The Silent Army (22 page)

Understood.

Do it tonight.

He broke the link, and I stared at her image. She looked so pathetic, so innocuous. She didn’t look powerful.

She tried to tell you something. Something you didn’t hear,
a voice seemed to whisper in my ear
.

You never heard the name Samuel Fawkes. . . .

Her memory had stirred up others in its wake. Her face reminded me of someone else’s, someone with that same look of desperation. The hair was different and the nose was different, but those haunted eyes wore the same expression. They looked like they saw too much. I’d seen eyes like that on another woman, years back, when I was a cop. The memories had been hidden, and I hadn’t pieced them back together yet.

“He doesn’t destroy everything . . . I do . . .”

I drew forth one of the broken memories, and looked into the place that had been altered. I was in my old precinct, where I sat in the interrogation room. The woman sat across the table from me, her body worn out and sick. She was emaciated, and her teeth were decaying. Bony little fingers picked at needle tracks. At that point, her mind should have been gone as well, but her eyes were like two suns. Like the woman Zoe Ott, she’d seen more than she’d wanted.

“You need to get to a shelter,”
I’d told her, but she’d just shaken her head.

“You can’t help me,”
she said.
“I made a mistake. This is bigger than you.”

“If you’re in some kind of trouble, I can help you.”
She seemed to find that funny.

“You’re getting dragged into this just by talking to me,”
she said.
“They know I’m alive now.”

“Who knows?”

At the time I thought a dealer or a pimp. I’d honestly thought that I could keep her safe, but in the end I couldn’t. We never found the body, but the blood was hers, and there was far too much.

She tried to tell you something . . . something you didn’t hear . . .

I wasn’t sure who’d said that. Was it that I hadn’t heard? Or did I hear, but was forced to forget it?

I remembered a knock at my door at night. I took my gun from the drawer and answered it.

“Who is it?”
I called, not opening the door.

“I’m sorry to disturb you so late, Miss Dasalia,”
a man’s voice said from the other side.
“This is about that woman.”

“What woman?”

“You know the one I mean.”

I opened it, but kept my weight on the door in case he tried to force it. There was a man standing there. At the time I’d never seen his face before, but I recognized it now. Years later, when I finally made detective, he would become my partner.

His eyes went wide, and I felt strangely dizzy.

“Put down the gun,”
he said,
“and let me in.”

. . . and knowing better, I let the stranger in.

“Forget everything that woman told you.”
I remember he’d said that.

“You never heard the name Samuel Fawkes....”

My thoughts scattered as someone approached the car. The lock released, and the driver’s-side door unlatched. I let the memories fade.

The door groaned open and Nico climbed inside, lowering himself into the driver’s seat. He slammed it shut, shaking off rain from his coat, then gripped the wheel with one hand. He reached toward the ignition with his other, and stopped with his thumb over the starter pad. His heart rate jumped suddenly, and I saw his body tense.

I sat up as his pistol swung back around. I caught his wrist before he could target me, impressed by how fast he was.

“It’s me,” I said.

His eyes were wide, but when he saw me, they changed. They looked at me the way they had since that night, when I woke to find that he’d brought me back. It was hard for me to know what the look meant. I could see fear in his eyes, and something else there as well. It might have been pain or longing or sadness. Maybe it was just guilt over what he had done.

“Faye,” he said. He blinked hard and then opened his eyes again. When he did, the flicker from his JZI had faded from his pupils. “You can’t keep coming to me like this.”

“Fawkes authorized me to bring you what you asked for,” I said.

“Really,” he said, like he didn’t believe it.

“Yes.”

“You could have sent it. You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m here because of you, Nico.”

He looked down for a moment and he nodded. The gun was still in his hand, but he’d moved his finger off the trigger. Smoky breath trailed from his nose in the cold air. His heart was beating quickly, but his face and eyes looked calm.

“Give me the information,” he said.

I sent him the files Fawkes had given me, and although he held them over for scanning, he accepted the package.

“It goes deeper than you think,” I said.

“You don’t know what I think.”

“You might be the only one who can stop her.”

“I’m not going to kill anyone, Faye,” he said. “You won’t convince me to do that.”

“I’m just here to give you the information.”

“You didn’t need to come here to do that.”

“I wanted to see your face.”

“That’s it?”

“I wanted you to see mine.”

That bothered him, I could tell. His fingers kept squeezing the grip of the gun.

“I remember every time I was with you,” I said. “Before you left for the war, and after you got back too. Those memories all mean something to me, Nico, because all of them are real.”

“Shut up.”

