by John Ringo
Unfortunately, the return of the relationship meant, in this case, a return of the debt owed to Clan O'Neal for the . . . killing . . . of the Darhel Pardal. It mattered not that the Tchpth were appalled at the consequences of their actions, the fact remained Clan O'Neal had risked the life of its third in line as Clan Head in order to do a favor the Tchpth asked for and regarded as horrific. That the Tchpth's own error in estimating the consequences of that favor and the price the O'Neals were paying as a result was so high was a factor that raised the level of the debt considerably.
The O'Neal had been surprisingly subtle in his negotiations. A barbarian, yes, barely to be considered a Child to be allowed to run free. But subtle. His closing statement was so baroque as to be indecipherable. An entire team was parsing it to squeeze every meaning out. The closest they had come to full understanding was that O'Neal placed the entire blame for the current debacle on the Tchpth. There was, further, a resonance of contempt for the Tchpth race for stooping to the level of violence. Humans, it was understood, would use violence, even their negotiations were barely controlled brawls, as a first response. That the Tchpth had acceded to it under such comparatively minor circumstances was, understandably, contemptible.
The planners would be having extensive debates as to what options might be available to mitigate the larger issue while still reducing the debt.
A single refugee ship had emerged from hyperspace, but the Tchpth and the Himmit knew that there would be more. They also suspected that they had a better appreciation for human capabilities than the Indowy refugees. From the Indowy point of view, the Darhel's humans were killing them, and Earth was the only place they had humans of their own. Their own vicious omnivorous killers were, in their minds, sure protection from the Darhel's vicious omnivorous killers.
The Tchpth presumed the Himmit had a more realistic appreciation for the results of pitting groups of humans against each other. It was difficult to tell, as always. The Himmit collected stories voraciously, but they refrained from giving return "stories" almost as carefully as the Tchpth refrained from releasing too-advanced technology to the other Galactic races. Still, it was occasionally possible to deduce something about Himmit thoughts by observing a Himmit itself to identify what stories or events it found most interesting. Occasionally.
This refugee ship, of course, had an entirely fictitious reason for being in the Sol System. In this case, probably the Himmit whose ship it was asking for stories it would otherwise not have come for. Not even the Darhel could pierce the cloaking of Himmit shuttles. Transport to Earth would be functionally invisible. For the first ship. However, at some point, Tir Dol Ron would be bound to notice that there were far, far more Himmit in the system than there should be, and begin to ask himself why.
Chapter Seventeen
Thursday, January 14, 2055
The trouble with intel, Cally reflected, was that it was too damned uncertain a business, and intelligence people sometimes either overestimated or overstated the likelihood of their conclusions. They also tended to want to tell you how and why they knew what they said they knew. This was good to the extent that it somewhat served as a check against bullshit wild-ass conclusions. It was bad in that it was damned boring. Sometimes she felt like she spent half her life in drab little conference rooms. It was actually very little, she admitted to herself, it just seemed longer. It just figured that one of the things that survived through the years was PowerPoint. Or, in this case, a generic, open-source knock-off.
Sands leaned over and whispered to her, "That is one bad-ass bit of hacking!"
Obviously, not everybody was as bored as she was. Cally sat up a bit straighter in her chair and tried to pay attention.
". . . searching through a large collection of data from the campus's many cameras, we found the one hundred women who most closely resembled the description of our kidnapper. Then we backtracked through official records to positively identify those women. Out of the ninety-two identified, ninety were students at the university.The other two had graduated from local high schools and probably live locally." The presenter paused to make sure everybody appreciated how well they'd done to rule out so many of the girls they initially ruled in.
He continued, "So we focused our attention on the remaining eight." Here he switched to a slide that contained eight grainy photos that gradually enhanced to clarity.
Cally suppressed a yawn, wishing they could just give them the damn target, mission parameters, and relevant information. She did have to admit that the final eight did all look a lot like the artist's sketch of the kidnapper.
