Not even Giraud did this to me. Not even Giraud.
Flux of images, the older Ari, the younger; flux of remembered panic, interview in Ari’s office:
…You make my life tranquil, sweet, and stand between me and Jordan, and I won’t have his friends arrested, and I won’t do a mindwipe on Grant, I’ll even stop giving you hell in the office. You know what the cost is, for all those transfers you want…
…I told Denys you’re mine, that I ran a major intervention, that Grant is far more of a hold on you than your father is; that you’d choose him over your father if it came to a choice…
The convoy drew up under the portico at the side of the Hall of State. He moved when his guards flung the door open and hastened him out and through the doors—not so roughly this time: this time there were news cameras.
Ari stopped and took his arm. The thought flashed through his mind that he could shove her away, refuse to go farther, tell the cameras everything that had happened to him, shout out the fact that Reseune was holding Grant hostage, that they had worked on him to divide him from his father, that Jordan might well have spent twenty years in confinement for a lie—
He hesitated, Ari tugging at his arm, someone nudging him from behind.
“We’re going to meet with Secretary Lynch,” Ari said, “upstairs. Come on. We’ll talk to the press later.”
“Is your father innocent?” someone shouted at him out of the echoing chaos.
He looked at that reporter. He tried to think, in the time-stretch of nightmare, whether he even knew the answer or not, and then just ignored the question, going where Ari wanted him to go, to say whatever he had to say.
“You do this one alone,” Ari told him when they reached the upstairs, turning him over to Bureau Enforcement. “I’ll be getting the hearing on monitor, but nobody from Reseune will be there. The Bureau wants you not to feel pressured. All right?”
So he walked with blue-uniformed strangers still of Reseune’s making, taught by Reseune’s tapes—who brought him into a large conference room, and brought him to a table facing a triple half-ring of tables on a dais, where other strangers took their seats in a blurred murmur of conversation—
Strangers except Secretary-now-Proxy for Science Lynch: Lynch he knew from newscasts. He settled into his chair, grateful to find at least one known quantity in the room, at the head of the committee, he supposed. There was a pitcher of water in front of him, and he filled a glass and drank, trying to soothe his stomach. Ari’s staff had offered him food on the plane, but he had not been able to eat more than the chips and a bite of the sandwich; and he had had another soft drink after the whiskey. Now he felt light-headed and sick. Damn fool, he told himself in the dizzying buzz of people talking in a large room, quit sleepwalking. Wake up and focus, for God’s sake, they’ll think you’re drugged.
But the flux kept on, every thought, every nuance of everything Jordan had last said to him; everything Ari had said that might be a clue to what was going on or whether the threat was threat or only show for Denys and Security.
Secretary Lynch came up to the table where he was sitting, and offered his hand. Justin stood up and took it, felt the kindness in the gesture, saw a face that had been only an image on vid take on a human concern for him; and that small encouragement hit him in the gut, he did not know why.
“Are you all right?” the Secretary-Proxy asked.
“A little nervous,” he said; and felt Lynch’s fingers close harder on his. A little pat on his arm. Giraud’s career-long associate, he suddenly remembered that with a jolt close to nausea, and felt the whole room go distant, sounds echoing in his skull in time with the beating of his heart. Where does Ari stand with him? Is this choreographed?
“You’re inside Bureau jurisdiction now,” Lynch said. “No Reseune staff is here. Three Councillors are in the city: they’ve asked to audit the proceedings: Chairman Harad, Councillor Corain; Councillor Jacques. Is there any other witness you want? Or do you have any objection to anyone here? You understand you have a right to object to members of the inquiry.”
“No, ser.”
“Are you all right?” It was the second time Lynch had asked. Justin drew in a breath and disengaged his hand.
“Just a little—” Light-headed. No. God, don’t say that. He thought his face must be white. He felt the air-conditioning on sweat at his temples. “I was too nervous to eat. I don’t suppose I could get a soft drink before we start. Maybe crackers or something.”
Lynch looked a little nonplussed; and then patted his shoulder and called an aide.
Like a damned kid, he thought. Fifteen minutes, a pastry and a cup of coffee, that little time to catch his breath in an adjoining conference room, and he was better collected—was able to walk back into the hearing room and have Secretary Lynch walk him over to Mikhail Corain and to Simon Jacques and Nasir Harad one after the other, faces he recognized in what still passed in a haze of overload, but a less shaky one: God, he was fluxed. He had had nightmares about publicity, lifelong, felt himself still on the verge of panic—still kept flashing on Security—the cell—the Council hearings…
Giraud’s voice, saying things he could not remember, but which put a profound dread in him.
Wake up, dammit! No more time for thinking. Do!
“Dr. Warrick,” Corain said, taking his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, finally.”
“Thank you, ser.”
When did that message actually come from my father? That was what he wanted to ask.
But he did not, not being a fool. Audit, Lynch had said: then the Councillors were not here to engage in questions.
“If you need anything,” Corain said, “if you feel you need protection—you understand you can ask for it.”
“No, ser.—But I appreciate your concern.” This is a man who wants to use Jordan. And me. What am I worth to him? Where would his protection leave me?
