“Excellent! I take it that you are fluent once more in Galactic Standard, then. All packed up? Ready to go at a moment’s notice…?”
The threat implied by his words caused Drew’s hands to curl into fists at his sides.
“Just because you have been forced into wait mode for the past three weeks doesn’t mean the rest of us have,” the man continued. “You’re on the clock, Mr. Townsend, and we’ve been building you a credible backstory. Clearly, you’ve been too preoccupied lately to monitor your credit account. Perhaps you should check it out. And we’re done here.”
Without another word, the man strode past Drew, out of the garage and down the alley to the street, where a large black PV sat idling, waiting for him.
***
Townsend raced up the three flights of stairs to his apartment and went directly to the InfoComm unit on his desk.
There had been a lot of activity in his credit account over the past couple of months, none of it initiated by him.
Flowers purchased and ordered delivered to an address in Fairhaven Enclave six weeks earlier, and again two weeks ago. Dinner for two once a week at different restaurants. Box seat tickets to a low-grav basketball game. Pairs of admissions to the sim-arcade and the thrill park. A whopping big fuel bill. And that afternoon while on his way home from work, he had apparently stopped at a jeweler’s shop and put a down payment on a ring. Drew called up a snap of his ‘purchase’. The stone was modest but unmistakably a diamond.
All the relevant video footage had been expertly doctored. He didn’t recognize the woman shown cuddling up to him in the various venues, but she had to be related to someone with influence. Someone who would do anything to prevent an ex-slammer rat from marrying into his or her family, including pull strings to have Drew’s name put on the Relocation Authority’s FIA list — For Immediate Assignment.
A chill trickled down his spine. He would need time to ferret out Bruni’s killer. With luck, it would be a while before the ‘narrow window of opportunity’ opened. But if Drew had learned one thing in his 36 years of life, it was not to trust anyone’s luck, especially his own.
Chapter 2
The next morning, with Plan B in place and eager to get started on his investigation, Drew put his PV in pursuit mode and overrode the grid. Traffic was light on the southbound urbanway. As he kicked his speed up to plus thirty, his comm unit suddenly squawked, startling him.
“Unidentified vehicle, it is a Class 1 moving violation to override grid control for the purpose of exceeding the speed limit on a four-lane city artery. Activate your transponder and discontinue manual operations immediately!”
Briefly, Drew considered discontinuing the comm unit instead. Then his common sense cut in, and he sighed and toggled the transponder switch. So, it would take him an extra fifteen minutes to get to the forensics lab. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“Townsend, is that you?” demanded a voice he recognized. “I should have known. You just got your Eligibility reinstated, amigo. You want to lose it again for a lousy traffic citation?”
The thought had probably crossed his subconscious mind, Drew realized. Aloud, he replied, “Sorry, Miguel. I was a little preoccupied and forgot to switch over when I merged with the southbound.”
“I believe you, but my captain says one warning only, and you’ve already had yours, several times. So no more fooling around, okay? Listen, I have to reprogram your on-board to take you to District Headquarters. The Chief wants to see you.”
His heart reflexively filling with dread, Drew watched a series of lights blink across his control panel. “I don’t suppose you have any idea why he’s calling me in?”
“Not a clue, amigo. Have you taken any bribes lately?”
It was meant as a joke, but Drew wasn’t smiling. A summons from the District Chief of Security was nothing to laugh about, especially when it came this early in the morning. Townsend had to be in some serious trouble. His cover could even be blown. If so, the usual betrayals of trust would hardly stack up in the Chief’s mind against Drew’s moonlighting as an agent for a black ops organization like the Earth Intelligence Service.
New storefronts and low-rise office buildings floated past him on both sides as the vehicle negotiated a series of broad, hilly downtown streets, finally turning off into a one-lane entranceway between two squat, gray brick structures. All downtown parking was underground, for security reasons. It was also gridded. As the control system neatly inserted Drew’s vehicle into a numbered space and shut off the engine, he automatically checked the chronometer on the dash. It read 8:05.
Three minutes later, he was standing alone in the anteroom to the office of Melville Ridout, Chief of Security for the District of New Chicago, as well as voting member and Past Deputy Chair of SISCO — the covert security branch of Earth’s Space Installation Authority. SISCO and Earth Intelligence had been working at cross-purposes practically from the day the EIS was formed, so keeping SISCO unaware of the EIS’s existence was a top priority for every agent.
There were comfortable leather chairs in the room, and at any other time Drew might have found them inviting — but not this morning. This morning, his nerves were dancing. Something important had to have brought the Chief in to work at this early hour, and Drew had a terrible feeling he knew what it was. If his cover had been compromised, he would need to improvise a very convincing con. Try as he might, however, he couldn’t get his thoughts to settle into any sort of coherent plan. It took him a few seconds to realize why: the anteroom was set up specifically to put anyone like Townsend off his game.
It made sense. The Chief had worked his way up through the ranks, and a good cop had to understand — and use — psychology. Drew gazed around the room once more, seeing it for the weapon that it was and admiring its effectiveness.
