Scardown-Jenny Casey-2 (25 page)

Casey shot Leah a look. Leah dropped her voice. “Has Dad ever taken you up to see the eagles at my grandpa's house?”

“I didn't know there were any.” They leaned together across Patty, dark head bent toward blond, and Patty swallowed.

“I'll make him,” Leah said with a grin. “In spring when they have babies. I got divebombed once; it was scary. We should bring you, too, Ellie.” Leah leaned even farther around Casey to catch Dr. Dunsany's eye.

Patty didn't think Leah, looking away again as she spoke, could have caught the smile that curved only the left half of Casey's face. “How is your grandpère going to feel about being descended upon by a full house of people?”

“He'll love it,” Leah answered confidently, the two years between them rendering her completely oblivious to whatever it was that Patty heard shading Casey's voice.

Dr. Dunsany lowered her voice, too, and whispered. “How old is Gabe's dad?”

“Mideighties,” Jenny said dryly. “Conservative type.”

A slightly hysterical giggle. “I'm sure we'll all get along just fine.”

Patty bit the inside of her cheek, once more the outsider.
Spring is a long time away,
she thought. Leah
was
a lot younger. But she was just as smart as Patty, and didn't seem intimidated by anything Patty did or said.

It stung not to be included in the invitations. But Mom wouldn't let her go anyway. She'd want Patty studying for her entrance exams. Pilot program or no pilot program.

Until Leah grabbed her arm and said, “Have you ever seen an eagle's nest?”

“No,” Patty answered. “I never have.”

1800 Hours
Friday 8 December, 2062
PPCASS
Huang Di
Under way

Min-xue gloried in his silent dinner with the first and fourth pilots. The fifth pilot was sleeping and the third was on the bridge, and all three men enjoyed a moment when they simply didn't have to speak, interact, or even meet the gaze of anyone else. He floated in a corner of the padded Pilot's Ready Room, chopsticking dumplings out of an insulated sack, and stopped with a pot sticker tucked into his cheek as the interior door irised open.

The door that led into the Captain's Ready Room.

He swallowed in haste—the unchewed bolus stretching his throat painfully—and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, tucking the chopsticks into the bag before he zipped it shut and stuck it to the bulkhead. The other two pilots came to attention, floating at odd angles.

Captain Wu paused inside the doorway and cast a scorching gaze over all of them. “Second Pilot,” he said, in a voice that carried. Drawn lines creased his cheeks; Min-xue straightened as best he could, pulling himself into the captain's orientation with one hand on a grab bar.

“Sir.”

Min-xue kicked off the wall once the captain turned away, and drifted toward him.

Wu drifted to the far bulkhead, turned, and stared out one of the
Huang Di
's tiny portholes. A single bright golden disk flared in the darkness: the Sun, limning the curve of Mars crimson beneath them. They'd accomplished something the Westerners hadn't—taming the
Huang Di
's drive for use in-system. The trick was microsecond bursts calculated in advance, and then desperate corrections with the attitude rockets, gentling the velocity before the starship could impact a planetary body.

Not precise.

But effective.

“Second Pilot,” the captain said, without turning from the window. “A shuttle will be arriving from our interests in the asteroid belt shortly. We'll be bringing a cargo back to Earth.”

“Captain?”

“A load of nickel-iron. I wish you to relieve the third pilot for the duration. It may be tricky, and you're the best with the maneuvering jets.”

“Captain.” The other two pilots didn't speak, but Min-xue could feel their restrained curiosity even as they pretended deafness. “I'm honored.”

Wu shrugged and turned to face the pilots, putting the shoulder of the planet at his back, stars drifting in his hair. “Also, I'd appreciate it if you'd restrict your off-duty reading to more approved writers. That's all.” He pushed off from the bulkhead and drifted, quite accurately, toward the interconnecting door. Min-xue watched him go, wondering.

Why does he want the whole ship to know that what we're picking up is asteroidal iron?

Why are they wasting the
Huang Di
ferrying iron ore at all?

9:00 AM
Sunday 10 December, 2062
Office of the Chief Medical Examiner
Hartford, Connecticut

Kuai watched with amusement as Sally dug around in the bottom of an insulating carry sack and came up with a breakfast burrito and a cup of coffee. “They were out of ham so I got you Canadian bacon.”

“Like there's a difference.” Kuai took it and set it on the edge of her desk, away from the interface plate. “How does the day look?”

“Paperwork,” Sally said, and Kuai blew out around a groan. “Dr. Bates is in today. You're off the hook for autopsies.”

“Can't you arrange a nice triple homicide or something else to keep him busy?”

“You have pixels to push, Madam Hua. It's all in your in-box—” The bag swung in Sally's hand, rustling faintly.

Kuai could see the icon blinking
unread messages
on the corner of her interface. She didn't wear contacts at work; too much chance of infection in this environment. Her burrito reeked of grease, nauseating her and sparking her appetite all at once.
Bring fruit to work,
she reminded herself for the third time that day.

“I'll bring you a bagel at eleven if you're good.”

“Hell. Do I get a potty break at least?” But she tapped her in-box open obediently, barely noticing the interface's chill.

Sally blew brown strands out of her eyes and smiled. It plumped her hollow cheeks and made her suddenly pretty. Sally, unlike Kuai,
had
been both a uniformed and plainclothes police officer before accepting the appointment as Kuai's executive assistant. “You have got to be the only woman on Earth who would rather be up to your elbows in a nice stinky floater than sitting behind a desk. Which reminds me: any leads on that triple from September yet?” Sally also knew Kuai had adopted the case as half hobby and half obsession. A cop was a cop. Even an ex-cop. Sometimes especially an ex-cop.

