Black Man (61 page)

“You don’t believe me?”

“What does it matter what I believe? It won’t change what you’ve done. How did Onbekend find out he was Manco Bambarén’s half brother?”

Ortiz sighed. “I really don’t remember details of that sort. It was a long time ago. Yes, possibly, he used Scorpion Response time and resources to track down his sourcemat mother, discovered who she was, and saw the angle. The work we were doing in Wyoming may have sparked his interest. It is through Scorpion channels that he discovered he had a twin, that I do know, so quite possibly he found Isabela Gayoso the same way. And I know that when he wasn’t seconded to us, Project Lawman deployed him in a covert capacity in Bolivia on at least one occasion, so he would perhaps have had opportunity then as well. All I can tell you is that when the time came to dissolve the Scorpion operation, he already had his place in the sun prepared. He knew that his twin had accepted Mars resettlement, and that Scorpion Response would be wiped from the flow by n-djinn. And Bambarén had made a place for him in his organization. It was a perfect disappearing act.”

Yeah, until Stefan Nevant shows up trying to sell Bambarén a
pistaco
threat he already has blood-related access to and drawing down attention they could really all do without. Poor old Stefan, right on target. Better intuition than you ever knew. No wonder Bambarén turned you over so fucking fast. All you were going to do was lead an UNGLA squad right to his half brother’s door
.

And no wonder Bambarén freaked when we showed up, set it all in motion all over again. I thought I’d offended him when I talked about
exemplary executions in some village square somewhere.
Must have nailed something Onbekend did for him, too close to the truth for comfort
.

He thought I was playing with him. Thought I’d come for his brother.

He thought of Sevgi Ertekin, propped against the side of the COLIN jeep, hands in pockets, jacket hooked back. The casual reveal of the shoulder-holstered Marstech gun, the telegraphed warning to Bambarén not to fuck up.

Sevgi, you should have been here to hear all of this. We were so fucking close after all.

But you would have told me not to gloat, it’s not attractive.

He focused hard on the man in the wheelchair. “Is Isabela Gayoso still alive?”

“No, she died some years ago. Onbekend mentioned it to me in passing when we met in New York. She grew up in crushing poverty, it seems, and of course these things tend to take their toll later in life. From what I hear, Bambarén himself was lucky to survive his childhood. Neither of his siblings did.”

“Does Bambarén know he has a second half brother?”

“No. We did not involve him. Onbekend has enough
familia
presence these days to make the contacts we needed at Bradbury and Wells, and to be convincing when he did. It took some time, but he convinced the Martian chapters that there is a wedge opening between the Lima clans and the altiplano.”

Ortiz’s shrunken shoulders lifted under the gray silk of the pajamas. “From what I understand, it’s not far from the truth.”

“And Merrin never knew who was hiring him, either?”

“Merrin was never aware that he had a twin in the first place. As I said, it was only through Scorpion Response intelligence that Onbekend discovered what had been done. Merrin never would have had access to the data. And you’ve seen Onbekend; he changed his face when he went underground back in ’94. No resemblance any longer.”

Carl thought about the echo in the features he’d seen the night Sevgi was shot. “No, there is a resemblance. If you look for it.”

“Well, as I understand it the actual hiring was filtered through the Martian
familia
machine anyway. I doubt Merrin and Onbekend ever actually saw each other across the screen. The
familias
knew only that this was a personal matter, that the people at this end had chosen this particular man, Merrin, and that if they could not recruit him, there would be no deal.”

“And Merrin?” Norton wanted to know. “What was he told?”

Another fragile shrug. “That he had friends here on Earth who wanted him back, who would provide him with a new identity and the resources to disappear in comfort. We made it a very attractive package.”

The COLIN exec shook his head numbly. “So Onbekend just sold out his brother? His twin?”

“Sacrified him, yes. What of it?” Ortiz gestured. “They had never known each other, never met. What bond could there be?”

“That’s not the point!” But now Norton was looking at Carl. “He was his brother, for Christ’s sake!”

“That is the point, Tom,” Carl told him quietly. “Thirteens don’t do abstract allegiance. It’s not part of our makeup.”

“But… Bambarén.” Norton held out his hands. “That’s an abstract blood tie.”

Ortiz made an arid chuckling sound. “Yes, one that Onbekend has exploited to great benefit.”

“Bambarén got used,” said Carl, looking down at Ortiz. “Just like everybody else. Just like Scorpion Response, just like Human Cost. Just like Onbekend and Merrin. You got everybody dancing.”

“Mr. Marsalis, please understand—”

Enough.

