“Ah”—Bradley took a sip of his tea—“shame about that.”
After a thoroughly decent evening meal in a bar that specialized in seafood, Kazimir walked the few blocks back to his small hotel. It was a balmy night, so he made a slight detour to take in Palisades Park. In darkness, the park had ribbons of illumination to highlight its plants and trees, bathing them in bubbles of colored light to contrast with their own shades. Out to sea, the funfair on the pier was a continual blaze of multicolored light, reflecting off the black water. Ocean Avenue was busy with people who wound their way between bars and restaurants and clubs, exploiting the city’s vibrant nightlife culture to kick back and relax after their working day. The clubs had immaculately dressed doormen outside, operating strict entrance policies. Little clumps of hopefuls clustered outside, while limos came and went, depositing those who’d made it onto the list. Kazimir lingered opposite a few of the clubs, casually interested to see if he could spot any celebrities. One thing Los Angeles had clung to resolutely down the centuries was its status as capital of the entertainment world. He didn’t see anyone he recognized from the short time he’d been exposed to the unisphere, but then it was very early in the evening.
Hanging over the city, a three-quarters moon shone brightly enough to establish a small haze around it. He paused to stare up at it, fascinated by the wide jet-black equatorial band bisecting the globe, as if a loop of space itself had been wrapped around the swan-silver regolith. Established in 2190, the GlobalSolar power farm had grown from three patches of solar panels spaced equidistantly around the moon’s equator so that one of them was always in full sunlight, until it now ringed the entire circumference. It had become Earth’s main source of electricity. In an age when environmental laws reigned supreme and the pollution legacy of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries had almost been eradicated, it was inconceivable to build any kind of fuel-burning power station on Earth. Instead it was done cleanly and efficiently offplanet. The power that the ring generated was transferred to Earth via micro-wormholes where it was distributed over continental superconductor grids. Kazimir enjoyed the elegance of the idea; it was amusing to think that the electricity that lit the row of condos looming along the other side of the park, as well as the funfair, had all come from the moon. It was nice that nothing had to be burned, fused, or fissioned to keep a whole planet supplied. The expense was phenomenal, but that was just a question of priorities. Once the lunar factories had been established, they just kept on churning out more solar cells indefinitely, processing them out of moon rock.
Adam Elvin had commented on the arrangement, admiring it while simultaneously deploring the fact no other planet had made a similar investment. Kazimir then had to sit and listen over a perfectly good lunch to the plethora of reasons why corporate economics, evil Grand Families, and the Intersolar stock market prevented the rest of the human race from sharing the benefits of civilization in a fair and just fashion. In fact, Adam Elvin had a great many complaints about the economic oppression practiced across the Commonwealth.
Kazimir knew he was never going to like his new colleague. He could work with him—the old man had a lot to teach him about the smuggling and deception techniques that would assist the Guardians—but he could never envisage going out with him and hitting a few bars in the evening as friends would.
As the lunch drew to its end, Adam had slipped him a memory crystal disk. “It contains a list of items Bradley needs for this revenge project of his. It’s all very high-tech stuff, the kind in plentiful supply on Earth. I’ve given you the names of possible suppliers, and the kinds of covers I want you to establish in order to make contact. The payment methods have also been set up.”
“I understand.”
“I want you to go back to your hotel. Study it, come up with proposals how you’d handle each one; what you’ll need, everything from clothes to a tourist TSI bought in the district you’re supposed to have come from. We’ll meet again in two days, and I’ll review what you’ve got.”
“Okay. We meet in person?”
“Yes. Care to tell me why?”
“The cybersphere is susceptible to monitoring even if we encrypt—in fact, especially if we encrypt. Meetings can be spotted and observed, but it’s a question of balance. You obviously believe it’s the less risky option for the location and situation.”
“Very good. It’s nice to know Stig was actually listening to me. We’ll turn you into a covert operative yet, Kazimir McFoster.”
Kazimir had spent the afternoon reviewing the list, and making notes. He kept his proposals straightforward; complexity in this kind of operation could trip you up. He was sure that simplicity was the key. It would be interesting to hear what Elvin said about his tradecraft.
Most of the time he had spent researching through the unisphere. Hundreds of separate queries had returned dozens of answers. It was a question of sifting through them and deciding how they could be applied. Stig had always warned him the job would be boring for ninety-nine percent of the time.
He started walking through the park again, alert for any signs of an observation team boxing him. Of course there was one query he had stoically resisted launching into the unisphere ever since he received his first insert. And he could never break cover to make contact with a civilian while he was on a mission as important as this one. He just couldn’t.
He reached the end of Palisades Park, and crossed over to Colorado Avenue. Five minutes later he was back in his hotel room. Air-conditioning reduced the temperature to comfortable. The darkened glass of the window let in a few specks of light, hinting at the city grid outside. There were almost no sounds from the traffic. He kicked off his trainers and flopped back on the bed’s jellmattress. It was far too early to sleep. Any good, dependable Guardian member would carry on planning to acquire the items needed back on Far Away.
Kazimir closed his eyes and saw the darkness of the tent after night had fallen on Mount Herculaneum. Starlight showed the dusky outline of the angel’s face as she rose above him. She smiled, proud of him, and excited by him, by the things she confessed in low whispers that she wanted him to do.
