Angel of Destruction (32 page)

Garol was with him in an instant, however, checking the pocket first before he dared check for breathing or a pulse. There would be a suicide device, and he’d seen evidence of an implosion grenade at Tyrell. Dying now would leave him with a definite sense of anticlimax. Garol expected to enjoy the denouement; for that he had to manage to live through to it.

The bomb was a tidy one, flat and innocuous in appearance. Garol sat back on his heels to examine it, turning it over and over in his hands and thanking the blind gods of fortunate happenstance for Dolgorukij arrogance. The suicide device had not been primed, or it would have been much easier to detonate. The raid leader — and Garol believed it probably
was
Dalmoss — had not been truly prepared to die, and Garol knew he might well owe his life, and those of everybody else nearby, to that one lapse in discipline.

Dalmoss stirred on the ground, coughing painfully as he regained consciousness. Shires came up to retrieve his spheres, grinning in enjoyment of his catch. “Don’t move, floor manager,” Shires warned, cheerfully. “Cracked ribs. Maybe fractured arms. You’ll do yourself an injury, lie still. Hardly recognized you. New beard?”

The Dolgorukij, Jevan, had suffered himself to be bound by the dock-master herself, staring down at Dalmoss in a clear state of shock. “I don’t understand,” Jevan said. “I don’t have the first idea who these people are. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

Which people?

The false Langsariks that Shires’s people were marching out of the freighter under guard?

Or the Langsariks themselves?

“I’d like to believe you,” Garol assured him. “Don’t worry. Everything will be sorted out soon enough. All we need from you now is a little patience.”

Some of the warehouse crew was bringing a stretcher for Dalmoss, one with stout straps to secure an unconscious patient. Another of the warehouse crew walked behind, towing the medical cart — the emergency medical technician, clearly enough. “Dock-master. We need help securing these people for transport. Can you hold them here for a few hours, while I arrange for an armed escort?”

He didn’t want them under Langsarik guard. There were limits to the amount of temptation one could put before the best of people before they lost their sense of proportion in a rage for vengeance.

“We have a very nice transfer case for a refrigeration unit,” the dock-master pointed out, agreeably. “You may remember having seen it. Easily modified for adequate segregation of belligerent parties. It’ll be our pleasure.”

Transfer case for a refrigeration unit?

Transfer case.

“Quite so. If you’d just be so kind as to secure these people, then, dock-master, being mindful of Shires’s very useful warning in handling the raid leader. His name is Dalmoss. We hope he’ll be in adequate condition to answer several questions of extreme interest.”

He liked this dock-master; she stood for no nonsense, but she knew the value of a good joke. He had brought his Langsariks in a transfer case for a large refrigeration unit. What more poetic prison could there be?

“Oh, we’ll be much more careful with them than they were with any of our warehouse people. My word on it, Specialist Vogel.”

And he believed her.

Which was good: because he had to get to Port Charid as quickly as possible, now, to lay his evidence before First Secretary Verlaine and get that Fleet Interrogations Group turned around.

With this raid timed the way it had been, he hadn’t a moment to waste. The Fleet Interrogations Group would be coming off the vector within four hours from now. And it was four hours from Honan-gung to Port Charid.

He could try for a contact with Chilleau Judiciary from here, from his station in the pod within the dock-master’s inner room; but he needed Feraltz in hand before he published any bulletins. Try as he had, he hadn’t quite convinced himself to trust that task to Cousin Stanoczk. Religious rivalry, the honor of the Dolgorukij Combine, saving face for the Autocrat — no. It was too risky. He had to do it himself.

“Thank you, ma’am, you’re a gentlewoman and a scholar. Shires. Let’s get out of here.”

They would take the freighter back to Port Charid and park it off in orbit; Cousin Stanoczk would come aboard to ferry them down to Port Charid, as soon as they could get there.

Composing his message to the First Secretary in his mind, Garol followed the Langsariks up into the freighter for its preflight checks, happy to note a team doubling back to the opposite flank of the ship to close up the access portals in its side.

He was almost ready to relax and look forward to the confrontation with Feraltz yet to come.

###

Fisner Feraltz sat at his desk in the administration area of the warehouse construction site after the day shift had gone to their dinners, reviewing the daily work sheets and smiling to himself.

All over but the shouting.

The Fleet Interrogations Group was due within nine scant hours. The freighter — with all the riches that the Holy Mother had bestowed upon Her faithful servants — would be leaving for the Sillume vector at any moment.

The distress call had been sent more than five hours ago now.

Not from Honan-gung itself, not really; from the freighter, but through the Honan-gung dispatch, so that there was no telling any difference. The port was even then preparing what relief ships it could muster, but it would be too little and too late.

