INCEPTIO (Roma Nova) (24 page)

LV

Conrad. I registered him on the outer edge of my vision, but didn’t unpick my eyes from the three poised to attack me.

‘Everybody out. Now. Recording off.’

Daniel refused the guards’ assistance with an impatient gesture as he limped out with them, but threw a vicious look back at me. When they’d closed the metal door, I switched my gaze to Conrad.

‘You can let her go now,’ he said in a dead voice.

‘You have to be kidding. She’s my ticket out of here.’

Unbelievably, he laughed. But it was a short, bitter laugh. ‘I don’t know where you got that illusion from. This isn’t some American movie. Somna knows she’ll have to take her chances.’

Juno, he was hard. Or maybe they were all like that.

‘If I let her go, what guarantee do I have you won’t attack me? Like you did before.’

‘None. But if I have to come and get you, you’ll be very sorry. I can promise that.’

His face resembled a piece of Aquae Caesaris granite. No ambiguity; he meant it. And I knew how strong he was. I released Somna. But I stepped back and stayed balanced on the balls of my feet, fingers curled, ready.

The interrogator rubbed her neck and glanced at Conrad who raised an eyebrow. Somna turned her head left and right, slowly. She nodded and left the room.

‘Sit down.’

I teetered on the edge of refusing. But the adrenalin was draining away, fatigue washing over me now, so I perched on the plastic chair Somna had used.

He stood over me, arms folded, and eyes dark and tilted upwards.

‘Drug dealers can expect very little quarter from the law and none from me personally. We won’t tolerate importing tainted things from the West which poison our life.’

He meant me. My heart thumped, I thought I was going to throw up.

‘I don’t know how you got to this point; there are various options to deal with it. You can cooperate with Somna or not. Your choice. But she is successful within the twenty-eight days allowed almost without exception.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘No, a fact.’

I was determined to be an exception. What did I have to lose now?

‘Next, if you display one more sign of threatening behaviour, I’ll have you shackled twenty-four seven.’

‘Then keep that moron Daniel away from me with his fucking stupid little tricks.’

‘And you can keep the foul language to yourself or I’ll have your mouth taped up the rest of the time you’re not answering questions.’

‘Proper little Renschman, aren’t you?’

His body stiffened. He flexed his fingers. Was he going to hit me again, or worse? A few seconds later, his face relaxed and lost its ash-white colour. He laughed, maliciously.

‘Nice try. Clever, but you don’t get me like that.’

A knock at the door interrupted our tête-à-tête. A guard came in and whispered to Conrad who frowned and made the guard repeat her message.

‘Very well. I’ll be along in a couple of minutes. Stay here, and don’t let anybody into this room except me or on my signature. No exceptions.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘Oh, and cuff her.’

I was starting to give up on Lurio. Where in Hades was he? When I gave the codeword ‘Gracchus’ for the take-down of the drug dealers, he was supposed to ride in and rescue me. According to the operational plan, there should have been a clear ten-minute window. But the PGSF troops had arrived five minutes too soon. Now I was stranded here, my face and arms aching and sore, my defences running thin, amidst these tough soldiers determined to take me apart piece by piece. I didn’t know how long I could stall them nor how long my nerves would hold out. Not that I was going to let any of them see that I was intimidated. But if Lurio didn’t appear within the next twelve hours, I was going to scream ‘lawyer’ and screw the mission.

LVI

Shortly afterward, the door opened and two soldiers came for me. They took me upstairs where the corridor had a wood floor. Much better. My bare feet were getting ticked off with concrete. These were regular offices. I saw blurred figures moving behind smartglass as we walked along. We stopped at a door with the sign ‘Major Tellus, ATU’.

I would have preferred Somna or, even, Daniel.

Inside, Conrad sat behind his desk, talking to a blue-uniformed figure half-sprawled in the chair opposite. Both looked up as I was brought in, the DJ officer craning his neck around.

Lurio.

He didn’t greet me or say anything else. He straightened up and fixed me with an intense stare. A warning. Absolutely no mistake. I stayed silent, but my thoughts were unprintable. He was so lucky my hands weren’t free.

Conrad dismissed the guards. He glanced at me then turned a full-strength glare on Lurio. ‘Is this really your agent, Inspector?’

‘It certainly is, Major.’ He smiled at me. ‘Hello, Bruna.’

