by Terry Mixon
Yet at least one of them had been there to attack the inevitable armed response after the bombing. One where rogue RIS agents murdered dozens of innocent people. How could they have known the action wing was going to bomb the dome?
If that’s what had actually taken place.
The Republic blamed the attack on the Martian resistance, but the supposed attackers had all died in the blast. What if the Disruptors were behind it? And, by implication, someone in the RIS?
That scared the hell out of her.
“I think I see what Zane was doing out here,” she said. “One of the shooters on Mars was a known Disruptor affiliate the RIS had under surveillance before the raid.
“His file has no information about how he got to Mars. Or that he ever did. The agents watching him dropped the ball, and the post-attack forensics don’t mention him at all.”
Hale frowned. “How is that even possible? They had that building locked up tight and the man’s blood was everywhere. I saw to that. I didn’t shoot anyone up bad enough for facial recognition to fail.”
“I’m only coming up with one answer that seems to fit the facts,” she said slowly. “Someone in the RIS is working with the Disruptors. Maybe someone in the Janus Corporation, since your brother came out here so quietly.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “He found the proof to exonerate you and uncover the real bad guys.”
Hale nodded slowly. “And now they have him. They’ve had him for months. Is he still alive?”
Rachel considered lying, but shook her head. “That’s hard to imagine. Maybe they’d keep him alive for a few weeks to be sure he didn’t tell anyone else. They’d have broken him long before now.”
Hale looked as though someone had punched him in the gut. “So, he finally stood up for me and I let him die. That’s just about par for the course,” he said bitterly.
“Is that your answer for everything? Self-pity? Pick yourself up, soldier. He was my partner. He left me in the dark, too. If I’d have been here, they might never have made a move. This is on me as much as it is you.
“Are you going to let them keep you in that pit of misery, or are you going to get to the bottom of this? We’re in this together. Do we make them bleed or go home?”
His lips thinned and his nostrils flared. “We make them bleed.”
She smiled coldly. “I hoped you’d see it my way. We need to go over all these files and start planning. Whoever tried to kill you is eventually going to figure out that I’m here, so we need to punch back fast.
“Let’s order some food and dig in. I happen to have a bottle of good Earth whisky. Better than the one you have stashed, by the way. Let’s drink to our new partnership.”
Rachel had no idea how she was going to get past the negative feelings she had for this man, but if her partner—and the evidence—said he was innocent, it fell to her to make the effort. No matter how hard it was going to be.
Chapter Nine
Adam watched the spy lady work while he sipped his whisky. It was good. Damned good. He shuddered to think of how much it must have cost even before the expense of shipping it out here.
“How the hell can a government employee afford this stuff?” he asked.
She glanced over from her comp. “I lifted it from a bastard I met on the trip out. I consider it fair payment for him groping me. The thing at customs was just icing.”
“That was you? Man, you’re vicious. You find anything else?”
“That last chip you opened had a lot of files covering Janus Corporation officers and staff. All stuff pilfered from the RIS databases. I can’t imagine how Zane got his hands on it. I suppose I’ll never know now.”
That soured his mood right up. He imagined it would take a while before he stopped blaming himself. If ever. He’d discovered over the years that he was good at blaming himself. He should’ve been Catholic, as the bad old joke went.
“What I want to know is why you’re still alive,” she continued. “That trip down to Jupiter should’ve killed you.”
“I’m just that good,” he said with more smugness than he should’ve allowed himself.
“That’s bullshit.”
That set him back a step. “You don’t know me. I have skill at that kind of thing.”
She sighed. “It shouldn’t matter how good you are. A bomb packed in behind one of the thrusters would’ve killed you right away. Hell, why only sabotage two thrusters? Why not all six? The emergency transponder wouldn’t have let anyone know.
“They had any number of ways to make your trip inevitably fatal. Why go halfway? Why even give you a fighting chance?”
It did seem odd when phrased that way. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t have time. Maybe they’re sadistic. Or incompetent.”
“Anyone that could capture someone like Zane without leaving a pile of inconvenient bodies isn’t incompetent. They had a reason for leaving you potentially alive. Probably something important. We just need to figure it out.”
He rose to his feet. “You’ll need to figure that out on your own. I have to find Jason before he starts tearing up the station. He knows I came here and that I thought you had something to do with the sabotage.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’m good at data mining. These files will keep me occupied for a while.”
Looking more than a bit hesitant, she stood and extended her hand. “I misjudged you, Hale. I’m sorry for that.”
He shook it slowly. “It takes someone big to get past something like Mars. I appreciate it.”
The corner of her mouth rose a little. “I never said I was past it. That’s going to take a long time. I’ll put my negative feelings to good use, and you have my apology in advance for the inevitable backsliding.”
“No one can ask more than that. Thankfully, I’m a loveable guy.”
“No more booze. You’re drunk.”
