Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX}

Rafe and Teague, working together with Rafe’s own tool kit and another set of special devices MacRobert procured from somewhere, were tracing the power supplies to the facility they thought was the site of the unusual fatalities. Grace, home from the office, reading files she’d hunted down, looked up from time to time. What they said was cryptic, techtalk she didn’t know, but both the intensity of their concentration and the rising tension kept her checking in on them every little while. The file she’d pulled and was now marking offered hints at something deeper, less amenable to immediate action, than the flow of electrons to and from that facility.

Finally Teague said “Ahhh” in a tone that could only mean success, and Rafe said “Gotcha.” She looked up again. Rafe turned away from the table and grinned at her.

“Good news?” she asked.

“We found it and we’ve identified all its input gates. Moreover, Teague—and I bow before your genius, Teague—has coerced the power input main controller into accepting us—that is, Teague—as its new lord and master.”

“And what have you done?” Grace asked. “You’re looking far too smug to be a mere sidekick.”

“Indeed,” Rafe said. He puffed out his lips and raised an eyebrow. Grace laughed. “You wound me, Rector Vatta, indeed you do. To the core. However, because I am a sweet and generous soul…” Here Teague looked startled and Rafe glared at him. “When have I been less than sweet and gracious to you, Teague? What I was about to say… with Teague holding the controller at bay, I was able to induce a small power surge into one of the subsequent switches, and get into one—only one so far—of the server arrays. Those files are even now being sucked by the financial ansible, and apparently—but only apparently—being sent outsystem to a bleached recipient. Which would be me, if I were on Nexus, but I’m not and it isn’t. Moreover, though usually a large send would trip an alarm, it won’t now.”

“I suppose you’ve already read all of them?”

“No, only a few headers. Enough to know we will want to read them in detail later. Right now I’m just sucking them away before doing whatever you want done to the installation. It’s going to take awhile, even at max bandwidth, because the owners of this facility—not being utter fools—not only had quite competent security measures in place for intrusion, but anticipated that a slow outward bandwidth might be useful in preventing a faster loss.” He smiled at her, a smile of such limpid, innocent joy that she knew it was faked. “What would you like done with this facility later?”

“Blow it up,” Grace said. “In fact, why wait?”

“You don’t anticipate needing any of the data stored there?”

Grace considered. “It might be useful. But it might be more useful to have the opposition’s attention focused on their own problems, and not on Ky and the others.”

“They’re apt to react hastily and violently,” MacRobert put in.

“I know. I know, and it’s dangerous, but it’s dangerous either way. Throwing some confusion into their day—night—seems preferable to me. Though, since Rafe and Teague are not Slotter Key military personnel, I cannot order them to do so.”

“A couple of foreign hoodlums?” MacRobert considered. “Mischief makers? Foreign agents? I don’t think they’ll go for that. They know perfectly well Ky’s your niece and the military’s your responsibility; they know about your past as Vatta’s corporate spymaster. Even if they don’t have any hooks into your office at all, they’ll anticipate your involvement. It’s going to rebound onto Vatta no matter what.”

“It might. It probably will. When would be the ideal time to disrupt them?”

“Just as their mission starts,” MacRobert said. “Especially if that’s their communications link to their mission commander.”

“Would they communicate early?” Rafe asked. “I was thinking they’d have it all worked out to a certain point, and might not report until they’d arrived.”

“Depends how much fine control they want of their mercs. Would they trust them to run the op silently, or would they want to check up on them?”

“Remote surveillance,” Grace said. “They won’t transmit unless something goes badly wrong, but they will listen in.”

“Via that facility,” Teague said. “And the satellite they use.”

“Which we control,” Rafe said. He was watching his screen.

“There’s not a way to increase the bandwidth?” Grace asked.

“Not without their knowing it right away. Separate alarm on that little item; if I could get to the hardware I could do it, but I can’t do it from here, not with more than a sixty percent probability of success. And that’s not enough.”

“Right you are,” Grace said. “Mac, where are the transports? Still dark on base?”

“Yes. No lights around them, no sign they’re going to sneak out tonight. Of course there might not be, but yesterday sundown the vehicles were still parked nearby. No heat signatures of ground vehicles around them at all.”

“Let your suck run, Rafe, and see if you can get into another array. In the long run, you’re right—we want their data, enough to figure out who’s behind this.”

“When’s Stella due?” MacRobert asked. Grace looked over at the table. He was frowning at something on his own pad.

“Why?”

