The Administration Series (209 page)

Finally, they were all present, except Bevan. He was watching the section of building around them from his office, ready to break up the meeting if anyone came along. Sara sat to one side, with an open comm link to him. B-C provided back-up watch in the corridor outside.

Toreth stood, waited until they quieted, and began.

"When I went round the cells here a fortnight ago, a lot of people made it pretty clear what they thought about me. And I'd have said the same in your position. I told a few of you then what I'm going to tell you now — I work for I&I, not for the Service, and certainly not for Carnac."

No comments about spooks now, although he'd rather hoped for some. Piss-taking was what they did with peers. Silent attention was for senior management and other untrustworthy bastards.

"We do a good job here — a necessary job. And people like the results. They like being able to live their lives without the Administration being crippled by riots and strikes and sabotage. But I&I isn't popular, and it never has been. Some people hate us. Most people would just rather not have to think about what goes on here. That's their fucking problem. Or it was. But the outsiders have control over us now. Carnac wants I&I destroyed, and he can do it."

That certainly had their attention, if not their trust. He gave it a second or so, then carried on.

"There's going to be a review of the Division in a few days' time. If I know Carnac, he'll pick the most spineless, weak-stomached resisters he can find and walk them through every high-level interrogation going on — and he'll make sure there's plenty for them to see. Then he's going to see that they recommend shutting I&I down for good and that they give him a free hand as to the method."

He took a deep breath. The risk was that they wouldn't want to accept it, as Chevril hadn't. "Carnac wants us — all of us — executed. Everyone here in this room. All the paras, investigators and interrogators. No exceptions, no survivors. And he can do it. He'll have the troopers ready to move in as soon as the Admin Council gives the word. We've been set up and if we don't do something about it, we're dead. It's that simple."

He shut up and surveyed the room, letting the conversations buzz up for a while. Consternation. Anger. Fear, hidden to various degrees. At least they looked as if overall they believed him — or felt they couldn't risk not believing.

At length, when the noise started to die down, Chevril caught his eye and he nodded slightly.

"Okay," Chevril said, loud enough to quiet the remaining voices. "What the hell do we do about it?"

Right, this was the tricky part. "Carnac's plan is based on the idea that I&I wouldn't change. And since we were ordered not to change, he'd be right. So, the plan is easy — change. Stop the high-level interrogations."

Pause, but no interruptions yet.

"If Carnac sees it coming, he'll find a way to stop it, so we have to do it carefully. We've already worked out new interrogation protocols, and we'll be able to get everything in place so long as we get a few hours' notice. Carnac's not been in for the last couple of days — and my bet is he'll make himself scarce now until the review."

And if I'm wrong about that, we're fucked.

"He'll want to be horrified right along with the rest of them when he sees what's going on. And he will be." Pause, smile for effect. "Because the day before the review starts, we roll out the new P&P, and by the time the time Carnac's resister friends turn up there won't be anything happening here that would upset a corporate's virgin daughter. Comments?"

"Will that be enough?" Voice from the back — Mike Belkin, who had plenty of clout. If he didn't go for it, the plan was sunk.

"I think so. I hope so. I can't guarantee it will work, and if anyone has another idea, I'd love to hear it. But if they still want blood afterwards . . . well, I can't see a way to stop them having it. There'd be no point in fighting it — all we could do is limit the damage to the minimum that will satisfy them."

There was a silence, then a man nearer the front gestured for his attention: Doral, an interrogator who'd taken the para conversion course a couple of years ago. Potential trouble, but they'd needed some people the senior interrogators would be willing to take orders from.

"Yes?" Toreth asked, dreading what he was going to say.

"You're saying we'd hand the interrogators over and let Carnac kill them."

The bald statement didn't produce as large a murmur of outrage as he'd feared. The prospect of general executions was obviously having a salutary effect on priorities.

"No, I'm not saying that." Not exactly. "We can warn the people with the riskiest files, a few at a time, and they can take off and lay low. If it's controlled, it shouldn't be obvious, not until it's too late to matter anyway. Movement notification's been suspended, so they'll have a good chance. If everything works out, they can come back."

"That relies on people keeping it quiet," Doyle said.

"Yes. That means that we can't warn everyone. And, to get down to the fundamentals, if it does come to executions it'll be the interrogators first. And then, if there aren't enough of them around to make up the numbers . . . then it'll be us."

Glances were exchanged round the room, then shrugs, and then nods.

"We'll sacrifice as few of them as we can get away with," he said, and that seemed to clinch it. Sometimes, they were wonderful people to work with.

"What
about
us?" Doral asked. "Do we run too?"

"No. We stay, and we forget — for now — that we ever trained in interrogation. Everything level one. And then, when Carnac's plan gets shot down and he goes away, we wait until someone from the new Administration turns up with a prisoner they desperately need to talk, and we'll get back to business as usual. We're not giving in, we're just . . . adapting."

The discussion continued for a while after that, with more questions and problems raised, some of which they hadn't considered before. But he knew it was settled already. Everything would go ahead as planned, provided that Carnac didn't pull out any surprises between now and the inspection.

That evening, he decided to give himself an early night off and offered to take Payne out for a drink, and then to a hotel afterwards. Rather to Toreth's surprise, he agreed. He thought about asking what his wife would think about that, but decided against it because, after the day he'd had, a nice, easy, certain fuck was exactly what the medic ordered.

Although the bar was on the way from Int-Sec to his flat, Toreth hadn't been there before. He sat at the bar while Payne bought them drinks. It was busier than most places he'd seen recently, with a lot of Service people in. Not a bad hunting ground, by the look of it, although probably somewhere you stood a better chance with the women than with the men. He'd have to try it sometime when he wasn't lumbered with Payne.

