Sol Arbiter Box Set: Books 1-5

by Chaney, J. N.

  I subvocalized a message to Andrea. He’s insulted by all of this. He thinks he’s too important to be accountable to anyone.

  She replied to Jovani in a way that acknowledged my message. “You seem to think you’re an important man, Jovani. You haven’t figured it out yet, but you have no power here. None at all. Understand that, or you’re going to die here.”

  She put the black bag over his head again and then went to the door. I followed her out, and she started walking down the corridor immediately.

  “Where are we going?” I asked her.

  “That was a good insight,” she told me. “We need to have a meeting before we can continue.”

  We went to the other interrogation rooms one by one and rounded up the other members of Section 9. Then we went to the safehouse living room, where the Section 3 agent on duty was sitting and looking at something on his dataspike. He got up and left the room when it was clear what we had planned, a professional touch I appreciated.

  “How’s the interrogation going so far?” asked Andrea.

  “Lihua’s talking,” replied Vincenzo. “But I think she’s leaving something out. Maybe trying to save her own life without giving away their entire plot.”

  Andrea nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of. The ones who cooperate too easily are often a problem. Thomas, how were her vitals?”

  “She’s scared,” he replied. “But not terrified. I’d call her fearful display a bit of an act. An exaggeration.”

  Andrea turned to Vincenzo. “Give her something to be afraid of.” Then she looked to Raven. “What about Sergey Li?”

  “He’s answering questions, but reluctantly. Like he has to cough up every word.”

  “Keep the pressure on. Jovani Pang tried to threaten us, and Tycho noticed something interesting about him.”

  “Interesting in what way,” Veraldi asked.

  “He’s an arrogant man,” I said. “But it’s not just that. He’s arrogant in a specific way. Classist. Like he thinks he’s too high status to be treated the way we’re treating him.”

  “Do you agree with that assessment?” Vincenzo asked Andrea.

  “I do,” she replied. “He says he’s Bratva, but I can’t escape the impression that he’s something more than that too.”

  Thomas spoke up. “I’ll look into him and find out who he really is, what his connections are.”

  Vincenzo steepled his hands in front of his face as if deep in thought. “I’ll give you this much. There’s something here we’re not understanding.”

  “That’s a fact,” Raven added. “What the hell is the connection between a crew of thugs in Xi’an and a conspiracy to kill the Secretary-General?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Veraldi continued. “The Bratva isn’t a political organization, except where politics directly impacts their profits. They’ll bribe a politician or put StateSec on their payroll, but this is too ambitious. How could they profit from killing the Secretary-General? I think that’s the question we need to solve, regardless of whether it bears out Tycho’s insight or not.”

  “There’s one way it could profit them,” I pointed out. “Someone else could simply be paying them to do it.”

  Andrea nodded. “In other words, we may not have peeled this onion all the way yet. Still, a good conspiracy shouldn’t have too many moving parts. It increases the risk of something going wrong.”

  “Something has gone wrong, from their perspective,” I replied. “We’ve captured their hired men. Now we just have to find out who hired them, and why.”

  “Maybe.” Veraldi nodded, but he didn’t sound convinced. “I still think we should keep our minds open, see if we can figure out any other angles. I’m sure Sergei and Lihua will crack soon. They’re pretty close as it is.”

  “I can’t say the same about Jovani,” replied Andrea. “He’s a hard man, and he seems to be willing to go to the wall.”

  “Then maybe we should use him as the example for the others.” Veraldi’s voice was cold. “If we shoot him right in front of them, I imagine they’ll tell us anything we want to know.”

  Not for the first time, I was struck by the basic ruthlessness of my friends in Section 9. They might not torture their prisoners, but other than that there was hardly anything they wouldn’t do. Or hardly anything we wouldn’t do. I couldn’t distance myself from them, after all.

  Andrea nodded. “We will if we have to, but I don’t want to do it yet. I get the impression he’s the boss, so he probably has more information than the other two combined. He may even be the only one who knows the name of their client, if they have one.”

  Andrea paused as if in thought, then continued. “Thomas will work up a dossier, but in the meantime the rest of us should clear up some of the other aspects of this case. Tycho, didn’t you say there was some suspicious behavior from MetSec in this case?”

  I nodded. “When Yeun’s car was bombed, it took MetSec over ten minutes to respond.”

  “It did seem strange,” added Raven. “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve run into evidence of official collusion.”

  “Okay.” Andrea crossed her arms. “I’ll ask Andrew to look into everyone in MetSec on duty that day who could have delayed a response. Maybe we’ll get lucky and one of them will turn out to have some link to the Russian Mafia.”

  “It could just as easily be a simple dispatcher,” Raven pointed out. “If they have drug labs or memory dens operating in London, imagine the advantage they’d gain by being able to delay any raid until they had time to clean up.”

  Andrea nodded absently, her eyes unfocused. She was silent for a minute, obviously contacting Andrew on her dataspike. How long had Andrew been there? Sixteen hours or so? As an infiltration specialist, he was probably used to spending long periods in temporary lodging, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for the man. He was essentially under house arrest, and now with homework.

