The convoy of three Zikker limousines and their escort of Varlan Regiment troop carriers and PSR cars swept along Bryan-Anthony Boulevard. Stonal was in the first Zikker with the curtains drawn across the darkened windows, preventing anyone from looking in and seeing the prime minister sitting in the back. The other two Zikkers also had their curtains shut, but they were empty. Having three identical limousines drive together was an elaborate extension of the shell game, played for real by the security detail in charge of Adolphus’s safety.
“I’m going to have my office issue a press D-restriction covering Operation High Bird,” Stonal said as they sped past the statue of Slvasta at the intersection with Victory Regiment Avenue. “There’s not a lot of contact between Cape Ingmar and the rest of our population, but an unscheduled spaceflight mission is extraordinary news, especially at this time. It could leak.”
Adolphus nodded slowly. “People are smarter than we give them credit for.”
“Very possibly, sir.” Once again Stonal had to hold himself back from comment. This new Adolphus was an enigma. He made decisions that wouldn’t have been countenanced ten days ago, before stepping into the space machine for treatment. They were often the correct decisions, given the perilous times they now found themselves in, but Stonal was having trouble concealing his growing alarm at how much the prime minister had changed.
“I’m considering if we shouldn’t just tell them the truth. In a few instances, of course.”
“Sir?”
“The Faller Apocalypse is about to begin. It might be hard for us to conceal that from them, don’t you think?”
“The panic and mistrust would be overwhelming. It is imperative we retain complete control for this fight.”
“Times they are a-changing, my friend. You acknowledged that yourself.”
“Yes. They will change. And if we defeat the Apocalypse, our political structure will no doubt undergo profound realignment. But you would be frightening everybody if you tell them straight-out that the Fallers have stolen our nuclear weapons and are already using them. A panicked people are not a people respectful of authority. We will need compliance from the entire population if we are to defeat the Fallers. Selfishness and individualism will not win the day. My dear father always said that was the Commonwealth’s greatest weakness, allowing their citizens such a loose society.”
“Well, he’d know,” Adolphus said.
There was enough sharpness in the voice for Stonal to glance over in surprise. For a moment the old Adolphus had shown himself—trusting nothing, suspicious, sneering.
What if I’m wrong? Stonal asked himself. Not that it mattered; his hand had been played. Everything was in motion. In a way, Adolphus was quite right: Individualism in this context was irrelevant. Maintaining strong governance was all that counted.
The convoy drove through the main gates to the palace. Stonal’s Zikker peeled away from the other vehicles and carried on through an archway into a courtyard, then turned and went into another, smaller courtyard and drew up underneath a stone portico.
Adolphus climbed out and stood on the bottom step as several of his office executive staff came out to greet him. He gazed around at the tall walls of the courtyard with their long arched windows as if he was puzzled by them.
“Everything all right?” Stonal asked. Even if Adolphus knew what was coming, there was nothing he could do. Not now.
“Fine,” the prime minister said.
“The security cabinet is waiting, sir,” his chief aide said.
“Good. Then let’s go.”
The cabinet room was a long ornate chamber on the second floor, with a huge window at one end providing a view out across the private gardens at the rear of the palace. The grounds were still maintained at the same level of excellence as when the Captains ruled Bienvenido. Topiary bushes lined the walkways, fountains played in big ponds, dense hedges marked out smaller ornate flower gardens. An airy white stone summerhouse was perched on a mound half a kilometer away, looking straight back at the palace. Bright scarlet vines with pristine-white flower clusters swaddled its pillars and ventured up across the roof. With the morning sun highlighting the vivid colors of the flowers, it was all very beautiful and peaceful.
A rectangular table of black marble ran the length of the cabinet room. There were twenty seats along both sides. The one with the highest back, right in the middle, was reserved for the prime minister. Today only eight seats were taken.
Terese was sitting opposite the high-backed chair, dressed in a green-and-scarlet robe that wrapped around her body like a protective shell. Unlike the other ministers of the security cabinet, she didn’t smile a welcome as Adolphus came in.
“I would like Director Stonal to remain with us,” she said as Adolphus took his chair. “I think the security cabinet deserves a full briefing on the security situation. Don’t you, comrade?”
“Of course,” Adolphus said.
Stonal stood by the double doors as the aides closed them.
“I have considerable news from Cape Ingmar—” Adolphus began.
“Excuse me, Prime Minister,” Terese interrupted, “but I choose to exercise my right to ask my comrades for an emergency vote.”
“A vote?” Adolphus asked in surprise. “On what?”
“Confidence in the prime minister.”
The big room was absolutely silent. Power struggles at this level were utterly terrifying; even Stonal was entranced by the play. The senior cabinet ministers were desperately trying to remain impassive, but he could see three of them sweating.
Nobody asked for a vote like this unless they were completely certain of winning it. Promises had been given in backrooms, deals agreed. But discovering if everyone would keep their word didn’t happen until it was time for those supremely calculating hands to rise…
“I should shoot the crudding lot of you for treason,” Adolphus growled. He glanced over at Stonal, an eyebrow raised. “Any chance of you doing that for me?”
“No, sir.”
“You have been compromised, comrade,” Terese continued. “You were exposed to unknown Commonwealth technology.”
“Oh, so it’s you I should shoot,” Adolphus said, continuing to stare at Stonal. “This is my reward for supporting you all these years? Thanks.” He turned back to Terese. “Whatever he told you is a pile of steaming crud. I’m cured, not contaminated.”
“Your behavior,” Stonal said. “It’s wrong. It’s been wrong ever since you came out of that machine.”
“What you actually mean is that I can think rationally now I’m not twisted up with worry and fear of dying? Name one thing I’ve done that’s detrimental to this planet. One!”
“It’s not what you’ve done,” Stonal said patiently. “It’s the way you did it.”
“Is that a song lyric?”
Stonal flinched, genuinely puzzled. “And you never used to say things like that.”
“As I said: I can see clearly now. I assessed the situation and took the appropriate course of action. If we waited for glorious bureaucrat committees voting on everything, that Liberty would still be back on the launch pad waiting for a consensus.”
“This is irrelevant,” Terese said. “There is no question that the Pericato should have been sent after the Sziu and the Warrior Angel.”
“What then?” Adolphus demanded, his face flushed with anger. “What have I done wrong?”
“You ordered Major Danny into action on the word of someone thought to be Ry Evine. Even if he hasn’t Fallen, we know him to be allied with the Warrior Angel.”
“Pilot Major Em Yulei confirmed the Sziu’s location on her next pass. And everyone at this table is lining up to ally themselves with the Warrior Angel. I saw the greed in your face, Director Stonal, when you found out about Paula being able to evacuate us to Aqueous.”
“You authorized the use of nuclear weapons with the flimsiest verification,” Stonal said. “It resulted in the loss of the Pericato, and the death of everyone on board. Your judgment has become reckless at best.”
“It was a crudding combat situation, you moron! You can’t lawyer up after the event. Decisions have to be made. You have to have the guts to make them.”
“Enough!” Terese snapped. “All those who have no confidence in the prime minister, please raise your hand.”
“Don’t you crudding dare!” Adolphus shouted. “I still control the party. The membership will vote for my reinstatement by lunchtime. I will fling every one of you into the yellowcake mines! You’ll be glowing in the dark as you rot to death!”
