Old Ironsides
Page 35
‘Then bring him in here and prove his link to me!’ Marshall snapped.
‘He’s dead,’ Foxx replied, ‘as are almost all of the people connected to this case. We haven’t had enough time yet to fully analyse the data but Doctor Schmidt feels certain that the reason for the attacks on Nathan were the result of an awareness, on your part, that he represented the only complete link in the chain, the proof that this whole plague scare was engineered by yourself.’
‘Elaborate, detective,’ the lawyer murmured. ‘Unsubstantiated claims do not warrant even Admiral Marshall’s arrest.’
‘Nathan’s blood work does,’ Foxx countered. ‘Nathan is a carrier of the plague, but that is all. He is entirely immune to this new disease, and the only explanation for that is that he was used to develop both the illness and the cure. It’s why only I fell sick after entering the colony ship in orbit around Neptune: only I had been exposed to the engineered drug inside Shiver, designed to supress the brain’s control over the body’s immune system and allow exposure to the plague. We all carry the illness inside us, sir, just like the common cold: but we can fight it off after vaccination. Shiver, or rather the material inside the drug, was used to remove that ability, first among the drug abusers, then among the wider population.’
‘And how exactly does that prove that Admiral Marshall was behind the entire charade?’ the lawyer demanded.
‘Nathan was pursued on the surface by drones, ex-military versions of the type that only a senior military officer would be able to obtain. Furthermore, we were able to analyse the data centers of those drones and ascertain that they were reprogrammed aboard Titan before being dispatched to Earth via New Washington and a man named Arwin Minter, a known drug dealer and smuggler.’
Foxx waved her hand over a holodisplay and an image of a partially crushed vehicle appeared in a garbage lot on New Washington.
‘This vehicle was used by Arwin Minter in an attempt on the life of Nathan Ironside. The vehicle is registered to Admiral Marshall. Minter, as it turns out, was used by Marshall as a test subject: he was made permanently immune to the plague in return for his services, because he is a distant relative of Nathan Ironside and thus shared mitochondrial DNA inherited through the maternal line. That the two could be connected after four hundred years and appear in the same investigation was too great a coincidence for me. All we did from that point on was connect the dots, a process made much more difficult by Marshall’s obstruction of the investigation.’
‘The vehicle could have been stolen,’ the lawyer pointed out, ‘and Admiral Marshall acted in the best interests of humanity at the time. He genuinely believed that Schmidt and others were attempting to prevent him from doing his duty.’
‘Convenient,’ Foxx said. ‘I could have sworn he wanted Nathan Ironside dead. On two occasions he deliberately left him to die, both times aboard the Aleeyan warship during the attempted assault on earth.’
‘I had no choice,’ Marshall snapped. ‘It was one man’s life against thousands in both cases – I could have lost Titan and her crew, or New Washington. I didn’t like it any more than you, but then I have to make decisions on a daily basis that most people wouldn’t be able to bear.’
Foxx smiled without warmth again.
‘I agree. It must have been tough to sail down here to New York aboard Titan, the first time a CSS warship has entered Earth space for over a century, and then place two frigates over the city before descending and demanding that the senate adopt a war-footing against the Aleeyans, in direct contradiction of our policy of non-interference.’
Marshall’s eyes narrowed. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You’re intending a military coup are you not?’ Foxx replied. ‘The senate doesn’t have a choice with the heavily armed battleship Titan over the city, does it? You weren’t asking them for permission to go to war, you were ordering them to comply! You engineered this war, blamed the Aleeyans for the new plague, and then used that framework to heroically come to the rescue of humanity and thus justify a fresh war to strike the Aleeyans down for once and for all. Of course, the cure for the plague was already in place because we found it and it’s why I’m sitting here now, but you weren’t going to let that cat out of the bag until those “unwashed masses” aboard New Washington were all long gone, right Marshall? You’d instead be valiantly soaring across the cosmos in search of an Aleeyan cure that didn’t exist, and then return home to find only Earth’s elite on the surface still alive. Small matter to recover the stockpile of cures and save the supposed best of mankind to inherit the Earth.’
Marshall stared at Foxx in silence and suddenly she was struck by the notion that he appeared to be processing the information she had imparted as though it were the first time he had heard it.
Marshall’s jaw worked as he tried to speak, and finally he managed to form a few simple words.
‘If I’d wanted to do all of that, detective, it would have required me to convince the entire three thousand strong crew of Titan that I had discovered the cure on the Aleeyan home world and brought it home with me. Three thousand patriots, many of whom have families on the orbital cities.’
‘Like you said,’ Foxx replied, maintaining a stern expression, ‘at any cost.’
‘To myself,’ Marshall added.
Foxx reached down and from a metallic box concealed beside her she pulled what she had considered to be her ace card, the mangled remains of the drone that had attacked Nathan. She hefted the drone’s remains up and let them thump down onto the table. The lawyer recoiled instinctively from the device, but Marshall simply stared at it.
‘This is a drone that was programmed aboard CSS Titan while she was in dock around Polaris Station for her refit,’ Foxx said. ‘It was recovered from Colorado after being used in an attempt on Nathan Ironside’s life. You programmed this drone,’ she accused.