‘Hello, sir.’

Conrad’s eyes locked on to me. He stared at me as if I were a Martian. His disbelief was obvious. Despite feeling cold, tired and furious, a glimmer of smugness stirred in me.

Lurio beamed an extra-friendly smile at me, his shoulder turned away from Conrad. ‘Have you eaten recently?’ His faux concern was overdone, I thought. He was relishing getting one over the oh-so-clever PGSF.

‘Only a small bowl of mush since I’ve been enjoying these people’s hospitality, sir.’

‘Some food, if you would, Major?’

Conrad reached out mechanically and spoke into a unit on his desk. Lurio looked at me and touched a finger to his lips. I nodded. We waited like a set of dummies, Lurio brushing an invisible speck off his leg, or scratching his ear. Conrad got up, went over and looked down out of the window for a minute, his back hunched over. When he came back, he threw himself into his seat and stared down at his desk, pretending to look at a folder. I glared at Lurio as the minutes dragged by, but I bowed my head and slumped when a guard entered, carrying a tray with two plates of sandwiches, two glasses and a carafe of water which he set in front of Lurio and Conrad. As the guard closed the door, I rolled my eyes. Lurio grinned and placed a crystal pyramid on the desk.

‘Could we have the cuffs off, please, Major?’

Conrad exited his trance, looked everywhere but at my face, came around behind me and undid the handcuffs. The brief touch of his hands sent a tingle up both arms. Or perhaps it was my tired nerves reacting to my wrists being released.

‘Sit over there and eat,’ ordered Lurio. ‘Slowly.’

I grabbed a plate. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. I wolfed the lot and picked up every crumb with my fingertip. I gulped down a whole glass of water.

Lurio mock-sighed and shook his head. ‘Major, may I present Senior Justiciar Cara Bruna of the Department of Justice
Custodes
Organised Crime Division? One of my most promising, if most insubordinate, operatives.’

I nearly choked on the last crumbs; Conrad didn’t do much better.

This was really stupid; we all knew who I was. Why did we have to keep up the pantomime?

‘Really?’ Conrad said after a pause. ‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘Oh, quite a while now. This is a deep-cover operation, Major. As you know, there’ve been leaks where there shouldn’t have been. We’ve plumbed ours, but we haven’t had any confirmation the PGSF have managed to do the same.’ He smirked at Conrad. ‘As a test, we sent a rumour down various suspect channels yesterday, each with slightly different content. The only one that failed came here, to this unit. We can’t identify your traitor specifically but, perhaps with Bruna’s help, we can flush her or him out.’

‘And what precisely was this rumour of yours?’ Conrad’s tone was curt. His brows were pulled together, deep vertical lines between them.

‘That you were about to take a suspected drug dealer into custody who knew the traitor’s identity.’

I couldn’t stop my mouth falling open.

‘And you were going to tell me when?’ I threw at Lurio.

‘I’m telling you now.’ Seeing my face, he said, ‘Relax, Bruna, you’ve been under guard at all times.’

‘Yes, but, hello, one of those guards could have been the traitor and terminated me. Perhaps that had escaped your thought processes. Sir,’ I added.

‘Is this why you delayed collecting your agent, Inspector?’

Yeah, Lurio, was it?

‘Not at all. We were trying to sort out the foul-up over the operation at the Goldlights club. Your over-keen guards went in five minutes too early, Major.’ He looked Conrad straight in the eye, his voice taking on an unusual chill. ‘I would like to know exactly why that was.’

Conrad said nothing, but tapped something on his keyboard. He waved at Lurio to continue.

Lurio shrugged. ‘Luckily, we had the real dealers already. By the time I’d found out what had happened, Bruna had disappeared until “Pulcheria” came up on the confidential part of the joint watch report this morning. To her eternal credit, she didn’t bleat.’

I almost fainted with the shock of Lurio’s praise. I decided to sit there and look enigmatic. Lurio said the DJ had all the dealers. Including Renschman, I hoped.

‘So what now?’ Conrad asked.

‘You have to flush out your traitor. We’re prepared to use our agent in place, if she’s prepared to do it.’ Lurio turned to me. ‘You don’t have to if you feel you’ve had enough. It’s their problem.’

Crafty bastard. I gave him a dirty look. Lurio would never let me forget it if I gave in now. I also wanted to have the edge over Conrad.

