by Jeff Kamen
‘This one’s Matthëus, sir,’ she replied, and Moth stood trembling as Vonal studied him more closely.
‘Very well. Let’s hear it.’
‘Yes, sir. I wanted to warn you in advance, but things have been extremely busy at the Inspectorate. There’s barely been time to think.’
Vonal nodded sympathetically. ‘Absolutely. It’s like a madhouse up there.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve got some evidence here that will —’
‘One moment. Are your men authorised?’
‘Of course, sir. They have white clearance. They’ve been fully briefed.’
Vonal’s dark eyes flicked from one guard to the next. ‘Just a precaution, you understand.’
‘Of course, sir. I quite appreciate that.’
‘Continue.’
She slid a thick folder across the desk, which Vonal scooped up and opened, nodding slowly as he leafed through the pages of what appeared to be a detailed report. ‘You’re sure it’s just these two?’ he said. ‘There’s a lot of charges here.’
Tilsen lifted her chin. ‘The evidence would suggest so, sir. We know that Stoeckl was trying to contact Lütt-Ebbins again quite recently, and there are strong grounds for thinking he’s the one who sent the note. The Sender, sir. But it’s Matthëus we’re more concerned about. We’re certain he’s the Bomber.’
Moth stared at her. For a moment he stood stunned, taking in the implications, then he screamed across the desk, ‘It wasn’t me it wasn’t me I didn’t do —’ cut short by a punch to the gut that sent him gasping to the floor, where he was trampled and kicked by the guards until Tilsen ordered them to gag him quiet. A rough cloth was stuffed into his mouth and taped over and then he was yanked upright. He stood facing his accuser with his goggles snagged, snorting noisily, barely able to see.
Vonal had been studying his reaction with interest, and now he returned to the dossier. ‘Looks like you struck gold, Tilsen,’ he said. ‘Well done. Well done indeed.’
‘Yes, sir. Most of it’s in the report, but we’re still cross-referencing the information with data and personnel files from his department.’
‘Goes back quite a way, some of this.’
‘That’s our main concern. We didn’t receive some of the information until very recently. It would seem that certain people have been covering up for him. For example, you’ll see that not long after he’d taken up his post, he started releasing research balloons whilst on duty. Estimated number in the hundreds, sir. There’s nothing on his record about it, no sign of disciplinary action taken. Nobody even reported it to the division office.’
‘This was … a long time ago.’
‘That’s correct, sir. We’ve managed to verify most of the dates. Again, it’s not all complete.’
‘Very good. But I’ll need you to check nobody’s dumping this onto him to cover their own hides. I want the right man, I want the culprit. If it should go to court for some reason, I don’t want anything blowing up in my face.’
‘I did consider that, sir. But if you examine the papers, you’ll see he’s repeated the same act of sabotage regularly ever since. If he thought he was getting away with it, he was right. His department has done nothing to stop him.’
Vonal was still reading. ‘I see incompetence here, I see stupidity, I see an idiot pressing a few buttons when he thinks no one’s looking. But I don’t see the significance to our inquiry. What’s the link?’
‘Well, sir, forgive me, but … I think you have to place things in context. If you look at what else he was doing, you begin to wonder why they were keeping it quiet. Just look at the network file, sir. The user logs.’
Vonal flicked through a few pages, then picked back through them. He read for a short while, then nodded. ‘Derring. You think he was involved all along?’
‘Without doubt, sir. He would have received notification of every user accessing the data network outside of their authority. The log’s generated automatically. He would have received a daily update. He could have acted at any time.’
‘Ah,’ Vonal said, going to a later section. ‘This is more like it. Security cams, personnel rotas, bioregulation systems. The whole package. Says here he broke into the core feed system. Ran a few test programmes on heat loads. Bad boy, Matthëus.’
Moth watched him dimly, sweating.
‘Sir, I was hoping we could —’
‘Just a minute. You say Derring was covering for him. You don’t think he was the instigator?’
