Perfiditas (16 page)

‘Thirdly, he has corrupted youth and embezzled over two hundred naïve supporters. And finally,’ I heard my voice hardening, ‘he and his partners in the conspiracy have blackmailed, subverted and imprisoned members of the security forces responsible for the imperatrix’s and the state’s safety. All these facts are supported by documentary, image and witness evidence, now in the hands of loyal members of the security forces.’

My voice became bleak. ‘You may, therefore, wish to reconsider your support of his cause.’

The room erupted. People jumped over the public barrier, hurling abuse at the senators, some intent on attacking them physically. Others watched, mouths open. The Senate orderlies struggled to hold them back.

I stood there and enjoyed the ensuing pandemonium for a few moments before Hermina dragged me out, two drones guarding my back. I had seen Justus’s troops grab Caeco amid the flurry of fleeing senators. I laughed all the way back to Apollo’s house.

XXI

I called Daniel to report what had happened at the Senate.

‘Hades! But good result. How did you make that little cow, Pulcheria, do that?’

‘Don’t try and outthink yourself. Just accept that I have my ways,’ I answered him smugly.

He snorted, but didn’t say anything.

I broke the silence. ‘How is he?’

‘Getting on well. He’s stopped using the stick now and only limping a bit. I think eating, drinking and sleeping are all he needs. Those bastards really worked him over.’ His voice was grim. ‘He hasn’t said much, but I saw him in the pool this morning with Darius and he’s covered.’

Well, I’d seen that during Balius’s checks.

‘He’s strong,’ Daniel said. ‘Just give him a week.’

‘We don’t have a week. We have to move now. He’ll have to sit this one out.’

He grunted.

‘At the expense of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, can you be extra alert for some kind of retaliatory or asymmetric strike against the family?’

He made a rude but funny comment about over-protective nannies.

My last words to him were: ‘Phase Three: execute.’

Now we had to move on Petronax himself, and fast. He was a tricky bastard. It was the one part of the operation I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure about, but I kept that opinion to myself. I made the call to Lucius: ‘Phase Four: execute.’

The PGSF headquarters had a bland exterior; the front pedestrian entrance looked like any government office with a small public reception area. Most PGSF guards used the side service door next to the tall vehicle gates. You had to pass through a short tunnel which opened onto a courtyard parade ground. Both vehicle and pedestrian access was controlled by a bioscan, voice and video system so, unless you ripped out an authorised person’s eyes, cut off their hand for the fingers and could simulate their voice, you stayed out. If the system registered any kind of anomaly, shutters crashed down either end of the tunnel trapping the offending vehicles and releasing paralysing gas. When you recovered consciousness, you would wake in the cells with a thumping head, if you hadn’t been shot by an annoyed security detail. Flavius and I were barred out the system with a shoot-on-sight alert which could only be rescinded by the legate.

Now kitted out in PGSF fatigues, with standard-issue side arms, we were too wound up to talk as our vehicles approached the gated entrance. We stopped in front of the tall gates. I glanced at my watch. I counted down the seconds in my head.

‘Come on, Lucius,’ I muttered. Ten seconds stretched like an eternity. The sweat ran down between my breasts and my throat dried to bone. Miraculously, the gate swung open.

I couldn’t speak as we drove in, but remembered to breathe. Flavius parked our vehicle, the other two juddered to a halt either side. We peeled out and grouped into four squads of twelve within ten seconds. Counting slowly to fifteen, we crossed to the building entrance and the door slid open. He would have kicked himself if he’d known, but Petronax helped us by having his armed supporters stationed inside the building. The surround sensors were switched off and didn’t react to our weapons.

We crept along the wood floors. Justus and Flavius broke off, Flavius leading his group downstairs, Justus his upstairs. I nodded at Philippus to go further down the corridor to the back rooms and annexes. I gave them two minutes.

‘In position?’ I whispered through my mouth mic.

Three affirmatives.

‘On my mark. One…two…three…mark.’

The surprise was total. Petronax supporters, heavily armed, stationed in every room to control the building and people, were quickly neutralised. I marched to the command centre, ignoring stares from stunned PGSF. Just as they started to react, my bodyguards trained their weapons on them, discouraging further reaction.

At the legate’s office, I grabbed the handle, burst in with my two bodyguards and stuck my assault rifle in Superbus’s face. His jowls wobbled almost comically as I snarled, ‘On the floor, you bastard! Now!’

His face contorted with hatred. His eyes darted all over, desperate to find some way out. I readied my weapon. I longed for him to make the tiniest sign of resistance. Even if he only moved his fingertip to push an alarm device.

