Obviously the effects of the drug had not yet worn off.
* * *
Chapter XIV
If old man Clark had not decided to take his onners out to the cliffs at the southern end of New London to watch the fog roll in—another sign of the changing of the seasons—the body would never have been discovered. Only the voracious fish would have known of his fate.
An I-team from Enforcement worked their small boat in among the treacherous rocks at the base of the cliff and dragged what little remained of the corpse into the fragile craft at eighth hour forty. They barely managed to beat the dense fog into the harbor where the ME was waiting.
At tenth hour the ME withdrew the genprobe from the carcass and read the data on his monitor. In the murky gray swirling around him he rocked back on his heels and keyed the computer to repeat the test. The genetic data on the monitor rippled, but nothing changed. He kicked at one of the loose clasca planks in the pad and released a heavy sigh.
“Well, what did you find?” the I-team leader asked.
“One of our own, Maglin. One of our own."
The doctor packed up his equipment, tagged the remains, then motioned to two officers standing close by.
“Take this to MedCenter,” the ME said, pointing at the grisly mound on the pad. “I'll be along shortly.” He punched in the Law Apps code. “Get me Harko, and make it quick."
The Law Apps building exploded into a storm of activity the likes of which hadn't been seen since the C-card forgery affair of 198. Buried deep in the bowels of the building nested a small office from which the local Sector Chief coordinated all of this activity. From him emanated commands that made things happen.
Brand Harko, New London's Chief Investigator, Northwestern Sector, didn't want to believe what the ME had told him, but when he'd finished reading the formal report, he was forced to accept the preliminary ID as fact. Gene maps were rarely wrong, so rarely that you could use the word never. He slammed his hand down on his desk.
Damn it.
With one kick of a powerful leg he propelled himself to a work station three meters behind his desk and picked up a stack of paper files.
I told you to watch your ass, damn it.
In the entire history of Law Apps only three agents had been lost in undercover operations, until Villers—he was the fourth. But Villers was more than a name—a group of numbers in the records, he was a close friend, and he had been sent into the situation that termed him on Harko's command.
He had assigned Villers to infiltrate the Generation because reports were coming in from all over Paz of swindles, most of them minor, that were adding up to a conspiracy of major proportions. Any one instance was insignificant by itself, but put them all together and it was enough to develop fiscal difficulties for many of Paz's important manufacturers, and those could result in their being taken over by the Generation or one of the Generation's many shadow corporations.
When Harko had given Villers the investigation it had become a big tag around the building that Harko's favorite agent was going on a paid vacation—even Harko had thought of it as a pretty cushy setup at the time. Go in, get some information on petty illegal trading, bogus financial transactions, material theft, and get out. Of course, Villers had to have a fair budget to work with so he could fit in, which was where the paid vacation theme had originated. But it was supposed to have been a simple operation that would take no more than a few weeks. Those few weeks had turned into two years.
After Villers had found a way in, which had cost Apps a large stack of hard note, it had been only a short time before the true and startling depth of the Twelfth Generation's dirty dealing became apparent and demanded a more penetrating probe into their activities.
Villers had been granted nearly unlimited freedom in his investigation, and Apps had come under pressure from the Council to justify their expenditures. Harko had steered them away and created phony reasons for why the money was being spent, because there was no way to know how far the Generation reached into the government. It was obvious they were in pretty deep, and the sensitivity of Villers's cover was such that, if anyone other than Harko had known what Villers was really doing, it could have got him termed. Villers, like a stubborn shagrat on the scent of fresh garbage, had continued digging deeper and his reports had become seductive. After a year, Villers was operating with an almost free hand, able to do just about anything, go anywhere, and spend whatever he needed. The financial burden of the probe forced Harko into getting more creative with the books and, as the character of the Generation unfolded, Harko pushed Villers to get more involved, to dig even deeper.
Increased involvement had meant less contact with Apps. Villers’ reports were farther apart but juicier. All contact by link had been cut off and personal meetings were reduced to less than once every twenty days or so. It was about then that Harko began feeling he had made a mistake. He didn't like losing contact with his men in potentially dangerous situations, so Harko had suggested to Villers that it would be a good idea to send in another man to act as a convenient go-between. Villers had said that would be more dangerous than letting him go it alone, and Harko had acquiesced. Now—Villers was gone.
It had been long known that all of Paz was populated by small, isolated groups of people who believed, in one way or another, that their seed lot was superior to the rest. They were known as geneticentrics and were accorded no more than a passing glance from Apps because, more often than not, they would disintegrate slowly through inertia, poisoned by a backup of their own bile. But the Generation was different. They had long range goals that ran contrary to the Fathers’ Book of the Law, and they were on their way to being hazardous to the continued stability of the economy.
The Fathers had set up the Pazian government by designing it around the outlines of the Ancient Record and the Book of the Law, and deviations were frowned upon. The Generation, Harko was certain, was out to topple that and replace it with their own concept of law. Sure, the element of geneticentricity entered into the Generation, too, but it was not their main thrust. They were intent upon gaining control of Paz through the fabrication of a financial stranglehold. Once in control of resources and manufacturing capability they would be in a position to dictate Council policy and decisions through economic pressure. All that had been uncovered early in the investigation.
