The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (20 page)

“My money?” Flint asked. “Whatever I give you?”

“No, no,” Deshin said, that glint still there. It almost felt like a test, as if he were trying to see if he could mess with Flint.

Clearly, he could. Flint was off his game. Half of his brain was with Talia. Flint felt his cheeks heat. He was actually embarrassed that his thoughts had been so clear.

“Years ago,” Deshin was saying, “someone made a huge expenditure on clones. Clones of two different Earth Alliance mass murderers, from two different species. It feels targeted.”

“It does,” Flint said. They’d discussed part of this before. But not all of it. They had discussed this point before the Peyti Crisis.

He made himself focus, and reminded himself that he didn’t have time for personal reactions, for a variety of reasons. Because of Talia in the other room, because Gonzalez and the other lawyers would return soon, and because he had the awful feeling that these attacks were just the beginning of something else—what he didn’t know.

Deshin wanted Flint to understand something, and understanding was coming slowly.

Not that Deshin had explained things clearly.

“We’ve been acting as if there’s a mastermind,” Flint said.

Deshin nodded.

“And you’re saying there isn’t one.”

“Not an individual in the sense that one person is financing it, and running it. I think this is a lot bigger.” Deshin leaned forward. “The amount of money astonishes me, and that’s what got me thinking. You’re a hell of a lot smarter than me about systems and stuff. I need a second brain on this before I go any farther. I’ll look dumb and obvious if I go in to buy clones of the Frémont variety if the previous purchasers weren’t individuals.”

Flint leaned back. He finally understood what this meeting was about.

“Obvious,” Flint repeated, because on some level, this wasn’t obvious to him. “They wouldn’t expect you to investigate this for law enforcement. They’d think—”

“They’d expect me to investigate,” Deshin said quietly. “I lost a lot of friends on Anniversary Day, and several more a few days ago. Men like me, we’re known for exacting revenge.”

Flint noted that Deshin didn’t say that
he
was noted for exacting revenge. That man was used to making context say a lot while his words admitted nothing.

“You believe they’ll know you’re not serious about buying clones,” Flint said.

“Yes,” Deshin said. “And once they know that, they won’t treat me well.”

Such understatement.

Flint tried not to look surprised. That amount of money, and all that it implied, had frightened Deshin.

Deshin had threaded his hands together, to try to stop himself from twisting them. “I backed off when I realized the price of the clones. I can continue with the meetings, but I’m not sure that’ll be of value.”

He was right. Flint wasn’t certain the sellers of the clones would let Deshin trace anything. They might try to entrap him. He might put himself in danger for no reason.

Flint activated his internal timer. He had been in the conference room for twenty minutes already, and he had arrived late. He had no idea how long Gonzalez and the others would be gone.

But he was interested in this conversation now. He understood the reason for it. He was glad that Deshin had contacted him.

“If there’s no mastermind,” he said, “what are we looking at?”

“That’s what I was hoping we could figure out,” Deshin said. “We might not have a lot of time here, but we need to be looking at this all differently.”

He’d said that last week, before the Peyti Crisis. He had been right. Maybe if Flint hadn’t been focused on the Frémont clones, then he would have already figured out that this attack was too big for one person to pull off.

“Here’s what I put together, and I might be wrong.” Deshin spread his hands, then flattened them on the table top. Clearly this made him uncomfortable. “Remember, I only have had a few hours to think of this too.”

Flint nodded. How had they missed this? It seemed so obvious in retrospect. The cost of doing this scheme would have been outrageous…

Unless there was a mastermind, who somehow owned all of the DNA used, and didn’t have to pay for the cloning. Still, any mastermind would have to pay for the raising of the clones and the training.

That all by itself was expensive. And it would require decades of patience.

For what? And for what reason?

“What I figure is this,” Deshin said. “There has to be an architect. Or there was an architect at one time. Someone had to have the vision, and someone had to set that vision in motion.”

Flint raised his head and really looked at Deshin. Beneath that surface, the one who had played that head-game with Flint, was a man who was deeply upset by all he was contemplating. The shadows under Deshin’s eyes, which had been visible when they were talking on the links, seemed even deeper now, as if just thinking about these clones made him ill.

“This kind of plan, though,” Deshin was saying, “this kind of plan would take a lot of staff to put into motion. And dedicated staff over years. Staff that wouldn’t talk. And that sounds, to me, like some kind of organization.”

Flint tilted his head. He hadn’t thought of that. But then, he was a loner. He had worked for the Armstrong Police Department as well as Space Traffic Control. But he never ran a company filled with people. He never even had his own division when he was in working in computers.

Flint understood these things, but he had never participated in them, which meant that he missed details—things he couldn’t really know.

Deshin, on the other hand, had an organization large enough that some called it an empire. Deshin might think that Flint was the smarter of the two men, but when it came to running businesses, Deshin knew a thousand times more than Flint ever would.

“You’re thinking this is a corporation?” Flint asked. “That a corporation is attacking the Moon?”

“I don’t know,” Deshin said. “That’s why I’m talking to you. Whatever’s attacking us has the money, and the time. Once I figured out the cost, I started thinking about the execution of the attacks. Someone had to put the events of Anniversary Day into motion. Then someone had to initiate the Peyti Crisis. Those lawyers—
lawyers!—
were in place for years and years. They’re not programmable like androids. And the masks weren’t something that could sit around for months and months.”

Flint let out a small breath. He hadn’t even thought of the masks. Someone had given the Peyti masks that doubled as bombs. And those masks had looked relatively modern, but Flint had done no investigating since he found Talia in tears at Aristotle Academy.

