CHAPTER 34

The door chime of M. Habib’s shop made the authentic tinkle of an antique bell, albeit digitally synthesized. It was, like much of the rest of the store – the wood paneling and elegant floor-to-ceiling mirrors – a bit of intentionally charming anachronism, perfectly suited to the kind of establishment that dealt in custom-tailored clothing.

Not that Aidan Kester spent too much time dwelling on these details. He bustled in impatiently, checking his sleeve’s chronometer and talking stridently over his earbud, in defiance of the “Please, no comms” sign sitting on the counter.

“…don’t care who you have to cajole, coax, or threaten, Lawson,” he said. “I’m briefing the Commonwealth Executive in two hours, and I need the latest details about the cordons. Don’t bother calling me back until you have it for me.”

The man who greeted him was expansive, in every sense of the word. He smiled broadly at the acting director, spreading his arms in a welcoming gesture. “Good morning, sir. How may I help you today?”

Kester barely spared him a glance at first, consumed as he was by tapping away on his sleeve. “I’m here to pick up a suit that was being altered.” But he looked again at the unfamiliar man, eyes taking on a suspicious cast. “Where’s Monsieur Habib? He usually handles all my business personally.”

“Ah, yes. I regret that he has been called away on an urgent personal matter. I’m his cousin, Mordecai.” He raised a finger in the air, as if recalling something. “But he did leave me instructions specifically for you. Mr Kester, is it not?”

“Yes, that’s right.” The edge of annoyance hadn’t totally vanished from Kester’s tone, but he stifled it well enough. “I got a call – I assume my suit is ready?”

Mordecai stepped smoothly over to the counter and brought up a holoscreen. “Of course, sir. He did note that he’d made the changes you requested, though he was a little unsure about some of them, and advised you try it on before you left the shop, just to make sure you were happy with them.”

Kester flicked his fingers dismissively. “I don’t have the time; if I need something altered, I’ll just bring it back.”

Mordecai’s mouth drew up in a sad frown. “I’m sorry to say that my cousin may be away for quite some time. An illness in the family. I’m not sure when he might have the time for further adjustments. In fact, I’ll be joining him shortly – I stayed behind as a favor, because he expressed how important your business was. If you’d care to try it on now, I can make any final adjustments as needed.” He waved a hand towards the back of the room, where several stalls of dark wood waited.

Glancing over his shoulder at the front door, Kester worried his bottom lip with his teeth, then gave a sigh of resignation. “Fine. But let’s make it quick.”

Mordecai gave a shallow bow, hand still outstretched. “Of course. Right this way.”

With one eye on his sleeve, Kester followed the big man towards the back of the shop. Mordecai opened the middle stall door. “I’ve put it in here for you. Do you need any help?”

“I think I can dress myself.”

“Naturally,” said Mordecai, ushering him in with a hand on his back. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Kester grumbled, stepping into the stall; the door closed behind him. He was already loosening his tie before he realized he wasn’t alone.

“The fu –” was all he got out before his eyes widened in recognition. “You.”

Kovalic sat on the bench in front of the mirror, one leg crossed over the other. “Afternoon, acting director.”

Whirling, Kester pushed against the door to the stall, but it refused to budge, as though perhaps a very large man was leaning against the other side. He turned back, his expression of surprise morphing into a more habitual superciliousness. “You’ve made a huge mistake, Kovalic. My security detail is right outside.” Raising his wrist, he spoke into his sleeve. “Typhoon Three, repeat, Typhoon Three…”

But the only sound out of the sleeve was a garbled bleat, followed by static.

Esterhaus’s voice came through Kovalic’s earpiece. “Clock’s running. You have only a few minutes. Perhaps ten. I’ll monitor the situation outside.”

Even if Kester couldn’t reach his security detail directly, it wouldn’t be long before they started to wonder where their boss was. Best Kovalic made the most of it.

“Very short range comm jammer,” said Kovalic, holding up a small fob on which a red light blinked. “It’s really only good within about ten feet, but…” He looked around at the small confines of the stall.

The color had begun to drain from Aidan Kester’s face and he put his back against the door, trying to inject a note of bravado. “What do you want?”

“Believe it or not, I just want to talk.”