Terese stared at him impassively as she raised her hand, and Stonal couldn’t help the frisson of worry at the small pause that followed. Then, one by one, the other hands went up.
“You have just killed Bienvenido,” Adolphus said. “I am the only one who knows how to lead us through the Faller Apocalypse.”
“Director Stonal,” Terese said, “please escort comrade Adolphus from the cabinet room. He is to be held in custody—incommunicado—until the security cabinet decides otherwise.”
“I understand,” Stonal said. “This way, please, sir.”
“You can’t do this!”
“Sir, if you do not comply, I will have to call for officers to remove you by force. And believe me, that option has been planned for.”
Adolphus took a couple of heavy breaths. For a moment, Stonal thought he was going to launch himself across the table at Terese. Then he gripped the edge of the table and slowly rose. “Contact the Warrior Angel,” he said forcefully. “Talk to Paula. Listen to her. She’s the only one who can save us now.”
“If the Warrior Angel survived the atom bombs that were detonated as the result of your irresponsible actions, she is free to get in touch with us,” Terese said brittlely. “And I will happily discuss the terms of her surrendering her Commonwealth weapons to our regiments.”
“Idiots, every crudding one of you,” Adolphus jeered, and walked away from the table.
As Stonal escorted him from the cabinet room, he heard Terese say: “Comrades, our first order of business must now be to appoint an interim prime minister.”
Four palace guards were waiting outside, wearing their full ceremonial uniforms and trying not to look nervous. Two of them were section seven operatives. Stonal wanted people he could trust in a situation as momentous as this.
“Comrade Adolphus is to be taken to the holding cell as briefed,” he told them. “You are not to use undue force unless he physically resists.”
“Yes, sir,” the detail sergeant said and saluted.
Adolphus took Stonal’s hand. “Be the smart one,” he said urgently. “Keep the door open for Paula. Don’t dismiss opportunities for dogma’s sake.”
“Why the emphasis on Paula?” Stonal asked with intense curiosity. “She is an unknown factor.”
“She’s pure Commonwealth. The Warrior Angel isn’t; she just has access to some of their technology.”
“And this is what I find so troubling about you, comrade,” Stonal said sincerely, removing his hand from Adolphus’s hold. “These opinions. This flavor of rationalizing. What did the space machine do to you?”
“Cured me.”
“Somehow I doubt that. Not in any fashion I recognize as a cure.”
When he got back into the cabinet room, the vote had been taken. Terese was the new (interim) prime minister. She’d even moved around the table to sit in the high-backed chair.
“I’d like to thank you, Director Stonal,” she said as she gestured for him to sit. “Without you drawing my attention to Adolphus’s collusion with the Commonwealth space machine, Bienvenido could have been led down a very dangerous path indeed.”
Stonal raised an eyebrow at how Adolphus was now “colluding,” but that was politicians for you. Obviously Terese had to negate any possibility of Adolphus regaining power, and a denunciation including a litany of previous “crimes” was a time-honored approach to stamp down hard on a dethroned political enemy. “You’re welcome, Madam Prime Minister.”
“Now then,” Terese continued, as if what had happened was of no consequence. “We have to consider our response to the events on Lukarticar. The Fallers have our own atomic weapons, and they have no restraint in using them. Do you agree that we are about to see the start of the so-called Apocalypse?”
“It is looking like the arrival of the Commonwealth woman has forced the Faller nests to respond in such an extreme fashion,” Stonal said. “That may be to our advantage.”
“How so?” Terese asked in surprise.
“Turn over any large rock, Madam Prime Minister, and you will see unpleasant insects scurrying out of the light. Paula and the Warrior Angel have turned over a very large rock indeed. We have seen that the Faller nests are more widespread than even the PSR had knowledge of. They clearly have excellent contingency plans to raid our atomic facilities, so no doubt there are other plans drawn up to sabotage essential facilities and transport. Pilot Major Em Yulei’s reports of Lukarticar confirmed that Faller variants are dominant off Lamaran. The Faller Apocalypse is a very real threat. They were caught off guard by Paula’s arrival, and overreacted, but in doing so they showed us their hand. They are massing out there, but now we are warned. We have been shown what to expect. That gives us a chance to prepare.”
“You mean Operation Reclaim?”
“No, Madam Prime Minister. Not in isolation. We have already enacted travel restrictions in case they tried to bring the stolen bombs into Varlan and our other cities. People know something is badly wrong. They need clear leadership at this time; they need to be given a purpose. I would suggest this is the time for a full-scale response on our part. Go on the offensive before the Fallers have the chance to launch their assault on us.”
“You want me to declare martial law?”
“At the very minimum. Martial law, curfew for the cities and larger towns, put every regiment on full alert. Draft every reservist. We outnumber them, and this way we will be armed when they come. Use every rumor the PSR has and search out those nests. Send the Air Force to bomb Tothland and the Fire Archipelago and any other landmass our planes can reach. Once we start to burn them out, they will have no alternative but to begin their campaign. They will be exposed, and we can exterminate them.”
Jenifa and Chaing got back to the safe house just before midnight. It had been another long, fruitless day spent going through the items forensics had recovered from the various sites across Port Chana that the nest had used. By now they really should have uncovered some leads, some connection to other nests. The Fallers had been very thorough covering their outside traces.
“Maybe it was a new kind of nest,” she suggested as Chaing checked the safeguards outside, making sure no one had entered the house while they were away.
“What do you mean?”
“Not a nest as we know them, like a family of Fallers, but more like one of our assault squads. They came together to do this one thing. So we’re looking for patterns and evidence that don’t exist.”
“They’ve never done that before,” Chaing said with a frown.
“But they’ve never needed to steal nukes and hunt a Commonwealth citizen before.”
“Good point. So what should we be looking for?”
“I’m not sure. I need to think about it.”
“Okay, we’ll take a fresh look in the morning.”
While he disappeared into the kitchen to find himself a beer, she went up to the bedroom. As she took her uniform off, she checked the bruises down her right side where the collapsing masonry in the lighthouse had struck her. They were still sore to the touch, but the big brown-and-purple discolorations were starting to fade—thank Giu.
Jenifa stepped into the shower and let the warm jet play over her. The liquid soap was scented with lime and jasmine, helping to relax her further. She rubbed it everywhere and took a long time letting the water sluice it off, enjoying the refreshing tingle it left. Toweling down afterward, she was undecided if she should spend the rest of the evening poring over yet more files and notes with Chaing. It had been a long frustrating day, and tomorrow promised to be no better. If she could just figure out one angle to connect the Fallers they knew about to those they didn’t…Perhaps a change in routine would help kick her out of the rut. What she really wanted was time for a proper physical workout; since they’d arrived in Port Chana she’d barely managed half an hour of exercise a day. Her strength must be maintained at all times—and especially now.
She wrapped the towel around her waist and went back into the bedroom. Stopped. Frowned. Something was wrong; she knew it instinctively. Crudding Eliters creeping up on me again! Her gaze tracked around trying to identify the anomaly, and she moved closer to the bed where her pistol and holster lay underneath her uniform jacket. Reached for it and stopped her hand in midair.
The jacket! Someone had moved the jacket.
Footsteps on the landing outside. That was Chaing; she could tell from the uneven steps caused by his bad leg.
