Cally's War

Chapter Nine

His assistant, Wilson, had shifted his furniture again. Around the low table there were four chairs. Two Indowy and two human. At the moment, three of the chairs were full, and his assistant had just brought in a tray of coffee and mineralized water. He quirked an eyebrow at Aelool.

“Should we wait for Roolnai, or should we go ahead?” he asked.

“I think it would be better if we proceeded. Clan Chief Roolnai is indisposed. I will fill him in on what was discussed later.” The tendrils of his green fur, really a photosynthetic symbiote, wavered slightly in the breeze from the air vent.

Vitapetroni and O’Reilly exchanged a look. The doctor’s eyes dropped and he shook his head slightly.

“So, Doctor, what, precisely, are we dealing with?” The priest took a cautious sip of his coffee. Wilson was precise and efficient about so many things, but his coffee was erratic. Sometimes it was on the verge of too cold, sometimes piping hot, or anything in between. A too-hasty sip was apt to leave his tongue burned for a couple of days.

“She’s normal. Well, as normal for what we made her as possible. She’s been working too hard. She’s too involved in her job. She badly needs an extended sabbatical for marriage and kids. But beyond that, she performed exactly as she’s been trained and conditioned to perform. I told you back when you made the decision to salvage Petane which agents couldn’t know, and couldn’t be allowed where they might come to know. She is what we made her; she performed as designed.” The doctor looked at his hands and back up at the priest and the Aelool. He shrugged.

“I am afraid that this example of a human operating as designed may be a problem for my people.” Aelool’s eyes were, characteristically for his species, but oddly for him, fixed on the ground.

“Miss O’Neal says that she would not have killed the man if he had been either removed from the TOL, as opposed to inactivated on account of recorded death, or if he had been a more than minimally valuable source, or if he had shown any likelihood of being more than a minimally valuable source in the future. I’m inclined to believe her,” Vitapetroni offered.

“Yes, Al, but the fact is, she did kill him when she had ample reason to believe we didn’t want him killed,” O’Reilly said.

“She doesn’t have the organization’s wants and wishes as a safeguard. That was a very deliberate decision for all the field operatives of her specialty, so that if the Bane Sidhe had to order a killing we were ambivalent about that ambivalence wouldn’t compromise the operative’s effectiveness. She found out he wasn’t dead, she checked the TOL, he was on it, she killed him. She might as well have been a guided missile. We trained her to follow certain orders. She followed them. Without her personal feelings she might have checked back for clarification. Probably would have. But I can’t emphasize enough that you don’t tell one of our assassins to kill a man you don’t want dead,” the doctor said.

“You humans have a phrase that I believe may apply. Something about lawyers that protect houses?” Aelool looked grave.

“Guardhouse lawyer. She probably believes, in fact does believe, she was being one. But then she’s been trained not to recognize some of the psychological aspects of her training. The traumatic stress dream cycle suppression, for example. She never seriously wonders why she doesn’t have nightmares. Her free will not to kill someone on the TOL she encountered or became aware of and was able to kill without compromising a mission… well, I don’t mean to say it was nonexistent. But it was considerably less than she believes it to have been, or than either of you obviously believe it to have been. I repeat, gentlemen, you must not tell one of these assassins that someone is a target if you do not want that individual dead,” he insisted.

“Team Hector’s assassin knew about Petane for a couple of decades. He obviously resisted the temptation to kill him,” the priest pointed out logically.

“Team Hector’s assassin was told Petane was alive and was ordered not to kill him,” the doctor said.

“If I recall correctly, you had advised us that we could not reliably expect Miss O’Neal to obey such an order and that she had to be protected from the knowledge of his status,” Aelool said.

“Yes, I did. She owed a personal debt of honor to Team Conyers, or believed she did, after they attempted to save her life when she was the target of an assassination attempt, and after they fought in battle beside the O’Neals when the Posleen attacked the O’Neal house. I wasn’t certain she would disobey the order, but I was certain the stress of having to obey it would have done substantial damage to some of the very qualities that protect her basic mental stability despite her very demanding profession.”

