“That’s one way to get his attention,” Grant said. “It would be logical.”
“Rough on him.”
Grant gave a slow, thoughtful nod. “But it would work. And they’re ReseuneSec. Those are odd sets from the beginning.”
“Cold as hell’s hinges,” Justin muttered, with other unpleasant memories, and tried to shake the mood of that black flood in the hall—his hallway as well as hers. He poured a white wine, poured another for Grant, and reran the tape. “That’s the BB-19.” Justin said, regarding the thin, long-faced azi. “I’ve worked with another of that set. A bundle of nerves. Good on details. He’ll likely be scared to death of Florian and Catlin.”
“With probable cause,” Grant said, and, with a pizza wedge for a pointer: “That’s his counterpoint, I’m betting. BY-10. A lot like the BB-19. A good combination, those two. One’s detail, the other tends to macrofocus.”
“Males generally get top posts in that house, have you noticed that? Since Florian and Catlin, that’s her predilection. It was her predecessor’s, too. Not a female in the whole lot.” Flash on that apartment, that time. He’d been, then, around Ari’s age now.
And that night, in the first Ari’s apartment…had there been staff present, besides Florian and Catlin? He couldn’t remember it…didn’t want to remember. He was sorry for Florian and Catlin. He really was. It depressed him to think about it.
“And Theo ended up in authority over Jory on the domestic staff,” Grant said. “I wouldn’t have advised that. Jory’s brighter. But they’ll manage. He’ll take advice.”
“You know, Ari is far more social than her predecessor,” Justin said, envisioning that crowd in Ari’s living room—probably being served refreshments and urged to relax—which would make the lot almost comically uncomfortable. No, she actually wouldn’t do it. She knew better. She’d do what would make them comfortable—like brief them, give them information. Those mindsets would like that far better than teacakes, all things considered. But sociality…she’d encourage that, far more than those mindsets had ever seen. “She has a strong inclination to go for company. Not with that lot, but in general.”
“I’ve observed,” Grant said.
“Right from the start. She visited our office. Whenever she got bored, she went looking for people. Cultivated a set of friends. Still does. Denys really didn’t like that habit in her. Of course, Denys didn’t like people in the first place.”
“Neither did the first Ari,” Grant said. “Deviation from the model. Maybe an improvement. Maybe not. I can’t imagine that the first Ari ever had that bent in early years.”
“Our Ari lost Jane Strassen, but she never grew bitter, just took to chasing us. Maybe she’s more people-oriented because she didn’t spend her early years wondering if her dear mother would kill her if she disappointed. That’s what they say about Olga Emory.”
“A relationship I can’t imagine,” Grant murmured. “But then, I can’t imagine a mother.” A tilt of Grant’s head. “Just you.”
“I don’t qualify.”
“You absolutely don’t. Which suits me fine.”
They were lovers. They made no particular fuss over it. It was just who they were. There was nobody they trusted more than each other, nobody they loved more than each other. That had been true for years. For a time, in his growing up, if there hadn’t been Grant, he wouldn’t have been sane. If there hadn’t been him—it was equally sure Grant wouldn’t have been what he was.
And if not for the first Ari’s intervention, Grant would have been Jordan’s work, entirely.
And if not for the first Ari’s intervention, so, almost undoubtedly, would he.
“I wonder what she’s building out there behind the wing,” Justin said hours later, when he and Grant were in bed, after a long evening and an entertainment vid. The only light was the clock face on the minder. The security force had, as predicted, departed after a precise hour and forty-five minutes. Headed for the lift. Assigned, signed, and delivered—
And that gave Ari as much protection as any other agency in Reseune.
“Building behind the wing?” Grant asked, half asleep. “What brought that up?”
“She’s accumulating an army—counting service people, that’s a large staff.”
“You think?” Grant rolled over and managed a half-awake interest. “What are you thinking?”
“I think it’s not a building to replace the old Wing One Lab. I think it’s a huge extension of this whole wing.”
“You can’t really see it on the monitors.”
