Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1)

by Adrian D. Roberts

  “Did you think I’ve sat in government for this long for the fun of it? We sit on a house of cards. Ninety nine percent of the population want what we few have. All it would take is the slightest tremble at the wrong point and it all comes crashing down on our heads. While you’ve been playing with your fleets and armies, I’ve been running twice as fast as anyone else making sure that doesn’t happen. That’s why I look a hundred years older, rather than the mere dozen it actually is.” She took a deep breath. “Now why don’t you tell us which fuckwit set this all in motion?”

  “Yes, Madam Secretary.” Antonio said with a nod of respect. Perhaps Soetemeyer and he were not as far apart as he thought. It was rare that these tremors, as she put it, crossed over between the military and civilian’s sides. While he smoothed things over on his side, she had been doing the same on hers. Both working from different sides, with the same goal and without realising they had clashed, causing their decades long animosity. They both knew that would not go away. What they did have now, was an understanding of what the other could achieve and the recognition of a possible ally.

  “The reason this all started, was due to a massive fraud at the Sandy Shores redevelopment project here in Zeus. Nothing new, I know. What is different about it is first of all, the size and scope and secondly, that the culprit wasn’t just taking government money. They were also taking what Arnold Ison, Darby Pope and Lateef Crowder invested. We are talking about millions from each of them.”

  A low whistle came from Bala. “Ouch.”

  “Indeed.” Antonio continued. “Thomas Doherty was responsible for the accounts, discovered this and was looking at what to do. Someone found out he was on to them, panicked and paid the Zeus PD to go in. That person was Julian September. Fortunately my investigators were able to back track the payments

  “Oh, that’s bloody marvellous.” The President said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. Old Aidan’s golden boy. Are you certain he is responsible?”

  “Yes, Madam President. My investigators were able to back track the payments before they could be properly hidden. If we were only a day or two later, there would have been nothing to find.”

  “Do you have any more bad news?”

  “No, Ma’am.” Antonio responded shaking his head. “That’s everything we know as of two hours ago and although you can never be sure, my analysts are confident that, aside from some specific details, we do have the broad picture sketched out.”

  “That’s a lot of information to uncover in a week.” Bala accused.

  “To be honest, I had a good idea of what happened at the time Major Carter destroyed Furioso.” Antonio explained. “I was being notified on the attack on her home when the news came in. Knowing Carter and where she was stationed it really was quite simple to put two and two together. I had a team from Legion Intelligence looking into the Zeus PD’s actions within two hours. They were still in the process of building their cover story and Furioso slowed that down. My team were able to get inside their investigation during that window. As to Julian, I would love to send a team to deal with him in the same way. That’s not possible though.”

  “Agreed.” The President leaned forward, taking control of the meeting for the first time. “Paul, the Moore's have the closest ties to the Septembers. Can you ask Raphael to have a quiet word with Aidan?” She asked, referring to Raphael Moore the head of the Family. He nodded in understanding. “Keep it low key. Tell Raphael that Julian has screwed up big time. He’s covered but Aidan needs to sit on him for as long as possible.”

  “Not a problem.” Moore confirmed.

  “Sunkrish.” She continued turning to the Secretary of Security. “Put the word out. No more hit squads. Tell them the Legion is very unhappy about one of their own being targeted by the Police. The story is, we are close to a major turf war and unless they want the off duty Legion personnel going after their people, they need to calm things down. No more hit squads and if the Legion is involved, hands off unless they have some extremely strong evidence. Then it gets handed to Legion Intelligence to handle.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll make sure the message gets across.” Bala replied.

  She looked at Antonio and Soetemeyer. “We’ll need to keep Carter’s name out of all of this, but we will continue to use the terrorist cover story. Thomas Doherty was the money man for whoever carried out this monstrous attack. His wife and children tragically died in the explosion caused by a suicide bomb he planted himself, in case he was ever caught. Find someone on the casualty list we can hang this on. Make sure they are confirmed dead with a body and would have the access needed. When that person heard about the raid on the Doherty’s home, they went ahead with their plan to destroy Furioso and were killed in the attempt. Petra, you handle the media and the overall story line. Antonio, co-ordinate all the Legions press releases with Petra.”

