Ragnarok (The Echo Case Files)

  * *

  The press had beaten her there. Or so Ramirez feared when she saw the thronging mass outside the hospital’s main entrance, and she parked the car near a lower access point. A surly janitor having a quick smoke in a doorway looked guilty at being caught, surly at being expected to let her in through a staff entrance, and startled and cooperative when she flashed her ID card at him.

  So she made it to the lobby without going near the front doors, coming up from the stairs and slinking to the main desk. The reception staff was on a different shift to twelve hours ago, but Ramirez was in uniform and reasoned she’d be easily identified with all of this fuss.

  ‘Here to see Lieutenant Tycho,’ she said, sliding her ID card across the desk for good measure. She looked at the front doors, the waiting mob of the press. ‘What tipped them off?’

  The young man bit his lip. ‘Nobody tipped them off - they just followed along.’ He nodded across the waiting room. ‘I don’t know who tipped him off, though.’

  Ramirez looked over, and her gut twisted at the sight of Graham Locke lounging on a bench. He was dressed with a relaxed formality that was perfect for a sombre occasion where one wanted to appear comforting: suit jacket, no tie, collar loose. If he was waiting there was no sign of impatience as he listened to the elderly woman and the young man accompanying her. For all the galaxy he would have appeared to be a concerned visitor were it not for the three slabs of muscle, suited in black, who stood far away enough to not ruin a moment, but close enough to never be forgotten.

  Her breath caught. ‘Why is he here?’

  ‘He, ah - wanted to see the Lieutenant, ma‘am.’ The receptionist cringed. ‘We told him he’d have to ask you, but he said he’d wait, that it wasn’t worth messaging you...’

  She wanted to object to the reasoning, but couldn’t. It would have been worse if she’d been commed for permission to use her injured partner to indulge his manipulative public appearances. Ramirez straightened. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’

  She strode across the waiting room, soothing shades of pale blue doing nothing to calm her heart thudding in her chest. Locke spotted her soon enough - and held up a hand to have her wait as he spoke on with the old woman.

  Most eyes in the room were on her, including those of the three blocky bodyguards. Ramirez unclenched her fists and summoned her best neutrally pleasant expression. Even in the face of everything, her old masks came when she focused.

  Eventually he finished, bidding farewell to the two trapped in the purgatory of a hospital waiting room, and headed over. His handshake was warm as she was forced to accept it and he gestured for her to step to one side with him as if a rubber potted plant gave the height of privacy.

  ‘Commander.’ His voice was sombre. ‘I‘m so sorry to hear about your partner -’

  ‘She’ll live,’ Ramirez said, chin tilting up half an inch. ‘What can I do for you, Mister Locke?’

  A lesser observer of human behaviour wouldn’t have seen the flicker before his mask became understanding. ‘That was it. I wanted to extend my sympathies and express that if there’s anything I can do -’

  ‘Are you a doctor?’

  His smile gleamed with sympathy. ‘No. But there are hardly enough of those in hospitals these days. Hardly enough staff or resources, everything redistributed to the war effort -’

  ‘Mister Locke, I am neither a journalist for whom you need to produce a sound-bite or some city councillor you‘re trying to sway to supporting you,’ said Ramirez with as much civility as she could muster. ‘How did you know to come here?’

  He did look abashed at that. ‘My supporters live and work all over the city. When one of them was here in the hospital last night and heard what happened to Lieutenant Tycho, I had to come down.’

  ‘And bring the press.’

  A wince. ‘I am, by necessity, a public face. Just as my supporters may tell me things, so may they tell the press of my whereabouts to raise publicity. A well-meaning, if misguided effort to help.’

  ‘Such a leak is to be expected,’ Ramirez said, voice flat.

  ‘In an organisation such as mine, yes, it can get quite sprawling -’

  ‘And even at your closest, most well-guarded levels, nuggets slip through the cracks.’ She studied his expression but found his mask of confusion unwavering. ‘Someone has to be telling Ragnarok where you’ll be and when for them to be on the scene quicker than the HCPD are.’

