by Victor Milán
"Please explain," the Smiling One said.
"Lieutenant McCartney is pretty hard core," Cassie said. "He has to be, what with the job he's in. Otherwise he'd have either committed seppuku or just plain given up long since. But he was shaken by what he found out. And while he wouldn't tell me, I can guess: he got back an 'access denied.' Now who, in this well-ordered society you have here, would have the power to flat cut a police investigator off from info and make it stick? And who could make even a man like McCartney nervous at the thought he might offend them?"
"Your sarcasm is quite unnecessary, young woman," Subhash Indrahar said. "You make your point. While there are indeed other entities on Luthien that might possess the power to block your policeman's queries, ISF does appear the most likely choice."
Cassie blinked. Her eyes felt grainy. She had been out all night making the rounds everywhere she could think of, trying to pull in some kind of information on Misty Saavedra's whereabouts—as well as what the Black Dragons might happen to have in mind next. Don Carlos had ordered her to concentrate on getting Misty back, but that didn't mean she had to shut her ears to everything else.
Unfortunately, she might as well have shut her ears, period. The Inagawa-fow rank-and-filers were out getting wild to celebrate their boss' takeover from old Yamaguchi—the ones who had survived at any rate. But if they knew any Black Dragon secrets they weren't letting go of them, no matter how much sake they took on board. And there was still no sign that the dekigoro-zoku had ever existed.
Focus, she commanded herself. "What now?" she asked.
"Now I will make inquiries of my own," the Smiling One said. "You will continue to go about your business, and report back anything further that you're able to learn."
Cassie opened her mouth. The Smiling One raised a hand. "I am making extraordinary allowances in permitting you to act, in effect, as one of my agents. Since I am doing so, I insist on treating you as I would one of my own agents.
You report to me; I do not report to you, unless I have information that might enable you more efficiently to perform your tasks. Konnichi-wa?"
"Hai, Subhash-sama."
"Indrahar out."
* * *
After he had broken the connection Subhash Indrahar sat for a moment in his wheelchair, staring at the blank screen. He felt very cold, despite the scrupulous temperature control in the ISF's underground redoubt and the lap robe he wore. But then, the chill had little to do with the ambient air in his tiny Spartan office.
He reached out, manipulated a control on the console. The screen glowed alive again, this time with the digest of intelligence reports from all across the Combine and the Inner Sphere he had just received. He highlighted the reports from Dieron, keywords Black Dragon.
It came back with a report of a secret rank and file meeting attended by metsuke, at which the usual imprecations against the Evil Advisors who were leading the noble Coordinator astray were uttered; and a particularly successful Kokuryu-kai recruiter had met his end in an unfortunate skiing accident—annotated "closure complete," meaning people seemed to buy that it was an accident.
There was no mention of Black Dragon agitators spreading the rumor that Theodore Kurita had himself murdered his father, Takashi. Which was odd, inasmuch as that was the report a certain Son of the Dragon working on Dieron had been ordered by Subhash's message of the day before to submit through ISF channels. An hour before the Smiling One had received via his private channels an encrypted acknowledgement that the report had indeed been made.
So that turbulent, insubordinate, but very capable young woman is right. She was right that the ISF was riddled with treason—and right that Kokuryu-kai was engaged in some large-scale conspiracy in which the ISF traitors were of necessity involved right up to the eyebrows. Other possibilities suggested themselves readily to the Smiling One's mind, still as quick and flexible as the athlete's body he had possessed half a century go. He dismissed them. A hundred tiny discrepancies, overlooked as merely incidental, suddenly coalesced into a body of evidence that something was wrong.
He consulted his ki. The answer came unequivocally back: I have been blind.
As he had been chilled before, now he felt a rush of warmth suffusing his tired body and limbs, prickling like sunburn. I have allowed myself to be gulled, he thought. I have unmistakably outlived my usefulness.
The realization was like the mass of a planet lifted from his thin, stooped shoulders.
