Part 28 (2/2)
”He let you go?” Sehera asked.
”Yes, he did. If it weren't for him, I'd be dead, and that s.h.i.+p would've probably hit Luna City. After Ahmi and this crazy doctor tortured me, he snuck in and cut me loose,” Nancy explained.
”That sounds like my father,” Sehera asked.
”You're why she killed him, then. She said he had betrayed her,” Moore said. ”And I bet I met that crazy doctor of yours forty years ago. I'd like a few minutes alone with that sonofab.i.t.c.h!”
”I killed him.”
”Can't think of someone who deserved it more,” Moore said with disdain for Ahmi's torture expert. That s.a.d.i.s.tic b.a.s.t.a.r.d had needed killing.
”Wait, wait. This is all too much. You talked to Elle Ahmi after the Battle for the Oort?” Jack asked.
”Yes, I did. We had to keep stringing her along until we found out how deep her Separatists were within the government. We've kept in contact with her and acted like we were part of her plans for decades,” Moore said grudgingly. ”I couldn't think of a better plan, DeathRay. We had a chance to stop her entire plan, not just her. We had to stay the course. And we had also simulated the outcome of just killing her. The colonies and Mars would have been thrown into a period where warlords fought each other for bits of the power vacuum that would follow.”
”I was just asking, sir.”
”Jesus, I've got a top-secret super AIC in my head, throughout my body. Could that happen to me?” Nancy asked.
”We've read your file, Nancy. The technology is decades ahead of what President Madira had implanted,” Moore told her. ”Besides, Abby really likes Allison and a.s.sures me that she is perfectly healthy.”
”Ahmi, or Madira, whoever, didn't say 'tell Dee who her grandfather was,'” Nancy said as she lowered her weapon. Apparently, she believed Alexander and Sehera-or at least wanted to give that impression.
”What?” Sehera looked up at her sharply.
”No, Allison just played it back for me in my head. She said 'show Dee who her grandfather was,' and her emphasis was on the word Dee who her grandfather was,' and her emphasis was on the word show show.” Nancy repeated the dead president.
”Abby says the same,” Moore agreed.
”She never said anything or did anything without it meaning something else, or having design.” Sehera rose to her feet. ”She was trying to tell us something without giving it away to the AIC.”
”Fan out. Look for a picture of Scotty P. Mueller,” Moore ordered.
”I saw it earlier.” Sehera walked over to the desk and picked up the ski mask. She held it in her hands briefly and then stuck it in her pocket. ”Here it is.”
She picked up the picture and examined it closer. It was in a very nice Mars cherry-tree-wood frame and covered with an antiglare pane of gla.s.s. The picture was of the newly elected Democratic president, Sienna Madira, shaking the hands of freshly congressionally approved Republican Supreme Court chief justice, Scotty P. Mueller. The chief justice had just sworn in the new president, and they were shaking hands. There was handwriting on the picture that read: The best minds are not in government; if they were, business would hire them away.
Thanks, Sienna Madira, President of the United States of America They all examined it closely but didn't see any double meaning. Sehera rolled the frame over in her hands a few times. They looked at the back of it and noticed fingernail marks on one side of the backing. Sehera pulled the frame open, and there was a piece of silica about the size of a microscope slide inside it.
”What is that?” Thomas asked.
”Thomas, my boy, I'll just bet you that there is data on that thing. And I'll bet it is data about who is who in the Separatist organization.” Alexander smiled.
”Ma'am, we hadn't heard from you in a couple of hours. We feared the worst!” U.S.R. Fleet Admiral Sterling Maximillian said. ”The battle is not going well, ma'am. The Americans have decimated our fleet. We have but a couple of s.h.i.+ps still fighting.”
”Put me on a systemwide broadcast, Admiral.”
”Yes, ma'am. You're on, now.”
”People of the United Separatist Republic, you have all fought so bravely and made such sacrifice. I love you, each and every one, with all of my heart. But the time has come that I must ask you all to lay down your weapons and surrender. There is no longer any need for us to continue the bloodshed. Our Separatist movement has been heard in history and throughout all of humanity, from Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. to the deserts of Mars, to the Oort Cloud of Sol, and to colonies light-years from where man first crawled out of the muck. We have made our point to all of humanity, to our brethren. It is time now for us to make our amends with them. I ask you all to stand down. Thank you, and G.o.d bless you all.”
”You are clear, ma'am,” Maximillian said.
”Stand down, Admiral. Ahmi out.” The holoscreen blanked out, and the view of the blue-green gas giant filled the horizon again.
”How was that?” Sehera pulled her hair out of the hole in her mother's ski mask and slipped it the rest of the way off.
”Perfect.” Alexander smiled at his wife. ”Let's go home.”
Epilogue.
December 14, 2396 AD Tau Ceti, Ares Sat.u.r.day, 7:15 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time Sat.u.r.day, 2:15 PM, New Tharsis Standard Time Dee and her father sat on a park bench across from a row of condominiums, feeding the New Tharsis pigeons. December in New Tharsis was warm, humid, and more like May in Mississippi. It had taken Nancy months to figure out where their last target had slipped off to. It turned out that he hadn't slipped far. They had been finding the targets and eliminating them one by one for about fifteen months, and this last one had proven to be the most slippery of them all.
”Thanks for bringing me along on this one, Dad,” Dee said.
”Like I would have ever heard the end of it if I didn't let you come.” He laughed. ”I just hope he shows up before we need to QMT to the emba.s.sy. I cannot miss the treaty signing. Finally reuniting all the human colonies-nothing is more important than tonight's ceremony. It'd be a shame to have to let Nancy finish this without us.”
”We won't miss it. I'm sure Nancy's intel is right. So, are you going to run again?”
Alexander Moore knew he'd never get used to the way the gears were always churning in his daughter's head. ”Well, your mother and I have talked about it a great deal, and-”
I've got our target in ten seconds. Nancy's voice rang in their minds. Nancy's voice rang in their minds.
”Saved by the belle....We'll finish this conversation tomorrow.” Alexander stood up and eased a modified railgun pistol out of his waistband, holding it casually against the side of his leg.
Dee stood up as well and turned toward her father.
”There's our target.” Dee nodded toward the condos across the street.
A car pulled up and parallel parked in front of the condo just to the right of the only tree on the street. Dee and Alexander watched as the man got out of his car. He checked his mailbox and started to unlock his front door. Dee tossed the bag of pigeon food in the trash bin by the park bench.
”Time to go to work, Dad,” she said a bit too eagerly.
Bree, QMT to target AO.
Roger that.
They flashed from the bench to the living room of the condo. As Alexander handed her the railpistol, Dee could hear the keys in the door. Then a shard of red and purple light from Tau Ceti and the Jovian's rings glinted through. Walt Fink stepped in and tossed his keys on the table next to the doorway and then turned and locked the dead bolt behind him.
”Well, h.e.l.lo there, General General.” Dee smiled at him and set the muzzle of her railpistol against his forehead. ”Remember Clay Jackson and Jay Stavros? I do.” Dee didn't blink when she pulled the trigger. One single tear rolled down her cheek as she stepped up and put a few more rounds into his head.
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