Rules of Conflict (5 page)

“Keep your voice down!” Joaquin glanced anxiously at Veda.
“Remember your place. No one has to tolerate your pithy commentary anymore.” He
clucked his tongue, then returned to his note taking.

Evan felt the lump in his gut grow and twist. Not long ago, people
stood in line to tolerate his pithy commentary and whatever else he cared to
dish out. It had been six months since the life he’d always known had ended.
Six months since the roof had caved in.

And we know who snapped the support beam, don’t we?
Evan
could see her face as clearly as if she sat across the table from him. Hair as
short and black as Veda’s. Eyes as dark. Skin as smooth. Look, as cold.

Jani, who killed the Laumrau and, before that, his Uncle Rik. Whom
he tracked down and pulled from the gutter eighteen years later, because he had
needed her a lot and still loved her a little. Who repaid him first by killing
his friend Durian, then by destroying his life.

Jani.

“Excuse me.”

Evan looked up to find Veda standing before him. Up close, he
could see the fine etching of lines that decorated the corners of her eyes. So,
there were smiles bottled up in that well-conditioned body. He wondered for
whom she saved them. He tried to inject some softness into his
expression—imagining what lay hidden under that trimly tailored summerweight
shirt made it easy.
Grey isn’t her color;
he forced himself to focus on
her face. No, it would have to be soft yellow or cream, something that would
complement the undertones of her skin . . . .

Joaquin’s puckered asshole of a voice shook Evan out of his sexual
reverie. “Have the vanished rosters reappeared yet, Colonel?”

A muscle throbbed in Veda’s cheek. “No, Mr. Loiaza, they have not.
The ranking documents examiner has been contacted, however, and we hope to have
them first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Do you?” Joaquin managed to inject more cynical skepticism in
those two words than less-skilled attorneys could in an entire summation. “I
find it very distressing that documents that could play an important role in my
client’s defense have gone missing as easily as last week’s newssheets.”

Veda’s chest rose and fell. Evan found the movement hypnotic.

“Not a very skillful diversion, Counselor.” The Judge Advocate’s
representative, a geeky youngster whose name Evan kept forgetting, drew up to
his full-yet-unprepossessing height. “Let’s not lose sight of the essential
facts. Your client is responsible for ordering the deaths of sixteen members of
this Service. Add to that his collusion in the deaths of the Bandan research
team at Knevçet Shèràa and his role in the illegal importation of idomeni
augmentation technologies—”

“All alleged, Counselor. My client has not been charged.”
Joaquin’s voice grew dangerously soft. “He’s here to assist you in your
investigation of Jani Kilian’s murder of her commanding officer. Unless you’re having
difficulty uncovering documents pertinent to that case, as well.”

The meeting ended with a terse assurance from Colonel Veda that
the documents would be available by morning. Evan watched her stalk out of the
conference room, his eyes greedily recording the sway of her walk in the
long-deprived recesses of his memory. “Was that necessary?”

Joaquin tossed his recording board into his briefbag. “Evan, just
because you have a hard-on for Veda doesn’t mean I have to cease doing my job.”

“Pithy, Quino.”

“Let that be a lesson to you.”

The SIB hallways mirrored the stripped-down aesthetic of the
conference room. Evan fingered the austere beige sacking that cloaked the walls
near the lift bank.
Roshi probably picked out the wall coverings himself.
Hiroshi Mako took pride in his functional, unadorned Service. He had battled to
the dizzy heights of the Admiral-Generalcy with one goal in mind, to salvage
his beloved Blue and Grey. They were a true military now, he claimed, instead
of the Family police force they had been in the Bad Old Days.

Those Bad Old Days were pretty good to me.
But then, Evan
could admit his bias. Anything that improved a Family’s place in the
Commonwealth was right and commendable, and anyone in the NUVA-SCAN Family
network who claimed to feel differently lied. Now, however, in these days of
restless colonies clamoring for autonomy and argumentative idomeni demanding
trade agreements that encroached more and more deeply into human territories,
wise Family members kept such sentiments to themselves.

Family first.
Even though, as far as the van Reuters were
concerned, the Family had for years consisted of him and him alone.

“Rather fine qualifying match on the ’Vee this evening,” Joaquin
said. “Live from Geneva—Gruppo Helvetica vs. some poor colonial appetizer.”