He came in as she finally plucked the jacket off the bed. The pistol was there in its holster undisturbed, but the weight of the jacket was wrong, lighter than it should be. “Chaing, did you check those safeguards properly?”
“Yes. They were all good.”
She started to feel in the jacket’s pocket.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” he asked with casual mockery.
Jenifa spun around and drew in a shocked breath. He was holding the link detector Yaki had sent. An incriminating jade-green light shone on the top of the small box.
“I kept wondering what it was you were always sneaking a look at,” he said. “Then I remembered, when we were in the lighthouse, just before all Uracus broke loose: You asked me what side I was on. At the time I thought it was heat of the moment, that you were pissed that I’d left you to go on the Gothora by yourself. But it bugged me.”
“So whose side are you on?” she challenged.
“There are two sides. There are humans, and there are Fallers.” He dropped the link detector on the bed and took out the standard PSR-issue blood-test kit. When he jabbed the ball of his thumb with its needle, a drop of scarlet blood welled up. “Does that answer your question?”
Jenifa clenched her jaw muscles and gave him a sharp nod of confirmation.
“Liar,” Chaing said. “If it was a binary choice, why do you have a link detector? And I’m also quite interested in how you got hold of section seven technology. Are you Stonal’s spy?”
“No.”
He picked up the detector again, gazing at it curiously, almost ignoring her. “There’s only one reason to have one of these: to find an Eliter. So if you have one that you’re constantly checking around me, what does that mean?”
She stared at him, her face impassive. He’s worked it out. Crud! So how do I mitigate this?
“You think I’m an Eliter, don’t you?” Chaing asked.
“The Warrior Angel turned up at Xander Manor. How did she know where you were?”
“You were with me most of that night. You know the commotion we were making. She must have followed me.”
“And Hawley Docks? She was there again. Coincidence?”
“Are you joking? The whole of Opole knew we were fighting a nest that day. No.” He shook the detector at her. “You’ve only had this since we got here. And this…this is an act of desperation. What made you think I’m an Eliter?”
“You abandoned me,” Jenifa snarled at him. “You were supposed to be guarding me when I went on board the Gothora III. You were with her—in her bed most likely, in her knickers.”
“Games and more games,” he said in a disappointed tone. “You know I was ordered to contact the Warrior Angel by Stonal himself. That is why we brought Corilla with us, for her to open a route into the Eliter radicals. And you had this detector before you knew I’d met the Warrior Angel here. That’s not why you suspect me of treachery. Tell me what it is.”
She knew she was going to have to give him something, a fact he couldn’t question. She forced herself to sigh, to show defeat, weakness. “Castillito told me. She admitted you are one of them.”
“Castillito? When?”
“The day I discovered the Gothora’s dodgy paperwork. She contacted me in the Ankatra Café after Corilla made her drop.”
“So Corilla knows Castillito?”
“Must,” Jenifa said. As a cover story, the café worked; he wouldn’t think to probe deeper. Not that there was any way she was ever going to explain why she was eager to prove he was an Eliter, how he was just an insignificant pawn in her mother’s altogether grander game. No hint of that must ever be revealed. Stonal would move swiftly if he ever suspected. This was going to have to be played very carefully. The thought was darkly thrilling.
“What did she say?” Chaing asked.
“Just that you were an Eliter.”
“That’s it?” he asked with a frown. “I still don’t believe you. Consider this: If I was an Eliter, she wouldn’t betray me.”
“Wrong. There’s one thing that would override all the Eliter solidarity in the world.”
“What?”
“Florian. You were hunting her son. Her betrayal was extremely personal.”
“She wanted revenge,” he muttered. “So she came up with the fantasy of me being an Eliter.”
“The Warrior Angel rescued you at Xander Manor, and there she was at the docks to rescue Florian and Paula.”
He nodded reluctantly. “Clever. She rearranged the facts to fit her own agenda.”
“How did the Warrior Angel find out about the nest at the manor?”
“How did the Eliters know the stolen atom bombs had arrived in Port Chana?” he retorted. “How did Corilla phone us on a PSR secure line?”
She forced her body to relax, like he’d dealt some kind of blow.
“No answer?” he taunted.
She walked around the bed to stand directly in front of him, almost touching. When she studied him he seemed so confident, so right. Is that a front? Is he playing a game as deep as mine? She genuinely couldn’t tell. And for once he was completely unresponsive to her naked body being so close, so available. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Then tell me who the link detector came from? Only section seven personnel are authorized to use it.”
“I had it sent from Opole.”
“Nicely unanswered, Jenifa. Who in Opole?”
“Rujik. He’s a friend on the third floor, in charge of technical stores. He has access to all sorts of top security devices.”
“If the red light had come on, who were you going to call?”
“Director Yaki.”
He shook his head minutely. “I don’t think that was the truth. See? That’s what happens when people start lying to each other. There is always that tiny sliver of uncertainty between them after that.”
She almost laughed; her one true answer, and he didn’t believe it. “Oh, but that part is very true. I would have taken you into custody myself. And I wouldn’t have used intimidation to get the truth out of you.”
“Yeah, that I do believe.”
She slid a hand down her abdomen and pushed the towel off her hips. Lips tweaked into a smile. “So where do we go from here?”
He took her hand and smiled. She stood on tiptoes to kiss him. The link detector was slapped into her open palm.
“Well, I can tell you where we don’t go,” he said cheerfully.
“To Uracus with you,” she growled.
The phone let out a two-tone whistle. Chaing gave it an irritated glance and picked it up. The small blue light came on at the base.
Like that proves it’s secure, Jenifa thought.
“Chaing?” Stonal asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you busy?”
“Nothing important, sir.”
Jenifa gave him a scornful look and picked up the towel, wrapping it back around her hips.
“Good,” Stonal said. “You will be issued your official notification tomorrow morning, but martial law will be declared midnight tonight, Varlan time.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Frankly, yes. They’re getting ready to annihilate us, but this way we can take the fight to them. The regiments are to be mobilized, and all the reserves called in.”
“I see. What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Have you had any contact with the Port Chana Eliters?”
“Just through Corilla, and that hasn’t produced anything. I’m still working on backtracking the nest that was spying on the Gothora III. Hopefully that will lead us to other nests.”
“Go back to Corilla, insist the Warrior Angel gets in touch with us at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need to know what options we have. This is top secret, but we believe the Fallers might have killed her.”
Jenifa couldn’t avoid the shock that statement caused. She saw Chaing’s face was troubled, too.
“How, sir?”
“The Sziu followed the Gothora to Lukarticar. Their bombs were detonated. We were in contact with one of her group, but we haven’t heard from him since. We need to know if she survived, Chaing.”
“I understand.”
“Good man. There’s something else you should know. The cabinet had a vote of confidence; Terese is now prime minister.”
“I see.”
“Do you? It means that Project Reclaim is now relegated to a last resort. We will resist the Apocalypse with all the vigor we can manage. That wouldn’t have happened under Adolphus.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
“Good man, Captain.”
The blue light went off and Chaing replaced the handset.
“Now what?” Jenifa asked.
“Now I follow orders and get Corilla to ask her friends to contact the Warrior Angel. It’s what loyal PSR officers do.”
“And me?”