  Locke waved a dismissive hand. ‘The HCPD are led by the incompetent Commissioner Beyer. He would stop to get a coffee before responding to a crisis.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ muttered Ramirez. ‘I‘ve tried their coffee.’ But her words had not elicited the reaction she’d hoped for, his politician’s poise unwavering in the face of her implications.

  ‘My organisation is secure, Commander Ramirez, I assure you of that,’ said Locke. ‘And regardless - it won’t matter soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I had hoped to get to see Lieutenant Tycho.’ His tone made it clear he wasn’t about to answer the question. ‘But I see that now is a terrible time. I‘m sorry for being so bumbling and bringing the press down here. I’ll go out there, give them a sound-bite about the state of hospital funding and the sacrifices made by our serving military, and get them to leave with me.’

  For a moment, with his voice dropping, his gaze softening, his mask slacking, he actually sounded sincere. Comforting. Regretful. But Ramirez told herself it was just fatigue letting her be lulled into a false sense of security, and she squared her shoulders. ‘Don’t try to use my work or my partner for your political gain.’

  He blinked. ‘That wasn’t my intention. I misjudged. I apologise.’ Locke straightened, adjusting his cuffs. ‘I’ll be out of your way, Commander, and let you be about your business. Good day - and, for what it’s worth, my best wishes to the Lieutenant.’

  He turned to go, but his apology sparked a fresh note of indignation in her gut. ‘What happened to Stephen Wainwright?’

  Locke glanced over his shoulder. She thought she saw a waver in his gaze. ‘I‘m sorry?’

  ‘He was one of your technical support staff.’ Her keen investigative mind suggested that mentioning he’d tried to kill her would be indiscreet.

  ‘I don’t know the name. Honestly, Ms Singh deals with the hiring and firing of event staff. I deal with the bigger picture. Good afternoon, Commander.’

  Then he left. The eyes of most of the waiting room went with him, from Ramirez herself and the beleaguered receptionist to the old woman and her adult son. He had that power, the power to draw the attention of everyone, and when he stepped outside, he had the attention of the whole press team.

  Journalists were cynics, in Ramirez’s opinion, but she’d read their pieces on Locke. He was a human interest story at the heart of the anti-war movement, a movement destined to be unpopular - but he made it popular by focusing on the ways the endless, churning war machine of the Confederacy hurt people. He would fade from popularity soon, once people had grown bored of the shine and the smiles and the novelty and remembered their survival as a species and culture was more important than some quote about underfunded hospitals, but in the meantime he could ride the wave, their darling.

  And anger writhed in Ramirez as she watched him speak and knew every word he said - words of hope, of the people, of a civic duty, from the man who’d ordered her death, was a lie.

  Because she knew lies. And he’d been lying when he said he didn’t know who Wainwright was.

  She didn’t linger. The receptionist pointed her in the right direction and she took the winding route through the same pale-blue corridors. When she saw Doctor Anwar outside the door to Tycho’s room, she tried to not let her gut curl up into another knot of fear. The best she could manage was to not let it show. ‘You work long hours, Doctor.’

  The corners of his lips turned up at her words, but only slightly. ‘About as long as a Marshal? Commander...’

  Ramire
z knew that kind of trailing off of words. She stepped over and squared her shoulders. ‘It’s bad, isn’t it.’ If there had been a crisis, if Tycho had encountered complications, they’d have told her. But there was a whole world between that and ‘fine‘ and she suspected she was circling it.

  ‘I‘m legally only allowed to discuss the patient’s status with family -’

  ‘Do you want me to get my ID card out again?’ Ramirez gave a nervous smile to take the sting out of the genuine threat and, because despite her worry she felt sorry for Anwar, continued. ‘She’s my partner. If you don’t understand that means she is family, then you‘re clearly not a cop.’

  ‘Be glad I‘m not,’ Anwar said wryly. ‘Because your partner needs a doctor. And I’m not sure your authority as a Marshal extends to something like this which, forgive me, is clearly not a criminal matter.’

  ‘If I decide her status is relevant to the case, it is.’ Ramirez’s expression flickered. ‘Please. Tell me.’

  He sighed. ‘We discussed a lot of this last night. But these last twelve hours have been crucial, to see how the injuries would respond to the Regeneration Nodes. I‘m prepared to make a judgement now and, I‘m sorry to say, it’s unlikely she’ll make a full recovery.’

