Part 10 (1/2)

”Yessir, I understand that. In fact, I was a kind of thinking.” An old idea of hers, half-formed at best. One that she'd been meaning to bring up for a while now, but hadn't had the opportunity.

”Kind of thinking,” repeated N'Darie. ”Huh. What about?”

”What if I spoke to someone? Maybe some of the senators, or the congressors? The marginal ones?”

”Charm them, you mean?” Vanessa commented dryly. Sandy shrugged.

”What would you say?” N'Darie asked.

”I don't know. I just thought that a if they saw me, and saw who I really am a”

”And who are you?” N'Darie's stare was very direct, within a small, rounded face. In another life, N'Darie might have looked slightly comical. In this life, no one laughed unless invited. ”I know who you are. Vanessa and Rajeev know. Director Ibrahim certainly does. We've spent time with you, we've seen what you've done and we know what you're like to work with.

”Sandy, politicians are different people. If you approach them, they'll a.s.sume it's political. Which it is. And not knowing you better, they won't know whether you're being genuine or whether you're just lying through your teeth. You can't have a non-political conversation with a politician, not in this atmosphere, and certainly not coming from you. I'm sorry, it's a bad idea. It'd only cause more questions and more trouble.”

”And I can't appeal to the public,” Sandy said flatly.

”No way. Not unless you want to become a celebrity. We have a hard enough time managing media relations right now, Sandy. If you start attracting celebrity attention from this mob, it'll be a zoo, we'll get buried. Right now they're happily misdirected, and we're happy to let them be. If you make yourself the spotlight, everyone will want to target on you, and that's exactly what we don't want. Don't stick your head up in a crossfire, Sandy, you're a soldier, you ought to know that.”

”They think I'm a killer.”

”So we'll keep reminding them otherwise.”

”How?” Fixing the a.s.sistant-Chief with a firm, unblinking stare. ”By reminding them of the Parliament Ma.s.sacre? I killed twenty people there, it's not the advertis.e.m.e.nt I'm looking for.”

”You killed twenty GIs, Sandy. That's different.”

”GIs are people.”

Silence in the aircar but for the m.u.f.fled whine of engines. Pa.s.sing tower light threw N'Darie's dark face into half-light, then angling back into darkness as they pa.s.sed. She sighed.

”I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. But there's no easy answers here. We just have to try and survive, and do our jobs as best we can, in spite of those well meaning morons appointed to try and stop us. And we need to convince people that the SIBs have taken their eye way off the ball, and get them focused on what really matters. Until then, we can't do anything but keep our heads down and protect our turf with everything we've got.”

Intel HQ remained as busy as ever, despite the hour. Screens flashed across the operations room. Holo-projection charts tracked movements, unit positions, traffic flows. Sandy sat in the side office above the main pit, where many eyes trained upon their screens, deciphering com-flows and encryption routines. Above and around them, on the higher walk, broader scale a.n.a.lysis was offered from surrounding offices. The pit was large and terminals numerous, many eyes bleary in the lingering hours of nights.h.i.+ft, with dawn approaching. Central operations was much larger. Intel Ops was merely a side branch, keeping tabs. a.n.a.lysing, always a.n.a.lysing.

She sat on a desktop with a leg curled up for balance, an arm locked about, watching the screen-a young man behind a blank interview desk. Date and time scrolled by in the corner. She rubbed her eyes and took another sip of lukewarm coffee with her free hand.

The door opened and Naidu entered, a brief intrusion of Ops-pit noise. Silent again as the door closed.

”Girl, what on good Earth are you still doing here?” He walked to the side of the desk, looking at the screen.

”I dunno,” Sandy said wearily, eyes not leaving the screen. ”I just wanted to see the interview tape. Know what he's up to.”

Naidu leaned a hand on the desk, the other thumb tucked characteristically into his belt below a moderate overhang of stomach.

”Jurgen Chavinski,” he said heavily, ”Human Reclamation Project. You know what the HRP are?”

”Lunatics,” Sandy murmured. The young man on the screen appeared sullen, tired and disturbingly normal. His responses to questions were brief, at best. He remained determinedly uncooperative, and had been for the last hour.

”One of about fifty mid-range lunatic groups in Ta.n.u.sha, to be more precise. Farts, in Intel lingo.”

Sandy spared him a brief, sideways glance.

”They just kind of float around,” Naidu explained.

”Oh.” Eyes back to the screen.