“While we are always mindful of the great debt our people owe to Clan O’Neal, one of our concerns is that this particular problem has happened within that clan before. Even though there have been only two such incidents, the size of the clan is such that concern has been raised among the nonhuman associates of the Bane Sidhe that we may be seeing the beginnings of a pattern. Much as we regret to even broach the subject, we must wonder if we are beginning to see a flaw in the line.” If anything, Aelool’s eyes were even more firmly fixed on the floor.

“What are your people seeing in terms of your interpretation of this possible flaw? It would help us to look for evidence that could either confirm or refute it, or to otherwise address your concerns, if we had more detailed specifics about the nature of those concerns.” Father O’Reilly suppressed a wince at Aelool’s facial expression. “Please, Aelool, I’m not saying that there’s no cause for concern or that we don’t have some understanding of why you’re concerned. I’m saying that it would help us if you’d detail your people’s concerns so that we can be sure we aren’t missing any of the subtleties and finer points, so that we can do a better job of finding remedies together that will fix the problems to the satisfaction of all clans in the Bane Sidhe alliance.”

“This is hard to explain in human terms. It is not that an act for an individual or small set of individuals’ good, but against the interests of the clan as a whole, strikes my people as dishonorable and disloyal, although there are overtones of that, so much as that it strikes us as… I suppose your best word for it would be insane. It comes across to us as having taken violent, crazed, uncontrollable carnivores into the very hearth of the clan itself.” He held up a hand placatingly. “This is not how I see humans, but you must realize that… you have a saying about something that ‘pushes your buttons.’ It would not be an exaggeration to say that this one act pushes every button my species has about dealing with carnivores.”

“Okay. I can understand, given your species’ culture and biology and social structure, why you would feel that way,” Vitapetroni said, “but I’d make a couple of points that maybe we all need to keep in mind here. First, she is not uncontrollable. In this case the systems of control failed because they were not followed. Second, her readiness to kill is not natural human behavior. Each of our assassins has been very carefully manipulated to create a human who is both sane and able to kill on orders. That manipulation has to be done with precision. Third, she had a rational reason for not perceiving her act to be against the actual interests of the Bane Sidhe as a whole. The only actual harm it did was to embarrass the people who failed to revisit the decision to keep Petane alive. Fourth, she is still acting entirely consistently within designed control parameters, and has over thirty years done the Bane Sidhe far, far more good than harm. If the Bane Sidhe was willing to keep and use Petane for pragmatic reasons, how much more willing should it be to continue to make use of Cally O’Neal’s training and talents.”

“That last point is one I can use to convince my people to go ahead with the next scheduled mission, given the importance of the mission and if you can assure me that Miss O’Neal is highly, highly unlikely to kill the wrong person or people on this mission. It doesn’t address the long term issue of standards of loyalty,” the Indowy said.

“With respect, Aelool, we aren’t going to have the same outlook as your people because, well, we aren’t you. If your people expect us to be, well, Indowy that can be used for the violent missions, you’re going to be disappointed. Any resolution is going to have to take into account the differences between the psychology of our species,” Vitapetroni said.

“Al, you’re supposed to be helping make things better,” O’Reilly sighed.

“I am. I’m not an expert at xenopsychology, but I do understand and appreciate that Indowy loyalty is one way. Totally. From the individual clan member to the clan. That won’t work with humans. If the Indowy can’t find some way to come to terms with that about us, this alliance will not work. They cannot think of human members of the Bane Sidhe as members of their clan. It would lead to… unrealistic expectations,” he insisted.

“We are quite aware that humans are not Indowy, thank you.”

“But not aware enough. Had you been, your people would have understood that loyalty down the chain from the organization to the individual is not some eccentric detail of etiquette, but is vital to dealing with humans in an organization. Petane’s status would have been reviewed. I take some of the blame that it was not. I shouldn’t have assumed more understanding on both sides than there was. I should have explicitly informed you of the organizational hazards of not periodically reevaluating the Petane decision to see if it was still justified to let the man live. That part, that I didn’t make sure you understood that necessity, or that our base commander here didn’t understand that he had to bring it up. That’s my fault.” The psychiatrist tapped his chest with a hand.