Kester sniffed. “I don’t have anything to say to a traitor.”

One of Kovalic’s eyebrows rose. “You seem awfully convinced of our guilt. I’d like to know why.”

“I’ve seen the evidence.”

“So you’ve said. What I’d like to know is where that evidence came from.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to tell you.”

Kovalic shrugged. “You said it would all come out at the trial anyway. What’s the harm of a sneak peek?”

“I… you… that is, it’s simply… not done,” he sputtered.

“Oh, please,” said Kovalic. His patience with the man was wearing thin. “Let’s not pretend you haven’t bent – or even broken – the rules when it was convenient for you. You turned one of my own team into your spy. You maneuvered your way into that office you’re sitting in now by blackmail and extortion.”

Kester jabbed a finger in Kovalic’s direction, his fear momentarily overridden by something even more deeply ingrained – pride. “I will not stand here and be insulted by someone who betrayed his own government.”

“By all means, then, let’s step outside,” said Kovalic. “I’m happy to continue this conversation with another party present. Inspector Laurent, perhaps. I’m sure he’d be interested to know how you used information provided by the Illyrican Empire to build your so-called case against us.”

A sudden bewilderment overtook the acting director. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Kovalic pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples. “I really can’t decide, Aidan. Are you an extremely competent double agent, or just a useful idiot blinded by your ambition?”

Kester opened his mouth to protest, and then seemed to sense the lack of good options. After a moment, he settled on obstinacy as a response, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re just turning your own guilt back on me.”

Letting out his sharply indrawn breath in a deep sigh, Kovalic rubbed his forehead. “We’re going round and round here – and maybe that’s exactly what the Illyricans want. Look, cards on the table. I assume the evidence you have is a series of bank transactions from General Adaj’s accounts on Bayern to a shell corporation, which then turned around and paid that money out to the Novan Liberation Front?”

Kester’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just incriminating yourself further, Kovalic. That information was highly confidential, and far beyond any clearances you might have – I ensured that myself. This just confirms you were in on it.”

“No,” said Kovalic patiently. “I know because the same evidence was provided to me, with the intent of calling the general’s loyalty into question. And I have reason to believe that those transactions were concocted by the Imperial Intelligence Service for that explicit purpose.”

“An IIS plot? Really?” said Kester, his voice shot through with skepticism. “That’s the best you can do?”

“Think about it,” said Kovalic. “You’re spending all your time and energy chasing us. And to what end? If you catch us, we get court-martialed. Even if your evidence isn’t good enough to merit conviction, it’s going to be hard for us to erase the blemish of suspicion. The general will certainly not maintain his position, and I will be lucky if I get shipped off to a desk job to serve out the rest of my career.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

Kovalic rolled his eyes. “Look beyond your own petty power games, Kester. Whatever problems you might have with the general or me, the Special Projects Team has been a valuable operational asset. You’ve seen the reports, you know what we’ve managed to accomplish. These accusations have effectively neutralized it. Ask yourself: who stands to benefit most from that?” He left it unsaid, but he could see the point strike its mark.

“Moreover,” Kovalic continued, gaining steam, “the general has proved his worth when it comes to understanding and countering the Imperium. You can’t deny that there are those on the other side who would be all too happy to see him lose any influence he might have.”

For the first time, there was a crack running through the other man’s cocksure facade. “So your contention is, what, that all of this is an IIS disinformation campaign, targeting you and Adaj?”

Kovalic spread his hands, as if presenting facts in evidence.

“Security is getting restless,” said Esterhaus over the comm. “Wrap it up.”

“Fine,” said Kester, after a moment. “Let’s say there’s a chance that you’re telling the truth here. The right thing for you to do is still to turn yourself in. Running just makes you look guilty.”

And so they came to the crux of the matter. Kovalic’s lips thinned. Kester wasn’t totally wrong; this problem was far more difficult to solve from outside.

But Kovalic found himself suddenly thinking of Alys Costa, the leader of the Novan Liberation Front – and a former Commonwealth operative herself. It had been just a few days since Kovalic had been making this very argument to her. And what had Costa said when Kovalic urged her to turn herself in?

“Are you really that naive? You think they’d let me get that far? That I’d even survive to a trial? Or, even if I did, that anything would change?”

