Perfiditas

by Alison Morton

  But Tacita?

  Tacita – silent, or clever – was her nickname. In true life, she was Major Marcella Aburia. We’d recently gotten to know each other; I’d introduced her to my battle practice group at Mossia’s gym. Although not a natural action woman, she’d surprised herself, and me, by enjoying it. At least, that’s how I’d interpreted her huge grin and bright eyes at the end of the session despite her gasps to recapture her breath.

  At the big meeting yesterday, she’d looked nervous, almost brittle as she’d walked up to the lectern. Her notes wavered in her hands. She wasn’t tall, or commanding, but she’d spoken in a clear voice and kept her poise. She was a bright cookie and, when describing her new Intelligence section in detail, she’d thrown out a few challenges. I’d seen thoughtful looks on several faces.

  No, not Tacita.

  After leaving Aidan’s, I trudged down to the station and caught the next suburban shuttle. I couldn’t see a tail but, two stops later, I left the train and made for the public library where I fussed around the fiction shelves for a quarter-hour. Nobody was following me that I could see. I glanced around and headed for the connecting door into the local curia office. In the bathroom, I released my hair, changed into jeans and tee, stuffing everything else into a nylon backpack. It was the last layer of my disguises for today. A scruffy-haired teenager, rucksack on back, trotted down the steps of the curia main public entrance, across to the shuttle and was soon in the city centre.

  Back at my desk in the PGSF main office, I sorted through my messages and tried to tune out other voices: fourteen people insisting on being heard. Why did they have to shout across the room? I could hardly wait until the strategy room was equipped when I’d be able to sit quietly in front of my screen and think.

  I searched the internal and allied security bases for Martinus Caeco. To be honest, I didn’t expect anything so I wasn’t disappointed. I went to the secure room to search PopBase which contained every piece of known data about every citizen. After the double door scanner and the optical check, the sour-faced duty information officer grunted as she entered an access code for me. She pointed me to a cubicle with a keyboard and terminal. I knew PopBase was, and needed to be, well-guarded with secure protocols, but she acted like it was her personal property. And she could have tried turning the corners of her mouth up into a smile just to see if she was able to.

  I tapped away for an hour, entering different permutations, but the result was a big fat zero.

  Back in the general office, I distracted myself by looking through Fausta and Drusus’s shopping list. I smiled when I found a hard copy wedged between the second and third rows of my keyboard with “In confirmation” written across the envelope. It was ambitious, but well-argued. All it needed was another couple of arguments for the holographic simulator, so that the quaestor couldn’t find any excuse to refuse it. I messaged back to Drusus to finalise it for Friday morning.

  Writing up the morning’s events, I puzzled about who had sufficient resources to field a professional heavy plus minders, one as receptionist, the other at Aidan’s home. With reliefs, they would need at least six. That didn’t come cheap.

  And how was Tacita involved? As the new head of Intelligence, she could access everything. I closed my eyes and shuddered. Had Aidan asked Tacita for any information yet? And had she passed anything to him? We could have the biggest security breach for years on our hands.

  V

  I arrived at Aidan’s office a little before eleven. Sextus was playing at receptionist again. I hadn’t used the “Cousin Catherine” character for several years, so it was unlikely anybody would recognise it. By anybody, I meant somebody with their eyes tuned, alert for something odd. Most people were preoccupied with their daily lives – children, job, taxes, sex, cat – and didn’t notice anybody or anything else. Unlike television cop shows would have you believe, trying to find useful witnesses was a nightmare: nobody saw anything because nobody was looking.

  Sextus was looking now, but trying hard not to. He had to be a player, but on whose side?

  I delivered my best nervous smile. ‘Good morning, dear, and how are you today?’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Macarti,’ he said. He hadn’t used my name to me before. He couldn’t say the ‘th’, so he had to be Roma Novan. ‘I will tell Aidan Hirenses you are here.’

  Aidan greeted me as before and, as we sat down, he blinked twice.