  When I noticed her eyelids flutter and her focus return to the others in the room, I spoke up. “I can relieve Andrew.”

  She looked surprised. “I wasn’t aware you liked babysitting so much,” she replied.

  Had she been giving me so many field tasks because she thought I preferred them? “I’m actually planning to do a little research,” I told her.

  “With Yeun? What do you want to check?”

  “We haven’t really talked at length yet. There could be aspects of this case that he considers obvious, but that we haven’t noticed yet because we weren’t as immersed in it. He might even know something about our prisoners. Their names could have come up at some point while he was collecting his material.”

  Andrea nodded slowly. “Okay, yeah. That’s a good idea, Tycho. See if he has any information that could shed light on who’s directing Jovani and to what purpose.”

  “I’ll leave for London as soon as we’re done here. What country are we actually in right now?”

  She blinked at me silently for a moment and tilted her head. “You know, that’s a good question. I assumed we were in Belgium, but I didn’t ask.”

  I noticed the safehouse had Faraday shielding on the way in. “I’ll check when I’m outside. ”

  “What a life,” muttered Raven.

  “It really is,” replied Andrea. “From London, to Xi’an and parts unknown, with shootings and a triple kidnapping in between,” she added.

  12

  It turned out that we weren’t in Belgium at all. The Section 3 safehouse was in London, only a few kilometers from my apartment. When I’d asked the Section 3 agent where we were, he laughed. When my expression didn’t change, he became annoyed. “Are you fucking with me?”

  “Just tired,” I answered, not bothering to hide the exhaustion in my voice.

  That’s how disorienting the life of a field agent was. We had spent several hours back in London without even realizing it.

  I stopped by the guest room and splashed some water on my face in the bathroom. A change of clothing would help too, so I threw on a set
of clothes from the closet. They weren’t mine, of course, but they fit as well as anything.

  Sure, I could have gone back to my apartment, maybe had a shower, changed into my own clothes, but time was always the enemy. Two hours spent crossing from one side of the city to the other meant two less where it mattered. I fished my meds from my go bag and took my dose for the day, then left the safehouse for the train.

  * * *

  “Jean-Paul!” called Andrew as I entered the Chelsea safehouse. “Has the day where you relieve me finally arrived?”

  “It has,” I said, ignoring his sarcasm. “Chief brought you up to speed?”

  “She did indeed.” He stood up to leave and finished his drink, then he set the empty mug down on the table. “Later, Edward.”

  “Be safe,” Edward said with a casual smile.

  I walked into the kitchen and poured myself a cup of coffee, then went back to the living room to sit across from him. He shot me a worried glance. “You don’t look so good, Jean-Paul.”

  “Really?” I asked. “I feel fantastic. I got at least two, if not three hours sleep last night.”

  He grimaced. “Sorry, that sounds exhausting. I’ve mostly just been playing Go with Alex.”

  “Sounds fun,” I said with a nod. “You’re in a weird situation right now, huh?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “In a way, you’re the most important person in this whole case, but you’re also the only one with nothing to do.” I took a sip of coffee. It was black. No sugar or cream, just a cheap blend from a convenience store. I drank it down like medicine.

  “I guess that’s true. It’s like a vacation, but in a warzone.” He smiled. “Could be worse, I suppose.”

  It was a good sign to hear him attempt a joke. It meant the last three days hadn’t gotten to him. Then again, I’d expect no less from a Peacekeeper.

  “Are you planning to take a nap any time soon?” he asked.

  “Maybe. Right now, I plan to finish this drink. Then we’ll see where I’m at.”

  He shook his head. “I had enough of that in Antarctica. Even when we did get time to sleep, the damn sun never set.”

  “I think I’d welcome the sun for a little while. I don’t like the dark.”

  One of his brows quirked up in surprise. “You’re scared of the dark?”

  “I said I don’t like it. Nothing about being afraid. The Federation keeps sending me into the pitch black corners of the system anyway.”

  “Yeah that sounds about right.” Edward laughed. “Why do we do it?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, taking another sip.

  “We give up the best of ourselves. Our prime years. Potentially our lives. We suffer our worst fears—”

  “Dislikes” I put in.

  “—and for what? We give so much to the Federation. What is it all for?”

  That surprised me. I closed my eyes as I breathed the coffee in. “Isn’t the Peacekeeper motto Semper Servire?”

  “It is,” he admitted. “But you might be surprised how many Peacekeepers have a negative view on blind patriotism.”

  I was content to let him talk. I needed a clear head before I brought up anything too serious, and the friendlier the conversation was, the more receptive he’d be. Probably.

  “I’ve been thinking about those days a lot lately,” he added.

  “In what way?”

  “I deployed with eight people from my training pod to North America. Three of us came back after the first tour. I was the only one to come back from the second.”

  I waited quietly for him to find the words.

  “I want to believe there was some purpose to it. That they didn’t die out there in the desert for nothing, but it’s been years and it’s all just wasteland from sea to sea.”

  “We were able to build the rampart,” I pointed out.

  He frowned back at me. “Doesn’t seem like a fair exchange.”

