Rules of Conflict Page 4

  Joaquin tossed his recording board into his briefbag. “Evan, just because you have a hard-on for Veda doesn’t mean I have to cease doing my job.”

  “Pithy, Quino.”

  “Let that be a lesson to you.”

  The SIB hallways mirrored the stripped-down aesthetic of the conference room. Evan fingered the austere beige sacking that cloaked the walls near the lift bank. Roshi probably picked out the wall coverings himself. Hiroshi Mako took pride in his functional, unadorned Service. He had battled to the dizzy heights of the Admiral-Generalcy with one goal in mind, to salvage his beloved Blue and Grey. They were a true military now, he claimed, instead of the Family police force they had been in the Bad Old Days.

  Those Bad Old Days were pretty good to me. But then, Evan could admit his bias. Anything that improved a Family’s place in the Commonwealth was right and commendable, and anyone in the NUVA-SCAN Family network who claimed to feel differently lied. Now, however, in these days of restless colonies clamoring for autonomy and argumentative idomeni demanding trade agreements that encroached more and more deeply into human territories, wise Family members kept such sentiments to themselves.

  Family first. Even though, as far as the van Reuters were concerned, the Family had for years consisted of him and him alone.

  “Rather fine qualifying match on the ’Vee this evening,” Joaquin said. “Live from Geneva—Gruppo Helvetica vs. some poor colonial appetizer.”

  A scene flashed in Evan’s mind. Tanned, coltish legs pumping—black ponytail flipping. Daddy, watch me—! His eyes stung. “Soccer’s not my game, Quino.”

  “It is the Commonwealth Cup.” Joaquin grew thoughtful. “Although God knows what the upsurge of colonial pride will wash out of the drains if one of those teams actually wins it this time.”

  “Serena used to play on her school team.” Evan blinked until his vision cleared. “I haven’t watched a match since she died.”

  Joaquin shifted his feet. “Evan, I—”

  “Just drop it.” He braced for a clumsy apology. When none proved forthcoming, he turned to find his attorney regarding him with impatient admiration.

  “If the people of Chicago could see you at this moment, they’d storm Sheridan to free you.” The man exhaled with a rumble. “You’re my client. My responsibility is to you. Everyone’s heard the rumors. Let me place one official story about the children—”

  “No.”

  “Damn it, it’s the prime example of how your late father manipulated everyone around him! He subjects Martin to an experimental personality augmentation at the age of three—eleven years later, Martin dies during the boating mishap he’d arranged to kill Serena and Jerrold.”

  “Thank you for mentioning it. I needed that.”

  “The deaths of your children destroyed any chance you and Lyssa had to rebuild your marriage.”

  “Our marriage was a joke from the start.” Evan thumped the lift bank keypad with his fist. “We’ve discussed this before. I haven’t changed my mind. Use anything but the children. Let them rest in peace. End of subject.” The lift door finally opened. He limped in, left knee clicking with every stride.

  “Since you brought up colonial pride, Quino, here’s a question. I heard on CapNet that Acadia and the other Channel Worlds have lodged some kind of protest concerning the arrests of political prisoners despite insufficient evidence. One of those prisoners wouldn’t happen to be Jani, would it?”

  “As soon as Kilian is found, the SIB is required to notify us. If Veda lets us down in that regard, not even your esteem will prevent me from tearing her apart.” Joaquin boarded the lift and punched the pad for the ground floor. “Apropos of nothing, how is the Crème Caramel doing?” The mention of roses erased the discomfort from his bony face.

  “Fine, Quino.” Evan bit his lip to keep from grimacing. At his flower-loving attorney’s insistence, he had planted a small rose garden in the rear yard of his prison-home and tended the blooms faithfully every day. Joaquin claimed that the image of a disgraced ex-Cabinet Minister tending his garden as he once tended his constituents would excite sympathy from the public, but Evan nursed the conviction that the man just needed a place to stash the overflow from his own extensive cultivations.

  “I hope you didn’t fertilize it yet. You need to wait at least another two weeks.”

  “Yes, Quino.”

  “Then you must use the special mix I gave you for the Jewellers’ Loop hybrids, not the standard mix I gave you for the others.”

