“How do you feel, corporal?”
“Better, ma’am, thank you,” Vasquez answered, still with a softness that magnified her native accent. “Was this a close one?”
Kris pulled a chair to edge of the bed. “Dr. VelSilinjes didn’t seem to think so.”
Vasquez nodded faintly. “Would you mind closing the shutters, ma’am? They say there’s a storm blowing in.”
Kris picked up the indicated remote and clicked to close the window shutters. Clouds were certainly blowing up from the south-west, erasing the stars at furious pace. The shutters came together and sealed with a barely audible hiss. Vasquez dropped her head back on the numerous pillows. Her short dark hair fanned out against white linen, making her look even younger, and if possible, vulnerable.
“What was it, ma’am?,” she asked. “I could hear everyone talking, but I can’t quite remember . . . can’t seem to get things in proper order. Was it a tetraodontoxin?”
“That’s what they said. You know about those?” The question was out of Kris’s mouth before she could consider that Vasquez, as a med-tech, would certainly be familiar with most types of neurotoxins.
“They’re very useful for abductions, false assassinations, and that sort of thing,” Vasquez answered, not moving her head from the pillow. “We used it to smuggle Count Dönitz out of Pohjola in ‘06.”
Kris suppressed a smile. She’d been taught about that famous caper—the highest-ranking Halith aristocrat ever to defect—when she was at the Academy. “So are you and Sergeant Major Yu just about the most senior NCOs in the Service, Vasquez?” The sergeant major had to be pushing a hundred.
“On no, ma’am,” Vasquez said, turning her head to look at Kris. “Sergeant Theobromis is almost a hundred and twenty, though I hear he is to retire soon.”
“So I guess you’ve got a ways to go then?”
“I hope so, ma’am.” Vasquez twitched her head on the pillow, a slight but eloquent expression of agitation. “If I may ask, ma’am . . . the lieutenant—the woman I killed—how is she?”
Kris could only shake her head. “I don’t know. They’re still working on her.”
* * *
So they were, the doctors VelSilinjes and Leidecker, up to their elbows in a sterile field in a surgery nine floors below. Dr. VelSilinjes straightened up, put her neural splicer back in its bath and said, “Well, I think that’s it for the brain stem. Run the diagnostics, will you, Amos?”
Leidecker did so, smiling at the green, even traces. “Well done, Isabeau, upon my word. I doubt I have seen a swifter or neater vertebral neuroplasty.”
“You always were a shameless flatterer, Amos,” replied Isabeau VelSilinjes, shaking the cramp out of her hands. “Let us try the trachea now, shall we, and pray she was not famous for her singing voice.”
Together they hunched over the opened throat, directing the surgical lasers, nanoresectors, and plasmid splicers that were busily reweaving the broken strands of cartilage, muscle, and connective tissue. Finally, Isabeau spoke.
“You know, Amos, I have been hesitating to bring this up, but you realize of course that this woman’s death could not have been accidental.”
“To be sure it was not,” Leidecker agreed. Most emphatically not.
“I’ve been obliged to file a preliminary report of a reversed homicide, and will have submit a final declaration—providing we succeed, obviously. Strictly speaking, I should have send as soon as we are finished here, but a small delay won’t matter. Have you any idea who she was?”
“None whatsoever. She had a military connection.”
“Yes,” said Isabeau, checking the progress on her scanning microscope monitor and making a series of minute adjustments. “But she wasn’t wearing an Ionian uniform.”
“I had surmised as much.”
“Your companions are however members of the League military. The corporal has a most extraordinary musculature and a rather exceptional genome. Isn’t it rather unusual to send such a gifted person along on a diplomatic mission?”
Leidecker did not miss the emphasis, but a answered only, “I’m afraid my competence does not allow me to make a judgment on that.”
Isabeau, aware that she was losing him, regarded Leidecker for a long close moment. “Is there anything you’d like me to consider, Amos, when I submit my final report?” The question was posed in a light, unconcerned tone, which fooled no one.
