You said yourself this box is an impressive piece of technology. It looks like whoever did this took some effort to make sure it couldn’t be taken. I don’t want to insult you, but given that you’ve had only a very little amount of time with this box, do you really think you’re going to find some way to outwit it and save me?
“I’m good at what I do,” Wilson said.
If you were that good, you wouldn’t be here. No offense.
“I’d like to try,” Wilson said.
I would like you to try, if it didn’t mean you possibly dying. One of us dying seems inevitable at this point. Both of us dying seems avoidable.
“You asked us to help you,” Wilson reminded Rayth Ablant.
You did. You tried. And even right now, if you wanted to keep trying, it’s clear I couldn’t stop you. But when I asked you to help, you helped. Now I am asking you to stop.
“All right,” Wilson said, after a moment.
Thank you.
“What else can I do for you?” Wilson asked. “Do you have friends or family that you want us to contact? Do you have messages for anyone I can send for you?”
I have no real family. Most of my friends were on the Urse Damay. Most of the people I know are already gone. I have no friends left.
“That’s not entirely true,” Wilson said.
Are you volunteering yourself?
“I’d be happy if you considered me your friend,” Wilson said.
I did try to kill you.
“That was before you knew me,” Wilson repeated. “And now that you do, you’ve made it clear you won’t let me die if you can help it. I think that makes up for your earlier indiscretions.”
If you are my friend, then I have a request.
“Name it,” Wilson said.
You are a soldier. You’ve killed before.
“It’s not a point of pride,” Wilson said. “But yes.”
I’m going to die because people who don’t care about me have used me and then thrown me away. I’d prefer to leave on my own terms.
“You want me to help you,” Wilson said.
If you can. I’m not asking you to do it yourself. If this box is as sensitive as you say it is, if I die, the bomb could go off. I don’t want you anywhere near when it does. But I think you could find another way.
“I imagine I could,” Wilson said. “Or at the very least I could try.”
For your trouble, let me offer you this.
There was a data ping on Wilson’s BrainPal: an encrypted file, in a format he wasn’t familiar with.
When I had completed my mission—when I had killed your ship and the Conclave ship—I was to feed this into the ship’s guidance system. It’s coordinates for my return trip. Maybe you’ll find whoever’s behind this there.
“Thank you,” Wilson said. “That’s incredibly helpful.”
When you find them, blow them up a little for me.
Wilson grinned. “You got it,” he said.
There’s not much time before the emergency power is entirely used up.
“I’ll have to leave you,” Wilson said. “Which means that no matter what happens I’m not coming back.”
I wouldn’t want you here no matter what happens. You’ll stay in contact with me?
“Yes, of course,” Wilson said.
Then you should go now. And hurry, because there’s not a lot of time left.
* * *
“This isn’t going to be a popular sentiment, but he’s going to die anyway,” said Captain Fotew. “We don’t have to expend the effort.”
“Are you suddenly on a budget, Captain?” Wilson asked. “Can the Conclave no longer afford a missile or a particle beam?” They were on the bridge of the Nurimal, along with Abumwe and Sorvalh.
“I said it wouldn’t be a popular sentiment,” Fotew said. “But someone ought to point it out, at least.”
“Rayth Ablant has given us vital information about the whereabouts of the people directing him,” Wilson said, and pointed toward the bridge’s communications and science station, where the science officer was already busily attempting to crack the encryption on the orders. “He’s been cooperative with us since our engagement with his ship.”
“It’s not as if he had much of a choice in that,” Fotew said.
“Of course he had a choice,” Wilson said. “If he hadn’t signaled to Corporal Carn, we wouldn’t know he was there. We wouldn’t know that some organization out there is taking the Conclave’s missing ships and turning them into glorified armed drones. We wouldn’t know that whoever this group is, they’re a threat to both the Conclave and the Colonial Union equally. And we wouldn’t know that neither of our governments is engaging in a stealth war with the other.”
“We still don’t know that last one, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said. “Because we still don’t know the who. We still don’t know the players in this game.”
“Not yet,” Wilson said, motioning back to the science station. “But depending how good your code cracker is over there, this may be a temporary problem. And for the moment, at least, our governments are sharing information, since you’ve gotten that information from me.”
“But this is a problem of proportion, isn’t it?” Sorvalh said. “Is what we learn from you going to be worth everything we’ve expended to learn it? Is what we lose by granting Rayth Ablant his death more than we gain by, for example, what remains of his box when the explosion is over? There’s still a lot we could learn from the debris.”
Wilson looked over to Abumwe pleadingly. “Councillor,” Abumwe said, “not too long ago you chose to surrender your vessel to us. Lieutenant Wilson here refused your surrender. You praised him for his thinking then. Consider his thinking now.”
“Consider his thinking?” Sorvalh said, to Abumwe. “Or give him a decision on credit, because of a presumed debt to him?”
“I would prefer the first,” Abumwe said. “I would take the second, however.”
Sorvalh smiled at this, looked over to Wilson and then to Fotew. “Captain?”
“I think it’s a waste,” Fotew said. “But it’s your call to make, Councillor.”