‘I said NOW!’

To my intense disappointment, he complied.

As he lay face down being handcuffed, he rasped, ‘You bitch! You’re dead!’

I couldn’t be bothered to answer him.

As I finished detailing somebody to guard him, I kicked him with my steel-capped boot. Full strength.

The click of a weapon being cocked. I turned and found Drusus, of all people, standing in the doorway, pointing a pistol at me, his eyes intense. His hands trembled. Poor kid. Although fully trained, he was in no way an operations soldier. He was much happier driving his keyboard. The last time he’d used a live weapon was on the fitness-for-task field exercise several months ago. Behind him, I saw one of my bodyguards cock his weapon in turn, ready to take Drusus out. I shook my head.

‘Hello, sweetheart,’ I said in a nasal voice and smirked at him. ‘You’re not really going to shoot me with that great big gun, are you?’

Drusus stared at me, hesitated and so lost his advantage. A hand came over his shoulder, grabbed the weapon and spun him to one side.

‘Of course he’s not, although some might not blame him.’

‘Adjutant to the rescue,’ I murmured.

‘It’s okay, Drusus, stand down.’ Lucius gave the younger man a quick smile to reassure him. Lucius quickly emptied the weapon and handed it back, and stowed the little magazine in his own back pocket. Drusus looked bewildered then stepped back.

‘Gnaeus, Adjutant,’ Lucius snapped into his commset. ‘Get the damned security system back up, stat, including the surround sensors, for Mars’ sake.’ He lifted his head. ‘Somebody take this piece of filth out from under my feet and lock it up.’ Two guards came forward and dragged the unfortunate Superbus out of the office. Destination: cells.

He pressed a button on the legate’s desk. ‘This is Lucius Punellus, Adjutant. All personnel to secure their work areas to protocol six and report immediately to the strategy room. Duty centurion, down to the cells, stat, and ensure the female personnel are released. All there within ten minutes, please.’

He turned to me. ‘You and your lot not included. Group them in the courtyard and stay there.’ He looked at his watch. ‘You have three minutes before the surround sensors reset.’ He turned his back on us and marched off.

I relayed the order to my four commanders and signalled our group to make their way outside. Flavius looked glum and not a little chagrined.

‘Did you expect to be greeted as a conquering hero?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t think we’d be excluded like that. The adjutant looked at us as if we were dirt. We’re stuck here in the courtyard like a herd of animals.’

True. Now the full security was reactivated, we couldn’t get back in the building or out of the gate. I laid my hand on his forearm.

‘Let the adjutant sort the troops out first, Flav.’ I told Sergius to let the groups relax, have a drink, smoke if they wanted. We sat down in a corner under the canopy by the garages and waited.

A little over twenty minutes later, four fully armed PGSF approached us. My group of twelve immediately stood to and formed a protective circle around me.

‘Your commander plus one to come with us. Weapons to be left here,’ ordered the centurion. She looked straight through me. Being rescued by a bunch of dubious characters like us had to have been humiliating. I stepped out of the circle, beckoning Flavius to come with me.

Lucius sat in Conrad’s chair and was talking to an orderly with a max el-pad, whom he dismissed when he saw us at the door.

‘Come in and shut the door behind you,’ he commanded, his voice flat and neutral. I was surprised to see a pyramid appear from his pocket. He set it on the desk and looked up at us, his eyebrows raised. I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next either.

‘Oh, sit down, for the gods’ sake!’ He waved his hand impatiently. ‘Right, anything else before you clear your lot out?’

I knew we had to be a bad smell under their noses, but I resented being thrown out so abruptly.

‘A few words of thanks to the people who rescued you would be nice,’ I said sarcastically.

‘Food and drinks are being taken out to them now. A “thank you”, we don’t have time for.’

‘Not good enough,’ I said. ‘They put themselves on the line for you. They’re part of a private business team, not a formal military force of the state.’ My breath shortened and anger pushed up through me. I looked him straight in the eye. ‘I won’t have my people neglected like this.’

‘Oh, really?’ Lucius leaned back in the chair, his eyebrows raised. ‘Perhaps a few nights in the cells will deflate your little tantrum.’

‘Tantrum isn’t in it,’ I said, trying to calm down. ‘Can’t you see how positive an effect it would have just to be gracious? Conradus would have done it automatically.’

He said nothing.

‘Look, we’re wasting time, bickering like this,’ I said, moving on. ‘We saved the day – deal with it. You have Superbus in custody. It’s my right to prosecute him in the Families’ Court, as a delinquent member of my family, but it’ll be too civilised and follow formal process. I want a session with him here first.’