For a space, Leidecker did not speak. At length he said, “You have already remarked some of complications surrounding our patient, Isabeau. I fear I cannot recommend further inquiry in this case.”
Dr. VelSilinjes cocked her eyebrow at Leidecker. “Is that your final word, Amos?”
“I regret that it must be.”
Isabeau nodded. “Do you enjoy diplomatic immunity, Amos?”
The question clearly came as a surprise. Leidecker’s eyebrows climbed then dropped as he considered. “You know, I have absolutely no idea. I shall have to inquire of Mr. Loews.”
“I would recommend it,” Isabeau said. “I shall file the necessary reports with the local authorities in the morning. If they work with their usual swift efficiency, they won’t be around to ask questions for a day or two.” She paused and bent to a study her monitors. “This series if sutures looks very good to me. I think we can begin to the run the nerves now. What are your plans after we finish here, Amos?”
“How does Corporal Vasquez come along?”
Isabeau brought up a 3D neural map on her display and began a scan for disrupted axons. “Normally, I’d keep a case like hers twenty-four hours for observation. But since she will be in your care, I’d say she can be released within the hour.”
“Then I’m afraid I’ll be rejoining Mr. Loews as soon as you are satisfied with this present case. Provided any local complications have been . . . dealt with, shall they say.”
Isabeau nodded again, flagging the areas to be repaired with her stylus. “I’m sorry about your botanizing, Amos. I know you were looking forward to it so.”
Leidecker positioned the array of tools that would the implant and splice the broken axons and initiated a calibration sequence. “Thank you for your concern—I take it very kindly. But I’m sure there will be other opportunities.”
~ ~ ~
Day 193 (AM)
Whitehall, Caernarvon
Iona, Cygnus Mariner
The Ionian Secretary of Defense was checking his calendar and dreaming of coffee, with plenty of cream and more sugar than his doctor would approve of, when the message appeared on his desk: “Bill, call me on a red line. Matt.”
Dr. William Roquelaurie replied inwardly with two bad words and brought up a secure channel to Mathew Buckner, the Director of IPS. When the secure mode locked, he asked, “Problem, Matt?”
“You could say that,” Buckner answered, hard and clipped. “I lost a man today—down south.”
Roquelaurie concluded his two bad words were inadequate. “What happened?”
“That’s something we’d really like to know.”
“Cause of death?”
“That’s another thing we’d really like to know.”
Clenching his jaw against a retort, Roquelaurie deliberately shifted the conversation’s ground. “You said this was down south?”
“That’s right. Our man—good man, Trevor Hardestan—was escorting the Envoy’s physician along with that one-armed CEF rep and her orderly. You saw the memo on that?”
“I did. The doctor is an old friend of Isabeau’s, if I recall.”
“He is. Wanted to go look for a veriformii or some damn thing. Bloody silly. Wesley thought it was good politics with these talks going on. Seth went along. Damned idiots.”
Wesley Poule, Secretary of the Foreign Office tended to be something of an accommodationist and President Seth Marquardt was also an old friend Isabeau VelSilinjes, and in this case Roquelaurie had to share Buckner’s assessment. But as this was a diplomatic matter, he hadn’t been consulted. The T
raumerei Mountains, where the beast lived, was notoriously dangerous country: people disappeared there all the time—hunters mostly. But nothing as benign as an unfortunate accident would prompt Buckner to call him. And the Traumerei was a big range . . .
“Were you serious about them looking for a veriformii?” Hunting for that rare elusive creature was something a standing joke. Probably less than ten people had actually seen one.
“That’s what they said. Sounds like they found one, too. That’s not my department, though.”
If they found one, that narrowed down the possible at a lot. Damned idiots indeed. Double damned idiots for not telling him beforehand.
“How you learned anything?” His voice was uncharacteristically testy. Learning things was Buckner’s department.
“We interviewed the CEF rep—she’s not talking. She confirmed he’s dead, claims they had nothing to do with it, and then went name, rank and serial number on us. The team we sent to recover the body came back empty-handed: no body, no blood, no evidence of any kind. We can’t confirm they even there, just that the aircar was a few klicks away. Hardestan’s wire went through the car; he must’ve gotten out of range.”
