Rath's Gambit (The Janus Group Book 2) (18 page)

“No, I’m just … trying to process this. It’s shocking, and disturbing, and I’m having trouble believing it. Senators are having people killed? How would that even work?”

“I don’t know,” Khyron shrugged. “A secret Interstellar Police unit, or mercenaries out of the Territories, maybe? But it can’t be a coincidence.”

“How sure are you about this?” Dasi asked.

Khyron sat on the couch next to her. “I checked the data. I ran the correlations myself, manually. FiveSight’s right.”

“Oh my god.” Dasi looked at Khyron. “I’m scared.”

He took her hands in his. “Me too.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it all day. And I think we have a responsibility to tell someone,” he suggested.

Dasi nodded. “I think so, too. Who?”

“Someone in the media, or the police, maybe. But Dasi, this is dangerous – this group has executed people a lot more powerful than us. That last meeting they had? That significant event is Senator Reid, on Alberon.”

“What? You’re saying that wasn’t an accident?”

“I don’t think so. Again, it happened right after one of their emergency meetings. They killed a colleague, another sitting senator, and tried to make it look like an accident. And according to their calendars, it only took them thirty minutes of discussion to decide they should do it. Dasi, If we take this to the wrong person, we’re dead, no question.”

Dasi squeezed his hands, hard. “We should go to Senator Lizelle. He could protect us, he could get a security detail to guard us, or get us into protective custody, or ….”

“No.”

“No, we can trust him,” she said. “I know him—”

Khyron shook his head. “Dasi, no.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because Charl Lizelle is one of the three senators.”

She was too far away from the bathroom, but Dasi made it to the kitchen sink, where she threw up her lunch, and then dry-heaved until her stomach was empty. Dasi stood sobbing, leaning over the sink, while Khyron rubbed her back.

I have to tell him.

“Who are the other two senators?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

“I don’t know,” Khyron said. “I mean, I can figure it out, I have all the data … it’s just de-identified right now. I stopped trying to identify them when I figured out one of them was Lizelle.”

Dasi wiped her mouth on a paper towel and then turned to Khyron. “Are you sure?” she asked, again. “I mean, without a shadow of a doubt, stake-your-life-on-it certain?”

Khyron nodded slowly. “Dasi, FiveSight correctly predicted how much funding the Emergency Relief Committee was going to allocate toward the tsunami efforts on Delphi Two last week, to the nearest thousand dollars. It wouldn’t miss on something like this, not when the correlations are so apparent.”

She studied him for a second. “Okay. I believe you.”

He hugged her, and Dasi felt a pang of guilt and self-loathing. “I’m going to write this all up, put together the evidence,” Khyron said, rubbing her back. “Then I guess I go to the police?”

Dasi put her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know. I think maybe we should talk to a lawyer first. You don’t know how the police are going to handle this, they might just laugh you away as some crackpot conspiracy theorist.”

“True,” he allowed. “If we retain one, he’s legally bound to keep everything we tell him confidential, and he can advise us how to proceed from there.”

“So … let’s go find a lawyer,” Dasi said.

* * *

The viewscreen behind the lawyer’s desk showed a panoramic view of the asteroid at the heart of Anchorpoint, criss-crossed with ships’ deep-space tethers. But unlike in Lizelle’s office, Dasi knew the view was purely a simulated one. She watched as the lawyer drummed his fingers on the desk, then leaned back into his deep leather desk chair and sighed. He studied Khyron first, then Dasi, twisting the corners of his mouth.

“You don’t believe us,” Khyron guessed.

Yellen bit the inside of his cheek and exhaled. “No, I do; that’s the problem.”

Khyron sighed in relief, and Dasi realized she had been holding her breath, too.

“What do we do?” she asked.

“As a citizen of the Federacy, and an Assistant District Attorney? Shout this from the rooftops. Tell everyone. Get ready to testify before the Senate.”

“And as our lawyer?” Khyron asked.

“As your lawyer?” Yellen pointed at Khyron’s datascroll. “Burn this. The AI program, your analysis and write-up, all of it. And then find a deep, dark hole, and disappear down it.”

“Really?” Khyron asked. “You would destroy it?”

