykvarn, and Nykvarn’s on the periphery, right?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Well, I’m not an agent, but you’ve got Kodza on known Clan worlds. You got her going to a planet that’s about as far out in the Inner Sphere as you can get. What if there are factions within the Clans we don’t know about that are involved in some kind of espionage?”

  “That doesn’t sound very Clanlike,” Garibaldi said. “Clans aren’t exactly subtle, and they’re not big in the espionage business, not like the Kuritans, or Capellans.”

  “But what if these clansmen have been entrenched so long, they’ve morphed to be more like us? What if Kodza’s investigating that kind of threat?” Then he had a new thought. “Hell, what if she’s the threat? Using an entrenched megabusiness like PolyTech might be the cover Clanners would use to set down roots, maybe even distribute small cells all over the Inner Sphere.” The more he thought about this, the more Ramsey thought he might be on to something. “The best way to insinuate yourself into a society is to become part of its fabric and bide your time. So maybe Kodza isn’t investigating so much as keeping tabs on all her people, or simply reporting in.”

  In the silence that followed, Ramsey could practically hear the gears turning in Garibaldi’s head. Then: “You might be right. Maybe Kodza does know what’s what, so she’s anxious to know how her operation—whatever this is—has been compromised, or even if Poly Tech has sold them out somehow. Maybe Limyanovich was killed because he either knew something, or was a threat in some other way.”