Usurper

by Richard F. Weyand

  “In the specific case where the Empress has not named an heir, the Imperial Council should choose the successor.”

  “I knew that would be their decision. It had to be. What choices are there?”

  “Now that only applies if the Empress hasn’t named an heir to the commander of the Imperial Guard. It wouldn’t apply if she named an heir, even if they weren’t approved by the Council.”

  “I understand, Galbraith. Well, at least we have a decision on what should happen should we ever find ourselves in that situation. Hasn’t ever happened yet, but at least now we’re covered.”

  “All right, Pomeroy. So that’s the verbal on the decision. We should get a write-up in a couple of days.”

  “All right, Galbraith. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Lord Pomeroy and Chief Stanier were at dinner.

  “So I do have some news, George. Some good news, for a change.”

  “It’s about time, Larry. My missing boys still haven’t shown up, and I’m pretty worried about what’s going on.”

  “Same here. But I asked Galbraith this week to get an opinion from the High Court as to who would pick the successor to the Throne if something were to happen to this Empress without her having named an heir.”

  “You said it like that?”

  “More like a hypothetical. ‘Shouldn’t we have considered the situation where an Empress dies without an heir in advance, rather than try to figure it out at the time?’ More like that.”

  “So did he ask them?”

  “Yes. And Gaffney got back with a unanimous decision of the High Court that it should be the Council that decides, but only in the case where there is no named successor.”

  “What if Daggert says she told him in private or something, like last time?”

  “Then I’ll say he’s lying. Unless there’s been an announcement of some kind, I’m just going to say he’s lying and move the Council name the successor.

  “Can you carry the Council on a vote like that?”

  “I can now, George. I couldn’t four years ago. But I can now.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting about the Imperial Marines, Larry?”

  “When the Council says Daggert’s lying? And names the successor per the High Court decision? I don’t think so. What are they going to do? Kill everybody on the Council?”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, Larry. They wouldn’t act against the Council to support Daggert, particularly if you really raked him over about lying.”

  “Exactly. And what all that means, George, is that if something were to happen to our little pretend Empress, the Council will name the next ruler of Sintar.”

  Whitmore and Gorecki

  “All right, you guys. We’re gonna drive by over Imperial Park West, all nice and easy like. Just motoring around. Stay out of the restricted airspace over Imperial Park. We just wanna see what they’re gonna do. And whatever you do, keep your paws offa that weapons control panel. They can detect those rockets going armed miles away.”

  “Yeah, Stash. We know. Same as last night. No problem.”

  “Well, just make sure you do it right, that’s all.”

  The sky was threatening tonight, but it wasn’t raining. They were up on the roof but, with the threatening sky, had not gone swimming. Dinner had been kung pao chicken made with cashews instead of peanuts, with fried rice, spring rolls, and a lime sherbet.

  “So who do you go after first, Gorecki, Kershaw, or Whitmore?” Bobby asked.

  “Whitmore,” Dee said. “Picking up Kershaw would be really visible, and I think Gorecki is reporting directly to Stanier for his dirty work. In contrast, there’s probably at least one more level above Whitmore before we get to Pomeroy.”

  “So you do think it’s Stanier and Pomeroy.”

  “Yes, and their allies. I always did, Bobby. I just couldn’t prove it. I still can’t. I have to prove it, to my own satisfaction, at least. The Throne cannot be seen to be arbitrary and capricious. If they attack me, however, I can respond with righteous authority.”

  “And are you prepared to do that?” Sean asked.

  “Oh, yes. And no, I will not give you any details. Maybe none of this happens.”

  “Keep dreaming,” Bobby said.

  “So it’s Whitmore first?” Cindy asked.

  “Yes. He’s more removed from Pomeroy than Kershaw or Gorecki is from Stanier. Maybe we can get one more round in before they respond. Maybe I get the evidence I need first. We’ll see.”

  “Dangerous game,” Bobby said.

  “Part of the job,” Dee said.

  As if on cue, Bobby and Sean received an Imperial Guard security alarm in VR. The two current assigned Guardsmen, who had been lurking outside their conversation circle, approached.

  “Your Majesty, we have an alarm. This way, please.”

  “Oh, God. That’s the third one today. So far,” Dee said.

  She thought about it, then shook her head.

  “No. The Empress of Sintar is not going to run into hiding every time somebody makes a wrong turn out of the car park.”

  “But, Your Majesty, we must get you to safety.”

  “No. If they strike at me, they will reap the full measure of the consequences.”

  “And if they succeed in killing you, Dee?” Bobby asked.

  “Then God help them.”

  Four Imperial Marine attack ships roared across overhead.

  Captain Joseph ‘Joey’ Bertrand was identifying possible targets in his heads-up display.

  “We got anything, Joey?” his wingman, First Lieutenant Gary ‘Trigger’ Trucco, asked.

  “It’s that big Imperial Police shuttle again,” Bertrand said.

  “Those guys are starting to piss me off,” Captain Martin ‘Flitter’ Falletti said.

  “Yeah, you and me both, Flitter. Let’s keep an eye on ‘em till they mosey on by,” Bertrand said.