In the moment, it had seemed like paranoid raving, an attempt to justify the actions that Costa had already intended to carry out.

And yet, here they were.

“I can’t,” said Kovalic, shaking his head. “Not without knowing where your evidence came from. I believe the Illyricans planted it, knowing it would cross your desk. But that means there’s a mole somewhere in the Commonwealth intelligence community.”

To Kester’s credit, he didn’t immediately reject the idea; Kovalic could see him following the logic. Not for the first time, Kovalic reminded himself that Kester really wasn’t stupid; in the space of just a few years the man had risen to chief of the Commonwealth’s largest intelligence agency. His methods might differ from Kovalic’s, but that was all the more reason not to underestimate him – if anything, it made him more dangerous.

“I don’t remember the full details,” said Kester finally. “I review dozens of reports every day. But…” And here he sucked in his breath as though about to dive underwater. “I can pull it and find out.”

“Fair enough,” said Kovalic. “Look, I’m not going to ask if we can trust each other – I know the answer to that. But,” he raised a hand to forestall Kester’s own snort, “I do trust that neither one of us wants to let the Imperium dictate the rules of the game. Get the report and we’ll look at it together. Two o’clock, Udo Park, by the Rings.”

“Fine,” said Kester, his tone grudging. He jabbed a finger in Kovalic’s direction. “But if you’re wrong about this, you – and Adaj – need to turn yourself in.”

Esterhaus’s voice returned in Kovalic’s ear. “His security’s on its way in. Time’s up.”

Kovalic gave Kester a grim nod. Part of him hoped he was wrong; a mole with that kind of access could have already caused more damage than they even knew about. But his gut told him he wasn’t. “Reasonable enough.”

“I can’t call off the Bureau – Laurent would get suspicious,” said Kester. He gave a reluctant sigh, as if the weight of the world were pressing down on him. “But I suppose I don’t have to mention this conversation, either.”

“Can’t ask for more than that.” Kovalic grabbed a garment bag from the hook behind him and tossed it to Kester in one smooth motion.

Startled, the acting director caught it, stumbling back against the door, even as Kovalic dropped and swung himself under the partition wall that didn’t quite reach the floor.

He pushed his way out through the neighboring stall’s door, catching the eye of Yevgeniy Esterhaus, who was still leaning against the door to the other dressing room. The ex-IIS agent raised an eyebrow. “Get what you need?”

“Close enough,” said Kovalic. “Let’s go.”

Without looking back, the two of them walked through the shop’s rear door, into the back room.

Rance was sitting across a workbench from a small man with a neat gray beard wearing a sweater vest over a button-down shirt. A small, untouched cup of coffee sat on the table in front of him. He was kneading his thighs, bunching the fabric of his trousers and then releasing it in what seemed to be an unconscious gesture.

“Thank you for the use of your store, Monsieur Habib,” said Kovalic. “I’m sorry about the circumstances.”

“Uh, it was… no trouble at all,” said the man, clearly lying through his teeth, but happy enough to see them go.

“Trust me when I say you’re better off not mentioning this. It’s just going to raise a lot of questions you don’t want to answer.” Kovalic jerked his head at Rance and the three of them made their way to the shop’s back door, which led out into an alley behind the building. They kept walking towards the other side of the block, putting as much distance between them and the tailor’s as possible.

“So,” Rance asked. “What did Kester say?”

“Meet’s set. He’ll bring the original report.”

“And what if he is the mole?”

If he was, then they had played directly into his hands, and Kovalic would give him a standing ovation even as the knife plunged into his back. But did it matter? The Commonwealth was already spending a lot of time and energy trying to track them down – if Kester was the mole, his best play would be to just keep Kovalic spinning his wheels. Isabella’s whole plan could very well be about nothing more than keeping the Commonwealth distracted with her left hand while her right hand was busy with her real goal.

But Kovalic hadn’t gotten this far in this line of work without being able to trust his gut, and his gut said that Kester – slippery as he was – wasn’t an Illyrican operative. No, for that, you’d want somebody you didn’t suspect, somebody you trusted without question, but who wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Kester would be just too damn convenient.

Or so he hoped. If not… he took a deep breath. “If Kester is the mole, then we’ll deal with him. One way or another.”