Engaging the Enemy (13 page)

Jon didn't know Julio Calixo—he didn't know most of the new hires yet—but he was fairly sure the youngish man who came out of the gangway now and headed toward them was the contact the deliveryman wanted to make.

“Where
is
Bea?” Calixo said loudly. “She missed Grandma's birthday party and no one's heard from her since.”

“She's fine,” the deliveryman said. “She was through here last month; she's working on an old lady's yacht and asked me to let you know if you came through. With the ansibles down, she couldn't let you know. Can you imagine Bea washing dishes for a rich lady? And packing and unpacking boxes of stuff?”

As code, it was ridiculously transparent. Dishes, boxes, unpacking. Jon didn't think much of the deliveryman's smarts, but if he hadn't known there was a telltag on a dish and on the carton, it could've sounded innocent enough.

“Since you're here, Calixo,” Martin said, “you can help inspect these—the captain's in a hurry. We need to get these signed off and put aboard.”

“Oh, sure—sure,” Calixo said. The deliveryman stirred, as if to help, and Martin shook his head.

“Not you. You know the rules. We can't sign off until we're sure it's as ordered, but we do the inspection here. It won't be long. You can call your office if you need to.” The deliveryman shook his head. “Calixo, you do that carton; I'll do this one.” And he didn't have to say,
You Gannetts stay alert.

Jon moved again, this time taking the angle on Calixo; Pod stepped back, as if returning to his primary duty of dock security, and Hera had a standard cargo databoard, or what looked like one.

Martin opened the carton with the telltags and spoke to Calixo, who had opened the other. “I didn't know you knew anyone on this station,” he said. “It's not in your interview transcript.”

Calixo stiffened for a moment, then went on burrowing into the packing materials. “Well, it's not like…” He paused. “I mean, we're not close friends or anything, he just knows my sister Bea and that's how I know him.”

“Um.” Martin lifted out the top plate, turning it in his hands. “So…what's his name?”

“Uh…” Calixo cast a swift glance at the deliveryman, blinked, and then said “Pete…well, Pietro, actually, but like me he doesn't use his formal name.”

“I see,” Martin said. He was looking at the bottom of the plate. Jon saw the glisten of sweat on the deliveryman's neck. “So…this little telltag thing here wouldn't be a coded datadot he wanted to get to you, and calling you out here wouldn't be a way to let you know where it was, then?”

“No!” That was too quick, too sharp, almost panicky. The deliveryman twitched, controlled it.

“Because,” Martin said, “if this telltag, or the other one on the inside of the carton lid, is a secret coded message from him to you, I'm going to be very displeased, and I'm going to have to know what it's all about.”

“I don't know anything about anything,” Calixo said. Jon didn't look at him; he watched the deliveryman instead, watched another tensing and relaxing, the change of color on his neck.

“Well, that's fine,” Martin said. “I'm glad for your sake that you don't, but…” Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw Martin turn toward the deliveryman. “That leaves you. You're the only person to open this shipment since it left the store.”

Jon knew that Calixo moved suddenly because Pod's weapon emitted a soft but distinct noise followed by the sound of Calixo hitting the deck. “Look at that,” Pod said. “Accidental discharge…it's like the wand, everything's acting up today.” He hit the controls, sealing the dock off from the concourse.

“Well?” Martin said to the deliveryman. “What's your story?”

Jon had his own weapon out, as did Hera now; the deliveryman was pinned, and knew it.

“I—I'll tell you everything,” he said. “I will, really—just don't kill me.”

“That depends,” Martin said. “You're armed, I'm sure. Put your hands straight out to the side. Jon, search him.”

The deliveryman had more weapons than any one person needed, plus both mechanical and electronic lockpicks, and a coil of R-387 moldable explosive wound around his left leg.

“Aren't you the busy one?” Martin said, eyeing the array laid out on the deck. “So, start talking.”

“I can't here,” the deliveryman said. “He'll know. He'll get me. But I can tell you things you need to know. Take me along, please. Take me away from here; it's my only chance.”