Marshall scowled at her, apparently insulted. ‘You think I’d hide behind one of these damned things to attack a patsy like Ironside? If I wanted him dead I’d stroll over to him and wring his neck with my bare hands!’
Foxx stared at Marshall as a feint sense of horror filled her. Something about his demeanour was screaming at her that he was innocent.
‘One of your crew must have programmed this drone!’ she insisted.
‘It could have been anybody!’ Marshall countered. ‘Titan has been in refit on Polaris Station for two months, was visited by the crew’s families, friends, the senate and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, virtually everybody with anything to do with Earth’s defense. The damned ship was a circus for weeks!’
Foxx’s train of thought slammed to a halt. Marshall leaned closer to her, his unblinking eyes burrowing into hers.
‘What you’re insinuating I’ve done isn’t possible, even by deception. Titan’s bridge crew alone is too large and diverse for them all to be in on such a conspiracy. I thought that the Aleeyans brought this plague to us, and so they must likely also have the cure or the data to develop one. That was why I brought Titan down here – I knew that if the Senate were allowed to deliberate it would be days, perhaps weeks before they reached a decision, by which time the orbital cities would have been decimated. I knew that they had to act and fast or there would be no population to save.’
Foxx shifted in her seat, kept her gaze fixed on Marshall. ‘Then why is Titan still over New York City?’ she demanded. ‘You got what you wanted, why not just…’
‘She’s still here?’ Marshall uttered in surprise.
‘Right above us,’ Foxx said, ‘and the frigates are also…’
‘But I gave the order for Titan to return to Polaris,’ Marshall said. ‘She should have left yesterday along with the frigates!’
Foxx felt a prickly heat around her neck. Her own voice sounded weak and unconvincing.
‘Maybe your arrest means the crew can’t leave and…’
‘I gave the order before my arrest!’ Marshall almost shouted, and stood up in his chair, his
wrists pulling the chains taut, ‘before I left the ship! They should have been gone by now. Somebody else is behind this detective and I’m taking the fall. If there’s a coup underway, it hasn’t ended!’
‘Who has the potential authority to over-rule your orders?’ she demanded. ‘And was present aboard Titan during her refit?’
Marshall replied, and Foxx felt physically sick as she tapped her communicator.
‘Vasquez, where’s Nathan right now?’
The reply came back instantly.
‘I don’t know, he still hasn’t had an ID chip fitted.’
Foxx leaped out of her chair and dashed for the exit. ‘Get a search party out for him now! Somebody out there is still hunting him!’
***
LI
CSS Headquarters,
New York City
The doors to the Director General’s office shimmered silently before Nathan and vanished, allowing him to walk through as the two ceremonial guards standing beside the doors parted for him to enter and then left the room, closing the doors behind them.
The office was vast and seemed to Nathan to be like the cathedrals of old, empty and devoid of the humanity that had once packed their halls, long since robbed of their purpose of being. A wide desk dominated the far side of the cavernous room, backed by enormous windows that overlooked the city and spaceport beyond, Titan’s immense hull dominating the skyline. Ceyron was sitting at his desk but already in motion, standing and smiling as he moved out from behind the desk and approached Nathan with one hand outstretched.
‘About time my boy,’ he said as he shook Nathan’s hand, gripped his forearm with the other hand. ‘About time.’
Nathan returned the gesture. ‘Couldn’t turn down a direct invite from the Director General could I, bragging rights and all?’
Ceyron gestured for Nathan to follow him and they walked together to the soaring windows. Nathan felt his stomach turn a little at the vertiginous view, the windows of course not glass but made from hard light that was all but invisible. It seemed as though if he stepped one foot forward he would plunge over the narrow ledge outside to the surface hundreds of feet below.
Ceyron noticed Nathan’s discomfort. ‘A fear of heights? I’d come to believe that you feared nothing, Mister Ironside.’
‘It’s not the falling that bothers me, just the sharp stop at the end.’
Ceyron grinned. ‘Nathan, the debt that we owe you is beyond words or gestures. You were brought here in a state of grief and yet you have risen to a challenge far greater than anybody would ever have had the right to burden you with.’
‘I had a lot of help.’
‘You have a lot of courage,’ Ceyron added, ‘a lot of conviction, of determination and a strong moral compass that is sadly rare in today’s society. Would it be that our city could be like that from the days of old that were your home.’
‘Things weren’t so different,’ Nathan replied. ‘Our problems were the same as yours, we just didn’t have to go into space to solve them.’
‘The conquest of our cosmos,’ Ceyron acknowledged, ‘burdens us now as it did once the valiant mariners who journeyed across Earth’s oceans in search of new lands. We are at war, Nathan, as much with ourselves as with the Aleeyans, and before you say it I am aware of the irony of that statement.’
‘They’ll come back,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘They won’t stop.’