Just like the Tyrell raid.

Just like Okidan, and the raids before; the earlier — less sophisticated — raids, when they had still been learning their role. It almost made one admire Langsariks. Learning to raid had been a useful measure of the caliber of the opponent that they faced; and the absolute requirement for the ruthless extirpation of any such challenge to Combine primacy at Port Charid.

All of the progress that the work crews had made, really, it was an admirable effort. These people had organization. Self-discipline. A good work ethic. How pleasant it was to know that he was not even going to have to pay for their work. He was free and clear of a good two weeks’ wages for the entire construction effort.

Was there a way to paper that fact over and take the additional tithe for the Angel’s use?

And his.

There was a good proportion of this wealth due him, not as a reward, but so that he could show what influence and luxury a man could earn in the service of the Holy Mother. Recruitment. As he had been recruited; and yet he had needed no such appeal to venal motives to gain his allegiance, but only this, position and authority and trust.

There was someone in the outer office but Fisner paid them no mind, absorbed in happy calculation. Until Hariv knocked almost in a panic at the door, opening it — before Fisner had a chance to agree to be seen or refuse to be bothered — to reveal the very unwelcome apparition of Bench Specialist Garol Aphon Vogel and Factor Madlev behind him.

Fisner sprang to his feet. He had an escape route, there was a washroom adjoining his office with an extra door that let on to an adjacent office whose exit was at the back of the administrative area. But why should he flee?

He bowed to Factor Madlev instead and remained on his feet to show deference to his superior. Factor Madlev would encourage him to be seated, he had been badly wounded scant months ago, after all.

Factor Madlev did not invite him to sit.

“Good to see you,” Vogel said. “I was hoping we’d find you in. I’ve just come from Honan-gung, Feraltz, and it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that the things I found out there make me very interested in your answers to some questions of Bench interest.”

Behind Vogel, Madlev frowned, clearly unhappy. Factor Madlev had brought the Port Authority with him; none of the Angel’s own people. All of the Angel’s people were at Honan-gung, all except him. What did Vogel mean, he’d just come from Honan-gung? Vogel had gone to Chilleau Judiciary. Vogel was days away from Rikavie.

Unless it had been a ruse from the beginning . . .

Fisner sat down. If this was to be a confrontation, it would be on his own terms. “I can’t imagine what you mean, Bench specialist.” He could draw Vogel out, find out what Vogel knew. Then he’d know what Vogel didn’t know. That would be a start on a strategy. “I had thought you were at Chilleau Judiciary.”

It was true that Vogel hadn’t been with the First Secretary when Factor Madlev had called just hours ago, though. After Factor Madlev had received the distress call from Honan-gung. The First Secretary had done the only thing he could have done; Fisner had taken care to leave him no choice. Did Vogel know that?

What did Vogel know?

Vogel wasn’t saying. “As I have been, and expect to be in the future. These people will escort you to detention, Feraltz, to wait for the Fleet Interrogations Group arriving from Dobe. If you’d be so kind.”

Factor Madlev’s discomfort would permit him to endure in silence no longer. “But the Bench warrant was issued against Langsariks, Bench specialist,” Madlev said, as Fisner watched Vogel’s face avidly. “Not four hours gone past. When we told the First Secretary at Chilleau Judiciary about the distress call from Honan-gung.”

Fascinating
, Fisner thought.
Vogel had to be exhausted: there was no other possible explanation for the nakedness of the dismay in his face.

“Honan-gung sent no distress calls, Factor Madlev,” Vogel said, flatly. “I was there. I know.”

Vogel’s emphatic insistence seemed to put Madlev on the defensive. “Nevertheless, Specialist Vogel, Port Charid received a distress call from Honan-gung five hours ago. We were unable to get a response from Honan-gung on any frequency. We had to put it before the First Secretary.”

Fisner closed his eyes and bowed his head as his heart sang.

It was so clear, so perfect, and so beautiful.

Vogel had set a trap at Honan-gung, but Vogel hadn’t stopped the distress call — perhaps he hadn’t realized that Dalmoss’s freighter would be sending one.

Vogel had put Honan-gung on transmission silence while he returned from Honan-gung to Port Charid to make his crowning arrest, that of Fisner himself.

And even as Vogel had made his triumphant pilgrimage from Honan-gung to Port Charid, the Holy Mother had put out Her hand to turn his purpose to Her service. Factor Madlev had done what any decent honest man would do on receipt of such a distress call, he’d called for help, and Chilleau Judiciary had had no grounds to deny him — because the First Secretary was as much in the dark about Vogel’s actual whereabouts and activities as Fisner himself had been.