‘Sir?’
‘You don’t think Derring was the ringleader?’
‘No, sir, I don’t. It was the other way around.’
‘Matthëus was leading Derring. His DH.’
‘Not exactly leading him, sir. More like … controlling him — subsequent to a vicious act of blackmail. You’ll see in the papers we found a set of recordings in his office …’ She locked her hands behind her back while Vonal leafed through the file. ‘Section three, sir.’
‘I’m there. Just continue.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘It mentions recordings of a compromising nature, sir. Derring and other women. And men. Young men. Cadets.’
Vonal continued to flick through the pages, pausing briefly before returning to an entry he’d marked with his thumb. ‘It says the devious suspect Matthëus kept them in his office. You found some tapes there?’
Moth shook his head, grunting.
‘Yes, sir. In a wall cavity. They were very well concealed.’
‘This was during the code two searches.’
‘That’s correct, sir. The dates should all be marked.’
‘But you’re saying the blackmail went back … what, four or five years?’
‘That’s right, sir.’
Vonal read on. ‘Is there any proof?’
‘Proof, sir?’
‘Is there proof? Proof it was Matthëus who hid them. I don’t want this slippery bastard wriggling out of it, we need this nailed down.’
‘Yes, sir, absolutely. We have a strong witness.’
‘Who?’
‘Schwager, the other operative using the office.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, firstly, I should say that Schwager has rarely been at work in the last two years. He has in fact been seriously ill for a number of years, and we think it’s extremely unlikely he would have used the tapes for, well, personal use. He’s also securely partnered, with two promising children, and has no motive for wanting to conceal these tapes from his superior. Nor did he make contact with Derring once they were hidden.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means he didn’t make use of them for blackmail.’
‘But surely anybody could have put them there?’
‘We find that to be highly unlikely, sir. Derring would have been the only person with the access code apart from cleaning staff. They’ve been questioned thoroughly, and it seems they’d received an untraceable order not to touch the room under any circumstances. This concurs with our own findings. The room hasn’t been cleaned in months, possibly longer. We also found Matthëus’s fingerprints on one of the tapes.’
‘And you’re convinced it wasn’t this … Schwager?’
‘Positive, sir. If anything, there’s a strong possibility that Matthëus held a grudge against him and was going to use the tapes as a way of blackmailing him as well. By framing him, effectively.’
‘Framing him? How?’
‘Sir, if you look at the early profile, you’ll see that Matthëus was rejected from the birthing programme. It was decided to give him Surgery for Life.’
Moth blinked at her through his tears. So horribly scare now … nowhere to go …
‘Sorry, Tilsen, I don’t see the connection.’
‘We believe that as a result of this … status shift, sir, that he held a grudge against his colleague, this ailing man with two fine sons, and sought a way to discredit him. We believe his plan was to disgrace him in an act of revenge. Two things suppor
t this. First of all, he has consistently used Schwager’s user code to access privileged data, thereby placing his colleague under suspicion. Secondly, the tapes were concealed using almost exactly the same technique he used to hide a pack of provisions in his quarters.’
With that, she brought from the case a transparent bag sealed with lab tape, inside which was a handgun. Moth shook his head, eyes wild with recognition, prompting the guards to restrain him brutally until he was still. Vonal opened the bag, and after he’d checked the gun, Tilsen handed across a set of photoplates, which he gathered up and began riffling through like they were playing cards. Then, satisfied, he stacked the plates and exhaled. ‘There’s an entire survival kit here. What would he need it for?’
‘It’s a good question, sir. One which I’m sure —’
‘And where did he get it?’ Vonal cut in, indicating the gun.
‘Well, I think that gets us to the real issue, sir. How far his contacts reached, or still reach now. And who he was blackmailing. Who he was controlling.’
‘And why. Don’t forget the why.’
She permitted herself a smile. ‘Well, that I have fewer doubts about. We’ve had him under close surveillance since we linked him with an explosion in the basement area this year. We found —’
‘What do you mean? What explosion?’
