Perfiditas (12 page)

XVII

I was sitting in a slatted chair on the veranda, my mind on idle, watching the surface of the river rippling and reflecting the early evening light. I closed my eyes for a few moments and imagined myself immersed in it.

‘Probably be smashed into and sunk by a waterskier not looking where he was going,’ said the cool voice.

I jumped at the sound. Apollodorus was a powerful man, heading a powerful organisation, and I’d snubbed and excluded him. Time to pay. But for all he was an expert manipulator, Apollodorus was fatally weakened where I was concerned. Our relationship was hard to define, but at the crucial point he’d always deferred to me. I thought I’d now regained my touch, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Laughable, if you looked at it logically.

But I smiled as I looked up at him and accepted the glass of wine he held out. He smiled back, humour reflected in his black eyes. A little older now, the creases around the eyes had deepened and multiplied. I’d never known his age or, for that matter, his true name.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t include you in that little chat with Flavius. I have to take account of other commitments and I—’

His finger pressed my lips closed. ‘Don’t act like the idiot I know you not to be.’

How could he just accept it? I could deflect most harshness, but this constant understanding was unsettling.

‘Apollo, if we win, I may not be in a position to reciprocate in a way you hope or maybe expect.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘If that’s a factor in helping us, then Flavius and I should go.’

He sighed. ‘My dear, I really should have taken more care not to leave the pomposity pills out where you can find them so easily. I suppose I should feel insulted that you think I expect a
quid pro quo
, but I can’t make the effort to work myself up to it. The most ridiculous thing you have just said is “if”.’

From his reaction, I must have looked puzzled.

‘Have you so changed that you think you won’t win?’

For once, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

‘I like having you here. I like having something different and absorbing to work on. Don’t start spoiling my fun.’

Fun?

Yes, in a weird way, it had been fun seven years ago, apart from the grim business of stopping organised criminals from the West pushing drugs on an industrial scale. We’d been comrades who worked hard and achieved something purposeful together. We’d shared danger, some laughs, and we’d survived. We even made good profits.

I gave up on looking at the river and brought my focus back to the cones on the pines, then down to the red petals on the geraniums in pots on the veranda. I kept my voice low. ‘It’s not fun now, Apollo. This attack is on everything, not just my family, my cousin and our children, but on the Imperium and its survival. You know the last rebellion like this killed thousands and nearly destroyed the country.’ I slammed the glass down, just missing the table edge. It shattered on the stone slab. ‘All the time I’m alive, I will not let it happen again. Period.’

Next morning, I was up at four and thinking. It was cold and I sat huddled in a heap of blankets on the grass river bank. The river moved hypnotically in the semi-dark. In the half-light, I saw Silvia and her second child, Darius, almost too good, unlike the atrocious Stella, the eldest, who I could cheerfully strangle. Darius was only ten but already serious, with large, enquiring eyes. And Hallie, only eighteen months older than my Allegra. And their father, Conrad, flowed into my mind. No, he lived in my mind, my heart, my soul. Something in my core knew he was still alive. A blood and bone Roman, he was tough as Hades. What horrors had Petronax prepared for him? I jammed my lips together but the tears fell down my cheeks.

Back in my room, I called Daniel and told him to be especially careful of Darius.

‘You have to go through all Darius’s staff and contacts again, especially the men. And do it now.’

‘God! You’ve become so bossy!’

‘Oh, well, sorry. Hey, Daniel, who’s the one out here trying to sort things out? Like you’re in a position to do something?’

‘Don’t get used to it,’ he grumped. ‘I still outrank you.’

‘Oh, right. Yes, sir, no, sir!’ I retorted. I picked at the embroidered edge of the duvet cover. ‘Have you…have you heard anything about Conrad?’

‘With our lack of comms?’

I could almost hear him thinking my brain had fallen apart.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said much more kindly, ‘he‘ll get out of this. He’s tough as hell and he’s survived one rebellion.’

Apollodorus and I talked over breakfast two hours later.

‘Do you still have that secure facility over by the industrial park?’

‘Of course,’ he replied, looking surprised.

