“Are there any further leads on Isabella?” Hogan asked.
Renne took another drink of her green cherry fizz, enjoying its cold burn down the back of her throat. “Not direct ones. I thought I’d try and go through her activities on Daroca before she vanished, see if I can find any clues about where she might go. Then there’s Kantil, I could go see her.”
“All right, enough.” Hogan’s hand came down on her wrist, preventing her from lifting her glass. “I don’t want you wasting any more time over this girl. You made your long shot and it didn’t come off. I don’t mind you going out on a limb every now and then, but you have to know when to cut your losses. Understand me, this is that time.”
“There’s something wrong about her.”
“Maybe so, and because of that the warrant still stands. The police will find her eventually, and when they do I’ll authorize you to handle her interrogation yourself. But until that happens, I want you working on our priority cases.”
Renne stared resentfully at his hand; deep inside, the little sensible part of her brain was telling her this wasn’t the issue to make a stand on. “Yeah, okay, Chief.”
“And I certainly don’t want you bothering people like Christabel Halgarth again. If you want to talk to someone that senior in the Grand Families and Dynasties you clear it with me first. There are a lot of political angles in our investigations, not to mention protocols, which should be followed.”
“She was happy to see me.”
“You don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t want a repeat of that incident, understand?”
“Right.” His hand withdrew, and she lifted her glass to her lips. The barkeeper delivered the water and the beer, putting a small bowl of cashew nuts in front of Hogan.
“Our trip produced some very decent results,” Tarlo said. “The forensic guys managed to crack the program routines in the Reynolds arrays. We know what was being encrypted now.”
“What?” Renne asked automatically.
“Every scrap of data from meteorological sensors all over the planet.”
With Hogan distracted by Tarlo, Renne’s finger rose slowly above the rim of her glass, remaining stiff for a couple of seconds. Tarlo saw it, and pressed down on a grin.
“That makes no sense,” she said. “Why would the Guardians be interested in Martian weather? I don’t understand.”
Tarlo gave her his full bright smile. “Me neither.”
“But it’s the kind of solid result we can run with,” Hogan said, glancing back at Renne. “I want the two of you working together to find out what you can. Admiral Kime has given this a very high priority.”
“Figures, with his background,” she grunted, and snatched some of the cashews.
“Okay then,” Hogan said. He drained his mineral water in one. “Have your lunch, Renne, then when you get back to the office this afternoon, I want the two of you heading up this new angle on the Mars investigation. Call in some experts, find out every conceivable application for the meteorological data.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hogan nodded happily, and left them with a wave.
Renne watched him walk out of the restaurant. “What an asshole.”
“To be expected right now,” Tarlo said with a grin. “He had some bad news waiting for him when we got back.”
“Oh?”
“Thought that would cheer you up. Get this, Senate Security has officially requested we begin a covert observation of Alessandra Baron.”
“The celeb?”
“None other.”
“Why?”
“The official reason is that they suspect her of involvement with quote ‘detrimental individuals.’ How about that for covering a multitude of sins. But guess whose name was on the request file.”
Renne’s grin brightened to match Tarlo’s. “The boss.”
“Now do you see why our Great Leader is walking about like he’s got a bug up his ass?”
“Yeah. But that’s no reason for taking it out on me.”
“You’re the easiest, closest target. I warned you about chasing the Halgarth girl. He was never going to like that. And visiting Christabel was a big risk. He was bound to find out.”
“Yeah, yeah. But you’ve got to admit it’s odd. Why should Isabella vanish like this?”
“No,” he said, and held his hands up. “I refuse to get involved; it’s not just hanging on to the uniform, I need the money my job brings in. And I’m making the kind of progress which Hogan approves of.”
“You’ve got to look at the whole picture, Tarlo.”
“Sure you do. Just remember what happened to the last person who took that view. Oh, hey, here’s Vic.”
Renne twisted around on the stool to see Vic Russell walking through the restaurant. He held up a hand. “Better get a table,” she said.
They chose one along the wall, where a high partition veiled them from casual view. “Some good news for you,” Vic said as Renne’s burger was delivered. He took a couple of fries from her plate.
“I could do with some,” she admitted. “It’s been a long shitty day.”
“I’ve backtracked eighteen items from Edmund Li’s interception on Boongate.”
Renne paused in examining her burger for signs of mayonnaise. “Their entire routes?”
“Yep.” Vic’s big round face produced a smug expression. “You think you haven’t had much sleep. This has taken me weeks, they were so bloody complicated. It helps that we had the manufacturer and the final smuggling disguise; I could work the route from both ends, fill in all the gaps, and believe me, there were some massive gaps. Each route is a chain of courier companies playing the shell game between warehouses—some of the components were in transit for ten months. And all the finance used to pay the shipment costs came from onetime accounts. There was a hell of a lot of organization went into this operation. We may have underestimated how many Guardians are active inside the Commonwealth. Shipping the items like that had to triple the cost of each piece by the time they reached Far Away. Whatever they’re building, it’s costing them a fortune.”