”Young Mr. Ruben had the HRP rather higher up on his alert list than I did, I must admit.” He sighed, running a tired hand through longish, unruly hair. ”I really should listen to Ari more often. As the name might suggest, they're virulently antibiotech, but, unlike Christian Vanguard, it's not for religious reasons.”

”Where'd he get the bomb?”

”He won't say. We think he wrote the trigger code, and probably the sleeper Ari found. But there's any number of ways to make plastique with basic materials. The question is why, and what was he hoping to achieve. And the answer is that we don't know. His friends aren't any more communicative. All ex-university students, graduated or dropped out. All from Ricardo College, same year, obvious connection. Progressive Philosophy, all of them. Mr. Chavinski here graduated with honours. Stirling report card, you should read it. Said he was headed for big things.”

Sandy made a face, and sipped her coffee. ”They got that much right, I suppose.”

”Nay, young lady, do not denigrate the grand designs of Ta.n.u.shan higher education.” Grandly, but the humour was forced through lack of sleep.

”And everyone on the boat was okay?”

”Very wet,” Naidu said decidedly. ”Very wet, very frightened, and complaining of eye and skin irritation through an overexposure to firer.e.t.a.r.dant foam. No one badly hurt, except for a nesting parrot family in one of those riverside trees, the local environmentalists were quite upset. They're demanding we add cruelty to animals to the charges.”

”Maybe the parrots were the target,” Sandy murmured wryly.

”Ah yes, the right wing Anti-Parrot Alliance, I know them well.” Sandy smiled. ”Anyway, there were three business committees on the boat, Lexi Incorporated, Lantern Digital and Alitas Micro. All with plenty to talk about, of course, given how much business could change if Callay breaks away a There's the usual civil servants there, special invites, nothing serious. Lexi and Alitas are biotech.” Of course, the obvious connection. ”Both local.”

Sandy blinked, and gave him a long, frowning look.

”Local? Not lemmings?”

”No a” Naidu rumbled, deep-throated consideration. ”There are thousands of leads and possibilities, of course, so we're running the usual traces a but it could take a long time. Difficulties, you under stand, are not from lack of leads in this game, they come from having too many. Most always there is something important directly under our noses, but to find it is like finding a teardrop in an ocean.”

”Yeah.” Sandy was coming to understand that only too well. And stared back at the screen.

”But you, young lady,” said Naidu, ”should go home and go to bed.” He walked to the monitor, and turned it off. Sandy frowned. She'd been watching that. Unconcerned, Naidu stood before her, and put both hands on her shoulders. Looked hard into her eyes at that close range. ”Are you all right?”

”All right?” She blinked. ”Sure.” Naidu looked at her for a long moment. She could see clearly the lines on his face, up this close. Worn wrinkles on dark brown skin. The pepper grey streaks through his light brown hair. His eyes were deep with acc.u.mulated years, and he held her gaze in a strange kind of paralysis.

”We do appreciate you here, you should know,” he told her. And Sandy could think of nothing to say to that. ”We appreciate what you've done, and who you are. The Boss and little Benny Grey might not always be able to stick up for you as much as they'd like, or we'd like, but never think we don't care. When the balloon goes up, young Sandy, you're one of us. Don't you forget it.”

Sandy stared at him. Wondering exactly which balloon he was referring to, and why it should go up and not down. And wondering further if she ought to be insulted at being called ”young Sandy.” She was a combat veteran of many years' frontline experience. She was unaccustomed to condescension. Fear and loathing were far more familiar.

But Naidu was more than one hundred years old. Reputedly. He'd been in CSA Intel, the story went, before Ta.n.u.sha was even built. An Old Earth native, from Bangalore, old India. Still the accent held, beyond the Ta.n.u.shan-Indian tones. Like an artifact upon one of her apartment shelves, it held her attention, suggestive of things old and wise, and important.

”I won't forget it,” she replied. ”I know the politics aren't your fault.”

Naidu gripped her shoulders more tightly. ”And don't you worry about little Benny,” he said, leaning forward for emphasis. Benjamin Grey, he meant. ”No secret he doesn't like you, no secret at all. But he doesn't call the shots with the Boss, he just does the paperwork and stamps the forms.”

”Why wasn't he at the Senate Chamber?” she asked.

”Because he's Administration. Neiland's Administration, you understand. Neiland's got her t.i.ts in a wringer on this, Sandy. Her own party don't like her position where you're concerned, and now the Senate's putting the wind up her. The last thing she can afford is to be caught up in a furball between CSA and SIB. That might force her to take sides, and that's the last thing she wants right now. So we're effectively on our own a and to be quite frank with you, I prefer it that way.”