A scene flashed in Evan’s mind. Tanned, coltish legs pumping—black
ponytail flipping.
Daddy, watch me—!
His eyes stung. “Soccer’s not my
game, Quino.”

“It
is
the Commonwealth Cup.” Joaquin grew thoughtful.
“Although God knows what the upsurge of colonial pride will wash out of the
drains if one of those teams actually wins it this time.”

“Serena used to play on her school team.” Evan blinked until his
vision cleared. “I haven’t watched a match since she died.”

Joaquin shifted his feet. “Evan, I—”

“Just drop it.” He braced for a clumsy apology. When none proved
forthcoming, he turned to find his attorney regarding him with impatient
admiration.

“If the people of Chicago could see you at this moment, they’d
storm Sheridan to free you.” The man exhaled with a rumble. “You’re my client.
My responsibility is to you. Everyone’s heard the rumors. Let me place one
official story about the children—”

“No.”

“Damn it, it’s the prime example of how your late father
manipulated everyone around him! He subjects Martin to an experimental
personality augmentation at the age of three—eleven years later, Martin dies
during the boating mishap he’d arranged to kill Serena and Jerrold.”

“Thank you for mentioning it. I needed that.”

“The deaths of your children destroyed any chance you and Lyssa
had to rebuild your marriage.”

“Our marriage was a joke from the start.” Evan thumped the lift
bank keypad with his fist. “We’ve discussed this before. I haven’t changed my
mind. Use anything but the children. Let them rest in peace. End of subject.”
The lift door finally opened. He limped in, left knee clicking with every
stride.

“Since you brought up colonial pride, Quino, here’s a question. I
heard on CapNet that Acadia and the other Channel Worlds have lodged some kind of
protest concerning the arrests of political prisoners despite insufficient
evidence. One of those prisoners wouldn’t happen to be Jani, would it?”

“As soon as Kilian is found, the SIB is required to notify us. If
Veda lets us down in
that
regard, not even your esteem will prevent me
from tearing her apart.” Joaquin boarded the lift and punched the pad for the
ground floor. “Apropos of nothing, how is the Crème Caramel doing?” The mention
of roses erased the discomfort from his bony face.

“Fine, Quino.” Evan bit his lip to keep from grimacing. At his
flower-loving attorney’s insistence, he had planted a small rose garden in the
rear yard of his prison-home and tended the blooms faithfully every day.
Joaquin claimed that the image of a disgraced ex-Cabinet Minister tending his
garden as he once tended his constituents would excite sympathy from the
public, but Evan nursed the conviction that the man just needed a place to
stash the overflow from his own extensive cultivations.

“I hope you didn’t fertilize it yet. You need to wait at least
another two weeks.”

“Yes, Quino.”

“Then you must use the special mix I gave you for the Jewellers’
Loop hybrids, not the standard mix I gave you for the others.”

“Yes, Quino.”

“And you must wait until late afternoon. Spread no more than two
hundred grams around the base of the plant, then follow with a liberal
watering.”

God help me.
“
Yes
, Quino.”

By the time the lift reached the ground floor, Evan had mentally
dismembered the Crème Caramel with an ax and was about to start on his
attorney. The door swept aside; he stepped out of the car and almost collided
with a man dressed in summerweights. Short. Stocky. A round, tawny face cut by
a perpetual scowl. Black eyes hidden by sloping cheekbones and drooping lids.

“Hello, Roshi.” Evan stepped around the supreme commander of the
Commonwealth Service, then dodged sideways to avoid his aide. “Inspecting your
fences, are you?”

“Evan.” Admiral-General Hiroshi Mako pulled up short, then looked
in apparent disinterest from him to Joaquin. Only if you looked hard could you
detect the mild working of his broad jaw that betrayed his unease. But then,
what could he say?
How are you? What brings you here?
“Hellish weather
we’re having.” When in doubt, there was always the weather.

Evan racked his brain for a suitably neutral reply. “Plays hell
with the roses.”