Yellen sighed. “I’d think about it, yes. You guys are threatening to blow the whistle on one of the most senior senators, in what is undoubtedly the biggest scandal the Federacy has ever seen. Your lives will never be the same. Christ, there’s a chance – a very slight chance, but a chance, nonetheless – that the government falls apart if this gets out. This could be the first crack in the dam.”

“He’s right,” Dasi agreed. “Approval ratings are at an all-time low, and despite all the fighting going on, people are immigrating to the Territories at record high rates.”

Khyron rubbed his forehead. “But we can’t just … forget about this. Right? We can’t just let them keep killing their own citizens.”

Yellen pushed back his chair, and stood up. “Listen, something this big deserves careful forethought. You need to think about what’s best for you – and I can’t tell you what that is. So think about it. Sleep on it. For god’s sake, don’t tell anyone else! Go back to your jobs and pretend everything is normal. Next week, when you’ve had some time to think, come back and we can talk again. And in the meantime, I’ll think about the right way to go public with this, if that’s what you decide you want to do. My gut says Interstellar Police isn’t equipped to handle this. We might want to go through one of the Senate oversight committees.” He tapped on Khyron’s datascroll with a finger. “Is all of the evidence here on this machine?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Khyron said. “That’s got all my code for FiveSight, and the encryption keys for accessing the databases.”

“And your analysis?” the attorney asked.

“All of it,” Khyron agreed.

“Okay. Leave it with me. I’ll lock it up here, and keep it safe.”

Khyron shifted nervously in his seat. “Are you sure?”

“If you’re not in possession of it, you have some plausible deniability,” Yellen assured him. “You don’t want this lying around until you’ve decided what to do about it.” He smiled. “Trust me.” 

17

In his motel room, Rath opened the datascroll and ran C4ble’s encryption key. He drummed his fingers on the desk for a minute, then cursed, and typed his message.

I need help locating someone else. Could you find someone based on their AnonChat posting history?

He waited for several seconds, and then the reply appeared.

Probably. Won’t know until I try. Care to double down on your offer from last time?

Rath sighed.
Yes. Two kills, one for this job, one for the last one. But only on the condition that you find who I’m looking for.

I found the last one, didn’t I?

* * *

Beauceron’s car was idling in front of the motel when Rath strode through the entrance doors, carrying his backpack, as usual. He slid into the passenger seat and shut the door.

“No dice,” he told Beauceron. “The messages passed through a deep-space relay point in the Territories, but after that she covered her tracks too well – she could have been anywhere in the Territories.”

Beauceron frowned. “I hadn’t really considered the Territories as an option.”

Rath shrugged. “She probably headed there to stay off the grid. No Interstellar Police there.”

“That could explain why she didn’t show up in the databases we checked,” Beauceron admitted. “Those databases only include Federacy planets – nothing from the Territories, they’re all on separate systems. And they don’t share data with us.”

Rath watched in the passenger mirror as a man and a woman, holding hands, took a seat on a bench a few cars behind their parking space.

Beauceron was lost in thought, staring out the front windshield. “There is MirrorLine, though.”

“What’s ‘MirrorLine’?” Rath asked.

Beauceron hesitated, glancing over at Rath. The assassin was playing with a necklace made of different-colored crystal beads, passing the beads through his fingers, as if counting them.

“What’s that?” Beauceron asked, stalling.

Rath looked down at the necklace, embarrassed. “It’s … just some jewelry I bought a few months ago. There was this woman that I met. It was for her, but I never got a chance to give it to her.”

“It’s beautiful,” Beauceron said. “What was her name?”

“Jaymy,” Rath said. “Her name is Jaymy.” Rath wrapped the necklace around itself, and tucked it back into his pocket. “So, MirrorLine?”

Beauceron lowered his voice. “Years ago, Interstellar Police developed a secret program intended to increase our arrest rates by more closely monitoring criminal activity in the Territories. Criminals have always hid from us in the Territories, of course, but we reasoned that many would continue their criminal activities there, too … and get arrested and convicted by local law enforcement on Territorial planets. Then when they were released, we could track them, and arrest them if they returned to a Federacy jurisdiction.”

“I think I’m following,” Rath told him. He glanced in the mirror again, and saw the woman on the bench looking in their direction. She turned away suddenly, as if talking to her companion. The hairs on the back of Rath’s neck stood up.

