He checked the time.
It was three am, already.
He stared up at the ceiling and recalled the events of the past, what, 36 hours. The thugs having a go at Nettles, a proven Lynthax set up; the Earth Delegation using the neuralnet to run rings around the Trevon Reps, obviously calculated to unnerve the negotiators; and now an assassination. Was that another set up? But by who, this time? Were Reggie and the secessionists prepared to scupper the talks and go all out for full independence, or had Earth gone mad?
Down on the street, House security was dismantling the cordon. The bugcams were disappearing back to their docking stations on hotel roofs around the city. The Police were calling in the key holders to open up the offices in the building opposite. The burned out pod was on its way to the police station forensics lab on the corner of Second and Sixth.
With the window still opened wide, and his thoughts a jumble, Scat drifted off to sleep.
63
Petroff reviewed his programme notes to see what role Ramesh Booni had played in the negotiations up to the time of his assassination. He hadn’t figured prominently, but he was a military advisor on Cotton’s staff.
That focused Petroff’s mind: Cotton had sacrificed one of his own. Jeeze! He was proving to be a ruthless son of a bitch. There was a time when Lynthax considered Cotton to be a “bit player”. He was someone the company had on its payroll, to smooth out inconveniences for them, but never much more than that.
Obviously, Lynthax hadn’t paid enough attention to his true capabilities, though it appeared the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority had. N’Bomal was involved, as was he, but Lynthax hadn’t cooked up the idea, as far as he was aware. Cotton had brought it to N’Bomal, sanctioned from above, so he had claimed. He was sure Cotton had included him in the briefing only because the building opposite the east wing was Lynthax property, and Lynthax jointly owned the House Security contract with Raddox. Obviously, Cotton didn’t want security in the area to be so tight that it made the “action” any more difficult than it needed to be, though it appeared the security guards at Trevon House had ignored the message.
Well, anyway, he pitied the poor Booni fellow. One day he’s doing his bit for Earth, the next he’s barbecued meat; his brain scrambled and mashed by a PIKL on full power from a distance of less than 200 m.
So he had assumed.
He also assumed that somewhere in their building opposite the east wing, there was evidence of a PIKL firing post, no matter how microscopic. Why else would Cotton ask for his people to avoid the area, if not for that?
Then he remembered that Scat had been on House duty that evening thereby delaying his surgery for the neuralnet implant. Or, quite possibly, Scat was just blowing him off.
Maybe he should have replied to Scat’s excuse. He should have insisted on an alternative date. Any time within the next week, perhaps. He couldn’t possibly be that busy to decline. If he had, then he could wave goodbye to his Lynthax pay, and Petroff could wave goodbye to one out of several possible future sources of information on the secessionist movement.
It would be a pity, but he had his own reputation to maintain, and he had no time to play games with children. He needed that commitment. This time he would call Scat personally, voice to voice. He wanted to hear Scat say “no” and to hear the tone of his acceptance. It had to be willing.
He placed the call.
‘Missed you yesterday, Scat. Good morning. I hear you had a busy night.’
‘Er, yeah, it was,’ Scat replied. ‘Em, what time is it? Who is this?’
‘It’s 6.30 am. It’s Petroff. You’re off duty in 30 minutes. I thought I’d give you a wakeup call.’
Scat forced himself to imagine Petroff sitting beside him. That woke him up.
‘Em, thanks. How are you?’
‘I’m well, Scat. I hear we lost an Earth Delegate last night. What can you tell me about it?’
Scat squeezed his eyes shut and then tried to focus on the wall across the room. He cleared his throat.
‘Nothing much just yet, sir. Someone took him out with a PIKL, or something remarkably similar, just as he was leaving the House. He burned up a little afterwards.’
‘Who’s leading the investigation?’ Petroff asked.
‘Not sure. Commander Jason was there last night. I didn’t speak to him, but I assume he’ll follow through.’
‘Thanks. I’ll have a word with him. Oh, and, by the way, when are you free to take up my offer?’
‘Offer?’ Scat sat up.
‘The neuralnet implant, Scat. I’m sure you caught onto what I meant. See it this way: it’s your chance to get a leg up and to leap a few generations of technology. You’ll be able to ditch those handheld toys, contacts lenses and visor stick-ons, and level the playing field with the super-rich. And you’ll be employable right up to director level, so long as you fit in and play the game right.’
‘Oh, yes. Sorry about that, Mr Petroff. I’m grateful for the offer, but having looked into it, I’m not so keen. Isn’t there another way we could stay in touch without me having to undergo an irreversible operation?’ Scat’s heart was pounding. He had not quite worked out what he was going to say to Petroff about this, and he certainly wanted to be wide-awake when he had to deal with it.
‘No there isn’t, Scat.’ Petroff’s tone was hard. Scat felt a chill.
‘But you must know I’m not keen on these enhancements. It’s a personal thing, sir. Even the Marines didn’t like them. People change. They experience things. They can become unstable, unreliable. The people, I mean. Then there’re the long-term effects of having you’re neural pathways working 60 or 70 times faster and harder than they were meant to.’
