The Administration Series (207 page)

"Yes. No one else, though, not without asking me first."

She nodded. "No one. I promise."

"The P&P's got to look good, Sara." He knew that she knew, but he couldn't help it. "If they think we're faking it, Carnac wins."

"Don't worry, it'll look great." She grinned. "I'm looking forward to it, actually. Make a change from running this place single-handed. I can delegate most of that — I don't know if you saw, but now the curfew's later there are more people back in. A few in our section."

He'd been too preoccupied to notice. "Anyone else on the team?"

"Not yet, but Kel's back and a few more admins called to say they'd be in on Monday. Enough to take some of the load, anyway, while I do this." She stood up. "I'll get started with it."

No arguments this time about whether shutting the place down would be the best thing. It was reassuring — he trusted Sara's judgement, and if she thought the plan was workable, that gave him a lot more faith in it.

When she had gone, Toreth walked over to the window and looked out, considering the list of 'must knows'. Bevan, and soon, because he'd guess something was up and he couldn't risk pissing him off. The Systems people, because they would need as long as possible to get ready. They always did. And Chevril was right — some of the seniors would have to be told, if not yet, or there would be no chance of implementing the changes at short notice. Sara was dealing with Daedra. B-C could handle the technical investigative sections in the P&P, but they'd probably need to talk to one or two of the interrogation specialists soon. Far too many already.

Much as it annoyed him, Warrick had been right. Eventually, they would pick someone willing and probably eager to sell them out, and the senior paras and interrogators were the most likely candidates. I&I had never made any secret of the criteria it used to select its staff. They'd been open with him, when they'd offered him a place on the interrogator training programme. Psych assessments were mostly bollocks, but still . . .

Across the enclosed courtyard, the building was still scarred by broken, boarded office windows. One of the remaining reminders of the troubles. However, the important thing was that there were prisoners in the cells and people at work. Worries aside, for the moment he was winning; I&I was coming alive again. All he had to do was make sure Carnac didn't kill it.

Trying to fit the planning around the rest of his workload proved to be a nightmare. On Saturday and Sunday, he didn't leave the building until well after midnight, and he was back in at six, with Sara keeping the same hours. Chevril was in less, but complained a lot more. Monday was no better.

It was necessary but exhausting, and potentially suspicious if Carnac started to take note. He tried to cut back on legitimate duties where he could, but that was suspicious again, and he wasn't sure which was worse. The only thing that gave him hope, as well as worrying him slightly, was that Carnac had pulled a vanishing trick. He was out of his I&I office almost all day, only putting in brief (and irritatingly unannounced) appearances in the building. It made it easier that he wasn't around, but it also made Toreth wonder if the inspection might be closer than he'd thought.

Further evidence for that was the fact that Bell was also out of the building. She had been recalled to headquarters for an uncertain length of time and, from the rumours he heard, was not at all happy about it. It had to be Carnac behind that as well, pulling in favours to prevent her from interfering during his absence. Clearing the decks, ready for the inspectors.

The remaining Service personnel were a nuisance to work round. Payne in particular had moved from being useful, slightly annoying and mildly amusing to being, well, a pain. Keeping him away from anything important took up more time, but Toreth was careful not to let his irritation show. The indefinite promise of sex he'd carefully built up and maintained might be all that stood between them and disaster, if Payne became suspicious.

On Monday evening, he answered the comm and found himself staring at his last missing team member.

"Wrenn?" he asked, wondering if the long hours were finally causing hallucinations.

"Yes, Para." She smiled sheepishly. "I'm sorry I didn't get in touch before."

"So am I. You're still down as missing. Where the hell are you?"

"At home, Para. I made it out of the building when it happened and . . . "

He nodded. "Kept your head down. Good for you. But we sent a call out days ago. Didn't you get it?"

"Yes. I — I'm not coming back."

And now he was hearing things. "Well, there's no hurry, but — "

"No, Para, I mean I'm not coming back. I wanted to tell you before I sent my official resignation. And I'm not working out the notice. If Tillotson doesn't like it, he can whistle for it."

"He isn't back yet either. All the spineless bastards are still in hiding."

She winced a little, but her expression of resolve didn't flicker. "I'm sorry, Para, I really am. I've got family to think of."

What the fuck did that have to do with him? "Fine. Good luck."

"Para, I'm — "

He cut her off in mid-apology. Years. Wrenn had been on his team for bloody
years
. He couldn't believe how much the betrayal hurt, even though he knew she certainly wasn't alone in having cut and run. Admins and investigators had been the bulk of the non-returners. More paras and interrogators had stayed, because, really where the fuck else could I&I's broken employees go? Corporates wouldn't be so keen to flaunt their ex-I&I bodyguards and security now.

Fucking Wrenn. Much good it would do her when Carnac rounded up the escaping rats and had them exterminated with the rest of the vermin.

On Tuesday morning, there was a tense meeting in Bevan's office. The three Systems staff in the know disagreed violently with each other about the best way to implement the changes, with irreconcilable, highly technical and in Toreth's opinion probably irrelevant viewpoints.

When that had been sorted out to their dissatisfaction, the techs left and he, Chevril and Bevan discussed the question of when to tell the other seniors about the plan, and who should be told. After a long and increasingly heated argument, they ended up agreeing to draw up shortlists and choose people included on two or more lists.

When he returned from the meeting, in a simmering bad temper, he found Payne waiting in his office. In fact, he was pacing across the room, and Toreth got the impression that he'd been doing it for a while. When he entered, Payne stopped and turned towards him.