“Lot of earthmovers going back and forth, makes the ground floor shake. A lot of stuff landed down at the dock and brought up in that direction. It’s going to be big. Everybody’s saying labs to replace the old one they shut down. I’m saying—I don’t know why Ari wants huge labs attached to this wing, unless she’s setting up to do some work.”
“Makes a certain sense she would,” Grant said.
“Physical labs? She doesn’t need it. She’s theory. She’s computers. She doesn’t really need that kind of thing. I’ll bet you—mark me—I’ll bet a month’s pay the lab story is a blind.” He cast a look up at the ceiling in the dark, not sure they were monitored, never sure they weren’t. “Just a guess.”
“So—if it is—does she move out and we stay here?”
“Would she leave her favorite neighbor behind? Dammit, something in me wants to go take back our old digs, with the worn carpet and the balky green fridge, all of it. I miss the place.”
“I don’t know why. We weren’t safe there.”
“We were, for a while.” He let go a long slow breath, and remembered. “No, I suppose we were just ignorant.” He stretched, hands under the pillow, under his head. “Maybe that’s what I want to get back to. Blissful ignorance.”
“I’ve found little blissful about ignorance. Besides, it’s not in my mindset to tolerate that condition.”
“I’m afraid it’s not in mine, either, ultimately” Two or three slow breaths. “Too big a staff, even for a palace. She’s got staff packed into that apartment. And thirty guards? That’s a lot even for Wing One. I think we’re witnessing an expansion. She’s going to move. Get the whole wing into something that wasn’t shot all to hell by a handful of her staff. Make sure it can’t happen again.”
“It’s a lot of building. That’s certain.”
“If she moves us, at least we’ll be rid of the decor.”
The room…if the lights had been on…or even when they weren’t…was a horror of modern decorating, stark white, stark black, and some mitigating grays. Grant avowed he didn’t mind it much. But Grant, being azi, lived more in his mind than he did in his physical surroundings. For himself, having grown up attached to textures and physical sensations, it was absolutely appalling. Admittedly it was a place to be safe. It was a place to be monitored by reasonably friendly agencies, and to maintain an absolutely incontrovertible record, capable of proving to any inquisitive authority that they hadn’t been up to anything, and couldn’t possibly deserve to be arrested. Again.
Warm, soft place to be, however, it was not—only in this bed, with the lights out, with Grant there, safe. Insulated from the world—and Ari. And from whatever she was doing, filling the hall with a godawful lot of Reseune Security.
Making the place echo with boots.
Advancing power. He could hear it coming.
The phone rang.
“Damn.” He jumped. He couldn’t help it. Nothing good made ever made a phone ring at this hour. He shot an arm out, felt after the phone-set on the nightstand. Didn’t find it, and it was still going off “Minder? Minder, answer the damn phone!”
“Complying.” the robot voice said; the clock face over on the wall brightened as the room light came up a little. A telltale beside that clock went green, and a new voice came through.
“Ser Warrick?” Female. But not Ari.
“This is Justin Warrick.” He never had blocked off calls after mid
night. He’d never needed to. But here it was, after midnight. And he didn’t even know any women outside this wing and Admin. “Who is this?”
“Sandi Patil. Dr. Sandi Patil.”
He sat straight up in bed as Grant lay there a heartbeat, then levered himself up on an arm.
“What do you want?” He was rude. He knew it. But so was Patil, calling him out of nowhere at this hour, on business that couldn’t be good.
“Are you alone?” Patil asked.
“I’m as alone as I choose to be.” He didn’t want any part of this. He waved a hand at Grant, mimed recording the conversation, which took a keypush on the console. He got up to do it himself, on the wall panel near the door, but Grant, starting on that side of the bed, beat him to it, and then turned the room lights up full. “Why don’t you call my father?”
“I can’t reach him. Listen to me. Dr. Thieu is dead.”
Dead. Dead wasn’t a metaphor. Not from this source, at this hour. And he didn’t want to ask, but not getting information could be as bad as hanging up, outright, for the monitoring that went on in this place.
“Dead? How?”