‘Scat, there’s nothing to worry about,’ Petroff explained. ‘The only reason why we haven’t pushed to have this thing on general release is so we can milk it at a higher price. It’s like any product. Its value is determined by its usefulness and its exclusivity.’
Scat’s mind raced.
‘Still, I’d rather think about it a little more,’ he said. ‘Maybe it’d help if you sent me some info on the subject. There’s almost nothing on the Trevonnet, except a reference to its development.’
‘I’ll send you the brochure. Come back to me by tomorrow night.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll take a look at it.’
‘Mmm.’
Scat dropped his graf back on the bedside cabinet and concluded he hadn’t really persuaded Petroff of anything. He now guessed that Petroff was about to write him off. That meant losing his Lynthax pay and getting a drubbing from Cotton.
Shit!
Things just kept happening to him. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. He was meant to be putting money to one side to build a better life for himself: a more dignified and freer life. He was not meant to be taking sides in a local rebellion.
Being bumped off Prebos and roped in as an Earth spy – or was it a corporate spy – hadn’t been in the original plan and was all about playing it safe. As for choosing between his loyalty to his friends and his debt to Earth – well that wasn’t included in the plan either, and it was an increasingly tough line to walk. Then Cotton had dropped the redrafting bombshell, upsetting his balance, piling on the pressure.
He only seemed to have control over one thing, and that was this red line, a line they couldn’t push him over—no matter what the consequences, and no matter how that decided things. He would never—not ever—have his head hooked up to some company control centre: it was absolutely, farking-well, never going to happen—no matter who was in charge, or what side he was on!
He picked up a boot from under the bed and threw it at the bunk door. It didn’t help.
Just how bad does it have to get before I can get my life back?
Petroff leaned back into his high-backed chair, put his feet up on his desk, and placed his second call of the morning.
‘Good morning, Ronald? It’s Petroff. Are you free to talk?’
‘Morning, Jack. Ye
s, I am. Did you hear the news?’
‘Yes. Outrageous, Ronald. Truly. Do you have any suspects?’
‘No. None yet. My office is only just getting up to speed.’
‘Of course, of course ... but would you like one?’
64
‘If it wasn’t us then it was them,’ Scat pointed out.
Nettles used a hand to dry wash his face as he waited for his desktop PC to start.
‘I can assure you, it wasn’t us,’ he replied, ‘so we have to assume it was meant to screw us over. We’ve had to postpone our talks today. None of our teams got any sleep last night. They were pestered by reporters all night long.’
Hammond sat to one side of Nettles’ desk, turning his e-reader end-over-end.
‘Well they’re playing hardball, Terrance,’ he said, ‘and with their own people. I’d hate to see what they have planned for each of us.’
Nettles looked up from the minutes of yesterday’s technical session.
‘Don’t go soggy, Ralph. That’s what they want.’
‘I know, but you’ve to ask yourself where all of this is leading. You beaten; this Booni character killed; being thrashed at the opening—and the first week’s not even over yet! What have they got lined up for us today?’
‘They’ll probably use the fact that it was you who postponed today’s conferences,’ Scat said.
‘No doubt,’ Nettles said, entering his PC’s password.
‘When do we restart?’ Hammond asked.
‘Tomorrow morning. 10 am,’ Nettles replied. ‘Cohen agreed. In the meantime, Scat, you and I have places to be. We have a news conference this afternoon, and before that, there’s lunch with the Police Commissioner—he’s briefing me on what they know.’
65
The police commissioner’s brief was just that, brief. It was as if the man didn’t want to be there; he looked uncomfortable and appeared unwilling to make eye contact. There was little or nothing to go on right now, other than what the security guard had seen, or, more truthfully, hadn’t seen. They were retrieving what footage they could recover from the surveillance cameras along the east wing, but they didn’t expect them to reveal much: the angles weren’t quite right. The DNA test had proven the victim to be Ramesh Booni and the Earth Delegation had confirmed he was a military advisor on Cotton’s staff. Then, without warning, he excused himself, leaving Nettles and Scat to watch him walk from the restaurant, unsure what to make of his odd behaviour.
One thing was clear, though: the news conference would be disappointing and was hardly worth attending.
Nettles considered giving it a miss. Or maybe just show his face for a few minutes then slip away to catch up on a backlog of constituency work.
Scat saw an opportunity.
He had only had a few hours’ sleep over the past two days so he asked Nettles for some downtime. Nettles let him go. He would not need a minder until later that night.
Scat caught the central core tram back to his small and slowly moulding apartment, littered as it was with empty meal cartons and unwashed clothes. He turned on the TV and found a news channel showing a picture of a high and heavily panelled lectern fitted with an array of microphones. A static banner at the bottom of the screen read: “Assassination Briefing”.
He swept the mess off the bed and threw himself on it as the commentator announced the arrival of the Earth Ambassador and the Police Commissioner, accompanied by their personal assistants and government officials. Scat looked for Nettles among the Commissioner’s entourage but couldn’t see him. He tugged at his boots and threw them over to the door, glad not to be a part of the circus.
The news reporters began to settle and quieten down as the Police Commissioner took centre stage behind the podium. In support, and standing either side of him, were Ambassador Cohen and the city’s mayor. The Commissioner waved his hand gesturing for everyone to hush and take a seat.
