“Yes.”
“What was your answer?”
“That I was. I am. I do things the way they need to be done.”
“Did you lie when you told the Imperial Marines you were a straight cop?”
“Of course. That’s just how you do things. It was none of their damn business anyway, toadying bastards.”
“Was it your idea to assassinate Carter?”
“No.”
“Whose was it?”
“Carr’s.”
“William Harold Carr had the idea to assassinate Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Was it your idea to assassinate Ashton?”
“Yes.”
“Whose idea was it to assassinate Detective Ames?”
“Mine.”
“Whose idea was it to assassinate Colonel Peterson?”
“Mine.”
“Who called the first meeting to plan the assassination?”
“I did.”
“Who attended that meeting?”
“Me, Carr, Peabody, Williams, Seeger, Warner, Lowe, Wang, and Holland.”
“Did you believe Peabody was with you?”
“Yes.”
“Who ran the meeting?”
“I did.”
“Did you work out a verbal contract with Hennig and Brandt to kill Director Lee Carter, Colonel Maia Peterson and Detectives Dominick Ashton and Callista Ames?”
“Yes.”
“What did this contract consist of?”
“Go to Carter’s house and sabotage it to kill all four of ‘em when Ashton and Ames were over for dinner.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Their old jobs as enforcers, at the standard pay.”
“Did you ever seriously consider Peabody for the director’s position?”
“No.”
“Did you have any follow-up meetings?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“What happened in those?”
“In the first, the enforcers reported back that the sabotage packages had been successfully installed in Carter’s house. Then we started planning for what to do once we’d taken back IPD Headquarters.”
“Meaning the destruction of the ICPD main precinct?”
“Yes. And started talking about what to do with the Emperor.”
“We’ll get to that in a moment, then. Did you believe your plot had succeeded?”
“Yes.”
“Did you hire Joseph Hennig to assassinate Winston Peabody?”
“Yes.”
“What were the terms under which you hired Hennig to assassinate Peabody?”
“He would get two thousand credits in exchange for ambushing Peabody on his way to work, and making it look like an old perp did it.”
“Did you specify the perp?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“The Apollo Avenue Killer.”
“Did Peabody work that case?”
“Yeah, about eight years back. He caught the guy, ‘cause word didn’t come down in time, but the Council wanted him loose, so the charges didn’t stick.”
“What was the mode of death supposed to be?”
“Multiple stab wounds in the back. That was the M.O. of the Apollo Avenue Killer.”
“Was the Apollo Avenue Killer one of the old IPD hitmen?”
“Yes.”
“Is that hitman still alive and operating?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He was killed in the Headquarters strike.”
“When was Peabody’s assassination supposed to take place?”
“The morning after the house bombing.”
“When Carter, Ashton, and Peabody did not arrive for work the day after the bombing, what did you think?”
“I thought they were dead. The news video playing on the wall screen supported that.”
“What was next on your agenda?”
“Taking over the directorship, changing everything back to how it’s supposed to be, then going after the Imp City Police, to get them out of my way.”
“How did you intend to do that?”
“Bomb their headquarters. Take out the head.”
“And then?”
“Issue an ultimatum to the Emperor.”
“How did you intend to back up that ultimatum?”
“Kidnap his bitch.”
“And do what, if he refused to cooperate?”
“Rape her, then kill her. Slowly. A little at a time. Force him to cooperate.”
“Are you aware that Emperor Trajan’s fiancée is the chief advisor to Consul Saaret?”
“So?”
“What did you intend to force Trajan to do?”
“Go along with us or step down and let us put someone in that we wanted.”
“Then what would you do?”
“Take him prisoner, kill him and his bitch, and probably take the throne myself.”
“And you thought that you could do what the Imperial Council could not?”
Bradly shrugged.
“Sure. Why not? You don’t know unless you try.”
“What makes you think you would have succeeded?”
“The Council was too arrogant and too blatant. I’m sneaky.”
“And you believe you would have won? Against the Imperial Guard and Marines?”
“What do they have to do with it?”
Mercer paused, as a message under Imperial header unexpectedly flashed into his VR inbox. He opened it. It contained three words – terse, cold, harsh. Implacable.
And utterly without appeal.
Enough.
Execute him.
“Dr. Martin, did you just receive…?” Mercer began.
“Yes, sir, I did,” Martin replied. “Complete with Imperial header.”
“All right. Please proceed, then.”
Bradly could only watch as Dr. Martin reached into his little bag and withdrew an ampoule with a black label imprinted in white, with a large skull and crossbones on it. Martin fitted the ampoule into the injector, then moved to Bradly’s side. Mentally, he began to scream, to curse, to tell them no, stop, get your hands off me… but nothing came out of his mouth.
He could just see Martin’s hand, holding the injector, from the corner of his eye as Martin pressed it against his throat, where the carotid artery would be. He tried to fight, tried to move, but the drugs and the restraints prevented him. He heard the hiss, felt two heartbeats, then an awful, blinding, nauseating, migraine-like pain hit the center of his head, spreading outward, and his entire cranium felt like it was splitting open as a result of an axe blow delivered from inside his skull.
The observers, both near and distant, watched as Bradly’s mouth dropped open and his eyes widened in horror. He paled, then the expression left his eyes, which glazed as his face turned white.
Fractions of a second later, his head dropped forward, bobbing slightly. A dribble of spittle fell from his lower lip onto the tabletop.
Dr. Martin felt for a pulse.
“He’s dead,” he pronounced.
Mercer nodded, then held up a finger as his expression went blank once more. Within moments,