“They’re saying heart attack. But I don’t believe it. They’re monitoring my phone, they’re questioning my friends…”
“Look, if you deal with my father it’s a dead certainty they’ll do that, whoever ‘they’ are…”
“Not Reseune,” Patil said. “It’s not Reseune. They have people inside.”
He made a furious gesture at the other wall, in the direction of next door, Ari’s apartment. Grant understood, grabbed a robe on his way and left, running, wrapping the robe about him like a bath towel.
“What do you mean?” he asked meanwhile, trying to keep the tone even and the conversation going.
“They’ve gotten to Dr. Thieu in the heart of Planys, on the other side of the world. They can get to anyone.”
“Look, somebody gave me your card, I haven’t a clue why, I don’t know who ‘they’ are, and I don’t know why you’d be calling me. What are you into, what do you want with my father, and where in hell did you get my number?”
“I got it from Thieu. Look, I’m in the middle of selling my apartment. All my belongings are in boxes, my physical files are in a mess and I can’t find anything. I’m supposed to be going up to the station, and now everything’s stalled, I don’t know why, and I can’t get an answer out of the Director’s office! Thieu said to talk to your father, now Thieu’s just died and I can’t reach him, your number works, you’re on the inside of the agency that’s hiring me and now not talking to me, so here you are, Ser Warrick, and welcome to my situation! Can you just go down the hall or wherever you are and tell your father I urgently need to talk to him? There’ve been people coming through to look at this place I don’t like the look of, they say it’s sold, but someone arrives today and just walks through, and I didn’t know whether to let them in or not. I don’t want to deal with this, and someone I don’t know phones me to tell me Thieu is dead and hangs up. So what am I supposed to do? When I get hold of Schwartz, he’s going to tell me it’s all fine, I don’t need to worry, and just let them handle everything, but that’s what he said the last time. I need to talk to someone who knows what’s going on.”
“Well, it’s not going to be my father. I think you should call Planys Security tonight and ask them what’s going on. You get a call in the night and you assume it’s even true…”
“Oh, it’s true. It’s true he’s dead. I have no doubt of it. I have no doubt I’m targeted and your father is, and Planys Security can’t even take care of its own, let alone protect me here. These aren’t reasonable people.”
He didn’t like it. His heart had picked up the old familiar heavy beat. On one hand it felt like a trap. On the other…this woman might be in one, and in possession of information ReseuneSec was going to want. And if he could stay on the line and get a record down of this little playlet, naming names, it was safer for him and everyone attached to him.
“I don’t understand why my father has anything to do with this. And if you want protection, I can get ReseuneSec to go wherever you are—”
“Thieu,” she interrupted him, and somewhere in the background there was a noise, a thump, of some sort. “Oh my God,” she said. “Warrick, tell them! Tell them!”
“Tell them what?”
“Clavery! The name is Anton Clavery! Just—”
Something thumped. The phone quit. He grabbed his own robe, shoved his arms into the sleeves and headed past the end of the bed, out of the bedroom, taking down the small, useless table next to the door as he headed down the hall. Lights in the living area had come on, where Grant had passed.
He got that far before the front door opened and black-uniformed security came bursting in—Marco and Wes, specifically, night shift, with Grant’s conspicuous red head just beyond that tall blot of black uniforms.
“Her phone went dead,” he said, out of breath. “I recorded it, as far as it went.” In that moment Catlin arrived, in a black tee and workout pants, unarmed, to all appearances, and probably straight from bed, while Marco walked over and took a look at the house minder unit. He didn’t know which one to address, or which, Marco or Catlin, was technically in charge. And he had a shaky moment of realizing he, ReseuneSec’s main target for years, had been babbling in that call, urging a woman’s cooperation with ReseuneSec, anxious to keep himself and Grant safe from whatever damned fool thing Jordan had brought on them in his eternal feud with Admin—and too sure, maybe, that his father hadn’t had anything to do with whatever was going on in Novgorod. He felt a vague sense of shame about turning coat on his father. But not enough. That collection of ReseuneSec in the hall—that had been Ari, young Ari, taking real power over a segment of that organization that had repeatedly arrested him. And he had urgently to deal with them—for Grant’s sake. “Catlin, it was Patil on the phone. Something’s wrong. She needs help. Security. Fast. She’s saying Thieu was killed. Someone interrupted her on the phone. Apparently violently.”
