Nothing in his life had ever come close to the wonder of that time. No girl had—could—ever match her, in any respect. He’d gone on with his life, accepted that nothing would ever be that good again, knowing he could put it all behind him because he would never see her again. She was on Earth, and he was on Far Away, a safe four hundred light-years distant. And so it would remain. Forever.
“Goddamnit,” he shouted to the room. He lurched up, and came close to slapping himself. Instead, he took a breath, perched on the end of the bed, and told his e-butler to open a link to the planetary cybersphere.
“I want an identity check on an Earth citizen,” he told his e-butler. “See if there’s any reference available on Justine Burnelli.”
…
I ought to be getting used to this, Paula thought. She wasn’t, though. And that was far more painful than any irony.
For once she’d gone to Mel Rees’s office. It was a political thing. This was her mess, her responsibility. Once again.
Not that it was any comfort, but Mel Rees seemed to be just as unhappy about the meeting. His office was only marginally bigger than the one she occupied, although his view of the Eiffel Tower was a lot better. The door closed behind her, and he sat behind a big old walnut desk that was devoid of any clutter.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“For Christ’s sake, Paula. Some psycho takes out a half block of Venice Coast, kills nineteen people in the process, and you don’t know? This is not a good start for the Agency. Columbia is demanding results, and he’s not using nice language to ask.”
“I am aware of the Agency’s situation. What happened out there concerns me a lot more.”
“I understand how concerned you are.” He hesitated, winding himself up, like a doctor preparing to break bad news. “You’ve been on this case a long time. Maybe…”
“No,” she said flatly. “It is not time for me to move on and hand over to someone else.”
Rees didn’t argue. He seemed to shrink a little further behind his desk. “All right. But be warned, Paula, there are questions being raised about your suitability. Things are different here now, and they’re going to change even more. If the order comes down to move you on, it isn’t one that I’ll be able to shield you from. If it wasn’t for your record outside the Guardians case—”
“I am aware of how my reputation protects me. And you know none of your other Investigators would be able to run Johansson down.”
“Yeah.” The thought was visibly worrying him. “So what can you tell me about Venice Coast?”
“I’ve been supervising the forensics operation, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events. It added very little to what we already know.” She told her e-butler to run a file on the deputy director’s wall-mounted portal. It produced an image from one of the observation team’s sensors, showing the man poised in Rigin’s shattered office window the moment before he dived into the canal. “The face is unknown to any database, so we assume it’s a cellular reprofiling. There’s no visual sensor image of him arriving or leaving Anacona at the CST station.”
“A native, then?”
“Unlikely, but we haven’t ruled out the possibility. As far as we can determine, his weapon systems were all wetwired, with the exception of a simple arm dispenser. We recovered the receptionist’s memorycell, and read the last ten minutes. I acquired it myself.” The memory was now as clear as any of her own. She could recall the man walking into the gallery. She’d sat up a little straighter behind the reception desk, smiling when she noticed his youth and looks. Then his arm was raised, something moving below the jacket sleeve—
There was nothing else, no time for her to feel pain, or horror, or fear. Death had been instantaneous. “We were lucky to get that,” she said. “The way the gallery was built meant the ground floor had a degree of protection from the plasma surge after the blast. There were other bodies down there, but they were ninety percent vaporized. And the bodyguard, Roberto, he was fortunate, too. His armor frame wasn’t exactly designed with a superthermal charge in mind, but its deflector field did provide some shielding. The frame’s processors contained some interesting records. Just before the blast it had managed to ward off an ion pulse, then the armor received some terrible physical impacts. Someone used poor Roberto as a punching bag. Our intruder was one sophisticated boy. I asked our new colleagues in the Enforcement Directorate what it would take to build someone up to that standard. They actually had trouble working out the specs for me. Wetwired force fields are cutting edge.”
Mel took a long disapproving glance at the image in the portal. “Do you think Johansson has a lot of them?”
“I don’t think he’s Johansson’s at all. Elvin hasn’t acquired this kind of capability. Besides, he wrecked Elvin’s operation. No, he was sent by someone else.”
“Any guesses?”