He turned his powered wheelchair, rolled out the door that slid aside at his approach, into the dim-lit corridors of his citadel. Technicians, agents, and the inevitable administrators and data-pushers passed with respectful nods, which he ignored.
Who? he wondered as he roamed at random through the buried complex. Ninyu Kerai he dismissed at once. The boy's loyalty—and he still thought of his adoptive son as a "boy," even though he was a man in his fifties—was beyond question. He was, if anything, overly devoted to Subhash Indrahar. More to the point, far from trying to rush his succession, Ninyu Kerai had done everything he could to put it off. The younger man's stubborn insistence that he was not yet worthy to command the Dragon's intelligence arm was literally all that had kept the Smiling One's spirit trapped in his worn-out body these past few years.
So—who? Takura Migaki he dismissed almost as readily as his son. The other division commanders mostly disdained or even despised the man. He was soft and self-indulgent, and his unorthodox habits and ideas smacked of the subversive: high irony in the man charged with promulgating orthodoxy throughout the Combine. Only Omi Dashani seemed to accept him, and she was the most thoroughgo-ingly neutral individual Subhash knew, utterly consecrated to the principle of keeping her assessments clean of preference or prejudice. For a fact, Subhash himself thought his propaganda chief frivolous, although his performance was exemplary, which was what truly mattered.
But Migaki had a dislike for responsibility that bordered on phobia. He enjoyed his job because—and only to the extent—it allowed him to indulge his creative impulses. All he wanted to be was an impresario. He was increasingly restive of late, but far from a danger sign of ambition to move upward in the secret-police hierarchy, it was actually a manifestation of his desire to quit and become a private producer and director of entertainment holovids. He was known to say he'd rather lose an arm than become the chief of ISF. Subhash believed him.
Omi Dashani likewise struck Subhash as an unlikely traitor. What she wanted most to do was what she did: move her legions of metsuke around like playing-pieces in a vast and intricate game, amass and immerse herself in oceans of data. Ironically she would have been the Smiling One's choice for a successor after Ninyu: she was meticulous, a perfectionist. She was not one to inspire operatives with her own daring strokes of fieldcraft, as Ninyu Kerai did, and as the legendary deeds of Subhash's youth continued to do— but she would be sure the executive agents had suitably inspiring leadership.
The Smiling One had two fundamental theories of human action, which a lifetime of observing such action in its rawest forms had only reinforced. The first was that people tried to get what they wanted the way water flowed downhill. The ways they went about it often looked irrational or counterproductive to an outside observer, not infrequently because they were, and the ends they desired might be actively harmful, but whatever others thought, whatever they themselves said, that was the engine that drove most people. His second theory was that, after his or her own form of self-interest, what drove each individual most powerfully was dislike or affection, commonly the former: envy, jealousy, the desire for revenge.
He knew that his theory of overriding self-interest was incredibly subversive of the very model of society he had devoted his life to preserving. But then, if the Dictum Hono-rium were actually in tune with human nature, the Dragon would not need such a comprehensive secret police, iie?
Omi Dashani's deepest desires were fulfilled by her current station. To become Director would bring her nothing but unwelcome di
stractions.
The other three commanders were more problematic. Daniel Ramaka, for example, almost had to be involved in stepping on the datastream, filtering the reports that reached the eyes of the Smiling One and his heir-designate: his Internal Security Division served as clearinghouse for all information coming into headquarters, and had most to do with operating the facility's vast local computer network. That was another reason for relieving Dashani of suspicion: about the only strong emotion the metsuke chief ever displayed was a quiet but virulent hatred for the man universally known as the Rat.
Daniel Ramaka was a brute and a sadist, traits the Smiling One found deplorable and counterproductive as well as distasteful. He was also a complete coward. Paradoxically, that was the source of his value to Subhash and the Combine, and the reason Subhash had elevated him to Internal Security chief and maintained him in that position. Because any conceivable enemy—Steiner, Davion, Clanner, internal dissident—who seized power would hang Daniel Ramaka from a meafhook as a first order of business, he identified his own self-preservation with preservation of the Combine, and consequently he defended the Dragon with exemplary paranoia.
