Torch of Freedom wos-2

by David Weber

  "The woman?" Benjamin asked, and this time Collin shook his head.

  "As far as her specific identity is concerned, we don't know, and it's almost certain that we never will. But her general identity is clear enough—ninety-nine-point-five percent probable, anyway. She's a Scrag, presumably one of that group of female Scrags who defected to Torch."

  "She'd be a minor player, then."

  "Yes. Zilwicki and Cachat were the critical ones."

  "And you're certain they are dead?" Albrecht was frowning at the image, which was rerunning in a continuous loop. "No chance that recording was faked?"

  "We don't see how it could have been, Father. Mind you, in this line of work we never deal in dead—you should pardon the expression—certainties. But at this point, the practical distinction between 'certain' and 'extremely probable' gets thin enough you just have to take it as a given. Nobody would ever get anything done if we insisted on one hundred percent verification of every single fact."

  He settled back in his chair again, easing his regrowing arm once more, and crossed his legs.

  "We ran those images through every comparative program we've got. What I can tell you, as a result, is that these are genuine images of genuine people in exactly the place they seem to be. The analyses we've run compare movements to background on an almost microscopic level. That's one reason it took so long. Those people"—he pointed at the still replaying imagery—"actually did exactly what it looks like they're doing against exactly the background we're seeing."

  "So this is definitely a recording of these people going through that passageway?" Benjamin asked.

  "Right."

  "But I notice you didn't say anything about when they did it," Albrecht pointed out.

  "No, I didn't. That's where the 'never deal in dead certainties' I mentioned above comes in. There's a possibility—a very tiny possibility—that they could have recorded this ahead of time and then substituted that recording for the live imagery from the tower's owners' security system. But given the security protocols which would have to be circumvented, pulling it off—and especially pulling it off without getting caught at it—would be . . . extremely difficult, shall we say."

  Albrecht rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

  "By all accounts, Zilwicki is very good at that sort of thing," he pointed out.

  "Yes, and the accounts are accurate, too. But pulling off something like your suggesting would have meant meant getting into that bizarre virtual world where hackers have been jousting for over two thousand T-years." Collin made a "brushing away" gesture with his working hand. "Any security protocols can be circumvented, Father . . . and any program to circumvent security protocols can be detected. Then that detection can be circumvented, but the circumvention can be detected, and so on. It goes on literally forever. In the end, it comes down to the simple question of 'Are our cyberneticists as good as their cyberneticists?' "

  Collin shrugged.

  "I can't rule out the possibility that Zilwicki is—was—better at this than any—or, for that, matter all of—our people are. Frankly, it seems vanishingly unlikely that one man, no matter how good he may be, is going to be better than an entire planet's worth of competing cyberneticists. Still, I'll grant the possibility. But no matter how good he may have been, he was still playing in our front yard. If we'd been playing on his territory, I'd feel a lot less comfortable with our conclusions, but could Anton Zilwicki, using only the equipment and software he was able to smuggle onto Mesa—or obtain on the black market once he got here—get around the best protocols we've ever been able to create, with all the advantages of operating on our own home planet, and do it so seamlessly that we can't find a single trace of it?"

  He shook his head.

  "Yes, it's theoretically possible, but, in the real world, I really don't think it's likely at all." He pointed at the tiny, moving figures of the recorded imagery once more. "I think we're looking at what really happened and when it happened. Anton Zilwicki and Victor Cachat and an unknown female were passing through the parking facilities of what used to be the Benaventura Tower when someone set off a two-point-five kiloton nuclear device. The center of the explosion was about thirty meters from what you're seeing right this minute."

  "Which, of course, explains the absence of any DNA traces." Benjamin made a face. "They were simply vaporized."

