"No," Garibaldi said curtly.
Yes.
He was halfway ready to call up Sheridan and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, detaining his contacts, violating their confidentiality, breaking his word, dammit. But he hesitated, because Sheridan wasn't his old friend Jeff Sinclair, and it might mean his job.
Sheridan was a different type of commander. Garibaldi remembered what the captain had said back in Medlab yesterday, that he wasn't going to tolerate assaults on his station's officers. It meant something to Sheridanhis officers, his people. Slowly, Garibaldi thought about the last time he'd been hospitalized, only then he was in a coma, dyingor so Doc had told him, later. And Sheridan had been the one who'd saved his life, donating his life-force to a man he'd never met but who was one of his officers. Sheridan had done that, the very first day he set foot on the station.
It was a somewhat subdued head of security who finally called up his commanding officer. "Captain, there are some names on the detention list that I didn't authorize. These are sources of mine. I promised to protect their identities."
Sheridan's expression on the screen was firm. "We had this discussion already, Mr. Garibaldi. I respect your position, but I want you to appreciate mine. I have reason to believe these individuals had knowledge of, or possibly participated in, a wanton assault on my head of security. I can't, I won't tolerate it. Now, if you don't want to conduct the investigation in this case, I can assign it to someone else. But I'm going to find these people, Garibaldi, and this station is going to see that they can't get away with this kind of act."
"Yes, sir, I do appreciate your position. I'd just like to know this, thoughwhere did you get the names? How did you find these people? I didn't ... in Medlab, with the drugs, I didn't say anything, did I?"
Sheridan paused, and a look of understanding crossed his face. "I see. No, you didn't give anything away. I asked some of your officers. I had them go through your files. Quite a few names surfaced, and we ran them through a computer analysis. And, Chief, I'm not charging them with anything, not yet. For the moment, they're just being held for questioning."
"I see." Which one of my officers? Garibaldi wondered. Torres?
"Will you be wanting me to assign this to someone else?" Sheridan asked. "It might be better, considering your involvement."
Garibaldi shook his head firmly. There was no more pain. "No, sir. I'll take care of it myself."
"That's your call." - "It's my job."
Garibaldi stared for a while at the blank screen. It occurred to him that maybe the captain was right and he was wrong. That if he'd been set upbut, hell, of course he'd been set up! Who else could have done it? He'd been asking people to trust him, but didn't that have to go both ways? Who'd betrayed whom?
He finally pulled the witness files from the computer and started to go through them all, one by one.
Nick Patinos gave a short, bitter laugh on seeing who'd just come into the lockup. "Well, Mike. I wondered when you'd be showing up. Hey, if you'd wanted to talk, you could have sent an invitation. Or, hell, I'd have invited you to my place."
"And how many guys with shock sticks waiting for me when I got there, Nick?"
Nick looked down, muttered, "You weren't supposed to get hurt. It was a warning. That's all."
Garibaldi said heatedly, "So you were in on it! You set me up!"
"I didn't"
"Dammit, Nick! I thought you ... I didn't think you'd"
"I didn't know!" Nick shouted. Then, looking away from Garibaldi again, "I mean, I didn't know what was going to happen, what they were going to do." He looked up again to meet Garibaldi's accusing eyes. "I told them. I said, you weren't a part of it, you weren't working with those other bastards. But Earthforce is Earthforce, Mike. That's what it comes down to, doesn't it? And you're Earthforce." He shook his head. "I told them, I didn't want to know about it, whatever they were going to do. Just to make sure you weren't hurt. And that's what they said, it was just to warn you off."
Nick clenched his fist, then brought it down on the table between them. "You couldn't just let it go! You had to keep coming around, coming back, asking more questions. Dammit, Mike, I tried to warn you, I told you what was going on. But you had to keep coming back!"
