by Ward Wagher
“Oh, I’ll send her VCO - Verbal orders of the Commanding Officer,” Ciera said. “However, there is one other little item that I view as fairly high risk.”
Frank sat in his chair for a few moments shifting his eyes back and forth. “Oh, right. The estate. I assume we have to do the paperwork here in Cambridge?”
“I did a little homework for you, Frank. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“He never minds other people doing his work for him,” Wendy laughed.
“Right. Anyway, you first need to visit the Register of Probate Wills. There will be some paperwork there which transfers the rights, titles and properties to you.”
“There’s not a probate court process?”
“Not in this case. Jack’s will was on file as a matter of public record. That makes it much more difficult for somebody to screw around with. Not to say they wouldn’t try.”
Frank pursed his lips in thought. “So you think the best way is to just show up unannounced?”
“I think so, yes. The Registrar may or may not be in the duke’s pocket, but you should be able to force the issue before anyone can react. Then you hop, skip and jump over to the Register of Mesne Conveyance, present your titles and sign the paperwork to transfer the deeds to Montora over to you.”
“Should I have a barrister along to help twist arms?”
“I should have thought of that myself,” Ciera said. “Daphne spent a couple of years in the JAG office before moving over to NIS. She specialized in Colonial Law. She can be rather pushy too. Daphne!” he bawled.
The blonde lieutenant walked out on to the patio. “I heard a bellow. Is someone torturing an animal out here?”
“You will note the respect she shows for senior officers,” Ciera said.
“Back to the perps,” Frank said. “In addition to settling the estate, I had some thoughts about trying to smoke out the killers. Not to mention the prospect of them getting away with it, I don’t want them running around doing this to somebody else.”
“We’re in a situation with an undefined enemy on an unknown field. I’m comfortable working as a solo operator on this. But with all of us bumbling around it’s incredibly dangerous.”
“Come on, Hai, you know my capabilities.”
“I know your capabilities, Captain. I also know you’ve been out of the field for twenty years. Special Ops is a young man’s game.”
“Ha! You rascal, you are pushing fifty years old yourself. When we get older we just learn to outthink the other guy; and I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. Besides, you’ve been out of Spec Ops for a few years yourself.”
“Well and good, Frank, but working in a group just makes a bigger target. I repeat, I think you ought to send your wife away until we settle what’s going on.”
“No,” Wendy said.
Frank looked back and forth between them. “Look, I understand there are some risks, but we encounter risks all the time in our business.”
Ciera looked over at Lieutenant Locke. “Daphne doesn’t know it yet, but I’m getting ready to get her out of here. I think Wendy needs to go too.”
Daphne said, “No!”
“No,” Wendy repeated. If there’s that much risk, we all should leave. But if Frank is here, I am here.”
Frank looked curiously at Ciera.
“Look, Frank,” Ciera seemed to have trouble speaking. “I’ve… Wendy worked for me back when she was regular Navy. I’m having trouble assessing the risks here and I want the non-combatants out.”
Frank rubbed his hand over his mouth for a moment, stopped, then looked at Wendy.
“No! I’m not leaving. Sorry boys, I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”
“If you don’t leave, I’ll have trouble pulling rank on Daphne to get her out of here.”
“It will not work, Commander,” Daphne said. “You should know better.”
“A smart girl,” Wendy said. “Where did you ever find her?”
“She works for me in NIS – that’s Naval Intelligence Service. Best assistant I ever had.”
“There’s your answer,” Wendy said. “She’ll keep the wheels from coming off. Don’t deprive yourself of competent help.”
Frank looked at Ciera with a crooked grin. “And there you have it. Besides, we’ll have Smith & Jones with us.”
Ciera shook his head. “The fools I get stuck with…”
“Hai, at least give us a briefing on what you found at the keep. Admiral Krause told us only in general terms what you found – like the SkinSynth.”
“The commander who runs the Navy office here had invited us in on a couple of touchy issues, again having to do with our friend, the duke. So I was here when it happened. I grabbed an aircar and was out there within an hour or so of when the news hit.”
“How did the news hit?” Frank asked.
“Gerard Blakely called the commander first thing. Gerard is, or rather was, the seneschal.”
“I know Gerard. He was with my brother for years. He and Eden Prary. How did they escape the carnage? I assume Eden made it out?”
Blakely and Eden Prary were both hit with an incapacitant early on. They were out of the action the rest of the night.”
Frank chewed on his lower lip. “Did you believe them?”
“They still had traces of SleepyGas in their systems. I did a toxicity screening. Oh, you mean, was this an inside job?”
Frank nodded.