The receptionist’s desk was a slab of real redwood, polished to a flawless and intimidating luster, holding an inlaid InfoComm screen and comm speaker and absolutely nothing else. Rich, impersonal, and cold in both senses of the word, since the air was also perceptibly below normal room temperature.
The pale gold carpet gave luxuriously underfoot, its deep pile casually swallowing the sound of his movements. And those stern-faced portraits of previous District Chiefs on the walls were real paintings in ornate wooden frames. Drew could feel disapproval glowering down on him from every direction, further chilling the atmosphere.
“Please come in, Field Investigator Townsend.” The voice that rumbled out of the comm unit on the desk coincided with the soundless, automatic opening of the Chief’s door.
Nice touch. Of course, now that he knew what game they were playing…
Drew took a deep breath, selected an appropriate level of confidence to display, and strode into the Great Man’s sanctum.
Ridout looked up as Drew entered, and motioned him to one of the three guest chairs in the room. “Have a seat, Townsend.”
Drew pulled the nearest chair a little closer to the desk and sat, his gaze riveted on the thick sheaf of printout with three datawafers on top of it that lay at the Chief’s left hand. Ridout, he recalled from an earlier briefing, was very fond of paper. He even printed out reports and kept them as hard copy in an old-fashioned metal filing cabinet. That stack of paper on his desk could be anything. Under the circumstances, however, it was most likely Drew’s criminal and service records.
Ridout cleared his throat and began briskly, “I won’t waste time with pleasantries, Townsend. I’ve called you here because there has been a suspicious death at one of our space installations, and SISCO has asked me to choose our best investigator for an undercover mission. From what I’ve seen of your career file, you’re perfect for the assignment. You’re thorough and tenacious, with the most efficient murder-solving record in the District — except for my own, of course,” he added, leaning back with a smile. “And you have a checkered past, so you�
�ll fit right in on Daisy Hub.”
Feeling as though the room had just skewed itself sideways, Drew struggled to keep his expression neutral. A suspicious death? An undercover mission? Had the EIS ordered a kill to get him shipped out to the Hub? Was that what the agent in his garage had been hinting at yesterday evening?
“So this is a mission briefing, sir?”
“Of course,” snapped the Chief. “What the hell did you think it was?” Not waiting for an answer to his question, Ridout leaned forward again and continued, “The victim is Karim Khaloub, until two weeks ago station manager of the Hub. That’s when his body was discovered in an airlock, in his pajamas, frozen stiff. The Relocation Authority is screaming foul, claiming that someone on the crew must have taken him out, believing that he was there to spy on them.” Ridout paused, scowling thoughtfully, then shook his head. “Even if that were true, which SISCO doubts, Khaloub would have been a poor choice for the job. He was still in his twenties, fresh off desk duty at Data Management, and Daisy Hub was his first off-planet assignment. We decided that anyone we sent out there had better have a little more mileage on him, and a lot more savvy. I’ve been reviewing your biodata, Field Investigator, and you certainly fit the bill.
“It’s lucky for SISCO that the Relocation Authority saw fit to reinstate your Eligibility. Most reformed criminals don’t even bother applying, because they know how high the odds are stacked against them. But you’re not just any ex-slammer rat, are you?”
“No, sir, I’m not,” said Drew, straightening in his chair, assuming his best poker face and purposely looking directly into the Chief’s eyes. If Ridout suspected him of being a mole, that was where the tell would be.
The other man didn’t even blink. “Be warned, Townsend: you’re going to need all your skills on this assignment, both criminal and investigative,” he continued. “Daisy Hub is our farthest-flung inspection and resupply station. It’s crewed by Eligibles, of course, but these people have eccentricities. Quirks. They aren’t mentally ill — they wouldn’t be Eligible if they were. Let’s just say that they don’t work well with others.”
Inwardly, Drew permitted himself a smile. So, not a tell — a challenge, one that he felt certain would pique Townsend’s interest.
Ridout picked up the pages of printout, jogged them up, and replaced them in a neat stack on the desktop. “And, of course, there are the Nandrians, who apparently don’t work with others, period,” he sighed. “The local Ranger detachment has already initiated an investigation, but their preliminary report is laughable, and SISCO doesn’t believe they’re getting much help from those mavericks and misfits on the Hub. That’s what can happen, I guess, when all the bad apples end up in one basket. And that’s why we’ve strong-armed the Relocation Authority into appointing an experienced field investigator — you — as the new station manager.”
Drew’s stomach tipped over into a barrel roll. Station manager? That wasn’t the assignment the EIS had trained him for!
Ridout’s expression flickered briefly. “We’ve built you a cover story and Security is already transmitting your new documentation to Platform Zulu and Daisy Hub,” he went on. “Naturally, you’ll be maintaining that cover by doing whatever it is the station manager does, including filing routine reports with the SIA; at the same time, you’ll also be transmitting updates on the investigation to SISCO. The encryption codes have been embedded into your new biowafer. Say SISCO rapidly twice at the beginning and end of your report. The message will sound like static to anyone without the proper clearance. We’ll keep silence at our end unless there’s an emergency. In that case, you’ll receive a request for clarification, your cue to use your biowafer to unscramble the static under the transmission. This case is a real mess, Townsend. We believe only an inside man who’s also a bad apple will be able to sort it out.”