  “Yes, Quino.”

  “And you must wait until late afternoon. Spread no more than two hundred grams around the base of the plant, then follow with a liberal watering.”

  God help me. “Yes, Quino.”

  By the time the lift reached the ground floor, Evan had mentally dismembered the Crème Caramel with an ax and was about to start on his attorney. The door swept aside; he stepped out of the car and almost collided with a man dressed in summerweights. Short. Stocky. A round, tawny face cut by a perpetual scowl. Black eyes hidden by sloping cheekbones and drooping lids.

  “Hello, Roshi.” Evan stepped around the supreme commander of the Commonwealth Service, then dodged sideways to avoid his aide. “Inspecting your fences, are you?”

  “Evan.” Admiral-General Hiroshi Mako pulled up short, then looked in apparent disinterest from him to Joaquin. Only if you looked hard could you detect the mild working of his broad jaw that betrayed his unease. But then, what could he say? How are you? What brings you here? “Hellish weather we’re having.” When in doubt, there was always the weather.

  Evan racked his brain for a suitably neutral reply. “Plays hell with the roses.”

  Mako’s eyes clouded as he watched the lift doors close. He stepped aside as his aide grabbed for the closing door and thumped the keypad—unfortunately for him, the man’s efforts proved wasted. “You raise roses? Ah yes, I saw something about that on one of the news shows.” Mako’s guttural bass kicked upward a tone in grudging interest. “Tamiko raises them, too.” His voice warmed as he spoke his wife’s name. “The J-Loop varieties give her the hardest time, judging from her muttering. She refuses to accept mere climate as an excuse for failure to thrive.”

  “She should contact Dr. Banquo at the Botanical Gardens—the woman was born on Phillipa and knows everything about Jewellers’ Loop hybrids.” Joaquin leaned forward in shared conspiracy. “The secret is in the fertilizer.”

  That’s government in a nutshell. Evan caught the aide eyeing him and tugged at his somber, dark blue jacket. Do I look that bad? He had lost weight, and he hadn’t been sleeping well, but what else would you expect—?

  “Damn.”

  He turned to find Joaquin standing with his hand pressed to his stomach and a look of stricken concentration on his face. “Watch my bag.” He dropped his briefbag at Evan’s feet and hurried toward a discreetly marked door near the lobby entry.

  Evan answered Mako’s questioning look. “New cook. She tends toward a heavy hand with some of the more pharmaceutically active colonial herbs.”

  Mako winced in sympathy, then turned to his aide. “See if you can find out which herbs she used, Colonel. The last thing we need at next month’s off-site is an attack of the trots.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man pulled a small handheld from the slipcase on his belt and muttered a notation.

  Evan watched the man; whoever he was, he didn’t look like the typical Base Command poop boy. Distinctive, in the close-clipped, wire-lean way that typified Roshi’s New Service. The nasty scar that grooved his face from the edge of his nose to the corner of his mouth accentuated his sharp-featured homeliness, its dull white color a marked contrast to the sunburnt red-brown of his face.

  But it was the way the man looked at Evan that drew his attention. Not the pointed monitoring of the bodyguard, but the more analytical assessment of one who searched through his mental ID file, matched, tagged, shrugged, and moved on.

  I know a hatchet man when I see one.
Evan had employed enough of his own. He snatched a glance at the man’s name tag. “Colonel Pierce.” He offered a nod, but didn’t try to shake. One too many snubs when he had held out his hand had driven that lesson home.

  “Sir.” Pierce nodded back, but kept his hands at his sides.

  “You’re lucky to be lakeside in this weather.” When in doubt . . . “At least you get some breeze.”

  Pierce made a point of not looking Evan in the face, instead concentrating on the floor indicator located above the lift doors. “Yes, sir. That we are, sir.” His voice proved nasal and harsh. It could have been the lower-class version of Evan’s own Michigan provincial, but odds were the muted remnants of a Victoria colony twang would prove the more accurate choice.

  From Pearl Way, are we? Evan felt his long-dormant curiosity stretch out a paw. It was a hell of a long trip from that far-flung network of worlds to the Admiral-General’s side. At one time or another, Pierce had proven himself extremely talented. Or extremely useful.