“I don’t think so. Whoever it was lobbed gas grenades all over the place and mainly used their weapons as door-knockers. Jack had a couple of watchmen, but little else in the way of security. The only people killed were Jack and Sharon.” His voice wavered on the last.
“Take it easy, Hai. It’s been rough on all of us. Tell me what you found.”
“When I got there, Gerry and Eden had already… moved the bodies. They… you will need to speak with them; they blame themselves for what happened. Anyway, they had already started putting things back together.”
“What would be the point of that?”
“Of repairing the damage? I suppose none, except they had nothing else to do. No place to go…”
Frank nodded.
“From what I could see, the raiders lobbed gas grenades over the wall, then blew the main door. It was about 2:30 in the morning, so none of the day staff was there. They looted the strong room and were out by probably 5:30.”
“That is a long time for a group like that to be on site.”
“I think they had trouble locating Jack and Sharon. I did some exploration – the keep is riddled with secret passages and rooms. They were caught in the room across the hall from their suite. They almost made it safe.”
“But not quite,” Frank said. “I still can’t believe it.”
“It looked like Frank caught a shotgun blast in the room – the door was blown away. Sharon was in one of the passages and shot several times. I’m sorry, Frank, Wen.”
Frank took a deep breath. “Is there a lot of crime there?”
“Not in Montora, or rather not of this type. It’s a rather poor place and it seems the main sport is getting drunk in the pubs and fighting in the streets. Not crime on any organized basis.”
“So whoever it was had to come in from the outside.”
“Yes, that was my thinking. And a very professional job too.”
“I have another thought,” Wendy said. “They were wearing SkinSynth and were in there for nearly three hours.”
“Good point,” Ciera said. “I checked the hospitals, there are less than a half-dozen of them around Hepplewhite, and nobody was reporting that kind of systemic poisoning.”
“They would’ve been dead by then,” Wendy said.
“I still don’t have a good accounting on the timing,” Ciera said. “Things were pretty confused.”
“I suppose they could have been shuttling people in and out,” Frank said. Did the locals notice anything?”
“No. Nothing there. And the Montor
ans were pretty upset about the murders.”
“So my brother wasn’t a despot or ogre, then.”
“You know he wasn’t,” Ciera said. “Quirky as a mountain goat, but not mean.”
Frank leaned back and put his hands behind his head. His eyes went out of focus as he pondered. Wendy took a sip of her juice. A flock of bird analogs flew overhead making a noise sounding like tiny silver bells.
Frank pulled his arms down and sat upright in the chair. “All right then, let’s make plans for tomorrow. Smith and Jones,” he yelled, “you need to be in on this. Sit down, Daphne.”
The group gathered around the table as Frank began issuing orders. “Assuming you all can still follow instructions, here is how we will manage tomorrow’s events.”
Chapter Four
The morning was bright and cool. Another heavy thunderstorm had rumbled through the area during the night and washed the humidity from the air. The house Hai Ciera rented was in the hills above Cambridge. Ciera had earlier taken Smith & Jones into the city in the Rancher Vanlet. He had also procured another vehicle for the Nymans to use.
“The town looks picturesque the way it sits at the base of the mountains,” Wendy said. “It even looks like pictures I’ve seen of Cambridge in England on old Earth. Of course, the original wasn’t near mountains, or on the water. St. John’s Bay is gorgeous.”
Daphne looked out at the city as she maneuvered the groundcar out onto the street. “My first thought when I saw it was ‘how precious.’ Once you get up close, it disappoints. They’ve had a succession of bad rulers, who have let the area go to seed. The current one is the worst.”
“Unfortunate.” Frank said.
“It sure is. With the architecture and the climate, they had a nice little tourist trade here. But you saw what the starport looked like. The city is not any better. The big name businesses have been pulling out. The Marriott shut down last week”
“Pity. Is this what my brother was trying to overcome in Montora?”
“I didn’t go up there with the commander, but I gathered it was much worse.”
“Hmmm.”
Wendy looked over at her husband. “What have you got in mind, Frank?” She looked at Daphne. “Beware when Frank gets like this. It usually means he’s thinking of a way to make money. Lots of it.”
“It would be hard to make a go of it, I think,” Daphne said. “Particularly when all the tourists have to come through the Cambridge starport.”
“I’ve studied a lot of economies,” Wendy said, “and if you can find the leverage to overcome inertia, there are truly some vast sums to be made.”
“Are you talking cultural or commercial leverage?”
“Yes.”
Daphne turned on to a broad, four-lane boulevard heading toward the city center. At one time it must have been a lovely drive. Now the road was marred by an overgrowth of weeds along the shoulders and the median filled with trash. The road was not well repaired. Traffic was sparse as well.
