Cauldron of Ghosts (eARC)

by David Weber

  * * *

  The cabbie’s name was Bertie Jaffarally. By the time he finished driving Victor around to the various locations where the dead letter boxes were set up, he was thinking of him in his own mind as “Achmed the Affable” and wondering if he could set up some sort of connection. Achmed was obviously a well-to-do off-worlder. People like that sometimes hired cabbies on a regular basis.

  It never occurred to Bertie that what Achmed was really doing was checking dead drops. He had only a fuzzy understanding of what a “dead letter box” was in the first place. He’d heard the term used in a few thrillers he’d seen and read, and had a vague image of them as actual boxes. Or something like that. An old-fashioned mailbox, maybe.

  * * *

  In the modern era, no one used actual boxes of any kind except on very rare occasions. The terms “dead drop” or “dead letter box” simply referred to any method that allowed two agents to communicate with each other or pass items back and forth without coming into direct contact.

  The first dead drop was a cybercache concealed in the corner of the elevator of an office building. The cache was further protected by miniaturized scrambling equipment and could only be accessed if the elevator was sent to four floors in a specific order. (Floors 115, 38, 209, 66.) It was perhaps the safest of the dead drops Victor had set up but also the most exasperating, since the chances that the agent would be alone in the elevator for all four floors in sequence were slight. What usually had to be done was for the agent to travel to the four floors in the right sequence, mark his or her presence by touching the concealed cybercache and simultaneously keying an innocuous signal from a com, but get off the elevator whenever someone else came on and stayed long enough that suspicions might be aroused. A process that could theoretically be done in a few minutes could sometimes take more than half an hour. This time, Victor had to travel to the final (66th) floor three separate times before he was alone on the elevator and could drain the cache’s data into his com.

  The second dead drop was a robot fortune teller in an amusement arcade. Victor was rather proud of that one, although Anton had made wisecracks about it for days after they set it up. Which he could do, since Anton had been the one who’d had to reprogram the robot in the first place. The skills required to do that properly had been far beyond Victor’s abilities. His role had just been to bribe the arcade manager to give them access to the robot. He’d explained that was needed to find out if his wife was using the robot to check on his own fidelity. And if that seemed like circular reasoning or the mindset of a man who was simultaneously duplicitous and gullible, the arcade manager had been completely indifferent. The bribe had been quite large.

  In the case of this dead drop, once the agent entered the privacy of the booth, he or she entered or retrieved the data using a one-time pad. Again, the term “pad” was of antique origin. What this dead drop actually used was the text of a popular electronic cookbook that anyone might have in their com unit. The cookbook’s menu items were selected in sequence of prime numbers working backward from one hundred. Victor figured the security was worth the risk that they’d eventually run out of prime numbers. There were twenty-five prime numbers between one hundred and one. The likelihood that the dead drop would be needed more times than that for separate and distinct information transfers was fairly low.

  Victor didn’t bother decrypting the information on the spot. For one thing, there was probably wasn’t anything there. For another, it would take too long. No one spent that much time in a booth listening to a robot fortune-teller, no matter how gullible they were. The robot was a cheap model with only a few dozen “fortunes” to be told and none of them took more than a minute.

  The third dead drop he visited that day was his favorite, although it was probably the chanciest of the three.

  Like any planet with a mild climate, Mesa had oceans and the oceans were full of fish. Not “fish,” precisely, but the similarity of Mesa’s mobile marine life to Terran analogs was close enough that everyone used the term without thinking about it. Convergent evolution had produced sea-creatures which were torpedo-shaped, bilaterally symmetrical, had heads and tails—although the tails had horizontal flukes like those of Terran whales—and fins. A few more than most Terran fish, and predominantly lobe-finned rather than ray-finned.

  Close enough for everyone to call them “fish,” and never mind that the internal organs were quite a bit different.

  When you combined “lots of fish” with “lots of poverty” what you invariably got were fish markets. Big fish markets—with lots and lots of fish being displayed on lots and lots of fish-seller’s stands. Big stands, too.

  The number of such stands fluctuated, but it was never less than twenty. Since the Mesan week had the same number of days as the Terran week that most humans still kept as a standard—seven days, although the names varied a lot—and Victor was partial to prime numbers, the routine was easy to remember. Place the message at whatever fish stand corresponded to the day of the week, figuring the week ran from Monday to Sunday, counting from the south and skipping the prime number of two.

  The day was Thursday. That meant the eleventh stand from the south. He’d also check the seventh and fifth stands, because he couldn’t assume the agent leaving the message would have done so on the same day Victor arrived. He or she might have dropped it on Wednesday or Tuesday. If they’d dropped it earlier than that it was a moot point. Fish were a perishable product as well as an edible one. Victor figured that any message more than three days old had been discarded or eaten.

  Well, not “eaten,” since the message would have been inserted in the flukes and nobody ate flukes except devotees to one of the Mesan versions of fish stew that used the entire fish, even the internal organs. But it didn’t matter, because the message would be on a chip delicate enough that it would dissolve entirely if cooked. (Nobody, not even the poorest seccie on Mesa, ate fish flukes raw.)