Now Villers had been dispatched at the hand of another fanatical group, only this one was armed with lethals and exceptionally dangerous at an entirely new level. Though Harko had been aware of their presence for less than three periods, he had formed an execrable mental picture of the Paz Cadre—one he found to be totally outside the boundaries of decent human behavior.
Harko had wanted to call Villers in as soon as Villers told him a little about the information he was sitting on, but Harko's desire to get them all at the same time had overridden his common sense. If Villers had been called in, he would still be alive, and they would have obtained what they needed to bring down the Cadre and the Generation without risking an all-out war. The I-team had found where they believed Villers had hidden the chip, but all it indicated to him was that Villers had been a little careless. Harko needed that chip.
He thumbed through the files and arranged them into three stacks, then punched some numbers into the link pad. The presidential seal came up on the screen, followed by an aging, dour-faced clerk.
“Central Government Offices. How may I help you?"
“Yeah. This is Chief Investigator Harko of Law Apps in New London,” he said quietly into the mouthpiece. “Get me the president's Advisor on Global Affairs, Criminal Division. I'll wait."
Harko hated dealing directly with bureaucrats, because they were egotistically difficult and incredibly slow. He knew he could rely on a substantial delay before his callback, so he opened up the paper file he had on the Twelve Points of Light and began to read.
From what he saw, he concluded they had to be a loose collection of cashow nuts. They had a large mem
bership scattered all over the planet, geneticentric like the others, and were waiting for what they called their Deliverer. Delivery from what?
Nonsense.
He was about to close the folder when his eye was caught by something on one of the sheets that he had either overlooked or written off as unimportant before. Now he was sure he had found a nugget worth pursuing. He opened the file again and laid it out on the counter, then pulled over the thick folders on the Generation and Cadre.
Well, I'll be damned.
All three were geneticentric, but in the same lot line—all Gammas. A connection? Then something Villers had said came to mind—the Generation and the Cadre were looking for Delta lot people. Was this Deliverer a Delta? Maybe—but why? There had to be some other common element if they were all Gamma lot and all searching for Delta lot people. The link chime interrupted his train of thought.
“Harko,” he said without looking up from the papers spread out over the top of his desk.
“Hello, Chief Harko. My name is Lina Duch, Global Affairs. What may I do for you?” the image of a slinky-looking brunette with ripe peach-colored skin said.
Harko wondered why the pretty people were invariably advisory staff members.
“Ms. Duch, several incidents have occurred in the last few days that I believe should be looked at by Central Government and—"
“Yes, yes. What are they?” she interrupted. “We are quite busy, Chief Harko. Busy, busy, busy, you know?"
“Well, ma'am, what I have for you may be the beginnings of a global war. Now, do I have your attention?"
No major conflict of any kind had disrupted the peace on Paz in all human history. There had been minor skirmishes, like the Copper War of ‘53, when the planet had seen thousands termed over a struggle for control of the rarest metal on Paz, but many more lives were lost to the annual passage around Vegamwun so it was considered trivial by comparison. In this case, he might as well have dropped a palm bomb in her lap. For the next forty-five minutes she said not a word as Harko outlined the information they had gathered and elaborated the conclusions it engendered.
When he had finished, she just sat there, staring out from the screen for a moment. She cleared her throat and said, “But, Chief Harko, we've never had a major war."
“Then, why do we have the Paz Militia?"
“Well, I've never—"
“We have a militia because the Fathers knew there was a possibility that we might need it one day. Now, that day appears to be on its way. What do you have to say?"
“I will report this to the President immediately. How ... how long before you expect this ... this Cadre will make a move against the government, Chief Harko?"
“Understand, Ms. Duch, all that I laid out for you is conjecture on my part. They may not intend to attack the government at all, but I believe they intend to—and will. When it will happen—I don't have the slightest idea. It could be tonight, for all I know."
She kept him a few minutes longer, asking questions about how his information had been gathered and a few other details, then told him he would be hearing from the President's office very soon.
Harko shuffled the files around on his desk and thought about how quickly a threat to the status quo could get the attention of a politician. How far it would go beyond her he couldn't predict, but he hoped it would get to the President and thus to the Council for some kind of action. They might take it seriously, or they might dismiss it as the ranting of a frustrated little Sector Chief who had been passed over for promotion too many times—and they would be right, to a degree. He felt he deserved that promotion, but there were many folk hanging on the top branches of the tree who believed his heavy-handedness and independent methods were not suited for the more responsible positions in upper administration, where tact and diplomacy were considered important—two qualities Harko didn't possess.
In the oath all Law Apps personnel were required to restate, on the day after the Halfyear celebration and while connected to the Sensortum, there was a clause that said a person was bound to the work of upholding the spirit and the letter of the Book of the Law above any consideration of self. If the machine detected any deviation in your senses that would leave doubt regarding your dedication, you were out on the street with two months’ pay and no future in law at any level, save working as a security guard somewhere. For Harko, the Sensortum had not so much as twitched in his thirty years of service.
