Minishimi relaxed against her seat restraints, smiling the smile of someone who’s had a death sentence commuted. “That was an old friend,” she said, “with a wonderful sense of timing.”
Chapter Thirteen
“I don’t like this,” Ari said between panted breaths, sweat running off his brow to sting his eyes.
“You don’t like what?” Alida asked, her voice and breathing maddeningly even, despite their pace. “The fact that it’s twenty-seven degrees and eighty percent humidity and it’s not even dawn, or the fact that I’m running your ass into the ground?” They were on their daily-at least daily while they were in garrison rather than the field-run around the same perimeter path where Ari had been attacked weeks before, but Ari couldn’t shut his mind down and run the way he usually did. He was worried and stressed and the dark trees around them seemed to him to be filled with concealed menace.
. “I’m running right next to you,” he reminded her a bit peevishly. “And I am used to the heat. I don’t like how long this is taking. It’s been over two weeks since I told them you were an investigator and your ass is still hanging in the wind.”
“Always thinking about my ass, aren’t you?” She laughed.
He shot her a baleful glare. “It is charming that you retain your sense of humor, my dear, but I am not quite so sanguine. I have not received any further instructions from my command since my last communication and I
“Ours is not to question why,
“I don’t like the other half of that quote,” he grumbled. “It involves something about us dying, if I recall right. Another thing that bothers me is that we still don’t know who hired those guys that tried to kill me.”
Before she could reply, they both slowed to a jog, staring at a dark figure standing at the edge of the trees, just out of the reach of the illumination of the chemical light poles that lined the path. Ari automatically began scanning the woods around them, searching for other threats, trusting Alida to watch the one they already knew about. She was already opening her waist pack, her hand wrapping around the compact pistol there…
“Relax, Inspector,” the man said, emerging from the shadows to reveal himself as General Kage.
“Sir,” she said, coming to a halt. “I am… surprised to see you out here.”
“It is the only way I could speak to the two of you without raising suspicions,” he told her, stepping up to the two officers. He seemed out of place dressed in dark sweats and running shoes, his bearing casual.
“General,” Ari said with a cautious nod.
“Nice to meet you formally, Captain Shamir,” Kage smiled thinly. “By the way, let me assure you that, had I not known who you were in advance, I would never have suspected you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ari replied. “Let me assure you, I was serious about what I said in our meeting.”
“And they were very intelligent suggestions, Captain. But we don’t have much time, and we have more pressing matters to discuss.”
“Did something happen, sir?” Alida asked.
“No, Inspector, and that is the problem. Given what Captain Shamir was able to discover about the scope of this conspiracy, I have decided that the scope of our investigation needs to expand as well. I need you to take the next step up this ladder: Lee has a contact with whomever in the Fleet or the corporations or the government recruited him into this plot. You need to meet with this person.”
“How do we get that information from Lee?” Ari wanted to know.
“I have further decided,” Kage went on as if he hadn’t heard the question, “that since we know nearly everything that Lee knows, there is no sense leaving him and Captain Ali out there as potential wildcards.” He spared Alida a meaningful glance. “You will clean this mess up, Inspector, and then you will use whatever means necessary to find out who Colonel Lee’s contact is. Do you understand what I am saying, Inspector?”
“Completely, sir,” she nodded, mouth set grimly.
“General,” Ari interrupted, “aren’t you forgetting something?”
“And what would that be, Captain Shamir?” Kage raised an eyebrow, seemingly amused by the thought.
“The hitters that came after me, sir,” Ari said. “Someone hired them… someone who knew who I was and that I was here investigating Lee.”
“The men who attacked you were street trash from the city,” Kage informed him. “Hired because they were disposable and wouldn’t be missed. And they were indeed hired by someone who knew who and where you were.” He smiled once more and Ari felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.
“
“What?” Alida exclaimed, looking back and forth between the two of them. “General, is this true?”
“You don’t need to keep acting, Alida,” Ari told her, anger in his voice. “I would hardly abandon the operation at this point, even if I had clearance to do so.”
“Captain Shamir,” Kage said quietly but firmly. “Yes, I did indeed hire those men. I needed to find out how good you were… if a group of street toughs could kill you, then you would not be of much use to me. And it worked out very well that your ‘Alida’ arrived in time to help. But she was not informed of my tactic… I decided that I could not trust her to allow you to be put in harm’s way. It was my observation that she was already developing feelings for you.”
“Ari,” she said, shaking her head, “you must believe me; I did not know about this, and had I been told, I wouldn’t have let you go out there alone.”
“Enough,” General Kage snapped impatiently. “You can have this lovers’ quarrel on your own time. What I need to know, Captain Shamir, is whether I can count on you to help us carry this out. I can’t simply have Guard troops march in and arrest the Colonel and Captain Ali… that would burn our bridges. This must be handled quietly, and it must be the two of you that handle it.”
“I’m in,” Ari confirmed, his mouth a hard line, his face stone.
“And you will not balk at doing what must be done?”
“Accidents happen,” he shrugged.
Kage snorted appreciatively, and then turned back to Alida. “When you have the information, you may contact me again.”
Without another word, he turned and faded back into the shadows. Alida glanced from the suddenly empty darkness to the doubt in her lover’s eyes. “Please believe me,
“I do not even know your real name,” he responded, smiling sadly. “There is no Alida Hudec… I call you by a name of someone who does not exist.”
“My name is…” she began, but he gently placed a finger over her lips.
“Wait. We have work to do first. When we have done what we must, when I know that I am speaking to who you are and not who you must pretend to be, then you will tell me your name and we will speak as a man and a woman.”
She considered that silently for a moment, then grabbed his finger and quickly and painfully bent it back. Shocked, Ari went down to his knees, mouth open as if he were on the verge of crying out in pain.
“The hell with that, Ariel Shamir,” she said forcefully, lowering her face to look him in the eyes. “I can’t make you talk, but I will make you listen. If we die doing our duty, then you will die knowing that my name is Roza Kovach, that I told you the truth about being kidnapped as a teenager, about my parents and about Pithapuram. And you will know that I am telling you the truth when I tell you that I love you.” She let loose of his finger and pushed him away, putting him on the ground on his rear. He stared at her, mouth agape. “Get off your ass, Captain. As you say,” she turned and began jogging down the path, “we have work to do.”
Valerie O’Keefe-Mulrooney felt strangely relaxed as she waited for someone to try to kill her. The Old City was, she decided morbidly, a very good place to die, if it came to that. She stepped away from her groundcar
