The Administration Series (256 page)

"I had to make sure Valeria wasn't in the car when the accident happened." His blunt tone matched Toreth's. "Katy would never forgive me if anything happened to her."

"Well, it was still a mistake. If there are any more accidents, or Tarin dies and it looks at all unnatural, then Warrick is going to do his damndest to find out who did it and to make sure they don't get away with it. He's looking already, you know that."

"If he pressed the matter, it would be unfortunate."

With grim amusement, Toreth wondered if a talent for understatement could be genetic. "Too fucking right. I've got no plans to end up on level C because Warrick's developing a taste for vengeance."

"How would you act to stop him?" The polite enquiry chilled him.

Toreth didn't rush to reply, giving himself plenty of time to try to work out the right answer. There probably wasn't one. "I'd ask him nicely not to."

That drew a wry smile. "And do you think that would help? If he's as much like his mother as he seems . . . " After a brief pause, he added, "In truth, I'm afraid it might not matter. I had hoped Tarin's death would be enough to cut the connection. On its own, given time, it might have been. However, the group Tarin associated with is too large and too well organised to be ignored. There will be arrests. I'm afraid it's become inevitable now that Kailynna is no longer monitoring the group. I've done my best to prevent it, but I'm only one man."

"What about the new Administration?"

"Tarin's friends have rather more radical ideas than the new Administration is comfortable with. Before they were a highly valuable source of information; now they are a nuisance."

"Fuck. What if they name Tarin?"

"That is the difficulty."

Footsteps sounded outside, a man and woman laughed as they passed the door. Toreth looked down at the floor, at the worn carpet, distracted for a moment by wondering if he'd ever had anyone in this room. Then he forced his attention back to the current problem. If Tarin's friends were arrested and they named him, Warrick would be fucked. A pity that Valeria wasn't old enough to take over her grandmother's role. Had that been Kate's intention? Pity too that Kate hadn't managed to bring Tarin up to spy willingly instead of having to use him as an unwitting —

Fuck.

"How many people know about Tarin?" he asked slowly.

"Everything about him is in his file, and her file also. There are records of the operation."

"Yeah, but files can be lost. I mean — they could've been lost already, couldn't they? During the revolt?"

"Possibly. However, that wouldn't prevent Tarin's associates from naming him."

"No, but they might not know everything about him. What if he had been an active agent, if he'd been working
with
Kate? Not as an Int-Sec employee, but an informer. If that were true, then the accident would be a logical reason to bring the rest of the group in, wouldn't it?"

Sable's eyes narrowed. "Files would have to be altered . . . it could be done. However, the investigation would very likely raise enough questions that the truth would come to light. The other resisters would certainly name him."

"Give me the case. Half my training is how to avoid planting ideas in prisoners by accident. I can do it deliberately. By the time I'm done they'll be convinced they've doubted Tarin for years. No one will know it's not genuine."

"Except you."

He swallowed, trying to keep his voice level. "I won't tell anyone."

"We both know that you cannot give that guarantee." His clipped voice sounded again very like Warrick's. "If asked the right questions, under the right circumstances, promises, however sincerely meant, cannot hold."

Toreth had to nod. It was something he'd spent his entire professional life proving.

"Still . . . " Sable rubbed the side of his neck thoughtfully. "I do believe you would have a powerful incentive to keep quiet."

My career, my freedom, my life. "Too fucking right."

"And besides, I've read — "

"My psych file." Irritation and relief loosened his tongue. "Yeah, yeah. You and the rest of the fucking planet."

Sable stared, then laughed. "Yes, I imagine it must be annoying."

Toreth shrugged. "I'm sick, but it pays well. What do you think of the plan?"

The faint noise from he bar below did nothing to soften the silence in the room as Sable gazed past him, contemplating the wall with complete concentration. Then he nodded. "I'm willing to take a chance on it,
if
you think it would be sufficient to stop my son digging any deeper."

"Yes, it will." He'd convince Warrick or die trying. "With the right arguments."

"How can you be so sure?"

"He's not suicidal. And even if he was, there's Valeria — there's all the family. He won't put them in danger if Tarin is safe."