‘You know full well I’ll do it,’ I grumped. ‘Just don’t get me killed.’

Lurio laughed. I smiled back in a sour way.

Conrad looked thunderous. ‘I won’t have you endangering her life,’ he shouted at Lurio.

‘Really? You’ve given her the benefit of your hospitality for over thirty-six hours, not exactly a rest cure. And the danger, if I may point it out, is from one of yours. If there isn’t a traitor then everything’s wonderful. If there is one then we’ll have stopped the rot. Worry you, does it, owing us a favour?’

Conrad studied Lurio for several minutes. ‘Tell me, Inspector, do you often use amateurs to pursue experienced, hard criminals?’

Lurio laughed. ‘Bruna’s no amateur. Personally, I feel sorry for the criminals.’ He dropped his laugh. ‘Do you want our help or not? If you don’t, we’ll be going.’ He stood up, moved his chair back and nodded at me. I stood, ready to follow.

Conrad shrugged. ‘I’d be stupid to let the opportunity pass. I hold you responsible for what happens to your agent.’ He looked up at Lurio. ‘Entirely responsible.’

If the atmosphere had been any more tense, it would have started an electric storm.

Lurio went to the back corner of the office and spoke into his wrist set. Conrad stared at me while I devoured the second plate of sandwiches. On top of being dumbfounded at me turning out to be the DJ agent, he’d lost it when I’d agreed to be Lurio’s bait. Did he still have feelings for me? He was so hard in the interrogation room but, on the plus side, he’d kept that idiot Daniel away from me.

LVII

I was lying on the bench with my eyes shut, thinking about nothing in particular. The six open-barred cells were arranged in a row, with a guards’ post on the opposite wall. Apart from the CCTV camera panning, the only noise was the tip-tapping from the one PGSF and two DJs playing checkers. Lazy bastards. I suppose it was boring for them; only two of us to watch, me in the end cell and somebody else in the fifth one along.

The guards’ commset buzzed and the occupant of number five was collected and taken away by two DJ guards. Who initiated that order? I watched through barely open lids. A few minutes later, a PGSF officer came in. She had red hair tightly bound and piled up on her head. Juno save me! It was the same one that had come into the club with Daniel. She nodded to the desk and the PGSF guard started to get up, but she waved him back down. She talked to him for a minute or so. He nodded and left.

She came over to me. ‘Pulcheria. Not so comfortable now, are you? Getting as much rest as you can before a little trip to the mines?’

‘Piss off, Ginger.’

‘You won’t be so perky when you’ve worked a ten-hour shift on prison rations for a year.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s not always that straightforward.’

‘Oh, I think it is in your case.’

‘So what’s your point, Ginger?’

‘There are ways to, how shall I put it, make the time go a little faster.’

‘Sorry, you’re not my type.’

‘You’ll be begging for help after three months.’

‘Yeah?’ I pulled myself up on my elbows. ‘Don’t worry about little me, Ginger. I have my own insurance.’

‘Don’t bet on it.’

‘Oh, I’m pretty sure them upstairs will want to underwrite me when I tell them.’ I swung my legs down, stood up and came over to the cell door. ‘But you know that already, don’t you?’

I wasn’t fast enough for her hand which shot between the bars and grabbed my hair. She tugged my head viciously toward her until it hit against the bars like a squash ball against the court wall. My head exploded with pain. I blacked out for a second. I only just remembered to press the radio pressure switch between my fingers. Through the waves of pain from her grip, I dimly hoped the fricking thing would work. My head was skewed sideways against the bars. I brought my hands up to reach through and jab her eyes, or hit her nose, or anything to release the merciless grip. But she pulled her head back. I clawed at her fingers, raking her skin. I prised one hand off, but she slid the other further down my hair out of my reach and yanked downwards. The solid plate at the bottom of the cell door prevented me kicking out at her shins. Where were the damned guards?

Her right hand came back up. I saw blood dribbling from the back where I had broken her skin. I shot my hand out between the bars to grab and hopefully break it. Anything to stop the pain of my hair being torn out. But she pulled away out of my reach, flicking her wrist sharply as if shucking off a case or cover. I heard a container hit the floor. She brought a hypodermic into my view, her thumb curled over the top of the plunger. Fuck. She was going to kill me.

‘Stop! Stop! You bitch,’ I gasped. ‘They know it’s you, they know you’re the traitor.’