Because of his self-obsession Ramaka was entirely incapable of selfless service to Coordinator or Dragon, which was why he had never been under consideration as Sub-hash's successor. While that fact presumably rankled, as did every slight he had ever experienced or imagined in his life, Ramaka was not the sort to try to unseat the Director on his own. He was not the mover-and-shaker type, and besides, taking on Subhash Indrahar entailed risk. To say the least. Ramaka was obsessed with avoiding risk.
If, however, he believed the Smiling One was losing his touch—an assessment Subhash now agreed with—Ramaka might well be amenable to playing along with somebody he thought did have a chance of toppling him.
Which left the two most turbulent of Subhash's lieutenants: Constance Jojira of Covert Ops and one-eyed General Hohiro Kiguri. Both belonged to the Sons of the Dragon, and Subhash Indrahar trusted both exactly as far as he, in his current condition, was able to throw them.
Kiguri was an arch-conservative who disdained Theodore's reforms and disapproved of his emphasis on fighting the Clans, especially since it meant ignoring the opportunity offered by the confusion among House Kurita's ancient enemies, the Steiners and the Davions. He was fearless, cunning, an inspirational figure to his elite commandos; no one, not even Theodore Kurita himself, had struck as many telling blows against the Combine's foes. But a Director of the Internal Security Force needed more than Kiguri's swords-and-swagger bravado; he wasn't in line for promotion either.
He had never showed any particular desire to displace the Smiling One. His disapproval of Theodore might be strong enough to lead him to treason, though. And no one, no matter how bold, could dare hope to eliminate Theodore Kurita and leave Subhash Indrahar alive.
Besides, Kiguri was a predator. He had a predator's instinct for the jugular—and for weakness in the alpha male.
Jojira was apolitical. Too much, in fact, to be a good Director, although Subhash would have chosen her to succeed him behind Ninyu and Dashani, since she was capable, albeit limited and rather unimaginative. For most of her life— after she killed her father, who had murdered her yakuza lover before her eyes—she had served Subhash with canine devotion. But she had believed herself being groomed to succeed the Smiling One. Subhash's designation of Ninyu Kerai to succeed him had been a blow, the effects of which she had not been completely successful at concealing.
So both of them had motives for betrayal, the one resentment, the other ambition and conviction. Kiguri's hypertro-phied traditionalism would mesh well with the conservatism of Kokuryu-kai. But Jojira had the yakuza connection.
Subhash could not choose between the suspects. The only thing of which he was confident—certain was not a word he liked to use—was that the two were not conspiring together. Both were fanatically proud, and they had been unfriendly rivals for years. Neither could endure being subordinated to the other.
He stopped. He was two levels above his office, outside a data-processing node. He touched a button on the pad inset into his wheelchair's right arm.
"Hai," the gruff voice of Ninyu Kerai responded.
"Ninyu," the Smiling One said, "meet me in my office at once."
"Hai, Subhash-sama!"
23
Yoshiwara District, Imperial City
Luthien
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine
28 June 3058
"Arrogant gaijin bitch!" Rebuffed, the big red-bearded man in the flash jacket with the padded zaki shoulders turned away and lumbered toward the main stage. On it a woman wearing a sequined top hat, bow tie, high heel shoes, and a big red-rimmed smile, was dancing to tinky-tonk Drac pop.
Aside from keeping her radar operating to make sure he didn't try to blindside her, Cassie forgot him at once. He didn't know anything; she could smell the dumb oozing from his pores. She had no time for teppodama.
It was a hopping place, a dancer bar in the Yoshiwara pleasure district's small intestine. It was the sort of dive where yaks did business, in puppet-show imitation of Middle Class execs, who conducted their affairs in hostess bars and more subdued nudie clubs. Cassie was in attendance as a spacer of indeterminate non-Combine origin, in town to take in the Big Show two days hence. Her hair was dyed red, her skin lightened, and she had a big dark mole on her cheek. She wore a battered spacer's jacket made from the hide of one of Towne's many outsized critters. It was uncomfortable in the body-heated bar, but it served nicely to conceal a gun. Or maybe two.
