Cerberus: A WOLF IN THE FOLD (30 page)

 
"So what's this big, important message?"

 
"Tell him . . ." Here goes. "Tell him that hell never solve the deprogramming problem no matter how much time, money, and effort he puts in Project Phoenix. Tell him I can do it."

 
Hanak stared at me. "You ain't supposed to know about that."

 
"Just send it. And let me know when he wants the meeting. I have
work
to do back in my office." And with that I turned and walked out the door and back to the administrative complex. I had no doubt that Bogen would take the bait.
None at all.
I figured I'd hear the explosion from the office, and I wasn't far wrong.

 
Just a few minutes after I'd settled back down to try and get some work done, Hanak rushed in to see me.

 
"Well, big shot," he said, "I sent it out to the island and they threw a half-dozen shit fits. Bogen's up on the satellite but he's coming back down, personal, just like you wanted. You're to meet him in ninety minutes."

 
I nodded and grinned at him.
"Where?"

 
"In his office in the Castle."

 
"On the island?"

 
"What other castle is there?" He paused a moment, looking at me strangely. "You know, Zhang, you're either the dumbest guy I ever met or the nerviest. Which are you?"

 
I gave him a wide, toothy grin. "Guess!"

 
It was harder to get up a crew on this day off than I'd figured, but with backup and emergency services I was able to muster a gunboat crew in about half an hour, leave a note for Dylan reading simply, "It's started," and head for the island.

 
Bogen, although coming from the space station, would probably arrive before or at least at the same time as I did, assuming he left right after sending his reply. In point of fact, his "ninety minutes" was unrealistic for me to make, short of flying over, which security really wasn't prepared for. Even at top speed of something around seventy kilometers an hour, the boat would take almost ninety minutes just to reach the island, and we'd had a half-hour delay in starting. That was just fine with me. I liked to keep people waiting and fuming a bit—
knocks
them off balance and makes them somewhat emotional in a situation where I'm perfectly rational and as calm as I can be given my training.

 
Still, it seemed like an eternity crossing that stretch of ocean. I kept having nightmares about being attacked by a bork on the way over and having the whole thing end right there.

 
The crossing, though, was' uneventful, and soon the shining tower of the Castle hove into view, rising eerily up out of the trees. The sky was darkening, and I could feel a slight chill that told me that rain was due. It hardly bothered me. The executioner might care what sort of day it was, but not his victim.

 
We pulled up to the island dock and secured quickly. I walked off and up to the security building in back.

 
"Zhang," I told the duty officer. "Here to see Bogen."

 
She checked a screen and nodded. "You're cleared to his office and no other areas. Pick up your escort at the security gate."

 
"Escort, huh? Well, well!" I turned and walked out,
then
over to the gate I'd never gone through before. I had to put on a scanner to enter. Finally it confirmed that I was me and slid open, allowing me to step into a second chamber, where the procedure was repeated. Finally a far gate opened, and I walked through, meeting two khaki-clad and very serious members of the National Police, both very large men and both heavily armed.

 
"Walk between us and don't deviate from our path," one of them ordered. I gestured for him to lead the way. As we walked along the tree-lined paths
I
couldnt help but notice the special security systems all over the place and the fact that just about every step we took was being closely watched by somebody. Still, we were almost to the Castle when we had to get through yet another double gate with scan, and from there we walked on into the inner courtyard.

 
I was impressed. Although artificially surfaced like the docks and landing areas, and made from careful cutting of the trees, the area around the Castle was something I hadn't seen since leaving the Confederacy. They had imported sod from somewhere—probably Lilith, since that was supposedly the garden planet—and there was a huge, brilliant green lawn complete with exotic plants and flowers. I was impressed a little more with La-roo; this was the sort of thing
I
would have done in his position, but few others would have.

 
After another scan at the Castle entrance as we approached, we were inside double sliding doors. I had to admit, despite the tales from the concubines, I wasn't prepared for what I saw. We walked through huge open areas with incredibly opulent furnishings. Beautiful rugs and carpeting blended into furlike couches, chairs, and recliners. On the walls were beautiful works of original—I supposed—artwork that matched the mood of the rooms. The only jarring note was the policemen standing guard just about everywhere, that plus the knowledge that cameras were following us everywhere and seeing everything.

 
I never saw any stairways, although they might well be somewhere if only for safety reasons. We went up in a large elevator that was basically a glass tube wrapped completely around its supporting pole. Very neat, I thought.
They
control access to and egress from the elevators, can see you at all times, and make sure you go only where you're supposed to.

 
We got off on what I thought was either the fourth or fifth floor, walked across to the main building on a small ramp—which had emerged when we stopped there and pulled back into the wall once we were clear, another nice touch—and down another corridor. This floor was filled with rooms resembling national museums, complete with display cases and lighting. Weapons, corns, and gems from many worlds were all there in their respective places. I was more than impressed. I knew, too, that this stuff wasn't Wagant Laroo's—it was just put in his charge. Everything here was a type of object that could survive Warden
sterilization
from the Cerberan organism, and all of it belonged to somebody else, put here for safekeeping until its owner needed it or was in a position to enjoy it. I began to appreciate just what Bogen secured most of the time.