‘We’ll be holding him in close custody for the statutory twenty-eight days,’ Lucius conceded. ‘But after that, who knows...’ He shrugged like he was unsure of his next step in a fluid situation. He wiped his fingers across his chin and stared into space for a few seconds. He blinked, stood up, seeming to gather himself together. He thrust the pyramid into his pocket and opened the door. ‘Right. Let’s go and see your monkeys.’

I had a tart answer for him, but suddenly remembered one vital thing. ‘You have secured Petronax, haven’t you? We didn’t find him.’

Lucius pressed the guard alarm and shouted down the corridor ‘Duty NCO. Stat.’

A centurion appeared within seconds. Lucius barked questions at him.

‘I was on my way to you, sir. No trace of him,’ he reported. ‘We’ve searched the whole building. Nothing. His vehicle’s gone from the basement garages.’

Shit.

I stabbed the numbers in on my supermobile. ‘Daniel? Petronax is on the loose.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he replied. His voice was bleak. ‘He’s here.’

XXII

‘Details, please.’

My fingers played with the zipper on my fatigues jacket as I walked around Conrad’s office. I stopped and told Daniel to repeat the last thing he said.

‘No,’ I said and sat down.

Lucius frowned at me, mouthing, ‘What?’

I waved the back of my hand at him and bent over, pressing the cell to my ear, hoping I could hear something different.

‘How in the depth of black Tartarus did that happen?’ I asked. ‘I thought that was all in hand.’ I listened some more. ‘How badly?’

I batted my reactions out of the way and started assessing all the possibilities. There was only one. ‘Okay, we’ll use Strategy 8. Give me twenty.’ Pause. ‘Too bad. Execute.’

I closed the phone and faced Lucius and Flavius. ‘Petronax has Hallie.’ They both looked at me, appalled. Hallienia Apulia was the youngest imperial child.

‘He’s killed one of the nursery staff – a kid of sixteen, for fuck’s sake! The guard he knifed is in surgery and is touch and go. Conradus was downstairs with Darius and didn’t hear a thing. I’ve initiated Strat8. We have to kit up and go. Now.’

Strategy 8 was an emergency plan developed as a result of Caius Tellus’s rebellion. Selected officers were authorised and trained to take decisive action under Emergency Order. Mars knew why they’d included me. I figured it went with the strategist job. It was an uncomfortable honour. If you fouled up, who wanted to spend the next ten years in the central military prison?

Lucius, to his credit, didn’t blink. ‘The pack will be in the garage within ten minutes,’ he assured me. He went to the safe, opened it, and handed me my insignia and personal tracker. ‘You’ll need these.’ He also handed me a sealed envelope. ‘And this.’

Written on the front were the words:
Additional protocol in the event of Strategy 8 implementation.
I looked at it in surprise. We’d practised Strat8 until we’d covered every scenario we could imagine.

‘Open it and read it. Do not tell me the contents.’

I read it through several times, committing it to memory. Then I shredded it and pressed the burn button. I drew my hand across my forehead, closing my eyes as I did. Juno! The fallback instructions were beyond grim. I wasn’t sure I could carry them out.

I left Lucius talking rapidly into the deskcomm.

Flavius and I hurried down to the locker rooms to change, ignoring curious stares. My head was still processing the additional protocol, so I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. Thank the gods my locker hadn’t been cleared. I flicked out the dark contacts, cleaned off Pulcheria’s heavy make-up and bathed my face. My blue eyes stared back out of the mirror above the basin like old friends seeing each other after a long time away. I bound my hair tightly and shoved it under a combat cap. At the quaestor’s office, Gnaeus was waiting with our suits and equipment. He handed Flavius his ID, mouthing, ‘Good to see you back.’

‘Here, Captain, you might like these.’ Gnaeus held out a pack of knives. My carbons! I’d taken only one with me. More old friends.

‘The net is fully operational again, so you can use commsets in the palace. We’ve digitally barred Petronax and alarmed his set. Let me update yours.’ He snapped it into the dock, clicked his slim fingers across the keyboard, waited a few seconds. Nothing happened. He ejected the set, repeated the procedure. He turned to me, embarrassed.

‘I don’t know what’s happened, ma’am, but you seem to have been deleted from the system.’

Of course, my little program had eaten everything, including itself.

He looked at me, expectant.

‘Well, there was a malfunction last time I used it. Can you reinstate me?’ I gave him what I hoped was a winsome smile.

‘Hmm, I can give you temporary access, if the adjutant will countersign it.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, just do it – we’re in the middle of a Strat8.’