“There’s a news note from Cascadia. Four dead in mysterious and extremely discourteous assault in a respectable housing sector. A reminder to citizens to secure their quarters and report anything suspicious to the proctors. A reminder that discourtesy will not be tolerated and decorum must be maintained in all circumstances. Nothing from Vatta Enterprises, nothing from Stella.”

“You think that was Stella? Did you look at the arrival/departure screen?”

“Looking now… merging with news. The dateline for the assault story is three—no, four—days back. Vatta courier departed in regular service, whatever that means, the same day as the assault…”

Grace leaned forward. “Stella’s people would have informed us of her death or serious injury, I’m sure. Four dead and a courier departure suggests to me that she dealt with four discourteous persons and is on her way here.”

“I thought Stella was the gentle one,” Mac said, brows raised.

“Stella is quite capable.” Grace shook a finger at him. “She doesn’t like violence, or killing, but she also doesn’t like being hurt and wants to stay alive. I’m certain the deaths were necessary in this case. Evidently the Cascadians agree, though I swear I do not understand their obsession with manners.” She put her stack of files down. “I’m going to bed. I have an early meeting at the ministry tomorrow morning. Which of you lads is taking the watch?”

“I’ll take first,” Rafe said. “I want to see if I can niggle my way into another array and start sucking it dry. Teague, do you want to get some sleep now?”

“Sure.” Teague pushed himself up.

Next morning, when Grace appeared, a red-eyed Rafe reported that he had sucked three of the eight arrays dry. “I can’t do the others; I’m too fogged. Ky called and I gave her what we know up to now. They’ve left the main base; they got some vehicles moving. Not very fast, and she doesn’t know where the passage leads. Finally.” He yawned, shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve got to get some sleep. Teague will be here all day. I’ll wake him now. If you want to download the files I shipped up to safe storage, he can pull them for you.”

“Breakfast first?”

“No. I just need sleep.” He headed for the bedroom. Grace and Mac ate their breakfast in peace; Teague appeared as they were leaving for the workday.

“Shall I redirect files to your office?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Send me a summary, if you find something juicy. I won’t be back until evening, unless there’s an emergency.”

She said goodbye to Mac at the door to her building and he headed off on whatever he had in mind for the day. Sometimes he explained his plans and sometimes he reappeared at lunch, or in the evening, bringing home new packets of useful information about this or that. “It’s less restful, but more fun, than running the security office at the Academy,” he said. “And I’m on my own. If I take a four-hour break in one of Port Major’s exotic brothels, nobody knows about it.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Oh, yes. I’m the one who bugged the place; I know how to fox the bugs.”

They had laughed, both aware that he was teasing her in her persona of Rector, not partner. She was used to his going about his duties—vaguely defined as they were—without consulting her on every plan or change thereto. “Lunch?” she asked. “Today’s fish stew.”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know.” He waved; she waved; she entered her office to find not only the quarterly meeting, but a string of appointments, waiting.

The quarterly budget meeting went on too long, as it always did. Grace paid close attention to which departments wanted more resources, and what for, and refused to commit to approving the whole thing until she had time to “make more inquiries.” Nobody left satisfied, including her. She managed to keep her temper in check. Mostly.

Her assistant Derek’s com light blinked. “Rector, Master Sergeant MacRobert requests that you receive a skullphone call from another party.”

Grace blinked. That was not the way they usually communicated, and what other party? “I will speak with Master Sergeant MacRobert,” she said. “Is he here? Send him in.”

“He is not here, Rector. He was calling from… um… Joint Services Regional Command Three. That’s—”

“Ordnay, I know,” Grace said. Half a continent away, hours away by the fastest transport, and he hadn’t told her he was going that far. Why?

“He disconnected after making his request, Rector.”

Grace’s skullphone gave its usual annoying internal buzz that made her back teeth itch. “Thank you, Derek,” she said and punched the intercom off. The skullphone buzzed again. Why was Mac being this roundabout, setting up a call from another person through her assistant, instead of calling her himself? It had to be both important and secret, but why? He knew she preferred directness, especially with allies. What could possibly—bzzzzt—be his motive? Or… someone else’s motive. That thought sent a cold chill down her back. She tongued the skullphone’s alarm, turning it off.

“She’s not answering.” Arne Savance looked up from the console. “Nothing.” He glanced at his boss, then at the older man strapped to a gurney, his unconscious face slack with the drug. He knew who the man was: retired master sergeant MacRobert, rumored to be the Rector’s lover and certain to be her agent. “Maybe should have kept him awake, Ser?”

“No.” His boss had never shared a name. “He wasn’t cooperative, and he’s got a block it’ll take longer to break. The assistant believed us, but perhaps the Rector had her alarm turned off. Perhaps she doesn’t take skullphone calls in work hours. We’ll keep trying.”