Martin frowned. He glanced at Jon; Jon understood that glance. “He's really frightened, sir,” he said. “He might have something.”

“If you don't, we'll space you,” Martin said. “All right. Cuff him, get him aboard, you and Pod. I'll tell the captain and get someone out to clean up this mess.”

“Is he—is he dead?” the man asked, with a look at Calixo's limp body on the deck.

“That's not your concern,” Martin said. Jon sealed the cuffs he'd put on wrists used to cuffs—the man had known how to position his wrists for them, and Jon had made the necessary correction—and nudged the man forward, toward the gangway.

Hugh Pritang met them in the ship's entrance. “Captain's going to want a complete report,” he said to Martin. “I'll take care of dockside.” Jon wondered what that meant. What would station law enforcement say? Technically, dockside belonged to the ship, and ship captains had the power to administer justice there, but most stations took an interest in dockside deaths, and the man certainly looked dead.

But his job was the prisoner, for now, so he kept going without a backward glance.

“T
his is a situation we didn't need,” Ky said. “A dead man and a prisoner…I can just imagine the local reaction to that.” And possible pirates in the system, and Stella somewhere between Garth-Lindheimer and here, maybe jumping into trouble. Rosvirein Station's advisory to ships in the system had made it clear Rosvirein Peace Force thought these ships were dangerous.

“Hasn't been any yet,” Rafe said.

“Somebody's bound to have heard the shot,” she said.

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but I doubt it,” Hugh said. He looked, as always, completely professional and relaxed at the same time. “The shot was inside our dockspace, and you'll remember we have a standard acoustic barrier, even when the gate's open. Drops the volume thirty or more decibels. And Pod—the shooter—used a quieted weapon. The victim's your crewman, who was clearly conspiring against you, and he tried to draw on your security forces.”

“Um.” Ky thought about it. She hadn't given the order to kill, but she'd made it clear she wanted the ship secure. Which made it her responsibility.

“Would've been worse if he'd shot Pod,” Rafe said.

“I can see that,” Ky said crossly. “I'm not trying to second-guess my own security. I'm just thinking what to do now. We hired the dead man here, after all. He's bound to have other contacts—”

“Who aren't going to be asking questions, if he was undercover for someone,” Hugh said. “This is Rosvirein, which helps. I've been here five standard months, while Captain Janocek tried to make ends meet; I don't think there'll be any problems.”

“So did we get all the blood off the deck?” Ky asked.

“Complete biochem cleanup,” Hugh said. “I did the entire dockside and then reminded the station environmental squad that we were due a refund of the deposit you paid when you arrived for cleaning their grungy dock thoroughly so they didn't have to do a complete decontamination. They argued about it, but sent over an inspector, and you'll find the deposit refund in your accounts.”

Rafe grinned at him. “Hugh, I think you're almost as devious as I am.”

“Not at all,” Hugh said with a straight face, though his eyes twinkled. “I'm merely doing my job to see that our departure is trouble-free, as any good first officer would.”

“Which leaves us the matter of our prisoner,” Ky said. “I understand he said he was willing to tell us why he placed the telltags?”

“Yes. I think you should let Martin and me question him,” Rafe said.

“I think I should be there,” Ky said.

“I agree,” Hugh said, as Rafe opened his mouth. “Someone from command must be there, and the captain bears ultimate responsibility. I can keep us moving on our departure schedule; the captain needs to be on the bridge only for the last part of that.”

“Word's gone out. No more killin' Vattas.” The man's head lolled back; his eyes focused on nothing. He had not resisted their questions; he had even suggested himself that they might want to use interrogation drugs if they had any.

Ky had hesitated. Surely taking someone prisoner and questioning them privately was against the law—she knew it was against the law on Slotter Key—but Rosvirein's laws were notoriously lax as long as nothing bothered its own citizens. And chem-based interrogation wasn't physically painful. She really did need to know what this man probably knew. Yet she had the uneasy feeling that she was about to cross some line she had never crossed before, a line that Osman would have crossed without thinking about it. Maybe she'd already crossed it, when she hadn't reported the altercation dockside…

“Reliable?” Ky now asked softly.

