Babylon 5 02 - Accusations (Tilton, Lois)

by Accusations (Tilton, Lois)

  "Thanks a lot," the raider said, wincing as Massie secured his wrists in restraints.

  "Mr. Massie, I understand you have a secure room?"

  "That's right."

  "Let's go, then."

  Massie was reluctant at first to leave her locked up alone with the raider, but he made no more objections after she told him the subject of the interrogation was classified and might in fact be dangerous to know.

  "So now we're alone together, huh, Earthforce," Zaccione said, grinning up at her with a set of very white, even teeth.

  "Let's get this clear, scumball," Ivanova said tightly. "You're facing a short walk out into some very cold vacuum as soon as we get back to Babylon 5. For a man who likes to breathe as much as you do, you're wasting a lot of air with this line of crap."

  "I thought Earth Alliance law reserved the death penalty for treason and mutiny."

  "You've attacked Earthforce ships, and that's treason enough in my book." Ivanova wasn't sure if this was so, but she managed to sound convincing anyway. She wasn't concerned with penalties at the moment, she was concerned with information.

  "Whatever you say, Commander. So what is it you want to know?"

  "How do you pick the particular transports you attack? Where do you get your information? Is it always morbidium?"

  "You've been doing homework, Commander. Yeah, that's it."

  "Why morbidium? Why not some other strategic metals?"

  He started to shrug, then stopped himself. "I dunno. The deal is for morbidium, that's all. If there's something else shipped with it, that's dessert, right? Hey, it's all right with us. You know what that stuff's worth?"

  "I have a rough idea, yes. So what do you pay for the information?"

  "Used to be, we'd pay the fixed rate. You know, the official price. Lately, with the price going up, the price we get, they've been wanting more. Greedy bastards. They turn around and collect from the insurance, too."

  "Just what greedy bastards are you talking about?"

  "The mine."

  "Your information comes directly from the mine?"

  "Yeah, that's right."

  "That's the mining corporation, the owners? Not just some clerk that you're dealing with?"

  "Yeah, they're selling out their own cargoes. Don't ask me why."

  "So they sell you the information at the fixed rate, then collect the insured value. And you get the rest of the profit?" Ivanova recalled Pal's suspicions. "Some people have wondered if maybe the cargoes are just slag empty mass. That all this is just part of an insurance fraud scheme."

  "Hey, Earthforce, this isn't what you'd call a low-risk enterprise, is it? We'll pay for the information, but the cargo has to be worth it. We're not going out after slag!"

  "All right, let's get back to where you get the information. From the morbidium mines. Just one company, or all of them? Just who's passing it to you? I want names."

  The raider wasn't grinning anymore. "Look, Commander, like you said, once you take me in, all I see waiting for me is an open air-lock and a lot of vacuum. If I tell you everything I know now, then what kind of a guarantee do I have?"

  "The only thing I guarantee right now is that you'll keep breathing long enough to make it back to Babylon 5," Ivanova said grimly. "Then you won't have a choice whether to talk or not. There's a team of special investigators waiting for you. They'll suck every scrap of information out of your mind and leave it as empty as a broken eggshell. They'll throw what's left out the airlock and you won't even be in there to know it."

  The raider blinked at the threat. He searched her face did she mean it?

  Ivanova stared back. "Or you can talk to me now and have it on record."

  "AreTech," he finally, reluctantly, said.

  "The big mining company? They're the only one?"

  "Right. The information comes from their main office on Mars. We have an agent there. He passes it on. We know where the cargo's routed, when it's scheduled to come through the jump gates, when we can hit them. It's real convenient. Or, at least, it used to be."

  Ivanova thought about what Espada, the insurance agent, had told her, about the shipments all being insured by different companies, to divert suspicion. "You never wondered why they were doing this?"

  He shrugged, winced. "Uh, Commander, you know those painkillers the medic talked about?"

  "Later," she said, pitiless.