The man was still droning, ". . . using age regression techniques and searches of cached data to come up with possible identifications. Based on multiple series of school pictures we came up with a total of fifteen women who could be our possible. Then we searched juvenile records, birth records, marriage records, child protective services records, and other sources to put together a profile for each of the fifteen. We got two women who fit the profile for childhood conditions conducive to sociopathy, and six women whose genotypes show a genetic risk factor for same. Uh—including the two. One of our top two is presently incarcerated in the Minnesota State Correction System. That leaves this woman as our prime suspect."
Cally leaned forward, finally having one specific face to memorize. The four pictures were much better, of course. Not that they flattered the woman, although she was attractive. They just needed no digital enhancement to sharpen them up. They were the originals from the young woman's social website. What a dumbass thing to do if you aspired to become a player. Darwin Award, coming right up.
"Now we come to the actual murderer, Mr. Robert 'Bobby' Mitchell."
Cally couldn't quite stifle a yawn. She tried. She mostly managed, but not enough to be spared a dirty look from the presenter's partner. Ha! She was probably still sore they got their asses kicked on the court. George happened to be looking her way, so she met his eyes with a conspiratorial twinkle of amusement before they both dutifully returned their attention to the recounting of how intel had found a man whose DNA was no longer in official records. This part was slightly uncomfortable to every operator in the room, as what could be done to others could also be done to them. In all, they preferred to do unto others, first.
Eventually they got to the point and an actual mission out of all that babble. By psych profile, the murderer of the girl was likely the top hitter. It was a one-man task, it was complicated, and it was really gross—hence easy to chicken out, scrimp, or cheat on, even for a stone killer. He'd have been unlikely to trust anyone else enough to delegate. Fine. And they had tracked down who he was. Fine. But tracking down who the killer was did nothing to track down where he was.
The intel weenie had an answer for that, too. They started with the assumption that the top hitter might work for Tir Dol Ron directly. It fit the Darhels' pattern of behavior to date. There was the word Cally and every other operator dreaded to hear from the intel people betting their lives. Assumption.
The actual mission was the acquisition and interrogation of one man who doubtless had nothing to do with the killings. Barton Leibowitz was the Enterprise Resource Manager for the Tir's corporate office on Earth, which was a fancy way of saying that he and his AID were the entire personnel and accounting department. Intel's supposition was that the man who hired people and fired people would know Mitchell if he was a regular employee and if, as Darhel hit men often were, he was just a contractor, Leibowitz still might know him through the process of cutting his checks. Not that anybody used paper checks anymore. The admin weenie could transfer the right amount of money to the right account without ever laying eyes on the contractors or anyone else, and probably did. However, their searches turned up something about the man that made him an easy mark for a little interview. He had been through a divorce, finalized about four months ago. Pictures indicated that while not ugly, Bart was probably not having great luck in the singles scene. Bluntly, the man was probably
very lonely.
Yup. Supposition on top of assumption. That was intel, all right. Granted, the process they preferred to call "analysis" usually turned up good shit. Their two and two usually did make four. It was just the "usually" part that made her edgy. That wasn't what bothered her about this particular job, though. No, the problem with this job was of a personal nature, and the bitch of it was that it was genuinely mission essential.
"I have . . . I don't know if I should call it a suggestion or a request," Amy Sands interjected. These folks almost looked like they were going to their own funeral. She understood it. The problem shouldn't have been one for a seasoned professional, but she could understand why it was. She was also seeing another side of the legendary Cally O'Neal. Or, at least, she was legend at school. Amy was now realizing that the other woman put her pants on one leg at a time just like anyone else. Excellent, yes. Phenomenal. But human, nonetheless.
"Yeah, Sands?" Tommy Sunday's tone was nice, but it had that underlying tinge of a veteran being patient with the cherry—well, near cherry—guy on the team.
