Hangfire

by David Sherman

  "We aren't the only ones, you know," Lance Corporal Watson commented.

  Corporal Linsman nodded. "Gunny Bass, Staff Sergeant Hyakowa, Corporal Kerr—"

  "Kerr doesn't count, he was away for almost two years," Van Impe said.

  "Recuperating from wounds suffered on a deployment with us," Dornhofer reminded him. "That counts."

  "—Lance Corporal Dupont," Linsman continued, ignoring the interjection, "all three squad leaders, half the gun squad."

  "Captain Conorado, Top Myer, Gunny Thatcher," Dornhofer said, picking up the roll call. "Hell, everybody in the company headquarters unit."

  "And that doesn't count the men from the other platoons," Goudanis added.

  "Anybody know about the rest of the battalion?" Dornhofer asked.

  Nobody had enough friends in the other blaster companies—or any of the FIST's other units—to have any idea whether it was just Lima Company that wasn't getting transfers or if the stagnation had spread further.

  "We've got a lot of new men in the platoon," Goudanis said. "But every one of them was a replacement for a Marine who was killed or injured too badly to return to duty." He shook his head. "I don't remember the last time we got a new man as a replacement for someone who rotated out. Except Corporal Doyle."

  "Special situation," Linsman said.

  "Doyle's a pogue," Van Impe said. "Pogues don't count."

  "That's a good point," Dornhofer said to Goudanis, ignoring the remarks about Corporal Doyle. "And it really bothers me. A few FISTs, most particularly the 34th, have an unusually high number of deployments. That means we suffer a high number of casualties. Normal procedure is to transfer a Marine out of one of these high-deployment FISTs into a unit that doesn't deploy so he gets a break from being the tip of the pointy end." He glanced around the table. "I think every one of us has a wound stripe. Several of us have more than one. The longer a Marine is in a high-deployment FIST, the worse the odds against him surviving."

  He looked at Schultz. "What do you think, Hammer?"

  Schultz grunted. "Mother Corps sends, I go." It really didn't matter to Schultz where he was stationed or for how long. All he asked was to remain a lance corporal until he retired after forty years' service and to be in a unit that had a lot of combat deployments. Thirty-fourth FIST was the best assignment he'd had so far—perhaps no other unit in the Confederation Marine Corps had as many deployments as it did. If he spent the rest of his career with 34th FIST, that was fine with him.

  They were silent for a long moment, each man thinking his private thoughts, then Dornhofer leaned his elbows on the table and said, "Something's going on. I've been thinking about requesting mast to find out what it is."

  "Request mast?" Chan asked. "You don't have to be so formal about it, the Skipper will see any man in the company who knocks on his door."

  Dornhofer shook his head. "I don't mean Captain Conorado. I mean Brigadier Sturgeon."

  Every Marine had the right to "request mast," to go to the commander at the appropriate level to get a problem resolved. He didn't have to explain the problem to anyone under that commander—no one could shunt the problem aside or bury it. Request mast was a very serious matter, and never undertaken lightly or for frivolous reasons.

  "Brigadier Sturgeon!" several of them exclaimed.

  "You don't fool around," Linsman said.

  "Why not go to Commander Van Winkle first?" Goudanis asked.

  "Because the battalion commander doesn't know anything that the FIST commander doesn't, and the brigadier probably knows things Van Winkle doesn't."

  "Don't you think if the brigadier knew he'd have told us by now?" Dean asked.

  Dornhofer didn't answer. He knew what Dean was thinking. Confederation Marine Corps officers were all commissioned from the ranks. Every one of them knew what it was like to be on the bottom of the chain of command and have to carry out the orders or live under the dictates that came down that chain. Every one of them knew from firsthand experience what the junior enlisted and junior noncommissioned officers were capable of. Even if the institution the enlisted men sometimes called "Mother Corps" was occasionally negligent, the officers could be counted on to do their best for their Marines.

  "If something's going on that affects us like this, either he doesn't know or he's under orders to not tell us," Linsman said.