“Do you still have the CEF rep in custody?’
“Hell no. Their Envoy heard we pulled her, called on Wesley, and he started shitting every color but blue. We had to turn her loose, pending a conference and “resolution”. The other’s we can’t talk to. The orderly’s in the hospital with a scratch—that’s how we know they found a veriformii—and the doctor’s in surgery.”
“He was injured, too? The doctor?”
“No. I mean he was operating in surgery. With Isabeau.”
“On whom?”
“That’s my problem.” Buckner said it with a certain gloating satisfaction. “I’m gonna link you a core dump. Sorry—it’s raw. Haven’t had time to time to get it filtered yet.”
Documents immediately started appearing on Roquelaurie’s desktop: IDs, transcripts, health records, bank statements, job history, emails, phone records, browsing habits, comment logs, shopping receipts, excursions, traffic tickets—the whole morass of an unremarkable young life, exhumed and codified by a standard government data-mining run. The subject was a young blond woman, twenty-seven, upper middle-class taxpayer family, decently educated, currently unemployed, no certs, no warrants, no red flags of any kind. Except that she was very recently deceased.
“Reversed homicide,” Buckner said, “Reported just hours ago. No one’s saying yet, but I suspect they brought her back with them. Might explain why the left Hardestan’s body”
“Okay,” muttered Roquelaurie, acid beginning to churn in his stomach.
“Check the hash analysis, Bill. It’s a bot job.”
Bot profiles were a common misdemeanor. Real criminals used them of course, but so did cheating spouses and kids annoyed by overprotective parents. Pretty much everyone had a bot profile stashed here or there; one never knew when it might be handy to disappear for a few days.
Roquelaurie wiped the desktop with an irritated gesture. “I see that.”
“She’s one of ours, Bill. Just dumb luck we caught it. One of our people happened to recognize her when the report came in—old boyfriend, I think. She didn’t bother with a biosculpt. She’s a Navy lieutenant, name’s Sarah Ellison, good family, graduated six years ago—not Academy, NROCS graduate—served her five years and took a RIF. That’s about all we know for sure right now—whoever locked her profile used pretty good encryption—but we know she went outbound about nine months ago.”
“I take it we haven’t gotten anything out her, then.”
“Can’t. She still a citizen. And, hell—she was dead for about two hours, Bill.”
“Yeah, there is that.”
“But,” Buckner went on, “we’re pretty sure she joined a group of Caledonian mercenaries.”
Roquelaurie swore as the ugly implications took on new life. “Which one?”
“Corhaine’s. They’ve been under contract to the Caledonians for decades now.”
“I was afraid you were gonna say that.” Roquelaurie scrubbed his hands down his face, coffee, comfort, and his calendar now a distant and long forgotten memory. “Hang on for a moment, Matt.” Roquelaurie keyed up another line. When it connected he said, “Get Lieutenant Anson in here and have a car ready for me in five minutes.” He keyed back to Buckner. Before he could stay anything, Buckner started talking.
“So, are you gonna tell me what hell’s up, Bill? Because from where I sit, it appears we have an elite merc unit hiding somewhere in-system, along with a trigger-happy admiral and a bloviating Envoy sent here to muddy the waters as much as possible. Is that the situation?”
“Not quite.” Stirring more data on his desk with his middle finger, he nodded to Lieutenant Anson as the young man entered his office.
Two impatient breaths on the other end of the line. Then: “Well?”
“Those are our mercs, Matt. Think of it as an insurance policy.”
“We hired Corhaine’s outfit? Why wasn’t I told?”
It wasn’t clear on the tremor in Buckner’s voice was shock, outrage, or both. Probably both.
“I’m sure that’ll be explained at the meeting.”
“What meeting?”
“The one Seth will call in about two minutes.”
“Right. Who’s gonna explain the other pressing question?”
“Yes?”
“How your insurance policy just went tits up.”
“You know, Matt,” Roquelaurie said as he shut down his desktop. “I’ve always admired your way with words.”