But Garibaldi's anger was equal to Nick's. "Yeah, I had to keep coming back! That's my job! There's been at least two people murdered on the station and a lot of transport crews murdered out in space, there's a good officer with her career ruined, there's God-knows-what kind of conspiracies and collusions maybe all the way up to Earth Central. So, what, I'm supposed to forget about all this just because my good buddy Nick says people don't feel like talking about it? I'm in charge of security around here. I have responsibilities! I can't just forget about things like that."
"No matter who it hurts?"
"You think people aren't being hurt now? You really believe these guys when they tell you nobody'll get hurt? Nick, I thought you had better sense than that!"
For a few moments they just stared at each other, the atmosphere between them heated by high emotions. Nick was the first to lower his eyes. Finally he said, "Look, Mike, I don't know about the rest of it, but I am sorry it had to be you." A shorter pause. "I hope it wasn't . . . you know . . ."
"I've had better experiences." Garibaldi struggled with himselfthe friend versus the security officer. "Oh, I guess I'll live."
"For what it's worth," Nick's voice was earnest, "I really didn't know what they were going to do. I just hope you can believe that."
Garibaldi said nothing. He wasn't sure if he could or not. Maybe it'd take time.
He took a breath. "The thing is, Nick, I'm going to have to have their names."
Nick drew back, stiffened, and the friend became the prisoner, the man on the other side of the divide. "Nothing doing, Mike."
Garibaldi hadn't supposed he would say anything else. Still, he had to ask. "All right, then, Nick. But I can't let you go, at least not until this thing is over. Understand it wasn't just me who was assaulted, Mike Garibaldiit was the head of Babylon 5 security."
"I guess you've got to do your job," Nick said coldly.
"That's right. I do." Garibaldi turned to leave, then stopped. "I want you to know one thing, though. It wasn't my order to have you brought in. It wasn't me they got the names from. That's all I ask you to believe."
But his old friend Nick said nothing in reply, only turned his back.
The guy from the machine shop was named Williams, Val Williams.
Garibaldi had dug out the name himself, the way he'd question any witnessgoing through the computer, having it sort through the files for men of the approximate physical description of the man he'd met with in the machine shop. It hadn't even taken very long, less than an hour, until he recognized the guy's face out of the hundreds of faces the computer pulled up and displayed. He noted that Williams didn't work in the machine shop, after all.
Garibaldi figured it was better this way. He hadn't wanted to have to resort to forcing the name from Nick or anyone else who'd trusted him, once. Not unless he had to.
Yeah, it was better this way.
He closed down the computer search without flagging Williams's file, then sent out a team of security agents to bring the suspect in. But the man's assigned quarters were empty, and he hadn't been seen at his job since the meeting in the machine shop. Garibaldi wasn't surprised. He sent out an alert to check departing ships and went through the passenger lists of ships that had already left since the attack. Nothing. So, if he was lucky, Williams was probably still hiding on the station somewhere.
By this time, Ensign Torres had come on duty again. "It's good to see you back, Chief," she told Garibaldi, a bit uncertain in her manner.
"You did good, Torres," he reassured her. "You used your best judgment under the circumstances." He grinned. "You were probably even right."
She still seemed uncomfortable. "About those names. Of your contacts. Captain Sheridan ordered me to
track them down."
"I understand." Garibaldi didn't blame Torres. He didn't even really blame Sheridan. They were only doing their jobs. Neither of them had made a promise to the men they'd brought in, and no one had breached a confidence.
It was true, his contacts would probably never believe it. Never trust him again. Nick Patinos, maybehe might. One of these days. But at least Garibaldi knew he hadn't broken his word.
But it was done now, and Torres had done a good job getting all those names. He told her so, adding, "I hear you did great handling that incident down in the cargo bay, too. It could have turned into a riot."
"It was Commander Ivanova who settled it," she said, deprecating her own efforts.
"But you were in command," he insisted. "I'm going to make sure it goes into your file."
"Thanks, Chief," she said. "Urn, what about my report? On Yang? Did you get a chance to read it?"
"Damn!" Garibaldi almost slapped his forehead, caught himself in time. With everything that had happened, he'd forgotten all about it. "Sorry, I was interrupted by a shock stick and it completely slipped my mind. So what did you find out?"