“And you would then say that not understanding you was our fault?” Aelool’s grip on his glass tightened.

“Not at all. I’d say we learned to understand each other better. How we found out wasn’t exactly pleasant.” He grimaced. “Not to sound too much like a shrink, but I think both sides need to think a bit about how this knowledge affects our policies.”

“Or the arrangement itself,” the alien sighed.

“We understand that. At the same time, it is possible that we could use this understanding to revise our policies to pursue our mutual goals without having this kind of thing happen again,” the priest interjected.

“Yes, that is possible. I would like the doctor’s assistance in exploring the ramifications and details and looking for anything related we may have missed. Meanwhile, I think I can make the case, given how critical the need for this particular mission is, and how good a body type match Miss O’Neal is for Miss Makepeace, for continuing with this mission. After that…” he trailed off.

“I agree. We can discuss the other issues after we get Team Isaac in the field,” O’Reilly nodded.

“I think we must all hope that that mission goes well,” the alien’s expression was the Indowy equivalent of a deep and troubled frown.

When the knock at the door came for breakfast, she looked over at the alarm clock. Seven-thirty? Ugh. She pulled on her bathrobe and trudged to the door, rubbing her eyes. I suppose sleeping in was a vain hope. They want to emphasize I’m in the doghouse. I don’t care. The bastard needed to be dead — even if he was a pathetic schmuck.

She opened the door and stepped back, blinking, as her grandfather walked in with the tray. It was set for two, with pancakes, eggs over easy, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. It smelled like heaven, especially after a dinner of low-salt pinto beans in corn tortillas.

“Okay, thank you. But… why? Yesterday you seemed royally pissed,” she said.

“I am. I am royally pissed that you are letting this job eat you. The guy you killed was a worthless asshole. Probably doesn’t matter one way or the other that he died. Yeah, he’d earned it, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt anything to let him live.” He patted his pocket reaching for his tobacco pouch, looked at the tray and poured syrup on his pancakes, instead.

“I can’t believe you just said that. Team Conyers saved your butt, too, when the Posleen came up the gap. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” God, I sound shrill. I’m never shrill.

“Sure. It means I think it’s a crappy raw deal that they died so young—”

“Were killed!” she interrupted.

“Yeah, that tends to happen in this business, sooner or later. And I can tell you right now that if some bastard or crop of bastards gets me, that I do not want you to kill anyone you are not ordered to kill just because you think you owe me something. You’re more than welcome to make the case that someone who was involved needs to be dead and take the mission if it’s ordered, but I don’t want you to do this again. I don’t think Team Conyers would have wanted it either,” he said.

“That’s what you want. We’ll never know what they want, because they’re dead, because of a fucking traitor, who is now dead, himself.” It still made her mad as hell.

“You have to let there be someone higher than you as the judge of who needs to be dead, or the job eats you alive. You have to have a life, or the job eats you alive. You don’t have a life outside of the job, Cally, and that more than concerns me. It grieves me. I have been a professional a long time, I have seen other professionals, I’ve seen this job chew people up and spit them out and unless you get yourself some sort of meaningful life outside of work, and soon, you’re setting that up to be you.” He rubbed his head as if it was starting to ache.

“Look, can we just eat before the coffee gets too cold?” She tasted it and made a face, stirring corn syrup and cream into it.

“Sure. Look, I didn’t come here solely to badger you. The mission is on, which means we need our mission brief tomorrow. Now, you can either brief me in now and I’ll do the team brief, or you can get to work on it. You’re no longer confined to quarters, or restricted in your computer usage, obviously,” he said.

“What, just like that?” She looked at him incredulously.

“Oh, there will still be some kind of reckoning or resolution or whatever when we get back, but for right now they’ve decided that this mission is too critical to abort and that it’s too late to assign it to someone else.” He took a bite of his sausage.

“Okay,” she nodded.

“Okay? Were you trying to get benched, was that what this was about?” He looked mad.

“You know what it was about, dammit! Don’t psychobabble me, Granpa.” She took a swig of her coffee. Her lip curled slightly, but it was drinkable.