‘Good, I want the librarian, Trosius, plus Pisentius, Cyriacus and Sextus picked up, held separately and prepared for a little talk with me and Justus. We’ll let Caeco run for the moment. Tell the troops ditto for Petronax. If they see him, they must exercise extreme caution – he’s a mean little shit.’ I smashed the top of my egg. ‘It’s only a remote possibility, though. I’m sure he’s holed up inside the PGSF barracks.’

‘You’re very focused this morning.’

‘Yes, well, we’ve spent enough time dithering around.’

I looked at the table with its impeccable silver cutlery and white porcelain, and my fingers twitched on the damask cloth. I swallowed some coffee and looked directly at Apollodorus. ‘Do you have any contacts at the Transulium?’

‘Ah! I wondered when we might come to that.’

‘I’m not going to pretend an attitude or play any little games. I will beg and plead if you want, but I must break him out of there, Apollo.’ I looked across the room at the buffet with its arrangement of white and yellow roses, glass jugs, bowls, and preserves, and eventually back to Apollodorus. I rubbed the back of my left wrist with the fingers of my right hand and stared back down at the tablecloth.

‘Yes, I think so, too, or you won’t be able to concentrate.’

How strange this man was. He always managed to surprise me with his curveball comments. What on earth could his real motivation be? Such an operation would take resources and time. It could lead to injury or death of one or more of his people.

‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘One thing: I will not have him running round afterwards, playing soldiers in an operation where my people are involved. The best I can offer is to put him somewhere neutral. I hope you understand that.’

Neither Justus nor I was too bothered by the summer heat reflecting inward from the sheet metal walls of the old warehouse on the industrial park: we’d both opted for light tunics, but our guests weren’t so comfortable waiting in their locked, windowless cubicles. I insisted on giving them a water bottle each, despite Justus’s protestations.

We started with Sextus, who was young and less experienced. Two of Justus’s heavies plunked him on a chair in the middle of the empty cavern. Sextus’s eyes were covered by a black cloth and his hands strapped to the edges of the chair. Justus and I played Nisius and Nisia, a delightful pair of siblings. Standing just within earshot, we discussed ways of breaking bones, specifically kneecapping. We ranged through whether to use a gun, knife, a crowbar or sledgehammer, and whether from back or front was most effective and painful.

‘I don’t know, Nisius,’ I moaned, my tone nasal and whining. ‘Why we don’t just pump him full of the chemical stuff and wait for the verbal diarrhoea to start?’

‘Or the real thing!’ Nisius/Justus laughed nastily. ‘You know it makes the veins in their dick rupture and go septic. Remember the mess last time?’

‘Oh, all right, we’ll go for the physical then.’

Sextus was trembling by now. Our boots resounded on the concrete floor as we approached the seated figure. The metal tools we carried clanked loudly. They were, in fact, assorted lengths of domestic pipe.

Sextus had a deepening bruise on his cheek and a dried blood dribble at one corner of his mouth. Sweat soaked his front hairline, and his forehead glistened. Maybe it was the heat, but probably not.

‘Oh dear, dear...What happened to you? You didn’t try to pick a fight, did you?’ My fake sympathy was a long way from the nervous tones of old Catherine MacCarthy. ‘Now, we need to have a little talk and you’re going to do most of it.’ I tapped his knee firmly with one of the pipes. He shivered. Sweat broke out above his upper lip.

‘My boss is a bit cross with you and your friends – you’ve interfered with an operation he was running.’

I paused, waiting for the fear to soak in.

‘You just tell me everything like a good boy and we’ll part friends. You screw around and what’s left of you won’t be able to limp back into your little hole.’

He gulped and then started.

Caeco had recruited him after the demonstration he had been involved with. He’d been barely seventeen and was only nineteen now. Jupiter! Corrupting a cross, frightened kid was classic fundamentalist tactics, but purposefully damaging an already fragile soul looking to strike out at something was worse.

Sextus had been assigned to Aidan Hirenses’ office as receptionist as he was presentable and well-spoken enough to divert clients’ enquiries while still watching Aidan. As Novius had found when we’d raided, they’d had a remote alarm installed that Sextus could easily trigger from his desk.