  The pyramid on the table, I started. ‘What information was Tacita supposed to provide?’

  ‘About the new legate.’

  My turn to blink. ‘What precisely?’

  ‘His family, his contacts outside work, his current concerns, his vulnerability to corruption, and anything else she might find on the way.’

  ‘And did she?’

  He looked away.

  ‘I guess that’s a yes.’ I glanced at the little gold clock in Aidan’s cabinet. We had another five minutes if we were really lucky. ‘How much did she obtain?’

  ‘She gave me his contact details, what he was working on, but she doesn’t know him well enough to know the other information, but she was digging. She’s doing her best.’

  Doing her best to reserve a long-term stay in the central military prison.

  ‘Have you passed it on?’

  ‘What do you think?’ He sighed. ‘It was that or have my hands broken bone by bone.’ He pulled his shirt out of his pants waistband. Purple bruising below his right ribs was fading to a dull yellow. He bowed his head, the blond hair falling over his forehead, his face flushed with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, so very sorry.’

  He was a normal person caught in an abnormal dilemma. Despising people for not standing up to the threat of extreme violence was easy in theory, but when faced with it, the average person was shit-scared. They wanted it to go away. If pushed, they would run away to survive. Aidan didn’t have that option.

  I skipped lunch. Stowing my disguise kits in the field room gave my hands some busy work. Thank the gods Aidan didn’t know Tacita’s and my real names to pass on to his persecutors. A wave of cold fell through me. Tacita surely didn’t disclose them? Well, whatever she’d said, it was too late now. As I pulled my uniform back on, I gritted myself for an unpleasant hour reporting a colleague to the internal security office. I trudged back upstairs but, on my way, bumped into the adjutant, Lucius Punellus.

  ‘Got a minute, Captain?’ That was too formal.

  ‘Of course, sir.’ I followed him back to his office. He favoured a traditional style, eagle and flags in the corner, unit photos, comfortable but plain dark wood meeting table and chairs, all placed with military precision. Yet in his display cabinet, among the various awards and plaques, there were some childish pottery pieces and a tiny ivory finger ring – mementos of his dead daughter.

  ‘Now, Carina,’ he said, giving me an avuncular smile. My heart sank. I knew I was going to make a rude reply. ‘Have you been up to anything you shouldn’t have?’

  ‘Sorry, sir?’ I didn’t remember being especially insubordinate, I hadn’t “borrowed” anything without signing for it, or led recruits astray recently.

  ‘Don’t bullshit me!’ he growled.

  ‘No, really, I can’t think of anything.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, I overheard Petronax in the security office talking into his screen about an internal trouble. And he wasn’t moaning about his bowels. He was saying something along the lines of “I’ll have to rein her in before she causes any trouble”. He clammed up instantly when he saw me but, somehow, I thought of you.’

  ‘Huh.’

  He shrugged.

  Nobody liked internal affairs departments. Ours was staffed by regular military custodes who relished pointing out our faults. I put it down to boredom and jealousy. Unfair, I suppose; they had a job to do. Daniel wanted to take them all out on a rigorous training exercise and give them what he called a “beasting”. I didn’t want to know what he had in mind.

  Their chief, Petronax, didn’t
like me. It was personal. He sniped at me in front of others when he could. He watched me all the time whenever we were in the same room, like he was a predator waiting to pounce. Let him try.

  I searched Lucius’s face for further clues. He frowned, the two lines above his nose ploughed deep with worry. He played with an el-pad stylus, scratching little circles into the polished surface of his desk.

  ‘Well, you’d better cut along now. Thanks for confirming.’ He looked relieved.

  I glanced back as I left and saw he was staring down at his desk with a sombre look. Something was going on, but no way was Lucius going to give me a clue. Tempting as it was, I wasn’t going to short-circuit him and ask Conrad. That was an invisible but immovable line we’d set when we started working together. I wasn’t prepared to cross it.

  Yet.