‘I know,’ Ceyron said. ‘In that at least Admiral Marshall had the right of it. For all his faults, for all that he lost sight of who he truly was, he had the protection of humanity in his mind when he did what he did.’ The Director General turned to Nathan. ‘I asked you to come here not because I think that you can help in this galactic war of ours, but because I believe that you can help stem the tide of corruption and crime that has blighted our orbital cities for so long. You were once a detective, were you not?’
‘Once,’ Nathan said cautiously.
Ceyron reached into a pocket and revealed a small black box that he held out to Nathan.
‘Then, perhaps you should be so once again,’ he said. ‘This is your home, Nathan, this is your time now. If you are willing, we’d like to have you on board.’
Nathan took the small box and opened it. Inside and catching the sunlight was a New Washington Detective’s shield, bright gold and blue, just like the one that Foxx wore with such pride.
Nathan gaped at it for a moment. ‘I, I don’t know – this is a different world and I’m way behind the curve ball and…’
‘You’ll receive training to bring you up to speed,’ Ceyron assured him. ‘The department will support you, I know they will. I will support you. Tell me you’ll think on it.’
Nathan looked at the badge for a moment longer, and then at Ceyron.
‘Sure,’ he said finally.
Ceyron’s features blossomed into a smile and he shook Nathan’s hand vigorously again.
‘Good man, I’ll inform the department immediately,’ he said as he glanced out of the windows across the city. ‘You’ve come a long way in a short time, Nathan. It should be a matter of great pride to you, all that you’ve achieved. One day you’re hiding in a drain, the next you’re standing up here over the city! Congratulations!’
Nathan watched the director general turn away and walk toward his desk, then he turned and looked out over the city. The lack of reflection in the windows meant that he could not observe Ceyron from where he stood, but he let his voice carry with the weight of his words alone.
‘You had it all worked out, didn’t you.’
Ceyron reached his desk and looked back at Nathan. ‘What’s that?’
Nathan kept his gaze on the city far below, his words flowing of their own accord like the chill running through the blood in his veins.
‘You knew that we’d arrest Marshall, knew that he’d go as far as it took if Earth was threatened directly by the Aleeyans. He was the perfect patsy, the uncompromising warrior and hero who wouldn’t even dream that he would be targeted by his own people, by his own government.’
Ceyron was motionless. Nathan could sense the old man staring at his back.
‘What are you talking about, Nathan?’ the director general uttered. ‘Marshall was arrested for genocide, for the attempted murder of millions of human beings.’
Nathan turned away from the view, faced Ceyron.
‘How did you know that I hid in a drain?’
Ceyron stared back at Nathan and for the first time he saw a quiver in the director general’s expression, a tremor in his carefully cultivated expression that betrayed the guilt within.
‘The police told me,’ he replied.
Nathan smiled bitterly, no warmth within him as he stepped down off the viewing platform.
‘They didn’t know,’ Nathan said. ‘To be honest, which is an act that you probably wouldn’t understand, I was ashamed that I’d hidden from the drones you sent to attack me so I climbed out of the drain after they left and pretended that I’d hidden beneath a log in the bushes. Kaylin and the others never even saw the drain, so that begs the question Ceyron: how would you have known about it?’
Ceyron hesitated a moment and then chuckled in bemusement.
‘Nathan, I think that you’ve got your wires crossed and…’
‘The drone we captured carried surveillance cameras that would have been active when they attacked me in Colorado,’ Nathan interrupted. ‘Only the individual who sent those drones would have had access to that surveillance.’
Ceyron sighed. ‘Nathan, we routinely get evidence sent here concerning highly sensitive cases such as yours. There’s nothing in this but coincidence and…’
‘You had me tested, to manufacture both the plague and its cure,’ Nathan went on, ‘Marshall was just the fall guy in case something went wrong. Only you could have gained access to old drone technology, built by Chemitech.’
‘But those drones were military,’ Ceyron protested. ‘Only Marshall could have…’
Ceyron’s jaw dropped open and he appeared to gape for air. ‘That happened centuries ago! I don’t have any access to such equipment and even if I did how would I be able to…’
‘Deploy them?’ Nathan finished the sentence for him. ‘Why, you’d hire the same low-life scum that you wish eradicated and have them do it for you. Then you’d have them iced to remove any links leading back to you. We all know how undesirables will talk for the right price, don’t we? You could have paid to have Viggo Polt, Arwin Minter and others murdered, especially Minter. That link with my DNA really opened up the whole sorry mess you’ve created, Ceyron.’
Ceyron stared at Nathan, his expression sober now.
‘This is ridiculous. I just gave you a job as a detective and you’re now accusing me of treason?!’
‘Treason and attempted genocide,’ Nathan agreed as he waved the badge at Ceyron, ‘and you just gave me the authority to arrest you.’
Ceyron’s jaw tightened as he looked at the badge. ‘You have no case, no evidence, this is all conjecture!’
‘The stockpiled cure could just as easily have been created by you as Marshall, the difference being that the admiral was aboard Titan for the four months that the stockpile was being built. Tough to organize something like that when you’re light years away, but you were right here. We traced the lineage of the company that owned the drones that attacked me, Ceyron, and your father was a partner in the firm.’
‘We?’