  "Oh, there were plenty of DNA traces in the area." Collin chuckled harshly. "Even in that location, and even at that time on a Saturday morning, there had to be somebody around. Benaventura's been standing empty long enough, and it's far enough out into that industrial belt between the city proper and the spaceport, that traffic was thankfully light. In fact, that's almost certainly the reason Zilwicki and Cachat had chosen that particular route for their escape. Despite that, our best estimate from our pattern analysis of all of the tower's security recordings from the last couple of months or so is that there were probably at least thirty or forty people in the immediate vicinity. We've recovered over twenty complete and partial bodies, some of them pretty well incinerated, but we're positive there are quite a few we'll never know about.

  "But the truth is that even if they hadn't been, for all practical purposes, right at the center of the fireball, we still wouldn't have gotten much from DNA analysis. Cachat is—was—a Havenite, born in Nouveau Paris itself, and StateSec did a pretty fanatical job of eliminating any medical records that might ever have existed when Saint-Just tapped him for special duties. No way we could get our hands on a sample we knew was his DNA. We'd have a better chance of getting a sample of Zilwicki's DNA, but he was from Gryphon. Nouveau Paris' population is an incredible stew, from everywhere, and Gryphon's population's genetic makeup isn't particularly distinct, either, so we couldn't even narrow an otherwise unidentified trace to either planet. We might have had a chance of identifying the Scrag—generically, at least—but even then only if she'd been a lot farther from the hypocenter. Ground zero, I should say. Technically, 'hypocenter' applies only to air bursts."

  "All right," said Albrecht. "I'm persuaded . . . mostly." It was obvious to both his sons that the qualifier was pure spinal reflex on his part. "Now the question is: who set off the bomb?" Albrecht nodded at the hologram. "None of these people look to me like they were planning on committing suicide." He shook his head. "They were obviously going somewhere, and they were obviously in a hurry, even if they weren't exactly fleeing for their lives in panic. If they'd meant to kill themselves, then why go anywhere? And if they'd had even a clue a nuclear charge was about to go off less than fifty meters away, then I'd think they would have been going elsewhere a hell of a lot faster than they actually were!"

  "We don't think they did it, Father. The possibility can't be ruled out, but we can't see any motivate they might've had to suicide. And as you say"—he nodded at the hologram himself—"that's definitely not the body language of people about to kill themselves, either."

  "If not them, then who?" Benjamin asked.

  "I doubt if we'll ever know, for sure," Collin replied. "Our best guess, after chewing on it for quite some time, is that Jack killed them."

  "McBryde?" Albrecht frowned. "But why . . . Oh. You think he thought—correctly or otherwise—that Cachat and Zilwicki had doublecrossed him?"

  "That's one explanation, yes—and the one that's favored by most of my team. This scenario is that Jack was trying to defect with Simões but the negotiations broke down. Probably because Cachayt and Zilwicki decided they'd already gotten enough from him to make leaving Mesa worthwhile and that smuggling him and Simões off-planet wasn't worth the risk."

  "And McBryde suspected they might try that, and had laid that device ahead of time. And used a nuclear device—talk about overkill!—because he figured it would help eliminate anything that might be traced back to him." Again, Albrecht rubbed his jaw. "But how would he get them to be there at the right time?"

  "Who knows? Keep in mind that he didn't have to finagle them into being there at any speci
fic, preset time. Someone with Jack's training and experience could easily have set up a method of remote detonation, and there are several ways he could have known what escape route they'd be taking, even if he couldn't predict ahead of time when they'd be going through it. So he could have set the charge purely as an insurance policy. Then, once he knew he was going to execute Scorched Earth, he could have linked that detonation to the one in the tower. They happened almost simultaneously, after all."

  "In other words, he took his revenge before he checked out himself."

  "Or at the same time, you could say." Collin raised his right hand. "Father, the truth is that, given the havoc Jack wreaked on our computer systems and records, and the fact that Lajos Irvine is the only one of the central players who survived, we'll never know all of what happened, or exactly the reason why. All I can give you is the best assessment my people could come up with after a very long, thorough, exhaustive analysis."

  He leaned forward and switched off the memo pad.