Aidan had been targeted by the conspirators because several PGSF used his practice or his services at Mossia’s gym. Sitting inside the PGSF building, surely Petronax could have accessed any information they needed, including personal stuff about Conrad? Then my brain started up. Of course, Petronax wouldn’t have cleared access to the personal records for somebody as high-ranking as the legate. None of the PGSF would dream of saying anything to Petronax unless absolutely necessary professionally, and then only if he threatened to pull teeth. He was a bare rock stranded in a sea of information, and no boat ever landed there.

‘Now, Sextus, I have this bad feeling you’re not telling me everything. Maybe I’ll have Nisius think up a way to remind you.’

Justus rubbed two of the pipes together as if he were sharpening some tool.

‘No!’ Sextus all but screamed.

‘Fine then, you tell me right now what information they wanted and why, and I might be able to persuade Nisius to fetch you a cup of water.’

Growls of “spoilsport!” came from Justus. I glared at him.

‘They said they had to take the PGSF legate out. Eliminate him.’

My turn to tremble.

‘Now, why was that?’ asked Justus.

‘Because he is the child’s father.’

I froze. I glared at Sextus through a red haze that had welled up in front of my eyes, tensed my muscles ready to spring, and brought both hands up ready to tear him apart. Justus grabbed me in time.

‘The child’s name?’ Nisius’s whiny voice asked, a little short of breath. He was struggling to hold on to me.

‘Darius, the so-called Imperatrix Silvia’s son. The whole line is tainted but, with a male child at least, we could restore the normal order of things,’ he shouted with some defiance.

I gave him his due. That was a courageous thing to say in the circumstances.

Justus took over while I tried to pour water into a plascard cup with shaking hands.

‘How is that to happen?’

Silence.

Incredibly, Sextus appeared to be sulking. Had he found some grit deep in his being? Was he reverting to the stubborn Cornelia type at last?

Justus slapped his face. ‘I asked you a question, sonny. Now answer me.’

‘The woman and two female children will be disposed of in the traditional way and the boy put in her place. We have enough supporters in the Senate to make a Council of Regency until he matures.’

‘Nice,’ hissed Nisius. ‘Kill a popular ruler along with two of her children. What were you going to do, strangle the six-year-old and rape the teenager to death like in ancient times you love so much?’ He spat in Sextus’s face, shoved the chair to the ground and gave Sextus a vicious kick.

I was astounded. I didn’t know Justus had it in him.

We left him there. I ran outside and threw up.

‘Do you need a few moments before we do the others?’ Justus asked and made me finish the cup of water I’d fetched for Sextus.

‘I need to make a phone call. Back in five.’

‘Nice delicate fingers, Trosius. Shame if they got broken and healed crookedly.’ Nisius put a little backward pressure on his right-hand forefinger. By the time we’d acted out the preliminary pantomime, Trosius had turned white, a contrast with the black cloth covering his eyes. He started to tremble once Justus bent down to whisper the threatening words in his ear.

‘Now, now, Nisius, you’re going to make him scared,’ I cooed from the other side. ‘Trosius, be a good boy and tell me about what you’ve been doing for Martinus Caeco. And don’t say “Martinus who?” or I
will
have to let my brother loose on you.’

‘Please,’ he moaned. ‘Don’t break my fingers, please!’

Justus bent one more back, a little more than was necessary, but didn’t snap it. I frowned at him.

He shrugged, but relaxed his grip a little.

‘Well, let’s start with your messaging lists and protocols, and see how we do.’

He spilled the lot: names, e-addresses, protocols, system passwords, schedules and more.

Cyriacus proved a little more stubborn. His was quite a sad story: his son had been taken away by his dead wife’s mother who’d somehow rescinded the settlement her daughter had made on Cyriacus. He was left destitute and childless, virtually a beggar until he had some luck gambling. Then, of course, he’d run up debts. Caeco spotted the opportunity, stepped in, paid them off and recruited him into the patriarchalists. From that moment, Cyriacus felt he’d found a purpose in life, strongly motivated by his earlier misery. I felt sorry for him until he started saying he’d be proud to be a martyr attempting to kill the women heading the Twelve Families starting with the old Mitela bitch. I kicked him. Hard. After that unprofessional spurt of temper, I settled down with Justus to interview Pisentius.