16 

1530 hours

Ramsey was exasperated. “Look, if you’re so fired up, why don’t you guys just assign an agent to work alongside this, this . . . what’s her name again?”

“Kodza.” The tiny shimmer that was Garibaldi’s holo, projected from Amanda’s office computer where the call had been routed, looked positively cheerful. “Dani Kodza.”

“So why not assign one of your people to work with this Kodza woman and be done with it?”

“No, no.” Garibaldi moved his head in an emphatic negative. “We can learn much more if you and Sheriff Ketchum’s men front for us. Besides, you, Detective, are the best possible person for this job. A disgraced cop—no one’s going to believe that you’ve got access to the john much less the Bureau.”

“Well, gee, thanks a lot,” Ramsey said, getting hot.

Ketchum broke in. “So what can you tell us about her?” Ramsey and Amanda had shown him the tooth when he’d gotten back after making his call to the crime scene techs. “She high up or what?”

“We’re not quite sure. We do know that she was born off-world, on Dalkeith, and seems to have been all over the Prefecture.” Garibaldi turned away a moment, and his hands extended out of sight, probably accessing data on a computer. “Now what’s interesting is her travel. We have a couple of reports indicating that she traveled to . . . just give me a sec . . . here we go. Port Mosby, Xinyang, Itabiana, and, finally, Nykvarn.”

“Is that important?” Ketchum asked.

“Maybe. Port Moseby is in Lyran space, right by House Kurita and the Ghost Bear Dominion border. Xinyang is the prefecture capital in the Benjamin Military District. Itabiana is a Clan Sea Fox clearinghouse world and part of Nova Cat’s territories. And finally all of these are on a straight shot to Nykvarn, and from there, it’s just another jump to the Periphery.”

“So?” Ramsey was still ticked about the disgraced cop crap. “So what?”

“Detective Ramsey,” Garibaldi began, though he might as well have said, Now, now, little boy. “Those planets are within the sway of Kuritan space. Now we know that House Kurita has moved to reclaim worlds ceded to The Republic. At this rate, Dieron will fall and they’ll succeed. We hear that Katana Tormark is quite the warlord.”

“So?”

“So, what did Kodza do out there? Some of those worlds are also Clan.”

“But they’re all different clans,” Amanda said. “Call me slow, but so what?”

Garibaldi put a finger to his lips as if warning himself against being precipitous. He said, “It’s no secret that with Prefecture X buttoned up, the various divisions of government here on Denebola might start making moves to shore up influence. Everyone’s heard of the ghost knights, of course, and the Bureau believes the exarch has planted moles and agents in as many places as possible in the Inner Sphere.”

Amanda and the two men glanced at one another. “So you’re suggesting that this Kodza is a mole for the exarch?” Ramsey asked.

“Perhaps. Then again, perhaps not.”

“Oh, well,” Amanda said, “that was clear.”

“All we know is that Kodza was obviously on some sort of mission.”

“Even I can figure that,” Ramsey said. “Do you know anything else?”

“She’s never been married, doesn’t have any children and no living relatives. Beyond that, we’d appreciate anything you can coax out of her.”

“Now you want us to spy for you?” Ketchum asked.

“All you need to do is report on the progress of the investigation. Give us whatever Kodza tells you, let us crunch the data, and see what comes up. She’ll probably have her own shadow or ghost agent, and that agent will likely be doing his own reconnaissance. It would be nice to know who he is.”

Ketchum raised his hands like a cop stopping traffic. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. How are we supposed to figure out who the ghost agent is? You guys have all the intelligence data. We got nothing.”

“Correction,” Garibaldi said. “You will have Kodza. Wait for something to happen. Sometimes these ghost agents get themselves into trouble. But it’s just as likely that the agent might be a sleeper already embedded in the community.”

Ketchum and Ramsey glanced at one another. “Already here?” Ketchum asked.

Garibaldi explained the common practice of inserting operatives well before they were needed and integrating agents into a community. “Sometimes this sleeper agent thing runs in families. Then, all that’s required is a contact to activate them, and they go to work.”

“So just how does this help us?” Ramsey asked.

“Maybe no help at all. Maybe the agent’s a sleeper, maybe not. But you and me and Ketchum, we’re playing on the same team. It’s the legate’s office we don’t trust. Spies are everywhere. Perfect time to take out the prefecture governments.”

Amanda said, “I’m not so sure that wasn’t the exarch’s plan.” When Ramsey and Ketchum turned to look at her, she said, “Think about it. Levin’s pretty much left people to fend for themselves. But that has to mean that his resources are stretched. So he buttons up and hunkers down. He’ll be back—but by then things will have shaken out, and he may have fewer personalities to deal with.”

“She’s got a point,” Ramsey said.

Ketchum cleared his throat then pursed his lips, as if debating how to continue. “Okay, I want to ask a question here.” He squinted narrowly at Garibaldi’s image. “Do I get any kind of say about whether I want to cooperate with you fellas? I mean, seeing as how this is my jurisdiction and all.”

“In a case of this magnitude, with a potential spy? I’m afraid not. You boys don’t play ball, then we’ll do it another way. And, Sheriff, you don’t want to lose in the next election.” Garibaldi showed a set of picture-perfect teeth in a humorless grin. “Do you?”