Oh, he had niggled at it. But he hadn’t really concentrated on it.

“This kind of plan—it takes a lot of people, both human and Peyti.” Deshin was still twisting his fingers together. He didn’t like this either.

The Peyti component should have tipped Flint off. If he had been thinking clearly, which he had not been.

He doubted any human would have come up with the Peyti connection without a reason.

“You don’t think they’re sending a message?” Flint asked.

“That’s what the press has been saying since Anniversary Day,” Deshin said, “and it doesn’t make sense to me. The message is in the bombings, not in the delivery. At least that’s what I’m thinking.”

“I thought before the Peyti Crisis that the clones were about distraction,” Flint said.

“Look,” Deshin said, finally untangling his fingers. “Here’s what I’d do. I’d set up the attack. I’d have a back-up attack if the first didn’t work. Maybe one more failsafe.”

Flint leaned forward. They had been in this room for nearly an hour, but he didn’t want to leave. He would face Gonzalez if he had to. He would pay her or apologize to her.

Deshin was right: this conversation was important.

“But, if you think about it, the Peyti thing, it’s not really a back-up.” Deshin’s gaze met Flint’s. “You know what I’m saying?”

Flint felt like he was more than a few hours behind. He felt like he was days behind, months behind, like he didn’t have the capability of thinking ahead.

Was that what whoever the architect was had counted on—that the normally smart people on the Moon, the ones who survived, would be so overcome by stress and grief and the very situation that they wouldn’t be able to think clearly?

What about the rest of the Earth Alliance?

“Just spell it out for me,” Flint said, trying not to sound annoyed. He wasn’t annoyed at Deshin. He was annoyed at himself.

“Peyti, they’re lawyers, right, most of them? At least on the Moon. And the ones that were the clones, the bulk of them were lawyers, right?”

“Yeah,” Flint said.

“So, the bombs go off on Anniversary Day. They destroy the domes. Kill a lot of people. Even a few of these Peyti clones. But think it through. They wear masks.”

Flint let out a breath of air. “The destruction of the domes wouldn’t have killed them, if they were nowhere near the blast site.”

“That’s right,” Deshin said. “They could breathe. They might even have some of those skin-tight suits that some Peyti have. Maybe they wore them that day under their weirdo suits.”

Flint almost smiled at the description. He had always hated seeing Peyti in human suits. It made them look like starving children playing dress up.

He tapped his forefinger against the table.

It felt like his brain was starting to return.

“If the Anniversary Day bombings had been successful, then the survivors would have met with Earth Alliance officials,” he said slowly. “Lawyers in particular, because they would have been privy to decisions that the dome governments made.”

Deshin leaned his head back. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just figured that, you know, the surviving bombers would need lawyers, and the Peyti would step in and destroy the bombers.”

Flint shook his head. “The bombers died. We caught a few, but that wouldn’t have happened if the domes hadn’t sectioned.”

Deshin’s gaze met his. There was something cold in Deshin’s eyes, something dangerous. “So the secondary attack—”

“Is also aimed at destroying the Moon.” Flint put his hands over his mouth, then realized what he had done. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking aloud. “Which is why it wasn’t called off.”

“Because if the lawyers had succeeded, everyone who was anyone on the Moon would’ve died.”

“And the domes would have blown apart. It
is
a back-up plan.”

“Which also failed,” Deshin said.

Flint nodded. “I’ve had a feeling that there’s another attack coming, but I’ve been thinking that’s partly paranoia.”

“I’ve been worrying about it too,” Deshin said. “I don’t think it’s paranoia.”

“But if we’re right, then last week’s attack wouldn’t have been planned as a back-up.”

“It would have been planned as part of the overall mission,” Deshin said.

“Which is…what?” Flint asked. “Destroying the domes on the Moon does…what?”

“We gotta think that through,” Deshin said. “You gotta ask, who benefits?”

“That’s not what you have to ask first,” Flint said, shaking his head. “You have to ask, what gets lost? And more than that. This attack has been planned for decades. So what gets lost now that’s exactly the same as what would have gotten lost thirty years ago?”

“Oh, God, Flint, I don’t know,” Deshin said.

Flint was feeling calmer than he had felt a moment ago. He was starting to get a handle on all of this. It was starting to make sense.

“You were right last week, Deshin,” he said. “We’re going about this investigation all wrong. We’re not looking at the big picture.”

“Big picture?” Deshin said with a sardonic grin. “I never thought of a picture this big.”

“Well, we’re going to have to start,” Flint said. “Because focusing on some dome bombings on the Moon is way too small.”

“Who thinks that big?” Deshin asked.

“Someone does,” Flint said.

“No, no,” Deshin said. “I don’t mean our architect. I mean, in investigative terms. Who thinks that big?”

Flint frowned, blinked, thought.

There were several branches of Earth Alliance investigators that looked at large-scale issues, but authority was always a problem. Local authority ruled. When the issues got too big, they were already
legal
problems, so the investigation focused on the things that impacted Earth Alliance law, not on truth or what actually happened. Instead the investigations focused on what could be proven, what could be used in Multicultural Tribunals, and what the various cultures could agree on.

Flint had been shaking his head long before he realized he was doing it. Then he forced himself to stop.

Deshin was watching him.

Flint stood up. “If these attacks had gone as planned,” he said slowly. “We would have lost the twenty largest domes on the Moon. Millions would have died. The devastation and financial loss would have crippled economies and corporations from here to the edge of the sector.”