He smiled thinly. “Do you still think I’m an Eliter? Actually, it doesn’t matter what you think. I can’t trust you anymore.”
“Don’t take this away from me. I couldn’t ignore Castillito. That would be weak.”
“The trouble is that the PSR does a fantastic job. We track down Fallers and eliminate them. We put our lives on the line to protect this planet, and when we fail we die in the most horrific way imaginable, like poor Lurvri. But we do it anyway, every lethal, awful moment in the field, every boring decade behind a desk, because without us the Fallers would win. That cannot happen.”
“I understand that. I know what has to be done. I will never fail to do my duty.”
“But your duty is not my duty. You are not my PSR. The radical-monitoring division is not the PSR; you’re just Democratic Unity thugs suppressing dissent, and using the PSR’s name to do it.”
“To protect us from the threat in the sky, and from those who betray us from within,” she said. “That was the oath we all took. If the center cannot be strong, we will all Fall. I will not Fall.”
“I’m sure you won’t.” He turned and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I told you, to speak with Corilla. If you’re still here when I get back, then it’s because you accept I’m not an Eliter.”
Jenifa got dressed slowly, listening to Chaing limping his way downstairs. The front door slamming shut. She’d never been so humiliated; he’d worked out what she was doing, then rejected her sexually.
“Fucking Uracus!” She slammed her fist into the wall.
The pain was good. The pain was pure. I am stronger than this. He will not defeat me, he will not use his clever words to outsmart me. I know he is an Eliter. I will expose him to the whole world.
She sat on the bed and dialed the number, then dialed the security code. The blue light came on.
“Hello, Jenifa,” Yaki said.
“Director,” Jenifa answered sharply.
“How’s it going?”
“Not good. Chaing found the link detector.”
“That was careless of you. But it doesn’t matter now.”
“How can you say that?”
“Adolphus is under house arrest. I’ve been quietly told it was Stonal who engineered that. And now that the new prime minister has signed a State of Emergency, he’s more powerful than ever. So this particular game is suspended.”
“You can’t mean that! I’m sure Chaing is one of them. He knew what I was looking for.”
“It’s over. Chaing doesn’t matter. Neither does Stonal, really. Our orders are coming in. The government is mobilizing everything we’ve got. Byarn is receiving its allocated personnel. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“They can’t just give up. You can’t give up!”
“We need to be practical here, Jenifa.”
“The things I’ve done for you…the things you made me do! All of it, so you could revitalize the PSR.” Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.
“You did everything I asked because you are strong. I’m proud of that. I couldn’t trust anyone else. Just you, my dear. It was all for you. But that life is over now.”
“No!”
“I have a travel warrant for Byarn. It will be with you by lunchtime.”
“Are you coming?” Jenifa asked dolefully.
“I hope so. One way or another, I’m not facing breeders again.”
“Mother—”
“Goodbye, my dear. And remember, always be strong.”
The phone went dead. Jenifa stared at the handset for a long moment before replacing it carefully. She looked around the bedroom until her gaze found the link detector, lying on the bed where Chaing had dropped it so disdainfully.
She picked it up, staring obsessively at the small green light on top, willing it to turn red, to prove her right. There was nothing else left now. “I will finish my mission,” she told the little device. “That’s real strength.”
The curfew wasn’t yet official, yet there was almost no traffic on Port Chana’s wet streets, and no pedestrians anywhere. That didn’t surprise Chaing; the Eliters would know what was coming. They’d probably known before Stonal told him.
Chaing used a Cubar from the local PSR office to take him to the marina through the miserable drizzle coming in off the sea, its wipers swishing across the windscreen with a monotonous squeaking. His driver parked by the gates, so he buttoned his coat against the damp air as he hobbled along to the Ankatra Café. At this time of night it was closed and shuttered, but Corilla was waiting under one of the trasla trees outside, wrapped up in a big ankle-length raincoat. He suspected she wasn’t alone, but couldn’t see anyone else.
“Now what?” she asked petulantly as he huddled under the short tree with her. “It’s bloody freezing out here.”
“You know exactly what,” he said. “The Apocalypse is coming. Stonal needs to talk to the Warrior Angel.”
“I keep asking.”
“How urgently?”
The look she gave him was almost pitying. “Why am I here, Chaing?”
“The government is getting desperate.”
“I know.”
“So am I, so I’m going to trust you. Hopefully that’ll liberate some reciprocity; we’re going to need to be a real team now.”
She raised an eyebrow, skeptical in the extreme.
Chaing touched his thumb to his knuckle, just like the Warrior Angel told him. A rectangular grid of thin lines fluoresced a pale emerald just below his skin.
“Chaing!” Corilla’s voice was loaded with incredulity. “Are you…No. You can’t be.”
“Let’s just say, the Warrior Angel and I have an agreement.”
She grabbed his hand and studied the lines as they faded. “What is this thing? It emitted a general link call for her.”
“She gave it to me. It’s some kind of Commonwealth technology. So now tell me truthfully, is she answering?” He tried not to sound too desperate, but he knew that without the Warrior Angel everything was lost.
“No,” Corilla shook her head sorrowfully. “Nobody has heard anything from her since the Gothora sailed. We know the Fallers used atom bombs on Lukarticar.”
“Crud.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re on our side.”
“Ha! You know, that’s the second time tonight someone has said that? There are only two sides, Faller and human. There is no choice.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“All we can do is wait and hope that the Warrior Angel and Paula are still alive, and they can do something. Until then, we fight the bastards with everything we’ve got.”
Jenifa woke up with a feeling of disorientation that might have been the end of a dream. A dream where she’d been fighting with Chaing. With her strength she’d easily beaten him, then she’d reached into his head and pulled out the Eliter cells, holding them up in triumph while he regarded her with the dazed admiration she was so used to from him.
When she looked around, he was standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing his uniform trousers, face covered in shaving foam. “So?” he asked.
“So I’m still here,” she said aggressively.
“I see that. But I need you to understand something.”
“Crudding what?”
“I don’t care that you don’t trust me. What’s important is that I don’t trust you.”
“I get that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“I hope so, Jenifa, I really do. Because we’re about to face up to the Faller Apocalypse and I need a proper partner, not one who’ll shoot me in the back.”
“We’re on the same side,” she said solemnly. “We’re both human.”
“Okay, then.”
Jenifa pushed the bedclothes down and sat on the edge of the bed. He gave her naked body a deliberately dispassionate glance, which infuriated her further. He might just as well have slapped her.
“How did it go last night?” she asked, carefully keeping her voice level.
“The Faller Angel hasn’t been in contact with the Eliters since the Gothora set sail.”
And just a day ago she would have said: You trust Corilla, do you? Now she had to sit placidly and say: “Crud. So what’s next?” It was demeaning. But there will be payback. Oh, yes.
“Our duty. We find the nests in Port Chana and take them out.”
“Right.”
“Get dressed,” Chaing told her. “We’re leaving in thirty minutes.”
The PSR Cubar picked them up at the end of Empale Street. Chaing still didn’t want anyone to know the location of the section seven safe house; it was routine.
“The harbor,” he told the driver as they sat in the back.
Jenifa was silent beside him, her back straight, looking out the side window. She’d stopped speaking to him.