  The lift returned to the first floor. “Good-bye, Evan.” The relief in Mako’s voice was gallingly evident as the door opened and he and Pierce stepped in. “Enjoy your roses.”

  Evan watched the door close. Mako took care to avoid his eye. But Pierce glanced at him just as the panels meshed, his scar twisting his disgusted curl of lip into a caricature of a sneer.

  “I’m back. What’s left of me.” Joaquin drew alongside, then bent slowly to pick up his bag. His complexion was waxen, his eyes, narrowed to slits. “Let’s go.”

  Evan followed him out the door. After the coolness of the SIB, the late-afternoon heat made him gasp. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been punched in the stomach.” Joaquin gestured to his driver, parked in the nearby visitor’s oval. “I can’t decide if it was the cherryvale leaves in the salad or the folsom in the gravy.”

  “Probably a combination of both.” Evan watched his lawyer’s sedate black double-length slide to the curbside and felt the envy twinge. He’d had an entire fleet of black double-lengths at his beck and call, in that other lifetime. Triple-lengths. Sedans. One cherry red Sportster he missed particularly. He had planned to take Jani for a ride in it, as soon as the weather and her stiff-necked mien had permitted.

  The best-laid plans, all blown to hell.

  He eased into the passenger seat beside his rose-loving attorney and looked out at the bowl of poured concrete that some architect had inverted and dubbed the Service Investigative Bureau. Odd area of Sheridan for the supreme commander to be wandering, despite his reputation for digging into the daily workings of the base.

  Whatever’s going on, he needed his hatchet along to check it out. Evan remembered the feeling—he had dragged Durian Ridgeway along on so many cleanup projects, the man had earned the nickname the janitor.

  Made one wonder what service Scarface had performed to merit the confidence.

  “Did an officer named Pierce serve on either the Hilfington or the Kensington, Quino?” Evan must have done a good job keeping the curiosity out of his voice—Joaquin barely glanced up from his handheld.

  “Crew rosters are included in the documents we’ve requested from Veda, Evan. I can’t answer that question until I have them in hand.”

  Evan nodded. “It’s just that he looks familiar.” He tapped his thumb on his knee and watched Joaquin’s face in the angled reflection of the driver’s rearview mirror. “I could have seen him at the Consulate, I suppose.”

  “Those rosters we have, thanks to your father’s meticulous recordkeeping. I’ll have one of the clerks check when I get back to the office.” He looked at Evan with an air of quiet interest. “Do you recall the circumstances under which you think you saw him?”

  Evan shook his head. “No. Sorry. If anything comes to me, I’ll let you know.” With that, he dropped it. He had known Joaquin for over thirty years and had worked with him professionally for fifteen. The man sensed a possible lead; therefore, he would check. Whichever Service records he could access. Whatever other official sources he could tap. Then, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, he would assign an agent or two to work the unofficial side of the street, to research Pierce’s past from the cradle to what he had for breakfast that morning, and see where the reports overlapped.

  Or didn’t.

  And then I’ll know. It didn’t have to be big—it just had to hurt. A failed marriage. An embarrassing relative. A rumor of cheating in school. Something to fling in Pierce’s battered face the next time they met. Pierce, Pierce, I’d heard of a Pierce who—oh, I’m sorry. Are you related?

  The skimmer passed beneath the base entryway. The shadow of the Shenandoah Gate darkened the vehicle interior; the illuminated names of the Greatest War dead inscribed on the stone’s surface shone like stars. The sudden nightfall shook Evan out of his bitter daydream. Why the hell am I bothering? Did he crave a respite from his legal travails? Or did being rebuffed at by a colonial counter-jumper aggravate him that much?

  Which colonial counter-jumper am I thinking about? He rubbed his aching knee and pushed thoughts of Jani from his mind.

  Chapter 4

  “I can’t find it, Mr. Duong.”

  Sam looked up from the stack of files that he had balanced precariously on his lap. “Which is it, Tory? The Hilfington passenger roster or the Kensington master?”

  The Clerk Four shifted from foot to foot. “Both. Neither.” Her eyes filled. “Mr. Odergaard said that Mr. Loiaza threatened to notify the Prime Minister.”

