His expression remained impassive. "You're making a mistake, Imala. I am offering you an opportunity here."
"You're removing me from the investigation," she said. "You're mopping up. Make me go away, and your stooges in the LTD make the whole investigation go away. Tell me if I'm getting warm here."
Ukko flicked his wrist, and the car pulled to the curb. Imala's door opened.
"Enjoy your lunch, Imala. I hope you'll show more respect the next time someone merely offers you what you deserve."
She started to get out.
"And one more thing," said Ukko. "A bit of unsolicited advice. Get to know people before you write them off as black-hearted scoundrels. You're a quick judge of character, Imala. And you're not always right."
She got out. The door closed. The car zipped back into traffic and disappeared.
She looked around her. She was in the French Quarter, an upscale part of town with quaint shops selling chocolates and perfumes and ridiculously priced clothing. Every street in the city was covered with shielded domes that protected against solar radiation and that kept in air and heat, but only in the French Quarter were the dome ceilings painted the light blue color of Earth sky with the occasional white of fluffy clouds. Imala hated it. It was like everyone she worked with at the LTD. Fake and phony.
Across the street was a restaurant. Pendergrass and his dimwit vixen were sitting at a table outside, eating pasta through semi-sealed containers. Imala must have been doing circles with Ukko if Pendergrass had beaten her here. He saw her, smiled, and waved at her to come join them. Imala turned on her heels and began walking back toward the office, ignoring him. If she crossed the street and approached Pendergrass she was fairly certain she'd grab his pasta and smear it in his face.
*
It took Imala well over an hour to get back to the LTD, and that was after removing her greaves and taking big moon leaps down the sidewalk in the lesser gravity. She got contemptuous looks from people since moonwalking was unfashionable in the French Quarter, but Imala didn't care. It's the Moon, people. Get over it.
A message was waiting in the holospace at her cubicle. It read, COME TO MY OFFICE. ROOM 414.
Imala checked the agency directory, worried that the room was assigned to one of the auditors she had fingered. She was relieved when she saw that it wasn't. A senior auditor named Fareed Bakarzai, whom Imala didn't know, occupied the space. She felt leery about being summoned to a stranger's office so soon after meeting with Gardona and Ukko Jukes. It couldn't be a coincidence.
She took the tube up to the fourth floor and knocked on the office door.
"Come in."
Fareed Bakarzai's office was an organized disaster. There were stacks of discs, boxes, and files everywhere, all strapped to the floor with long bands. Rows of old tariff and tax-code books lined shelves, though they had to be years, if not decades, out of date. It was the most paper Imala had seen since coming to Luna.
Fareed flicked off his holospace and faced her. He was about the same age as Director Gardona, but the similarities stopped there. Fareed reminded Imala of a few professors from Arizona State: cardigan, beard, slightly unkempt appearance, the kind of person you'd find running an antique store filled mostly with junk.
"Ms. Bootstamp," he said, extending a hand. "I'm Fareed. Welcome. You probably don't know this, but I'm the man who brought you here. To Luna, I mean. I read your paper on iron trade discrepancies and found it naive in places but mostly on the nose. Very keen observations for a grad student. I had HR do a little digging. When they saw that you had actually submitted an application, I had them pull it from the slush pile and told them to interview you."
Imala was momentarily speechless. She had no idea. "I don't know what to say. Thank you, sir."
He shook a finger. "Not 'sir.' Fareed." He gestured to the mess. "I'd offer you a place to sit down, but there isn't one and we're nearly weightless up here anyway."
She looked around and said nothing.
"You're wondering why I brought you here," he said. "And I'll be forthright with you. It's not good news." He took a moment and sighed. "Essentially you were terminated about half an hour ago."
"What!"
Fareed held a hand. "Now, before you get angry and say something you might regret, hear me out. You are not terminated. The executive team met, and I fought for you."
"Wait. I'm not fired?"