After visiting Corilla, he’d started considering how long Jenifa had suspected him. If it had been back in Opole, she probably wasn’t acting alone, which would explain the link detector. It also meant all the sex was a lie, that she’d used it to get closer to him, oozing her way into his confidence. That hurt.
And he knew she didn’t trust him. Even if she had back in Opole, the seed of doubt Castillito had planted was rooted deep by now.
Last night he’d barely contained his fury when he learned what Castillito had done.
“I want you to call Corilla in as soon as we reach the warehouse,” he told Jenifa. “She can work with us full-time, now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you brought the link detector?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”
“Good. Feel free to keep watching it.”
The Cubar made good time driving through the streets. Overnight, the sheriffs and several battalions from the Port Chana Regiment had set up checkpoints across the city. The martial law proclamation had been announced on the radio at dawn, along with instructions for all reservists to report to regimental headquarters.
Chaing was surprised how many residents had obeyed the instructions to turn out for duty, given the city’s notorious reputation for nonconformity. Use of private vehicles had been prohibited as part of martial law, but a great many people were cycling to the major tram stations. The iron parking racks outside were jammed with bicycles, padlocked to the rails or one another in a giant mechanical clutter. All public transport had been commandeered by the city council’s emergency committee, to be used ferrying the reservists to various regiment bases just outside the city.
Sheriff cordons had been established around the tram stations, with long good-natured queues snaking along the pavements. No one was allowed through to the platforms until they’d been given a blood test.
The cordon around the harbor had been in place since the night of the storm. Today, the sheriffs on the checkpoint insisted on a blood test before they let Chaing and Jenifa through. So he stuck his hand out and endured the needle pricking his skin. The red blood welling up satisfied the young sheriff, and she moved the barrier aside.
Captain Fajie and her expanded team of investigators had taken over the whole warehouse, using the huge enclosed space to set up dozens of trestle tables. Each one was piled with evidence bags the forensic teams had collected, from the warehouse itself and all the houses the nest had used. Clothes from dead Fallers, along with two of the huge pump-action bazookas, had their own section. The burnt-out vehicles from the fight on the docks had been towed in to form a line along the back wall, each with a semicircle of associated forensic bags.
Investigators were standing at tables, carefully cataloging each item, which would be filed and Rolodexed by the smaller team of clerks. Usually, senior investigators sat at a long line of desks across the front of the warehouse, trying to map out connections. Today when Chaing walked in, barely a fifth of the desks were occupied.
He walked over to Fajie’s desk at the end of the row. A small tin first-aid box was open in front of her and she was flinching as she tried to wrap a bandage around her thumb. Spots of blood were glistening on her papers.
“Crudding sheriffs,” she muttered as Chaing stood in front of her. “I swear that one on the checkpoint is still a teenager. Hasn’t got a clue how to do a blood test. Tiny needle puncture is what’s supposed to happen. Look at this!” She held her thumb up; blood was leaking through the bandage’s fabric. “The idiot jabbed the whole needle in. Hurt like Uracus’s kiss.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Chaing tried not to show any amusement. Fajie had been in the thick of the firefight on the dock beside the Sziu, facing down the monster Fallers. Now she was whining about a needle jab. “They’re just carrying out orders.”
“Ha! See if you’re still laughing after a day of this. As of five o’clock this morning, they’re blood-testing anyone going into a government building, a transport hub, or a utilities facility. They’re also doing random street tests. Forget the Faller Apocalypse; we’re all going to die in a blood poisoning epidemic by the end of the week.”
“I’m sure. Where is everyone?”
Fajie glanced around the warehouse. “This is all we’ve got, and all we’re likely to get for the foreseeable future. Martial law has complete priority over every investigation. Director Husnan called most of our case officers back to the office.”
“But the PSR is supposed to be following every lead to suspected nests.” His arm swept around. “There is no lead bigger than this. This nest had nukes, for Giu’s sake.”
“Not my decision. For what it’s worth, I agree with you a hundred percent. But this is a huge investigation. Even with full resources, it was going to take months.”
And there it was, the unspoken worry: We don’t have months left.
“Crudding Uracus!” Chaing gathered himself to shout, but the impulse died as swiftly as it came. This wasn’t Fajie’s fault. It was Director Husnan playing petty politics.
He stalked back to his own desk, ignoring the throbbing from his leg. All the files he’d been studying yesterday now seemed a complete waste of time.
“She’s here,” Jenifa announced from her desk as she replaced the telephone handset.
“Who?”
“Corilla.”
“That was quick.”
“I never called her. She’s coming through the harbor checkpoint now. It’s like she knew when we arrived.”
He gave her a thin smile. Even now she kept on pushing.
Corilla came in, dressed in a blue blouse and black jeans—a simple combination, but one that made her seem quite different from the angry young radical with a persecution complex waiting at the outdoor café at Mckie College. Every time he saw her she seemed to have grown in confidence. She came straight over to his desk, giving Jenifa only a cursory glance. Chaing tried not to smile at that.
“Morning,” she said breezily.
“Morning.” He thought of asking Jenifa to fetch them some tea, but that was too childish. “Any news?”
“Not of the Warrior Angel, no. I came in because I have information for you that some of my friends consider very important.”
“What?”
“Roxwolf is back.”
“What?”
“In Opole. My old contacts there are seeing underworld faces reappearing, and they’re back with a swagger. That can only mean they have his backing.”
“So? I have more immediate concerns.”
Corilla tilted her head to one side. “You don’t know, do you? You never actually saw him when you raided Cameron’s.”
“Know what?”
“He’s a Faller. A weird one; some kind of mutation. Paula confirmed that for us, by the way. He’s not part of any nest, but he does have connections with them.”
“You got any proof of that?” Jenifa asked.
Corilla kept looking at Chaing. “You found human-Faller bodies at Cameron’s, didn’t you? What does that tell you about his gang? And anyway, why would I lie?”
“I don’t know what motivates Eliters,” Jenifa said, “but I can find out easily enough.”
Chaing held up a finger for Jenifa to stop. “You’re sure Roxwolf is a Faller?”
Corilla nodded. “Yes.”
“Do your friends know what he’s up to?”
“There’s been a big increase in arms trafficking over the last ten days,” Corilla said. “So much it’s even making some of the gangs nervous. Especially right now.”
“You think he’s supplying weapons to the nests?”
“I can’t see what else it is. We all know what we’re about to face.”
“Are your people prepared to lead us to him?”
“My people? You mean your fellow humans?”
“Yes. Will you lead me to him? It could be the breakthrough route into the nests we need.”
Corilla gave him a soft smile. “That’s why I’m here. I’m your contact, remember? Can you get us back to Opole? The whole train network shut down last night.”
“I can get us back to Opole.”
The first signs that Opole’s martial law wasn’t as effective as it should be came when the PSR Cubar drove over the Yokon Bridge and turned onto Dunton Road. There was a junction of tram rails in the middle of the road, where the metal rails crossed. The overhead power cables were lying on the ground, their posts bent over like trees after a storm. A car had been abandoned in the middle of the junction and set on fire.
Chaing assumed the dents in its grille had come from repeatedly ramming the power cable posts until they toppled.
“Why isn’t anyone fixing that?” he asked. “At the least they should tow it away.”
The driver, assigned to them from the Opole PSR office, shrugged as he edged their Cubar around the burnt-out wreck. Cars and vans waiting their turn on the other side tooted their horns angrily. “Everyone is registering at the regiment bases. Nobody is left on the maintenance crews.”