“You understand it academically. I know you understand it. You realize what your friend, and her friends, can do. You must know, even, that they’ve done it to you, at least back when they still could. You know all these things, but you still don’t get it. You can’t, because you can’t see how much you’ve lost. You can’t see what was taken away from you, and you never will see it.”

“I said, shut up,” he said.

“But I can,” I said, “and I know you loved me—”

He slipped his wrist from my grasp and stuck the gun in my face.

“Don’t finish that sentence,” he said. He glared at me down over the pistol’s sight.

“Please do what Fawkes wants,” I said. “If you don’t do it, he’s going to kill you—”

“Shut up!” he barked, knuckles white on the gun’s grip. Blood had rushed into his face, lines of orange branching out underneath the skin. They glowed like electric light. The breath that blew out of his nostrils was warm. He seemed so alive right then.

“You’re not Faye,” he said in a low, even voice. His vitals spiked, but his eyelids had drooped. He looked the way he did when he first woke me, with calm murder in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. She wouldn’t have wanted it.”

“I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. “I couldn’t know what I wanted.”

“She would never have helped Fawkes.”

“But I did help him, Nico.”

“She never would have killed Sean. You aren’t Faye. You’re Faye’s corpse.”

“My memories are the same. My consciousness—”

“It’s not the same,” he said. “I thought it was. I hoped it was, but it’s not the same. I don’t want to hear anymore. Tell me where he’s hiding them.”

“I can’t.”

“I pulled the maritime ID for a tanker called the KM
Senopati Nusantara
off a revivor. Is that ship still out there? Is that where they are?”

“Please help us, Nico. Fawkes can still get to you.”

“He’s already done his worst.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“He has to me.”

His body grew very still; then his eyelids drooped and the muscles in his trigger finger twitched. I almost didn’t get my hand up in time. The muzzle flash lit the inside of the car, and I felt the heat of it against my face. Burned powder peppered my skin as the bullet punched through the seat behind me. Smoke drifted from the barrel as I swung my other hand and slapped him across the face.

I hadn’t meant to do it, but it stopped him. He just stared, the gun forgotten in his hand.

“How could you?” I heard myself whisper to him. The words, like the slap, came from some unknown place, some old remnant of myself.

He didn’t try to fire a second shot. He was still staring when I opened the door and slipped out into the dark.

7

Tokkotai

Nico Wachalowski—Heinlein Industries, Industrial Park

I cruised across the tarmac, and tried to push the encounter with Faye out of my head. For the second time I’d had her in my sights, and for the second time I’d let her go.

It wasn’t the slap that stopped me, or what she said. It was the look in her eye, that look a revivor wasn’t supposed to have. That same look that I saw, just for a second, in that girl revivor’s eyes during the Goicoechea raid, when this all started. As if somehow what I’d done had wounded her.

“How could you?”

I shook my head and tried to focus. That look was imagined. It was only there because I put it there, because I wanted it to be there. Maybe she did carry around memories of our time together, but unlike the girl in Goicoechea, Faye was someone I’d known, and something didn’t carry over. Faye could never have gone along with this. She would never have asked me to either. The thing that waited for me in the backseat of my car knew there would be a nuclear detonation inside the city, and didn’t care at all. If its ghrelin inhibitor was switched off, it would . . .

A sheet of rain misted the windshield. Rather than go down that road, I sifted through the information she’d given me again. Fawkes had heavily redacted it, but even so, it was extensive. To prove any of it would take years of independent investigation, and since the FBI had been compromised, that would never happen. Still, if there was any truth to it, then the situation was even worse than I’d thought.

The names that appeared on his list were high-profile, powerful people, and not all of them were as secretive as Motoko Ai. Robin Raphael was a media mogul with an empire based out of the Central Media Communications Tower, one of the largest buildings in the city. He ran video and print news on at least fifty different fronts. Charles Osterhagen was a retired general whose name was known to anyone who’d served in the grind. He was the founder of Stillwell Corps. Two of the other names on the list were investors on the list of superwealthy.

They weren’t people you just called out and accused, not even with proof. They weren’t people you just approached on the street, or who quietly disappeared. They had teams of lawyers and professional security. If he thought I could get to any of these people, Fawkes was out of his mind.

A Chimera helicopter crossed the gray sky up ahead, and I picked up its scan as I approached. It had been two years since I’d been to Voodoo Proper, as the Heinlein facility was known. It hadn’t gotten any friendlier. The half mile of open tarmac that circled the main facility was dotted with guard stations, and electronic eyes followed my vehicle as I made my way across it. A second helicopter appeared and moved across the sky in the distance, and off to the northwest, a jeep was patrolling the main campus.

Wachalowski, this is Noakes. Any word back from the Indonesians?

