“Special school,” Kendig replied, still struggling to refuse answering.
“When did you begin that school?”
“I was 12.”
“Did you leave home?”
“Yes.”
“Are your parents dead?”
“Don’t think so.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Ain’t talked since I em’grated.”
“Do you miss them?”
“Nah.”
“Do you love them?”
“Nah.”
“Do you love your wife?”
“No.”
“Why did you marry her?”
“Good cover.”
“What about your children? Do you love them?”
“No.”
“Are they your children?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you have children with a woman you don’t love?”
“Good fuck. Keep her happy, good cover.”
“But you care nothing for any of them.”
“No.”
“What were you going to do if you had to run?”
“Kill ‘em, an’ go.”
“Did you know the device you gave Pierce would kill more than the Emperor’s family?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know how many?”
Kendig shrugged in his restraints.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’ care.”
“Why?”
“Sintarans.”
Black paused and entered VR for a quick voice conference.
“General Daggert, sir?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Have you been watching, sir?”
“The whole thing, Captain. You’re doing a good job.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m done with the list of questions I was given. Do you have anything else?”
“No, I think that covers it. Per the Emperor’s prior orders, execute him, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Withers had perked up when Black’s expression blanked, and he watched closely until Black came back up for air. Black turned to Withers and nodded.
“We’re done here,” he told Withers, waving at the physician’s bag.
“Right,” Withers said, reaching inside it and producing a black-labeled ampoule. “This won’t take a moment.”
Life Goes On…Sometimes
“…So what do we do about the family?” Ashton wondered, as he, Carter, and Daggert stood in the empty observing room, absently watching the remains of the man that had been Daniel Kendig be loaded onto a gurney and covered with a sheet for transport to the New Headquarters morgue.
“Good question,” Carter decided. “It’s not like he gave a rat’s ass about what happened to ‘em. They were just deep cover for him.”
“Indeed,” Daggert murmured. “I feel… badly for them. And I don’t even know who they are.”
“I wonder if he treated ‘em decently,” Ashton wondered.
“No idea,” Carter said. “Um, look, guys. Normally I’m a stickler for the truth – you know me. But I can’t think we’re doing the family any favors by telling them what Kendig just told us.”
“You think we ought to kinda skirt over or around what really happened to him?” Ashton wondered.
“Well… did you see the missing-persons report that came in this morning?” Carter asked.
“Ooo.” Ashton winced. “No, I didn’t. The wife?”
“Yeah. Really upset. And no less than three kids, the oldest of which is only about six or so.”
“Damn,” Ashton and Daggert said in unison.
“What about the parents, back in what’s left of the DP?” Ashton considered then.
“This just gets nastier and nastier,” Daggert decided. “And this is only one member of what is probably a ring of a dozen or more, deeply embedded. So they will all have families here, and the like. It could even develop that they have multiple families in different places.”
“So this needs to effectively set our precedent,” Ashton noted. “However we handle this one, we do likewise for the others.”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s take it in pieces-parts. The parents may well think he’s dead long since,” Carter considered. “Especially if there’s been no communication between them since he left the DP… maybe before, if that bit about the espionage school was anything to go by.”
“True…” Daggert said, considering. “And after the war, there may be no real way of locating them, in any case.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Ashton said. “I dunno what – I’m not comfortable telling ‘em he was willing to kill ‘em, but I’m not comfortable lying to ‘em, either…”
“I think we have no choice – we must tell them the truth,” Daggert decided. “Certainly, we do not have to tell them everything we know, but there will be more than this one spy. We cannot get into subterfuge at this stage, or we will simply lose track.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Carter agreed. “Listen, you two keep going on the spy ring. I’ll take care of any family notifications. I might call Maia over to help me out; she’s good with shit like this is turning into.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Ashton agreed. “Cally might be available to help, too; I dunno. But you can ask.”
“All right,” Carter sighed. “See you two later for the tag-up for round two?”
“In…” Daggert glanced at the clock on the wall. “In about two hours, in channel 84.”
“Right.”
And they broke up.
In the end, Carter did it himself.
“Ms. Kendig?” he asked the woman who appeared in his virtual office an hour later. “Lila Kendig?”
“Yes. Director Carter?” she said. “Do you have news?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do,” he told her, rising and coming around his desk to lead her to a conversation pit in the corner and seeing her seated in a comfortable armchair. “Sit here and try to take it easy. The news isn’t good. In any way. I’m afraid… well, I’m afraid your husband wasn’t who and what you thought he was…”
Lila Kendig paled.
“...According to the interrogation of Kendig, his handler is a fellow who goes by the name Frank Gerb, here on Sintar,” Daggert informed Carter and his Investigations division, including Ashton, in an early-morning virtual tag-up in channel 84. He, Carter, and Ashton had been up most of the night, observing the interrogation, so they already knew, but the rest of the investigators did not. “His real name is Franz Gerber. And yes, he’s from the DP originally. He’s a delivery man with the Imperial City Messenger delivery services company. His route hits up the various arcades around Imperial City, concentrating on Park South and
