“An astute summary.”
“It must be very lonely for you up there on top of Olympus, judging the rest of us.”
“I hadn’t realized how badly you’ve been affected by McFoster’s death. I wouldn’t normally expect a Burnelli to give away any edge in a deal.”
“Are we making a deal?”
“You know we are.”
“Kazimir and I were lovers.” She said it simply, as if it were a stock market report, trying to keep her distance. Inside, the numbness was giving way to pain. She knew once the body was delivered safely to the clinic she’d have to flee back to the Tulip Mansion, a place where she could grieve properly, without anyone seeing.
“I had determined that much. Did you meet on Far Away?”
“Yes. He was only seventeen then. I’d never have guessed I could love someone like that. But then you never get to choose when it comes to real love, do you?”
“No.” Paula turned away.
“Have you been in love like that, Investigator? Love that makes you completely crazy?”
“Not for several lives, no.”
“I could cope with a bodyloss. I have with my brother. I could even cope with him losing several days of memory. But this, this is death, Investigator. Kazimir is gone forever, and I am the cause of that, I am the one who betrayed him. I’m not equipped for that, not mentally. True death is not something that happens today. Mistakes of this magnitude cannot be buried.”
“The Prime attack resulted in several tens of millions of humans being killed on the Lost23. People that will never be re-lifed. Your grief is not unique. Not anymore.”
“I’m just another rich bitch who has lost a trinket. Is that it?”
“No, Senator. Your suffering is very real, and for that I am genuinely sympathetic. However, I do believe you will get through this. You have the determination and clarity of thought that is only afforded to people of your age and experience.”
Justine snorted. “Emotional scar tissue, you mean.”
“Resilience would be closer to the mark. If anything, I’d say today has shown you just how human you are. In that at least you can be content.”
Justine finished polishing her nails with the tissue. Now there was no evidence she had ever touched him—it was a miserable thought. “You really believe that?”
“I do. I’m assuming the body is actually being taken to your family clinic so you can clone him?”
“No. I won’t do that to him. Replicating him physically is hardly going to purge my guilt. A person is more than just a body. I’m going to give Kazimir the one gift I still can. I can do no less.”
“I see. Then I wish you happiness in your choice, Senator.”
“Thank you.”
“But I would still like to know if you found anything.”
“A memory crystal.”
“May I see it?”
“Yes, I suppose you can. It’s your experience I’ll need to help bring down the Starflyer. But there are limits to my cooperation; I won’t give the navy anything that will help them stop the Guardians. I don’t care how committed you are to arresting Johansson.”
“I understand.”
***
Adam had personally given Kieran McSobel the support assignment for Kazimir’s run. Kieran had been making good progress since arriving on Earth a few years earlier, absorbing their tradecraft with ease, staying cool under pressure—qualities that marked him down as highly suitable for the kind of operations the Guardians were performing these days. This assignment should be a walk in the park for him.
When Kazimir’s loop train pulled in, Kieran was in place on the Carralvo’s concourse, mingling with the perpetual flood of passengers. Indistinguishable in the crowd like any good operative, ready for any number of contingencies.
Away on the other side of the station complex, the Guardians monitored his progress from the offices of Lemule’s Max Transit company. Adam himself lounged against the back wall, watching them in turn. He didn’t interfere with the procedures—after all, they were the ones he’d taught them, but he wanted his presence to supply them with a degree of reassurance. A comfortable father figure. It took a lot of effort not to pull a dismayed face every time he thought that. But this was a crucial operation; he had to be here to keep an eye on it. Bradley Johansson was desperate for the Martian data. The alien attack on the edge of phase two space had played hell with their carefully plotted timetable.
Marisa McFoster was running electronic scans through the Carralvo’s network, searching for any sign of observation activity around Kazimir. “It’s clean,” she announced. A secure link connected her to Kieran. “Proceed,” she told him.
A map on one of her console screens showed Kieran’s icon moving slowly along the concourse toward the main exit. He ought to be thirty meters behind Kazimir, monitoring the throng of passengers for possible tails.
“He’s stopped,” Kieran said suddenly.