Now, in deference to that oath and to make certain that there would be some sense to be garnered from the loss of his friend, he was going to be sure his sector was well prepared, even if the rest of Paz chose to sleep through what he saw as an impending disaster. He reached over and stabbed at the com.
“Yes, sir?"
“I want all division heads and I-ones in the briefing room immediately.” Harko thought briefly, then added, “And get me genetic records on any Deltas—global."
He was going to find out who it was they were after—and why—even if he had to lock up every Delta on Paz. That person, he reasoned, would hold the answers to a lot of questions that might otherwise go begging. He also hoped the Paz Cadre was as important an issue as he assumed it to be, because that would go a long way toward easing the guilt he felt about Del Villers. The com beeped, and a records clerk he knew came up on the screen.
“Yeah, Sax, what did you find?"
“Chief, I don't need to send you all the files on the Delta lot. There's only one. Name's Nikisha Kaznov. Born in Sochi, Nurusha, Paz one-eighty-six. Want the day?"
“No. It's not important. Go ahead."
“Blond, blue, light comp, hundred and sixty-two centimeters. Ninety-five kilos. No distinguishing marks visible, but he has a long, lateral scar on the abdomen about a centimeter above the navel from a mackrawl tentacle wound and walks with a limp, right leg, from the same incident. Fisherman, obviously. No other work record. He was brought here for medical treatment after the Nurusha disaster. Last known contact was New London Hospital. Released at first light on day eighty of this year. He disappeared after that—no further record."
“You're sure he's the only one?"
“Oh yeah, he's it. There are over sixty-three thousand splinters, but he's the only direct-line. You want the splinter files?"
“No, huh-uh. These people are extreme genetinuts. He has to be the one. Send me down a paper on that one, and thanks, Sax."
“I'm here to serve, Chief. Oh—Wills asked me to tell you the men you wanted are all in briefing. Night, Chief."
Only one Delta on Paz? Harko found that interesting and decided to find out how it could be.
Why is there no record after day eighty? He has to have done something around here in all this time that requires a C-card call—there has to be something.
* * * *
The Keep was a strongly built ancient communal shelter constructed on the original New London town site about a hundred kilometers north of the new city and alongside the two hundred meter cliffs of the Cafferty Bight. Buried in the side of Mount Cafferty, it was supplied with fresh air through a network of tunnels leading to numerous chambers and escape routes, several exiting through the cliffs in the Bight that overlooked the deep waters of the Western Sea. Vent tunnels at such inaccessible locations meant they could seal up the rest of the Keep in the event of an attack. It had lain abandoned for more than a hundred and eighty years, and no tracks had ever been run out to it. Its existence had been forgotten as the new city grew into one of the main population centers of Paz. Tazh felt secure there, under the grassy slopes leading to Mount Cafferty.
During the last five years Tazh had seen to it that the shelter was fortified and armed. No one could penetrate the Keep, of that he was certain, and it now served as headquarters for the Northwestern Sector. The Keep was his brainchild, and he lavished the Cadre's hard note on it to make it the most formidable of their installations on Paz.
Tazh stood beside the forward stabilizer of an air transport sitting in the tunnel
that opened out on a panorama of lush green down the Cafferty slope to the edge of the forest. To the south, the lights of New London had already melded with the fog that rolled in over the city and created a glistening dome. It appeared to move and pulse. Tazh enjoyed the scene and smells that entered through the partly opened hangar door. New London would be his city, soon.
Two days ago Tazh had been informed that Apps had dragged Villers's cold trunk from the harbor. He was certain they would suspect the Cadre. He believed they already had the stuff they'd found in that shagrat's apartment and he was sure that it was no longer safe for him in the city. Kadin's office had been sterilized, and he had closed his own on the pretext of a prolonged vacation at the equatorial resort town of Nuhono Loo on the Continent's southeast coast. Anything that was even slightly incriminating was now lodged in the safety of the Keep.
Tazh turned from the outside panorama so he could see the activity around the transport, another of his masterpieces. It was the eleventh to undergo conversion to a fast attack craft that was not dependent on tracks or cushions of air—an awesome machine carrying the most recent lasers, Packer bombs, air-to-air and air-to-ground missile systems. It would also accommodate fifty armed troops, enabling him to mount surprise raids anywhere, anytime, and in any weather. It was powerful—beautiful, and deadly.
“Colonel,” a voice called out. “General Lang is on the com. He says it's urgent and he's waiting for you, sir."
Tazh loathed having to hold the old man's hand when he should be out getting ready. In many ways Lang was useless, but Tazh needed him during the initial assault, because only Lang had the connections necessary to make it all come together. After it was over, well, that would be another story. He started toward the waiting figure in the passage. It was a long way down from the tunnel, and he had plenty of time to think before facing Lang, who was probably heading into a nervous breakdown over Tazh's actions.
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