“Call the assistant back, ask again?” Arne thought it just as likely the Rector had smelled a rat, but he had learned early in this organization not to offer suggestions.

“No. Static on the line won’t fool the assistant again. We’ll move MacRobert to another location; you stay here and monitor—if she answers, play the tape, and of course record anything she says. Full band.”

“Yes, Ser.”

The boss gestured to the two other men in the room, both burly and wearing what looked like hospital uniforms. They wheeled the gurney away, and the boss left with them. “Don’t doze off, Arne. No breaks. Your relief will be in later.”

Warnings, demands… he did not glare resentfully at the door when it closed, because he was sure the room had surveillance. He had thought—and Len as well—that this job would be both easy and stable, something they could rely on while the children were young, so Len could stay home with them and also work on his sculpture. So even though he had known, vaguely, that Malines & Company was bent as a corkscrew, he had believed that there was a straighter side, hiring ordinary techs and clericals, where he could draw a good salary and keep well away from the harsher activities that gave Malines its reputation.

It hadn’t worked that way. But as long as he kept his head down and said yes, Ser, no, Ser, and right away, Ser, the money came in regularly, sometimes even a bonus. He and Len had a pleasant apartment in the Malines & Company neighborhood, the children were thriving in school, and Len could afford studio space and materials for his work.

He felt vaguely sorry for the old man on the gurney—but that wasn’t his problem. His problem was monitoring all the Rector’s communications, and especially her skullphone calls. And, long-term, doing exactly what he was told, when he was told, so that Len and the children were safe. He had been shown images of what could happen to the children of those who attempted to leave Malines & Company.

Over the next two hours, his mind wandered occasionally to the Rector, the little he knew about her, and the old man on the gurney. She was a Vatta, she was old, she had a bud-grown arm from having the original shot off. That cost a lot, and it had happened before she became Rector. How had she paid for it? What did it look like? He’d never seen her, except on a newsvid, and she was dark, like most of the Vattas, wrinkly, old. That’s all he could remember. This old retired sergeant—was he a friend? Why would a Vatta like her be friends with someone like him? Surely they weren’t really lovers.

Finally, his diligence was rewarded by a light on the console: the Rector was making an outbound skullphone call. Not, unfortunately, where the boss wanted her to make it. He captured the code; his console ran the code against the pre-loaded list. Her home com. He logged the call, and its duration, but was not able to record content. Skullphones had tighter security than ordinary phones, and the boss had told him not to tinker with any of the Rector’s modalities. “Just record, or send the tape if she replies to the call.”

Teague answered Grace’s call on the house phone, and listened as she reported what had happened and what she had learned so far.

“He’s not at Joint Services Regional Command. Wasn’t expected, hadn’t arrived, no one had seen him. My assistant says the call supposedly from him was full of static, and that he apologized for it. He thinks it was MacRobert’s voice but he’s not sure now that questions are being asked. All my incoming calls are recorded; I’ve listened to it and I don’t think it’s Mac, but it’s close—it might be a composite recording or they might have an actor capable of sounding like him. I doubt the call came from that far away; it might even have originated from Port Major, but I can’t tell. Would you be able to trace it?”

“Not from here,” Teague said. “I’d need to get into your office system to have a chance. It’ll have to be accessed there, I’m almost certain. You want Rafe; he’s better at that.”

She’d kept Rafe away from her workplace since that first day. She could hardly bring him in now and turn him loose on the communications system without risking his being discovered. So far—she thought and he thought—the cover story of his being an ISC technician sent to work on the system ansibles had held up.

“Problem?” Rafe asked. He sounded less sleepy than she expected.

“Yes,” Grace said. She explained again, adding, “I think someone’s snatched MacRobert. That would take very experienced operatives. I don’t know if it’s our main opposition or something else. He was close to the former Commandant; it could be that other elements have other agendas.”

“Priorities,” Rafe said. “Is it more important to find out where that call came from, or find and retrieve Mac?”

“Can you do one without the other?”

“How much time between when you two parted and the call?”

“Several hours; the meeting started ten minutes after I got there and lasted about two and a half. The call came in shortly after that.”

“My take is he’s here, in Port Major. I’ll put Teague on that. Can you get me a hard-line link to your assistant’s desk com?”

Grace paused. What he wanted was technically illegal. Dangerous, to let someone with Rafe’s skills delve into the headquarters phone system. And yet—what choice did she have? Leaving aside her feelings for Mac, he was a longtime Spaceforce operative with secrets no one outside Spaceforce should know. His implant had an interrogation protocol, but if he’d been drugged, would it work? “Use your disguise. Call for an appointment with me concerning… let me think… your contract to fix the ansibles and my agreement that your work is satisfactory so far. I’ll tell my assistant you called me, that he should squeeze you in.”