“What do you mean, stopped?” Marisa asked.
Adam immediately straightened up. Please, not again.
“He’s shouting at someone,” Kieran’s puzzled voice said. “What in the dreaming heavens…?”
“Give me a visual,” Marisa told him.
Adam hurried over to stand behind her chair, bending to look at her console portal. The link from Kieran’s retinal inserts delivered an unsteady picture, a poor view through a crowd of people. A cluster of dark out-of-focus heads bobbed around directly in front of him. On the other side of them a figure was running. The image flared white as an ion pulse discharged.
“Fuck!” Kieran yelled. Smeared strands of darkness slashed across the glare of light as he whipped his head about. For a second there was a blurry black and white image of a man flying backward through the air, arms and legs flung wide. Then Kieran zoomed in on the man with the gun who was now turning to run.
“Bruce!” Marisa cried out.
“Who the hell’s Bruce?” Adam demanded.
“Bruce McFoster. Kazimir’s friend.”
“Shit. You mean the one that was killed?”
“Yeah.”
Adam slapped a fist against his forehead. “Only he wasn’t. The Starflyer’s done this to your prisoners before. Goddamnit!”
The screen showing the feed from Kieran flashed white. “He’s shooting again,” Kieran said. All the portal showed now was a pair of shoes, their wearer lying flat on a white marble floor. Kieran lifted his head and the shoes sank off the bottom of the portal; beyond them, Bruce McFoster was racing down the concourse, people ducking for cover on either side of him as he kept on firing. Two men and one woman were chasing after him, holding pistols and yelling at him to stop. They were dressed in ordinary clothes.
“They aren’t CST security,” Adam said grimly.
A shot from somewhere above and behind Kieran struck Bruce McFoster. His force field flared briefly, but he never slowed.
“Dear God, how many people knew Kazimir was on this run?”
Red icons started to flash up across Marisa’s console. “Someone’s attacked the local network with kaos,” she said. “Bad strike; this is high-grade software. The RI can barely contain the contamination.”
“That’ll be Bruce, or his controllers,” Adam said. “It’ll help him get clear. They must have known the navy was watching Kazimir.” Which is more than we did, he thought miserably.
The link to Kieran’s inserts was dissolving; all that remained was his secure audio channel.
“What do we do?” Marisa asked.
“Kieran, can you reach Kazimir?” Adam demanded. “Can you retrieve the memory crystal?”
“I don’t…oh, what…there’s someone…armed…standing beside…that’s no way, I can’t get…more people…alarms triggered…”
“All right, stay put and see what happens. See where they take him.”
“I’m on…okay.”
“Can you see where Bruce has gone?”
“…shooting still…chase…platform twelve-A…pursuit…repeat, platform twelve-A…”
Adam didn’t even need to consult a console map. After twenty-five years working in LA Galactic, he knew the massive station’s layout better than Nigel Sheldon. He sat at the console beside Marisa and opened the dedicated landlines he’d carefully installed over the last few years using bots to spool out optical cable through ducts and along pipes, spreading their invisible web across the massive station’s landscape. Each one was connected to a tiny stealthed sensor; they’d been placed on walls high above the ground, lamp-posts, bridges, anywhere that provided a good field of view.
Two of them covered the large junction area west of the Carralvo. The images came up just in time for Adam to see Bruce sprinting out from under the huge arching concrete roof that covered the platform. The Starflyer agent turned sharply and began leaping over tracks. Adam actually drew in a sharp breath at one point as a train hurtled toward the speeding figure. But Bruce cut clean in front of it with perfect timing. He ran past a second train that was traveling more slowly and in the opposite direction. It completely threw the navy personnel following him.
CST security staff were drifting into the images, jogging along dangerously close to trains as they tried to look past the flashing wheels. Adam suddenly realized that none of them had any contact with traffic control. Bruce jumped over a maglev track, and changed direction yet again. His pursuers were slowing now. They’d become wary of the trains rushing through the junction, switching tracks without warning. Despite their caution, they were deployed in a simple circle that was slowly contracting. Adam knew they must have access to some kind of communications.
