Blood Orbit_A Gattis File Novel

by K. R. Richardson

  Pritchet stared at Matheson. “You sound just like your whip. Who’s your bent copper?”

  “I won’t say at this time.”

  Pritchet’s eyes narrowed and Matheson might have been intimidated a week ago, but today he wasn’t. “Won’t say . . .”

  Matheson restrained his urge to rush—it would only make him seem desperate and he couldn’t risk it. “It’s part of the confirmation I’m waiting on, but it doesn’t affect the arrest of the remaining subject. We have statements and evidence from that source that make the case stronger, but you’ll understand that the CIFO doesn’t want to bring them into the light until we’re certain. So I can’t tell you anything on that topic. Yet.”

  Pritchet breathed heavily through his nose, frowning at Matheson, then glancing toward his windows and back again. “All right. That I can use. That and the witness in custody. What about your other prisoner?”

  “He’s the other surviving perpetrator. Another Dreihle. He was identified by the witness in custody and corroborated the witness’s evidence. He’s willing to cooperate with the prosecution—if the death penalty is off the table. We’ve guaranteed that it will be.”

  “We? You and Dillal. High-handed in a case of capital murder.”

  Matheson nodded. “It was the deal we had to make.”

  Pritchet closed his eyes. “Your perp’s a fool.”

  “Quite probably. But that’s what he asked for.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Hoda Banzet.”

  “Never heard of him—lucky for you. Who’s the subject at large?”

  “His name’s Osolin Tchintaka.”

  “Tchintaka . . . Dreihle. Well, he won’t be leaving the planet, that’s for certain. Name’s familiar . . . local streeter?”

  Matheson hesitated, but nodded. “Yes.”

  “So this is political.”

  Matheson gave a dismissive snort. “He would like it to be, but in fact, it’s just money and stupidity. Tchintaka’s a small-time criminal with delusions of grandeur. But if the media casts him as a dissident being silenced by the powers-that-be, that will put you in the same bad odor as the rest of the board when the charter review comes up. Now, I know that pushing the Forensic Integration Project was not motivated by your concern for better policing—it’s a maneuver to retain power after the review. Frankly, I don’t care, but it works for me now, and I like being at the front of the line. Dillal and I can close the investigation and shut the rest of the situation down with no fuss if Tchintaka can be taken as quickly—and quietly—as possible.”

  Pritchet gave him an appreciative grin, but he said, “I wish you good fucking luck with that. The media is going to nip at your heels like dogs whether I can hold the troops or not.”

  “Find a way. Sir. You want the FIP to be a success and that means the CIFO has to close this case. You gave him a week. That ends tonight. I’ll have him back on his feet in a few hours and then we’ll finish this up. All you have to do is convince the board to hold those troops until midnight at the latest.”

  “GISA is no longer in charge of the security of Gattis, as I told you.”

  “But we are in control of the investigation and the SOs can back the troops already on the ground—which puts them in position to foul any precipitous action. We just need to keep anyone else from closing this prematurely by putting a bullet in Tchintaka—as tempting as that may be.”

  “That would be a mess, but manageable.”

  “You don’t want that to happen in front of the media observers. Or before your project is vindicated. Dillal and I need the day—only what we were promised originally. That’s all I’m asking for. And I’ve given you everything—”

  Pritchet scoffed. “In a cat’s eye you have. Whatever you’re holding for ‘confirmation’ is something you can’t risk getting out—something that can take this investigation or this division down hard and fast—at least as long as Central is watching. With the way this investigation has leaked like a dried-out canoe, I appreciate that caution. I don’t appreciate being played—not by the Mathesons, not by Dillal, or that twist of a doctor—but I see the point.”

  Pritchet looked out his window at the sun-streaked edges of dawn beyond the retreating storm clouds. He stared a while, then exhaled a snort of annoyance and turned back to Matheson. His eyes held a spark of calculating enthusiasm and he rubbed his fingertips together as if he could feel the threads of influence in his hands. “I’ll do what I can, but chances are good it’s not going to be what you want. And you, Matheson, are going to owe me, because we wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t brought Central’s eye to bear on us. If you protest it’s nothing to do with you, I will transfer you to Camp Ejeirie myself.”