"You were. I talked them into keeping you on, though not with your old job. That was out of the question. You're getting a new assignment."
"Why was I terminated in the first place?" But as soon as she asked the question she knew the answer. Ukko. She had turned him down an hour ago, and Ukko had wasted no time getting a holo to whomever he owned in the agency.
"Does Ukko Jukes own Director Gardona?" asked Imala. "Is that what this is?"
"Careful what you say, Imala. These walls are thin. There were several legitimate reasons for your termination."
She folded her arms, furious. "Such as?"
"You pretended to be a journalist and lied to a fellow employee, violating the agency's code of ethics."
Imala threw a hand up. "I lied to a secretary. And I did it in the interest of the agency. Gardona wouldn't see me otherwise."
"You also snooped around agency files for which you had no authorization to access."
"I was conducting an investigation into illegal practices. I couldn't exactly go to Seabright and ask to see his files."
"There are channels to follow for this kind of thing, Imala. You skipped them all and played sheriff."
She couldn't believe this. Here she had done what no one else in the agency had the courage to do--and maybe even the brains to do--and they were vilifying her.
"Whom was I supposed to go to?" she asked. "Pendergrass? Because I did go to him. He blew me off."
Fareed seemed surprised. "When was this?"
"A month ago."
"Do you any have documentation of this? E-mails? Holos?"
She tried to remember. "No. I pulled him aside and showed him everything in person."
Fareed was disappointed. He shrugged. "He'd probably only say he thought you were being zealous and admit he made a mistake."
"That's exactly what he said. Right before he led me outside and put me in a car with Ukko Jukes."
Fareed was startled. "When?"
"An hour ago. That's where I was at lunch."
"I see." Fareed went back behind his desk, paced a moment, then turned to her. "I can't get you your old job back, Imala. Even knowing that you went to Pendergrass. The executive team was adamant."
"Of course they were. Ukko Jukes has them in his pocket. They're trying to shut me up and make the whole scandal with Seabright go away."
"It already is going away," said Fareed. "Jukes has agreed to pay all the back taxes and tariffs as well all fees and fines. Both the agency and Jukes will conduct separate internal investigations, and that will be the end of it."
"Tell me you're joking. We should be taking this to prosecutors."
Fareed shook his head. "Not going to happen, Imala. They're going to bury it."
"Then I'll go to the press. I'll tell whomever will listen."
"No one will listen, Imala. There are influences here much greater than you realize."
He was telling her that Ukko owned the media as well; that anything she did would be squashed by Jukes. Unbelievable. They were letting this man bully them. Even Fareed--who seemed like a decent enough guy and who probably didn't take a dime from Ukko--was stuck under Ukko's thumb simply because he was in a system Ukko controlled.
"I got you on at Customs," said Fareed. "It's not glamorous, but it's working with people, which you need."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're a little rough around the edges, Imala. You haven't made any friends since you came here. You despise everyone. This could be good for you."
"I don't despise everyone."
"Name one person in
your department with whom you have a friendship."
"They all kiss up to Pendergrass. They don't care about the work. They make constant mistakes."
"How would you know they make mistakes?"
"Because I've checked their work. It's sloppy."
"Yes, and I'm sure they greatly appreciate you, a junior assistant, combing their work for mistakes."
"Pendergrass sure isn't going to do it."
Fareed sighed. "You're done, Imala. I stuck my neck out for you when the guys upstairs were ready to put you on a shuttle back to Earth. You can at least pretend to act grateful and take this job. Who knows? In a few years, I might be able to help you get on with a private firm."
Imala wasn't sure if she should punch the wall or cry. A few years? He might help her in few years? This was his gift to her? This was him pulling a favor? She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to shut him down the same way she had rejected Ukko. But what good would that do her? The moment your work permit was tagged as terminated, you were gone. If she walked out of here without a job, she'd be shipped to Earth no questions asked. And then what? Back to Arizona to face her father and tell him how right he had been? No, she couldn't do that.