"Is this your usual place?" he asked, taking his drink and looking back at the crowd.

"No. I've been here a few times. I oft —"

His voice simply stopped dead in mid-word. By the time Toreth turned back, Payne had gone so pale as to be moderately interesting, from a medical point of view.

"What?" Toreth asked.

Payne gave a strangled squeak, cleared his throat and tried again. "My wife!"

"Really?" Toreth looked round the bar again. "Where?"

"We've got to go."

"For fuck's sake, you're only having a drink. Do you fuck men from work often enough that she'd be suspicious?"

Payne shushed him frantically. "Come on."

He caught himself just before he said something he'd probably regret. "Sure, if you'd rather." God, being agreeable was wearing thin.

He downed his drink and followed Payne out of the bar. "Do you want to go somewhere else?" he asked, when he caught up with him.

"No." Payne looked nervously over his shoulder. "I should go home."

"Why bother? She isn't going to be there, is she?"

"I know, but . . . "

"Did you know she was going out?"

"No. I mean, yes, because it's Thursday and she goes out every other Thursday with the other teachers from her school. But I didn't think."

"Do you think she'll be long?"

"She usually gets home about eleven, so I expect she'll be back at curfew."

Toreth checked his watch. "Good. Then you can go home, take me with you, and I'll fuck you there — we'll be saving the Division's expense account."

Payne stared at him with wide, hungry eyes. "I couldn't."

Oh, yes, he could. "Why not?"

"Because . . . I couldn't." He shook his head, trying to convince himself. "Not in our
home
."

Toreth put his arm round Payne's waist, and he didn't resist. "Yes. In your home. In the bed you fuck her in, if you like." He slid his hand down, round over Payne's buttocks, pressing between them. "At my age you need a bed for proper fucking."

Payne's eyes had closed, but he made a last, valiant (and entertaining) effort. "Val, I love her. I couldn't do that to her. Even if she doesn't know. I couldn't do some — some casual thing there."

So transparent that Toreth had to smile. "Does this feel casual to you?"

Payne shook his head slightly, his eyes still shut tight.

"Nor to me." And he kissed him, gently at first, then hard enough to satisfy Warrick. It was far too easy to be fun. Payne's resistance lasted barely long enough for Toreth to get his other hand up to bury in his hair.

He'd never taken candy from a baby, because he disliked both sweets and kids, but it had to be something like this.

The Mondays weren't getting any better, Sara reflected. With B-C's help, she had finished the P&P revisions over the weekend and thankfully handed it over to Systems. B-C's reward had been an all-day visit to Justice to discuss prisoner processing, a chore delegated by Toreth with great delight. Her own was to start on the ton of work that had been put off over the last week. She was afraid it had reached the critical point at which, by the time she had gone through it, as much or more would have accumulated again. And that was only the genuinely urgent things.

Not long after nine, Toreth stuck his head around the office door, scanned the room, and asked her, "Have you seen Payne?"

"No. Not so far this morning."

"Damn. If you see the lazy sod around, send him in here, would you?"

He disappeared again, slamming the door. Sara spent a couple of minutes staring at her screen but she had been distracted from work.

Payne.

He'd been different over the last few days. As pleasant and friendly as ever, but preoccupied. Also prone to turning up to Toreth's office with notably flimsy excuses, which took some doing when there were so many good excuses around. Toreth had started taking him to the gym on most days, and to lunch, leaving herself and B-C in the office. Considering that Toreth had barely been remembering to eat lunch lately, that was enough by itself to make her suspicious.

She hadn't caught them doing anything, but she was ninety-five percent sure that Toreth was screwing Payne and, since it had gone on for nearly a week and he hadn't said a word to her, there had to be more to it than his usual happy-marrieds compulsion. She didn't know what, exactly, but she was certain that it wouldn't be good news for the lieutenant. Maybe Toreth was simply substituting for his absent regular fuck, but she doubted it.

She went to collect some bait for a fishing expedition.

Armed with two coffees, she entered Toreth's office, put his mug down and waited. After a few seconds he picked it up and drank, without looking up. "Thanks."

She'd been hoping for an invitation to sit down. "Toreth, what's going on with Lieutenant Payne?"

"Going on? Nothing, I hope."

"You're not screwing him?"

"Yes I am." He looked up. "So?"

"Well, doesn't that count as something going on?"

"Not usually."

"Does Warrick know?"

He looked at her measuringly. "No, Warrick doesn't know. But then there's no way for Warrick to find out, is there? Not unless someone shoots her big mouth off."

"
I'm
not going to tell him. I haven't even seen him since I went to Fee's."

"Good." He looked back down at the screen, dismissing her.

"Why are you doing it?" she asked.

She'd half expected him to lie, for no good reason other than most people would. She ought to know him better than that.

"He got suspicious. Not bright, but he made it there in the end." He scrolled down the page. "Luckily he asked me for an explanation before he went to Carnac."

"And you turned up the charm and screwed him into being quiet for you?"

"Got it in one." He frowned. "And it's working nicely so far, thank you very much, so I don't want you saying anything to him. About anything."

"You could've explained things, and asked him not to tell Carnac."

"That was the last ditch back-up plan. If I'd 'explained things', and he'd gone running off to Carnac with that to tell him, we'd have been up shit creek with no paddle and no fucking canoe. You and me'd both be in cells now, probably over at Internal Investigation — if Carnac hadn't had us shot out of hand. Anyway, I told him the general principles. I dressed the motivation up a bit, that's all."