“Two hours,” Rafe said. “It takes that long to put all the pads in and be able to clear the scanners. I’ll brief Teague and get him on his way—”

“Not to get caught, I hope.”

“He’s slippery,” Rafe said. “Later.”

Grace explained the need to squeeze Ser Bancroft in for an appointment in two hours—“ISC business, apparently. Something to do with the ansible work he and his associate have done.” She dealt with the other appointments, all of them things people could have figured out for themselves if they’d been thinking. Then Rafe arrived, and came in still talking over his shoulder to her assistant, in a voice that was his, and yet not him.

“And that’s the choice I’ve been authorized to give the Rector—a full-service contract, or onsite training for— Oh, good afternoon, Rector. I was just saying—”

“Do come in, Ser Bancroft. I’m afraid I don’t have that long, but I understand you’ve a message from ISC headquarters?”

She shut the door behind him and let him take her seat at her desk. His briefcase, full of an array of instruments, opened at a touch.

“Yes, Rector,” he went on. He picked up her desk com, tipped it upside down, and loosened screws as he talked. “There’s a new policy on maintenance, as I suspected there might be, and it saved a trip back here to wait and see… as you know, your local repair of your system ansible was sufficient for it to work, but not at 100 percent speed and efficiency, because your local technicians did not understand the finer points of its construction.” He went on talking what sounded like a typical sales presentation as he took the outer case off, disemboweled the innards, and spread them on the desktop. Tiny pincers attached here and there to various bits, with leads back into his case.

Without a change in his voice—in the same prissy Cascadian accent—Rafe went on even as he glanced up and winked, his hands moving confidently among the instruments. “My assistant, Ser Teague, has been looking for a suitable site, and suppliers, in anticipation that your government may choose the onsite education option. You may not know that he is a certified technical instructor for ISC, as am I, and either one of us might be assigned here for the instructional period—” He nodded to her, pointed a finger. Your turn.

Grace took up the conversation smoothly. “Ser Bancroft, you surely know that as Rector of Defense I cannot speak for the entire government—” She winked.

He took over again, another spate of glib verbiage, and they continued to exchange speaker and listener roles until he mentioned “system security” and that provided an excuse for her to turn her privacy cylinder to full.

They grinned at each other.

“I’m reading your system and your system’s call record,” Rafe said, in his normal voice. “Thank you for getting that call-time for me before I arrived. Your assistant said there was static—that can be artificially induced, of course. Ah. That call did not match any satellite record, so if it was at a distance, it was through local wireless or landline. There’s a local wireless call—”

“You’re sucking all the phone records?”

“Luckily for me, Slotter Key’s communications are ninety-nine percent government-owned. A hundred percent here in Port Major. I’m into your system; I’m into everything. Let’s see. Comparison… two matches. Wireless; transfer nexus number 84—that’s Bolt and Fifty-Seventh. The other is a landline, both to this office within a few seconds of each other. Landline… 15 Bolt Street, commercial account, Malines Shipping and Handling.”

“I was only told of one.”

“Right. The landline call came in first.”

“Where’s Teague?”

“Somewhere in the warehouse district. Do you know that area?”

“Malines is organized crime,” Grace said. “They own several blocks, and control an area larger than that.”

“I’ll contact Teague. Just let me reconstruct this; won’t take long.” Rafe’s fingers seemed to flicker in Grace’s gaze as he pulled connections, replaced components, reassembled her desk com. “Thing is, your assistant’s bent. How long have you had him?”

“Quarter year, a little more. Olwen’s husband got a job at Dalmouth—it’s only about seventy kilometers, but she has children in school and didn’t want the long commute.”

“Around the time of Ky’s arrival?”

“No, about—let me think—ninety days or so after the crash. You think there’s a connection?”

“No reason you should. Who did her husband get a job with, and does Malines have enough influence to sway an employer without her husband knowing?”

“Probably. He’s not street-smart, nor was Olwen. But Derek—he’s done a good job until now.”

“A good job keeping an eye on you. All right. The topic is a possible maintenance contract. Kill the privacy.”

Grace reached for the cylinder, starting to talk before she turned it off. “That’s my opinion, Ser Bancroft [click] but I can’t promise that the Council or the President will have the same.” Slick as wet seals, she thought, as she and Rafe finished up what would seem like the same conversation, eventually passing the question of which imaginary maintenance scheme to choose off to another branch of government, and finishing with polite social comments.