  The trick, obviously, was in spotting the right fish. The most commonly sold fish on Mesa was called bacau and could be found on any fish stand. The agent dropping the fish would insert the chip into the flukes of a bacau resting at the rear of the display, and select the one that had the most vivid lateral stripe. It was the commonly-held belief on Mesa—seccie belief; free citizens rarely ate bacau—that a vivid lateral stripe indicated an excess of pollutants in the flesh.

  That belief was accurate, as it happened. But Victor didn’t care about that one way or another because he had no intention of eating the fish. Bacau had an oily flavor he didn’t care for, which was the reason free citizens usually avoided it. The reason he’d chosen the stripe method was because a bacau with a vivid lateral stripe at the back of the stand was the one most likely to be passed over by real customers.

  There was one other feature of this dead drop that Victor liked, although it also increased the risk. (Very slightly, though.) He’d have to wait before he’d find out if there’d been any messages at the first two drops. Here, he’d know right away, since no one would insert a chip into a fish fluke unless they had something to pass on.

  Victor glanced around to see if any of the vendors running the stall were watching. If they were, he’d have to buy the fish. He didn’t care about the cost, but hauling fish around would be a nuisance.

  But no one was watching. It took only a few seconds to feel the flukes of the four bacau who had the brightest stripes. The chip was delicate, and not large, and to the naked eyes just looked like part of the fluke. But it was still detectable if a person knew what to look for.

  Nothing. He moved on to the seventh stand. Again, no one was watching. There, he checked only three fish. None of the others in the back of the stand had a prominent stripe.

  Also nothing. He moved on to the fifth stand.

  And found a chip in the first fluke he touched.

  And…one of the vendors was eyeing him. Not quite with suspicion, but teetering on the edge.

  Nothing for it. He’d have to b
uy the blasted thing.

  On a positive note, bacau weren’t a particularly large fish. This one weighed less than a kilo.

  On a negative note, bacau were smelly—and if he didn’t get it into a refrigerator pretty soon, the fish would get downright stinky. They didn’t keep very well. But Victor figured he could find a place to get rid of it without being seen before he left the fish market.

  He went up to the vendor and inquired as to the price, making sure to lay on his accent as thickly as possible.

  The vendor didn’t quite sneer at the idiot offworlder as he charged him for a crappy bacau the same price he’d charge a knowledgeable customer for a delicacy. But he came close.

  That was the reaction Victor wanted, of course. There was no way he’d ever be able to pass as a native Mesan. The next best option was to get typecast as a damn fool tourist who didn’t know up from down. One who’d buy a bacau with a vivid lateral stripe for as much money as he could have spent to get a shelled perido or half a kilo of kint.

  * * *

  On the way out, Victor dumped the fish in the most logical place—onto the pile of bacau displayed at the stand nearest to the exit. By then, he’d extracted the cyberchip and slid it into his pocket. He’d have preferred to hide it in his mouth, so he could have swallowed it in an emergency. But the material used to make that type of chip really was quite delicate. It didn’t handle saliva any better than hot soup.

  Once he was back in the cab, he gave Bertie another cheery smile. He was now in a very good mood. He hadn’t expected to find anything at any of the dead drop locations. No matter what it was—he’d have to wait a while before he could decrypt it—the message was probably good news. At least one of the seccie rebels they’d dealt with on their previous mission was still alive and functioning.

  Well, probably. It was also possible that they’d all been captured, had divulged too much when interrogated, and the message in the dead drop had actually been placed there by Mesan security agents with nefarious intent and evil design.

  But it was a nice sunny day and Victor wasn’t inclined to worry. Why should he? Hadn’t the day started off with an ambush turned around in a sprightly manner? Surely that was a good omen, even if Victor didn’t believe in silly superstitions.

  “Where to now?” asked Bertie.

  “I’m done with my errands for the day. Drop me off at the same place you picked me up.” He pulled out his com. “And give me a number where I can reach you. I’ll be needing cab service pretty often, I’m thinking.”

  * * *

  Hell of a nice guy, Achmed. Bertie wished all his customers were like that.

  Chapter 33

  “I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Huygens. As I’m sure you know, there’s something of a glut in that market at the moment—has been for a while, now—and it’s not a big market to begin with. So I have to tell you the same thing I’ve told the other vendors who’ve approached me lately. Unless you’re willing to share the risks with us, the price I can offer you for the items is pretty low.”

  Lajos Irvine frowned. “What risks are you referring to, specifically?” He was tempted to ask why the market in body parts and tissues had a glut, but refrained from do so. His cover identity as “Carlos Huygens” was that of a fence working in that market. Presumably, he’d already know the answer.

  Sitting in a chair across the desk from Lajos, Triêu Chuanli leaned back, raised his arms and clasped his hands behind his neck. “The usual. It’s one risk, really, with several dimensions. Human tissues and body parts—especially functional organs—degenerate quickly unless you preserve them. And doing that properly requires a lot more than just tossing them into a freezer. I’m sure I don’t have to spell that out for you, since you have the same problem at your end.”