  Matheson returned the sort of blank smile he’d learned from his sister long ago, while agreeing to nothing. “Thank you, sir.”

  Pritchet’s veiled gloating faltered and he narrowed his eyes a little, saying, “Just close this today and close it quietly—Spring Moon ends in two nights and I don’t want this to be the thing everyone remembers.”

  Oh, but you do. Matheson knew the timing wasn’t just convenient. The bigger the mess Pritchet could claim to have saved Gattis and the corporation from, the happier the Regional Director would be.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Day 7: Early Morning

  Dillal woke with a violent start that knocked Matheson to the floor.

  Andreus snorted in amusement. “I told you he’d come up like an emergency jump.” She stood a half-meter away from the cot, holding onto an antiquated intravenous unit. “He’ll be up for six to ten hours, depending on the circumstances. The drug will keep him from falling asleep, but it doesn’t do a damn thing for the mental fatigue or physical exhaustion.”

  Dillal sat up, blinking, as the doctor sat down on the edge of the cot next to him and removed the cannula from the back of his hand. He shied away from her, then gave her a hard stare. The re-polished ocular made a quiet whirring sound as the iris and filters shifted without a hitch.

  “Dr. Andreus,” he said.

  “The system’s working and you recognize me—that’s good. Do you know who that is?” she asked, jerking her head at Matheson, who’d picked himself up and edged to the foot of the cot.

  Dillal scowled at her, the left side of his face responding very little, but better than it had before. He didn’t turn his head. “Eric Matheson, who else should it be?”

  She ignored his pique and applied a patch of spray skin to the tiny IV wound. “How do you know him?”

  “He’s my acting assistant.” He glanced around the room, his lopsided expression clearing past relief to calm. “My office . . . morning . . .” His attention snapped to Matheson. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Six hours—she wouldn’t let me talk her into less. But I think we’re still—”

  “Don’t think, Matheson.”

  The younger man sighed, but he smiled as he did. “Right. Don’t think—know. So here’s what I know. It’s 0834. The needlecast and negotiations went fine. I’m now back on the family hook—but it’s done. Then I walked Or—our friend down to the port and sent him on his way personally.”

  “And you’re certain he stayed aboard all the way to the jumpway?”

  Matheson hesitated a moment before replying. “I didn’t go up to the jumpway in person, but I tagged him, so unless he cut off a piece of his foot and stuck it in someone’s baggage, I’m pretty sure he jumped through about forty minutes ago. And he had thousands of reasons to want to.”

  Andreus stood up and started collecting her effects. “As fascinating as police work isn’t, I’m done here, so you two can stop watching every word you say. I’m not going to grass on you, because I’d have to turf myself in the process.”

  She caught Matheson’s attention with a tilt of her head and a commanding glare. “Keep an eye him. As the drug decays he may get a little psychotic—or in his case I should say more psychotic. Risk evaluation won�
��t mean a hell of a lot and especially not if he’s putting someone else at risk. He’s not going to be too worried about the impact of his actions on others after the first five or six hours and at eight, if he’s still awake, he’s going to be actively dangerous to anyone in his way. Luckily, the action of the drug should be overwhelmed by cumulative exhaustion and the residual effect of the antibiotics and boosters I gave him earlier, so he’ll need to go to sleep again, and might just pass out. Timing’s approximate, so call me in as soon as you’re done or the clock runs out on this risky little cocktail. We don’t want any other doctor taking a look at him before I do.”

  Dillal raised an eyebrow—the slow left-side response made it look sinister. “Doctor, you may consider me to be out of my mind, but I can still hear.”