“I’m not talking about killing Petane. I’m talking about the way you did it — without going up the chain and asking for his situation to be reviewed. Did you want to get benched?” he asked again.

“Oh, of course not!” She ran her fingers through the brown curls and made a face at them. “Look, the last mission was pretty stressful, and maybe you have a point about the life thing. I’ll think about it, okay? And after we get back, if the bosses don’t shoot me or anything, I’ll take a nice vacation. A real one, where I don’t kill anybody, okay?”

“And look for a man to date somewhere other than a bar,” he said.

“Hey, I promised to take a vacation, not settle down with the love of my life and pop out six kids, all right?” She looked at the corn syrup bottle again and shook her head, taking a bite of the bare pancake. Their idea of maple flavoring tended to suck out loud.

Vitapetroni took his lunch tray into the small side room and shut the door. Framed prewar travel prints of famous cities adorned the walls. He sat down with his back to Paris and let his eyes slide across Venice before settling on the young old man on the other side of the table.

“Lisel, sweep for bugs, please.”

“My pleasure.” The husky voice emanating from the doctor’s PDA was not exactly what one would expect from a stodgy, respectable medical professional.

“The only bugs here are me and Mr. O’Neal’s AID, and I’m sure Susan wouldn’t eavesdrop on us,” it said.

“Susan, don’t listen until I call your name again,” Papa O’Neal ordered.

“Sure, Mike. What’s say you and I run off to the Bahamas and you make an honest woman of me? Signing off.” Then it was silent.

“Lisel, shut down, please.” Vitapetroni sat down.

“Certainly doctor,” she purred. “Goodbye.”

“You’ve got a Lisel loaded on top of your buckley? Doesn’t that crash a lot?” he asked.

“I keep the emulation turned way down. I’ve just aliased my common commands so they sound like conversation if you aren’t around me too much. I don’t really trust AI. I know our AIDs and buckleys are clean, it’s just… xenohistory is a hobby of mine, and I can appreciate the Indowy point of view.” He took a bite of his taco, appearing to actually enjoy it.

“And you haven’t gone back to paper?” O’Neal joked.

“I said I was mistrustful, not a Luddite.” The doctor took a small bottle of hot sauce out of a pocket and shook some on his food.

“Habanera sauce is cheating, you know. Okay, Doc, it’s your dime,” he said.

“Dime? You just dated yourself as a fellow old fart.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “About Cally… and first of all understand I’m talking to you as her team leader, not her grandfather. Confidentiality rules let me talk to one, but not the other.”

“Yeah, I know the drill. Go ahead and say what you’ve got to say.” He accepted the loan of the bottle and shook some hot sauce into his bowl of chili.

“I have some concerns I didn’t pass up the chain. She showed physical signs of feeling guilt after this kill.” He swallowed heavily and glanced quickly towards the door. “That could be good or bad, depending on how she deals with it. I think she’s okay for the mission, or I would have said something, but… I want you to keep an eye on her.”

“That all?” He buttered a corn muffin and looked up with it halfway to his mouth, waiting.

“Yeah, it is. It probably won’t matter a bit, but if you have to do some shade tree counseling on the spot, well, I thought you should know.” The doctor shook a little pepper onto his creamed corn.

“So, who do you like in the playoffs? I’m rather partial to Charleston.” Papa O’Neal took a bite of the chili, considered it for a few seconds, then added some more hot sauce.

“Hometown sentimentality. Their bullpen is weak. Indianapolis will clean their clocks.”

“Are you kidding? The Braves haven’t won the pennant more than once since the war. My arthritic granny bats better than their lineup.” He grinned.

Growing up in his childhood home of Fredericksburg, Tommy Sunday had liked tacos. Then the Posleen came and Fredericksburg went, and it was off to the Ten Thousand and then to Armored Combat Suits — also known as ACS. The Ten Thousand’s rations had been what they could get, and had been chosen primarily for their nutritional adequacy with taste a poor second consideration. Afterward, in ACS, the suit rations were decent, but just didn’t quite achieve real tacohood.