Catlin didn’t waste a breath. She had her com unit, and delivered a fast message somewhere that consisted of, “Information on Patil. Code 10. Her residence?” The last was a question aimed at him.
“I think it was,” he said. “Residence.” Second thought. “Maybe her office. I don’t know.”
“Residence and office,” Catlin said into the com. “Stat, find her, wherever she is.” She broke the contact. Grant, meanwhile, had gotten past building security at the door, still with the robe held like a towel, and Florian showed up behind him in the bottom half of a workout suit, dark hair in its usual curling disarray.
“Sera’s awake,” Florian said. “Ser Warrick. Did you call Dr. Patil?”
He shook his head. “She called me, out of nowhere. Said Thieu was dead.”
Up went the com unit, same fast contact. Florian said, into it: “Planys-Sec, report on status of Dr. Raymond Thieu, researcher, retired.”
There was perhaps a brief silence on that contact. Grant made a quiet move toward him. Building security moved to restrain him. Catlin simply lifted a hand, on the phone with someone else, and security stood down, letting Grant through.
He grabbed Grant by the arm, in no mood to have them separately questioned. Gone over. Drugged. Any of those things. “I’m worried about my father,” he said to Florian. “She said someone was inside. On the inside.”
“Thieu is dead,” Florian said. It was a measure of trust that someone of Florian’s nature gave a piece of information to an outsider. And Florian immediately thumbed buttons on the com and called someone else. “Guard alert, Jordan Warrick’s residence. See to his safety. Report.”
“Thanks,” Justin said quietly. Two more individuals in security uniform had shown up at the door, and found their way in, people Justin had seen at Ari’s door this evening, people with the com rig and armament of personnel on duty. Her people. He stood there. He didn’t know what to do. He was in the middle of the me
ss, as clued in as anyone could be without that vital comlink. Meanwhile Grant, unflapped, dropped half his hold on the robe, calmly sorted out the top of it and put it on, tying it this time.
“Young sera, I believe, is more than awake,” Grant said, indicating it wasn’t all a case of Catlin and Florian running things at the moment.
“Your father has answered his phone, ser,” Florian said, “and agents are on their way to his door.”
That was a relief. He hadn’t known how much relief. He was scared for Jordan. He didn’t know why he was. Jordan hadn’t earned it, giving him that card. But he was glad to know Ari’s version of ReseuneSec was between Jordan and anything else stupid. He moved quietly over to the sideboard, out of the way, his own foyer and his living room having become security central in the last few moments. Feigning calm, he started to ask Grant to pour them both a vodka and orange, but at just that moment Ari showed up in the foyer, in a night robe, and with her dark hair in a pigtail.
“Justin?” she asked.
“It’s the card,” he said. “It’s that damned card. I don’t know what’s going on. Patil called, for no apparent reason, except she found out Thieu’s dead and then something happened when she was calling us. We have no idea. Would you like a vodka and orange?”
“I think I’d love one.”
“Sera,” Catlin said to her, “agents have entered Dr. Patil’s residence. They were on watch. They saw no one. But Patil has fallen out her window.”
“Fatally.”
“Quite fatally, sera. It’s twelve stories.”
“Oh, this is splendid!”
Grant had gone after the drinks. Justin stood frozen, rethinking what Patil had said last.
“Anton Clavery,” he said, then. “She gave that name, before—whatever happened.”
“The name is a new one,” Catlin remarked.
“We recorded everything, from the start. It’s all on the system, fast as Grant could get over and push the button.”
“Why would she call you?” Ari asked.
“I haven’t the least notion,” he began, then: “Hell. Yes, I do. She asked if I could get Jordan down the hall. She had my number, not his. She has—had—no concept of where we live, or the conditions he lives in. She couldn’t get through security to phone him.”