The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (30 page)

“We don’t want to go there, Noelle,” Nyquist said quietly. “We have decades of cases that would have to be retried if we win that particular argument. All of those cases in which the lawyers’ work would be declared null and void.”

“We don’t have any Peyti prosecutors in Armstrong, Bartholomew,” DeRicci said. “There’s no prosecutorial misconduct. I’m not a lawyer, but I’ll bet we could get some judge to sign off on a review of the cases, and say that’s enough. Because there’s nothing in Armstrong law that says we need to have a real lawyer
defending
something. There are laws against prosecutorial misconduct, but not on the type of representation that a defendant must have, as long as the defendant got a competent representative.”

The burger didn’t look appealing, but the fries suddenly did. Nyquist grabbed some, and ate, tasting grease, salt, and sugar.
Enjoying
the grease, salt and sugar.

“That’s a real risk, Noelle,” he said. “It’s not an argument that just anyone could make.”

So many of his colleagues had tossed out subtlety after the attacks.

“No,” she said. “But you could. And maybe you could get Uzvaan to talk.”

“So many maybes,” Nyquist said.

“So many opportunities,” DeRicci said, and smiled.

Nyquist smiled back. What she was suggesting was crazy. But crazy in a way that might help them.

If he could keep his anger under control. If he could manipulate Uzvaan. If Uzvaan knew anything useful.

If, if, if.

Nyquist knew what DeRicci would say next. She would tell him to try.

Because, when it came down to it, he had nothing to lose.

THIRTY-FIVE

ZHU STOOD IN the center of what would be the reception area of S
3
On The Moon, and stared at the woman he never thought he would talk to again.

Berhane Magalhães, his former fiancée, whom he’d dumped with his usual exquisite timing. He had left her inside the terminal in the Port of Armstrong just before the news of the Anniversary Day attacks broke. She lost friends, and family members, and he hadn’t been able to comfort her.

Not that she had really needed comforting. It seemed like Anniversary Day had revealed the inner Berhane, the one he hadn’t known existed.

She came from one of the Moon’s richest families, and instead of sitting back and letting her money take care of all the problems, she worked for a variety of organizations, doing her best to help victims of Anniversary Day. And then she had started a foundation of her own. All of her work was hands-on. He supposed she was also donating more than time, but he didn’t know.

He had barely spoken to her since that day, and when he had, the conversations left him feeling inadequate.

“Berhane?” His voice sounded strangled.

She turned. Her face had become angular, as if she had lost weight or gained gravitas or something. He had never seen her hair so short. It accented her features. She lost some conventional beauty and gained a luminosity that he hadn’t thought possible.

When her gaze found his, she frowned.

“Tell me it’s not true, Torkild,” she said, without saying hello.

His stomach clenched. He knew what she was talking about, but he pretended that he didn’t.

“Hello to you too,” he said. “Welcome to the new offices of S-Three On The Moon. I’m setting them up. If you or your father know of any large property for sale—”

“We certainly wouldn’t sell it to S-Three,” she said. “Not if the rumors are true.”

He made himself smile, even though his stomach actively hurt now. Funny how before Anniversary Day he couldn’t have cared what this woman thought of him, and now her opinion mattered more than he wanted to admit.

“I’ve been so busy, I don’t have time for rumors,” he said.

“You’re representing the
murderers?
How could you, Torkild?”

He almost took refuge in that most lawyerly of tricks, arguing with her word choice.
They’re not murderers, Berhane, until they’re found guilty.
Or, he could have said,
They’re not really murderers, Berhane. They only attempted murder. Those who succeeded died.

But he caught all the words before they flooded out of him. His cheeks warmed and he wished he could control that. Normally, he could, but apparently Berhane had found another way in.

“I’m S-Three’s representative on the Moon,” he said in his
let’s humor Berhane
voice, a voice he never ever used with anyone else. “The only reason I’m doing all this is because I’m the only partner on the Moon. Luck of the draw and all that.”

“You’re not denying it. You’re representing those murderers.” She blinked. Her eyes looked moist. Was she going to come up to his new office suite and
cry
?

That pissed him off. That was the old Berhane, the one who got her way through manipulation and tears.

“I’m starting a branch of the firm,” he said. “That does mean I’m handling some matters while I wait for the actual attorneys of record to show up, but that’s all, Berhane. I—”

“You’re
lying
,” she said. “I always knew when you were lying, even when you thought I didn’t. You can’t do this, Torkild. You can’t represent them. They’re monsters.”

The lawyer answers, so rote, rose up first.
Everyone’s entitled to a defense, Berhane
. But he suppressed that too, and then protected his links so he didn’t accidentally send those answers to her that way.

“You came up here to yell at me, Berhane?” he asked quietly.

“I came up here so you could tell me it was all a vicious lie,” she said. “And it’s not, is it?”

He sighed. “What do you want from me, Berhane? We’re not engaged any more.”

“Let me hire you away,” she said. “Shut this all down. Become a victim’s advocate. We can use lawyers with vision. You’ll be able to argue for people who’ve lost everything.”

His shoulders slumped. If only she had offered him that a few days ago, he would have considered it. He had actually asked her for a job when he got here, and she had said no.

He wondered if she remembered. He suspected she did.

“What’ll you pay, Berhane?”

“Is this really about money?” she asked.