  Ramirez bit her lip. ‘What are we looking at, long-term?’

  ‘Limited lower body mobility. With physical therapy and further muscle regeneration she might be able to walk with aid, perhaps. I‘m confident she can retain upper body functions and mobility, but she’ll be bound to a mobile chair for the foreseeable future.’

  The words thudded into Ramirez’s gut. All she’d focused on the moment Tycho had gone down, the moment that bullet had hit, was for her partner to live. Live. Live. When she’d been told the previous night that she would, she’d relaxed. Nothing else had mattered.

  But now the prospect of her recovery came looming up before her as an insurmountable wall. Tycho wasn’t going to spend a stint in hospital and then go back to work like nothing had changed. She lived, but her whole life was going to be altered.

  ‘Can I see her?’

  Anwar moved to one side. ‘I‘m sorry,’ he said, and let her go.

  Inside was a monument to sterile boredom, but the moment she crossed the threshold there was a low croak from the bed against the wall. ‘Took you long enough.’ Tycho was flat on her back, pale, shrouded in sheets, nothing but the pad placed directly above the bed for distraction - but she was alive, and the best thing Ramirez had ever seen.

  She beamed despite herself. ‘How‘re you feeling?’

  ‘Like I got shot. Did you know I got shot? I didn’t know I got shot.’ Tycho’s eyes followed her as she pulled up a chair. ‘I remember an explosion and then it’s all a bit of a blur.’

  ‘Your bomb worked. It stunned them, maybe took some out. We got away. You saved us both.’

  Tycho was silent a moment, something relaxing in her expression, and she slumped. ‘See? You should listen to me more.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me about the bomb. I couldn’t tell you to not do it.’

  ‘It’s easier if I do things my way.’ Then her eyes shut. ‘...I‘m not going to help you get to the bottom of this one, Chief.’

  Ramirez reached for her hand, holding tight. ‘Don’t you worry about that, Tych. You focus on getting better.’

  ‘Yeah. Better. Anwar said.’ She glanced over. ‘Better that than dead. What’s your next move?’

  ‘I can handle it, you shouldn’t fuss over me.’

  ‘Really? Because - it’s a bit fuzzy, but I remember bits.’ Tycho bit her lip. ‘I remember Navarro screwed us. So that’s the HCPD you can’t trust. And you‘re down a partner. So it’s just you and Harrigan - except, in your book, that means it’s just you. Sounds like great reason for me to fuss.’

  Ramirez opened her mouth to object - then her shoulders slumped and she looked at Tycho’s small hand in hers, paler even than usual, and remembered she wasn’t very good at lying to her. ‘Harrigan wants to hire mercs so we can arrest and interrogate Navarro without risking the HCPD.’

  Tycho gave a tiny nod. ‘It’s a good idea.’

  ‘It’s insane.’

  ‘What about this situation, this planet, isn’t insane? You write a report explaining it, you know Tau will sign off on it once this is all over. She trusts you.’

  ‘Because I earned that trust. Marshals might be able to do more or less anything, but that doesn’t mean we should. There are still rules. Our own rules, even if they‘re not the law’s rules.’

  ‘Yeah, but you know your rules are about ten times more strict than anyone else‘s?’

  ‘Why do you think I can’t stand Delta Team, going off and doing whatever they like? Durand is everything people hate about the Marshals.’ Ramirez sighed. ‘Hiring criminals to abduct a police officer is beyond the pale. Paying them to do these things, whoever that officer is - we might have the power to act in the shadows, but we don’t have the right.’

  ‘The Marshals were made specifically to act in the shadows. To not be bound by the rules. So we can be more effective. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we are the desperate measures. Not the same old cops in fancy uniforms. You can’t hold yourself back.’

  ‘I have to,’ said Ramirez. ‘Because right now I don’t want to question Navarro, I want to break his kneecaps. I don’t want to hire mercs to apprehend him, I want to hire them to start a war to drive Ragnarok into the open. I want to find Vincente, I want to find whichever one of his goons put a bullet in you, and then I want to blow his head off right in front of a whole press corps. And then? Then I’d say, “I‘m a Confederate Marshal. He was a bad guy” and walk away Scott-free. I can do that.’