"What would I be auditing at Customs?" she asked.
"You won't be auditing. You'd be a caseworker."
"A caseworker? I'm not trained for that."
"Show them how smart and nice you are, Imala, and I'm sure they'll give you more responsibility."
He handed her a data drive.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Your first case. A free miner who came in a week ago from the Kuiper Belt on a quickship. No identification. No docking authorizations. Deal with it."
"How? I don't know what to do with this."
"You know customs law, Imala. You know the regulations. The rest is paperwork. If you smile occasionally, you might actually be good at this."
She walked out of the office, holding the data drive. She stepped into the down tube and slowly descended, feeling numb. She had come to Luna because she believed she could do something important with her life, something meaningful. Now she was relegated to resolving petty customs violations. Pendergrass was right. She had gone on the warpath and picked a fight she had no chance of winning.
She didn't bother going to her desk. There was nothing there she needed.
She paused in the lobby and connected the data drive to her wrist pad. There was a single file. A thin dossier on Victor Delgado. It didn't tell her much, other than the fact that Delgado had been asking to speak with someone in authority since he had arrived. Imala found this amusing. Sorry, Victor. You're stuck with a blacklisted former junior assistant. I'm about as far from authority as you can get.
CHAPTER 22
MOPs
Wit O'Toole sat in the passenger seat of the Air Shark attack helicopter as it flew south from the village of Pakuli in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. Below him, dense lowland tropical forests began to mix with shorter, montane trees as the chopper left the river valley and moved up into the foothills. Breaks in the trees revealed small, isolated family farms with simple wooden homes built amid fields of maize or coffee. As the chopper rose in elevation, terraced rice fields came into view, clinging to the slopes of the highlands like a staircase of green climbing up the landscape. If not for the burning villages and corpses rotting in the sun, Wit might think this a paradise.
Indonesia was having two civil wars at once. The government of Sulawesi was fighting an Islamist extremist group known as the Remeseh here in the mountains, while the government of New Guinea was fighting native insurgents on that island. Civilians were stuck in the crosshairs, and the situation was getting bloody enough that the developed world was almost beginning to care. News of the burning church might be exactly the sort of human-interest story to make the media take notice. People's eyes glazed over headlines about mountain farmers murdered in Indonesia. But tell them that Islamist militants had locked a congregation of Christians in their small mountain chapel and burned the building to the ground with the people inside, and suddenly you've got news people care about.
Wit hoped that was true. The people of Indonesia needed help--more help than the MOPs could provide. And if the church incident would turn the world's eyes to the plight of Sulawesi then perhaps the people burned alive hadn't died in vain.
Wit turned to Calinga sitting in the pilot's seat. "Take vids of everything. But be discreet about it, don't let the people see that we're taking vids."
Calinga nodded. He understood.
The cameras on the helmets and suits were small enough and concealed enough that Wit wasn't too concerned about the villagers taking notice--most of them had probably never seen tech like that anyway. He was more concerned about him and Calinga getting the right kind of shots. The smoldering bodies. The blackened, charred remains of a child's toy or doll. The weeping women of the village mourning the loss of loved ones. The media was starving for that type of horror, and if Wit could give it to them, then he might be able to begin the sequence of events that might eventually result in aid for the people of Indonesia.
That effort would take months, though. The war on apathy moved much slower than real wars fought on the ground. Enough citizens and human rights groups would have to see the vids and get angry enough and complain to legislators enough that eventually someone with authority would actually take action. It wouldn't be easy. If the economy took another dive or if some politician or celebrity was caught in a sex scandal, the media would go back to ignoring Indonesia and no aid or protection would come.
Wit wasn't on a mission to turn public opinion, though. Getting the vids was a tertiary objective. His first order of business was to recover the body of one of his men who had died in the attack. Then he would deal with the Remeseh who had burned the church, either taking them into custody--which was never ideal--or taking them down--which was never pretty.