Before he and Wendy “died,” they had managed to transfer and hide enough of their FedCreds in discreet investments. That had made real tacos, and a lot of other things, affordable despite the Bane Sidhe not being real generous with the salaries.

He tried to restrain the twinge of disappointment as he looked down at his plate. These did not exactly live up to his standards of real tacos. The corn tortilla was genuine enough, as were the refried beans, cheese, and veggies. But the beef-flavored textured tofu left quite a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, it was that or chicken, and in Tommy’s expert opinion, the only thing worse than tofu tacos was chicken tacos. And he’d rather eat his meat ration as roast chicken for dinner than have it chopped up in his taco only to face the inevitable tofu tonight. Anyway, he understood. He and Wendy could afford what they could afford because of the exorbitant salaries, by most normal standards, paid to ACS in the Posleen war and carefully invested by his wife, who had turned out to have quite a knack for buying and selling antiques.

After the Fredericksburg landing, his then-girlfriend’s old hobby of researching local history had become… untenable. A move to Franklin Sub-Urb and an abortive attempt to contribute to the war effort as a firefighter had followed. Then the Sub-Urb got eaten. After escaping that as well, Wendy’s faith in the stability of any particular town or city had been severely shaken. By the time the war ended and they had married and settled down, she had diverted her love and her skills to the history of objects of a much more portable nature.

After Fleet returned, organized Posleen resistance had been overwhelmed by strikes from orbit. What had been left was a colossal cleanup job.

Tommy had been in Bravo Company, 1st of the 555th, under Iron Mike O’Neal — Papa O’Neal’s only son. In the worst of the war, in the most desperate of the battles, Bravo Company had always been where the fire was hottest.

In the cleanup phase, the suits’ superior mobility and robustness had made the Company a juggernaut that had rolled right over any surviving God King that even attempted to begin rebuilding a technology base.

So he’d been discharged after five years of global cleanup sweeps to find, surprisingly, that the money he’d been sending home to Wendy since the return of Fleet — as much to keep her out of another Sub-Urb as anything — had not only not been expended, but had been doubled.

He’d done code for Personality Solutions after the war, when the experience of veterans with the AIDs inspired a fad of ever newer and fancier PDA’s. The salary hadn’t been anything like his ACS pay, but he and Wendy hadn’t exactly been surviving on hotdogs and peanut butter. Until the Cyberpunks recruited him, and then the Bane Sidhe had arranged his and Wendy’s “deaths” and they had come inside.

Since then they’d augmented his salary with carefully managed investment income. But most inside operatives weren’t so lucky. The medical and dental were unbeatable, but the chow left a lot to be desired. Which brought him back to the lousy tacos.

Tommy squared his shoulders and looked around the cafeteria for familiar faces, grinning when he saw Martin and Schmidt sitting at an only slightly wobbly round table next to the braided ficus in the corner. He had shared a couple of training classes with Martin in his early years inside, and the two had found they shared a love of chili slaw dogs and an obscure prewar burlesque film. He would have loved to sneak up on the extremely ordinary-looking black man and say something smart, but he wasn’t the least surprised when he only made it halfway.

“What the hay-el kind of man wears pantyhose to a movie?” The man’s head didn’t turn, but his rich tenor rang out across the room.

“Hey, Lips, man, you know you love it.” Tommy grinned and took his tray over, setting it down and grabbing a chair from the next table over.

“You guys aren’t going to do weird things with your elbows, are you?” Schmidt was short. At about five foot seven, with straight blond hair that looked like somebody had piled a double handful of straw on his head, Schmidt’s rejuv let him pass for about fourteen. In some environments, a kid in a jean jacket and ratty backpack was less conspicuous than any adult.

“Just because you don’t appreciate classic cinema, George…” Levon had turned in his seat and offered his hand as Tommy scooted up to the table. “Hey, Sunday, how the hell are you?”

“Doin’ all right. Not so unhappy to get out of the house for a week or two,” Tommy admitted.

“Oh? I thought you and Wendy were the original perpetual newlyweds,” Martin said.

“Wendy is the love of my life; she’s just always a bit cranky at this stage. She’ll be glad to have me out of her hair for a while, and by the time I get back she’ll be herself again,” he said.