  Her voice echoed around the small hospital room, more tense and loud than she’d realised, and she fell silent with a dash of shame. Tycho was looking at her, green eyes piercing, before she smirked. ‘But you won’t.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘You’d tell me that an action can’t be bad because it might lead to something worse, it’s only bad if it is bad. Is hiring crooks to catch a crook unpleasant? Sure. But it’s necessary and you can contain the damage. It won’t go any further than that.’

  ‘You don’t know that, either. I don’t know that.’ Ramirez studied her knees.

  ‘I do know that,’ said Tycho. ‘I said your rules were more strict than anyone else’s, and I meant it. You are the most upstanding officer I ever met. Durand doesn’t care so long as she gets results. Ibrahim will do what Durand tells him to do. Even Tau will cheat and break the rules. But not you. Did I think it would never come to this? Of course. But I never thought we’d be fighting a war for humanity’s survival. I never thought we’d be on a Confederate world and finding it such hostile territory even the local PD are enemies. If ever there was a time the rules would be broken, it’s now.

  ‘This would worry me, but it’s you, Sara. If there’s anyone who’s going to take a step over that line and not only walk back when they‘re done, but get out chalk and fix the damage, it’s you. Durand might use the Marshal’s authority to the fullest, but you‘re the officer it was made for. Do what you have to, says the Senate - because we trust that justice will be done at the end of the day.’

  The part of Ramirez that had studied criminology, written a book on law and justice, philosophised and considered and planned her life and career, wanted to argue against the ends justifying the means. But a lump rose in her throat to almost choke her, and her hold on Tycho’s hand tightened. ‘You‘ve not called me Sara since we were junior lieutenants together.’

  ‘Yeah. Well.’ Tycho looked at the ceiling, blinking. ‘I think I‘ve had my last day in uniform.’

  Ramirez drew a ragged breath. ‘I will find these guys, Maggie. I will find them and drag them in by their ankles and show the whole galaxy that even Ragnarok, even the end of all things, can be stopped.’

  ‘I know.’ Tycho gave a small, crooked smile. ‘And I fe
el pretty sorry for those guys.’

  12

  ‘I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking.’ Harrigan smirked as they headed down the walkway towards the Flarestar.

  ‘Why are we meeting here, of all places?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Other than that the HCPD raided it only days ago?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He nodded. ‘They won’t do it twice, will they?’

  Ramirez had to concede this point. The shocking inefficiency and limited manpower of the HCPD made it unlikely they’d keep somewhere like this under watch in the days after a raid. That the Flarestar was open for business at all, let alone so soon, was a damning reflection of the corruption of city councillors.

  The bar’s glowing lettering, the best lighting a street this far down had this time of evening, was still incomplete. The door had been hastily hammered back onto makeshift hinges after being bust out of its frame, and creaked as Harrigan pushed it open.

  Inside was gloomier than ever. The bar might have been open for business but not every patron was brave or foolish enough to return. Furniture was reduced and mismatched as the owner repaired what had been broken, or scrounged replacements for what couldn’t be fixed. Smoke was thicker in the air than the hum of mumbled conversation. But aside from suspicious eyeballing, their arrival was ignored.

  ‘Habit’s a hell of a thing,’ Ramirez said, gaze sweeping across the patrons. Despite its distance from the spaceport, Harrigan had assured her this place was a favourite of off-worlders - and off-worlders were the least likely to be under Ragnarok’s thrall. It made for a decent meeting place.

  ‘They do good beer. Grab a table, I’ll get us some and we wait.’

  Despite herself she didn’t argue, getting a booth with her back to the wall as she watched Harrigan move across the bar. The bartender clearly knew him, which made her apprehensive, but soon enough he was sliding onto the bench across from her, holding two foamy glasses.

  ‘Even asked them to clean yours.’ He smirked.

  ‘You spoil me, Harrigan.’ She took a sip and made a face. ‘I thought you said the beer was good?’

  ‘That might have been a lie. Thought you weren’t allowed to drink on-duty, anyway. Or are the gloves off?’

  ‘The gloves aren’t off. This is still legal.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘And it will remain so.’