  I put my cup down and sat forward. “It never does. Nothing can ever balance the scale. We’ll carry the weight of the fallen with us for the rest of our lives. That’s just our burden to bear until the day we become someone else’s weight. But anything that brings the system closer to a better tomorrow means that someday, that cycle will end. Someday, there’s going to be a generation of people that don’t know our pain. That’s why I do it.”

  He thought about it for a long beat, absently pulling at a loose thread on his shirt. “And you believe the Sol Federation will do that,” he finally said.

  I nodded.

  “So that’s why you look like shit right now.” He laughed.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly why.”

  “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

  “So am I.” I picked up my cup and glanced out the window as I took another pull. The noon sun was breaking through the clouds overhead, and swatches of blue peeked out from behind the gray.

  “There is something I wanted to ask for your help with,” I said.

  “Sure. Whatever you need,” he replied.

  “We have some Bratva in custody that had a part in the case. They were extorting ministers to participate, but we don’t know why. It’s possible someone paid them to do it, but we haven’t found any evidence of that.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “I’d like to review what we have so far with you. Maybe you remember seeing some of these names in your investigation.”

  “I may not remember everything off the top of my head, but I’ll do what I can.”

  I nodded. “That’s all I’m asking. As far as we can tell, there’s a cell active in London supporting a swallow.”

  “A swallow?” He frowned. “That’s a low-tech approach.”

  “So is blackmail. The swallow in question produced kompromat of all three cabinet members engaged in sex acts.”

  “Enough to threaten their careers if they’re exposed?” he asked. “That must be some embarrassing stuff.”

  “You have no idea,” I told him. “We tracked down the swallow’s handlers and found our Russo-Sino mobsters.”

  He sat back and nodded knowingly. “So that was your meet and greet in Xi’an?”

  “Yeah, it was.”

  “You’re telling me you walked into the RST, grabbed some mobsters, and left?” He seemed dubious and impressed at the same time.

  “It was a little more involved than that, but in so many words, yeah.”

  He shook his head. “Shit. We could have used you in Antarctica, Jean-Paul.”

  I felt a little guilty that he still didn’t know my real name. He’d seen combat, like I had. Lost close friends like I had. We were veterans of the same struggles, and I was lying to him as easily as I breathed.

  “So you picked up some mobsters,” he prompted.

  “Two men and a woman,” I continued. “But they’re just gangsters as far as we can tell. It doesn’t explain why they’d be involved in something like this.”

  “So we have a London-based intelligence cell supporting a swallow with an elaborate blackmail scheme against members of the NAS cabinet, and behind the scenes is a handful of Russian mobsters with no reason at all to be involved in something like that.”

  “Exactly. It doesn’t add up, and the captured mobsters haven’t given up substantial information for us to work with. I want to give you some names and faces and see if you can establish any connections we’re missing. Fresh eyes with no bias.”

  “Okay. Let me get my notepad open.” He gestured in the air. “What’s the first name you have?”

  “Jovani Pang. Hold on a sec. I’ll send you the facial topography too.” I tabbed through my files and pulled up the picture of Jovani’s grinning face from the flight back and sent it to Edward’s dataspike.

  “Got it,” he told me. “Looks like an asshole. Next one?”

  “Sergey Li.”

  I pulled up Sergey’s facial data and sent it over. “His right eye has a slight droop. Do you have any h
istory on him? Has he had a stroke? Age?”

  I hadn’t noticed. “We don’t know any of that yet. We’re working up dossiers, but these are all fresh intakes.”

  “Okay. Who else?”

  “Lihua Federova. She’s the last of the group.”

  He gave me a nod once he had her facial data. “Where were they picked up?”

  “A penthouse in downton Xi’an. I’m sending you the coordinates.”

  “Okay. Anything else? What about that swallow?”

  “Her name is Maria Valeryevna. She was involved with all of the cabinet members linked to the plot.”

  “She probably presented herself as an escort or something like that, and they shared her name around.”

  “Check their conversations if you get the chance. They might have referred to her in an indirect way. I doubt we’ll find anything new, but it’s worth a shot.”

  He stood, took Andrew’s empty cup from the table, and walked to the kitchen. “I’ll look back over it all. I’m glad you’re giving me so much to do, honestly. I was starting to get a little restless here. Now I have something to chew on.”

  “It could give us a more complete picture of the entire conspiracy.” I gestured in the air and tabbed through my files, deciding to give Edward one more piece of material. “I have one more thing to send you,” I said.

  “The videos?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, packing the files. “No telling if it will make much of a difference, but you might see something new. Just be ready for it.”

  Edward ran the tap and rinsed out the cups. “If there’s anything in here that shocks me, I’ll be surprised. I’ve seen some shit.”

  I transferred the files over and waited. He furrowed his brow and shut off the water. “What am I looking at in this?”

  “Which file?”

  “004. At the start, is that a—”

  “It is.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds. “Valeryevna is a frightening woman,” he said.

  “It’s a specific niche, so any references to those sorts of activities or suppliers of equipment might lead us to the other players. So far, we’ve hit nothing.”