  VI

  Drusus and Fausta’s shopping list for the strategy kit-out was now perfect. I signed it off and sent it on its way, marked urgent. I would stop by the quaestor’s office in a day or two and sweet-talk him. With any luck, we might have some of the network in at the beginning of next week.

  I ducked the security office visit for an hour and decided to go for a run. The locker room was deserted. A shower was running in the restroom area. It cut out while I was changing into jog pants and shoes. As I reached into the locker for a water bottle, a prickly sensation crept along my shoulders into my neck. Somebody was hovering nearby, watching me. I stretched up to the top shelf in my locker like I was searching for something. I silently counted one, two, three, swung my arm down hard and grabbed warm flesh.

  ‘Ow, gods, Mitela,’ came an anguished cry. Tacita. She squirmed in my grip. I had caught her upper arm and clamped her radial nerve with my fingers. My thumb pushed down hard. Something fell from her hand. I kicked her nearest leg out from under her and forced her to the ground. She gulped air. I stood over her, my foot and leg jamming her up against the lockers.

  ‘What in Hades do you think you’re doing, creeping up on me like that?’ I glared down at her.

  Fear, embarrassment and resentment mixed together in her face, her eyes tight and narrowed. A flash of anger there. She tried to pull back from me.

  ‘Let me go,’ she shrieked. She drew her free hand back into a fist and aimed for my knee. Before she could strike, I lunged and grabbed her wrist, jerking her arm up. I hoped I hadn’t dislocated her shoulder, but she gasped like I had.

  Catching my breath, I spotted something on the floor: black skeletonised metal handle, part serrated blade – a tactical folder, not a true combat knife, but deadly.

  She’d meant to injure or maybe kill me.

  Given what I’d discovered this morning, I didn’t wait. I reached down for the knife, picking it up at the pivot between my thumb and forefinger. ‘Up. You’re coming with me.’

  I shifted my weight to my back leg while she struggled to unfold herself from her awkward position on the floor, but gripped her arm again when she was upright.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  I didn’t bother replying.

  I dragged her along the corridor and reached the adjutant’s door. I knocked and entered, pulling her in. Lucius looked up with a wary expression and flashed his eyes to the side. I followed his glance. The slight figure of Petronax, the section head of the internal security office, was leaning against the door wall, arms crossed. His fine-boned face looked like he was smelling rotting spinach.

  Hades.

  ‘Sorry, sir, we’ll wait outside,’ I said and attempted to withdraw.

  ‘No, no, Captain,’ said Petronax, his mocking expression travelling from Tacita to me. ‘I was about to leave. We’re done, Adjutant, I think. Please don’t let me interrupt a nice little cat fight.’ He smirked at us as he went out.

  One of these days, I was going to kill him. I closed my eyes for a second.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Adjutant, I am here to make a complaint to you, the senior tribune, against Marcella Aburia who attacked me with a weapon, without cause. I ask you to instigate a formal investigation, prior to summary judgement by a senior officer.’

  Stunned silence. Tacita looked at the floor. I released her arm and carefully placed her knife in the centre of his desk.

  ‘Is this true?’ he asked her. His look would have scoured the coating off a non-stick pan.

  She said nothing, looked away, then back down.

  He stared at her for several minutes. We were like three silent statues. I could hear nothing but my own heartbeat and a faint vehicle sound outside. I saw specks of dust falling in the sunlight by the window.

  Eventually, still looking at Tacita, Lucius leaned forward and pushed a button. ‘Sergius, get in here stat and take a statement.’ Testis unis, testis nullus – Lucius was very careful about procedure. The adjutant’s exec slid into the office, scarcely making any noise on the wood floor. He glanced at us, hesitated for a moment, then came to rest at the side of Lucius’s desk.

  Lucius waved me over to the meeting table. ‘Sit over there and you,’ he jabbed a finger in the direction of Sergius, ‘take Captain Mitela’s statement.’

  When I’d finished, Lucius beckoned me towards him. He flicked his fingers at Tacita to take my place at the table. As we passed, she shot me a venomous look. She gave Sergius her name and refused to say anything else.