 
Finally we reached the end of the hall and a door slid back to reveal a modern office waiting room, complete with receptionist but lacking, I noticed, anything to read or look at.

 
My two guards flanked me while
I
presented myself. The receptionist nodded at my name. "Go right in. Director Bogen is waiting for you."

 
"I'll bet," I muttered and walked to the inner office door, then turned and looked back at my guards. "Not coming?"

 
They said nothing, so I opened the door and stepped inside.

 
It was a small, cramped office, one that looked really lived in-^-all sorts of books, magazines, print-cuts, you name it were scattered over the place, practically obscuring an L-style office desk with computer access terminals on one side and a pile of papers and other stuff, even a dictawriter, on the other. Bogen, dressed in casual work clothes, needed a shower and shave. Clearly he wasn't prepared for this, and his eyes had an angry look.

 
"Clear that junk away and sit down," he snapped, gesturing to a chair. I did so and just looked at him.

 
"Well?" he shot. "Just what kind of shit are you trying to pull on me, Zhang, or whatever your name really is?"

 
"I wanted to prove a point about your operation, and I think I proved it to your satisfaction," I told him, controlling heart rate, blood pressure, and everything else, to keep as calm and relaxed as was humanly possible.

 
"That my security stinks? Is that it? Look, it's easy for you to have picked up that Project Phoenix name just from some of the stuff around the docks, and maybe to guess a little that
we're
doing some kind of biological experiments out here. But you put your finger on the heart of the research, and that just isn't possible. Aside from the Chairman, me, and six or seven other people on Cerberus —and the other three Lords—there's nobody, and I mean nobody, who knows what we're doing who ever gets off this island. I want to know how you know, and I want to know why you told me you knew, before I have you killed."

 
"Charming," I responded dryly. "I'll bet that line is a big hit with all the girls." "

 
"Cut the clown act, Zhang! I'm in no mood for it."

 
"Would you believe I deduced it?"

 
"Ha!
From what?
You'd have to know more than almost anybody on this planet to do that."

 
"I do," I replied coolly. "I'm not
from
this planet. And to judge from your accent, neither are you originally. I know about the aliens, Bogen.
The aliens and their fancy robots."

 
"How
could
you know? Or are you admitting you're a Confederacy agent, like I thought?"

 
"I'm an agent," I admitted. "My old employer was the Assassination Bureau of Security. They took me and using a process that seems to have been developed based on what happens here on Cerberus, they put me in Qwin Zhang's body and sent me here."

 
"For what specific purpose?"

 
"Basically because they already suspected how the robots were so perfectly programmed," I told him, lying profusely and knowing that I was being monitored by li&-detection gear of the first water. That was all right. I had been trained to fool the best of them.

 
"That's bullshit and you know it!" he shot back. "If they knew that they'd be on us like a ton of bricks, connections or no connections."

 
"They know," I assured him. "And I'm almost certainly not the only one here, although I don't personally know of any others. Sure, they could knock down your fancy space
station,
maybe fry this island with a deep beam—but what would that get 'em? They want tne aliens, Bogen, and Cerberus is the only place so far where they have a direct link to them. They'll fry us, maybe the whole damned planet, one of these days, that's for sure —but not as long as they can gain as much or more than they lose."

 
Bogen chuckled. "Well, they'll have a long wait for that. I don't think even Laroo's ever met one. If any of the Four Lords have, it's probably Kreegan of Lilith. This whole thing was his idea, anyway."

 
"It's to our advantage not to let anybody know that— to
our
advantage, really. I don't want .to be fried, Bogen."

 
"It won't make any difference to you, anyway," he noted. "You're a dead man right now."

 
"I doubt it," I responded, sounding less than upset by his threats. "Now, I'm going to make a point, and I think you're intelligent enough to realize that it's the truth. I
could
have just reported my findings on. Project
Phoenix
to the Confederacy and let them take drastic action. I didn't. Instead I reported them to you."

 
"Goon."

 
"You know the old problem with agents sent to the Wardens. We're trapped here, same as you."

 
"They must have been pretty sure of you, since they could hardly keep any kind of trace on you from body to body," he noted.

 
"They were—and with good reason. I was born and bred for a job like this. It is the sole
reason for my existence, what I live, eat
, sleep, and breathe for. Once the
objective's
accomplished, there's no further reason for living. You've heard of the assassins before."

 
He nodded. "Met a
couple,
and I agree.
Fanatics.
I think old man Kreegan used to be one, in fact. So I know what you are and what you're like. I know out of your own mouth you're the most dangerous man on Cerberus to me and my boss."

 
"But they screwed up," I told him. "Believe me, it surprised me as much or more than
it's
gonna surprise them, but they slipped up. This place—well, it changed me, too. I have something to live for beyond the mission—or rather, someone."

 
Bogen seemed to relax a bit. I saw, though, that one eye kept glancing down at something beyond my field of vision. The lie-detector screen, probably. "So now you want in and you're trying to bargain with us, right? But you've got no cards."

 
"I think I do," I responded carefully. "The fact is
,
they were so sneaky they put in a deep psych command for me to report and forget I reported. I didn't even know that until I put my wife and myself under Dumonia up in Medlam."

 
Bogen tensed. "Then you might already have reported."