"And how does he feel about your safety?"

Toreth shrugged, uncomfortable with the basic idea and with the faint hint of threat he hoped he was imagining. "I couldn't tell you that."

"The last time — the only previous time — I spoke to him, he seemed concerned for your welfare. Well, if further reassurance is required, I will do my best to provide it. But hopefully he will trust
your
word that the danger is past."

Toreth blinked. "Yeah. I hope so too." On the evidence of tonight, that wasn't a bet he'd want to take.

"Very well, then. I shall make arrangements. I may have to move quickly, so be prepared to be called in to take the case at any time. I'll begin the arrests as soon as the files are secure."

"I'll be ready."

"My influence at I&I is limited. If the case is given to someone else, we will all fall together."

"I'll be ready," Toreth repeated.

Sable nodded. "Then, if there is nothing more, I think it would be a good idea for us to go our separate ways."

Without waiting for answer, Sable opened the door and held it for Toreth. Walking past Sable — turning his back on him — sent a crawling sensation between Toreth's shoulder blades. The noise from the crowded bar below grew as they walked down the corridor, a reassuring beacon of safety and normality. God, he hoped there weren't too many more half hours like that in his future.

As they descended to the bar, Toreth felt a sudden, suicidal regret that he hadn't tried propositioning the man. He shouldn't want to — besides being significantly older than Toreth's usual range, he had a staunchly heterosexual air and Toreth didn't honestly think that he would get anywhere. However, the thought had a hypnotic fascination. He glanced sideways at Sable, abruptly absorbed by the idea of how he would look in bed, how he would look coming. The idea of stripping away Sable's poise and control appealed viscerally. An old, familiar urge.

Fucking Warrick's father.

Probably a good thing he hadn't asked. For one thing, if the man had agreed, Toreth would never have been able to resist telling Sara about it.

Warrick had seen Toreth as soon as he had stood up from the seat opposite Sable. How he'd kept the shock off his face, he didn't know. Thank God for years of practising control in the sim. He'd waited outside the bar, watching them through the window, and then followed twenty metres behind as they walked to a new bar. 'Gegi's', the sign had read.

Somewhere he'd never been. After five minutes outside, he'd risked venturing into the place . The bar was large and noisy, but he'd convinced himself he couldn't find them in there. If they'd left by another door he had no way of finding them. With nothing else to do, he'd got back outside, where watching the door seemed more likely to produce a positive result. Now he'd been waiting for more than fifteen minutes, attracting more attention than was probably safe although most of it was of the easily refused variety.

No one had lingered, and for that he was grateful for the miserable night. A recycling point a few metres from the bar's main entrance provided a bare minimum of shelter, but his hair was beginning to feel wet rather than simply damp. The chill wasn't helping his concentration. His mind was . . . well, certainly not a blank. But he couldn't get a grip on his thoughts, couldn't even begin to start setting them in order and making a plan. All he was certain of was that he had no intention of abandoning Toreth in there with —

Leo. Sable. His father.

He couldn't connect the ideas, the people, together in his mind yet, and he wondered if he ever would. Leo, whose name had featured so prominently in his childhood: Kate and Jen's stories, the pictures, the belongings he and Dilly were sometimes allowed to play with. An illusion, but one that felt far more real than this, waiting outside a bar in the rain for a Citizen Surveillance agent to emerge.

How long should he give it? What should he do if Sable left alone?

In the end, to his relief, they came out of the bar together. Toreth held the door open for Sable, who smiled politely and gestured for him to go first. Toreth closed his eyes for a second as he stepped out of the door, and Warrick wondered if he was expecting a gun or a knife. But there was no drama, nothing to differentiate them from the other couples who had left while he watched.

Couples. From his brief foray into the bar, it had been clear what kind of place it was. He couldn't help wondering whether Toreth would contemplate that, then decided he didn't want to know. Much of the trick with Toreth was knowing when it was better not to ask.

Warrick moved a little further back behind the recycler as both men looked up and down the street. Sable lifted his hand for a taxi, but Toreth caught his arm.