‘Ladies, Gentlemen. We have an important announcement to make.’
He paused until he had absolute silence.
‘As you are already aware, at 11.08 last night, Earth Delegate Ramesh Booni was assassinated in the vicinity of the House while riding a pod back to his hotel. What we are now able to prove is that the weapon used was a Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, or PIKL.’
He gave the audience a moment to appreciate the enormity of what he was saying. A reporter shouted out a question, but he waved him down.
‘Our investigation leads us to believe that the shot was taken from a firing post along the old road leading down from the original southern entrance to the city, some 750 metres south of Trevon House. Now, as those of you with Resource War reporting experience will know, a PIKL is no ordinary weapon, and it takes considerable skill to use one. Moreover, the distance of the shot suggests additional skills—a sniper’s skill—implying this was not a spur of the moment killing. It was planned. It was deliberate. It was carried out in cold blood. And to our knowledge only one person on Trevon, aside from the Earth Delegates’ own security team, has the skill to pull off a shot like that.’
He paused for effect. The reporters waited.
Scat sat bolt upright. He didn’t need anyone to tell him who this one person was. He swung off the bed, grabbed his graf, scooped up his boots and fled from the apartment.
Behind him, the police commissioner confirmed what he had feared:
‘His name is Sebastian Scatkiewicz.’
66
Scat was no longer tired. For the second time in a week, a tsunami of adrenalin coursed through his veins. Without checking his stride, he ran into the stairwell and took the steps two and three at a time for several flights, bouncing off the walls at each switchback. Arriving at a firebreak floor, he ran the full width of the building to the opposite side where he continued his descent into the commercial zone, bursting into a service corridor leading to a restaurant kitchen. Only then did he stop to catch his breath and to pull on his boots, watching the stairwell behind him through eyes stinging with sweat. He cursed himself for not turning his graf off earlier, doing so as he strapped it to his wrist. Damn!
Still, no one had followed him. The stairwell was empty; there were no echoes or moving shadows.
More calmly, he walked through the kitchen into the dining room and then across a mostly empty floor to the front door. He ignored the stares that followed him out into the mall itself.
He tried hard not to limp on a bruised foot, but as long as he remained calm, he would not attract any attention. It was just so hard not to break into a run again.
A little way along the mall, he found his bearings and decided to make his way to the exit that led out onto Third Avenue on the opposite side of the complex. As he made his way along the second floor balcony, he looked down onto the floor below to see a large group of black uniformed and body-armoured police heading at a trot towards the elevators. He edged away and continued walking.
Fark! For Jeeze’ sake, why didn’t Nettles warn me that I was being set up? All he had to do was send me a note!
Then it occurred to him that maybe they didn’t give Nettles a chance to warn him, but if that was the case, why weren’t the police waiting for him at the apartment? And why try pinning it on him? He had been on duty all night. There were witnesses.
Scat emerged onto the street and walked south for several blocks before thinking that maybe the police, or Earth, didn’t want him caught. They may prefer to have a man in the bush, rather than a man in the hand. That might play to their advantage. It might suggest Trevon couldn’t handle the security situation. It would also add extra spice to Earth’s version of the assassination story; the story the networks were sure to take back home with them.
He was speculating. He had nothing to work on. He was also without access to money: a trip to a hole in the wall would tell his potential jailors where he was—they'll be tracking his accounts if they weren't already frozen—and a graf-enabled purchase would shine like a beacon. That left him with the clothes
on his back.
He checked his pockets and pulled out his mother’s silver cross, an old packet of tissues and some coins: enough money for, maybe, a day’s food, a short taxi ride down town or several publicnet messages from a public booth.
He opted for the latter.
He wasn’t hungry, and had nowhere he could safely go right now, but he did need to speak to Thomas Irwin.
Part Four
Band on the Run
67
Scat called Cheryl just as she was taking a break in the Trevon House cafeteria.
She was already a little jumpy, and the last person she wanted to talk to was Scat. Her boss was in jail, the police would be searching Nettle’s office soon and, no doubt, they would want to question her, as well.
Her boss was a decent man, not the type to be involved in an assassination, but the news shows were suggesting otherwise, so she was relieved when Scat told her that her boss was not involved. That meant his arrest was a mistake, or a part of an adult-only power game she did not understand. Either way, they would release him soon.
Scat asked her to send word to Thomas to meet him at the Asian restaurant they had used the previous Friday evening, but she had to make the call from a public facility, not from the House. He then told her to report his call to the authorities, but to say only that he had heard of Nettles’ arrest and wanted to confirm the story.
She agreed on both counts.
Scat signed off and made his way down town to the restaurant where he lingered across the street.
Thomas turned up a little over an hour later, his head swivelling left and right as he looked up and down the sidewalk before going inside.
Scat followed him in.
‘Kitchen,’ he said as he walked past.
Thomas traipsed after him.
As soon as they cleared the dining room, Scat swung around.
‘I didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘I was on duty at the House, and there will be dozens of witnesses. And I doubt Nettles knows anything about it.’