It’s a dead end. The shipyard already collected the insurance on the lost ship. They don’t want any talk that it might still be intact.

I don’t know how long the DoD will let us sit on that satellite.

That ship is out there.

I’ll do what I can, but right now the majority of our resources are tied up tracking the nukes. We can’t afford to waste time.

The weapons are on that ship.

I’d like to believe that, Wachalowski, but we can’t say for certain they’re not still in the city, and that has to be our priority. Find something concrete.

Understood. I’m entering Heinlein’s main facility. I’ll have to switch off soon.

This would be easier if we just brought him in.

If we try that, Heinlein’s lawyers will crush us.

There’s no delicate way to do this, Wachalowski.

Maybe not, but Michael Heinser was one of their major players. The check I ran flagged him as a high-level revivor R & D man, but the specifics of his position were classified. There was no way to bring him in for questioning without some level of public exposure. No matter how else you looked at it, the one place no media would be able to follow was onto the grounds of Heinlein Industries.

You are entering a restricted area. No unauthorized communications are permitted in or out from this point forward. No unauthorized scans, visual, audio or data recordings are permitted beyond this point. . . .

A red flag popped up in my visual display and warning data began streaming by as the JZI detected an orbital beam painting my vehicle. I’d just been targeted by a satellite capable of incinerating me right there on the tarmac. A second later, a pulse caused the information to warp in front of me, and my JZI powered down.

They were jumpy. I couldn’t blame them.

I checked my cell phone, and it had powered down too. Not knowing exactly where we were supposed to meet, I continued straight toward the main compound. A full minute passed before I saw another vehicle come into view up ahead. It moved to intercept me.

The vehicle was a black military jeep. Without the JZI I couldn’t make out who was in it, but he flashed his lights and I cruised to a stop. The jeep pulled up a few car lengths away, and a middle-aged man with dark skin got out. He was wearing a suit, and a badge fluttered in the wind from a clip on his belt.

Whoever he was, he wasn’t alone. Two revivors in body armor climbed out of the back. I began to doubt I would be coming face-to-face with Michael Heinser, but whatever they had set up for me, it was going to have to do. I cut the engine and got out of my car, walking toward the man.

The revivors stepped in front of him and met me halfway. One of them looked me up and down until its scanner found the badge inside my jacket. It turned to the man.

“It’s him,” it said.

The man removed an electronic device from his jacket and held it up in front of me. After a few seconds, it emitted a sharp beep.

“You’re bugged,” he said.

“I know better than to try that. Anyway, you shut down the JZI.”

“This is independent of the JZI,” he said, moving closer. He held the device close to my left eye, and it beeped again.

He turned the device around so I could see the screen. A snapshot from a tissue scan was displayed there. I could make out the corner of my eye at the edge of the screen. There was a tiny speck there that stood out as a bright white dot.

“What is it?” I asked. He looked at me skeptically.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

He looked at the screen again, then switched off the device.

“I believe you,” he said. “The device is nearly microscopic. It could have been delivered through casual contact without your feeling it or knowing it. It piggybacks onto your JZI’s systems, so as long as that’s offline, the bug is cut off from its source.”

The bar.

“What’s the matter? Are you not used to a woman touching you?”

The blue-eyed woman with the wool hat who showed up at the restaurant; she planted it when she stopped me in the bar. It was a setup.

“Someone is spying on you, Agent Wachalowski.”

Ai was hedging her bets, then. She’d been watching since that night. She knew what I found at the Rescue Mission clinic. She knew Heinser’s name, and that I’d traced him to Heinlein Industries. She knew about the Buckster interview too.

“I used a magnetic pulse on it; it’s destroyed,” he said. “When you leave the campus and your JZI reinitializes, it will not come back online. You should be more careful.”

The man waved at the revivors, and they retreated. They moved back toward the jeep but didn’t get in. They stood in front of the grill and waited.

“Sorry about all this,” he said. He held out his hand, and I shook it. “As you can see, we must be careful. I’m Anan Bhadra. I represent Heinlein Industries.”

“I thought I was meeting with Michael Heinser,” I said. “Where is he?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Heinser is out of the country on business at the moment.”

“When is he due back?”

“It’s hard to say, but in the meantime, I’ve been sent to make a statement and to answer any questions you might have.”

“Out here?”

His face didn’t change, keeping an even smile as the wind ruffled his suit jacket. I had expected them to hold back, but even so, it was a hostile reception. They had me at a big disadvantage; with no JZI and no line of communication to the outside, there was no way I could verify whether he was telling the truth about Heinser. By the time we were finished and I was back outside their perimeter, he could be in the air, if he wasn’t already.