“Logically, there are three possibilities. A deep Commonwealth security department sent him in, something we’re not cleared to know about. There have always been rumors about the executive office having its own intelligence sector. Why they’d use an operative in this instance I don’t know, unless it was to send a very clear message to Johansson that we’re not going to tolerate him anymore. The same applies to CST. They could certainly put someone like this together, and they’re not likely to forgive or forget the sabotage attempt on the Second Chance.”
“And the third possibility?”
“The Starflyer sent him.”
“Oh, come on!”
“It’s an option, you have to admit that.”
“No, I don’t. What about Rigin’s enemies? He was a black-market arms merchant for God’s sake. His kind don’t settle disagreements over a meal and a bottle of wine.”
“A rival wouldn’t bother destroying the equipment Rigin was collecting; they wouldn’t even know about it. No, the timing indicates someone who had the same information we did. That fits the first two possibilities. Our operations are available to the executive. It might even fit the third.”
“No. Paula, no! There is no third option. The Starflyer is a cult conspiracy theory. You do not include it in any official report. If you do, I will not even attempt to cover your ass. Don’t you see how political this is? It had to be the President or CST. We can investigate many things, but not them.”
“Nobody is above the law.”
“Damnit. If the executive authorized it, then it is lawful. Same for CST; God, Sheldon and Ozzie own whole planets including a Big15, they are governments.”
“That doesn’t make what happened right. They killed people.”
“Don’t do this, Paula.” Mel was almost pleading. “Let me talk to Columbia, let me find out if this is safe. You never know, I might actually be right. It might have been one of Rigin’s enemies.”
She considered the request. “Very well, I’ll complete the investigation into the gallery explosion itself. How it is carried forward after that, and who it’s assigned to, will be your call.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously.
“If the investigation is blocked politically, it will be because it was either CST or the executive which ordered the assault, in which case I’m not interested. Not that I don’t want to see justice done, but it would not ever be possible to achieve justice in those circumstances. I would be wasting my time, which I could be using to pursue Johansson and Elvin. If Columbia wants us to proceed, then that’s a different matter.”
“If we get the all-clear, it’ll be to find out who Rigin was at war with. Do you really want to spend time on that? You’ve got the resources to track down Johansson now.”
“If we get the all-clear, you and I will need to know which of us is right.”
“So do you want the case?”
“I’ll let you know when you bring an answer from Columbia. Until then, I’m still dedicating the team to finding Johansson.”
“Okay. I can live with that.”
“There’s something else I want you to raise with Columbia.”
“Yes?”
“Elvin was after some very advanced equipment; I really think it’s time for every export to Far Away to be searched. Our current policy of random checks is simply not acceptable anymore. Not that it ever was to me.”
“I’ll put it on the agenda.”
“Good.”
Hoshe Finn was just sitting down to supper when the apartment’s door sensors showed him who was approaching. He muttered, “Holy shit,” and stood bolt upright. His wife, Inima, gave him a surprised look, then glanced at the little screen showing the camera picture. “Isn’t that… ?”
“Yep.” Hoshe went through the living room and arrived at the door the same time as Paula Myo. “Is something wrong?” he asked after he’d invited her in.
“No, everything is fine, thank you.” She looked him up and down. “You’ve lost some weight.”
“Not before time,” Inima said giving him a shy glance. “We’re considering having a child.”
Paula produced a genuine smile. “Congratulations. Will you be carrying it?”
“Heavens no,” Inima said. “It’ll be a vitro womb pregnancy.”
“Right.”
That seemed to exhaust the Investigator’s small talk. Hoshe and Inima exchanged a mildly bewildered look.
“Do you want to join us for supper?” Inima asked.
“No thank you, it’s midafternoon Paris time. I caught the express.”
“We can talk on the balcony if you’d like,” Hoshe said as his wife shot him a desperate glare.
“If you don’t mind,” Paula said.
“I’ll just get on with catching up on some work,” Inima assured her.
The balcony of the little apartment barely had room for the small round table and two chairs that were pressed up against the railing. Hoshe shuffled around the table and sat down. Paula stood by the rail, taking in the view. The thirty-story apartment block was in Darklake City’s Malikoi district, a long way back from the shore. Paula could look out and see the parks and elaborate buildings that meandered along the shoreline, she could even pick out the tower behind the big marina where