  "Look, all right. We're always on the lookout for data. Makes our job easier, you know what I mean? So, one day a while back, this guy makes contact with one of our agents. He says he's got information, routing details on a real valuable shipment of strategic metals. Are we interested? And the best thing is, he doesn't want anything for it. Just for us to hit the transports where and when he says.

  "So, well, sure everyone automatically thinks this is some kind of trick, the guy's an Earthforce agent, you know? Too good to be true? But our guy checks him out, he's legitimate, works for the mining company and all that. Some of us decide, well, we'll check it out. The ship comes through, just like the guy said it would. We hit it, get the stuff, sell it, and suddenly this is looking like a good idea. So we're in business, we make a deal with the guy for regular information. It's worth what we pay for it. By now we're one of the major suppliers of weapons-grade morbidium in eight sectors."

  "Who do you sell to?"

  "The highest bidder, who else?"

  "Aliens? The Narn, maybe?"

  "Hey, it's a free market! Not like Earth. Supply and demand, you know. Right now, demand is real high. We've got buyers for every shipment we take."

  "Why don't they just sell the morbidium on the black market themselves, then?"

  "Don't ask me, Earthforce. Maybe it's the E A inspectors, the way they check each shipment, count every ingot before they seal it up. I don't know."

  "Wouldn't it be easier to just bribe the officials? Would you know anything about that? Earthforce officers on the take? Covering this business up?"

  "I've heard . . . maybe they've got somebody paid off, yeah. But I don't really know. What I've heard is, people around the mine who start asking questions don't last very long. You know what I mean?"

  "I still want names. Does the name J. D. Ortega mean anything to you? Was he involved in any of this?"

  "Never heard of him."

  "How about Yang? Or Wallace?"

  "Look, Commander, I said I don't know. Not any of those names. I'm not involved in that. I'm just a fighter pilot, just like you are, that's all."

  Ivanova almost hit him. "Don't you ever say that," she said fiercely. "Don't you ever say that again."

  "Whatever you say, Commander."

  CHAPTER 25

  Sheridan and Garibaldi waited, watching while the shuttle pilot brought in Khatib's body. On the other side of the bay were Wallace and Miyoshi, rigid, speaking to no one.

  Under his breath, Garibaldi remarked, "Would you believe I didn't think this situation could possibly get any worse?"

  Sheridan only looked angry and muttered something about not planning to tolerate any more murders on Babylon 5.

  Garibaldi raised his eyebrows. "This one is going to be a lot of fun, I can tell you. Khatib was a real, real popular guy. I can't think of anyone on the station with more people who had reason to want to do him in. I guess I'm lucky I'm such a nice guy, or else I might have been out the air-lock instead of just shoved into that locker."

  The shuttle door opened, and the pilot emerged, looking around for someone to help him bring out the body. Dr. Franklin and one of his medics were standing by, but Commander Wallace shoved them both out of the way.

  Sheridan swore and moved to intervene, with Garibaldi following after.

  "This man was my aide," Wallace was insisting with particular vehemence. "This murder is connected to my investigation and no one"

  "Commander Wallace!" Sheridan glared at him. "Are you a licensed medical examiner or forensic pathologist? If not, you will stand back and let Dr. Franklin take the r
emains to Medlab for a proper examination.

  Whatever questions you have, I'm sure he can answer them."

  As Wallace sullenly moved back to let the medics at the body, Sheridan got a good look at it. Not a pleasant sight. The limbs were frozen into contorted, outflung positions, the jaw hung open as if Khatib was still screaming aloud when his murderers shoved him out the air-lock. But when Sheridan saw where Franklin's attention was focused, he doubted that Khatib had had a chance to scream at all. Dark-red crystalline blood had filled a distinct depression in the side of the dead man's skull. As they moved him, sparkling flakes of it fell from his hair onto the deck.

  While the body was being transferred to Medlab, Wallace objected again to anyone but himself having access to the results of the examination. At that, Garibaldi protested, "Hey, wait a minute! This is the third murder on this station in the last ten days! If that's not a matter for Babylon 5 security, I don't know what is!"

  "I can't allow interference with my investigation! The information is restricted!"

