CHAPTER 30

Much as Kovalic would have liked to claim the buzzing of his sleeve woke him from a deep and restful slumber, he’d been staring at the ceiling of the safe house’s living room since he’d woken almost an hour earlier.

Lifting his arm, he wasn’t surprised about the caller, but he still sighed and swung his legs off the couch. He’d left his earbud on the coffee table last night and he popped it in before accepting the connection.

“Were you going to tell me?” said Veronica Fayerweather.

“Morning to you, too, inspector. I assume you saw the news.”

“God damn it, Kaplan. Kovalic. Whatever the hell your name is. What the fuck is going on? Treason?”

Kovalic tried, unsuccessfully, to stop his sharp inhalation – the treason charges hadn’t been on the news report he’d seen, much less his real name – but Fayerweather caught his indrawn breath anyway. “Yeah, I called Rashad after I saw it, and he gave me the broad strokes. Something you should have done before dragging me into this.”

Not the best news, but not without a silver lining either. “And yet I can’t help but notice I’m still here. No heavily armed Bureau agents knocked down my door last night. Hell, you called me.”

“You still made me an accomplice! To treason!”

Kovalic raised an eyebrow, even knowing she couldn’t see him. “Which you’re now compounding by reaching out instead of handing this number over to your partner. Or did you call just to vent some spleen?”

“No. I just…” She sighed heavily. “It bothers me.”

“What?”

“All of it! The treason allegation… you, a fugitive… your mole theory.”

Kovalic stood and walked over to the kitchenette. The interruption to last night’s shopping trip had come before he’d thought to buy real, fresh coffee, but a quick search of the cabinets did turn up some single-serving pods that were only a few weeks past their expiration dates. He popped one into the machine and put a chipped but clean mug beneath the dispenser; the contraption burbled away happily.

“So you believe me,” he said. “About the mole.”

“I didn’t say that. All I said was it bothers me.”

The machine finished with a last spurt and Kovalic picked up the mug and gave it an experimental sniff. Vanilla. Not his thing, usually, but any spaceport in an ion storm. “Enough to do something about it? How much poking around did you do, Ronnie?”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “It’s still Inspector Fayerweather to you.”

“Sorry, inspector.”

“And I did a medium amount of poking around.”

Kovalic carried his mug towards the sliding patio door that let out onto the safe house’s tiny balcony. It was early enough that Rance, Yevgeniy, and the general were still asleep, and he didn’t want to wake them.

Out on the balcony, there was still a chill in the air as the Novan sun crawled upward from the horizon. “And what did this poking around find?”

“Nothing.”

Kovalic stopped, staring out at the city, painted orange by the sunrise. “I’m sorry – nothing?”

Frustration seeped into Fayerweather’s voice. “Nothing at all. There’s no record of any counterintelligence report with the details you gave me. Nothing about couriers for Nova Front, Bayern bank accounts, any of it. And I’m not talking about just within the Bureau – there’s nothing from any of the partner agencies within the Commonwealth. I even checked allied systems that occasionally share data with us: Haran, Jericho Station, even Bayern itself. But none of them had flagged any suspicious activity with those parameters. You’re sure this thing is real?”

Kovalic sipped the coffee absently, grimacing at the overly sweet flavor. “Depends on your definition of ‘real’. But, yes, I have reason to believe it exists.” Kester had the information; it had to have come from somewhere.

Or, at least, Kovalic thought Kester had it – could he have been mistaken? Could there be some entirely different shoe about to drop on their heads? Either way, Kovalic knew the data was out there: Aaron Page had found it. More to the point, Isabella had wanted it found. Was it possible nobody beside Page had done so? His head spun.

“There’s a possibility that this information could be classified beyond my clearance levels,” said Fayerweather. “Maybe even retroactively, if this operation was deemed sensitive enough.”

“I sense a ‘but’.”

“But,” Fayerweather obliged, “I’ve seen that before and I know what it looks like: missing references, files that can’t be accessed. This doesn’t look like that. It looks like it was never here in the first place.” She paused. “I assume this is somehow related to these treason allegations.”

Kovalic rubbed a hand over his mouth. Fayerweather was sharp as they came, even running on no sleep. Denying wouldn’t help him. “I have reason to believe Aidan Kester is in possession of this information.”

“Hm,” said Fayerweather. “I’ll admit, it’s enough to get me curious.”

“You didn’t happen to share your curiosity with Inspector Laurent, did you?”

“Not yet.” Fayerweather’s response was clipped, suggesting that she wasn’t at all comfortable with that decision. “There’s enough credence to your mole theory that I took to heart what you said about no suspects being eliminated. If Rashad had the evidence, he could have provided it to Kester – even if my gut is telling me that he would never do it.”

Kovalic replayed his conversation with Laurent from the previous evening, specifically the inspector’s attempt to get him to turn in the general in exchange for the rest of the team’s freedom. Was that just another part of Isabella’s ploy? Or was the inspector simply doing his job?