“Geez, it’s like you two have it down to a science.” Schmidt looked down at the slab of tofu formed in the shape of a T-bone steak. He frowned and grabbed the black pepper, shaking on enough to cover the fake grill marks before slicing off a piece and taking a bite, chewing glumly, “Damn, I can’t wait to get back out into the field.”

“Well, damn, they’ll let anybody in here now.” Jay set his tray down and hooked an empty chair over with an ankle.

“Blade man! Long time no see,” George grinned, offering a hand to the other man.

“Blade man?” Tommy asked. “Do I want to know?”

“Oh, back in high school, Jay here was unbeatable at Boma Warrior. Never figured out how he did it, but our junior year, it was probably the coolest game in the library.” George topped a bit of the tofu steak with some of the hot corn relish on the side.

“I knew a guy who worked on that. You know on the sixth level where you go around a corner and get swarmed by a pack of carnivorous mini-lops? I put him up to that.” Tommy shook some Tabasco on his taco, took a bite, and added a few more shakes.

“That was you? That was wicked cool, but every once in a while one of those mothers would have a switchblade and be just impossible to kill…” Schmidt pushed at a stray bit of tofu with his fork. “Man, I can’t wait to get back out in the field.”

“What, I never figured you for being as eager as all that?” Jay chuckled disbelievingly.

“Not that, Jay. You have to admit the food’s better. As to the other, somebody has to do the dirty work. The cops don’t take out the damn Elves’ trash. So, cosmic janitor, that’s me.” He grinned easily. “You don’t have a problem with Sherry marrying blue-collar, do you, old man?” He quirked an eyebrow at Martin, looking out through the hair that had fallen across his eyes again.

“Be a bit late if I did. And a little less on the ‘old,’ if you don’t mind.” Levon took a big bite out of his cheeseburger, manfully ignoring the almost complete lack of beef in the fried patty.

“By the way, ’scuse me if I’m treading on sensitive territory, here, but what’s the deal with Cally? The rumor mill has been unreal,” George asked, looking at Tommy.

“I dunno, man. You probably know more than I do. All they told us was to grab our gear and haul ass to catch the shuttle.” He shook his head slightly. “I haven’t seen her, and Papa O’Neal said not to ask. And he was wearing his ‘don’t fuck with me’ look.”

“Oh, he’ll get it all worked out somehow. I mean, she’s an O’Neal, you know?” Jay grinned, and if it was just a hair too tight, well, they were all worried about their teammate. And not just because she was maybe the best shooter in the business.

Tommy looked away from his teammate and caught Martin’s eye. He took a deep breath.

“What I did hear is that you might know a lot about it, but weren’t saying, Levon,” he said.

“Yeah, I do, but I wish I didn’t. Look, I like Cally. I respect her. I would have her on my team any day of the week. But the past couple of years… I don’t know, maybe she’s just working too hard. It’s not like we haven’t all seen something like this coming.” He shook his head.

“Excuse me? Something like what?” Tommy’s voice had a definite edge to it.

“Sunday, don’t go all big brother on me. The least I can do for her is give her the dignity of letting her tell you herself. I owe her that much, and so do you,” he said.

“So you’re pretty sure she’s gonna be back on active and everything in a couple of days?” Jay asked casually around a bite of his enchilada.

Martin was silent for a long moment.

“If she’s not, then you can ask me,” he said.

Tommy dove to the side as the guy in the gray suit aimed at him and emptied the magazine of his pistol. He had time to pull the pin and toss a grenade — he was out of ammo — before the rapidly falling health indicator showed him he was hit and bleeding out. He got the other guy, but it had been in the “dead man’s ten seconds.” Still, the computer credited him with the kill, and, even more important, the ambush had happened just like it was supposed to after his hacking mistake earlier had resulted in detection. The holographic projection of the game faded out.

“You’re dead, man.” He felt Jay’s hand clap him on the back.

“Nice shades. And I’m supposed to be.” At six foot eight and three hundred pounds, Tommy Sunday was not a small man. Still, other than his size, he looked fairly typical for a juv in his first century. That is, he looked twenty, despite the fact that he now had grown grandchildren to baby-sit his and Wendy’s small children.