  Garibaldi snorted angrily. "Just what is it you've got to hide, Wallace? You know, it's getting awfully suspicious when records and evidence start to disappear whenever you show up, or files are all of a sudden reclassified the minute somebody tries to take a look at them. Maybe we'd better check for blood on your hands, too, while we're at it."

  At that, Wallace went white with anger, but Captain Sheridan stepped between the two before they were at each other's throats again. "No one is going to be interfering with the results of this examination. I want the truth out in the open for once."

  Wallace started to protest again, but a glance at the expression on Sheridan's face stopped him. He paused, pulled Miyoshi away from the rest, and gave her some orders in a low voice that Sheridan couldn't make out.

  "All right, Captain, as you so often point out, you're in command of this station. At the moment."

  Sheridan ignored the threat. He was heartily sick of Commander Wallace, his constant threats, his investigation, his disruption of the station. In fact, he briefly allowed the subversive thought: if anyone had to be put out the air-lock . . .

  Garibaldi could tell that Dr. Franklin wasn't real happy at all the witnesses gathered around his examination table. "What is this, a medical-school class?"

  It took a short while to restore the body from its flash-frozen state, during which Franklin made a number of superficial observations, something about whether Khatib had already been dead when they put him out into space. Wallace, Garibaldi noticed, kept having to avert his eyes from the corpse. Squeamish, he thought. Sheridan watched the proceedings without outward emotion. Garibaldi supposed that the captain had seen enough of the effects of decompression on human flesh during the Earth-Minbari war.

  But his thoughts kept returning to the murders, the pattern of themwhether there was any pattern. Three bodies, he thought. If you're the killer, what do you do with them? One in a locker, one recycled, and one out the air-lock. Three different sets of killers? Or different circumstances?

  Ortega had been killed by a pro. The deed had been premeditated, but rushed, and the body left as an example, if Nagy was right, to other employees who might dare defy the AreTech mining company. Yang's killer, on the other hand, had gone to a great deal of trouble to try to keep the body from being discovered.

  And now Khatib. Again, this one had the look of a rush job. The killer wasn't a pro, if Garibaldi knew anything about it. Just hit the guy over the head, dispose of the result any which way, as soon as you can. A human body floating outside a station like Babylon 5, with its heavy traffic load, wasn't likely to go overlooked for very long.

  Garibaldi was distracted from this line of thought as Wallace got a call over his link. From Miyoshi, Garibaldi supposed. Whatever the news was, Wallace seemed agitated. He stepped back away from the examining table, all the way back to the door, where he continued the whispered exchange. Garibaldi wondered what was going on, but his attention was drawn back to the examining table when the medical tech picked up a laser and started to cut away the victim's clothes. Garibaldi took a step closer, picked up the pieces of Khatib's uniform and quickly ran his hands over the pockets, recognized the familiar shape of a hologram viewer card in one.

  He glanced over in Wallace's direction again, but the investigator was still distracted. Good. He carefully shook the contents out of the pockets, to seal the items away in evidence bags. What was on the viewer? He turned it on and saw the familiar face of J. D. Ortega materialize. No surprise there. But there was more information on the viewer. He scrolled down, saw files appear, personnel files, clearly marked as the files of AreTech Consolidated Mines. But on the bottom? Whose signature was it? He turned up the resolution.

  "Give me that!" Wallace reached to grab the viewer.

  Garibaldi automatically pulled it away. "Watch it! This is evidence!"

  "This information is classified!" Wallace screamed. "You have no authority to view that! Hand it over!"

  "This is evidence," Garibaldi insisted again. "Evidence in a murder investigation. What happens if I hand it over? Does it just conveniently disappear? Will it ever show up in court? Or will the court ever be allowed to see it?"

  "That's none of your concern, Garibaldi! This is my investigation"

  Garibaldi appealed directly to the commanding officer. "Captain, this evidence has a direct bearing on the Yang murder case. Which, if you remember, Commander Wallace and Lieutenant Khatib claimed to know nothing about. Well, this proves they lied. It may prove a lot more."