Wit saw the pillars of smoke long before they reached the village of Toro. The chapel would be little more than a smoldering heap by now, but the terrorists had set other fires, and the wind had likely blown some of the flames into the grasslands.
Calinga set the helicopter down in the village a block south of where the church had burned. Hundreds of villagers were gathered, but they gave the helicopter a wide berth and turned their heads away from the wind of the rotor blades. Wit and Calinga climbed down in full combat gear, and Wit could see the villagers' faces change from fear to relief. They knew who MOPs were and the protection they provided. Some cheered. Some wept openly, clasping their hands in front of them. Others, especially children, crowded around Wit and Calinga, motioning them to follow them up to the chapel. Everyone was speaking Indonesian at once, and Wit could only pick up bits and pieces. They were telling him his man was dead.
They meant Bogdanovich, one of the MOPs from Wit's most recent round of recruits. Wit had sent the Russian to the village weeks ago with Averbach, a more senior MOP, to protect the village from strikes the Remeseh were conducting all across the highlands. When a firefight to the south had broken out between the Remeseh and a group of farmers, Wit had ordered Bogdanovich and Averbach to go and offer support.
Bogdanovich, however, had refused to leave the village, fearing the firefight was a distraction for a coordinated strike on the village. Averbach ended up going south alone. When he had returned, the chapel was burning, and Bogdanovich was dead in the street.
Wit arrived at the chapel and found Averbach carrying out bodies. Several of the corpses already lay in the street covered with sheets, and villagers were wailing and crying and raising their arms heavenward as they identified the dead.
There were other bodies, too. About ten men. All riddled with bullets or other wounds, lying in circles of their own blood. Several women and children were throwing rocks at these corpses, spitting and shouting curses and screaming through their tears. Bogdanovich hadn't gone down without a fight apparently.
An elderly woman was kn
eeling beside another body, this one wrapped in bloody sheets and sprinkled with flower petals. The villagers and children pointed at the body and told Wit what he already suspected. It was Bogdanovich.
Wit nodded and thanked them, then went directly to Averbach, whose face was covered in soot and sweat, and who had gone back into the chapel to retrieve more of the dead. Wit and Calinga pulled on their latex gloves and fell into step beside him. Without speaking they delicately helped Averbach lift another body from the ashes and onto a sheet, which they then used as a stretcher to carry the body out into the street. It was gruesome, horrific work. The air was thick with the scent of charred human remains, and the timbers and ashes continued to smolder, burning Wit's eyes with the smoke. It took a great deal of concentration for Wit to control his gag reflex and maintain a reverent composure.
When they finished, twenty-six charred bodies lay in a line, some of them burned beyond recognition. Many of them were children. A block away another fire was burning in the street. Some of the villagers had dragged the dead Remeseh militants into a heap and set the bodies on fire. Bogdanovich remained untouched, and now more of the village's elderly women kneeled beside him, offering their respect and prayers.
Wit spoke in his broken Indonesian to one of the men, asking if anyone in the village had seen in which direction the surviving Remeseh had fled. As he suspected, no shortage of people came forward. They all pointed to the south.
"I will leave one of my men here with you," Wit told them in Indonesian. "He will protect you. He is as good a soldier as Bogdanovich, if not better."
"No one is better," the crowd cried. "No one is braver. More would have died if not for him."
Wit got the stretcher down from the chopper, then he and Calinga delicately lifted Bogdanovich into a body bag. They kept him wrapped in the sheets, then loaded the body into the Air Shark. Calinga stayed behind. Wit took the pilot's seat, and Averbach sat shotgun.
When they were up in the air, Averbach said, "This is my fault. Bog had gone local. He had fallen in love with one of the women in the village. Nothing ever happened between them. They were never alone. But I noticed the furtive looks she gave him. And I noticed that he noticed and didn't seem to mind. He never said anything to me, but I should have told you. We should have pulled him out. It clouded his judgment."