Part 4 (1/2)
She'd done things that her Treasury bosses wouldn't have taken at all well. Like giving critical data-pa.s.scodes, Treasury security overrides-to a commando sergeant; like falsifying her reports to cover the fact that she'd let special forces move in on her investigation.
It s too late to worry about that now.
Besany worried anyway. She walked briskly, anxious to get home and close the apartment doors behind her, another day when she hadn't been arrested that she could check off on the calendar.
It s not like me at all. Taking a flier on trust.
She wasn't even aware of someone walking behind her. But a hand touched her shoulder, and she gasped. Guilt made her spin around to find she was staring into the reflective riot visor of one of the CSF cops.
Her stomach churned. Oh no no no...
”Agent Wennen,” he said. The accent was familiar. ”Long time no see.”
But she didn't know him, she was sure.
”You have the advantage, Officer.” Men hit on her a lot less than most people imagined. She knew she was striking, but she also knew that she was a daunting prospect because of it. Even Ordo-hugely confident, recklessly unafraid-treated her warily. Her good looks were a curse most of the time. ”What can I do for you?”
The cop stood with his fists on his hips. He didn't look like he was going to draw his weapon. ”Well, I know I'm not quite as unforgettable as my brother, but I thought you'd at least say, Hi, Mereel, how are things?”
”Oh. Oh.” Mereel: one of Ordo's five Null ARC brothers, Lieutenant Mereel. Besany's gut lurched in a different way, and she didn't bother to hide her relief. ”I'm sorry, Mereel. Out of context...”
”So you didn't recognize me with my clothes on, then?” A couple of pa.s.sersby turned to stare. He chuckled to himself. ”I mean, the armor. Makes a guy look different. Anyway, what kind of covert operator would I be if I was that easy to spot? Come on, can't stand here getting funny looks all night. Walk this way and I'll make it worth your while.”
”Okay.” And there she was again, just dropping everything and wandering off to do the bidding of a black ops unit. This wasn't how the Treasury investigation team worked. She had rules. ”Can I ask...”
”Ordo's fine and sends his best wishes. He's doing a little job with Kal'buir at the moment.” Mereel might have been a clone, but he was as individual as any man. He didn't walk like Ordo, and he didn't talk like him. ”I'll try to teach him some social graces when he gets back. He's got no idea how to treat a lady.”
Besany strode along beside him, working on the basis that looking as if this was routine was the best way to avoid attracting attention. ”I just want to know he's safe.”
”We're soldiers. We're never safe.”
”Mereel...”
”Look at it this way.” He headed for a CSF patrol speeder sitting on the public landing platform overlooking the sky-lane. ”The other side's in a lot more danger than we are.”
Besany slid into the pa.s.senger's seat and didn't ask how he'd acquired the speeder and the uniform. CSF liked the Special Operations clones. Their anti-terrorism chief, Jailer Obrim, was very chummy with Sergeant Skirata, Kal'buir- Papa Kal. Favors were done and questions weren't asked. Besany envied them that wonderful conspiratorial closeness. Kal'buir seemed to get away with murder.
”Are you allowed to tell me how everyone is?” she asked.
”You really do worry about us, don't you?” Mereel steered the speeder toward her apartment block. She didn't recall telling him where she lived. ”Okay, Omega's been deployed to the Outer Rim where someone needs a hand with regime change. Delta are helping put the Marines. Did I miss any-one?”
Besany felt a pang of guilt. She had to ask about the first clone she'd ever met, the patient bomb disposal trooper who'd ended up with a temporary desk job after losing both hands. ”How's Trooper Corr coping with life as a commando?”
”Oh, he's fine. He's learning a few saucy tricks from my brother Kom'rk. Good man, Corr.”
”And the two Jedi officers?”
”Etain's evacuating colonists from Qiilura, and Bard'ika- sorry, General Jusik is due back this week.” There were huge gaps in Mereel's explanation: places and times vanished. He seemed to edit the sensitive detail smoothly as he went along. ”Want to know about Vau? He's with Delta. n.o.body dead. Baffled, fed up, tired, lonely, bored, hungry, scared wit-less, even having fun, but not dead. Which is a plus.” The speeder climbed and darted between skylanes to veer around the front of her apartment block. Yes, Mereel definitely knew exactly where she lived: he set the speeder down on the right platform, on her balcony, and opened the hatches. ”So, are you still up for doing us a few favors? Without your bosses finding out?”
Mereel was the front line of a war that most Coruscanti never saw and weren't fighting. Besany asked herself, as she had on that first night, whether her tidy little rules mattered more than a man's life. Mereel slipped his helmet off and sat looking at her expectantly-Ordo, and yet not Ordo, and Corr, too. Corr's existence-she had no other word for it, and it summed up so many aspects of a clone's life-had up-ended her, left her feeling upset, angry, betrayed, and, yes, guilty. Her government might have let her down as a citizen and an employee, but it had totally betrayed this slave army.
I'm letting emotion get in the way. But isn't emotion the way we can tell what s really right and wrong?
”Let's talk,” she said.
Mereel walked around her apartment with a comm scan, checking for surveillance devices. ”Can't be too careful. But then you know all about this game, being a Treasury spook.”
”You'd be amazed how seriously people try to avoid financial regulation.”
”I would.” He hesitated by her sofa as if he might sit down, but stayed standing as if he remembered he wasn't allowed on the' furniture. He looked her over. ”And you're still not armed. You need to do something about that.”
”Well...”
”Simple question. Are you willing to do some investigation for us?”
”What kind of investigation?”
”Defense expenditure and budget forecasts.”
It couldn't be that simple. ”Those are public doc.u.ments anyway.”
”I don't think all the details I need are in them.”
”Ah.”
”It's very sensitive stuff. Might involve the Chancellor's office.”
Besany felt her scalp tighten as adrenaline flooded her bloodstream. She didn't feel she could sit down, either, not now. ”Can you narrow down what I might be looking for?” Procurement fraud? Bribes?”
”You might well find that,” said Mereel, ”but I'm more interested in transactions involving Kamino, and the payment schedules.”
Besany couldn't imagine anything that would turn up except fraud-or maybe the Republic was arming someone it claimed it wasn't. The investigator in her told her to ask more questions, but the public servant within asked if she really needed or wanted to know more this time.
”I can drill right down to the individual credit transfers,” she said at last. ”Which might give you so much information that it takes you nowhere.”
”Don't worry. I'm good at collation.”
She took a breath. She was in it up to her neck now. A few more centimeters wouldn't make much difference. ”Why are you trusting me with this?”
”Well, for a start, I know where you live.” Mereel smiled with genuine humor, but she'd also seen how fast earnest, polite Ordo could snap into being an a.s.sa.s.sin without a second thought. ”And we don't take prisoners. But our lives could depend on that information, which is what really makes the difference to you. Isn't it?”
It was an ethical choice between rules or lives, and rules didn't always translate into what was right. ”You know it is.”
”Then we'd be especially interested in any evidence of planned payments to Kamino for more clones beyond, say, the end of the next financial year. Or not.”
Besany guessed that this was the point at which she ought to have decided she had no need to know more. ”Okay. What aren't you telling me?”
Mereel shrugged. ”That I took a big risk getting the information that led me to ask you for more information.”