  "What we think most likely happened is that two separate sequences of events crossed each other. Jack, trying to defect with Simões, decided he was being doublecrossed. So, he planned to destroy Cachat and Zilwicki in a manner that would eliminate any trace of them, any evidence that could connect him to them. He'd figure we'd assume the Buenaventura explosion was an act of terrorism by the Audubon ballroom. Don't forget, he had a perfectly reasonable explanation for being in Gamma Center that day, with Simões. It had been on his calendar for at least two weeks. In fact, he'd specifically memoed Isabel about it."

  "And the surviving Gamma Center records confirm that's where the two of them were?" Benjamin's tone made the question a statement, and Collin nodded.

  "Exactly. And, before you ask, Father, no, I can't be absolutely certain that the records which show Simões was there also weren't somehow faked. It wouldn't have been as hard for Jack to successfully fake those records as it would've been for Zilwicki to do the same thing at the Buenaventura, but why should he have? There's no way he himself wasn't present when he destroyed the Gamma Center. That much we know for certain, because Scorched Earth had to be triggered by someone inside the facility. It can't—couldn't—be done by remote control."

  He scowled.

  "In fact, it wasn't supposed to be possible for Scorched Earth to be triggered by any single person, either, no matter where they were. Trust me, some people have already . . . heard from me about that one. Jack figured out a way to circumvent the two-man protocols, and nobody was supposed to be able to do that."

  "So you're assuming McBryde didn't find out about the doublecross until he and Simões had already met in his office," Albert said.

  "Yes, and that's where the second sequence of events comes into play. What Jack overlooked—probably because he'd been out of the field long enough for his fieldcraft to get rusty—was the possibility that Irvine might have set up his own surveillance equipment and spotted him meeting Zilwicki. Irvine didn't recognize Zilwicki as Zilwicki because we hadn't spread that information far enough down the chain for him to have any idea what Zilwicki actually looked like. But he did understand that something fishy was going on, so he alerted Isabel. He got through to her on the same morning Jack's negotiations with Zilwicki and Cachat collapsed, and she went down to the Gamma Center to find out just what the hell Jack was up to."

  "In other words, it was just really bad timing from McBryde's point of view," Albert mused. "He'd probably have gotten away with killing Cachat and Zilwicki, and he must've had plans for dealing with Simões, too, in the event that his defection fell through. But then Isabel showed up out of the blue, and he realized the wheels had come completely off. There was no way he was going to get away with it, and he knew what the penalty would be, so he committed suicide and took out Cachat and Zilwicki at the same time."

  "That's the consensus," Collin confirmed. But Benjamin, who'd been studying his brother closely through the previous explanation, cocked his head.

  "Why do I get the feeling you don't agree with that consensus, Collin? Or not fully, at least?"

  "Hard to keep secrets between us, isn't it?" Collin gave him a wry smile. "You get that feeling because it's true. I think there's another explanation, one that's more likely, given the principals. But I'll also add that no one else on my team agrees with me, and it's possible I'm being sentimental."

  His father had been studying him carefully, as well. Now Albrecht leaned forward slightly, propping one elbow on his desk.

  "You think McBryde had a last-minute change of heart," he said softly.

  "Not . . . exactly." Collin frowned. "The thing is, I knew Jack McBryde. We worked together for years, and one of Jack's best qualities was that he wasn't vindictive in the least. In fact, probably less vindictive than almost anyone I can imagine. That's one of the reasons he was so popular with his subordinates. Jack would discipline people, when it was necessary. Sometimes even harshly. But never more harshly than was necessary, and never out of anger. I've seen him mad, plenty of times, but it never came out in the way he treated other people. On the other hand . . ."

  "He was squeamish."

  "Yes, Father." Collin sighed. "It was his biggest weakness, frankly. In fact, it was the reason I had him assigned to Gamma Center originally. Or, rather, the reason I had his permanent file quietly tagged 'not for field ops' and moved him over to the security side in the first place."

  "I don't see where you're going with this," Benjamin said with a slight frown.