  “I’ll handle it.” Soetemeyer acknowledged and Antonio nodded.

  “Good. As the Admiral said at the beginning, this is highly sensitive. I do not want to hear a word of this outside of this room. Are we clear? No off the record remarks or hints. If Prometheus becomes common knowledge, we’ll all be in trouble and it will be almost as bad if Sandy Shores comes out, so we keep a lid on it.” The President looked directly at Secretaries Moore and Bala when she said it and they nodded emphatically.

  “Unless there is anything else?” The President asked with no response. “Then I suggest we adjourn and get to work.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Five Legion soldiers stood on the corner of the street. Only years of practise prevented Arlene from reacting to their presence. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead as she passed them on the path. In the week since the attack on Furioso, those soldiers became an all too familiar sight. It seemed as though every member of the Legion, not actively part of the rescue operations, were deployed into the Ghettos.

  The Zeus Police had retreated to form a strong cordon around the towers and suburbs of the Privileged, leaving the rest of the city under martial law. Incidents between the public and the Legion were few fortunately. President Klostermair’s people may be arrogant but they weren’t fools. They knew, here on Olympus, the Legion were held in a higher regard than elsewhere. Combined with the huge upswell of sympathy from the public for their loss on Furioso, it quietened any protests at the Legion’s arrival in the Ghettos.

  Having passed the soldiers without incident, Arlene continued on, picking up her pace in haste. Turning off the street, she entered a small alleyway and knocked on a heavy metal door halfway along. It opened moments later and on old man stuck his head out. Taking a swift look at Arlene he nodded once and stepped back, opening the door wider.

  With a murmur of thanks, Arlene went past him into a busy kitchen. Everyone ignored her as she moved through the hectic cooks, busy with the lunch orders. Two swing doors at the end opened and closed swiftly. Men and woman carried plates of food out and empty ones back in. One of the men, a boy of no more than fourteen years paused at her side briefly.

  “Table thirty-two,” he told her in a low voice. “She’s on her own and I haven’t seen a tail on her.”

  Nodding to him, Arlene waited for him to move away and considered what she was going to do for the hundredth time. There was no guarantee the boy hadn’t missed someone watching the woman Arlene wanted to meet. She could step out there and be arrested instantly, but this was the only way she could get the information she needed. There really was no choice.

  Taking a deep breath, she went through the swinging doors, close on the heels of one of the waitresses. Table thirty-two was only a couple of metres into the busy Café and Arlene slid into the seat opposite a dark skinned woman. She looked up in obvious surprise to see her.

  “What are you doing here?” The woman hissed as she looked around frantically.

  “Having lunch with an old friend.” Arlene replied calmly, before continuing in a harder tone. “Now stop looking like you have something to hide, Kerstin and
calm down.”

  With a visible effort Kerstin did as she was told and smiled falsely at Arlene. “Are you trying to get us both killed? If you want to contact me, leave a message in the normal place.”

  Arlene leaned forward slightly. “I did. Six days ago. Four days ago, one was left at the back up and yesterday at the emergency drop. You didn’t answer a single one.”

  “Well, it’s been busy since Furioso.” Kerstin said looking away.

  “Busy? Yes, I imagine you have been. That made it all the more important that I talk to you.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to talk to you. Over twenty thousand dead! How can you justify that?”

  Now they were getting to the heart of the matter as Arlene had expected. Like many of her contacts Kerstin was not happy with the attack on Furioso. As the support for the Legion grew, it declined for those opposed to the Privileged.