  "If he doesn't know, somebody needs to tell him. If he's got orders not to tell us, those orders are wrong." The others, even Schultz, who was content being with 34th FIST for an extended period, made movements or noises of agreement.

  There was nothing they could do about the situation that night other than complain. But Marines on liberty, with money in their pockets, beer at hand, and willing women nearby, don't stay disgruntled for long. After a while they set about getting happily drunk and started looking for proper female companionship.

  As it turned out, by the time Dornhofer filed for his request mast, he couldn't see the FIST commander.

  Chapter Three

  It was snowing heavily in Fargo on the day Assistant Attorney General Thom Nast had his second interview with Madame Chang-Sturdevant, President of the Confederation Council.

  That first time he'd been only a special agent of the Ministry of Justice, laughed at by superiors who thought him a fool. Madame President, however, knew better and she had given him the job of cleaning up the poaching operation on Avionia, which had resulted in the arrest of numerous government officials, chief among them the Attorney General herself. Nast had subsequently been promoted to Assistant Attorney General and put in charge of the Organized Crime Directorate.

  "Why the hell didn't you take the Metro, Thom?" Hugyens Long groused. He nodded at the swirling snowstorm just outside the landcar's window. "Or we could have taken a hopper," he added grimly. It was nearly forty kilometers from the Ministry of Justice's headquarters in Davenport to the Confederation Council Complex at Dilworth, east of the river. It would take them a good hour to travel that distance on the surface. Despite the fact that they would never have to go out into the storm, Chief Long had insisted on bringing along a warm overcoat. "You never know," he had said when Nast asked him if he thought the coat would be required.

  "I thought we might want to talk, Chief. Privately."

  "Don't count on it, Thom," Long grunted. "Sweet Persephone's tits, you don't know where the bugs might be! This is a company car, goddamnit." Spying had become endemic at the ministry during his predecessor's reign. When she had been arrested for her role in the Avionian operation, Long was called back from retirement to replace her. Unlike his predecessor, Long was a cop, not a lawyer, so to him the law was to be obeyed and enforced, not used for personal gain or advantage.

  As Attorney General, Long had managed to find out more than he was authorized to know about the ultrasecret Avionian Project, and some prominent politicians and businessmen had gone to the penal colony called Darkside for their role in the poaching there. Since his appointment he had discovered, to his utter dismay, that the Ministry of Justice was riddled with officials on the take, every one of them left over from his predecessor's administration. He was rooting them out, but slowly. Many of Nast's investigations into racketeering, for instance, were thwarted because someone in the Organized Crime Directorate had been leaking information to the syndicate bosses. The other directorates were equally riddled with highly paid informants.

  Nast refused to talk about his plan in any office at the ministry. Long respected Nast's precaution and he respected him as a professional law enforcement officer. Nast had proved his worth on Avionia. So Long readily acceded to the younger man's request for a private meeting with the Confederation President. If Nast didn't want to talk about his plan until he was sure it would not be compromised, and if he felt its success required the special intervention of the president, Attorney General Long would support him.

  "I did have this vehicle swept," Nast said.

  Long grunted. "Just keep what you know to yourself, until we
're in with the President. Besides, you only wanted to take surface transportation because you like the goddamn snow, Nast!"

  They both laughed. "It is beautiful, isn't it?" Nast said.

  Long snorted. "Hate the stuff myself. Here we are in the capital city of the Confederation of Human Worlds and the goddamned government can't even put a climate dome over the place, so we have to endure this—crap." He shook his head. "Smoke?" He fumbled in his loose-fitting jacket and produced a handful of cigars. "I have Clintons and Fidels."

  "Thank you, sir," Nast replied. "A Fidel, please. The Clintons are too tasteless for me."

  They lit the cigars and smoked in silence for a long moment, savoring the Fidels' richness.

  "Ah, Thom, me boy, a cigar is a cigar, but a Fidel is a smoke." Long stretched luxuriously and blew the smoke out slowly through his nose.