  “Roger that, Joey.”

  “Yeah. Maybe they’ll give us a reason to shoot at ‘em,” Falletti’s wingman, First Lieutenant Paul ’Racer’ Rasinowski, said.

  “Keep dreamin’, Racer,” Falletti said.

  “OK, so that’s the second night in a row they acted exactly the same way. Interesting,” Stash said.

  “We gonna go again tonight, Stash.”

  “Nah. Let’s let it quiet down a little. We already know what they’re gonna do, if it comes to that. So let’s just lie low for a bit. No clue whether it’s ever gonna go any further or not, but we learned what we wanted to learn.”

  Todd Whitmore, the Director of Acquisition Testing for the Defense Department, was leaving for work that Monday morning. It had been almost three weeks since the murder of Vasilisa Medved, who used to work in his department. He, in fact, had passed her name up the chain in response to an inquiry about who might be assisting the palace in preparing the Empress’s subpoenas to the weapons manufacturers and analyzing the documents returned.

  And then Bruce Fairfield had disappeared right after the murder, and had still not shown up. Since then, there had been an expectancy, a sense that something unseen was building, that something else was going to happen. Whitmore spent every day at work waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wished whatever it was would just get it over with and happen. This was driving him nuts.

  As he stepped out of the entrance facade of his condo building in Imperial Park East, he was approached by two uniformed officers of the Imperial City Police Department.

  “Todd Whitmore?”

  “Yes, I’m Todd Whitmore.”

  “You’re under arrest, sir. If you would come with me, please.”

  “May I ask the charge, officer?”

  “Accessory to murder. Come this way, sir.”

  Fleeing the police was never a good idea, and Whitmore knew arguing with them could do no good either. That was all for the attorneys to deal with. So he went along quietly and was taken through the arcade level on an electric arcade cart to a police transporter. The transporte
r trip seemed a little longer than he expected, but he didn’t think anything of it until they let him out of the back of the transporter.

  Imperial Guard? Then it was someplace in Imperial Park. Most likely the palace. He looked around while he was being escorted from the basement loading area into a detention area. New building. The Imperial Research facility?

  He was led into an interview room and directed to sit in the chair opposite the door. The two Imperial Guardsmen took positions and stood at ease behind Whitmore. An Imperial Marine captain entered and sat opposite him.

  “Good morning, Mr. Whitmore. You are being held as a material witness and possibly an accessory to the crime of treason. This is an Imperial investigation, and the normal rules of civil procedure do not apply. We are going to ask you a series of questions. If you do not answer them honestly and completely, we will drug them out of you. Since it is a treason investigation, refusing to answer the questions completely and honestly is aiding and abetting treason, and you will be executed once we have the answers to our questions. Any questions?”

  “Can I contact my attorney, Captain?”

  “No, Mr. Whitmore. As I say, it is an Imperial investigation, and the Throne is not bound by the rules it makes for its own police forces.”

  “How is this a treason investigation?”

  “Vasilisa Medved was working directly with the Empress on a project. She was murdered to disrupt the Empress’s project. It is therefore treason. We are aware of your role in determining the identity of the person helping the Empress prepare the subpoenas seeking information on small weapons testing. You are therefore, potentially, an accessory to treason.”

  “I see. Go ahead, Captain.”

  “You asked Bruce Fairfield who he thought might be helping the Empress in understanding the small weapons test plan process, did you not?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “He told you he thought it was Vasilisa Medved, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You turned that information – Vasilisa Medved’s name – over to higher. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who did you give her name to?”

  “Henry Wilkins.”

  “What is Mr. Wilkins title?”

  “He is the head of Defense Procurement.”

  “Was it Mr. Wilkins who asked you to inquire as to who might be assisting with the subpoenas?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think his purpose was in wanting that information?”

  “I thought he wanted to gain a better understanding of the motivation behind the subpoenas. What the purpose was.”

  “Did you at any time think that it was his purpose to discover who it was so that he could have them killed?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Did you hear that Vasilisa Medved had been murdered?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “When did you hear?”

  “The next day. It was all over the department.”

  “Did you wonder, after you heard that Vasilisa Medved had been murdered, whether she had been murdered as a result of you passing her name to Mr. Wilkins?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you did not come forward. Why is that, Mr. Whitmore?”

  “Because I was afraid.”

  “You were afraid?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid now. Clearly these people are playing outside the rules, Captain. If they would murder that young woman, clearly killing me would cause them no hesitation or remorse.”

  “I see.”

  The Guard captain folded his hands in front of himself on the table and appeared to be consulting his VR. Then he returned his attention to Whitmore.

  “Very well, Mr. Whitmore. Thank you for answering our questions. With regard to your fears for your safety, we are going to hold you in protective custody here. You will remain in a comfortable room here – not a cell – while this situation plays itself out. You will not be the only person doing so.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You are being detained in order to keep the perpetrators of this crime in the dark as to our activities. You are not under arrest per se.”

  “Will I have access to VR?”