“The cornerstone of the program was a database hack,” Beauceron was saying. “We broke into the major criminal databases in the Territories, and built in a backdoor so that we could access them as well. That’s MirrorLine.”

“Martin, I think we better go,” Rath told the detective.

“Where?” Beauceron asked.

“Just go,” Rath said, eyeing the couple in the mirror.

Beauceron started the car and pulled out into the street. When the couple on the bench had disappeared in their rear view mirror, Rath let his breath out.

“Sorry. Just had a hunch about something,” he said. “Back to MirrorLine – I thought we checked the criminal databases for Paisen. She wasn’t in there,” Rath pointed out.

“No,” Beauceron corrected. “We checked
Federacy
databases. MirrorLine is a separate program entirely, you need special permission to access it.”

Rath cocked an eyebrow at him. “Rozhkov?”

Beauceron sighed, “Yes.” He checked his watch. “Saturday evening: he’ll be home. I think I better go myself this time.”

* * *

Rath was finishing his second beer when Beauceron made his way into the biergarten. He spied Rath, alone at a small table near the oak tree, and made his way over past several other benches of patrons, before sitting with a sigh. He set his notepad and pencil on the table. Rath eyed it with interest.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, I am officially out of favors to call in,” Beauceron said. “But she’s on New Liberia.”

“Yeah?” Rath said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You found her in MirrorLine?”

“I think so,” Beauceron said. “But you’re not going to like it. We found an arrest record for a female with all the right implants. She was picked up for breaking and entering several months ago.” Beauceron pulled out his phone, and showed Rath an arrest photo of a dark-skinned woman with long, black hair. “Using the alias ‘Suli Potfin.’ She’s in a penal colony, serving a five-year sentence – that’s why she missed your rendezvous. Nasty place. It’s on the outskirts of a city that was the site of a nuclear attack, and the inmates are made to salvage raw materials from the fallout zone.”

“I’ve got enough cash for another flight, I think,” Rath said. “You’re coming this time, right?”

Beauceron gave Rath an incredulous look. “Why would either of us go?”

“To get her out of there,” Rath said, frowning.

“If we simply wait, she could be out on parole before the year is out,” Beauceron said.

Rath shook his head. “No, if we found her, so can the Guild. The clock’s ticking.”

“Not necessarily,” Beauceron said. “But that’s beside the point. You’re talking about effecting a prison break.”

“Absolutely,” Rath said.

“Absolutely not.” Beauceron glanced quickly around the biergarten, lowering his voice. “You’ve already made me an accessory to a bank robbery; there is no way I’m letting you break someone out of prison, too. I don’t care if it’s in the Territories or not.”

“Beauceron, her life could be on the line,” Rath argued. “If the Guild doesn’t get her, the radiation could.” Rath held his beer glass in his right hand, but casually slid his left hand under the table.

“No,” Beauceron said. “You made a promise to me. If I helped you find her, you’d turn yourself in. Well, I found her.”

“I’m not turning myself in yet, especially not now that we’re so close,” Rath said.

“You are,” Beauceron said, taking out his phone. “We’re going to the station right now, and we’ll get you into protective custody while we wait for Paisen’s release. If you try to escape, don’t forget that I can track you with that cuff you’re wearing. And I’ll call the penal colony and warn them that you’re coming.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” Rath said. “I’m done with that – one was too many, never mind fifty. I’m going to get her out without hurting anyone.”

Beauceron shook his head. “I believe that you’ll try. But I still can’t let you go.” He keyed the phone on.

“I’m sorry, Martin,” Rath said. He fired the stun dart under the table, hitting Beauceron in the stomach. The detective grunted and frowned, then slumped forward onto the table. At a table nearby, another patron gave Rath concerned look.

“He’ll be all right,” Rath said. “Just had a few too many.” He crossed and sat next to Beauceron, making a show of shaking him. “Come on, Martin – wake up.” Under the table, Rath removed the dart, tossing it away, and pulled out Beauceron’s phone and wallet, which he pocketed discreetly. After another half-hearted attempt at waking Beauceron, he stood and headed up to the front of the biergarten, signaling to get the bouncer’s attention. The man walked over, leaving his post by the bar’s entrance.