The silence returned briefly.
“I’m getting too old for this shit, and I’m not really all that old,” Ashton offered then.
That proved the icebreaker the group needed, and they all laughed.
“All right,” Daggert said, some half-hour later. They had spent the time chatting about anything but what had just occurred, the four men discussing hobbies and favored sports, and in the process, first names were exchanged where needed, and permission to use them in appropriate circumstances given to those that didn’t already have it. Now the elder got the discussion back on track. “Lee, may I trust to you and Nick, here, to get this Carol Urban person in hand and taken care of? I’ll have to check with the Emperor to see what timing he wants, relative to some other things that are happening…”
“You can, Brian,” Carter told Daggert. “We already have some plans on that. We’re going to send one of our people to help with the arrest and interrogation. He’s got experience on Carolina already, doing this exact same stuff.”
“Good. I’ll leave you to handle it however you think best,” Daggert decided. “Only don’t let her get away, because that could be catastrophic.”
“Right,” Mercer agreed. “And if you could keep Brian, uhm, General Daggert and me in the loop, it would be appreciated. And vice versa, of course.”
“Yes,” Daggert confirmed, throwing a slight smile at the younger man for the inadvertent first-name use, once the professional discussion had resumed. “Given I need to be able to brief the Emperor about how it all comes out, we definitely need to remain in the loop.”
“Understood, sir,” Ashton said. “What about the plutocrats? What’s going to happen to them?”
“We have that in hand,” Mercer said. “I already have word that our people have – with some effort – identified things in the respective VR systems, and very shortly they’re going to send a coded message to this Urban woman, letting her know that the assassination attempt will supposedly occur this next weekend – not the one upcoming, but the next one. Hopefully that’ll get a rise out of her enough to notify the conspirators in the DP, and we’ll track the messages sent, peg the recipients, and go from there.”
“That sounds like a plan,” Carter said. “Once you get all the conspirators ID’ed, what happens next?”
“Oh,” Daggert said, developing a wolfish grin, “I expect the Emperor will be personally issuing Imperial warrants.”
“For arrest?” Ashton asked.
“For death,” Daggert replied.
“Lee, got a minute?” Ashton said later that afternoon, knocking on Carter’s office door frame.
“Sure thing, Nick,” Carter said, glancing up; he had been working in VR in the lower half of his vision. “I need a break anyway. Whatcha got?”
“I’ve been thinking about the, uh, situation on Carolina.”
“Come in and close the door.”
Ashton followed instructions, then took the visitor chair across the desk from Carter.
“Well, I got the notice from Mercer that the Emperor wants Urban picked up next week, at the same time as the warrants are issued on the plutocrats, and there’s no way we can get Rick there in time for that. ‘Cause it’ll take Rick a couple or three weeks minimum to get there, even if we send him on a direct flight. So I’m thinking we need to just contact the IPD lead on Carolina and let them handle it, maybe with you or me piggybacking through QE radio and VR.”
“Aha. Yes, good point. Yeah, you’re right, we have a perfectly capable office on Carolina. The longer we wait, the more likely we are to have a screw-up that lets her get away. So… yes. We want this to time out with the rest of the warrants. Okay. I’ll notify the Carolina IPD to be ready. You want me to monitor, or you got this?”
“I got this,” Ashton said. “I just wanted your permission to go forward with it.”
“You have it. Go forward with it.”
“All over it. Thanks, Lee.”
“Thanks for being such a damn good investigative lead, Nick.”
“That’s just my job, Lee.”
“It – and you – are appreciated, all the same.”
“Hey, Rick,” Ashton said, as Honda entered his office upon being summoned. “Close the door an’ siddown here a sec.”
“Yes, sir,” Honda said cheerfully, doing as he was told.
“You got that flight to Carolina set up yet?”
“No; I was gonna see about that this afternoon.”
“Don’t. I’ve been thinking, and I went forward to Lee and got his permission. We think it could take too long to get you there, which might accidentally let off this Urban bitch, given the plutocratic government back in the DP is gonna get executed while you’d be en route. That would give her all the warning she needed to disappear way before you ever got there.”
“Ooo, good point,” Honda said, wincing. “We don’t need that happening at all.”
“Exactly,” Ashton confirmed. “So I’m going to set up the local IPD to handle it, and monitor the arrest and interrogation myself, so we can go back to General Daggert and tell him it’s done, and done right. And by monitoring through the QE radio and VR, I can add to the interrogation, if need be.”
“Okay,” Honda agreed immediately. “I don’t have a problem with doing it, just so you know, but that does sound better, under the circumstances.”
“Good man,” Ashton said with a slight smile. “I’ll get you on another interesting case soon. You’ve been doing great.”
“Thanks, Boss, but that’s what Ashton’s Gang is all about.”
They grinned, and Honda left.
Meanwhile, Ashton himself pulled up the financial data that had been provided by one of the Empire’s select businessmen, one Otto Stauss, and began using it to identify specific persons in the DP through the various network interfaces the Sintaran Empire now had with the former Democracy of Planets.