He looked shocked. But he did set it up and update my commset. His manner was chilly as he handed it to me.

Another ego to massage. Too bad.

Hurrying down to the basement, I made a call.

‘Apollo, Petronax has my cousin – the little girl. I have to go to her. Your troops are safe. No casualties. They’ll be on their way back to you shortly. I’ll come as soon as I can.’

In the garages, we picked up our three long wheelbases, already loaded as Lucius had promised. Six other guards followed us in a fourth vehicle. More would go as back-up with DJ to pre-planned points. But the main strike force was already in the palace – my own Active Response Team.

When we arrived, Daniel looked stressed out, tired and guilty all at once. His eyes were preternaturally round, red-rimmed, his skin dull. When had he slept last? A temporary command centre had been set up next door to the palace security room. Uniforms moved in and through it, but Daniel was bone still.

He found his voice. ‘Bloody Petronax is on the roof terrace with Hallie. He’s made her sit up on the parapet. He’s threatening to push her off.’

The grass area below was four floors down. I gulped then gathered my brains together. ‘Camera feed?’

He showed me the images from the terrace itself and up from the garden border at an angle of forty-five degrees. There she was, in a light cotton tunic, feet in her favourite sparkly sneakers, short legs dangling over the stone edge, waiting to be killed by a madman.

I stared at the screen. How had Petronax become so disconnected from the normal? Why would somebody want to kill a small child despite all the taboos associated with such an act?

No way would I allow that to happen to Hallie.

‘Right, get my ART in here and let’s work out some kind of plan to deal with this.’ How clichéd that sounded, but I had to say something to break the immobility we’d all frozen into.

As I looked back at the screen, something occurred to me. ‘Where’s Conradus?’

‘With the other two children.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

‘Guardian, Command.’ Daniel spoke into his commset.

‘Command, Guardian here.’

‘Identify your location,’ Daniel ordered.

‘In the children’s suite,’ Conrad answered. Nothing more. His voice rasped, barely forming the words.

‘Very well, out.’

Daniel turned to me. ‘Satisfied?’

A signals clerk handed him a note. ‘Major, the DJ
custodes
are here, but they’re staying on the east side.’

‘Thanks. Tell them to send their commander up here.’

My ART arrived. Paula, Treb, Maelia, Nov, Livius, Atria joined Flavius and they stood there like a phalanx – kitted, booted and ready.

We’d trained, exercised and handled live operations together for over six years. If the tactical situation went to Hades, and you didn’t have time to think through what to do, the team adapted as if connected by telepathy. Even Treb, the youngest, had melded well in a remarkably short time.

We walked quietly into an adjoining room, grouped around a table set up there and started working. Maybe my eyes were reacting to not having to wear dark contacts, but the lighting was painfully strong.

‘We have full authority under Strat8 rules,’ I began. ‘Given the parapet, we’ll use Scenario Three. Atria, you go try initiating a dialogue with Petronax. When the rest of us come up, I want your assessment of his mental state. He’s ideologically driven,’ I said, ‘so no ethical base to play with, no morality in the usual sense. I don’t think we can use his conscience against him.’ I grimaced.

She nodded and made for the stairs up to the roof.

What
was
his background? What had made him so harsh and single-minded? He must have some redeeming qualities – did he like animals? No, he’d probably tormented them as a child. Novius brought up Petronax’s personal file on the screen. It showed a steady progression of a dedicated but efficient security man. His reports were good, but neutral. They showed a self-contained but otherwise tediously ordinary personality.

‘Yeah, but we do have to remember Petronax is a very savvy operator.’ Livius was a smart cookie and probably the best soldier in my unit. For him to say that was worrying. Petronax would be incredibly difficult to reason with; he’d know the book we’d be working from. But what did he hope to gain? Being brutal, if he pushed Hallie off, he had no other leverage. Maybe he gambled that we’d never allow him to do it. Maybe this was why the fallback instructions had been drafted.

Three minutes later, a knock at the door. Daniel put his head round.

‘Have you got something to go with yet?’

Seven pairs of eyes bored into his.

‘I know, but the child has been up there for over twenty-five minutes.’

I panned around – they all nodded. Watches synch’d, Nov, Livius and Flavius ran downstairs to unpack kit from the vehicles. Paula grabbed her pack and headed off along the corridor to the window immediately under the roof garden level. Treb, Malia and I stripped down to our black T-shirts and shorts. No weapons showing, I packed two of my carbon fibre knives in sheaths at my back waist, another in my right boot. We gave the guys five minutes to get in place.

I walked back with Daniel to the command centre.