She supposed that was fair. It was her point, actually. She was too realistic to expect a permanent place on this team. Like the military, the Bane Sidhe also had a fairy godmother department, and she had lucked out bigtime to be here even for a short assignment. Amy was determined to milk this job for every bit of knowledge and experience she could wring out of it. This wasn't petty careerism, although doing well there was nice.
Operatives had a largish rate of loss, relative to their whole career. Being juved was great, but a much longer working life upped the odds greatly that anyone who worked in the field eventually had bad luck catch up with them, or made a fatal mistake. The losses were front-loaded, though. Acquiring experience was a Darwinian process. They'd repeated it in school so often she heard it in her dreams: "Learn fast; you'll live longer."
She ran her tongue over her teeth quickly, hoping she didn't have chocolate smudges from the brownies. "I need field experience; you need for me to have it. The only thing a guy likes better than getting the attention of a hot chick is getting the attention of a hot chick and her hot friend," she began.
They looked skeptical, even dismissive, and she knew she'd better convince them in a hurry.
"Hear me out: say Cally and I both go in and I do the guy. She comes along to play, too. I know, he could smell a rat; it's too much good luck. Your instincts are trained from hell." She looked at Cally, who had her head cocked a tiny bit to the side. Sands took that as encouragement. "If he gets edgy, you back off and come up to his apartment after I drug him up. I know, we might have to hit him with several interrogation drugs to find something he's not immune to, but I don't have to use an interrogation drug. I Hiberzine the bastard and we have him nice and trussed by the time Cally wakes him up."
George Schmidt had a poker face. She didn't know if he could sway the whole team, but better if she won them all over. She turned her attention to him specifically.
"We all know that professionals of either sex sometimes have to screw people to get the job done. Personally, I have to speak up, because I'm not going to have a better chance to get blooded in the field that way. I've got backup practically right on top of me," she said, then blushed to the roots of her hair. "That didn't come out right," she mumbled.
Schmidt burst out laughing, and there were grins all around the table. Amy picked at her brownie and wished the ground would swallow her up.
"Okay, I understand if you want to say no, but hell, we all know you're a professional." She nodded to Cally. "Okay, so if it needs doing you'll do it. I'm not married; it's my job as much as yours. I know I'm just a temporary fill-in on your team, but bench strength is important. At least, I've always been told there are a shortage of people who can do this job." Sands looked straight at the other woman. "There's no point in being a martyr when you can make an alternate strategy do double-duty for a primary organizational need," she said. There. That was her best case. Once of Amy's talents was an exquisite sense of when to shut the hell up.
Harrison Schmidt looked across the table at his brother. "She's got a point. You guys know I suck at undercover work. What if one of you bites it? You've got a chance to develop one more person you have experience with. You also—excuse me, Sands." He shrugged. "You've got the chance to evaluate Sands' undercover work eyes on. There's a world of difference between real life and school. If you suck, it's better to find out now than later."
"Fine, I'm convinced." George sighed. "But if you start having trouble managing him, Cally becomes the primary, leaves with him, and you're the friend he doesn't leave with. Or if you can't get his attention away from Cally."
"Point," Tommy said. "Sorry, Sands."
"Yeah, I get it. If he's a tit man, I might as well not be there." She shrugged. "I still get some field time; you still get a chance to evaluate me. It works." Amy knew she had them, but it was good to solidify that nice, fuzzy feeling of consensus. Fitting into the team was a high priority for a new operative—another of the nuns' oft-repeated lessons. A new assignment disturbed unit integrity, which needed to be restored as quickly as possible for optimum performance.
Friday, January 15, 2055
The bar was the smokiest place Cally had ever been in, and that was saying a lot. Gas blue and sodium-yellow lights played up from the floor of the stage, green from the top, throwing eerie shadows off the curls of gray in the air. The room smelled of good whiskey, fine cigars, black market cigarettes, and cheap beer. The signs in the plate glass on either side of the door had made a fetish of the bar's famous selection of the worst of Milwaukee.