  "All right, I'm taking custody of all this material," Sheridan said decisively. "Commander, if you want to appeal my decision, go right ahead. All the way to the Joint Chiefs. But I'm getting just a little bit tired of people getting killed every other day on this station and nobody admitting they know what's going on!"

  "You'll be sorry," Wallace started to threaten, but his link interrupted him again.

  "What?" he shouted. Then, lowering his voice only slightly, "Not right now, Sumiko! . . . What? Well, can't you handle it yourself? Get more security?"

  "What about more security?" Garibaldi demanded, but just then his own link cut in.

  "Mr. Garibaldi! Can you come up to Red Central right away? There's trouble here, a crowd of peopleit looks like it might turn into a riot!"

  "I'll be right there!" Garibaldi glanced at Sheridan, but the captain had heard. His expression was grim.

  "Dr. Franklin, can you keep these items of evidence secure here in Medlab?" he asked.

  "Completely secure," Franklin assured him.

  "Then let's go," he told Garibaldi.

  There was, indeed, a near-riot in progress by the time they came on the scene, both Garibaldi and Sheridan in black combat armor. Security agents had their shock sticks out and were using them where necessary. The crowd as far as Garibaldi could see amounted to about a hundred, all human, and as far as he could tell mostly station workers. And they were clearly worked up to a mad froth about something. Shouting, they surged forward in waves against the cordon of security agents, clashing, falling back to regroup and gather their fury for another advance. Things were being thrown, toosections of grid panels wrenched off the walls, chairs, components of shattered comm screens.

  Garibaldi grabbed the nearest security man he could reach. "What's the situation? Are any of them armed?" he shouted over the noise of the mob.

  "No, sir, at least we don't think they have guns. But they've got pipes, conduit, toolsthey're starting to tear things up, throw stuff."

  At which point a metal shard came flying overhead, close enough that Sheridan swore out loud.

  "Do you think we're getting it under control?" Garibaldi asked.

  "No, sir, I wouldn't say so, not really. Orders are not to use guns, not unless it looks like somebody's going to get hurt. But if this keeps up"

  The agent broke off his remark and went after a pair of rioters who were trying to drag down another security man. Garibaldi and S
heridan ran after him, and the rioters retreated, yelling curses.

  The two security agents returned together, breathing hard. The second one had a visible bruise discoloring the edge of a cheekbone. He recognized Sheridan and Garibaldi. "Getting mean out here, sir."

  "What's this all about?" Sheridan demanded.

  "Not quite sure, sir. They're demanding the prisoners be released, that's all I know."

  "What prisoners?"

  "I heard there was some kind of sweep, lots of arrests, bunch of people started to protestit turned into this."

  Sheridan shook his head. "There were no orders"

  But Garibaldi said curtly, "Wallace!"

  "Damn!" Sheridan swore. He toggled his link. "This is Captain Sheridan, get me the senior security officer assigned to Commander Wallace."

  "Contacting Lieutenant Kohler," the computer voice serenely replied.

  Almost at the same time, "Kohler here," came through Sheridan's link.

  "Lieutenant, what's going on? How'd this get started?"

  "Sir, I got orders from Commander Wallace to bring in a long list of people. Suspects in the murder of Lieutenant Khatib. There was a confrontation. One group on the docks tried to keep us from taking a suspect out. That seems to be what started all this. I guess it must have moved up to Red."

  "Lieutenant, you take no more orders from Commander Wallace, not unless I order it. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Damn!" Sheridan said again.

  Garibaldi felt a twinge of alarm. He told Sheridan, having to raise his voice to be heard, "That may not be the only thing going on. I just arrested that guy who set me up to get zapped the other day. He admitted it. He's involved with the Free Mars movement somehow. I was just questioning him when the news came through about Khatib. Could be his arrest has something to do with all this, too. And those other people you had brought in for questioning."

  "Well, it's time to get it stopped," Sheridan said decisively. He started to edge toward a more central location where he could be seen by the whole crowd, and Garibaldi went with him, shotgun position, trying to keep himself as much as possible between the station's commander and the furious mob.