She shook her head. "Well, I checked with all the merchants, all the import-export agents. None of them had seen him. His credit recordnothing. Almost no transactions. He paid for his quarters, had his meals there. Whatever the man was doing on Babylon 5, he didn't leave a trail."
Garibaldi nodded. "Which tells us what we thought all along. This guy was no import-export merchant. If he was here on business, it was the kind of business he didn't want anyone to know about."
"The only thing I did find out is, he's not from Earth. We ran a routine identification request to try to find a next-of-kin, and they couldn't find a record of any Earth resident matching the ID we have for Yang."
"That helps, Torres, that helps a lot. Good work."
"So now what do we do?" Torres asked, more confidently now.
"I'm going to check out our Mr. Yang with Earthdome on Mars," he told her. "As for you, how'd you like to go track down Val Williams? Here's all the stuff we have on him. According to the records, he hasn't left Babylon 5."
"But according to Yang's records, he'd already left the station, when he was here, dead. I mean, we can't really trust the records, can we?"
"You're right," he agreed, adding to himself, And who had access to the records, who could have changed them? "So let's not count on them, but let's assume he's still here. Make sure everyone in Security sees Williams's picture, that they can identify him by sight, not just to rely on the ID scanner, that he might have a counterfeit identicard. Check all outbound passenger shipsand transports. You know what to do."
"Right, Chief. And thanks." She left, confident and eager to be on the hunt. Garibaldi envied her enthusiasm. But that was youth. He used to have that, too. When he was Torres's age. It was unsettling to realize the size of the gap that lay between his age and Torres. She was young enough to be his daughterif he'd ever had one.
Dismissing that unwelcome thought, he got back to work, calling up a communications channel to Mars and contacting Earthdome to put in a request for all information on a Yang, Fengshi, known to have arrived from Marsport on the Asimov on 04/18/59. He advised them that possibly the information given on Yang's ID might be incorrect.
After that, he got down to all the work that had accumulated while he was laid up: the messages, memos, reports, the requests that needed his authorization, all the chicken tracks a bureaucracy ran on.
There was Torres's official report on Yang in the queue, and he read it through, just in case there might be one piece of data in there that might match up with some other piece and amount to a clue. There wasn't. The man had moved on Babylon 5 like a ghost, leaving no tracks to follow him by. Or rather, Garibaldi corrected himself, like a pro. And a pro, almost by definition, is working for someone. So who was it? Was he working for someone in Earth Alliance? The AreTech mining company? The Free Mars organization?
The call from Mars came in much sooner than he'd expected, interrupting this well-worn train of speculation. He answered, "Garibaldi here. What do you have for me?"
But the face on the screen didn't belong to a mere data clerk. This was an Earthforce major, security. "I'm sorry, Mr. Garibaldi," she said, "but your request for information has been denied. That file is classified."
"What?" He recalled himself, lowered his voice. "Excuse me, Major, but what do you mean? I'm head of security on Babylon 5, I have an ultraviolet clearance to see classified files."
The major shook her head. "As I said, I'm sorry, but not this file. It's classified ultraviolet eyes-only."
"Well, just whose eyes are we talking about, Major? This isn't just a casual request, you know. I'm conducting a murder investigation here. This Yang character was killed, chopped into little bits, and shoved into the recycling system. Now, I'd say that constitutes need-to-know, wouldn't you?"
The face on the screen looked grave, even concerned. "I don't know about that, Mr. Garibaldi. It sounds like you have a point. But I just can't release this information without authorization."
"Whose authorization? Who ordered this file classified, anyway?"
"I'm afraid that information is classified, too."
Garibaldi controlled himself. He didn't swear out loud. "Well, I'm putting in an official request for access to the files on Yang. Take it as far up as it has to go. This is a murder investigation and it may involve other illicit activity, too."
"I'll make that request, Mr. Garibaldi. Through the official channels. But until I receive authorization, there's nothing else I can do."