Tarlo and Renne exchanged a glance. “They can afford it,” she said. “Remember, the Great Wormhole Heist is paying for this.”
“Even so,” Vic insisted. “This is true paranoia. Effective, mind, I’ve got to hand them that.”
“It won’t be all Guardians,” Tarlo said. “Elvin will recruit from any unsavory source; remember that agent Cufflin put us onto.”
“Thanks, Vic,” Renne said. “This is really good work. We’ll get the RI set up to cross-reference with our existing Guardian database, and the team can review the strongest leads for direct follow-ups.”
Vic settled back in his seat, and stole another fistful of fries from Renne’s plate. “You know, I was thinking about this when I filed the report. We’ve already got a ton of information, so many names and smuggling operations, and black market arms deals; it goes back decades.”
“I know,” Tarlo said, swirling beer around his glass. “Renne and I loaded half of it in there ourselves.”
“All right,” Vic said, suddenly earnest. “So how come we never managed to nail the bastards?”
“Sore point,” Renne said.
“Because it’s all peripheral information,” Tarlo said. “One day we’ll reach critical data mass, and the whole case will fall into place. We’re going to make a thousand arrests that day.”
Vic shook his head. “If you say so. I’ll see you back in the office, yes?”
Renne nodded. “Half an hour.” She eyed her nearly empty glass, wondering if she should order another.
“Give me a second,” Tarlo said to Vic, “I’ll come with you.” He waited until the big man was standing by the door. “You going to be okay?”
“Sure. I’m just stressed and depressed after EdenBurg, is all. That goddamn Isabella. Why doesn’t anyone care about her? Not her friends. Not her family. If you vanished, people would wonder, they’d ask questions.
I’d want to know what happened to you.”
“That’s because you’re a good person.” He hesitated. “Look, Hogan will be watching you, but I can pursue Isabella on the quiet if you’d like.”
“I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand irritably over her brow. “There are no quiet inquiries left. I either turn it into a big deal or drop it completely. Damn, you don’t suppose Hogan could be right, do you?”
Tarlo laughed. “Never. See you later? I want to tell you all about Mars. It really was a strange place.”
“Yeah, I’ll be in soon.”
He patted her shoulder and left.
Renne took another bite out of her burger, and munched slowly. Maybe she had become obsessive about Isabella. It wasn’t a crime to run off and join the exodus. There were hundreds of thousands of people on each of the worlds close to the Lost23 who’d left home with no explanation, most of them scuttling off to worlds on the other side of the Commonwealth. Silvergalde was also a popular destination, and if Isabella had gone there she really would be out of any electronic contact.
“You shouldn’t discuss confidential information in a public place,” a woman’s voice said. “Office procedure has certainly slipped recently.”
Renne stood up and looked over the partition at the neighboring table. Paula Myo sat there, nursing a glass of orange juice.
“Jesus, Boss!”
“Can I join you?”
Renne grinned, and gestured to the empty seats.
“Sounds like you’re having a bad day,” Paula said as she settled in the chair Vic had vacated.
“I can handle it. I just keep asking myself what you would do.”
“That’s very flattering. So how is it going at the office?”
Renne took another bite from the burger, giving Paula a calculating glance. Was the boss deliberately testing her to see how much she’d divulge?
“You should know; all our data is available to Senate Security.”
“I wasn’t referring to the data from your investigations, I’m more interested to hear how Hogan is doing.”
“Coping, barely. He isn’t you.”
“For which I suspect he and I are both grateful. How did he take the request to spy on Alessandra Baron?”
“Didn’t you hear? Tarlo says badly. But I think that’s more to do with the fact you requested it than the manpower scheduling. What do you think Baron has done?”
“She’s a Starflyer agent.”
Renne stared at her old boss. “Are you serious? You really think it exists?”
“Yes.”
“Hell, Boss. What proof have you got?”
“The behavior of several people, including Baron. She’s part of a network of agents who are acting against human interests. We’re compiling information on them which should lead to their arrest.”
“Shit, you do mean it, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So why tell me?”
“I’d like to know why you have a warrant out for Isabella Halgarth.”
“The shotgun, the one which claimed Doi was a Starflyer agent. There was something wrong about it.” She explained her misgivings about the whole setup; and the way Isabella had subsequently dropped out of sight.
“Interesting,” Paula said. “Especially her connection with Kantil. We are looking for any Starflyer connection among the Commonwealth political elite. She might well be the link.”
“Isabella as a Starflyer agent? That’s hard to swallow.”
“You said yourself there’s something wrong about her. That shotgun did a lot of damage to the Guardians’ credibility. It is logical to assume the Starflyer would use disinformation of that nature to damage its one true opponent. Her involvement would confirm her connection to its network.”
“But she’s only twenty-one, and she was going out with Kantil two years ago. How would she get messed up in something like that so young? She spent most of her early life on Solidade. You can’t get more sheltered and protected than that.”