  “It wasn’t us,” Arlene told her contact quietly. “We would never do anything like that.” The look Kerstin gave her was profoundly sceptical. “Don’t you think if we had, we would have at least admitted it by now? That’s why I need your help. I need to know what happened as much as your bosses do.”

  Rubbing her face undecidedly Kerstin shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s just too risky.”

  “I’m not asking, Kerstin. I’m telling you. All I need to do is, send the information of our dealings for the past eight years to the right place and you’ll be done.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  “Normally no, but I’m backed into a corner, so what is it going to be?”

  The clenched jaw said it all, but Kerstin nodded as well. “Good.” Arlene said as she got up. “Send it to the usual place. We won’t meet again.”

  Leaving the table, Arlene was quickly back out into the alley and heading in the opposite direction to the one she entered from. She hated pushing Kerstin like that, not just because she thought of her as a friend, but it meant she could no longer be trusted. From now on, any contact had to be at arm’s length and all information would be suspect. Assets like Kerstin, who needed to be forced to co-operate, were highly likely to try and turn Arlene in to the authorities.

  For the thousandth time that week, Arlene cursed whoever attacked Furioso and in the same thought thanked Billy. He was true to his word. Todd had been reassigned to another Cell off planet. Arlene did not know where her son was and did not want to, but he left Olympus a full week before the attack. For that, she would forever be in Billy’s debt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The quiet hum of the intercom buzzer grew in volume increasingly, until Billy Bac turned over and hit it with his large hand. “Yes?” he almost barked as he forced the sleep from his brain.

  “You need to get down to ops right now, Billy. There’s something you need to see on the datanet.” The voice of the Hive’s Intelligence Officer, Alan Sutherland told him.

  His first instinct was to ask for more details, but Billy thought better of it. The number of times he had been woken, while on board the Rebellions mobile headquarters, could be counted on one hand. If Alan was waking him up in the middle of the night it was important. When it took days, weeks or even months, to get information from another star system, then either something had gone very wrong on Thrace, the Pantheon planet they were currently orbiting, or it was something much worse elsewhere. Either way Billy needed to get out of bed.

  “OK, Alan. Let me get some trousers on and I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

  Three of those minutes later, Billy strode into room the Rebellion long ago converted to be its operational nerve centre. This freighter was known to the galaxy at large as the Wandering Pony, but to those within the Rebellion, it was the Hive. With only a small portion of the ship dedicated to the Rebellion, it was able to move between systems with genuine cargos, unnoticed by the Pantheon authorities.

  At three in the morning ship time, the ops centre was understandably quiet. Only Alan along with James Evans, his deputy, were inside. Both of them had their backs to the door, studying a small VI screen on the console in front of them with intense interest.

  “I’m here. What’s so urgent?” Billy asked them and they both spun around in surprise. If it wasn’t the middle of the night and Alan hadn’t sounded so serious, it would almost be comical.

  “Sorry, Billy.” Alan apologised. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Evidently. Did something happen on Thrace?”

  “No.” Alan said shaking his head. “An hour and a half ago a news Courier arrived in the system and immediately dropped a flash story straight into the datanet.”

  That was very unusual, Billy thought with a frown. Generally news stories would be sent to the company’s planetary headquarters, to be reported by one of their local people. Only the most important stories would be uploaded to the net on arrival in the system, to ensure the network was ahead of its competition.

  “Within an hour, three other news Couriers arrived with the same story and also uploaded them to the datanet.” Alan continued.

  “What was the story?” Billy asked with a sense of dread.

  “There has been an incident on Furioso. From what we can gather, an anti-matter reactor exploded. Details are sketchy at best. The couriers left for their fourteen day trek to us within an hour of the explosion. One of them managed to get some visuals of the station on their way out of the system and it doesn’t look good. Here. Take a look.”

  A holo of the wounded station appeared instantly over the console. Billy swallowed heavily as he took in the damage. It was obvious the station was moving out of its normal orbit with multiple explosions still rippling out of it at several points.