‘Forgive me, sir … I’ll explain. It occurred in the basement just a few months ago, when you were away. I’m a little surprised you weren’t informed, though. I thought ...’
‘I’ll talk to HQ later. Knock a few heads together.’
‘Yes, sir. Anyway, we found his fingerprints there, clear evidence he’d been tampering with an extraction flue. He’d shut it down, sir.’
Vonal glanced across at Moth, his face creasing unpleasantly.
‘But I believe he’s more than just a saboteur. Much more. If there’d been a chain reaction in the system we might have suffered a catastrophe, perhaps total devastation. I believe he was well aware of this, and that he planned to carry matters to their full and merciless conclusion. The fact is, however, it didn’t work, and we believe he’s simply been biding his time since then, looking for the opportunity to try again. And this time, sir, he might well have succeeded. As I was saying, we believe he was planning to use a bomb.’
Moth snorted in horror, a wet nostril bubbling as it leaked.
‘It’s all documented in here?’ Vonal said, fingering the dossier.
‘Everything so far, although I have people searching his office this very moment, sir. It’s likely he keeps things hidden elsewhere on the base, and we’re running a broader sweep as a priority. However, before we get to that, I have other evidence which is proving to be very useful. A code book, linking him directly to Lütt-Ebbins.’
Vonal sat forward. ‘What?’
‘It belongs to Lütt-Ebbins himself. We found it in one of the engineering departments. We’re still trying to decipher it. The first part appears to hold a list of names, including the names of these two prisoners.’
‘And … you think they’re all involved in a sabotage plot together?’
‘Well, sir, as I mentioned, I’m not sure sabotage is quite the word for it. You see, and I’m certain I’m right about this, Lütt-Ebbins wasn’t acting for a small group of radicals after all. I believe that was a ploy to set us on the wrong path.’
‘Clarify, please.’
‘There’s no such thing as the Nassgrube Reform Bloc, sir, that’s just a cover to distract us.’
‘What are you saying, Tilsen?’
‘I’m saying that Lütt-Ebbins was in fact the recruiting officer for a much larger organisation. A revolutionary organisation, for want of a better word. Whether Matthëus is ranked above him or not doesn’t really matter, in my judgement. The fact is that they were working together, for the same ends, to create the same havoc, and we were very lucky to get to them in time.’
Vonal rasped his chin with his knuckles. ‘Are you sure of this?’
‘Well, I’m just in the process of —’
‘Just a second.’
‘Sir?’
‘This organisation. Let’s be clear on it. Does it have a name? How many belong to it? Who’s in charge? What kind of scale are we talking about?’
‘Of course, sir, sorry, I was coming to that. The organisation’s called GRIP.’
‘GRIP? As in … grip?’
‘GRIP, sir, that’s right. As to who’s running it, we’re working on a list of suspects as we speak. The membership is not known to us for the reasons I mentioned, but signs are that the numbers are high, and that they’re spread throughout Nassgrube, operating at every level.’
Vonal shut the dossier and stood. He glanced about blankly for a moment, then took his jacket from the back of his chair and pulled it on. ‘We’d better act fast,’ he said. ‘If what you say is true, they’ll already be onto it. There could be bombs about to go off as we speak.’
‘Sir?’
‘The bombers, the thugs, this GRIP lot. They’re not going to stand by and wait to be rounded up, are they? We need to move, Tilsen. I want to call an emergency session.’
‘Right now, sir?’
‘I assume this codebook’s up at the Inspectorate?’
‘Yes, sir, of course, but I —’
‘They can stay here,’ Vonal said to the guards, indicating the prisoners. ‘Cuff them to the heaters there. That’ll have to do for now.’
As Vonal came around the desk, Moth strove to resist the guards, but they dragged him effortlessly to the back wall and pinned him there, one of them opening a pair of handcuffs. In a cold grey mist he saw Tilsen deposit the gun and documents inside her case. ‘Sir?’ she said awkwardly, ‘before we go … there’s something I need to do. I need to speak with Lütt-Ebbins.’