A real mess? It was going to be a nightmare. SISCO had co-opted Drew’s mission for the EIS, and there was no way he could turn down this assignment without raising a lot of red flags. So, he said the only thing he could under the circumstances:
“Yes, sir. When does my long-hopper leave?”
“In three hours. Don’t worry about the formalities — your relocation paperwork is already in the system, and I’ll notify your precinct commander personally. You should have just enough time to pack and report to the airfield.”
Ridout scooped up the datawafers and held them out to him, across the desk. “Here is all the information we have on the case on Daisy Hub, the biofiles of the station crew, your revised biodata, and whatever we’ve managed to learn about the Nandrians. The Hub specs and deck layouts, along with certain other things you’ll need, will be waiting for you on board the ship. You’ll have plenty of time to study them en route to your destination. You’d better hurry home, Townsend. I’m depending on you to wrap up this investigation as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” Drew stood and turned to go.
“Oh, and, Townsend?”
One stride away from the door, Drew paused and looked back over his shoulder. Ridout sat motionless behind his desk, staring fixedly at the stack of hard copy on top of it.
“Yes, sir?”
The Chief took a deep breath and looked up. “Irene denies it, but evidence doesn’t lie. A man with your past and your life experiences should have known that it would be a cold day in hell before I let you marry my niece.”
For the second time that morning Drew’s world took a sudden leftward tilt. Ridout’s niece? Of all the people to pick! But now it made sense. The EIS had done such a good job of falsifying records to support his cover story that it had become a con, and Ridout had fallen for it. And Ridout wasn’t just someone who knew someone who could pull strings — he was the one whose say-so got things done. Things like bouncing Drew’s name to the top of the FIA list, making him immediately available for this conveniently-timed undercover assignment for SISCO.
The EIS had planned to slip him into a low-profile position where he could observe for a while before making any moves. SISCO was putting him into the hot seat straightaway as the station manager, negating weeks of training and preparation and forcing him to learn a whole new job on the fly. And in case that wasn’t challenging enough, Drew had now graduated from mole to double agent, with two separate cover stories to keep straight and two covert agencies to report to, neither one of which would hesitate to kill him if it thought he had revealed its presence on Daisy Hub to the other one. It was like walking a tightrope while juggling knives.
Drew’s gut was uncomfortably tight, but once again, there was nothing to say except, “Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
***
Drew went to the precinct house first, to clean out his desk. Specifically, he needed to download all the available information on the Bruni Patel murder case and retrieve his encrypting comm. News of his off-planet posting had preceded him, so nobody was surprised that he was leaving. Romero wasn’t happy about it but sincerely wished him luck and shook his hand. The other Eligibles cast openly envious looks in his direction. Everyone else was out in the field. There was a sour taste of unfinished business at the back of Townsend’s throat as he walked out of the ward room for the last time, headed for his PV.
In a hurry to get home and pack, he programmed a more direct route than usual into his on-board, along the canal and past Fairhaven Enclave. He’d been offered an apartment in Fairhaven when his Eligibility was reinstated but had turned it down, preferring to stay in the one on Lamont Street. Thirteen years earlier, this had been the only building willing to rent to him when he was released from detention. Now, despite its proximity to the Zone, it was the only place that felt like home.
As the road curved left around a greenbelt area, Drew switched to manual control and bore right, away from the traffic grid, into a twisting maze of older residential side streets. The ride became progressively bumpier and more unsett
ling the closer he got to the Zone. Pavements were buckled, overhead lighting had been vandalized, storm drains were clogged with garbage and debris. At this hour the streets were quiet, but he knew from experience that silence could be deceptive. Drew gritted his teeth and focused on counting blocks, not wanting to miss his turn. Street names and speed limit signs were unreadable in this part of the city, PVs were extremely scarce, and other than the video drones that roamed the area during the daylight hours, Security was damn near nonexistent. That was why he barely paused when turning into the driveway beside his building and didn’t stop until he was parked inside the garage behind it.
Today was the last time he would be doing this as well. Drew made a mental note to commconnect with Barry Novak. Security not being the best paid of occupations, Bruni had arranged for Townsend to borrow a personal vehicle from Novak’s company, SecuriTech. The PV would have to be returned now that Drew had received his first off-world posting.
His first. Karim Khaloub’s first. Both as station managers. He and the victim had that much in common. And Khaloub had ended up not only dead, but suspiciously so. The Relocation Authority refused to put even potential troublemakers in positions of power, so Khaloub must have been squeaky-clean at the time of his appointment. If foul play was involved and the EIS wasn’t, then something must have happened on Daisy Hub, something that gave somebody a reason to kill the boss. According to Ridout, the Hub was crewed by “mavericks and misfits”, so Drew had to consider the possibility that perhaps the target hadn’t been Khaloub personally, but rather the position he held. If so, then whoever stepped in to replace him would be in danger as well.
Abruptly, he became aware that the vehicle’s flatscreen had been flashing a question at him: Commence lockdown procedure? Y or N
The Genius Asylum: Sic Transit Terra Book 1 Page 2