“That’s stupid,” Chaing said.
Another shrug. “When everyone’s registered and they sort out the command structure, things will get done in a hurry.”
“Has there been any more disruption to the tram network?” Jenifa asked. She was in the backseat next to Corilla and clearly unhappy with that arrangement.
“There’ve been about eight or nine junctions smashed up like this one,” the driver said. “They’ve got regiment squads guarding the important ones now, but trams are out over half the city.”
“Let me guess,” Jenifa said. “The routes out to the regiment bases?”
“Yes.”
Twenty minutes and three blood-test checkpoints later, they turned onto Broadstreet. Chaing had witnessed so much chaos lately, he was mildly surprised to see that the familiar old buildings were all still standing.
The Cubar pulled up outside the seven-story PSR office. Corilla stared up at it mistrustfully.
“We won’t be in there long,” Chaing assured her as he climbed out of the front.
Jenifa strode across the pavement, pointedly ignoring them. Behind her back, Corilla gave him a small rueful smile.
A wall of sandbags had been put up across the entrance. Five armed officers were on guard duty. They saluted Chaing, even said: “Welcome back, Captain.” But he still had to hold out his thumb for a needle prick.
“She’s in my custody,” he explained when they asked for Corilla’s papers and saw ELITER printed across the front. They didn’t like that, but agreed she could go inside.
“Ground floor only,” he told Corilla as they went in. “There’s a waiting room down here. I can’t allow you upstairs.”
“I’ll try and contain my disappointment,” she muttered.
Even getting the waiting room opened involved forms to be filled out at reception.
“She shouldn’t be inside at all,” Jenifa said.
“Then how do we set up this operation, Corporal?” he barked back.
“We have special cells for Eliters.”
He didn’t bother responding to that. They took the stairs to the seventh floor. It wasn’t as difficult as usual for his leg; all the practice he’d had with the Port Chana lighthouse had clearly paid off. Not that Jenifa waited. She was already in Yaki’s office when he finally arrived.
“You brought an Eliter into my headquarters?” the director asked coldly as soon as he shut the door. “Why didn’t you put her in a cell where she belongs?”
Chaing refused to even glance in Jenifa’s direction. Instead he focused on Yaki. “This is an emergency, and she’s an asset, not a prisoner. She won’t be going anywhere in the building other than the waiting room.”
“All right.” Yaki was staring intently at Jenifa. “So why are you both back here?”
Now Chaing turned his head. “Corporal, would you explain, please?”
Yaki listened without comment as Jenifa told her of Corilla’s claim about Roxwolf returning.
“He’s a Faller?” she asked at the end. “Why did the gangs work with him? They’re not that stupid.”
“Nobody ever saw him,” Chaing said. “He can’t show himself because he’s some kind of mutant Faller. The nests despise him as much as we do.”
“An unseen, all-powerful boss is quite a reputation to have,” Jenifa admitted. “It’s also very convenient.”
“And this Corilla girl says he’s buying arms for the nests?”
“That’s what the local Eliters have told her, yes,” Chaing said.
“We have to investigate this,” Yaki said tightly. “If she’s right, it’s a direct route to all the nests in the city.” The scar on her face showed as a thin white line as she sat behind her desk, fingers steepled, their tips resting on her chin. “Okay. Chaing, you did the right thing bringing her here, but I’ve got a martial law to enforce. My officers are spread very thinly. There have already been some very proficient acts of sabotage, which we’re prioritizing. So I’m going to let you and Jenifa track down any leads Corilla offers you.”
“I’m going to need a team—” Chaing started.
“No. You get me some positive leads, and I’ll assign you whoever you ask for to follow up. But until then, you’re on your own. And I don’t want any heroics, understand? If you find Roxwolf, you come here and get some serious backup. I can’t afford another Cameron’s.”
“Yes, Director,” Chaing mumbled. “Can I at least have access to records?”
“I’ll tell Colonel Kukaida to grant you full inquiry status.”
“Thank you.”
“Happy?” Chaing asked as he made his way back down the stairs.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Jenifa grunted back over her shoulder. She wasn’t making any effort to slow down, as if emphasizing how her body was at its peak, while his…
“You practically shut down this investigation.” Which had surprised him. Yaki was section seven. Why had she even listened to a corporal who’d clearly had a run-in with her boss?
“No, actually, sir, we have free run of the city in the middle of a martial law clampdown. I’d call that a perfect result.”
Chaing glowered at her back as she turned around the corner of the stairwell. He paused at the turning, trying to get his breathing back under control. That way she wouldn’t be able to see him struggling, revealing how weak he was. He wanted to look reasonably okay by the time he reached the ground floor. It’s going to be a busy day out of the office tracking down Corilla’s sources. And I need a result…
“So?” Corilla asked when he finally got back to the waiting room.
“We’re ready to start,” Chaing told her.
She gave him a slightly confused look. “Start?”
“Do your contacts know where a batch of weapons are being stored? Do they know who’s involved? Their location?”
“I thought…Aren’t there going to be observation teams?”
“The nests have already started to move against us. We don’t have crudding time for this,” Jenifa said. “Do you know anything or not?”
“The Gates,” Corilla said, as if the information had been extracted with a sharp instrument.
Chaing opened the waiting room door. “What’s there?”
“Ammunition,” Corilla said. “Stolen two days ago from a regiment armory.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Jenifa said as they walked out across the reception area.
“TerVask is in charge of the crew that pulled it off,” Corilla explained. “He’s been throwing his weight around for over a week now. He’d only ever do that if he had Roxwolf’s backing.”
Chaing smiled in pure delight. “Oh, thank you, Giu. I shall be very happy to resume discussions with terVask.”
His humor was only slightly dimmed when the entrance guards insisted on another blood test as they left the PSR office.
“Take us around to the garage,” Chaing told the Cubar’s driver.
“What for?” Jenifa asked, immediately suspicious.
“We’re both in uniform, Corporal. It’s martial law, and we’re going into the Gates. Do you think that’s going to rouse any suspicions, let alone tip off any gang member keeping lookout?”
She nodded stiffly. “Of course.”
“We’ll requisition an unmarked car, then go back to my flat and change into our civilian clothes.” He waited for a tell-reaction at the mention of the flat, but he didn’t see one.
An hour later, an unremarkable eight-year-old Torova saloon car pulled up in Follel Road at the edge of the Gates district.
“Wait here,” Chaing told the driver.
He and Jenifa followed Corilla into the jumble of ancient, sinuous lanes. Here, at least, life seemed to be carrying on almost normally. They were constantly dodging cyclists who rang their bells arrogantly as they freewheeled down the cobbles. Adults scuttled along between the slanting walls, not making eye contact with anyone. Groups of kids in raggedy clothes rushed about playing their unfathomable games.
Corilla led them down MistleGate and stopped outside a battered old green door halfway along.
Jenifa frowned. “I know this place,” she muttered.
“You certainly do,” Corilla said.
There was the sound of thick metal bolts being drawn back. The door opened. Terannia stared out, her ebony hair disheveled as if she’d just gotten out of bed. “Get inside,” she hissed. “Quickly. Even you, girlie.”