  ‘I thought anything you did was legal?’

  ‘That’s not how it works.’ Ramirez had another sip of watery, sour beer. ‘The Marshals weren’t made to be a law unto themselves. They were made so we could act freely in situations where local law and order isn’t enough. Like now.’ She looked around the bar. ‘Are you sure this place is safe to talk?’

  ‘They want to meet somewhere public.’ Harrigan leaned back on his bench. ‘I‘ve been off the grid a while and you‘re a cop. Nobody eavesdrops on conversations in the ‘star, but you try a violent double-cross here, this place will take care of itself. You don’t bring trouble to the Flarestar.’

  ‘These people. Who are they? Just some fence’s bodyguards?’

  ‘He hired them out, too. Truth be told I was surprised they were still on Thor. They‘re good.’ Harrigan looked over as the door swung open. ‘And here they are.’

  ‘They‘ turned out to only be three people. The first was the biggest, the muscle coming in to ensure the way was clear. He was a broad man, bald but with a square face covered by a bristly black beard. He wore only a white vest and baggy green cargo pants with bulging pockets, but in his right hand was a sports bag Ramirez expected to contain at least one gun.

  He looked to be escorting the other two. One was a dark-skinned young man who wore two earpieces and even had a lens over one eye. Some technical experts she’d met swore by the devices and how they let them keep one eye, literally, on their pad. Tycho, for her part, called them distracting and preferred an audio feed for updates. He was slouching with an indolent, uninterested air, clothes too big for him.

  The third cut an unusual figure next to casual muscle and sloppy technology. She was tall, taller than Ramirez, and wore a well-tailored black trouser-suit, her white shirt loose at the neck. Pierced ears sported plain studs, only experience telling Ramirez they were expensive, and her blonde hair was tied back and braided, long but out of the way.

  They headed for their booth the moment the big man saw Harrigan, who waved a hand. ‘And right on time,’ he said. ‘Quick round of introductions. Folks, this is Lieutenant Commander Ramirez. Ramirez, this is Stan Konstantin, Edwin Malik, and Miss Smith.’ He gestured to the big man, the smaller one, then the woman.

  Ramirez stuck her hand out for her as they all sat down. ‘A pleasure to meet you and your outfit, Miss Smith.’

  Harrigan winced. ‘Er.’

  Miss Smith looked at the hand, then at Konstantin, who was squeezing himself into the booth. ‘Boss,’ she drawled in an accent to match Harrigan’s, ‘you need to start dressing up.’

  Konstantin made a face. ‘I hate suits,’ he grumbled, but reached out with his meaty hand to shake Ramirez’s. His grip was firm, but courteous. ‘Always good to meet a friend of John’s.’

  It took her a moment to remember John was Harrigan, but then she was trying to place the big man’s mellow, educated accent. While she was irritated she’d made such a misjudgement about the team’s chain of command, she suspected this was an intentional misdirection. ‘I hope he warned you what to expect,’ she said, giving Harrigan a pointed look. To his credit, he did appear sheepish. ‘I don’t want you surprised by who you‘re working for.’

  ‘I‘m not,’ said Konstantin, patting down his pockets. ‘You want to make us secure, Mal?’

  Malik grunted with disinterest, but pulled out a palm-sized disc from one of the many bulging pouches at his belt and slapped it down on the table. A small light flashed red and within a heartbeat the rumble of conversation of the rest of the bar had faded to a low hum. He slouched back on the bench at once.

  ‘Your dedication’s an inspiration to us all, Mal,’ said Konstantin, rolling his eyes before he looked to Ramirez. ‘I know who you are, Commander. John’s not mad enough to try to hire us without proper warning. In this day and age the lines between the law and the criminals are fuzzier than ever, it seems.’

  ‘I think that is a matter of perspective, Mister Konstantin.’

  ‘But here you are, a Confederate Marshal, recruiting my merry band for your work. So I think we’re of the same perspective, Commander.’ He smiled, showing a line of white, even teeth as he pulled a square pack from his pocket. ‘And please, no “Mister”. It makes my teeth itch. Konstantin is fine. Stan or Stanislaw if you prefer. All the same to me. Cigarillo? Man‘at’s finest.’