At fifty-eight, Cally had at one time or another sampled most living music genres. The sounds coming from the tiny stage were pure Mississippi delta. Her enhanced eyes spotted their quarry almost at once, even in the low light and haze that buried him at the back of the crowded room. He sat alone, and had a pitcher of something on the table in front of him. Yup, perfect music for a man mooning over the state of his life.
She let her eyes skate across him. He didn't appear to have even noticed them coming in. There was no reason he should in the press of people, except that they were both dressed to be eye-catching. Too many people, too much visual noise, too focused on the pint mug in front of him. On stage, a guitar wailed piercingly.
They caught plenty of other eyes, for certain, as she and Sands approached the bar. As Cally insinuated her hip between two men to squeeze a spot in view of the bartender, the guy behind her leaned down and spoke in her ear, "Can I buy you a drink?"
Her butt was up against him and it was pretty obvious he was interested. She half-glanced backwards over her shoulder. Working, and married. Down, girl, she told herself with regret. Chocolate eyes, a lock of dark hair dropping down just over one eyebrow, great smile. Not a juv, she made him as just mid-forties from the faint dusting of silver. Old enough to be a grown-up. And he smelled good. She caught all this in a bare instant, but she also had her brain in mission mode.
"No thanks. My . . . friend and I are fine," she said disinterestedly, her mouth curving in a polite half-smile. She had found this was generally more effective than a stronger brush off. Even a touch of hostility amounted to interest to men who knew enough to follow up right. Better to give them the impression of not registering on one's radar at all.
"You want your usual, babe?" she asked Sands.
Amy was quick on the uptake, turning to brush a breast against Cally's arm. "Sure, hon," she said, giving her a lazy smile and letting her eyelids droop half closed.
Of course the man behind her, being red-blooded and human, twitched a bit more. But he'd gotten the message and didn't follow through as Cally ordered and paid for a couple of Manhattans. She handed one of them to her partner and backed out into more open space. Mr. Sexy Eyes was entirely too well-built and tempting. Busy. Married. Damn whoever was responsible for the damn juv hormones, anyway.
"All the way to the back, three tables from the far
right," she whispered to Sands, curling her arm around the other girl's waist and drawing her in, incidentally turning her far enough to see and look past Cally's shoulder.
"I'll have to take your word for it, can't see over heads," Sands whispered back.
Oh. Yeah, it figured. They were both wearing five-inch stilettos just for this reason, but since Cally was already five ten, she got a much better edge out of it than the shorter woman.
"It's near the path to the restroom. He's smoking; when we go back, make your play."
"Sure, if he looks past your chest." Amy was talking very softly in her ear, clearly knowing Cally would pick the words out of the background noise, but her giggle was open. Good tradecraft, but lord was she ever tired of catching crap about her tits. Of all the slab-altered bodies she had worn in her career, she supposed there were worse ones she could have gotten stuck in. At least Sinda Makepeace had been, was, beautiful—wherever the hell she'd ended up. Cally had worn enough cover personas who weren't to appreciate that. It was far better to be able to attract men at need than not. It was just that sometimes the wisecracks were worse than the backaches. She couldn't even get the things surgically reduced. With a slab job, deviations from the program tended to grow back. She mentally slapped herself for whining and dialed back in on the mission.
They drank the red liquid, which might as well have been cranberry Kool-Aid, as quickly as socially possible before ditching the empties on the bar and making a beeline for the ladies'. Cally had to admit that Amy was smooth, catching the man's eyes with a direct smile, but declining to stop on the first pass by.
It was on the way back that she bent down, dropping a casual hand on Leibowitz's shoulder. "Hey, got a light?"
Cally kept herself half-shielded behind her partner, offering a friendly but not quite interested smile when his eyes flickered to her, noting that Sands had chosen a good opening. Lighting her cigarette focused the target's attention on her and gave her the opportunity to turn up the charisma and pull him in.