“We have a scenario that accounts for all three deaths. The officer—Kozlowski—and the bounty hunter Yin follow Casey into the steam tunnel. The bounty hunter was operating out of the North End under the alias Bobbi Yee, by the way, and had been for some time. So they're both locals. There's a fight. The cop takes a bullet from the Unitek employee—Barbara Casey. Casey had been shot at long range, not enough to pierce her body armor but she had some pretty nasty blunt trauma ventrally. Yin and Casey mix it up, one thing leads to another, and they're in the wrong place when the steam plant vents. End of an ugly story, nobody to prosecute.”

“I can hear the
except
coming.”

“We recovered a bullet from the sewer wall. It didn't match a weapon at the scene. And Yin and Kozlowski were seen in the company of Dwayne ‘Razorface' MacDonald earlier that night.”

“The crime boss?”

“The same.” Kuai reached for her burrito and started to unwrap it, although she wanted the coffee more. The acid would make her regret that, though, if she didn't buffer first. It was either eat or start putting milk in her coffee. And that
would
be a fate worse than death. “Moreover, we've got other complications. It looks like an outside supplier was giving MacDonald's enemies access to high-powered weapons. Guns manufactured by a Korean Unitek subsidiary and reported stolen some year previous. And a North End fixture—a sort of information broker, street doctor, and auto mechanic type, if you can picture that—went missing around the same time. Crossed the border at Niagara with Barbara Casey—then Casey returned to the U.S. and got killed.”

“Have we found any other links?”

“Her—” Kuai stopped herself. “Excuse me. ‘An anonymous tipster' turned over the documents I had you fact-check and forward to Gary Orsin. The auto mechanic's name . . . want to guess?”

“Kozlowski?”

“Genevieve Casey.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, that's what I said. Guess where she works now?”

Sally's answer was cut off as the interface beeped a priority code. Kuai glanced down at it—mail from Judge Orsin at Hartford Criminal Justice Court—and felt a grin start to tug her lower lip taut.
About damned time.
She opened it with a twist of her hand before the smile got away from her, on the off chance that it was a denial.

It wasn't. The documents attached included two search warrants, three subpoenas, and a polite request for assistance from the governor of the state of Connecticut to the Canadian consulate in New York City.

8:00
AM
Monday 11 December, 2062
Allen-Shipman Research Facility
Toronto, Ontario

Valens stopped outside Alberta's office and straightened his uniform. He stopped himself before his hand could creep up to adjust his tie.
Alberta
—he thought, and resisted the urge, as well, to shake his head.
Dammit. I hope Casey's wrong.

He rapped twice and opened the door. “Busy?”

Holmes shoved away a half-eaten doughnut on a paper napkin. “Did you bring coffee?”

He stepped inside and shut the door. “No. I just got a message from the prime minister's people.”

“
You
did? Really?”

He permitted himself a curt shrug. “I think it's an attempt to end run. They want an interview with Casey. Friday, at a location they don't plan to disclose until Casey's in the car.”

Alberta sucked her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed it contemplatively. “Put a tracer on her, Fred. Just in case?”

“Just—?”

“We wouldn't want your star pupil going missing between here and there, would we?”

Forgive me, Jenny.
Valens took a deep, calm breath and nodded.
I hope you're still as good at taking care of yourself as you used to be. Because I just set you up as the bait in a bear trap, and you don't even know it.

0500 Hours
Friday 15 December, 2062
HMCSS
Montreal
Earth orbit

Trevor Koske awoke with a mouth full of blood. Old instinct told him to lie still until he knew where he was; he breathed shallowly, red light filtering through closed eyelids, and quickly—thoroughly—counted fingers and toes, checked breathing and respiration, realized that the crusted, sticky feeling tugging his throat and chest was not a good sign.

He opened his eyes a crack, pleased that the lashes weren't gummed together with—

Jesus. Is that all my blood?

With infinite caution, he raised his right hand. The yellow light assailing his eyelids flickered away as if cut by a guillotine, leaving the room in darkness, but he knew where he was. His quarters. Which were spinning with the
Montreal,
taking him from sunside to darkside, and all that sticky wetness on his hands, under his buttocks, weighing his jumpsuit to his lap—
it can't all be my blood
.

His fingertips brushed the knife handle protruding under his chin.

He almost fainted.
“Montreal?”
he whispered, and in a less cautious moment might have sobbed in relief when he heard his own voice. “
Montreal?
Can you hear me?”

0600 Hours
Friday 15 December, 2062
Wellesley Street East
Toronto, Ontario

They send a limousine before dawn. At least they're kind enough to send it to Boris's and my new apartment, which is in the same featureless block of guard-walled Canadian Army flats as Elspeth's—one floor up and three doors over. Convenient. Maybe we should get Gabe to move in here, too. Make it that much easier to spy on us all.

I wait in the lobby for no more than ninety seconds before the sleek black car pulls up outside. I pass through wood-paneled revolving doors, snugging my scarf tight around my neck. I'm only wearing a uniform cap because of time spent fussing my hair, and the wind takes my breath away. Valens insisted I play dress-up for this, and brushed green wool peeks out of the cuffs of a coat rated for arctic wear. Someone's out of the car before I make it to the curb, opening the rear door; in the darkness and with the green cast from my low-light confusing things, it takes me a moment to recognize a Mountie in winter uniform. He waits until I draw my legs inside and shuts the door; just as the locks click and he slides in front next to the driver, I feel Richard join me.

“Relax and enjoy the ride, Master Warrant Officer,” the driver says. “We'll be there in about three hours.”