Carl grabbed Ortiz under the arms and hauled him out of the chair in a single violent motion. The other man seemed to weigh almost nothing, but that might have been the mesh kicking in, or the rage. Ortiz kicked and struggled, but feebly. Carl held him in what felt for a moment like an embrace, stepped back clear of the panic-wired wheelchair, and laid the COLIN director carefully down on the polished wood floor.

“Wait, you can’t—”

But Ortiz’s voice was as weak as his struggles. Carl knelt and pressed a hand to the COLIN director’s chest to hold him still. He leaned over him, face impassive.

“I know you, Ortiz,” he said. “I’ve seen your kind making your speeches from every pulpit and podium on two planets, and you never fucking change. You lie to the cudlips and you lie to yourself so they’ll believe you better, and when the dying starts you claim regret and offer justification. But in the end, you do it all because you think it’s your right, and you
do not care
. If you really suspected Jeff Norton, if you knew what kind of man he was, you could have squeezed him for the names, dealt with whoever it was—”

“It was Tanaka,” Norton said, standing over Ortiz. “Only Tanaka.”

Carl nodded. “You could have stopped this thing as soon as it started. But what Tanaka and Jeff Norton could do, so could someone else sooner or later. So could any of the ones who knew about Wyoming, any of the ones who were left, and it could happen at any time. No matter what position you achieved, Scorpion Response was going to hang over you to the grave. You’d never be safe. So you saw a chance to clean house, and you took it, at whatever cost.”

And now Carl found a small truth seeping up inside him, an understanding.

“You know, Ortiz, you would have made a pretty good thirteen. All you ever lacked was the strength, the power, and that, well, I guess you can always find a mob of cudlips to supply that for you.”

“All right.” Ortiz stopped struggling. The force came back into his voice. He spoke clearly and urgently.

“Listen to me, please. If you kill me now, I have alarm systems attached to my body. They’re under the skin, inside me, you’ll never find them. There’ll be a crash team here in minutes.”

“I won’t need that long,” Carl told him.

Ortiz broke. His face seemed to crumple, his eyes closed, blinked open moist with tears.

“But I want to live,” he whispered. “I want to go on, I have work to do.”

Cold, cold pulse of rage. He felt his face move with it. “So did Sevgi Ertekin.”

“Please believe me, Mr. Marsalis, I truly do regret—”

Carl leaned closer. “I don’t want your regret.”

Ortiz swallowed, mustered control from somewhere.

“Then, I have a request,” he husked. “Please, at least may I phone and speak to my family first. To say good-bye.”

“No.” Carl hauled the COLIN director up onto his lap, locked an arm around the man’s neck, positioned his free hand against the skull. “I’m not here to ease your passing, Ortiz. I’m here to take what you owe.”

“Please…”

Carl jerked and twisted. Ortiz’s neck snapped like rotten wood.

Soft, chiming sirens went off everywhere in the suite, the wail of distressed cudlip society.
Man of substance down
. Rally, gather, form a mob.

The beast is out.

The crash team were fast—less than two full minutes from when the micro-docs tripped under Ortiz’s skin and the sirens went off. But well before that, the COLIN Security detachment had heard the alarms and come through the door on general principles. They found Ortiz in his wheelchair, slumped over to one side, Norton and Marsalis standing staring at him.

“Sir?” The squad leader looked at Norton.

“Lock this whole floor down,” Norton told her absently. “Call in some more support to do it. I don’t want anyone, not even NYPD, getting up here without my say-so.”

“But, but—”

“Just do it.” He turned to Carl. “You’d better get moving.”

Carl nodded, looked once more at Ortiz, and then stepped outside the unconsciously tightening ring the security detachment had formed around the body. He headed out of the room without looking back, out of the suite and into the corridor where he met the crash team head-on, all lifesaving speed and resuscitation gear, gurney and white coats, dedicated emergency room doctor and all.

He stood aside to let them pass.

Outside the hospital, he walked rapidly away, two blocks west and four south, lost himself in the sun-glinting brawl and bustle of the city. He peeled off his S(t)igma jacket, pulled his pack of phones from it, then balled it up inside out and dropped it into the first recycling bin he saw. The cold bit through his shirt, but he had COLIN-approved credit in his pockets, and he had time.

He stopped on a street corner, checked his watch, and calculated traveling time to the JFK suborb terminal. Hoped Norton could hold up his end.

Then he pulled a new phone loose from the pack, clicked it on, and waited for Union cover to catch up with it. With his other hand, he dug in his trouser pocket and tugged out the photo and list of scribbled numbers Matthew had hooked for him the night before.

“Okay, Sev,” he murmured to himself. “Let’s do this.”