Garibaldi thought for a moment. If Ivanova was right, someone in Earthdome, someone most likely in Earthforce security, was involved in a cover-up. Was this major part of it? Or was she just following orders?
"Can you tell me this: how long has that file been restricted? What's the date on that eyes-only classification? Or is that information restricted, too?"
A slight smile lit her face, and there was a look in her eye that Garibaldi liked. She checked something on a screen out of his sight. "No, that information is not classified, Mr. Garibaldi. The file was restricted as of 22:45 hours, 04/26/59, Earth standard time."
Garibaldi felt his heartbeat quicken. Yes! Yang's file had been restricted less than an hour after Wallace had declared in Medlab that he knew of no connection between that case and Ortega's. Commander Wallace had made one big mistakeand now he was trying to cover it up!
"Can you tell me," he asked the major on Mars, "whether the classification of this file was requested by a Commander Ian Wallace?"
Garibaldi wasn't a telepath, but he could see the major's eyes go to the unseen terminal and open in surprise. "I'm sorry, that information is classified."
Oh, he thought, but you've given me the answer, anyway. "That's all right, I understand. You've been very helpful, Major. I want to thank you for your cooperation."
"And good luck with your murder investigation, Mr. Garibaldi."
"You'll transmit that request?"
"Right away."
"Thanks again."
Garibaldi signed off, then leaned back in his chair to consider the implications of what he'd just found out. First, it was trueWallace had lied about Yang, that he didn't know anything about the case. He'd lied, then immediately acted to cover it up. "That's your second mistake, Wallace," he said softly to himself. "You should have classified that file from the beginning."
So why hadn't he? Because a classified file was like a red flag, telling everyone who saw it that there were secrets inside. Wallace hadn't wanted anyone to know there was a secret about Fengshi Yang. As far as he figured, no one ever had to know Yang existed. But what he hadn't counted on wassomeone finding the body. - Just one stroke of bad luck.
It would have certainly stayed a secret, otherwise. For one thing, Yang's secretive ways worked against him. There were only the bare records of his arrival and presence on Babylon 5. He might almost n
ot have existed. Certainly, there was no reason for anyone to notice him missing, to report it to the authorities. Especially if his records said he'd left the stationwho would doubt it? Who would suspect that someone would have altered those records?
There were still questionstoo damn many questions. Who had Yang been working for? What had he known or found outor failed to find out?
Ivanova thought Yang must be an agent of the corrupt officials in Earthdome, but Garibaldi wasn't so sure. Yang had certainly killed Ortega, but who had killed Yang? Wallace was covering up evidence, but whose side was Wallace on? Captain Sheridan refused to believe in a conspiracy that went all the way up to the Joint Chiefs. And what was Garibaldi, as head of security, supposed to do about all this? Hand over his evidence to Wallace? Arrest him, for obstructing justice in the Yang case? What kind of proof did he have, what kind of evidence? Is it evidence when the suspect has the evidence classified?
Garibaldi knew when he was in over his head. Normally, he supposed, the thing to do would be to call Internal Investigations. Maybe, if he had a case. But he didn't have a case. He had part of a body, a file he couldn't access, and a big pile of suspicious circumstances, but that wasn't a case.
Yeah, he could just hear it, the kind of questions they'd ask him: "And how do you know Commander Wallace was lying, Mr. Garibaldi? Isn't it possible that he felt you simply weren't entitled to know the details of his investigation? How can you claim you know that the commander ordered Yang's file to be classified? Do you have clearance for that information? Don't you think you're overstepping the bounds of your authority, Mr. Garibaldi? Weren't you given explicit orders not to get involved in the Ortega case, Mr. Garibaldi?"
Yeah, he'd be the one ending up in the lockup, after all that.
So what could he do? Nothing? At least until he could find some proof. Do nothing, while Wallace still didn't have whatever he was looking for and in the meantime there'd been two deaths ... at least two deaths . . .
Garibaldi tapped his link. "Torres, this is Garibaldi."
Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois) Page 16