Inside the jacket she was practically vibrating with impatience. It was out there. She could feel it, she could taste it, like some topical drug hitting her tongue half a minute after she'd touched a doorknob painted with it. But she could not come to grips with it. It was elusive as mercury fleeing a fingertip.
She felt a vibration in the breast pocket of the tunic she wore beneath the jacket. As if scratching, she slipped a tiny bone-conduction speakerphone on a microthin wire behind her left ear. Then, leaning forward, she palmed a coin-sized audio pickup against her larynx, making it look as if she were cupping her chin.
"Abtakha," she subvocalized. All she had to do was go through the motions of speech: the pickup caught the vibrations and sent them off into the ether via the little communicator in her pocket.
"Cassie," came the voice of the Seventeenth's S-2. "They found Misty."
"They?" Cassie felt cold. She had pretty much given up searching for the missing Mech Warrior. That trail was cold as Orientalis' backside as far as she could tell.
"Two Civilian Guidance Corpsmen found her body just before sunset. She had been ... abused and sexually assaulted."
Cassie closed her eyes as she listened to the rest. "Takura Migaki has ordered the regiment locked-down in quarters until the morning of the big procession. You'd better come back."
"Cannot comply, Father Dr. Bob. I still got work to do." Words in her ear. She snapped her head up, opened her eyes.
The bartender was staring at her with a concerned expression. "Are you all right, miss?"
"Oh—yes. Fine. It's just, just a stomach spasm. I get them from time to time."
"You don't have any funny offworld diseases, do you?"
"No. The Port Authority cleared me through quarantine, didn't they? It's a nervous thing. Stress brings it on."
"If you say so." He moved off down the bar.
"Cassie? Are you still there?" came the voice of Father Dr. Bob.
"Huh?" It struck her that the exchange had taken place in Japanese, even though her current persona didn't speak the language. That rattled her. It wasn't like her to break character.
"Sorry," she subvocalized. "Had to play the role for a moment."
"Had to—oh, I understand. Now, Cassiopeia, I don't like to push, but—"
"You know the first lesson of command, Captain Bob? Don't give orders you know won't be obeyed."
"But Cassie—the Imperial City prefect of police has issued a shoot-to-kill order for anybody from the Seventeenth seen on the streets—"
"I won't be seen." She sipped from her drink, cast her eyes around the bar. Nothing caught the hem of her gaze.
"I'm sorry about Misty. I wish I could've found her, but I got nothing. I tried, I really did. But the whole regiment is in danger. I feel it. It's like ... like electricity. The air is full of it."
A pause. "You know I believe in your intuitions, Cassiopeia."
"My intuition tells me it's all building up like the charge in a Gauss gun's capacitors. The problem is, the Black Dragons are playing this tight. They're smart enough, they're not going to tell the kobun or even the sub-bosses anything until the very last second. But when the word goes out, I want to be here to catch it. I have to be."
A tipsy middle-aged man in fancy robes bumped hard against the bar beside her and stood gazing at her with pie-eyed approval. A noble out for a bit of a slum in the Floating World—and clearly not a real tsu. Because a true man-about-fhe-w&ryo would know this wasn't just a lowlife club, it was a full-out gangster bar. The yaks respected traditional hierarchic values, but like everybody in the Combine they also had a keen reverence for the bottom line. This sot looked to be the kind to have a fat wad of House-bills tucked away somewhere in all that silk, and the Inagawa heavies in here were just the types to try bouncing him around until it popped out.
She looked him up and down, tilted her nose, and looked away. He continued to hover there like a gaudy cloud.
"—dangerous, Cassie," Father Doctor Bob was saying in her ear.
"Oigame, Padre; listen up. There's this old expression: a dead scout is a good scout. Nobody's luck runs forever. Someday maybe I'll do my job by turning into a cloud of pink mist and letting the vatos know where not to go."