He grinned and headed for the door. “See? It’s working already. I’m headed back to the launch bay, but I’ll be at the club later. After a close call like this, people will want to see me face-to-face. That’s how we roll. Come by. That’ll give you some exposure.”
“As in dress scantily? I don’t need that kind of exposure.”
“Jason wouldn’t mind. No, I mean with the divers. If someone got to my ship, one of them might have seen it.”
“Or done it. Does one of them have a grudge?”
“It’s possible,” he admitted. “If so, then you’ll really need to get past their guard to ask the right questions. I look forward to seeing a professional at work, because they won’t make it easy.”
He let himself out. No one seemed to pay any attention as he left the hotel, but he doubted he’d know if a spy was following him.
Adam arrived in the launch bay just as Jason was finishing up. His friend was even grimier than normal. He’d almost completely disassembled the ship.
“Dude!” Adam said, eyeing the various parts of his ship scattered around the bay. “Can you even put this thing back together again? I have cash that says you end up with extra bolts when you’re done.”
Jason put on his affronted face. “I know where every bolt and plate goes. Trust me, everything will be triple inspected before I’m done. Extra bolts,” he added in a disgusted tone. “You’re an asshole.”
“That’s what they tell me. You find anything?”
The slender man wiped his hands on a handy rag that looked like it might have made them even dirtier. “Maybe. It’s hard to be sure. I’m so paranoid right now that minor flaws look suspicious. Nothing that would crash the ship, though. Everything that was going to break already did.”
He threw the rag down. “How was the woman? Was she behind this? What’s in the bag?”
The bag held his brother’s spy kit. Price had tucked it into a shopping bag to conceal it from casual observation.
Adam considered how much to tell his friend. There was no guarantee this bay wasn’t bugged. He needed to get some tips on f
inding the damned things.
“Just some stuff I picked up. She doesn’t seem the type to do this. Not enough mechanical knowhow.”
“Pity,” Jason said. “Now we have to think about other divers. Some of them are asses, but I can’t even see Double Dick doing this kind of thing.”
“Me neither. Look, you’ve been at this nonstop. Let’s call it a day and get something to eat. The others will keep me up all night, if I let them, so I’ll need my strength.”
The nausea the doctor had warned him about had arrived, but it wasn’t too bad. At least, not yet.
Jason clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s do it. I hear the diner has a special on Mexican food today. I’ve been craving tacos.”
“Those yahoos have never even looked up Mexico on the net,” Adam said reprovingly. “Remember when they tried Indian food? I almost combusted later that night.”
“You said you liked to live dangerously.”
“Man. Two close calls with death in one day. The gods hate me.”
* * * * *
Rachel read every single document before she started putting together her notes. By the time she was done, it was late and she was cross-eyed.
Zane had uncovered quite the potential conspiracy. The attack on Mars wasn’t the only oddity her partner had found, though it was the most bloody.
There’d been a few notable intelligence failures since the massacre. Disruptor attacks that the RIS should’ve discovered before it was too late.
One was the assassination of a high-ranking Republican official in the Department of the Navy. They managed to smuggle a bomb onto his shuttle.
It turned out the people responsible were on the watch list and somehow managed to slip away from their minders. They vanished after the attack.
There were similar events after that, too. Different RIS managers were responsible for the operations, but they all reported to the same woman. Including Rachel’s own manager.
Alice Evans, an upper manager with the RIS for three decades. She had plenty of successes under her belt to balance things out, but the major lapses with known Disruptors seemed to all lead back to her.
Zane had her full record on the chip. Nothing screamed that she was on the take, but the woman’s brother was a senior vice president with Janus Corporation. He ran the FTL construction program.
More coincidences. Enough to draw Zane’s attention. Enough to make him afraid to inform anyone in the chain of command about what he suspected.
Since something had happened to him almost as soon as he’d arrived, he’d been right to worry.
Why had the same people ignored her arrival? The ID she was using was a RIS cover with her real name. It wasn’t even fake. Just misleading.
If someone in the RIS was watching, they should’ve seen her once the passenger list from Calypso arrived. Either they wanted her to look around or, more likely, they couldn’t afford to kill every RIS agent that wandered onto the station.
She’d conducted regular checks for tails and bugs without noticing anyone. Perhaps she’d slid in under their radar.
Until a month and a half ago, she’d been in Chicago. Her current instructions were to unofficially look for Zane and then move on. Maybe they wanted her to do exactly that. Without knowing who all the players were, it was hard to tell.
One thing she knew for certain, if she poked her nose too hard into their business, someone would try to shut her up.
She didn’t have enough data to be sure she was even on the right track. All she knew at this point was that Zane had checked in and someone at the hotel had lied. Someone highly placed.
There’d be a record of that somewhere.
Her patch into the guest services system was still active, but that didn’t mean they were unaware of her penetration. Paranoia was the RIS way. She needed to be careful.
A little basic snooping made her moderately certain they hadn’t detected the tap. There were no monitors or logs watching her little channel. Or maybe the person doing the countersurveillance was a lot better at this than she was.