“Play testing another training scenario?” Jay’s grin was affable as he tossed himself into a chair beside his teammate and kicked his feet up on the table next to the larger man’s.

“Yep. And after the royal fuck-up I made hacking a system earlier, well, there was a small theoretical chance I could survive, but it should have fried my ass. As it did,” Tommy sighed.

“Ah, the sacrifices you make for quality control.” Papa O’Neal snagged a Styrofoam cup from the stack next to the coffee pot, pulled a small pouch out of his pocket, and got himself a fresh plug of tobacco.

“I’ve already played it through for real. And several times multiplayer interactive. Now I’m trying to see if I can break it.” The former ACS trooper shrugged and closed the game, popping a fresh cube into the reader slot as Cally came in to begin their briefing. The brown curls didn’t faze him. He’d seen her with every hair color and style known to man over the years. He did wonder if the brown curls were coming or going, though.

“Okay, folks, this is your basic counterintelligence mission. We have every reason to believe Fleet Strike is aware of us and that our security has been penetrated. They have a man inside. Which is why your briefing was eleventh hour and neither you nor I will have any unmonitored communications, nor will any of us discuss this mission outside this room or with anyone except each other. The number of people in the Bane Sidhe hierarchy who know the actual nature of this mission has been kept to an absolute minimum. We are to find the identity of the leak, and plug it.” She reached down and pushed a button on the screen of her PDA, bringing up a hologram of a man in his apparent early thirties, in a Fleet Strike general’s uniform — which meant he was probably a fair bit into his second century.

“This is General Bernhard Beed. General Beed has been tasked with, basically, finding out everything he can about us. He is setting up his headquarters on Titan Base to coordinate the intelligence they develop. The office is covered as criminal investigations and military policing for Titan Base.” She touched the screen again and the hologram changed, revealing a young goddess in a captain’s uniform.

“And my cover, Sinda Makepeace.”

Fuck, she is stacked as all hell. And look at those power-lifter thighs. I think I’m just as glad Wendy will not see Cally in this cover.

“Captain Makepeace is presently on Earth and due to board a shuttle for passage to Titan from Chicago O’Hare this Sunday at 0815. The preliminary plan is to make the switch at the airport. I go on the slab in an hour.” She tossed each of them a cube.

“Here’s the rest of what the higher ups gave me and what I’ve been able to develop. Tommy and Jay, I need you to get a complete profile on everyone in that office, including voice and motion samples for Makepeace. Granpa, I need you to review the airport and Titan Base, plan the switch, plan the extraction after I get the data. Your cover is as crew on an in-system freighter taking manufactured goods for the shops in the business district. The local tong will cover you because you’ll be taking an unofficial cargo of partial doses of rejuv drugs. Apparently, there’s a worthwhile supply of troops willing to pay just about anything to take a little wear and tear off a dependant or two. They will, of course, pay you for the drugs — they’re just getting a particularly good deal. They don’t know why you want to be in the vicinity of Titan Base, and they don’t want to know.” She noticed their eyes were still fixed on the hologram and touched the screen of the PDA again, watching them blinking as the image vanished.

“Does anybody have any questions? No? Great. I’ll head down to medical and see you back here in three hours.” She scooped up her PDA and headed for the door.

“Uh… wait a minute, Cally,” Jay interrupted, looking around at Tommy and Papa, “I just wanted to say, and I think I speak for all of us, how glad we all are that you’re still going to be with us on this mission. And I’m sure I speak for all of us again when I say that I’m sure that, well, everything will work out just fine.”

“Well… thank you, Jay.” Her forehead had wrinkled slightly, but her eyes warmed as she turned and left.

“Will you be carrying a no-name pill?” Papa sounded like he thought it was a very good idea.

“No. The secret of that pill is worth more than I am. And if I was taken, they could find it or, even if they didn’t, the chances of you getting to me inside the time limit would be small. That’s too much like a suicide pill for my liking. I don’t plan to be caught, but if I am, I’ll do everything the nuns taught us in SERE. Besides, there probably wouldn’t be time to make one up to my new stats. And, frankly, I don’t plan to need it.”