  Lucius wandered over to the other side of the room, arms crossed, the first two fingers of his right hand tapping on the shirtsleeve of his left upper arm. He stared into the display cupboard. The afternoon light fell on the folds of his face, casting shadows, highlighting the tensed muscles in his face.

  After another minute, he turned abruptly and strode over to Aburia. ‘If you don’t defend yourself now, in the face of your accuser, I’ll have no other choice but to arrest you.’

  She looked up, blinked and shook her head.

  He came back to his desk and growled into his commset. ‘Adjutant. Security detail to my office, stat.’ He dismissed Sergius, instructing him to message the statements back the second they were finished.

  He looked at Aburia like she was an insect to be stepped on. ‘Gold eagle and rank badges on the desk, and empty all your pockets.’

  We were all silent until the detail arrived. I watched the hands on Lucius’s old-fashioned clock as it ticked away a long five minutes. He was dedicated to the PGSF. He’d defend you to the point of stupidity if he thought you were doing the right thing, but he wouldn’t tolerate any deliberate act of disloyalty. Two guards arrived, and he instructed them to take Aburia into close custody until further notice. They showed no reaction as they marched her away.

  I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there, feeling blank. Lucius had been tapping on his keyboard for several minutes when I took half a step sideways.

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  I froze.

  ‘Right,’ he said, looking up when he’d finished, ‘now kindly explain what in Hades this is about.’

  ‘I don’t have a clue,’ I said. ‘One minute I was changing into sweats, the next fending off a crazy trying to stab me with a lethal blade.’

  ‘I’ve requested the medics to carry out a substances test immediately she arrives in the custody suite.’ He paused. ‘They’ll also do blood just in case it’s a bad attack of PMS.’

  Gods, what a patronising comment!

  ‘Take that look off your face – it happens.’ He tapped a few more keys then fixed me with his eyes. ‘Sure there isn’t any trouble between the two of you?’

  I was tempted for a few seconds to disclose the Aidan situation. The only reason she could want to attack me was to stop me reporting her to Petronax for a security breach. But I’d told nobody. Sure, I’d made general notes on the central registry about visiting Aidan undercover, but details would be held securely in my case lock box on the system until formal charges were framed. She couldn’t have known what was said, unless she’d overridden the privacy control. Damn. As head of Intelligence, cou
ld she have done that?

  Whatever, Aburia was neutralised now so there could be no further leaks. I wanted to investigate further. I needed to find out exactly why these people wanted such personal information about Conrad.

  I shook my head, and Lucius let me go. My complaint would grind through the internal security office bureaucracy. I groaned at the pleasure it would give Petronax.

  I absolutely had to go see Mossia now. Not only did I need to rebuild my friendship with her but she was my only open lead to Aidan. She wouldn’t have gotten over the other day yet. I’d be in for a workout that she’d ensure was punishing.

  Scanning my gym pass at the door, I nodded at the receptionist who gave me the false smile he gave everybody unless you were young, male and beautiful. I hesitated in front of the archway leading to the changing rooms. Today, it reminded me of a lobster pot. I went back to the reception counter and booked a full hour massage for after Mossia had destroyed me.

  The gym formed only part of the complex. A superb set of hot, cold and warm rooms on the traditional Roman pattern was complemented by a Japanese massage pool and an Olympic-standard swimming pool. The gym itself consisted of a large hall with various sets of machines for torturing flabby and not so flabby bodies, a small indoor arena and a series of practice rooms. The fun part was the laser tag battle zone, the one I’d introduced Tacita to. For the sheer adrenalin-pumping exhilaration of stalking opponents and unleashing a volley of laser fire in a battle of wits and fitness, it was unequalled. Well, for the thirty or so minutes it lasted.

  Around a dozen other women were pulling on gym wear in the changing room and chatting. My foot on the bench, I was bending over tying my sneaker when the babble cut. Mossia. I straightened up and smiled at her.