  Lajos had to scramble mentally to get out of the hole he’d just dug himself into. A fence should have known that already, also.

  This was the problem with trying to penetrate a target using a pre-conceived scheme like the one Vickers had come up with. You were likely to stumble over your own cover because you’d had to fit the cover to the scheme instead of developing a plan based on a cover which you could establish solidly.

  There was an old saw about authors that Lajos had heard once: writers write what they know about. The same principal applied to covert agents like himself.

  “Yeah, sure. Just wanted to be sure we were on the same wavelength. How much of the risk do you propose I take on?”

  He held his breath, hoping that wasn’t also something well-established in the trade.

  But Chuanli didn’t seem suspicious, so apparently it wasn’t. “The way the market is now, we’d want you to cover thirty percent of any expenses incurred until the product is actually sold. That’s the same deal we’ve made with our other vendors.”

  Lajos decided that was something he could ask about safely enough. “How many competitors am I dealing with here?”

  “Just two. And they’re not really competitors the way I think you’re using the term. Neither party are pros. They’re making what amounts to private sales. And one of them is just a possibility anyway. The agreement’s been made but they still haven’t come up with the goods.”

  The gangster who was Jurgen Dusek’s top lieutenant smiled thinly. “Which means they’re waiting on someone to die but don’t want to do the work themselves. Most likely a family member. I didn’t inquire, of course.”

  Lajos nodded, doing his best to give the gesture an aura of knowledge and familiarity. Yeah, sure, I run into that all the time myself.

  In point of fact, it hadn’t even occurred to him that people might be selling off the body parts and tissues of their own family members. Seccies were generally poor, compared to free citizens, but in absolute terms they weren’t that poor. An especially indigent family might have trouble covering funeral expenses, but that could always be handled by donating the body to a university or research institute. They wouldn’t get any money for it, but the tissues and body parts of someone dying of old age—or disease, although that was rare—weren’t worth much anyway on the black market.

  The exceptions might be someone who died accidentally or committed suicide while still young and healthy. Or was murdered, although that might involve the police too much. Lajos supposed a family in dire straits might decide to sell off the body under such circumstances. But that obviously wasn’t the case here, since the suppliers involved hadn’t yet produced the goods. Why wait, unless…

  It suddenly dawned on Lajos that there was one scenario he could envision that would explain the matter. What if someone had a family member who was dying of injuries but, for some reason, had to keep that fact quiet?

  Someone like a criminal, maybe, injured in the course of committing a crime. A robbery gone badly wrong, for instance. Or…

  A Ballroom terrorist. Or a member of one of the seccie revolutionary groups. They’d all been hammered badly in the crackdown after Green Pines. Which, now that he thought it about—belatedly, alas—was also what probably explained the glut in the market recently.

  He started to get a little excited. Maybe he could turn Vickers’ idiot scheme around and actually get some results from it. What was that old expression? Make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

  “So, are those terms acceptable to you, Mr. Huygens?”

  Lajos realized he’s let his mind drift. “Uh, yes, Mr. Chuanli. Thirty percent of the costs. I can handle that.”

  “How soon can I expect a delivery?”

  “That depends on you, really. What’s selling most quickly right now?” Then, realizing that was another question he should probably already know the answer to, he added hurriedly: “For your customers, I mean. I don’t want to assume the general market conditions apply.”

  “The fastest turnover is always with juvenile body parts. The younger, the better, is the general rule.”

  “That’s what I figured. I just wanted to be sure.” Lajos rose from his chair and extended his
hand across the desk. “Give me three days.”

  “I’ll be expecting you, then.” Chuanli got up as well and they shook hands.

  It took a while to exit the building, since Dusek conducted his operation out of the largest edifice in Neue Rostock. In fact, it was one of the largest in the entire city of Mendel. The building was not especially tall—just under three hundred stories—because of the height restrictions in seccie areas. But it had originally been designed as a combined light manufacturing and commercial complex. It was squat and broad; almost ziggurat-shaped if a ziggurat had ever risen a kilometer high and had shallowly-recessed terraces and tiers. Almost four centuries had gone by since the building was erected, and over the years it had become a gigantic labyrinth. As had Neue Rostock crime lords before him, Dusek saw to it that there were no accurate plans or blueprints of the layout in existence—and at least once every five years he had new construction and demolition carried out to make obsolete whatever extensive knowledge of the interior had fallen into hostile (or official) hands. He maintained a small army of youngsters on his payroll who had three jobs and three jobs only—learn the maze, serve as guides for those who needed them, and keep the knowledge to themselves. Anyone found blabbing to others about the building’s layout—or even with written notes or sketches in their possession—would be…

  Disappeared. There were an untold—literally, untold—number of nooks and crannies and secret chambers and passages in the enormous edifice which might serve that purpose. And then be sealed over.

  Eventually, the eleven-year-old girl who’d served as his escort led Lajos out of the building onto a street. Lajos looked up at the sky. From what he could see, it’d probably start raining by late afternoon, but right now it was still a bright and sunny day. Well…as bright and sunny as the narrow man-made canyons between giant buildings ever got.