“For the moment, I’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.”

There was silence on the other end of the connection for a moment, then Fayerweather blew out a long breath. “Fine. For now. But I can’t hold onto this for more than twenty-four hours. So whatever you’re planning on doing, it’s time to get it in gear.”

“Hold on to what? You literally found nothing.”

“Ha ha. This is an active investigation; even not finding something is significant, you know that. I may be on leave, but I still have a duty to report what I know.”

“Fair enough. And inspector?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Somewhere in the background of Fayerweather’s call a baby started wailing, and the woman issued a long sigh. “Don’t thank me yet. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.”

She cut the connection and Kovalic was left standing on the balcony, sipping his too-vanilla coffee and waiting for the sun to climb above the buildings.

So, assuming that Kester’s evidence was in fact the Bayern report, it clearly hadn’t gone through official channels. Which left two possibilities, to Kovalic’s mind: either Kester was the mole, and the information had been passed to him by Isabella directly, or he was being used and some source had passed it to him off the books – maybe an asset he’d cultivated at some point. Kovalic spun back through what he knew of Kester’s dossier: despite coming up in operations, the acting director had spent most of his time at CID headquarters, with the exception of a brief stint as deputy station chief on Hamza, the capital world of the Hanif. But the Hanif government had stayed out of the conflict between Commonwealth and Imperium, which didn’t exactly gibe with them monitoring financial couriers out of Bayern.

He wasn’t sure if the coffee was growing on him, or his tastebuds were just being systematically assassinated, but the fourth sip was less offensive than the previous. Standing out here as he worked through possibilities, it was almost enough to make him forget his current predicament.

Almost.

Scratching the stubble that had begun to sprout on his chin – being on the run was not exactly conducive to getting a good shave – he slid the patio door open and stepped back into the apartment.

In the time his conversation with the inspector had taken, the other occupants had risen. Rance sat in one corner, feet curled under her as she studied a tablet; Yevgeniy was poking with curiosity at the coffee maker, attempting to figure out what incantations were required to produce a cup; and the general was just settling himself at the table with a cup of tea.

“Good morning, Simon,” said the older man, tilting his head. “How does the day look?”

“Busy,” said Kovalic. He laid out the information – or lack thereof – that Fayerweather had passed on.

Taking a musing sip, the general made a face, casting a dubious eye at the teabag string hanging over the rim. “Wretched stuff,” he muttered, before clearing his throat. “If I may suggest, I think it is time for us to change tactics.”

Kovalic dropped onto a stool at the bar. “What did you have in mind?”

The general’s long, spindly fingers combed through his beard like a spider looking for prey. “We’ve been behind every step of the way, chasing after something that’s already happened in a vain attempt to catch up. Perhaps it’s time for us to go on offense.”

“Traditionally, it’s difficult to go on offense when you don’t have possession of the ball,” said Yevgeniy, who had conceded to the coffee maker and simply poured himself a glass of tap water. “Not to mention we don’t even have a target.”

“Not so,” said the general, raising a finger. “There is exactly one person whom we know is involved in the charges against us.” His ice-blue gaze landed on Kovalic’s, unwavering.

“Kester,” said Kovalic. “You want to go after Kester.”

The silence held over them like a curtain had been dropped, then Yevgeniy gave a long exhale. “It’s a big risk.”

“No plan is without risk,” said the general, shooting a glare at his old subordinate. “But sometimes you have to make an audacious move in order to gain some ground.”

“‘Go big or go home’ only works when you have a home to go back to,” said Yevgeniy pointedly.

“Well then,” said the general, “let’s just pack it all in and find a lovely little town in which to open a tea shop.”

“It’s harder than it looks.”

“It would have to be, wouldn’t it?”

Kovalic pressed a hand to his forehead. “OK, settle down, you two.” There was merit to the general’s plan. After all their digging and probing, Kester remained the only lead they had. If they wanted to make some headway, they’d need to confront him – otherwise they might as well just be spinning their wheels. He glanced at Yevgeniy and Rance. “Can we make it happen?”

Yevgeniy grimaced. “Our surveillance suggests it’s a tall order. He rarely goes anywhere without his personal security detail.”

Rance, who had been listening quietly, took this opportunity to pipe up. “That’s not entirely true. We do know one place that he doesn’t take his security. And we know how to get him back there, too.”

Kovalic raised his eyebrows as he took up Rance’s thread, but something out of the corner of his eyes caught his attention. The general’s gaze had sharpened as they landed on the yeoman, as though he was seeing her with fresh eyes.

“Indeed,” said the older man, thoughtfully. “An astute observation. Simon?”

Taking a last sip of his coffee, Kovalic put down the mug. “All right, then. Let’s have another chat with Aidan Kester. On our terms this time.”