Out of Reseune. And Grant inside.
Corain patted him on the arm. Simon Jacques offered his hand, introducing himself, a dark-haired, neutral kind of man with a firm grip and a tendency not to meet his eyes. “Councillor… Chairman Harad.”—as he shook Harad’s thin hand, meeting a gray stare appallingly cold and hostile. One of Reseune’s friends.
“Dr. Warrick,” Harad said. “I hope you can clear up some of the confusion in this. Thank you for agreeing to appear.”
“Yes, ser,” he said. Agreeing to appear. Who asked me? Who agreed in my name? How many things have gone out, in my name, and Jordan’s?
“Dr. Warrick,” Lynch said, taking his arm. “If we can get this underway—”
He took his seat at the table; he answered questions: No, I have no way of knowing anything beyond my father’s statements. He never discussed the matter with me, beyond the time—just before the hearing. When he was leaving. No, I’m not under drugs; I’m not under coercion. I’m confused and I’m worried. I think that’s a normal reaction under the circumstances… His hand shook when he picked up the water glass. He sipped water and waited while committee members consulted together, talking just under his hearing.
“Why do you believe,” a Dr. Wells asked him then, “—or did you ever believe—your father’s confession?”
“I believed it. He said so. And because—” Bring out some of the sexual angle, Ari had said on the plane. It plays well in the press. Scandal always gets the attention, and you can work people en masse a lot easier if you’ve got their minds on sex: everybody’s got an opinion on that. Just don’t mention the tape and I won’t mention the drugs, all right? “Because there was a motive I could believe in—that everyone in Reseune believed in. Me. Ariane Emory blackmailed me into a relationship with her. My father found out.”
The reaction lacked surprise. The interrogator nodded slowly.
“Blackmailed you—how?”
He slid a glance toward Mikhail Corain, though it was a committee member who asked the question. He said, watching Corain’s reactions in his periph
eral vision: “There was a secret deal for Jordan’s transfer to RESEUNESPACE. Ari found out Jordan had pulled strings to get past her, and she made a deal with me—not to stop my father’s transfer.” Corain did not like that line of questioning. So, he thought, and looked back at the questioner. “She told me—that she intended me to stay in Reseune; that she meant to teach me; that she saw potential in my work she wanted developed, and that she wanted a guarantee Jordan wouldn’t mess up the psychogenesis project. It looked like it would be a few years. Then she said she’d approve my transfer to go with him. Probably she would have. She usually kept her promises.”
Slowly, slowly, there began to be consultation. They knew, he thought to himself. They knew—the whole damn committee—even Corain—All these years; my God, the whole damn Council and the Bureau—there was no secrecy about me and Ari. But something I said—they didn’t know.
God! What am I into? What deals did Giraud make, what am I treading on?
“You wanted to keep the sexual relationship secret,” Wells said. “How long did that continue?”
“A few times.”
“Where?”
“Her office. Her apartment.”
“Who initiated it?”
“She did.” He felt the heat in his face, and leaned his arms on the table for steadiness. “Can I say something, ser? I honestly think, ser, the sex was only a means to an end—to make me guilty enough to drive a wedge between me and my father. It wasn’t just the encounter itself. It was the relationship between her and my father. I’m a PR, ser. And she was not my father’s friend. I thought I could handle the guilt. I thought it wouldn’t bother me. From the other side of the event it looked a lot different; and she was a master clinician—she was completely in control of what was going on and I was a student way out of his limits. My father would have understood that part of it, when I couldn’t, at the time. I didn’t plan for him to find out. But he did.”
A thought flashed up with gut-deep certainty out of the flux: He didn’t do it. He couldn’t kill anyone. He’d have been concerned for me. He’d have wanted to work the situation, get me clear before he did anything—and I can’t tell them that…—to change an instant later into: Anyone can do anything under the right stress. If that was the right stress for him—the unbearable point—
Lynch asked: “Did your father confront you with the discovery?”
“No. He went straight to her. I had a meeting with Ari for later that evening. I didn’t know she was dead until they told me, after I was arrested.”
Then—then the thing that had been trying to click into place snapped into lock, clear and plain, exactly where the way out was: Disavow what Jordan’s said—be the outraged son, defending his father: put myself in a position to be courted by both sides. That’s the answer.
Out of everything that Ari had said on the plane, exactly where she was trying to lead him. Her pieces, handed him bit by bit—damn, she’s an operator. But there was a way to position all of it so he could step to either shore, play the emotional angle, the outrage—oppose Jordan and be won over; or win Jordan over—whichever worked, hell with Corain, hell with all the would-be users in this mess: he could maneuver if he could just get a position and focus everyone’s efforts on him, to persuade him. It collected information, it collected a small amount of control, and he thought, he thought it possibly exceeded the perimeters where Ari had intended he should go—but only enough to worry her and keep her working on him and his position, not so long as he could tread a very narrow line between opposition and cooperation.
Under fire. When he always did his best thinking. He picked up the glass and took a second drink, and his hand was suddenly steady, his heart still pounding: Damn, Giraud did a piece on me, didn’t he? Shot my nerves to hell. But the mind works.