Martin shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Chemicals are always tricky, and we don't have an enzyme scan on him.”

“Said it's stupid,” the man mumbled. “Vatta right here, lemme do it, money's good. No money, th'said. No more killin' Vattas. Done enough. Blame Osman that slime. Just put the telltag on the carton and let Calixo know.”

Ky felt her brows going up. “So even his allies didn't like him?”

“Nobody like Osman,” the man said, even as Martin shook his head at Ky. “Osman's bad link. Ga—t'boss glad he dead.” His head rolled around, came up slightly, and his blurry eyes almost focused on Ky. “Y'pretty, honey. Wanna play?”

Martin's knuckles whitened, Ky noticed, but his voice stayed even and soft. “Not playtime, sonny. What about t'boss?”

“He don' like Osman. He don' like anybody do more'n he told 'em. He—” A sudden flush ran up the man's neck.

“Damn it,” Martin said very softly. He grabbed one of the other syringes laid out on the box and stabbed the man's arm. But the flush deepened, pink to red to rose-purple. “He's got a suicide link. To the boss, whoever that is. We're going to lose him, if this isn't the right antidote—” Then to the man, louder. “Boss name—who?”

“Boss?” The man's breathing had quickened to gasps. “Boss he don' like…he…Ga—Gammisssss.” And on that hiss, his body convulsed against the straps as his skin went from purple to blue-gray.

Martin had the oxygen mask on his face; Rafe helped unstrap the man and they laid him flat. But nothing worked. He was dead.

“What was that?” Ky asked.

“Suicide circuit, probably in his implant. Some of them trigger on any interrogation drug, some are keyword-specific. There are different drugs they use: cardiotoxins, neural solvents. This was clearly an oxygen decoupler.” Martin shook his head. “Propagates really fast in the bloodstream, and just about impossible to reverse. If you have a hemoglobin replacement and a lot of other equipment, you can sometimes save 'em, but otherwise not. And their implants are always wiped.”

“Keyword was his boss, or the boss's name,” Rafe said. He and Martin were stripping the body now. Ky wondered what they would do with it.

“Gammis something,” Martin said.

“Gammis…” Rafe paused. “There was a pirate gang operating over near Woosten maybe five years ago, and someone said the head of it was named Gammis something. Turek, I think. Supposedly he had some kind of protection racket going on with the system government and local ships. But he was leaving ISC alone, so I didn't pay much attention.”

“Captain, how long till we leave?” Martin asked.

“Just a couple of hours,” Ky said. “What are you going to do with him?”

“If it's that quick, we can just stick him in cold storage and dump him in space later. His friends aren't going to be asking the authorities about him anytime soon anyway.” Rafe had brought a packing wrap and laid it out. He and Martin rolled the body onto it.

“We can't just—” Ky began, then stopped. They could. It was wrong, certainly against the law, but so was killing someone in an interrogation. For a moment, the weight of the deaths she had caused lay on her shoulders.

“If we try to dump him on the station,” Martin said, “we could be observed. Probably would be. Even if we got away clean, our record here would be tainted. If he just disappears, they might suspect something but they wouldn't know. Another scum with a record vanishes, who cares?”

It made sense, but it made sense that felt uncomfortably close to the dead man's values.

“Wait a minute,” Ky said as the other two started to fold the shipping blanket over the man's face. She knelt beside the corpse, ignoring Rafe and Martin except to ask, “What's the name on his ID?”

“Pietro Duran,” Martin said. “A fake, I'm sure of it.”

“But it's the name we have,” Ky said. She had said no words over the first men she killed; they had been trying to kill her, and she had felt no impulse to speak for them. But this Pietro, evil as he might have been, had done her no direct harm, though by his own words he would have if his boss paid for it. Saying words over his body felt right, something more real than real. She looked at his face, blue-gray and sharp with death. “Go in peace, Pietro Duran,” she said. “If you had those who loved you, may they find peace without you, and if there is life beyond life, may you have a better one than you had here.”

When she stood again, she felt better, more solid to herself.