“Prepare a missile,” Sorvalh said. Captain Fotew turned to do her bidding; Sorvalh turned her attention back to Wilson. “You used your credit with me, Lieutenant,” she said. “Let’s hope that in the future you don’t have cause to wish you had spent it on something else.”
Wilson nodded and opened up a channel to the Urse Damay. “Rayth Ablant,” he said.
I am here, came back the text.
“I’ve gotten you what you wanted,” Wilson said.
Just in time. I am down to the last 2 percent of my power.
“Missile prepped and ready for launch,” Captain Fotew said, to Sorvalh. Sorvalh nodded to Wilson.
“Just tell me when you want it,” Wilson said.
Now is good.
Wilson nodded to Fotew. “Fire,” she said, to her weapons station.
“On its way,” Wilson said.
Thank you for everything, Lieutenant Wilson.
“Glad to,” Wilson said.
I’ll miss you.
“Likewise,” Wilson said.
There was no response.
“We’ve cracked the order,” the science officer said.
“Tell us,” Sorvalh said.
The science officer looked at the humans on the bridge and then Captain Fortew. “Ma’am?” she said.
“You have your orders,” Fotew said.
“The coordinates for the return flight of the Urse Damay are in this system,” the science officer said. “They resolve under the surface of the local star. If it came out of skip there, it would have been destroyed instantly.”
“Your friend was never going home, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said.
“Missile has reached the Urse Damay,” Fotew said, looking at her bridge display. “Direct hit.”
“I’d like to think he just got there on his own, Councillor,” Wilson s
aid.
He walked off the bridge of the Nurimal and headed toward the shuttle bay, alone.
EPISODE TWELVE
The Gentle Art of Cracking Heads
“This is a very interesting theory you have, about conspiracy,” said Gustavo Vinicius, the undersecretary for administration for the Brazilian consulate in New York City.
Danielle Lowen frowned. She was supposed to be having this meeting with the consul general, but when she arrived at the consulate she was shunted to Vinicius instead. The undersecretary was very handsome, very cocksure and, Lowen suspected, not in the least bright. He was very much the sort of person who exuded the entitled air of nepotism, probably the less-than-useful nephew of a Brazilian senator or ambassador, assigned someplace where his personal flaws would be covered by diplomatic immunity.
There was only so much Lowen could stew about the nepotism. Her father, after all, was the United States secretary of state. But the genial, handsome stupidity of this Vinicius fellow was getting on her nerves.
“Are you suggesting that Luiza Carvalho acted alone?” she asked. “That a career politician, with no record whatsoever of criminal or illegal activity, much less any noticeable political affiliations, suddenly took it into her head to murder Liu Cong, another diplomat? In a manner designed to undermine relations between the Earth and the Colonial Union?”
“It is not impossible,” Vinicius said. “People see conspiracies because they believe that one person could not do so much damage. Here in the United States, people are still convinced that the men who shot Presidents Kennedy and Stephenson were part of a conspiracy, when all the evidence pointed to single men, working alone.”
“In both cases, however, there was evidence presented,” Lowen said. “Which is why I am here now. Your government, Mr. Vinicius, asked the State Department to use this discreet back channel in order to deal with this problem, rather than go through your embassy in Washington. We’re happy to do that. But not if you’re going to give us the runaround.”
“I am not giving you a runaround, I promise,” Vinicius said.
“Then why am I meeting with you and not Consul Nascimento?” Lowen asked. “This was supposed to be a high-level, confidential meeting. I flew up from Washington yesterday specifically to take this meeting.”
“Consul Nascimento has been at the United Nations all day long,” Vinicius said. “There were emergency meetings there. She sends her regrets.”
“I was at the United Nations before I came here,” Lowen said.
“It is a large institution,” Vinicius said. “It’s entirely possible that you would not have crossed paths.”
“I was assured that I would be given information pertaining to Ms. Carvalho’s actions,” Lowen said.
“I regret I have nothing to give you at this time,” Vinicius said. “It’s possible that we may have misunderstood each other in our previous communications.”
“Really, Mr. Vinicius?” Lowen said. “Our mutual State Departments, who have been in constant contact since your nation brought its first legation to Washington in 1824, are suddenly having communication difficulties?”
“It is not impossible,” Vinicius said, for the second time in their conversation. “There are always subtleties which might go misread.”
“I am certain things are going misread at the moment, Mr. Vinicius,” Lowen said. “I don’t know how subtle they are.”
“And if I may say so, Ms. Lowen, in the case of this particular issue, there is so much disinformation going on about the event,” Vinicius said. “All sorts of different stories about what happened on this ship where the events took place.”
“Is that so,” Lowen said.
“Yes,” Vinicius. “The eyewitness reports aren’t especially credible.”
Lowen smiled at Vinicius. “Is this your personal opinion, Mr. Vinicius, or the opinion of the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations?”
Vinicius smiled back and supplied a little hand movement, as if to suggest the answer was, A little of both.
“So you’re saying that I am not a credible eyewitness,” Lowen said.
Vinicius’s smile vanished. “Excuse me?” he said.