The club was just about what Chaing expected, its ancient uneven walls coated in paint that must have been a century old. A small stage for musicians. Bar against the back wall, with plenty of casks and bottles of unlicensed hooch. Curtains over doorways. Not as many tables and chairs as there might have been.
Terannia walked over to a man a few years older than she, with short silver hair curling over his scalp and a neatly trimmed beard. Chaing was pretty sure he was a musician; he looked the type. He was introduced as Matthieu. “My business partner, and the club’s musical director.”
Chaing was glad to see his instinct was still good. “So what have you got for me?”
“I overheard something at one of the tables last night,” Matthieu said.
“Oh, please,” Jenifa sneered.
Matthieu gave Chaing a look that was almost pitying. “Overheard at a table,” Chaing said firmly. “I understand. What did you overhear?”
“It was one of terVask’s people. That piece of crud has delusions that’s he’s the next big gang leader, but we all know he works directly for Roxwolf. His people pulled off an impressive heist, some ammunition from one of the regiment armories. There’s quite a lot of armaments stored in various depositories around the city; they don’t keep everything at their headquarters.”
“And do you know where this stash of ammunition is being kept?”
“Minskies, over in TollGate.”
“It’s a gang pub,” Terannia said.
“Actually, that’s true,” Jenifa said. “I heard about it on my last assignment.”
“They’re going to move it this afternoon,” Matthieu said.
“When?”
“All I know is: this afternoon.”
“They’ll want to do it in daylight,” Jenifa said, suddenly decisive. “It’s difficult enough with martial law; a curfew will make it practically impossible.”
“We need to get it under observation fast,” Chaing said.
“There’s a sheriff station half a klick away,” Jenifa said. “It’ll have a secure line to the PSR office.”
“No.”
“What?”
“No,” Chaing repeated. “PSR communications are compromised. We know that. Roxwolf had a lot of phone lines going into his hideaway under Cameron’s. And it’s not like we need to keep this from Eliters.” He grinned at Matthieu.
“So how do we observe Minskies?” Jenifa demanded. “You and me?”
“How many people are watching it right now?” Chaing asked levelly.
Terannia shrugged. “A couple of relatives of mine are close by.”
“You’re going to use Eliters?” Jenifa asked in astonishment.
“Yes. Obviously terVask’s people don’t know they’re being observed, or they would have done something about those relatives. Why risk bringing in new people?”
“What’s the matter, girlie, don’t you trust us?” Terannia goaded.
Chaing held up a warning finger at the club owner. “Don’t, please.”
“We can tell you if we see them moving the ammunition,” Corilla said, “but what good will that do?”
“You keep a good watch across Opole. I know that.” He gave her a level stare. “Your friends must have observed my driving to Xander Manor that night. So they can certainly keep an eye out for any vehicle in daytime. Eliters walking about, Eliters riding a tram, Eliters looking out of a window. This is a whole city of casual observers. And they can update you on its location with your links. Right?”
“We could try that,” Corilla said thoughtfully.
Jenifa was seriously impressed with herself for keeping her emotions so tightly under control. When she was in the club, all she wanted to do was snap the cuffs on Terannia and haul her back to the Eliter cells at the PSR office and ask her the questions properly.
Overheard them talking.
Relatives keeping watch.
All of it was such total bollocks—and Chaing had let them get away with it. Typical. Now he was enacting an even bigger crime, using Eliters to observe the stolen ammunition shipment rather than trained and loyal PSR officers.
It was as if everything he did was designed to taunt her. You are a crudding Eliter, and I will bring you down.
She stared at the back of his head as they sat in the Torova, waiting for an update from the “relatives.” Beside her on the backseat, Corilla sat with her eyes half closed as if she was on the verge of sleep. Every time Jenifa checked her link detector, the red light was on.
Are they linking to each other? Laughing at me?
She dearly wished the little device were directional.
“Terannia knew Rasschaert, you know,” she said. “She employed him nine years ago. I interviewed her when we were hunting Florian. She’s a radical.”
Corilla opened her eyes. “You see all of us as radicals.”
“And today justified that, didn’t it? Terannia is part of your network. And Rasschaert Fell; I saw blue blood coming from the bullet holes my colleagues put in his body. But when did he Fall? Did Terannia tell you that? Exactly where do her sympathies lie?”
“You’re an idiot.”
Jenifa’s hand bunched into a fist.
“We’re using connections,” Chaing said calmly from the front seat. “That’s all. And because of that, we’re going to find a route into the nests.”
“Yes, sir.”
A small sigh escaped form Chaing’s lips, and Jenifa saw Corilla’s lips twitch in amusement.
You’ll make a mistake. And when you do…
Twenty minutes later, Corilla said: “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Jenifa and Chaing said together.
“A sheriff car just pulled up outside Minskies.”
“Crud,” Jenifa grunted. “We need to order them away. The gangsters will panic.”
“They’re not sheriffs,” Chaing said with quiet excitement. “Remember Hawley Docks? That’s the transport team.”
“You don’t know that.” Unless you’re part of the links.
“Only government vehicles are allowed on the street during martial law. It’s them.”
“They’re coming out of Minskies,” Corilla said. “Bringing boxes. Ah, it’s terVask himself.”
Five boxes were loaded into the trunk of the sheriff car; then terVask climbed into the backseat, and it pulled away.
“Start the engine,” Chaing told their driver.
“Turning west onto Eaux Avenue,” Corilla said. “Now Pinchat Road.”
“Let’s go,” Chaing said. “Take us around to the Veralson district. There’s no rush. I don’t ever want to get within a kilometer of them. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
The bogus sheriff car wove an intricate route across Opole, taking twenty minutes to travel four kilometers, using the side roads and sometimes tiny back alleys so they avoided every checkpoint. Eventually they finished up on the north side of the Jaminth district.
“Larncy Square,” Corilla said finally. “They’re pulling up in Larncy Square.”
“There won’t be any dodgy nightclubs there,” Jenifa said. “Jaminth is a business district with some upmarket residential blocks.”
“Take us up to Quillit Road,” Chaing told the driver, visualizing a map of the area. “Quickly now. And park just short of Simonet Street; that’s the one that leads into Larncy Square.”
“So what are we doing there?” Jenifa asked.
Chaing twisted around in his seat to grin at her. “You, Corporal, are going to take a walk along Simonet Street and see which building they’re using.”
“Me?”
“My leg and arm mark me out even in civilian clothes. You don’t trust Corilla and the Elites. So yes: you. Confirm the location. We’ll circle around and pick you up on Florissant Avenue.”
The Torova pulled in at the pavement, ten meters short of Simonet Street.
“Five minutes,” Jenifa said gruffly and stepped out. The car pulled away. She didn’t hesitate; people noticed hesitancy. Not that there were many people on the pavement, and those were mostly old, past reservist age. A few bicycles slid along Quillit Road, with only the occasional car and truck. The tram tracks down the middle were empty.
She turned down Simonet Street. Its buildings were ancient, four or five stories high—grand homes or the apartments of nobility back in the Void when they’d been constructed. Then slowly as the city expanded, they’d been adapted into smart offices.
Her heart rate accelerated as she approached the end of the street where it opened out into Larncy Square. Her right hand hovered over the concealed shoulder holster. If this was a setup, she’d been played perfectly. Not that she believed Chaing would do that; he seemed genuinely intent on capturing Roxwolf.