Martin and Rafe looked confused, and no wonder. “I didn't know you were religious,” Rafe said.

“I haven't been practicing for a while,” Ky said. “But I needed to do this.”

“Does it bother you he's dead?” Martin asked.

“Not particularly,” Ky said. “Though the thought of having a suicide circuit in an implant disgusts me.” She shook her head. “Get him into the freezer and this cleaned up. I'll be on the bridge, making our farewells.” That would make
two
corpses in the freezer. Even Rosvirein's relatively lax law enforcement would probably detain them for having killed two people, if they suspected.

Ky made the usual round of calls, trying to leave Stella with the best possible arrangements at the bank, with the Captains' Guild, with merchants, and finally with station authorities. She noticed, on the system status board, that other captains were also reacting to the arrival of the armed threesome.

“Cleared,” the stationmaster's office said at last. “All accounts green, no outstanding warrants, no complaints. We understand about your cousin. Fair travel, Captain Vatta. Did you want to list a destination?”

“No,” Ky said. “Outsystem only.”

“Very well. You're cleared for a least-boost course to jump point gamma. At this alert level, you must have clearance from Rosvirein Peace Force to deviate from that course.”

Ky scowled. “I was going to take the slow route and see if my cousin showed up.”

“No. We want all ships insystem either docked or boosting out, not hanging around where they could interfere with system defense. Remember that if you attack a ship in this system, we will retaliate.”

“Even if they fire at my ship?” Ky asked.

“Yes. Keep your weapons cold; our forces will fire on any ship that goes hot. Is that quite clear?”

“Very clear,” Ky said. She hoped Rosvirein's defensive forces were as good as they thought.

Undock went smoothly; behind them, ships peeled off Rosvirein Station like beads off a string, with
Fair Kaleen
leading the parade. Ky watched the system scan, highlighting the incoming ships with threat icons. Nothing happened as the hours passed. Were they pirates after all? Had she skipped the station for no reason? How upset would Stella be, to find her gone? She stared at the plots, trying to make
Gary Tobai
appear by the force of wishing, but it didn't.

After the first uneventful day on insystem drive, Ky called Rafe and Martin aside. “We've got to figure out who's behind all this,” she said. “This Gammis Turek or whatever—what is he after? What does he want?”

“This is more than one pirate gang could do,” Martin said. “It'd take a space fleet, near enough.”

“He worked with Osman,” Ky said. “What if he worked with other pirate gangs? Got them to cooperate?”

Martin snorted. “Cooperate? Pirates? They're too independent for that.”

“Maybe,” Rafe said. “And maybe not. It would make sense—organized crime's a lot more profitable and safer than the same criminals doing things on their own.”

Martin gave him a look that clearly conveyed
You should know;
Rafe sketched a salute.

“Of course I have reasons to know,” he said. “I'm still right. Enough pirates working together, linked by ansible, could overpower any one system's defenses, especially if it was cut off from others, if its ansible failed. There's no organized interstellar force. Just a few privateers running around with no coordination, even if they are authorized by the same government.” He stopped and looked thoughtful a moment. “Just how many privateers does Slotter Key have out, anyway?”

“I have no idea,” Ky said. She felt the glimmer of an idea, but couldn't quite bring it to consciousness. “Martin?”

“I never heard,” Martin said. “I suppose…twenty? Thirty? And Slotter Key's not the only government that uses them. Let's see—there's Mannhai. Cirvalos. Bissonet.”

“The original signatories to the Commercial Code all had privateers at one time,” Rafe said. “But only a handful do now. Not worth the bad publicity.”

“Which Slotter Key just ignored,” Martin said. “Cost us diplomatically, some said.”

“Making Slotter Key the logical target for a group of pirates that wanted to expand its influence,” Ky said. She could almost see it now, the pirates' whole plan. “If you could show that privateers weren't effective protection—for that you'd have to attack tradeships—then you could convince governments and shippers they needed better protection—”

“It worked over in Woosten,” Rafe said. “The protection end, anyway. I don't think they ever had privateers there. Not a bad system to test it in…Woosten's too poor to interest many of the big firms.”