“You’re saying I am not a credible eyewitness,” Lowen repeated. “Because I was part of that diplomatic mission, Mr. Vinicius. In fact, not only was I there, I also conducted the autopsy that established that Liu Cong’s death was murder, and also helped identify how it was the murder was accomplished. When you say that the eyewitness reports are not credible, you’re talking about me, specifically and directly. If what you’re saying actually reflects the opinion of the Ministry of External Relations, then we have a problem. A very large problem.”
“Ms. Lowen, I—,” Vinicius began.
“Mr. Vinicius, it’s clear we got off on the wrong foot here, because I was assured there would be actual information for me, and because you are clearly an unprepared idiot,” Lowen said, standing. Vinicius rushed to stand as well. “So I suggest we start again. Here’s how we’re going to do that. I am going to go downstairs and across the street to get a cup of coffee and perhaps a bagel. I will take my time enjoying them. Let’s say a half hour. When I return, in half an hour, Consul General Nascimento will be here to give me a full and confidential briefing on everything the Brazilian government knows about Luiza Carvalho, which I will then report back to the secretary of state, who, just in case you didn’t know, as it’s clear you don’t know much of anything, is also my father, which if nothing else assures that he will take my call. If, when I return, Consul Nascimento is here and you are nowhere nearby, I might not suggest that you be fired by the end of the day. If, when I return, she is not here, and I have to see your smug face again, then I would suggest you take a long lunch break to book your trip back to Brasília, because you’re going to be there by this time tomorrow. Are we clear on these details?”
“Uh,” Vinicius said.
“Good,” Lowen said. “Then I expect to see Consul Nascimento in half an hour.” She walked out of Vinicius’s office and was at the consulate’s elevator before Vinicius could blink.
Across the street at the doughnut shop, Lowen pulled out her PDA and called her father’s office, getting James Prescott, his chief of staff. “How did it go?” Prescott asked, without preamble, as he opened up the connection.
“Pretty much exactly as we anticipated,” Lowen said. “Nascimento wasn’t there and pawned me off on an egregiously stupid underling.”
“Let me guess,” Prescott said. “A guy named Vinicius.”
“Bing,” Lowen said.
“He’s got a reputation for stupidity,” Prescott said. “His mother is the minister of education.”
“I knew it,” Lowen said. “Mommy’s boy made a particularly dumb remark, and that allowed me to tell him to produce Nascimento or I would start a major diplomatic incident.”
“Ah, the gentle art of cracking heads,” Prescott said.
“Subtle wasn’t going to work on this guy,” Lowen said, and then the windows of the doughnut shop shattered from the pressure wave created by the exploding building across the street.
Lowen and everyone else in the shop ducked and yelled, and then there was the sound of glass and falling debris outside, all over Sixth Avenue. She opened her eyes cautiously and saw that the glass of the doughnut shop windows, while shattered, had stayed in their frames, and that everyone in the doughnut shop, at least, was alive and unharmed.
Prescott was yelling out of the speaker of her PDA; she put the thing back to her ear. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”
“What just happened?” Prescott asked.
“Something just happened to the building across the street,” Lowen said. She weaved her way through the still-crouching patrons of the doughnut shop and went to the door, opening it gently to avoid dislodging the shattered glass. She looked up.
“I think I’m not going to get that meeting with Nascimento,” she said, to Prescott.
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“Why not?” Prescott said.
“The Brazilian consulate isn’t there anymore,” Lowen said. She disconnected the PDA, used it to take pictures of the wreckage on and above Sixth Avenue and then, as a doctor, started to tend to the injured on the street.
* * *
“Amazonian separatists,” Prescott said. He’d caught the shuttle up from Washington an hour after the bombing. “That’s who they’re blaming it on.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Lowen said. She and Prescott were in a staff lounge of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions. She’d already given her statement to the New York Police Department and the FBI and given copies of her pictures to each. Now she was taking a break before she did the whole thing over again with State.
“I didn’t expect you to believe it,” Prescott said. “I’m just telling you what the Brazilians are saying. They maintain someone from the group called in and took responsibility. I think we’re supposed to overlook that the specific group they’re pinning it on has never once perpetrated a violent act, much less traveled to another country and planted a bomb in a secure location.”
“They’re crafty, those Amazonian separatists,” Lowen said.
“You have to admit it’s overkill, though,” Prescott said. “Blowing up their consulate to avoid talking to you.”
“I know you’re joking, but I’m going to say it anyway, just to hear myself say it: The Brazilians didn’t blow up their own consulate,” Lowen said. “Whoever our friend Luiza Carvalho was in bed with did it.”
“Yes,” Prescott said. “It’s still overkill. Especially since the Brazilian ambassador is now down at Foggy Bottom giving your father everything they know about Carvalho’s life and associations. If their plan was to intimidate the Brazilian government into silence, it’s gone spectacularly wrong.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t their plan,” Lowen said.
“If you have any idea what the plan is, I’ll be happy to hear it,” Prescott said. “I have to go back down tonight to meet with Lowen senior.”
“I have no idea, Jim,” Lowen said. “I’m a doctor, not a private investigator.”
“Rampant speculation would be fine,” Prescott said.