Jenifa had only managed a few words with her furious mother before he’d come wheezing and sweating into her seventh-floor office.
“Why?” Yaki had demanded. “You could have been safe by now. You have nothing to prove, not to me.”
“If we get Roxwolf, we can break the nests wide open. That is how the proper PSR operates. We don’t give up because things are difficult, or hard for individuals. You taught me that.”
“This isn’t difficult,” Yaki said through gritted teeth. “This is the end.”
“Not if we’re strong.”
Larncy Square had been built as the exemplary heart of the Jaminth district, formed by matching white-painted stucco terraces with high bay windows and curving balconies on the upper floors. They caged a communal park of tall walwallow and vive trees, itself encased by iron railings that now acted as security posts for the dozens of bicycles the residents left chained there. A fountain pond in the middle had been allowed to decay into a circular marsh of mushy leaves; tiny higkel birds waded over the rancid surface to their mossy nests adorning the central statue.
As soon as Jenifa reached the square, she saw the sheriff car parked on the other side. She made a play of walking purposefully to one of the bicycles near a corner of the railings, bending over to unlock it and pantomiming lost keys.
Two men in sheriff uniforms were unloading boxes and carrying them into one of the terrace buildings. She caught a glimpse of terVask’s profile as he sat in the backseat. Then she was striding through the huge archway that connected the square with Florissant Avenue.
“They were off-loading into the Cavour office,” Jenifa said as she tumbled into the backseat of the Torova.
“Cavour. That’s a law firm, isn’t it?” Chaing asked.
“Yes. They handle evasion cases for the tax office, along with normal criminal prosecution for the city sheriff’s office.”
“Then they should be right at home cohabiting with Roxwolf,” he murmured.
“So what now?” she asked.
“Back to the PSR office. I need to review things.”
“What’s to review? There’s a crud-load of ammunition on its way to the nests so they can kill us. This is obviously a staging post, and judging from the setup possibly Roxwolf’s new hideout. We call in an assault squad and snatch as many of the bastards as we can, then sling them into the cells and interrogate them. If we get lucky, we catch Roxwolf himself.”
“Charging in unprepared was what we did last time. Remember how well that went? Besides, you can’t interrogate Fallers; it never works.”
“But Roxwolf isn’t a Faller.”
“Exactly. He’s a tricky little swine. We have to be smarter this time.”
Most of Opole’s government departments were in disarray trying to implement the proscriptions of martial law, with uncertain chains of command and urgent orders contradicting one another. On top of that, the remaining residents were trying to cope with restricted travel and a chaotic tram network. It was a city edging close to a nervous breakdown.
Turmoil, however, was not a concept that infiltrated the PSR records division. Down in the basements under the Broadstreet offices the air was still and dry, the temperature stable, along with the demeanor of the black-suited clerks who bustled around hugging their files with the same care they’d show a newborn infant. This department carried on unaffected by anything.
Chaing knocked on Colonel Kukaida’s door. He thought he’d be exasperated by the normality pervading her domain, but he actually found it quite a relief.
“Come.”
Nothing had changed. Kukaida sat behind her broad desk, her gray uniform buttoned neatly. Photographs formed a grid before her. Two clerks hovered, awaiting instructions.
“Colonel, I—”
She held up a finger, and shamefacedly Chaing fell silent. The finger dipped and landed on the photograph of a middle-aged woman in an expensive fuchsia-pink cardigan. “That one,” she said.
A clerk nodded and picked up the photo, carrying it out of the bright-white office like a sports trophy. The other clerk began to tidy away the remaining photos.
“Yes, Captain?” Kukaida asked.
“I need some files.”
“Then it is fortunate that you’re here. Files are the one thing we have in great abundance.”
“Not files on people.”
“Really? How intriguing. What kind of files do you want, Captain?”
“Civic files. Specifically building blueprints and city engineer utility plans. Very old ones.”
“The appropriate city hall department can provide you with those, Captain.”
“I don’t want to use city hall, Colonel. I have reason to believe it is compromised. My mission is of the highest priority, and top secret.”
“What an important man you are, comrade Captain. Luckily for you, we do have copies of all city files, of course. However, they are microfiched. Searching through even one cassette for a specific blueprint may take you some time.”
“I can accept that.”
“Very well.” She signaled the clerk. “Please inform my colleague what it is you require, and the relevant cassettes will be brought to you in the second-level viewing library.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
The assault team had walkie-talkies, but on Chaing’s orders these remained switched off during deployment. They all wore civilian clothes, carrying bags or suitcases containing their weapons. Fortunately most of the reservists walking about Opole’s streets were carrying similar bags stuffed with clothes as they reported to their registration center. It made the team unremarkable—as Chaing intended.
Scouts went into the buildings on both sides of the Cavour offices. If they found any sign of gang activity, they would come out again within ten minutes. No gang activity would see them place a red cloth in the second-floor windows.
Team members entering the square from its various access roads saw two red cloths and proceeded into the buildings over the next ninety minutes. The regular occupants who were still working under martial law were hustled into a room on the third floor, and held there. Not under arrest, the team leaders assured them, but for their own protection.
In one building, five team members went up into the loft space and quietly cut through the partition wall, clearing a route into the attic above the Cavour office.
Without radio communication—which they knew Roxwolf monitored—the assault sequence was all down to timing. From Chaing initiating the mission, they had ninety minutes to infiltrate the teams into the neighboring buildings and quarantine their workforces. Fifty minutes to cut through into the attic. A further fifteen minutes to assemble in position; subteams in each building behind second-floor balcony windows were ready to launch grapnel ropes and swing across, blasting their way in with grenades, with more subteams at the back door to overwhelm any gang guards posted at the rear alley entrance. Main teams were in the hallway, heavily armed to storm through Cavour’s front entrance.
It was planned down to the last detail, approved by Yaki and the duty assault team captain. And doomed to fail.
Roxwolf’s hideaways, of which there were several in Opole, were superbly integrated into their surroundings. In Larncy Square, there were watchers behind the blinds on the fourth floor of the offices, covering the square and the alley behind. Clerks and secretaries in several companies around the square were affiliated with the gangs, with dedicated phone lines into the Cavour office. There were even optical tubes blended discreetly into the architecture, allowing Roxwolf to observe suspicious activity directly.
As the assault team started to infiltrate the adjacent buildings, three separate warnings were triggered before the gang associates moved obligingly to the third-floor quarantine rooms. Thus warned, Roxwolf himself watched the steady arrival of men and women with similar-sized bags. Nobody now was coming out of the neighboring buildings. A scan around the square revealed that new checkpoints had been set up at the far end of the access roads. The already reduced level of government-authorized traffic trundling around the central park was shrinking toward nonexistent.
Without warning his underlings—human or Faller—he armed the trips on the demolition charges and opened the secret panel in the sub-basement where he’d lived for the past fortnight. He moved quickly through the dank catacombs that stretched beneath Larncy Square. Retracing the route he’d taken to reach the Cavour offices, he found the narrow service hatch in the wall of a long-abandoned culvert and squeezed through.
A pistol muzzle pressed into the side of his head. Five bright torches came on, leaving him blinking in their dazzling light.
“Roxwolf, I presume?” Chaing said cheerfully.