  "I do," Albrecht said. "Why would an overly softhearted person with no history of vindictiveness or vengefulness kill—how many people was it, Collin?"

  "As I say, we're figuring a minimum of thirty or forty for the Buenaventura explosion. Personally, I think it was probably close to twice that many, if you count the unregistered seccies who were probably caught in it, as well. We can add another sixty for the Gamma Center—even on a Saturday—even before we count Isabel, her team, and Jack itself."

  "But that's not really the point," his father said, looking back at Benjamin. "The people inside the Center were unavoidable collateral damage once he decided on Scorched Earth. But we're talking about a minimum of more than three dozen people—quite possibly a lot more—in a separate explosion he didn't have to set off." Albrecht raised an eyebrow. "Now do you see? Some compulsion had to drive McBryde to overcome his scruples. And if it wasn't vengeance, what was it? What Collin is suggesting is that once it became clear to McBryde that his plans to defect had been aborted and he was going to die, he saw to it that Zilwicki and Cachat died also—and before they got off-planet with whatever he might have given them. As a last act of . . . what would you call it, Collin? Patriotism seems a little silly."

  "More like . . . atonement, I think. Keep in mind that I can't prove any of this, Father. It's just my gut feeling. And, as I said, no one else on my team agrees with me."

  "Practically speaking, though, it doesn't really matter which explanation actually applies, does it?" Albrecht asked gently, almost compassionately.

  "No, Sir. It doesn't," Collin agreed a bit softly.

  "And the Park explosion?"

  "That one's still something of a puzzle," Collin confessed, and his eyes darkened once more. "I don't like admitting that, either, given how many of my neighbors were killed. The current casualty total for that one is around eight thousand, though, and I'm damned sure Jack McBryde didn't have anything to do with that! At the same time, I don't think I believe somebody would just 'coincidentally' pick that particular day to set off a nuclear charge in a completely separate, spontaneous terrorist incident."

  "So you think they're related?"

  "Father, I'm sure they have to be related somehow. We just don't know how. And we don't know—and will never know—who actually detonated the damned thing. We've got the feed transmitted from those two cops' HD cams, but neither camera ever had a good angle on the driver's face, so there's no way we can tell if whoever it was was ever in our files. Or, pe
rhaps, I should say in our surviving files." His smile could have curdled milk. "It's possible—even probable—he was Ballroom affiliated, but we can't prove that. I'm inclined to think he was a seccy, not a slave, but that's really as far as I am prepared to go."

  He shrugged, much more lightly—obviously—than he actually felt.

  "What I don't understand, even assuming he was Ballroom connected, is why. I'm assuming that, with Zilwicki's own Ballroom connections, he was receiving support from assets of theirs here on Mesa, as well. We keep them prunded far enough back that they don't have a truly effective presence—or we think we do, at any rate; what happened with Jack could prove we've been a little over sanguine in that respect. But even pruned back, they've always had some contacts among the seccies, and I think we have to take it for a given that Zilwicki had tapped into them for assistance once he got here. So my first hypotheses was that this was intended as a diversion for his and Cachat's escape. And," his eyes hardened and his voice went grim, "it would have made one hell of a diversion. Eight thousand dead and another sixty-three hundred badly injured?" He shook his head. "It had every emergency responder in the city—and from Mendel, too, for that matter!—racing in one direction, and you couldn't have asked for a better diversion than that.

  "But when I really considered it, I realized it wasn't Zilwicki's style. He could have achieved the same diversionary effect with an explosion that wouldn't have killed a fraction of as many people as this bomb killed. Not only that, but we know from his record that he had a soft spot a kilometer-wide where kids were concerned. Just look at the two be carted home with him from Old Chicago!" Collin shook his head again, harder. "No way would that man have signed off on detonating a nuke in the middle of a frigging park on a Saturday morning. Cachat, now—he was cold enough he could have done it if he decided he had no choice, but I don't see even him going along with something like this purely for the sake of a diversion."