She accessed the logs for Zane’s room. After he supposedly missed his check-in, there was a single use of a management key. Then room service again. Twice in the same day.
That probably meant someone had come for his belongings. They hadn’t searched well enough to find his kit. Then they’d cleaned the room.
The management card linked to Vasily Aslanov, the senior night manager. Yet he’d accessed the room in the early afternoon.
Rachel wanted to look at his company mail, but the business system was separate from the guest services side. She’d need physical access to his comp.
That was frustrating, but not fatal. She’d consider her options tomorrow. Right now, she had to get going.
The divers probably weren’t involved in Zane’s disappearance, but that didn’t mean one of them hadn’t tried to kill Hale. Still, she had to be sure.
Rachel locked her comp and stashed the chips away in her kit. If someone tried to get into her system, they’d think they’d succeeded, right up until the comp crashed hard.
She had a copy of all the files for Hale. It was the price for his assistance. She’d pay it and damn the consequences. If she trusted anyone back on Earth, she’d send them a copy, too, but she didn’t. Not now.
Once she had everything put away, she headed for the Great Red Spot. She took a meandering path, wary of tails. No one seemed the least bit interested in her.
The outer club looked much the same as the last time she’d visited. The inner one—the one frequented by the divers—was packed and wild. Much more so than yesterday.
The man of the hour was the center of attention. She supposed that was only natural. He’d cheated death.
Rather than approach him, she decided to circle the bar and see if anyone had what seemed like an unhealthy interest in either of them.
After twenty minutes, she’d decided that everyone looked genuinely pleased with the exception of one man in a booth at the back. He wasted no effort in hiding his disgruntlement. Or the glares he shot at Hale.
“Don’t pay him any mind,” a man said as he stepped up to the bar. “That’s Double Dick. He doesn’t like anyone.”
She turned her attention to the man. It was Hale’s partner, Jason Chang. She’d watched him bounce between Hale and a stacked blonde at a table near the dance floor.
“He looks like the kind of guy who’d sabotage a ship,” she ventured.
Chang held out his hand. “Jason Chang. He’s just pissed because he set a new record for depth and Adam is getting all the attention. He’ll get over it.”
“Rachel Price. I’m a friend of Adam’s brother.”
“So he said. I wish he’d stopped in to see Adam. Those two need to settle their bad blood. Family is more important than whatever came between them.”
“I agree. Well, it seems as though your friend has his hands full. Why don’t you give me the lowdown on what I’m getting into with the diving community?”
He picked up the drinks he’d ordered. “Come join us and I will.”
Rather than going over to Hale, he led her to the table with the blonde.
The other woman smiled at Rachel. “Hi! I’m Cindy Stevens. You must be the mysterious woman in Adam’s life. I’m with Jason.”
Rachel shook the woman’s hand. “It’s not like that. I’m just out here trying to find any information about his brother.”
Cindy nodded. “Ah, I get it. Security said he’d come onto the station. If you don’t mind my asking, just how close are you and… I’m sorry. I don’t know his name.”
“Zane. We were dating pretty seriously,” she lied. “He was about to pop the question, if you know what I mean. I’m worried sick about him.”
The other woman’s expression turned sad. “That’s terrible! I hope you find him. Maybe he took a ship somewhere else and the data got lost somehow. He might be on his way out to Saturn or Uranus.”
“Then he
’d better keep going,” Rachel growled. “He should’ve sent me a message.”
Movement at the door attracted her notice. Two men had just come in. The same two security guys who’d interrogated her. Only this time they weren’t in uniform. They headed right for Hale.
Uh oh. This could mean trouble.
Chapter Ten
Adam kept a cheerful expression on his face, but he really wanted to head back to the shop. He could only take so many people congratulating him for surviving. The other divers were low-key about it, but the groupies were too damned clingy.
He saw Rachel Price when Jason brought her over to the table where Cindy was waiting. Had his friend just seduced the spy? Or was it the other way around?
The three of them fell into talking like old friends while Adam started untangling himself from the people around him. He’d almost made it when two men interjected themselves into the conversation.
“Mister Hale,” the taller of them said. “You might not remember me, but I’m Sergeant Gavin Starnes from security. This is my partner, Mason Saint James.”
That prompted Adam’s memory. “Sure. You came over to the shop a few times after I moved in to make sure I was up to code. Is there a problem?”
“Maybe. We were investigating something in the area around your shop earlier today and saw a woman at your door. I’m pretty familiar with the regulars in the neighborhood, but I don’t know her.
“Her ID said she was Rachel Price. She came up in the database as a recent arrival. She said she was looking for you. Is that right?”
Adam inclined his head toward the table where Price sat. “Is that her?”
The security man looked over and nodded. “That’s her. So, my radar was off. I was sure she was up to no good.”
“I know about her. Better safe than sorry, though. I appreciate you boys looking out for me. This has been one of those days.”