Vogel had come from Honan-gung in triumph, to arrest him.

But the Angel of Destruction had triumphed over all.

“Well,” Vogel said, and the word seemed all too inadequate for the worlds upon worlds of emotion that it bore. “We’ll have to contact the First Secretary immediately, then. Nothing is changed, Feraltz, you are still under arrest, and there will be a reckoning in time. Factor Madlev. If you’ll have your people take charge of the prisoner, I’d like to get back to Port Charid to contact the Bench at Chilleau Judiciary.”

Vogel was wrong about that, too. There would be no reckoning. After all the Holy Mother had shown him of her power, how could he doubt for so much as a moment that she would bring him out of threatened captivity to honor and glory?

He would be looking forward to witnessing Vogel’s discomfiture, on that day. It was uncharitable of him, yes, perhaps.

He owed Vogel no charity.

Vogel had done his utmost to thwart the sacred Will of the Holy Mother. Vogel deserved to suffer humiliation in return for his misguided meddling, if not worse.

“It’s all right, Factor Madlev,” Fisner declared firmly, as though Factor Madlev had hesitated to do as Vogel directed. Factor Madlev had not perhaps moved very quickly to put Fisner under arrest, but he seemed to cherish no reservations whatever beyond the reflection on his own pride to have his foreman accused, and looked a little puzzled, as Fisner continued.

“I have nothing to hide. Take me into custody, I’ll be fully exonerated of whatever it is the Bench specialist means to accuse me – ” which Vogel had neglected to divulge, which was a disappointment, he could have started to work on his story — “whatever that is. Shall we go? Guards?”

He would be out of custody again before daybreak. Perhaps before supper.

Vogel would realize that he was powerless against a far more formidable opponent than he could possibly imagine; and Fisner would go free, to watch the painful and appropriate conclusion to Vogel’s misguided Langsarik experiment with amnesty at Port Charid.

Chapter Twelve

Shutting the door behind him, Garol Vogel turned to pace in Factor Madlev’s now-empty office, where the secured-communications portal was kept. He didn’t want any witnesses. He had no confidence in his own discretion at this point, and he was not willing to berate the First Secretary in front of any local authorities that might lose respect for the Bench because of it.

Keying the transmit, Garol sat down at Factor Madlev’s desk and engaged the privacy nets in the walls, mechanically, not really thinking about it. This was a disaster. He had worked so hard to prevent it. What was he going to do?

“Bench specialist Garol Vogel. For First Secretary Verlaine, priority transmit, urgency immediate.”

He couldn’t sit still.

He lunged to his feet from the chair in a convulsive movement, snatching his worn campaign hat off his head and crumpling it in his hands, stretching it and twisting it in a fury of agonized self-reproachful emotion before he jammed it back down at the back of his head, as though it were a personal enemy whose ultimate despite was to be worn on the head of a Bench specialist — all the while pacing, quartering the room in precise measure left to right, front to back, on the diagonal.

In the middle of the second or third such transit his signal cleared; Garol heard the concerned voice of the First Secretary. “Specialist Vogel. What news?”

What news. What news? How dare he ask what news? Garol couldn’t stop moving. He would explode. He needed the physical stress of sustained if low-impact exertion to hone the wild edge off of his despair and free his mind for calculating evaluation. He was a Bench intelligence specialist. Calculating evaluation was what he was all about.

“I’ve just come from the Honan-gung Yards in the Shawl of Rikavie, where I and a properly deputized party of Langsarik commandos successfully interrupted a warehouse-invasion raid.”

Striding without ceasing from wall to wall, from corner to comer, the placing of his feet somehow seemed to help him place his words with concise care.

“Returning to Port Charid under communications silence, I have just placed the ringleader under arrest. I can demonstrate with complete confidence that a group of Dolgorukij from the Combine Yards is responsible for staging the so-called Langsarik raids, including the torture and murder of warehouse crew.”

Verlaine was listening, hearing him out. Maybe Verlaine was beginning to have a bad feeling about where Garol was going. Garol hoped so.

“It was never Langsariks, First Secretary, not since the real trouble began. Factor Madlev tells me that the Third Fleet Interrogations Group has received its charter activation orders. They’ll be here inside of eight hours.”

Then Verlaine spoke, since Garol’s statement was as good as an accusation after all. “We were unable to make contact with you, and Ivers could share little by way of evidence, Specialist Vogel. I have been doing my best to win time for you to work, but even had I been aware of your plans — which I was not — ”

It was mild enough, as an implicit criticism. It was also fair. Perhaps he could have approached this mission differently. Perhaps he could have laid it all out for the First Secretary, without risking compromise. But he’d had his reasons. He didn’t know how sophisticated the abilities of his opponent might be. He still didn’t know with certainty whether this secure line was actually secure.