“I don’t know. Is there any chance you could research her background more thoroughly?”
Renne blew her cheeks out as she sighed. “That won’t make me terribly popular with Hogan.”
“Yes, I heard. Your choice, of course.”
“I’ll do what I can, Boss.”
“Thank you.”
Paula stayed at the table, finishing her drink as Renne walked out. Her virtual hand touched Hoshe’s icon. “She’s leaving now.”
“Yeah, we’ve got her. The team’s boxing her. Monitor programs for her unisphere access are loaded and running.”
“All right. Let’s see what we turn up.”
“Do you think it’s her?”
“I hope it isn’t, but who knows. If it is, the information I’ve just given her should goad her into making contact with someone in the Starflyer network.”
***
Although it wasn’t far from New York to the Tulip Mansion, Justine kept her own apartment on Park Avenue. It was a nice base in town for those times she wanted to be on her own, or throw a small soirée for close personal friends and important contacts; it was also somewhere private for affairs she preferred to keep quiet about. The building was two centuries old, a massive art deco–Gothic block favored by both the urban chic and serious old money. Her apartment occupied half of the fortieth floor, which gave her a nice view out over the park from her balcony. Tall marble gargoyles lined the stone balustrade, framing the city’s magnificent ma-hon tree as it glittered rose-gold in the late evening sunlight. She never tired of the unique sight of the biochemical anomaly. It was always a shame CST had closed its homeworld off, she felt; now there would never be any more transplanted to the Commonwealth worlds.
The maid had prepared a light supper of poached salmon and salad. Justine ate it cautiously before her guest was due. Sure enough, twenty minutes after she finished she had to rush to the bathroom, heaving up most of it.
“I’d forgotten this part,” she said to herself as she wiped her mouth with a tissue. It would have to be cold still mineral water and plain crackers when the meeting was over.
Her e-butler told her Paula Myo was on her way up from the lobby. She took a bottle of mouthwash from the medicine cabinet, and swilled it around. The horrible bitter acid taste was replaced by a clinical peppermint. It wasn’t much better.
“Stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself,” Justine told her reflection in the mirror. She splashed some cold water on her face, which wasn’t looking so hot these days. Ah well, it wasn’t as if she was on the prowl for lovers right now. Her virtual hand touched her father’s icon. “She’s here.”
“I’m on my way down,” Gore said; he had the apartment above.
As always, Paula Myo was dressed impeccably, in a blue suit that was obviously tailored in Paris. There was a stern expression on her dainty face as she looked around the big living room with its exquisite antique furniture.
“I was in another Park Avenue apartment yesterday, about a kilometer away from here,” she said. “I thought that was ostentatious, but it would fit in this room and still rattle around.”
“Some people are aspirant,” Justine said. “Some of us obtained a long time ago.”
“Materialism never really appealed to me.”
“Is that part of your Huxley’s Haven heritage?” Justine had almost said: Hive heritage.
“I don’t think so.”
“Course it is,” Gore Burnelli said. He marched in through the living room door, dressed in a mauve polo sweater and black jeans. The overhead chandeliers reflected a burnished amber light off his golden skin. “Materialism would distract you from your obsession, wouldn’t it, Investigator? The Foundation wouldn’t want that in their police force; I suppose it makes you immune to bribes, too.”
“Father!”
“What? Everyone appreciates honesty, especially a policewoman.”
Justine was too weary to remonstrate with him. She could feel her stomach churni
ng again, and hurriedly told her e-butler to get her an antacid. It acknowledged the request, and told her Gore’s subsidiary personality programs were filling the apartment arrays, moving with him like attentive ghosts. “Can we get started, please?” Justine asked; it was almost a plea. The big windows leading out to the balcony turned opaque and shimmered with a gray curtain of energy, sealing the room. She sat in one of the big couches as a maidbot trundled over carrying her a glass filled with a milky liquid. Gore came and sat beside her, while Paula chose a high-backed chair, facing the two Burnellis.
“I’ll start with my bad news,” Justine said. “I haven’t been able to confirm who told Thompson about Nigel Sheldon blocking the examination of cargo to Far Away.”
“Damn it, girl,” Gore complained. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not the most popular Senator in the Commonwealth right now. All that goodwill I was getting at the start because of Thompson’s death has just about evaporated. Columbia and the Halgarths are building themselves a lot of new alliances, and of course Doi’s always keen to receive their votes. Those of us who ask awkward questions are gradually being frozen out.”
“Then burn your way back in. Come on, this should be child’s play to you.”
“I’m up against some masterclass opposition here, actually,” she snapped back. “Not knowing if I can trust the Sheldons is proving to be a real problem; it’s leaving me very isolated in several committees.”
“You’ll pull through,” Gore said. “I can always depend on you. That’s why I’m so proud of you.”
Justine blinked in surprise. That wasn’t like him at all.
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