  Ramirez looked at the cigarillo. Smoking was not a regular luxury for her. This was not a regular day. She reached for one. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We can talk freely. Mal might be an anti-social little shit but a sound dampener’s child’s play to him.’ Konstantin jerked his head at Edwin Malik, whose eyes were flickering back and forth as he sat staring at apparently nothing. In truth he would be reading on the lens, and Ramirez began to understand why Tycho didn’t trust the things. They never switched off. ‘He is, as I‘m sure a cop’s deduced, my technical expert.’

  Malik looked like he barely remembered to wave.

  ‘Miss Smith, aside from being a glutton for a good tailor, is my pilot and hand-to-hand specialist.’

  The woman was, Ramirez now noticed, eyeing up everyone in the bar with the practised air she recognised in pugilists. It was the one which said she was calculating if there was anyone in the room she couldn’t take. So far the only person her gaze flickered to with uncertainty was Harrigan.

  Ramirez kicked the irritation that she herself had been quantified and dismissed. Both women nodded politely and went back to focusing on their respective areas of attention. For Ramirez, this was Konstantin, who’d just lit her cigarillo for her. ‘And what do you do?’

&nbsp
; Another smile. ‘I‘m the pretty face.’

  Despite herself, Ramirez returned the grin. ‘You might think Harrigan’s told you everything but I assure you, he hasn’t. The first thing to know is that what we‘re discussing, while requiring discretion, is legal.’

  Konstantin gave a bark of laughter. ‘Until we get caught and the law disavows all knowledge, right? We‘ve danced that dance before, Commander.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. While it will make matters awkward if this comes to light, your hiring is perfectly above board. I’ll sign you all the paperwork you want to confirm this with any law enforcement body in the Confederacy.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I‘m listening.’

  She took a long drag of the cigarillo and reflected that Tycho would enjoy it more. All the more reason to make the most of it. ‘It’s my intention to arrest Lieutenant Navarro of the Hardveur City Police Department. I have the power to do that. What I lack is backup, a vehicle bigger than a four-seater, somewhere to keep him in custody, and guards.’

  Miss Smith’s gaze snapped over. ‘The inside of a cell won’t do for him?’

  ‘Not an HCPD cell. Harrigan says your business has become tough since Ragnarok came into town? I‘m here to cripple Ragnarok. Navarro’s one of their men. I can’t trust the HCPD.’

  Konstantin gave Harrigan a reproachful look. ‘You didn’t tell me that, John.’

  ‘I said there was a job, legit, and told you who the hire was, Stan. You know how this works. I didn’t think you’d balk.’

  ‘I‘m not balking.’ Konstantin looked both surprised and irritated by his surprise. ‘How long does he need imprisoning?’

  ‘No more than a week,’ said Ramirez. ‘Hopefully less. Somewhere isolated; I don’t want the HCPD or Ragnarok finding him if they come looking.’

  ‘We’ll put him outside the city.’ He scratched his beard. ‘I want eight thousand credits for this. It might be legal, but we‘re still going toe-to-toe with the HCPD and you don’t shit where you sleep.’

  ‘Six thousand,’ said Ramirez. ‘That’s two thousand a head.’

  He smirked. ‘What makes you think I take an equal cut to my employees?’

  ‘Because you‘re just that kind of decent guy.’

  ‘There’ll be expenses. Covering our tracks. Maybe even moving off-world when this is done.’

  ‘Six and a half thousand.’

  ‘Seven.’

  Ramirez took a drag on the cigarillo. ‘Done. Call the extra a company investment.’ In truth she could have covered eight thousand on the expense account, and haggling felt churlish when she was paying crooks to do a cop’s work. But she wouldn’t start this business relationship by giving Konstantin all he wanted. Haggling wasn’t just about money. It was about power.

  He still looked unsettled. ‘I’ll need what information you‘ve got on the target. Mal can find the rest.’

  ‘I need to be there when we make the arrest. Or it is just kidnapping.’

  Konstantin puffed on his cigarillo, brow knotted. ‘When do you need this done?’

  ‘Ideally?’ Ramirez looked over at Harrigan, who shrugged. ‘Tomorrow.’