“ — I could no longer deny the right of the Port Authority to demand action and see sanctions levied. There was a distress call, Vogel, under the very nose of the Fleet Interrogations Group another raid. What would you have had me do?”

Anything but what he had done. Verlaine was not denying it. He had activated the mission of the Third Fleet Interrogations Group, and now it was functionally autonomous from the Bench until such time as it decided to declare its mission completed. Fleet was jealous of its Bench prerogatives. Politics had twisted the knife in the heart of the Langsarik settlement the final crucial fractions of a measure between a grave wound and a mortal one.

“The Langsariks are innocent.” It was all Garol could think of to say. “I’ve had every cooperation from them. They’ve honored the terms of the amnesty, First Secretary. To see them destroyed by a Fleet Interrogations Group despite their best efforts to uphold the rule of Law is bitterly offensive.”

“What difference does it make?”

Verlaine asked it with meditative gravity that weighted the flippant phrase, so that it came out a genuine request for a reply. “I’m not sure we’re left with any other possible outcome, Bench specialist. The settlement has been too badly compromised. You may well have identified the true culprits, but can the Langsariks be said to have any real hope of a life at Port Charid yet before them?”

Three-eighths of the way from one corner of Factor Madlev’s office to the other, Garol stopped and bowed his head. A genuine question deserved a genuine answer. It took him a moment to get one out, however.

“That’s a true statement. As far as it goes.”

The criminals, the Dolgorukij terrorists, this supposed “Angel of Destruction” had done too good a job of pretending to be Langsariks. Port Charid had learned over a period of months to blame the Langsariks, and not for mere piracy and theft but for murder and atrocity as well. He had failed in his mission. He could not salvage the amnesty agreement.

Nor could he accept that as a reason to abandon innocent people to a Fleet Interrogations Group. The Second Judge would be amply vindicated by the Fleet Interrogations Group’s findings, that was almost certain — given the nature of its Brief.

And yet — if Fleet really wanted to play politics –

”But it doesn’t mean we can sell the Langsariks out to the Fleet. And I see a potential problem.”

There was no hope of simply canceling the activation order. It was one of the basic rules that governed the uneasy relationship between the Fleet and the Bench: the Fleet was subordinate to the civil authority, but once chartered was free to ignore the civil authority until the mission laid on it by the civil authority had been accomplished. And it was Fleet that decided when that was.

“I’m listening,” the First Secretary said. But Garol thought that Verlaine was thinking, too.

“We can’t afford another scandal along the lines of the recent unpleasantness at Port Rudistal.” Where the Domitt Prison had stood. “And once Fleet realizes, as it must, that there is no true Brief at Port Charid — it could easily be used against Chilleau Judiciary, First Secretary.”

Torture enough Langsariks to assure themselves that the confessions were all just the pain talking, something even the average Inquisitor could discern. Then torture another fifty or sixty more just for the sake of the argument.

Run a series of inquiries on drug-assist alone, and end up with proof of innocence.

Go public with the fact that an innocent and unarmed population had been foully betrayed by the Bench officers that had promised to protect them. It could get ugly.

It could even force the Second Judge into retirement — especially if Fleet chanced to discover that Garol had had the real criminals in custody before the Fleet Interrogations Group had even arrived at Port Charid.

Or the Fleet Interrogations Group might just do the job it had been sent to do and issue no challenge to the Second Judge’s public image.

Was it worth the risk that Fleet would use its Brief to the discredit of the Second Judge?

Now that Verlaine knew that Garol had the truth, and that the Langsariks weren’t to blame —

“I am at a loss to understand what you think the alternative might be.” Garol thought he heard frustration there, in the First Secretary’s voice. He hadn’t been entirely fair to Verlaine, maybe. But Garol had no particular reason to trust anybody, First Secretaries emphatically included. “If you could keep the two of them apart, your Langsariks and the Fleet Interrogations Group. If you could wave the scepter of wonder, and transport the settlement intact to cloud-cuckoo land through lands of mist and magic. I might be able to work a nullification of Bench instruction, in a month or so. Maybe. If.”

An impossible task.

But the First Secretary had suggested it.

With all other situational elements taken into consideration, Garol knew exactly what he had to do.

It went against nearly everything he had fought for during most of his adult life. But it was unquestionably the lesser of two evils.

“Yes. If the Langsarik settlement simply disappeared, there would in that case be no risk of negative public reaction consequent to a misplaced accusation of crimes against the Judicial order. I understand, First Secretary. I will do my utmost to protect the honor of the Second Judge and Chilleau Judiciary, in the service of the rule of Law. Vogel away, here.”