  Andreus looked down at him. “You’re not out of your mind yet, but you will be. I’ve given you a substance we use for treating narcolepsy. It’s not a stimulant—because that would screw you up more than I can describe. This stuff just blocks the sleep center for a while so you can’t fall asleep. But it comes with all the complications of insomnia. You had six hours of sleep, but the drugs I gave you to heal the damage burned up most of that advantage, so you’re not very far ahead in terms of rest and mental state than you were when I knocked you out. But you’re not currently dying. Try to keep it that way.”

  She started to walk out and turned back. “And eat. You’ve pushed yourself so close to the edge you have no reserves.” She looked at Matheson. “Food is as necessary as sleep and water, so get some—both of you.”

  Dillal watched her go without a word while Matheson glanced at the floor.

  Once the office door had latched behind her, Dillal turned to Matheson. “What did Orris tell you about Tchintaka’s whereabouts?”

  “He gave me the location and now I know why we weren’t able to find him.”

  “He wasn’t in the Tomb.”

  Matheson appeared bemused. “How long have you known that?”

  “It’s a leap of faith. If no one found him in the Dreihleat or the tunnels, it’s because he wasn’t there to be found. So where is he and how has he managed to avoid being taken up for being outside the ghetto?”

  “He’s on the quay. GISA assumed all Dreihleen outside the Dreihleat during the riot would either head for home or run like hell so they watched the streets and the port, but they didn’t count on any Dreihle outside the ghetto staying put—especially not on Cove Quay. I don’t know for certain but I guess—may I?”

  “So long as you’re inferring from fact, yes.”

  “I’m working backward from what Orris told me. Tchintaka went to the quay because he had a service uniform from one of his followers. It was most likely hidden somewhere near Aya’s café and he slipped out before the gates were shut, while I was busy running for my life. He thought we were too close and the riot was just a diversion to let him escape—overplayed as usual. I haven’t looked at the security feed footage—I’m afraid I fell asleep for a while—but I could probably pick him out now that I know what to look for. According to Orris, Tchintaka’s been using this service uniform dodge for a while. He gave me three locations, but I eliminated one on the way back from the port.”

  Dillal stood up, looking around and brushing himself off as if he’d slept under something dusty. “How? What did you eliminate?”

  “Corporation House.”

  Dillal gave a sharp laugh. “Bold of him.”

  “He has—or had—a page’s ID that allowed him access to the general messenger pool. Not much use in this instance, since the ID of all Dreihleen and Ohba working at Corp House has been invalidated, but that blue-and-gold jacket usually makes its wearer into a piece of the landscape on the Quay. If he kept a change of clothes at one of the other locations, he’d be able to come and go without any notice.”

  “Go on.” The inspector seemed satisfied that he’d dusted himself off adequately and assumed his usual still and watchful stance.

  “The other locations Orris gave are Casino Archon and the White Hotel—which currently has two new towers under construction above the original floors, though the crew is on hiatus until the end of Spring Moon. I’m thinking the hotel’s more likely, but also a bigger problem for us since it’s booked full and he can cause a lot of grief by choosing to make this a stand-off.”

  “Then we’ll have to make sure it doesn’t become one.”

  “So you assume—”

  “That he’ll choose the hotel. Because, as you point out, it can cause the most grief, and that is Tchintaka’s fondest wish.”

  Dillal started out of the room, but Matheson caught up to him in two strides and grabbed his arm to turn the inspector back. He got a furious glare for his trouble.

  He let go of the inspector’s arm. “Dillal—Sir. There’s something else.”

  Dillal tilted his head a little, waiting.

  “I had to go to the director.”

  “So Pritchet knows.”

  “I didn’t have a choice—we were going to anyway and I couldn’t wait for you to wake up. I had to take him some cause—those troops we saw on Agria are moving and some are already here. The best I could do was lock them in place for a few hours by telling Pritchet the tale so far as we agreed on it. So he knows who we’re going after and he’s holding the intervention troops back as best he can. But he had to take it to Corporation House and the fact that Tchintaka had a pass to the building caused an uproar. I tried to keep that information out of their hands, but if I can run a verification search, so can any staffer who works for a board member. And someone did. The news broke an hour ago—”

  “And you let me sleep!”