  Nast marveled at how calm his boss was. Another man would have demanded to know what his plan was, possibly refused his request for an interview with the president as going out of bounds over a matter that belonged within the ministry. But not Long. The Attorney General was actually content just to wait to hear the details of his plan. Known affectionately as "Chief," because he'd run a planetary police force for many years, Hugyens Long believed that reliable subordinates should be allowed to exercise their own initiative. Even to the point of calling for a meeting with the confederation president if need be. Even to the point of enduring an hour's ride in a landcar in a snowstorm.

  Nast had come up with a plan to gather the evidence he needed to break up the mob's activities on Havanagas, the "leisure world" owned and operated by some of the biggest crime families in the Confederation. Almost every agent so far sent to Havanagas had died. Nast had managed to keep two alive—code names Bistro and Copper—because he was the only person in the ministry, Chief Long included, who knew their identities. Bistro's cover was so deep and his position so low-level, he had not yet been able to develop useful access; Copper figured prominently in Nast's plan to destroy the mob's hold on Havanagas. But to carry off his plan, Nast required presidential authority. That was good enough for an old cop like Long.

  "I've known Chang-Sturdevant for some years, Thom," the Attorney General said, "But you actually worked for her on that Avionian thing. What's your impression?"

  Nast shrugged. "I like her, Chief. She's not afraid to make decisions, and she trusts you to do your job. She knows how to run a government. Not a bad looker for a gal in her seventies either. I'd say she was a knockout when she was in her forties."

  "Would you share a Fidel with her?" Long joked. The expression "to share a Fidel" was a distinct sexual innuendo.

  "Yeah, I'd share a Fidel with her, and a number of other things." He laughed.

  The landcar wound its way through the towering canyons of Fargo's government buildings, mostly the minor ministerial departments of West Fargo. About half a kilometer behind them another intrepid traveler's car plowed bravely through the drifts, its lights intermittently visible through the swirling snow. They crossed the frozen Red River of the North while the two passengers smoked contentedly, the landcar's guidance system carefully negotiating the patches of ice and snowdrifts along the highway. In the blizzard, it was impossible to make out the soaring edifices of the Council Complex that dominated the city's eastern skyline. Five kilometers beyond the river they entered a tunnel at Dilworth that led into the vast underground city that lay beneath the complex. More than a hundred thousand people from every world in the Confederation lived and worked there.

  The car glided to a smooth stop beside a busy unloading platform. Its doors swung open and the pair dismounted. A vast underground plaza, crowded with shoppers, stretched off into the far distance before them. Despite the storm roaring on the surface, the underground city basked in warm artificial sunlight, its citizens going about their business in shirtsleeves. "Gentlemen, we have arrived," the landcar's feminine voice announced. "Take the Red Wallway to Tower B7. The President's suite is on the 101st floor. Enjoy your business, gentlemen." The car sped off.

  They mounted a high-speed walkway marked RED and were carried across the plaza toward a huge bank of elevators. Chief Long carried his overcoat over one arm. He had begun to perspire slightly. "Thom, one thing I can tell you for sure," he said, running a handkerchief over his brow.

  "What's that, Chief?"

  "We're flying back to Davenport."

  In the unloading zone, the car that had been following them pulled to a stop and a tall man wearing an overcoat hopped out. He stood for a moment, rearranging the garment about himself. He ordered the car to wait for him in a nearby parking zone.

  He stood looking about, getting his bearings. When he caught sight of the two officials some distance ahead of him on the moving walkway, he smiled grimly and followed them.

  No one was allowed access to the elevator bank without first passing through a full-body security scan and retinal ID. There were no exceptions, not even Madame Chang Sturdevant or her cabinet ministers, although one station was exclusively reserved for officials of cabinet rank. A long row of scanners manned by security police blocked the way. The pair picked one with a short line. First their identities were established and then they were asked to surrender their sidearms until they were ready to leave the complex. Chief Long stepped into the scanner first.

  "Where have you been eating your meals, sir?" one of the guards asked.

  The question came as a surprise. Long shrugged "Mostly in the ministry cafeteria. I spend most of my time at the office."

  "Step around here and look at this, sir." The guard indicated Chief Long should come around to his instrument console. "See that?" He pointed to a tiny dot on the screen. It was located in the sigmoid flexure of his colon.