  “How bad is it?” he asked.

  “About as bad as it looks.” James Evans reported. “We’ve overlaid the damage with what we know of the interior and the loss of life is going to be catastrophic.”

  “The really interesting thing is, as far as we are able to determine, the explosion originated in the Rosso section.” Alan interjected. “That’s highly secret R&D and Commando Devil territory. If this was an accident, it would have to be a massively coincidental sequence of events.”

  Rubbing his chin, Billy took in what the other man said. “So we have to presume it wasn’t an accident and no matter what, we are going to get blamed for this. Could it be a rogue Cell? The Zeus people I spoke to, certainly wanted a more direct action approach. I don’t think it was them, but that’s not to say one of the other Cells on Olympus or elsewhere, don’t have similar feelings and decided to act on them without authorisation.”

  “Not a chance,” Alan shook his head vigorously. “James and I discussed this before you got here and nothing we’ve seen in their reports, says they have anything like the capability for an attack of this magnitude. You’re right though. The Privileged will blame it on us.”

  Billy nodded. “Get onto Julianna. I want her on a news courier heading to Olympus as soon as possible.”

  “No problem.” James replied. “She’s already got the cover set up and TSE’s daily courier isn’t scheduled to leave for twelve hours. She’s close enough to make that.”

  “Good. We have to know what really happened. Tell her to start with the Zeus Cell.” Billy ordered. “If any of them are still alive, they’ll have the best chance of getting to the truth.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Bobbie ran through the long grass, laughing as he tried to catch the ball Tom threw to him. His little hand reached out and missed by a good thirty centimetres. Daphne was right behind him and showed why she was a striker in the Gooseberries, by scooping it off the ground. Her little brother charged at her with a mock howl and she danced out of his way, holding the ball high over her head.

  The Sun shone clear over her family, as Valerie watched from the shade of some trees. Tom ran up behind Daphne, scooped her up in his arms and in one smooth, practised motion he had her dangling from her feet. Bobbie didn’t waste this opportunity and darted in to clai
m the ball from his sister.

  Valerie smiled at their happiness and exuberance for life. She stepped forward to go to them and found they moved further away from her. Valerie moved faster, her walk became a jog, to a run until she was sprinting as fast she could. Still she could not get near them, she shouted their names and they acted as if they couldn’t hear her. As if she wasn’t there.

  Dark clouds obscured the sun and a sense of foreboding came over her. The wind whipped up to tear at her. Valerie felt her heart pounding, the sweat pouring from her face, and suddenly she was there with them. Bobbie turned to face her, tears of blood running down his face and collapsed in her arms. She looked up in horror as Tom loomed over her, Daphne’s limp body in his arms.

  “Why?” he asked her. “Why them?”

  “Arrrggghh.” Valerie screamed, sitting bolt upright and slammed her head against the low ceiling. She gasped for breath disorientated. A low light came on. It’s a dream. It was just a dream. She thought, struggling to control her breathing and to think clearly. She looked around herself and saw she was fully clothed on a small bed. Her head had hit the bunk above when she woke and lurched up. The bunk was in a narrow corridor. On the metal floor sat her open Tea Chest and it came back to her.

  She was on-board the Spectre and her family were dead. She had wandered the ships tiny crew area for over two weeks, dozing only fitfully in nightmare filled hours and eating only mouthfuls at a time whenever her body drove her to it. Finally she collapsed onto the bunk and fell into an exhausted sleep. She glanced at the clock on the beds wall. Fourteen hours. For fourteen hours she slept. For fourteen hours she had been able to not think. For fourteen hours she had been able to not remember, not feel her pain.

  She rubbed her face and ran her hands through her unwashed hair. She hadn’t showered since she got up for her birthday. It was the smell of stale sweat that forced her to get up and not collapse back into the bed. She reeked. It was tempting to just not bother and she really could not say what made her do something about it.