"Toreth, there's something going on, and I'd like you to tell me what."

Well, it had taken him nearly a week to work out what Sara had spotted in a morning, which probably said something about the intellectual standards of Service officer admissions.

"There's nothing going on that you don't know about already."

"I had someone from Systems up here half an hour ago. She wanted you, and when I said you weren't here and I'd take a message, she started talking about system changes. Then when she realised I didn't know what was going on, she shut up and went away quickly."

"So? That's all? Someone wanted to talk to me?" When he found out who'd been so fucking stupid, he would make sure 'she' never had the chance to talk to anyone again.

"No, that's not all. Captain Shoen was looking for you because you'd cancelled a tribunal sitting without warning him. And you've been away far too many times, with Sara claiming not to know where you were, for it to be nothing. What is it?"

"Have you been to Carnac?"

"No. No I haven't. And I should've, but I wanted to give you a chance to tell me about it first."

Somehow he kept the relief out of his voice. "I'm making some changes to operations, that's all. Nothing for Carnac to worry about."

"So it won't matter if I tell him?"

Damn him.

"Yes it will. It will matter a great deal." He went over to sit on the edge of his desk, getting the story straight in his mind. "What I'm doing is something Carnac doesn't want to happen. But it's something that needs to happen — for I&I and for the whole of the Administration. I can only ask you to trust me and not to tell him."

"Toreth, I'm sorry. Believe me, I do trust you, and I don't want to do this to you. But I have my orders, direct from Carnac, requiring me to report anything like that. If you can't explain, I have to do it — I should do it anyway."

So Carnac had told him to spy. Fair enough — he'd expected no less and he certainly didn't blame Payne for it. That was the problem with the Service: ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, they did what they were told.

He could only hope this would be the other point one. "Will you let me show you something first?"

Payne hesitated.

"It'll only take a few minutes, and I can do it here. Then if you still feel the same, you can go and tell Carnac. I won't try to stop you."

Payne nodded. "All right."

"Sit down," Toreth said, indicating his desk.

Payne sat, and Toreth moved behind him, leaned across him to get to the screen and brushing against his shoulder. He could have done this part before Payne sat down, but it seemed wise to take every chance he could get to improve his position. Despite his determined, dutiful expression, Payne wasn't leaning away from him.

"Right. Watch this." Toreth took a step back, and let the recording play.

It was one of the late-stage interrogation habituation recordings. Shown cold, out of sequence in the programme, it was famous for cracking even the cockiest of new recruits. He'd picked it up in the middle, at about the point when the darkened training rooms would start to fill with the sound of vomiting and the thuds of the fainters.

Toreth had no idea what Payne's wife looked like, but the female prisoner was generically young and attractive enough to add an extra edge to the experience for him.

To his credit, and somewhat to Toreth's surprise, Payne neither threw up nor fainted. He did, however, go pale and still. After five minutes, he said, "How much longer?"

"Thirty-five minutes until she breaks. Two hours and twenty until the end of the session."

"I've seen enough."

"Sure?"

"Yes." He turned his face away from the screen. "Absolutely sure."

Toreth leaned past him again and killed the sound, leaving the picture running. He crouched down beside Payne, resting his arms on the arm of the chair.

"That's what I want to stop," he said, keeping his voice quiet. "If Carnac has his way, that will keep happening, over and over. I've been here for nearly fifteen years, seeing things like that." Doing things like that, in fact. "I'm tired of it. Do you think we all enjoy what we do here? Do you think we get some kind of sick kick out of interrogating prisoners?"

"Well, I . . . no." That clearly was what Payne had thought, at least at some level. "My wife's cousin works here, you know — she's a medical technician. I know the people here aren't inhuman." He hesitated, eyes flicking down and back, then he added, "I know
you
aren't."

The best sign he'd had so far.

"No, we aren't. We do our job, and we get despised for it — by people like Bell, to start with. But the Service doesn't have clean hands either. Haven't you ever worked special actions?"

"A couple of times. That's not the same."

"Really? We get the survivors in here sometimes."

"It's not the same," Payne repeated firmly. "Riot suppression, breaking up illegal meetings, that's necessary for public order. That — " He waved at the screen. "That's . . . "

"Yes?"

"That's
cruel
."

Clearly, the idea that interrogations might be cruel had never occurred to him before. It still stunned Toreth sometimes that people could delude themselves so comprehensively about what other people did to keep them safe.

He nodded, serious. "Yes, it is."

Payne glanced at the screen, then looked away and swallowed heavily. "Turn it off. Please."

When the screen went black there was a brief silence, then Payne asked, "Have you tried to persuade Carnac that things need to change?"

"No, and there's no point trying it either. He knows what goes on here. He did a report on I&I, a few years back, praising our good work — I can show you a copy if you like."

"Has he seen that?"

"More than that — he's been in a live interrogation." Fragments came back of his own early days, before the reflexive responses to the stench of shit and vomit had been trained out. He let the memories through to colour his voice. "And let me tell you, that's nothing like sitting in an office and watching it. What the microphones don't pick up, what you can smell . . . Carnac knows what it's like. If you asked him, he'd tell you it disgusted him. But he chose to come back here and get I&I running again, didn't he? Do you think he'd be here if he didn't want to be?"

Payne shook his head. "Toreth, what you say might be right, but I've got my orders." Now it was an excuse, not a statement of fact. He wanted to be persuaded.