"Can I ask you a question?" Toreth said.

Sable nodded.

"Did you tell him who you are?"

"No. He told me." Sable smiled, warmly this time. It made him look almost like Cele's old portrait. Almost human. "I think, unfortunately, that I'm rather proud of him."

"Unfortunately?"

"Yes. I'm a servant of the state, Para-investigator. Emotions are an indulgence I can't afford. They complicate situations impossibly." He grimaced, turning away so that Warrick couldn't read the emotion. "They cost too much."

The noise from the crowded bar came suddenly loud again as a group of young men left, making their way around Sable and Toreth without paying them any attention.

"My life would have been so much simpler if I had never met Kate," Sable continued when they had gone. "And the traditional qualifier is 'simpler but poorer'. Maybe that's so, but . . . " He paused for a moment, then shrugged and waved at a taxi. It cut through the light traffic and halted by the kerb. "In the end, what's the point of wishing things had been different? We make our choices and have our accidents, and all we can do is live with the consequences. And pay the price. Goodbye."

Toreth stood with his hands in his pockets, watching as the taxi drove away. When it turned the corner at the end of the street, he turned and strode off quickly in the opposite direction.

The sudden departure took Warrick by surprise. By the time he'd started following again, Toreth had turned a corner, cutting through a short delivery yard into the parallel street.

When he reached the street, Toreth was nowhere in sight. The pavements were busier here, people hurrying through the rain. Warrick searched the crowd for a blond head. Nothing. Had he crossed the road? Gone into a bar? Caught a luckily passing taxi? He picked left, as being the direction most towards the flat, and started walking.

A few seconds later a voice behind him said, "You're a fantastic programmer, but you make a fucking awful tail."

Warrick spun round, then relaxed. Toreth stood with his hands in his pockets, so ostentatiously casual that Warrick almost laughed. "You frightened me to death."

"Well, it'll save me from killing you a more traditional way." Despite his stance, Toreth sounded furious. "You should leave this kind of thing to the professionals. What the
fuck
do you think you were doing?"

"What did it look like?"

"It looked like when you said last night you'd 'take an opportunity if it showed up', you were lying through your fucking teeth because you already knew exactly where the bastard was."

Warrick dropped his gaze to the wet pavement, then looked up at Toreth. "Something like that, yes. I'm sorry."

"Which makes all the fucking difference." Toreth ran his hand through his rain-damp hair, slicking it back. Then he shook his head sharply, undoing the effect. "I should have guessed — no wonder you didn't give a shit about my lead. How the fuck did you find him?"

He'd hoped Toreth wouldn't ask that. "I had a lead too."

"You — shit." His face twisted with dismay. "You got a name from fucking
Carnac
?"

"Yes."

After a frightening moment of silence Toreth put his hands behind his back. Warrick saw his shoulders tense as he clasped his hands together hard. Not a good sign.

"So much for fucking trust," Toreth said coldly.

"You were the one who said that information from Carnac wasn't reliable. Like you, I wanted to check things out before I did anything rash." Toreth drew a quick breath, but Warrick pressed on. "I did a credit and purchase check on the name and went to see if it was the right man."

Toreth groaned. "Jesus. Cit must be watching the files, you do realise that?"

"They won't know it was me, I promise. I know those systems. There's no way they can trace — "

"They don't
need
to fucking trace anything. You were there, in the bloody bar! You
talked
to him. Warrick, you shouldn't even have been in the place. It's too fucking dangerous."

Warrick smiled wryly. "Are you working for SimTech security these days? If not, you're certainly beginning to sound like them. When I saw him — " He paused, trying to keep his voice calm. "Perhaps it was stupid, yes. But I had to know."

"And?"

"He denied he had anything to do with it."

"Did you believe him?" Toreth asked.

"Not for a moment. Whatever differences Tar and I have had in the past . . . " He shrugged one shoulder. "He's my brother, even if that man isn't his father. I refuse to let Tarin be dealt with like vermin because of whose son he happens to be. I've never felt the need to indulge in corporate sabotage before, but something has to be done to stop Sable."