“Were you aware of any other person who might have had a motive for murder?”
“I’m not aware of any,” he said, frowning, and plunged ahead unasked. “I’ll tell you, ser, I have a major concern about what’s going on here.”
“What concern?”
“That my father’s being used. That if he did recant his confession—that can’t be checked any more than the confession can be. No one knows. No one can know. He’s a research scientist. He’s been twenty years out of touch with current politics. He could make a statement. He could say anything. God knows what he’s been told or what’s going on, but I don’t trust this, ser. I don’t know if he’s been told something that made him come out with this, I don’t know if he’s been promised something, but I’m extremely worried, ser, and I resent his name being caught up in politics he doesn’t know anything about—he’s being used, ser, maybe led into something, maybe just that people are taking this up that had absolutely nothing to say to help him twenty years ago and all of a sudden everyone’s interested, not because they know whether he’s guilty or innocent, but because it’s a political lever in things my father’s not in touch with, for reasons that don’t have anything to do with my father’s welfare. I’ll fight that, ser.”
There was silence for about two breaths, then a murmur broke out in the room.
Now the knives were going to come out, he thought. Now he had found his position and now he had built Jordan a defense no matter what he had said.
His hand was shaking nearly enough to spill the water when he took his next drink, but it was the after-a-fight shakes. Inside, he had more hope for himself and Jordan and Grant than he had had since he had known where they were taking him.
Corain bit his lip as young Emory courteously shook his hand during the mid-session recess, as she said earnestly, in the insulation of her personal Security and his: “It’s politics, of course: Reseune understands that; but it’s very personal with Justin. He’s not political. He sees what happened to his father in the first place as political and now he sees it all starting up again now that Giraud’s dead and there are elections on. I’ve advised him to tone it down; but he’s terribly upset.”
“You should advise him,” Corain said coldly, “if that’s his primary concern, he should stay away from the media, young sera. If he raises charges, they’ll go before Council.”
“I’ll pass him that word, ser.” With a little lift of the chin. Not Ari senior’s smile, not that maddening, superior smile; just a direct look. “Possibly my predecessor slipped and fell. I have no idea. I’m interested in the truth, but I really don’t think it’s going to come out in this hearing.”
If Ari senior had said that, it would surely have meaning under meaning. He looked this incarnation in the eye and was absolutely sure it did. Reseune was pulling strings in Science, damned right it was.
“I hate it,” Ari Emory said, assuming a confidential friendliness, “that this has blown up now. Politics change, positions change—and develop common interests. I’ll administer Reseune before too many years; there’s a lot I can do then, and there are changes I want to make. I want you to understand, ser Corain, that I’m not welded to the past.”
“You have a few years yet,” Corain said. And thought: Thank God.
“A few years yet. But I’ve been in politics a long, long time. If my predecessor were alive right now, she’d look at the general situation and say something has to be done to calm it down. It’s not good for either party. All it does is help Khalid.”
Corain looked at the young face a long, long moment. “We’ve always maintained a moderate position.”
“We absolutely overlap, where it comes to solving Novgorod’s problems. And the Pan-Paris loop. All of that. I think you’re entirely right about those bills—the way I know I’m right about Dr. Warrick.”
“You don’t have any power, young sera.”
“I do,” she said. “At least within Reseune. That’s not small. Right now I’m here because I know people, and Justin doesn’t; and because Justin’s my friend and quite honestly, I don’t think his father is any danger to me personally and neither does Reseune Administration. So it’s psychology
of a sort: I want people to know that I support Justin. He sees his father in danger of getting swept up in causes he knows his father wouldn’t support; and that’s where Reseune is going to insist on its sovereignty to protect its citizens, both him and his father. It can end up in court; and it can get messy. And that just helps the Paxers, doesn’t it, that I don’t think you like either. So is there a way out of this? You’ve got the experience in Council. You tell me.”
“First off,” Corain said, with a bitter taste in his mouth, “young Warrick has to back off the charges he’s making.”
She nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“If I gave the committee the idea that I blame Councillor Corain,” Justin said carefully, quietly, “I certainly want to apologize for that impression, that came to my attention at recess. I’m sure he has my father’s welfare at heart. But I am afraid of violent influences that could have involved themselves in this—”
ix
It was after midnight before they made the hotel, via the underground entrance, the security lift straight to the upper floors that Reseune Security had made their own: Ari sighed with relief as the lift stopped on the eighteenth floor—a sprawling, single interconnected suite on this VIP level of the Riverside, and one that Giraud still had reserved for the month, in a hotel that Reseune Security knew down to its foundations and conduits.
Abban met her at the lift, and Ari blinked, surprised at first, then ineffably relieved to see Abban’s competence handling what Florian and Catlin had had no opportunity to oversee, quietly on the job, no matter that they had buried Giraud that morning, no matter that Abban had been through hell this week. He had to have flown up from Reseune this afternoon, after the rest of the staff arrived.
“Young sera,” Abban said. “Florian, Catlin, I’ve already made the checks: sera will want the master bedroom, I’m sure; ser Justin to the white room or the blue—as sera pleases.”