  Sam closed the file he had been rooting through and hoisted the pile from his lap to the tabletop. “He can try,” he said as he smoothed his rumpled civilian greys. “Prime Minister Cao does not jump to the beat of lawyers who make a show of stamping their well-shod feet.”

  “But Mr. Loiaza is Mr. van Reuter’s lawyer.”

  “That’s no great honor.” Sam stood, shivering as conditioned air brushed across his sweat-damp back. He could visualize the light grey shirting darkened to charcoal, and wondered if he dared escape to the locker room for a shower and change of clothes. It wouldn’t make the hell that the day had become go any more smoothly, but at least he would feel better. Comparatively speaking. He felt a battered wreck now.

  “Mr. Odergaard says that if we can’t track down the docs in the next half hour, you have to contact Lieutenant Yance.” Tory’s eyes widened. She was seventeen years old—the Clerk Four position was her first job since graduating prep school. Judging from the mounting panic on her round, fresh face, she would be starting her second position sometime next week. “Mr. Odergaard says—”

  “As second shift Tech One, Mr. Odergaard is responsible for the live documents on his watch.” Sam folded his arms. “I am the archivist. The dead belong to me.”

  Tory’s agitation ceased, replaced by the so-still attitude Sam had encountered more and more frequently as the weeks passed. The weeks since ex-Interior Minister van Reuter and his lawyer had begun visiting Fort Sheridan. The weeks since they had begun asking for documents from the Service Investigative Bureau Archives. Documents describing murder. Mutiny. Conspiracy. Documents that could not be found.

  And everyone blames me. Little Sam—you know him. Small, wiry chap. Hair like tar. Face like a daze.

  He stepped from behind the table and beckoned for Tory to follow him back to the aisle after aisle of paper-crammed shelving that constituted the SIB stacks. Because they think I’m . . . unwell.

  “Unwell or not, K still comes after H.” He waited at the stack entry for Tory, who lagged behind. He’d gotten used to that, too. The aversion people evinced at having to work with him, talk to him. The vague feeling that people just wished he’d go away.

  We have that in common, van Reuter. The ex-minister’s hawklike visage surfaced in Sam’s memory. From the stairwell scuttlebutt he had heard, the man who had once been the V in the NUVA-SCAN technology conglomerate had become a pariah amongst his own. Isolated. Maligned. Blamed for every misstep taken by
the Families in the last twenty years.

  Sam felt a chill sense of kinship with van Reuter, in spite of the crimes the man was alleged to have committed. It’s all your fault, and no one wants to hear you explain. He held the door open for Tory, and maintained his air of polite reserve as she dodged past him into the stacks. A great thing, to have so much in common with such a great man.

  “I apologize for taking you away from your work, Sam. I understand you’ve been very busy.”

  “That’s all right, Doctor.”

  “Look into the light.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” Sam lifted his head and stared into the red glow, positioned a scant meter in front of his face. At first, it shone with a single, steady beat. Then it fluttered, skipped, skittered across its source surface like a bug in a bottle.

  Another light joined it. Another. Finally, an entire series of red pulses stuttered and popped, filling his range of vision like a silent, monochrome-fireworks display.

  After a few minutes, the reversal began. Fewer lights. Fewer. Mad perturbations slowed and steadied. A handful of lights. Five. Three. Two. One.

  Stopped.

  Sam blinked, worked his neck, yawned. Sitting in the dark had reminded him how tired he was. The Hilfington rosters had finally turned up. Tory had found them shoved in between two accounts-receivable folders, under the letter P. One crisis averted. But the Kensington rosters remained missing, as were so many other things. The day’s single success did little to lessen the pressure Sam felt from Odergaard, who felt it from Yance, who felt it from the Head of Archives, who in turn had to deal with Veda’s foot on her neck.

  Normally, he despised his visits to Sheridan’s Main Hospital. But today, the relief he felt at being able to leave the SIB basement made him want to cry.

  The room lights blazed to life. Sam shut his eyes against the assault.

  “Did that bother you at all?”

  He opened one watering eye to see Dr. Pimentel standing near the examining-room entry, his hand still resting on the lighting pad. He shrugged. “I found it interesting, at first. Then it became irritating.”