“We have become aware of several handheld nuclear devices whose whereabouts are currently unknown,” he said. “Heinlein is a high-profile target.”

“You’re saying this is a security measure?”

Bhadra shrugged, without saying one way or the other. It didn’t matter; he had his instructions. I wasn’t getting inside.

“We were able to verify that someone at the Rescue Mission facility attempted to contact Mr. Heinser several times,” I told him.

“I don’t believe Mr. Heinser would have received such a call on either his private or business lines.”

“It was a wireless line, leased by a Second Chance arm called the SCO.”

“I don’t believe Mr. Heinser is a member of the Second Chance organization.”

“He’s not, but for whatever reason, he had the phone in his possession and the calls were made to him.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I don’t have to prove it. I know it’s true. I also know that the bombs used to destroy the Rescue Mission Clinic, and the others, were almost identical to the one used to destroy the Concrete Falls recruitment center.”

That ruffled Bhadra’s feathers. His cool demeanor slipped a notch.

“There were Heinlein employees at the Concrete Falls site, Agent Wachalowski. Do you have any idea—”

“I’m not suggesting Heinlein was behind the attack. I think that whoever hit the recruitment center was there to hit Heinlein Industries. I think whoever did it then set themselves up at the Rescue Mission Clinic. What I don’t understand is why. That’s what I want you to explain to me.”

The rain started up again, misting over the tarmac. Bhadra signaled to one of the revivors, who approached and handed him an umbrella before returning to its spot. He opened it as the rain picked up, then moved closer so that it covered both of us.

“This is off the record, Agent.”

“Mr. Bhadra, I am conducting an ongoing investigation into—”

“I’m not asking, Agent Wachalowski. I am telling you. This is off the record. Neither your JZI implant nor any other recording device you may be carrying will work here. If I or anyone from Heinlein Industries is asked about this later, it will be denied.”

He stood there, waiting for my reaction. It was clear that if I didn’t agree to his terms, the discussion was over.

“Go ahead,” I told him.

“I can’t comment on why Mr. Heinser’s name was in the Rescue Mission directory, because I don’t know,” he said. “However, I can say that what you found there is connected to the incident at Concrete Falls.”

“You knew about what was going on at the Rescue Mission Clinic?”

“No. We didn’t know about the facility, but there have been concerns that someplace like it might turn up.”

“Concerns?”

“A specific piece of technology was at the Concrete Falls center the day it was attacked.”

“What kind of technology?”

“I can’t disclose that—”

He stopped short as I stepped in and grabbed him by the shirt collar. His eyes went wide as I hauled him up onto his toes, and he dropped the umbrella.

Immediately, the two revivors at the jeep began to close in. I drew my gun, and Bhadra flinched as I fired a single shot. The pop echoed down the tarmac as the revivor on the left spun around, spraying an arc of black blood from the side of its neck.

“Stop!” Bhadra shouted, holding his hands near his face. The second revivor held its position while the one I’d shot collapsed face-first onto the ground, blood pooling around its head.

“There are eleven nukes somewhere in the city,” I said, putting my face close to Bhadra’s. “Eleven nukes. Don’t stonewall me, Bhadra. Do you understand?”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, his hands still near his face. “Shoot me?”

“I’ll place you in Federal custody, and before I’m done, I promise you, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”

“You’ll never get me to the perimeter, Agent.”

“Answer me. What was Heinser involved in?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “I would tell you if I could. He was involved in something, but we don’t know what. They’ve put him out of reach as a precaution. They don’t have any specifics.”

“I want to talk to him now.”

“You can’t, Agent. He’s gone. You won’t be able to reach him, not in time to help you. I’m sorry.”

A gust of wind blew mist against the side of my face, and made the umbrella roll in a circle.

“They’re monitoring us,” Bhadra said. “Security will be here soon. Let me go, please. You don’t have to do this.”

He met my eye when he said that last part. He was trying to tell me something.

“No?”

“They wouldn’t send someone out here that they thought knew any specifics about Heinser or Concrete Falls,” he said. “If there was information that would be useful to you, it couldn’t come from me.”

I put the gun away and let go of him. He straightened his shirt and picked up the umbrella.

“I found several revivors at Rescue Mission,” I said. “Their signatures were different. The components were different too.”

“Technology changes, Agent.”

“It was a new model of revivor, then?”

“I can’t say for sure.”

“Was that technology at the Concrete Falls facility for some reason? Was that their interest in it?”

“If it was,” he said evenly, “it didn’t turn up in the wreckage after the blast.”

It was the closest to a confirmation I was going to get. Something of Heinlein’s had been stolen, and the blast covered it up. It was taken to the Rescue Mission Clinic, and probably the others that had been raided as well.