She stepped into the gloom of the bar uncertainly, but with a certain confidence as well. They were, after all, on her home ground, Lower Manhattan, only a couple of blocks north of Wall Street and the NYPD dedicated Datacrime HQ. She hadn’t had to come far.

Two short steps in to let the door hinge shut behind her, and she scanned the room. He raised a hand as her gaze passed down the line of booths along the sidewall opposite the bar. She didn’t respond to the wave, but she headed over. The single sodden suit, marooned on a stool at the end of the bar with his nth martini and no friends, gave her an unsubtle once-over as she passed him. Carl supposed she was worth the look. Long-limbed and well-shaped under her casual wear, shown off in her stride and the way she held herself. The single old-style bulb lamp in the middle of the ceiling burnished her hair golden as she passed beneath it, briefly lit the cheerleader good looks as well. She hadn’t changed much from the photo.

“Amy Westhoff?”

He raised himself out of his seat as she reached his booth, offered her his hand. She took it, gave him a searching look.

“Yeah. Agent… di Palma, is it?”

“That’s right.” He flashed his UNGLA ID, carefully held so she’d see the photo but not the name. Feigned a querying frown to distract her as he put the badge away again. “But I see you’ve come on your own?”

She made a dismissive gesture as she seated herself on the other side of the table. The lie hurried out.

“Yeah, well, my partner’s wrapped up with, uh, some other stuff right now. He couldn’t make it. Now, you said this is about the bust on Ethan Conrad four years back. I don’t really see how that can have anything to do with me, or with Datacrime.”

“Well, it is only a stray lead. But then… can I get you a drink, maybe?”

“No, thank you. I’ve got to go back on duty. Can we make this quick?”

“Certainly.” Carl sipped at the Red Stripe in front of him. “In fact, my own jurisdiction in this matter is, should I say, rather loose. Obviously we’re not on UN territory here.”

“Not far from it, though.”

“No, true enough.” Carl put his drink down, let his hands drop into his lap. “Well then, I guess you’re familiar with the case. I understand you had some kind of relationship with Ethan Conrad, back before it was known what he was.”

Tautly. “That’s right, I did.
Well
before anybody knew what he was.”

“Ah, yes, quite. Well, it’s just that I’ve received information from an NYPD officer, an ex-officer in fact, Sevgi Ertekin. Would you have heard of her?”

The waitress sauntered over, eyebrows raised, notepad not yet out of her apron pocket. It was early yet.

Aside from the lonely broker, they had the place to themselves.

“Get you guys any—”

“We’re fine,” said Amy Westhoff curtly.

The waitress shrugged and backed off. Carl gave an apologetic look. Westhoff waited until she’d gone back to the bar before she spoke again.

“I knew Ertekin, vaguely, yeah. So what’s she been saying?”

“Well, she said that you tipped off UNGLA about Conrad’s thirteen status because you were jealous that he’d left you, and that you then tried to call and warn him at the last minute. But were too late, obviously.

Now—”

“That fucking bitch!” But even in the low light, he could see that Amy Westhoff’s face had gone ashen.

“You’d deny that then, I assume.”

Westhoff lifted a trembling finger. “You go back to that raghead bitch, and you tell her from me—”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Sevgi Ertekin is dead. But she did give me a message for you, something she meant to do but couldn’t manage.”

The blond woman’s eyes narrowed. “What message?”

Then she flinched, yelped, reared back in the booth, and looked down at her trouser leg. She pressed on her thigh with both hands.

“What the fuck was that?”

“That was a genetically modified curare flechette,” Carl said coldly. “It’s going to paralyze your skeletal muscle system so you can’t breathe or call for help.”

Westhoff stared at him. Tried to get up from the table, made a muffled grunting sound instead and dropped back into her seat, still staring.

“It’s a vastly improved variant on natural curare,” he went on. “You might call it the thirteen of poisons. I think you’ll last about seven or eight minutes. Enjoy.”

He slid the Red Stripe over so it stood in front of her. Westhoff’s mouth twitched, and she slumped against the wall. Carl got up to go. He leaned in close.

“Sevgi Ertekin wanted you dead,” he told her softly. “And now you are.”

Then he eased out of the booth and headed for the door. On the way out, he looked across at the bar, where the waitress sat on a stool, fiddling with some aspect of her phone. As she glanced up at him, Carl fielded her gaze, rolled his eyes expressively, put on
jilted, hurt, and weary
. The girl pulled a sympathetic face, smiled at him, and went back to her phone. He reached the door, pushed it open, and let himself back out into the late-afternoon chill.