She paused. ‘How?’

‘Too bloody greedy.’ I gulped for air. ‘Two thousand
solidi
dress on your pay? Don’t think so. Ow!’

She yanked my hair hard, jamming my head against the bars again. Blood trickled down my face. I was going to black out again. I screamed for my life. Then, in an instant, the pressure vanished. Released so abruptly, I staggered back and collapsed on the floor.

‘Got it.’ I heard Lurio’s voice. Then a smack of flesh on flesh. From my cell floor, I saw Ginger, hands forced behind her back, a blue-clad knee pinioning her to the floor. I struggled up to my hands and knees, trying to get to my feet. My legs were like rubber. The cell door slid open and a pair of strong, familiar arms lifted me up.

‘It’s over. It’s over. You’re safe now.’

The first thing I heard was an electronic beep. Next, throbbing, sending rings of pain through my head. And why did I have a hat on indoors? I raised my hand to take it off and found a sensor attached to my finger. I unclipped it and struggled up onto my elbows. Ah, the hat was a gauze bandage, like a finger bandage but for the head. I saw a cup of water on the locker, reached through the dizziness caused by sitting up and drank a cupful. The throbbing didn’t pinch so much now I was partly upright. I found I was attached to a drip. What was that for? I was looking for a buzzer when Lurio arrived.

‘Still damned insubordinate?’ He eased me back onto the pillows with one hand, supporting my back between my shoulder blades with the other so I went down slowly. His face and upper body were centimetres from mine; it was strangely intimate.

‘They spend thousands on monitoring systems, so do them the courtesy of using them,’ he said lightly, clipping the sensor back on my finger.

‘You’re such a bully, Lurio’.

‘Yes, I expect I am.’

‘Is…has…oh crap, tell me everything.’

He sat on the bed, took my other hand and laughed. ‘Ginger, as you call her, more properly Lieutenant Maia Robbia, had been on the take from Palicek and friends for over a year. She’d got into debt through her extravagance. Mars knows how, the money they pay Praetorian officers. They were all stunned. Apparently she’s a rising star, a brilliant field officer, etc, etc.’ He yawned theatrically.

I remembered how fast and determined she’d been when she attacked me.

‘Palicek and associates are all in custody and will be indicted in four weeks’ time. They’re not going anywhere soon. Which leaves me with one very pertinent question. We can’t trace any of your, ah, former associates.’ He held my hand very firmly. ‘Somebody tip them off?’

‘It was just me in the club that day, apart from the staff. I couldn’t say what’s happened to them.’ I became very interested in playing with the sheet folds.

‘Right.’

‘Don’t pressure me on this, Lurio.’

‘It’ll all come out in the debrief.’

‘The what?’

‘Now you’ve done all the sexy stuff, the rest of us have to create mounds of paperwork to justify it and perhaps learn a few things we can teach others about how not to do it.’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘Write long reports, submit to interminable questioning and drink huge amounts of alcohol in the bar that your colleagues buy you in congratulation.’

‘My colleagues?’

‘You signed up, if you recall, as a member of the DJ. You’re part of a service.’

‘But that was purely for the operation?’

‘You have to stay in for a while, while we do all the post-op stuff. It’s not so bad, you know.’

I chewed my lip, unable to meet his gaze. ‘I’ve been on the other side of the law far more than on this one.’

‘Then you need to balance it up.’

‘Why are you pushing on this?’

‘Look, Bruna, I’m trying to be nice as you’re not feeling well. I’m not even going to bollock you for going off-plan, but you’ve basically got no option. Besides, you might enjoy it, you never know.’ He grinned.

‘Huh!’

‘At the moment, you have to concentrate on healing. Then we’ll sort you out.’

‘Er, Lurio, where am I?’

‘In the PGSF hospital wing.’

‘Oh.’ I shivered.

He pressed my hand again and leaned over to give me a comforting kiss on the forehead. For some reason, I gulped, loudly. I shuddered. He pulled me to him and held me, stroking my shaking shoulders and back.

After a few minutes, I pulled back and wiped my palms over my eyes. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be so soppy. I must be tired or something.’ I flapped my hand around in embarrassment.

‘No problem at all. Perfectly natural reaction to the stress.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go now, but I’ll call in later tonight, if you’re still awake. Try to behave.’