‘Can you have the
custodes
plus about a dozen of our people to step up activity on the outer cordon to give Petronax something to look at? Otherwise he’ll think we’re up to something else.’

‘Come in and brief their commander yourself,’ he suggested.

‘Good idea.’

Not such a good idea, as it turned out. I nearly had my head blown off for the second time that day.

The figure in DJ blues turned round, took one look at me and snatched his pistol out. He shoved the barrel of his pistol to within millimetres of my head.

Lurio.

Hades.

A dozen guards immediately trained assault rifles, safety off, on him.

‘Whoa!’ said Daniel. ‘Let’s not do anything rash here.’ Fingers on keyboards stopped, motion stopped, muscles tensed. The only sound came from equipment humming. The only movement came from images on screens.

‘Now, Commander, whatever the problem, I suggest you lower your weapon and we talk about it calmly.’

Daniel sucked at hostage stuff.

‘Don’t you know a traitor when you see one, Stern?’ Lurio snarled. He was as hot as a bridgewire detonator and as ready to explode.

‘One or two, but I’m not looking at one now,’ Daniel said.

Lurio kept his eyes trained on me, his forehead creased in concentration. I opened my mouth to deny it, but Lurio gripped his pistol harder and raised the tip nearer my head.

‘We were tracking her and one of her associates. They disappeared into a known criminal’s lair and we lost them.’

‘Why?’ Daniel said. ‘Why were you tracking her?’

Oh, shit. Lurio was about to blow my Pulcheria cover, and Daniel would be so mad he’d let Lurio blow my head off.

Lurio looked astounded. ‘It was your lot that issued the “shoot on sight”. One of my undercover people spotted them in a café down by the docks. Now she’s here in the middle of a Strat8.’

I desperately wanted to take a deep breath but daren’t make even that movement. Any distraction would cause Lurio to fire almost as an automatic response. Gods, my stomach was twisting like Hydra’s heads waiting for Daniel to diffuse Lurio.

Daniel rubbed his fingers across his forehead.

‘Look, Lurio, I don’t have time for this. We’re at a crucial point of a sensitive operation. If she isn’t on that roof within the next minute, an imperial child will die at the hands of a madman and a real traitor. Your choice.’ His tone was grim.

‘Seriously?’ Lurio still looked suspicious.

‘Oh, for the gods’ sake, man, stop fucking about like some arse-ache and let us do our job!’

We entered the roof garden from the top floor door. It was a charming retreat, decorated by living green arches, a grassed area, pots brimming over with flowers, a teak slatted table and chairs, loungers and barbecue area. At the far end, part of the high trellis, normally dripping with white clematis flowers, had been broken away, and the ledge was visible. A small hunched figure sat with her back to us, the tips of her fingers visible each side of her ribcage from crossed arms. We froze. Atria was sitting a few metres away, on the green, her fingers playing with the blades of grass. Her hand signalled she was fine, but the situation was not.

‘Well, well,’ came the ratty voice. ‘Look what the wolf sicked up!’ Petronax stepped out of the shadow at the corner of the garden and stood in front of the gap, blocking Hallie. He carried a standard-issue light machine gun in the crook of his arm. Two pistols sat on his hips, one each side; his pockets were bulging with spare magazines.

He stood legs braced, relaxed and assured, his slim, medium-height figure projecting an imposing presence. Many people were nervous around him, maybe because of the nature of his job, but more instinctively because of some kind of innate nastiness he radiated. I grasped my lower lip between my teeth for a second but quickly plastered on a friendly smile and strode forward like I was greeting my best friend on a Sunday afternoon stroll.

‘That’s far enough,’ he barked.

I stopped immediately, two metres further forward than Atria.

‘I’m not falling for any of your little tricks.’

‘C’mon, Petronax, I don’t have anything up my sleeve. Look, I don’t have any sleeves.’ I held my hands out each side of my body and rotated my arms slowly, managing a few more centimetres forward.

Treb and Maelia had each managed to slide a few steps sideways in an arc during my performance. Atria had also shifted forward.

‘The next little girlie that takes one step nearer will get a bullet in her head,’ he warned us.

We stood stock still. ‘Can I stay here?’ I asked. Petronax needed to think he could control me. I was only about halfway between the door and him. I didn’t think I could make it to where he stood before he fired or, worse, pushed Hallie off.

He nodded.

‘What do you want, Petronax?’’

‘Oh, I think you know that.’ He spoke in a flat tone, but intense, concentrated. His face was smooth, but his hard little eyes burned. ‘It’s quite straightforward – the end of you and your kind.’