“Don’t bring it to trial?”
“Not until we can get our people back safely,” Carter insisted. “I’m thinking that Nick – um, Detective Ashton – will be home soon; his wife is pregnant with their second, and due in a few weeks. Most likely Honda will come with him. They’ve almost completed their current task anyway, which is more than we expected when we sent them. They’ve almost laid out the entire structure of the Alliance intelligence network, at least between here and Carolina.”
“True…”
“So we could claim to be tying up loose ends on the case – which would be true, after a fashion – and simply hold the murderer in the lockdowns,” Carter continued, “and send him or her to trial after Ashton and Honda get back to Imperial City.”
“What do you think, General?” Dunham asked Daggert.
“I think it sounds like the best way to avoid getting our people killed unnecessarily, Sire.”
“So do I. Go forward with it, Director Carter. But do please keep both General Daggert and myself posted, if you please. A quick note will do for me; I can have the General here answer any questions I might have.”
“Thank you, Sire.”
The next Tuesday, the Garland consul, Baron Sebastien Beaudelaire, and the Berinia consul, Ivan Lebedev, arrived in the Annalian consulate, complete with a team of guards each. They insisted on seeing Niebecker immediately, so the receptionist, a cute little redheaded girl in her twenties, efficient but not that bright, notified Niebecker in VR, then rose from her desk and led her through Ashton’s office toward the door of the consul’s office.
“This will do,” Beaudelaire declared, spotting Ashton. “There he is! Take him!”
Suddenly Ashton, who had been working at his desk, was surrounded by armed men, their weapons drawn and leveled at him. The receptionist squeaked in fear and ran out the door to her office, slamming it behind her.
“What the hell is going on here?” Niebecker demanded to know, as he stood in the doorway of his office, having intended to meet the other consuls there and lead them inside.
“Your courier here has betrayed us,” Lebedev almost snarled. “Our principal investigator in the Imperial City is dead.”
“And ours has disappeared,” Beaudelaire added, tone strident and angry. “Your courier has betrayed them to the Sintaran Empire!”
Ashton stared in stunned amazement. He started to stand, but the sound of safeties clicking caused him to freeze in place, halfway out of his chair.
“Sit,” Lebedev ordered. Ashton sat.
“Turn out your pockets,” Beaudelaire demanded.
“Why? I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ashton stated flatly. “Seriously. Mr. Niebecker, sir, I honestly don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. I don’t know who their people are, and I don’t know who died, but I swear I had nothing to do with it, whatever’s happened.”
“Liar!” Beaudelaire shouted, reaching out and backhanding Ashton hard across the face. Beaudelaire was a stout, fat man with a hand like a small side of beef. So when the back of his fist impacted the right side of Ashton’s face, his head snapped around; his cheek reddened, and cheek, nose, and eye began to blacken instantaneously. “You are the only thing that was different! You will tell us what you have done! We will have the information!”
“STOP THAT!” Niebecker barked, as Beaudelaire drew back his other hand.
“He has betrayed us! Do you deny it?” Beaudelaire exclaimed, gesticulating between Ashton and Niebecker. “Is he betraying you? Or is he working for you? Perhaps you had it done, or your superiors?”
“I didn’t betray anybody,” Ashton maintained. “I swear, I never said anything to anybody! Especially nothing that would result in somebody being dead.” Which latter, at least, he thought, is the truth. I told Lee to just sit back and watch until Rick and I got outta this, and he swore he would. “I’m not stupid; I know what classified information is. I never looked at anything that I couriered to anybody. I never had time!”
“He speaks the truth, gentlemen. I keep him very busy, and he is always very quick when he couriers for me; he wouldn’t have time or resources to access anything in the storage chips. What do you mean, coming in here and accusing my personal assistant in this fashion?” Niebecker asked, calm and deceptively cool. “You have no proof he has done anything.”
“Make him turn out his pockets,” Beaudelaire demanded. “We will see what devices he has there for the use of our enemies!”
“Turn out your pockets, Rik,” Niebecker sighed. “Let us prove to them you are innocent.”
“Okay, whatever,” Ashton agreed. He pulled his trousers pockets wrong-side out, slapped his hands to his ass to demonstrate there was nothing in the back pockets, slapped a hand to his shirt pocket, then grabbed his jacket off the nearby coat hook and held it upside-down by the hem, shaking it; nothing fell out.
“Well, gentlemen?” Niebecker asked. “He couriered something to the Terre Autre consulate just this morning; if he’d been spying on us, he’d have the tools of his work on him. And he does not.”
“My agent is dead!” Lebedev shouted. “His nanites reported his death to me three days ago! It has taken me this long to determine who is responsible! And that only when I discovered that Beaudelaire also had a missing agent!”
“And you?” Niebecker turned to Beaudelaire. “Is your agent also dead?”
“No, not according to his nanites, but he has disappeared,” Beaudelaire declared. “And I cannot reach him, even through the VR network.”
“That does not mean he is dead,” Niebecker pointed out. “He could simply have decided to go on vacation, and not wish it interrupted… by anyone. Especially if he has, or has found, a love interest. Or he may not