He thought,
Of course it’s about money, Berhane. Don’t you know me?
and struggled to keep that thought to himself as well.

“Berhane?” he asked.

She frowned. That disapproving expression that had covered her face so many times in the past. He recognized it, and then he would try to placate it. Now, he didn’t want to.

She said, “The organizations that represent the victims, we don’t have a lot of money.”

He knew that. He had known that when he asked the question. But he wanted her on the defensive now.

“So,” he said, “pay for it with family funds.”

If she did that, if she paid him commensurate with the money he would get from S
3
over the next ten years, then maybe he would consider working for her.

Her lips thinned. She whirled away from him and walked to the window.

He’d hit a sore spot. And as he was getting over his shock, he realized he was also getting mad. She had attacked him.

He was going to attack back.

“Your father doesn’t approve of what you’re doing, does he?” Zhu said.

“It’s not about my father,” she said.

Liar,
he wanted to say.
It’s always about your father
.

“Did he cut you off?” Zhu asked.

“No,” she said, arms crossed.

Zhu recognized the posture. He wasn’t to ask any more questions. She would lose control if he did. And he didn’t want her to cry in front of him. That had happened more times than he could count, and he really didn’t want to suffer through it again.

“So, he put you on an allowance?” Zhu asked.

“Why is this suddenly about me?” she ask, turning around to face him. Her skin was beet red, her eyes wet. “You’re defending murderers.”

He was. And, oddly, that was the job he had signed on for. He had decided to be a defense attorney years ago, knowing he might defend awful criminals.

And knowing it would make him rich.

“What do you want from me, Berhane?” Zhu asked quietly.

“Everyone knows we were engaged, Torkild. They sent me up here to call you off.”

“We’re not engaged any longer, Berhane,” he said less gently than he probably should have. “Why did anyone think I would listen to you now?”

They both knew the rest of that sentence.
When I didn’t listen to you before
, was what he should have added if he really wanted to hurt her.

He didn’t. He respected what she had been doing. He admired it. He wished he could be like her, but he wasn’t. He never would be.

“They tried to destroy the
Moon
, Torkild,” she said. “How can you defend that?”

His back stiffened. He actually felt himself growing stronger. It didn’t matter that he had asked himself these questions. What mattered was that
she
was questioning him, and she had no right to do so.

She was crystalizing how he felt—about the cases, about himself, about S
3
.

“I’m going to handle these cases like I’d handle any other case,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

“Don’t give me that crap about everyone being entitled to a defense. You know better,” she said. “Monsters don’t get a defense.”

“We’re a society of laws, Berhane,” he said, maintaining that dignity. He was rather shocked that he was no longer using his humor-Berhane voice. Now he was actually talking to her like she was an equal, something he probably hadn’t done in years.

“That’s crap, and you know it,” she said. “If it were true, we wouldn’t have Disappeareds, we wouldn’t have—”

“People who Disappear are breaking the law,” Zhu said. “There’s a lot to dislike in the Alliance system, but there’s a lot to like. We get along with thousands of alien species. We have cultural exchanges and economic cooperation because of this ‘crap’ you’re talking about. That means, sometimes, you have to abide by laws you don’t believe in. It also means that sometimes you have to make sure that a group of bad individuals get the best treatment possible under the law.”

“You can’t believe that,” she said, in a near-whisper.

Oh, God
, he thought.
Here come the tears.

“You know,” he said, “I actually do.”

He sounded surprised. He
was
surprised. After the death of Trey, Zhu had let himself believe all the horrible things everyone had ever said of him—that he was in the law only for the money, that he didn’t belong anywhere, that he was a screw-up of the first order, that he didn’t believe in anything.

But he did believe. He had always believed in rules and order and law. He knew, deep down, that without them, governments couldn’t survive.

Governments were a fiction, after all. They were a fiction that individuals agreed to abide by, and the moment an individual didn’t abide by those rules, then there had to be punishments or other individuals would join. There would be chaos, governments would collapse, and he would be living in a universe that he didn’t like.

That idealism that Salehi had tried to nurture in him, the one Salehi had tapped when he got Zhu to agree to represent Trey in the first place, that idealism was still there, under the cynicism, the lies about money, the lies about his personal strength.

If anyone could turn Zhu against this mission, it was Berhane. He really admired her now. He admired the victims’ advocacy she was doing; he admired the work she was doing in cleaning up the mess left by Anniversary Day.

She had become an amazing woman, and he had never thought she could. She was standing on her own, and he thought that tremendous. There was something about her that reminded him of their early days, of the woman she might have been, without the toxic influence of her father.

Without the toxic influence of Zhu himself.

“You’re not going to change your mind,” Berhane said, as if he had stunned her.

“No,” he said softly. “I’m not.”

“You’re doing this for the money,” she said. “If I can get Daddy to pay you to leave here, will you do that?”

Zhu thought about it; he really did. He checked in with himself. He glanced around the office, and thought about how he’d feel.

He could almost see it—the money, the apartment, the stupid silk suits. The feeling of emptiness.

He could almost taste the alcohol on his tongue.

“Working with victims, they need defense too. They don’t have anything right now. Two of the biggest insurance companies handling civic organizations have gone bankrupt, and that means that two of the domes won’t be able to compensate victims for the dome’s lack of action—”