He had only one escape route open to him now; and no time to lose if he was to hope to make it free and clear.

###

“Aunt Walton. Aunt Walton, please, wake up, something is wrong.”

Walton Agenis struggled into consciousness, unable to parse Modice’s frantic pleas into coherence but knowing by tone of voice that it was serious.

“Modice. I’m awake. You can stop shaking me now.”

She was stiff and sore from sleeping in the chair in the front room; how did Vogel manage? She couldn’t sleep at all in her bed, though, too unwilling to be caught at so much of a disadvantage when the soldiers came for her.

If she was going to die, she would do so with as much dignity as she could manage, for as long as the torturers of the Fleet Interrogations Group would permit.

“Unusual changes in pattern, Aunt Walton. There are transport trucks out there, and more coming, you can hear them from the roof.” Where Modice had made an observation station for herself, in the unfinished attic space up beneath the eaves. “Something’s coming.”

And it didn’t sound friendly.

“Do we have something to eat?” Walton asked, gathering her strength to stand up. “High-fat, we may need it. I’m going to go wash my face.”

They’d be coming to the door soon enough.

She couldn’t be looking very formidable, with her face dead pale and her hair in wild disarray, her clothing wrinkled from having been slept in. She was the Flag Captain, the representative of the Langsarik fleet before the world. She wanted to maintain appearances.

Modice brought breakfast as Walton tidied her person, combing her hair between bites of fried fat-meat and toast dripping with butter. There was a small ventilation window in the washroom; Walton could hear the roar of the trucks that Modice was worried about.

She could hear it when the noise of the engines stopped.

This was it, then.

She went to the door and stood behind it, waiting for the knock.

It was a knock that seemed somehow familiar, when it came. Walton waited for a suitable interval to pass to make it clear that her response was a considered action, not mere reaction to the demand for her attention — and nodded at Modice to open the door.

It was Garol Vogel, standing there.

“Ma’am,” Vogel said, touching his fingertips to the brim of his dilapidated old campaign cap in some peculiar form of a salute. “I’m bringing an evacuation order. Langsariks to be removed from settlement at Port Charid immediately, by express direction from Chilleau Judiciary. If I could ask you to step outside.”

He stepped back.

Walton could only stare.

There was her nephew, Hilton, behind Vogel; so they were back from Honan-gung — but if they were back from Honan-gung, why were the Langsariks evacuating?

Had they failed to acquire the evidence that they had hoped for?

Or was it even more simple than that?

Walton followed Vogel out of the house. There were transports lining the roadway into the settlement, dozens of transports, and at least some of the drivers were Langsariks by their body language. She didn’t recognize anybody at the distance, her eyes were still half-asleep; but she knew her people. Those were Langsariks.

Factor Madlev stood several paces removed, with an armed escort; the people who had secured the perimeter around her house were formed up in a detachment to one side. It was not an impressive one, either, but these were not professional soldiers.

Once she was well clear of the doorway, Vogel stopped and stood with his back to her, assuming an approximation of a position of command attention that was too precise to result from imperfect learning — it was the gradual relaxation over time, rather, of a once-perfect discipline. Not for the first time Walton wondered about Vogel’s past: but there was her own future to worry about, and she could not spare Vogel the energy.

“Factor Madlev,” Vogel said, pitching his voice to carry to as many of the people who were there as possible, “as I have mentioned briefly to you on our way here, I have received instruction from First Secretary Verlaine at Chilleau Judiciary on behalf of the Second Judge. The amnesty agreement between the Langsariks and the Bench has been declared compromised, and I am to ensure that the Langsarik population at Port Charid vacates the settlement as quickly as possible. The Bench will pay commercial rates for every freighter and other appropriate transport that can be made available for this purpose.”

She could hardly believe what she was hearing.

Nor did she seem to be alone.

“Specialist Vogel.” Factor Madlev’s reply was in a cautious tone of voice that only carried as far as Walton’s doorstep. “Wouldn’t it be just as efficient to leave these people here and let the Fleet Interrogations Group take over?”

Vogel shook his head. “I can’t argue with you on the point, Factor Madlev. My instructions were to remove the Langsarik settlement from Port Charid as a failed enterprise. It is too much to expect the decent citizens of this port to tolerate the presence of persons suspected of crimes both mercantile and murderous for a moment longer. Do I have your support, Factor Madlev?”

Factor Madlev didn’t really care. Walton could see it in the shrug of his shoulders, hear it in the tone of his voice.

“Of course we will fully support any Bench initiative, Specialist Vogel.”