Six: Events Multiply
Day 193 (PM)
Whitehall, Caernarvon
Iona, Cygnus Mariner
“Bill, you can’t be serious!” The Foreign Secretary scooted the hardcopy across the big ash-wood table as Roquelaurie stirred sugar into his second cup of coffee. “Do you realize what’s you’re saying?”
“Perfectly, Wes.” Roquelaurie set his spoon on the saucer with an irritated flick. An aide leaned over his shoulder to wipe up the drops that had spilled. “I’m just—”
“Buggering the whole peace process!” Secretary Wesley Poule glared from across the table.
“Wes,” Roquelaurie forged on, “What I’m suggesting is we raise the alert level—”
“At a critical juncture in very delicate negotiations! Good God, man!” He spread his hands wide at the enormity of the thought. “Can’t you conceive how provoking that is?”
President Seth Marquardt cleared his throat. “Wes, let’s try to keep things productive here.”
Bill Roquelaurie heartily agreed with that. After a brief cloud conference, President Marquardt had set back their meeting until the next day, in hopes they’d get a better handle on the situation and that tempers might cool. Regarding this latter hope, he’d been disappointed. Matt Buckner, left to seethe all night, had opened with a full broadside against Edgar Fellows, the Director of ISS, which lasted a good twenty minutes, and to which Fellows, after acknowledging the “unfortunate incident”, responded with a more dreary than usual homily on operational security. The overall tone of the meeting hadn’t risen appreciably since then.
The president turned his long, solemn face to his Secretary of Defense. “Bill, Wes does have a point about putting our people on elevated alert right now. It would send a rather negative signal.”
“It is all so circumstantial,” the Secretary of the Interior put in, smoothing her platinum hair back as she leaned forward to add weight to her words. “You’re practically assuming these League people are clairvoyant.”
Roquelaurie stifled a sigh. Agnes de Chamberet was one of the more unfortunate compromises of the current administration. Seth had carried the last election largely by playing up his reputation as a conciliator. He’d kept the most of his predecessor’s senior cabinet members—Roquelaurie, Buckner, Fellows and Lieutenant General Richard Avery, the military’s Chief of Staff
were all holdovers—and brought in his own Foreign Secretary, which Roquelaurie could hardly blame him for, although he thought Poule too callow and earnest for the position. It was in the lesser offices, like Interior, where the post-election deal-making became most intense, that Marquardt had given his go-along-to-get-along tendencies freer play, saddling them with some ignorant, self-important, officious busybodies like Agnes de Chamberet.
Sipping his coffee slowly as he nudged his briefing materials to one side, Roquelaurie weighed his answer before putting his cup down. “I doubt clairvoyance is the issue here, Agnes. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that the CEF marine commandant on-station is a former executive officer of the mercenaries we hired. She served with General Corhaine for six or seven years, I believe.”
Marquardt, who’d been sitting back in his chair with his hands folded, sat up in alarm. “Bill, are you suggesting Corhaine will flip on us?”
“Certainly not, Seth. Once the general accepts a contract, her reliability is beyond question. No. My point is that Major Lewis served most of her time between the wars as a mercenary, she has many years of experience in special operations, and she’s a colonial with a . . . colorful background. We should assume she’s maintained connections with any number of sub-rosa organizations. Given all that, the chances she’ll be able to identify the unit Loews’ doctor and the CEF representative encountered ought to be considered good.”
President Marquardt retreated for a moment behind a look of studied impassivity. In public, it could convey an air of thoughtful contemplation. In private, Roquelaurie felt it wasn’t nearly as effective. The president had every right to feel a deep unease; they all did—masks were unnecessary. But Marquardt was a politician’s politician; that expression came to him as naturally as breathing.
“I take it we have not heard anything from Corhaine?” Marquardt asked after a long moment’s silence to settle his jangled nerves.
“We haven’t,” Roquelaurie assured him. “Nor would I expect anything, not with the CEF taskgroup alerted to the possibility of a force in-system.”
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 37