Nothing in his life had ever come close to the wonder of that time. No girl had—could—ever match her, in any respect. He’d gone on with his life, accepted that nothing would ever be that good again, knowing he could put it all behind him because he would never see her again. She was on Earth, and he was on Far Away, a safe four hundred light-years distant. And so it would remain. Forever.
“Goddamnit,” he shouted to the room. He lurched up, and came close to slapping himself. Instead, he took a breath, perched on the end of the bed, and told his e-butler to open a link to the planetary cybersphere.
“I want an identity check on an Earth citizen,” he told his e-butler. “See if there’s any reference available on Justine Burnelli.”
…
I ought to be getting used to this, Paula thought. She wasn’t, though. And that was far more painful than any irony.
For once she’d gone to Mel Rees’s office. It was a political thing. This was her mess, her responsibility. Once again.
Not that it was any comfort, but Mel Rees seemed to be just as unhappy about the meeting. His office was only marginally bigger than the one she occupied, although his view of the Eiffel Tower was a lot better. The door closed behind her, and he sat behind a big old walnut desk that was devoid of any clutter.
“So what happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“For Christ’s sake, Paula. Some psycho takes out a half block of Venice Coast, kills nineteen people in the process, and you don’t know? This is not a good start for the Agency. Columbia is demanding results, and he’s not using nice language to ask.”
“I am aware of the Agency’s situation. What happened out there concerns me a lot more.”
“I understand how concerned you are.” He hesitated, winding himself up, like a doctor preparing to break bad news. “You’ve been on this case a long time. Maybe…”
“No,” she said flatly. “It is not time for me to move on and hand over to someone else.”
Rees didn’t argue. He seemed to shrink a little further behind his desk. “All right. But be warned, Paula, there are questions being raised about your suitability. Things are different here now, and they’re going to change even more. If the order comes down to move you on, it isn’t one that I’ll be able to shield you from. If it wasn’t for your record outside the Guardians case—”
“I am aware of how my reputation protects me. And you know none of your other Investigators would be able to run Johansson down.”
“Yeah.” The thought was visibly worrying him. “So what can you tell me about Venice Coast?”
“I’ve been supervising the forensics operation, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events. It added very little to what we already know.” She told her e-butler to run a file on the deputy director’s wall-mounted portal. It produced an image from one of the observation team’s sensors, showing the man poised in Rigin’s shattered office window the moment before he dived into the canal. “The face is unknown to any database, so we assume it’s a cellular reprofiling. There’s no visual sensor image of him arriving or leaving Anacona at the CST station.”
“A native, then?”
“Unlikely, but we haven’t ruled out the possibility. As far as we can determine, his weapon systems were all wetwired, with the exception of a simple arm dispenser. We recovered the receptionist’s memorycell, and read the last ten minutes. I acquired it myself.” The memory was now as clear as any of her own. She could recall the man walking into the gallery. She’d sat up a little straighter behind the reception desk, smiling when she noticed his youth and looks. Then his arm was raised, something moving below the jacket sleeve—
There was nothing else, no time for her to feel pain, or horror, or fear. Death had been instantaneous. “We were lucky to get that,” she said. “The way the gallery was built meant the ground floor had a degree of protection from the plasma surge after the blast. There were other bodies down there, but they were ninety percent vaporized. And the bodyguard, Roberto, he was fortunate, too. His armor frame wasn’t exactly designed with a superthermal charge in mind, but its deflector field did provide some shielding. The frame’s processors contained some interesting records. Just before the blast it had managed to ward off an ion pulse, then the armor received some terrible physical impacts. Someone used poor Roberto as a punching bag. Our intruder was one sophisticated boy. I asked our new colleagues in the Enforcement Directorate what it would take to build someone up to that standard. They actually had trouble working out the specs for me. Wetwired force fields are cutting edge.”
Mel took a long disapproving glance at the image in the portal. “Do you think Johansson has a lot of them?”
“I don’t think he’s Johansson’s at all. Elvin hasn’t acquired this kind of capability. Besides, he wrecked Elvin’s operation. No, he was sent by someone else.”
“Any guesses?”
“Logically, there are three possibilities. A deep Commonwealth security department sent him in, something we’re not cleared to know about. There have always been rumors about the executive office having its own intelligence sector. Why they’d use an operative in this instance I don’t know, unless it was to send a very clear message to Johansson that we’re not going to tolerate him anymore. The same applies to CST. They could certainly put someone like this together, and they’re not likely to forgive or forget the sabotage attempt on the Second Chance.”
“And the third possibility?”
“The Starflyer sent him.”
“Oh, come on!”
“It’s an option, you have to admit that.”
“No, I don’t. What about Rigin’s enemies? He was a black-market arms merchant for God’s sake. His kind don’t settle disagreements over a meal and a bottle of wine.”
“A rival wouldn’t bother destroying the equipment Rigin was collecting; they wouldn’t even know about it. No, the timing indicates someone who had the same information we did. That fits the first two possibilities. Our operations are available to the executive. It might even fit the third.”
“No. Paula, no! There is no third option. The Starflyer is a cult conspiracy theory. You do not include it in any official report. If you do, I will not even attempt to cover your ass. Don’t you see how political this is? It had to be the President or CST. We can investigate many things, but not them.”
“Nobody is above the law.”