“This is really sad,” Frank commented. “Cambridge must have once been a lovely town.”
“The history is interesting,” Wendy said. “I did some digging. Robert Hepplewhite was trying to set up some kind of a planetary theme park. His money ran out before the colony was self-supporting – at least at the level needed to maintain this.”
“In other words,” Daphne said, “his dreams were grander than his pocket-book.”
“That’s about it. His consortium of bankers had to take over. He retained the duchy nominally, but they were calling the shots. After his death, they put it up for the highest bidder. The planet has had a succession of dukes, who didn’t realize what a white elephant this place was until they got here. Most have chosen to retain their fortunes rather than pour money into the upkeep. It was one of the big inside jokes when I was in the Navy.”
“What do you mean, Wendy?” Daphne asked.
“In the Navy we called them vanity planets. You know the definition of a vanity planet?”
“I give.”
“A hole in space you pour money into.”
“Oh my goodness,” Daphne laughed. “And people didn’t know this?”
Frank laughed too. “You understand the difference between old money and smart money?”
“I think I’m beginning to.”
“Probably not fair to the old money. Old money got that way by being very smart.”
“Right,” Wendy said. “So when a duchy like this became available, we would watch the noveau riche as well as the poor saps who inherited everything but brains. They would be salivating over the chance to become a duke and govern an entire planet. The bank, usually it was a bank, would offer the property and title for sale. There was nothing so gauche as an auction, don’t you know. Just a quiet little bidding war. There would be a lot of knowing smiles and subtle winks as the Darwinian process of Financial Selection proceeded.”
“It sounds about as cruel as survival of the fittest,” Daphne said.
“Oh, it is,” Frank replied. “But believe me, the financial elite know instinctively who belongs in their little club, and who doesn’t. This is just their way of pushing the sick and the lame off a cliff. I think it’s the most unforgiving process in the universe.”
“I guess being wealthy gives you an interesting perspective on things like this,” Daphne said.
It grew quiet in the car. When nothing was said for a minute or so, Daphne spoke again. “Okay, I’ve obviously committed some sort of a faux pas. Could you enlighten me, please?”
Wendy leaned forward and place her hand on Daphne’s shoulder. “I’m sorry Daphne. We were out of line there, not you. That was called ye olde freeze-out. People of wealth work hard at maintaining their privacy. With so many grasping hands around, the automatic response is simply to clam up. You asked an innocent question and we were rude.”
“And I apologize to you. I should have known better.”
“No, Daphne,” Frank said. “People use the freeze out to demonstrate their all-around superiority to the unwashed masses. I’m ashamed to realize I’ve picked up that habit. We’re much more comfortable with folks we share our Navy background with. We consider you a friend and don’t want to harm that relationship.”
“Thank you, both. But, how do I go about finding out information like that? There’s not a lot of information like that on the planetary nets.”
“Too true,” Frank said. “It goes back to that instinctive desire for privacy. Most people in that class keep everything behind an opaque wall. You can eventually track a lot of it down on the nets, but it’s carefully hidden. And, by the way, I consider us as comfortable, not wealthy. People like the duke’s brother could buy us with pocket change.”
Daphne swung the vehicle into a car park. “The central square is pedestrian only. We’re on foot from here.”
They walked down four flights of stairs and entered a large open esplanade. Bordered on three sides by three and four story buildings with store fronts on the ground floor, the scene was dominated by a large castle complex.
“It does look just like a theme park,” Wendy said. “I almost expect to see people running around dressed up like cartoon characters.”
Daphne gave Wendy a funny look and then pointed to one of the buildings in the row. “That’s the court house over there. Both offices we need to visit are located there.”
“I feel awfully exposed out here,” Frank said as they walked across the open space.
“There are not a lot of places to run,” Daphne said. “If the duke’s goons try to grab someone out here, the gates of the shops come down in a mighty big hurry. Fortunately it doesn’t happen often.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen today,” Frank said. “Just pay attention and be ready to beat feet if it all comes apart on us.”
“We’ll be fine, Frank,” Wendy said.
“I hope so, but if I start giving orders, I want the both of you to move instantly.”
The Registe
r of Probate Wills was on the third floor at the back of the courthouse. The picturesque nature of the building was superficial. The inside was plain and dirty.
“May I help you Sir and Ladies?” The Registrar was middle-aged, bald, overweight, and had beady eyes.
Frank looked down at the name plate. “Yes, Sir, Mr. Marprelate. I’m here to release probate on a will and estate. I understand you can take care of that in this office.”