  “Yes, but only to the entertainment section. You will have plenty of things to read or study, but no communication with the outside will be allowed.”

  “I see. Very well. I don’t really have any choice, do I?”

  “No, Mr. Whitmore. I’m sorry.”

  The Guard captain left the room, and the two Guardsmen in the corners of the room led Whitmore out of the interview room to a detention room with a bed, overstuffed chair, desk, task chair, and private bathroom.

  “Lord Pomeroy.”

  “Wilkins here.”

  “Hi, Hank. What’s going on?”

  “Todd Whitmore didn’t show up at work this morning. He didn’t call in. No one knows where he’s at. And no one can reach him on VR.”

  “Shit. Just like Fairfield.”

  “Just like Fairfield. Exactly.”

  “Hank, we need to get you under cover somehow, until this all blows over. Can you bug out somehow?”

  “I’m not sure where I would go. My summer home is a matter of record. And I’m still locatable – for the police, anyway – by VR.”

  “Let’s hole you up in my beach house, Hank. That and a VR suppressor and we’re good, I think.”

  “I’m good with that. Getting a little too hot over here at the moment.”

  “Exactly. I’ll send my car over. Say half an hour. It has a VR suppressor.”

  The sky was threatening again tonight. They had to forego laps in the pool, and a fire on the breezy rooftop was out of the question. They sat in the gazebo around the warmth of a fake fire pit instead. Dinner tonight had been chicken paprikash, with a garden salad and apple pie for dessert.

  “So Wilkins was involved,” Bobby said.

  “Yes. Whitmore’s metabolic readings were understandably elevated under questioning, but did not budge when he answered the critical questions.”

  “One step closer to Pomeroy.”

  “Probably the last step.”

  “You think Pomeroy gave Wilkins the instructions directly?” Cindy asked.

  “Sure,” Dee said. “It cuts out one layer, just like Whitmore contacting Fairfield. That’s not uncommon in the multiple layers of bureaucracy in the Defense Department.”

  “I have a little tidbit there,” Sean said. “Wilkins disappeared today. Left for lunch and didn’t come back.”

  “The squirrels are starting to hide the nuts,” Bobby said.

  “Well, isn’t that interesting,” Dee said.

  “So now what do we do?” Sean asked.

  “Picking up Mr. Gorecki would be next, I think,” Dee said.

  Lord Pomeroy and Chief Stanier were out at dinner.

  “Another one of my guys disappeared today, George.”

  “Who was it, Larry?”

  “Todd Whitmore. Fairfield’s two-up boss. He’s the guy asked Fairfield who our little rat was. Fairfield disappeared, and now Whitmore disappeared.”

  “Shit. Who was it asked Whitmore?”

  “Henry Wilkins. He’s gone into hiding so they can’t find him. He’s the last step to me.”

  “Can he just disappear permanently?”

  “Could, though I’d hate to do it. He was following orders, not causing trouble. We probably should have taken care of Whitmore, though.”

  “Is it time, Larry?”

  “Maybe. I keep hoping this whole thing will blow over, but it just keeps escalating.”

  “Problem is, you wait too long and it’s way too late.”

  “Yeah, I know, George. I know. Let’s see what happens next. I think we have one more round before it all blows up.”

  “All right, Larry. It’s your call.”

  The Imperial City Police Department knew that picking up Stanley Gorecki could be trouble. They’d tangled with him before in
the dives and alleys of the South End. So they brought plenty of back-up.

  It was mid-morning before Gorecki emerged from his apartment building in the South End to head into work. He had been working into the evening for the past week or so, using the shuttles to test the Palace’s response to their shuttle flights, so he was running a later start time than normal. This was the quietest time of the day in the South End, with the revelers of the night before still in bed, and those with jobs already off at work.

  Two uniformed officers accosted him as he left the building.

  “Stanley Gorecki?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “You’re under arrest. Come with me, please.”

  Gorecki tried to send a message to Stanier in VR, but they already had a VR suppressor on him. He turned and looked behind himself down the sidewalk, then drew a pistol from an inside-the-waistband holster in the small of his back as he turned back to the officers. A police sniper behind a car across the street fired a tranquilizer dart that hit Gorecki in the left thigh, but the big man was moving faster than the tranquilizer could take effect. As Gorecki lifted the gun, the second police sniper, behind a trash bin across the street, shot Gorecki in the head.

  Stanley Gorecki was dead before he hit the ground.

  Chief Stanier called Lord Pomeroy about two o’clock that afternoon.

  “Stanley Gorecki didn’t come into work today, Larry. We can’t raise him on VR.”

  “What happened to him, George? Any idea?”

  “No. He was my eyes and ears on the South End, and nobody else has the contacts down there to find out anything.”

  “And he knows everything.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. He’ll fight them all the way, but if they drug him he’ll finger me. He doesn’t know about you, but if they pick me up and drug me, well, they’re gonna get that, too. And Gorecki knows about the rockets, of course.”

  “She is completely out of control, George. Disappearing people, probably drugging information out of them. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out she’s executing them when she’s done with them.”

  “After some of those drugs, that would be a blessing, Larry.”