Mako’s eyes clouded as he watched the lift doors close. He stepped
aside as his aide grabbed for the closing door and thumped the
keypad—unfortunately for him, the man’s efforts proved wasted. “You raise
roses? Ah yes, I saw something about that on one of the news shows.” Mako’s
guttural bass kicked upward a tone in grudging interest. “Tamiko raises them,
too.” His voice warmed as he spoke his wife’s name. “The J-Loop varieties give
her the hardest time, judging from her muttering. She refuses to accept mere
climate as an excuse for failure to thrive.”

“She should contact Dr. Banquo at the Botanical Gardens—the woman
was born on Phillipa and knows everything about Jewellers’ Loop hybrids.” Joaquin
leaned forward in shared conspiracy. “The secret is in the fertilizer.”

That’s government in a nutshell.
Evan caught the aide
eyeing him and tugged at his somber, dark blue jacket.
Do I look that bad?
He had lost weight, and he hadn’t been sleeping well, but what else would you
expect—?

“
Damn.
”

He turned to find Joaquin standing with his hand pressed to his
stomach and a look of stricken concentration on his face. “Watch my bag.” He
dropped his briefbag at Evan’s feet and hurried toward a discreetly marked door
near the lobby entry.

Evan answered Mako’s questioning look. “New cook. She tends toward
a heavy hand with some of the more pharmaceutically active colonial herbs.”

Mako winced in sympathy, then turned to his aide. “See if you can
find out which herbs she used, Colonel. The last thing we need at next month’s
off-site is an attack of the trots.”

“Yes, sir.” The man pulled a small handheld from the slipcase on
his belt and muttered a notation.

Evan watched the man; whoever he was, he didn’t look like the
typical Base Command poop boy. Distinctive, in the close-clipped, wire-lean way
that typified Roshi’s New Service. The nasty scar that grooved his face from
the edge of his nose to the corner of his mouth accentuated his sharp-featured
homeliness, its dull white color a marked contrast to the sunburnt red-brown of
his face.

But it was the way the man looked at Evan that drew his attention.
Not the pointed monitoring of the bodyguard, but the more analytical assessment
of one who searched through his mental ID file, matched, tagged, shrugged, and
moved on.

I know a hatchet man when I see one.
Evan had employed
enough of his own. He snatched a glance at the man’s name tag. “Colonel
Pierce.” He offered a nod, but didn’t try to shake. One too many snubs when he
had held out his hand had driven that lesson home.

“Sir.” Pierce nodded back, but kept his hands at his sides.

“You’re lucky to be lakeside in this weather.” When in doubt . . .
“At least you get some breeze.”

Pierce made a point of not looking Evan in the face, instead
concentrating on the floor indicator located above the lift doors. “Yes, sir.
That we are, sir.” His voice proved nasal and harsh. It could have been the
lower-class version of Evan’s own Michigan provincial, but odds were the muted
remnants of a Victoria colony twang would prove the more accurate choice.

From Pearl Way, are we?
Evan felt his long-dormant
curiosity stretch out a paw. It was a hell of a long trip from that far-flung
network of worlds to the Admiral-General’s side. At one time or another, Pierce
had proven himself extremely talented. Or extremely useful.

The lift returned to the first floor. “Good-bye, Evan.” The relief
in Mako’s voice was gallingly evident as the door opened and he and Pierce
stepped in. “Enjoy your roses.”

Evan watched the door close. Mako took care to avoid his eye. But
Pierce glanced at him just as the panels meshed, his scar twisting his
disgusted curl of lip into a caricature of a sneer.

“I’m back. What’s left of me.” Joaquin drew alongside, then bent
slowly to pick up his bag. His complexion was waxen, his eyes, narrowed to
slits. “Let’s go.”

Evan followed him out the door. After the coolness of the SIB, the
late-afternoon heat made him gasp. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been punched in the stomach.” Joaquin gestured to his
driver, parked in the nearby visitor’s oval. “I can’t decide if it was the
cherryvale leaves in the salad or the folsom in the gravy.”

“Probably a combination of both.” Evan watched his lawyer’s sedate
black double-length slide to the curbside and felt the envy twinge. He’d had an
entire fleet of black double-lengths at his beck and call, in that other
lifetime. Triple-lengths. Sedans. One cherry red Sportster he missed
particularly. He had planned to take Jani for a ride in it, as soon as the
weather and her stiff-necked mien had permitted.

The best-laid plans, all blown to hell.