  Chief Long nodded. "Thom, a goddamn bug! There was a bug in my goddamn food! I knew we were smart not to talk in the car."

  "This one has almost worked its way through. Someone in the cafeteria is feeding you these things on a continuous basis, sir, since if you're regular, uh, you know..." He shrugged his embarrassment. "I'm afraid, sir, we'll have to, er, move it all the way on before you can pass through. No pun intended." He handed Long a large vial. "The rest rooms are over there, sir. In just a few minutes it'll be out of your system. The laxative is very powerful. You're early for your appointment, I see, so you should still make it on time. Oh." He handed Long a waxed carton. "Please, um, use the scoop provided to put it all in here. We'll have to retrieve the device and pass it on to Technical Services for evaluation.

  Long turned to Nast. "Thom, I knew the cafeteria food was bad, but this is ridiculous. Good damn thing they weren't trying to poison me, eh?" He addressed his stomach: "Get an earful, you dirty bastard! I'm gonna get you!" Then he marched grimly off to the lavatory.

  Three more bugs were discovered in Nast's clothing.

  "Are you feeling ill, AG?" Madame Chang-Sturdevant asked Chief Long as he took his seat in her office.

  "Nothing serious, ma'am. It was, er, something I ate," he replied with a sickly smile.

  "I apologize for not talking to you more often, AG. You're doing a wonderful job over there. Thank you. Thom..." She turned her attention to Nast. "Good to see you again! Congratulations on your promotion, by the way." She turned back to Chief Long. "Mr. Nast did a bang-up job, cleaning up that poaching operation. Some of my administration's worst enemies went to Darkside over that." She smiled. Of course, the arrests had been made based on criminal acts, not party membership.

  "Refreshments, gentlemen? Larry," she said, addressing the servo that rolled soundlessly out of its niche at the sound of her voice. "See what my guests would like to have."

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Long," it said in a basso profundo. "May I offer you refreshment? May I hang your coat, sir?" Long's overcoat lay draped across his knees.

  "No, no," he answered, a bit too quickly. Putting anything in his stomach was the furthest thought from his mind just then. "Thank you anyway," he responded.


  "Good afternoon to you too, Mr. Nast," Larry greeted Thom. "Good to see you again, sir. Would you have a Schwepps, sir?" Larry actually laughed pleasantly as he served Nast.

  Madame Chang-Sturdevant and Nast sipped their drinks. The floor beneath them quivered slightly. "It's the wind," Chang-Sturdevant announced. "This building sways up to two meters in high winds. Did you know that? Well," she went on, "you asked for thirty minutes and time's a-wasting. Mr. Nast?"

  Nast cleared his throat. "Ma'am, as we all know, Havanagas is owned and ruled by several crime families. We've been trying to get inside the organization there to obtain the evidence we need to put them out of business. First, we know they never pay taxes when they can avoid it. We've been working with the Ministry of Finance on that, but so far nothing's come of that effort since Finance has the same problem we do—agents sent to Havanagas never live long enough to make a report."

  "We've lost six agents over the last few months, ma'am," Long interjected, "murdered in the most horrible fashion." He described briefly what had happened to Gilboa Woods.

  "That's not to say we don't have anybody out there," Nast said. He turned to Long. "Sorry, Chief, but I set up two agents on my own and didn't tell anyone about it." Long nodded. Nast turned back to the president. "One is under very deep cover and not highly placed, so hasn't developed much of anything yet. But the other's a different matter, and I'll get to him."

  "Tax evasion, murder, and obstruction of justice are not the only crimes the mob's committed," Nast continued. "There's the slave trade. They sell young women throughout Human Space to be used as prostitutes. The mob there also makes millions off the illegal traffic in drugs like thule—and avoidance of customs duties in the process. And then there's the sexual exploitation of children held prisoner in the brothels of Havanagas. And worst of all, ma'am—I hesitate to say it—'snuff parties' where women and boys are slowly tortured to death for the pleasure of well-heeled perverts."