“And now we wait,” he said to the empty room.
It didn’t take long. The next day, David Mercer called.
“Nick? It’s David.”
“Hi, David. Whatcha got for me?”
“Well, for starters, I wanted to thank you for that list of the traders you sent yesterday. That was a big help, and even the Empress, in her position as advisor to Consul Saaret, agreed. She’d meant to do it herself, but everything that’s going down has been keeping the Consul’s Office damnably busy, she said.”
“No problem,” Ashton said. “That’s what the IPD is here for, anyway.”
“Well, but still. You and your team need to know that you’re appreciated. You have no idea how much easier shit like this is, with an honest IPD headquarters to work with.”
“Maybe more than you think,” Ashton replied with a wry grin. “Heh. I’ve got a funny little discolored mark on my chest to this day, where I took an old-IPD goon’s bullet in the armor without shock plates. The bruising was epic at the time, and that little mark is what’s left over; it never went away. Doc says the subcutaneous blood vessels didn’t heal back right or something.”
“Oh, that’s right. Yeah, okay, you do know. So on to the next thing. The fake coded message was received by this Carol Urban person, and forwarded to her point of contact in the former DP, passed up a couple levels, and then it started spreading out. We have over a hundred and ten people on the DP side of things, and we have them dead to rights. They all got the coded message, they all passed it on – well, except for the final tier, I guess – and they all discussed it among themselves. Then the Consul’s Office – meaning, I guess, Empress Amanda – noted that every last damn one of them made some tweaks to their market stance, including additional puts on Sintaran stocks.”
“So that nails ‘em.”
“Looks like it. And your list helped confirm them. There was nobody on the list out of the Consul’s Office that wasn’t on your list. Though there were a few on your list that weren’t on the Consul’s list.”
“Which I expected,” Ashton agreed. “Some of those on my list are gonna be just regular guys like us, trying to play the markets and earn a little extra. They’ll either study the markets like Mr. Stauss did, and come up with ‘maybe this is a good move,’ or they’ll listen to a stockbroker who probably did the same thing.”
“Exactly. So now we’re waiting for the Emperor to make his move.”
“Right.”
“I know you were sending a guy out there,” Mercer continued, “but we really don’t need to wait until he arrives…”
“Already on top of it,” Ashton said. “I thought about that after the Gerber interrogation. We nixed Honda’s travel, and Lee contacted the IPD sector director on Carolina instead. It’s all set up, and just waiting for the command.”
“Good. I’ll be waiting.”
The next morning, Director Carter wasn’t in the office; he’d told Ashton the afternoon before that he had a dental appointment. His family was genetically prone to such things, and Carter’s nanites let him know whenever trouble was brewing. They had notified him a couple of days before of an issue developing with his lone remaining wisdom tooth, but he’d put things off until after the Gerber interrogation.
“But now I’ve gotta go see to it,” he’d said, “or there’ll prob’ly be hell to pay. And sooner rather than later.”
“Right,” Ashton had replied. “So… what? Harold Quan is in charge tomorrow?”
“No. Maia told me last night, they needed him over at his Imperial City Police office to interview some new guys outta the Academy. They’re like me over there; they prefer face to face interviews, not VR. It’s too easy to hide stuff in VR, if you know what you’re doing.”
“Point,” Ashton agreed. “And you’ll note I’ve never done a hiring interview in VR, either. So that means…”
“You’re in charge, son,” Carter said. “You have a good head on your shoulders, and you’re probably gonna end up in my office one of these days, once I retire and stay retired – because Quan is older than I am, and on the cusp of retiring, himself. Might as well get used to it now.”
“Lee! I’m too young…”
“No, you’re not. You’re one of the youngest inspectors the IPD has ever had, but you earned it all, fair and square. Just like you earned the medals, and the other promotions, and the division and branch leads.” Carter put a hand on Ashton’s shoulder. “You can do this.”
Ashton had taken a deep breath and nodded.
“Okay,” he’d agreed.
Timetable Glitches
The first thing he’d done Friday morning was to contact Director – aka Chief; old habits died hard sometimes – Annette Browning, the head of the IPD in the Carolina Sector, on a secure channel.
“Hey, Annette. It’s Nick Ashton.”
“Good to hear from you, Nick. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I just wanted to give you a personal heads-up about some