  Matheson twitched. “I didn’t. I got Andreus here as quickly as I could, but getting you to wake up was a fight. Corporation house has agreed to let you run this until your original deadline, but that’s only twelve hours away. GISA is no longer in charge of security so those troops are going to be wherever we go once we walk out that door. I know as well as you that Tchintaka is more interested in his revolution than in his life or anyone else’s, and if he sees those troops on our tail he won’t come quietly. We need to nab him before he knows we’re in the building. If Andreus is right about the drugs, you have about four hours to nail Tchintaka, or it’s your coffin that’ll be nailed shut.”

  “Andreus told you.”

  “About the deintegration. Yes. And some other things we don’t have time to discuss. We can’t be wrong about the hotel.”

  “We aren’t, but we need a schematic of the building.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “We want—we need Tchintaka to air his brilliance as he sees it. So . . . we’ll give him the opportunity.”

  New clouds had rolled in, but no new rain. Steam rose off the ground from the morning downpour, heated by the sun in hiding. Cove Quay was sparkling white, even under the stormy sky, and the tourists were largely oblivious to the presence of troops, since most were still in bed. The few who were up and about seemed irritated by the intrusion, but not enough to raise a fuss. Casino Archon stood in the sharp curve of the quay where a long jetty thrust out into the water for the moorage of pleasure boats—which happened to screen the lower edge of the cove from sight with their masts and white hulls. The White Hotel sprawled a half kilometer farther up the quay, leaning out over the vibrant, blue water as if admiring its own reflection as its new towers reached into the sky with skeletal fingers. From the top of the casino the view toward the hotel was partially obstructed by the next few buildings, but only at the near end. The curving frontage turned the view inward, always back to the quay and the unstained white expanse of luxury—never out toward the working waterfronts on either side.

  Dillal and Matheson entered the casino through a service entrance on the landward side. It meant walking down a ramp that vanished below street level. The world below the street was a lofty warren built of printed concrete or angelstone with extruded trusses to bear the weight of th
e cantilevered buildings that hung over the water. The resulting tunnel was encircled by thick metallic ribs at uneven intervals.

  Matheson looked around. “So, this is where the service personnel disappear to.”

  “Some of them, yes,” Dillal replied. “The service corridors here run from end to end of the quay and out into the city on each side. Storage, maintenance, workshops . . . they’re stacked in the next level down. The crater floor is flooded to a depth of twelve meters at high tide and this would all be awash if not for the seawall.”

  “Why aren’t the troops covering this area? It’s a natural escape path—”

  “It’s a death trap.” Dillal pointed to the wide metal flanges in the floors and walls. “Fast sealing air tight doors at the end of each construction block—in case of flooding, in theory, but equally useful for trapping anyone fleeing through the area. All accesses seal so water—or air—can be evacuated within minutes. The flow can also be reversed. And all monitored through GISA’s system.”

  Matheson’s expression darkened and he said no more as he followed Dillal down the tunnel, looking for monitors and signs of Tchintaka’s passage.

  The service tunnel was ventilated with cool dry air to keep mold and mildew out of the machinery and supplies. Even at a mild jog, they reached the base of the hotel service stairs without breaking a sweat. Dillal used his access to pass them through the security door and they made their way up into the White Hotel through the service corridors and lifts to the locations they’d thought most likely for Tchintaka to choose for his hideaway.

  Matheson checked his mobile. “This stair is a bit of a dead zone. Signal’s weak except near the doors.”

  “I noticed,” Dillal replied. “We’ll check the service apartment on the next floor. If he’s not there, he must be in the construction floors.”

  Every floor had a small suite where personal service workers were housed. It reduced the cost slightly for the wealthy guests who brought their own cook or secretary and put to use awkward corners created by the architecture. There was one currently vacant and it seemed a likely place for Tchintaka to utilize, but it proved to be as empty as it was supposed to be.