‘Lütt-Ebbins? Why?’
‘I need to see him in person. Alone, sir.’
Vonal checked his watch. ‘You can’t tell me why?’
‘I’m sorry, sir. But I … I was the arresting officer in the case.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘Sir, my orders state that I have to be the one who examines him before he’s taken for further questioning. They state it very clearly. Obviously, I don’t wish to embarr—’
‘You can’t. Sorry. I’m afraid he’s gone.’
Tilsen smiled uncertainly. ‘Gone, sir?’
‘Gone. He’s been taken already.’
‘But how, sir? When did he ... I don’t understand.’
‘It’s very simple. I got the call a few days ago. He’s been taken to Ostgrenze for security reasons. A team came in on the overnight from the City. Sonderprojekts.’
‘Sonder … but they’re the ones who … I mean, why would …’
‘I know, Tilsen. My guess is that someone up there is just happy to have him at last. Maybe they didn’t want to risk him getting away. I actually queried it myself, gave them an earful about it, but the commander didn’t want to keep them waiting.’ He smoothed back his hair with a couple of flicks of a comb, then slipped it away. ‘You boys finished?’ he said.
By now, Moth had been chained to the wall heater, with Stoeckl cuffed at his side. He stared around helplessly, struggling, coughing into his gag. The guards checked both sets of cuffs, then marched to the door and stood to attention.
‘Look, Tilsen, I don’t want to sound cynical,’ Vonal added, ‘but I’ve seen it all before. They probably want to make an example of him.’
‘But … what do they know that they’re not sharing with us? Why would they even …’
‘Trust me, you’ll get used to it. More than likely we’ll see a statement circulating with his signature on it — regret for his terrorist activities, support for the Shared Need, and so on. Then that’s it, finished, end of story. He’ll be recycled.’
Moth’s hung in his chains, snuffling wetly.
‘I understand what you’re saying, sir, and I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. But is there n
o possibility I could see him at Ostgrenze?’
‘Very unlikely. They’ve probably got the toolbox out already.’
‘In that case I’d better inform Herr Reizeger. Thank you anyway, sir.’
Vonal hesitated. ‘Reizeger?’
‘That’s right, sir. He’s on his way to see me.’
‘What does Reizeger want?’
‘I told him about the codebook at a meeting. He asked for a detailed report, and I’m meant to have finished it by now. Perhaps you could help me explain to him, sir? About what’s happened.’
‘What time’s he due in?’
‘Well, his train might be here already, but I’m not meeting him for a while. I … well, I didn’t know how long I’d be down here.’
Vonal motioned to the door and one of the guards turned abruptly and opened it. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I interrogated Lütt-Ebbins before he left and I can probably fill in some of the blanks for you. Use it in your report — it’ll be better than nothing. Then see what Reizeger makes of it. If he’s not happy, I’ll try to get you a pass to Ostgrenze. Maybe you can get a few minutes with Lütt-Ebbins by yourself. Either way, I’ll see you get full credit for his arrest.’
At this, Tilsen flushed. ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you. I didn’t mean to put you out, it’s just ...’
‘Let’s talk in the lift,’ he said, and as she headed outside, Tilsen glanced back at the prisoners a moment, sparing Moth a brief smile of cold pity before exiting, the guards following her out into the passage. Vonal switched off the overhead light, then with a quick look round the room, he left and closed the door.
Moth heard him lock it with an impatient jangle of keys. Their bootsteps clattered quickly away out of hearing. He sank down beneath his fastened hands, sniffing as he wept.
Chapter 19 — Unease
Radjík appears on the main path down from the well one afternoon, a sauntering figure in patchwork leathers carrying a waterskin. Jaala sends her a nod and the girl returns it with a half-embarrassed grin, pausing awkwardly when Jaala asks how she is doing.