“If that wasn’t the fastest briefing I’ve ever had, it’s close.” Tommy sat watching the door for a moment before taking the cube she’d tossed him and swapping it into the reader slot of his AID.

“To the point, though.” O’Neal spat neatly into his cup, as he brought up a map of the Chicago air and space port.

“Okay, I feel better now that I see what she pulled together and what she left for us. Cally always has had a good sense of the hacking she could get away with.” He walked over and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee.

“Jay, you take the cover, I’ll take the personnel files of the other staff.”

“Wouldn’t have wanted to say it in front of Cally, but the captain has some damn fine architecture,” Jay said appreciatively.

“Yeah, but her nose is a tad off-center and she’s always going to need makeup to darken her eyebrows and stuff,” Tommy commented.

“You noticed her nose and eyebrows?” Jay sounded disbelieving. Papa O’Neal just shook his head.

“Briefly. Very briefly,” Tommy grinned.

“You guys keep working. I’ve got something to take care of. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Papa had a stubborn look on his face.

Johnny Stuart was not a morning person. Unfortunately, the Coburn girl had the morning off to go to the dentist and, like most kids, Mary Lynn was an early riser. Which is why he was sitting up in a rumpled bed, rubbing his eyes, while a wriggling five year old climbed into his lap.

Mary Lynn had the dark brown curls of her mother, but his own facial features. They just looked better on her. After the cancer had taken his wife, three years ago, the doctors had told him that it raised Mary Lynn’s risk considerably. If he’d had some pull, he might have been able to get the new drugs to save her, but Sue hadn’t much held with pull, and the cancer had come on sudden and before he could do anything, Sue was gone and him left to do the best he could by Mary Lynn. He didn’t understand much about the numbers in what the doctor said, not having got much past high school algebra, but what he did understand was that he owed it to Sue never to be in a position to be unable to help his sick kin, their daughter especially, again.

So he had set about going to work for the people with the most pull he could find, getting a reputation for resourcefulness and the willingness to get things done no matter what it took. And plenty of times it had taken things that were way outside the normal rules. But a man who wouldn’t break a few rules for his own was no kind of man at all. That was the best thing about his recent promotion. If he could pull this off and keep the damned aliens happy, he and Mary Lynn would never lack for the best of care again.

“How’s my Sunshine this morning!” He began tickling her ribs mercilessly, until she squirmed away from him and off the bed.

“Silly Daddy,” she said. “I’m hungry. Where’s Traci?”

“Traci had to go to the dentist, Sunshine. Just you and me this morning. Let me make some coffee and I’ll see if we can find some cereal.” He yawned.

“Lucky Charms!” She ran off towards the kitchen, giggling.

“Okay, I think we’ve still got some,” he called, pulling up his worn cotton pajama bottoms a bit as he got out of bed. Probably ought to get around to replacing those. He trudged into the kitchen and made coffee, taking out two bowls while it dripped through the old-fashioned appliance. He was really just back in Silverton winding up his affairs. The promotion meant moving them to Chicago and a lot of travel for him. He was going to hate being away from Mary Lynn so much, but it was for her own good, so he could protect her better. It was hard, but she’d understand when she was older.

He had tried to get Traci Coburn to move with them, so Mary Lynn wouldn’t have to change babysitters, but Traci hadn’t wanted to leave her family. He could understand that. It took a real cosmopolitan individual to deal with city people and country people alike. And if there was one thing Johnny was, it was good with people. The trick was to tell them as much of what they wanted to hear with as few actual lies as possible. He’d always been gifted that way, but in the years since Sue’s death he’d gone to it with a will and developed it to a high art.

He set the bowl down in front of Mary Lynn and sat down with his own breakfast, having his AID pull up his morning e-mail. He could see right away today was going to be tricky. The Tir’s secretary had left a message asking what he had turned up on Worth’s death, and the bald truth was that despite a week and a half of trying, he had squat. So the task of the day was going to be coming up with something that, while it might not be accurate, would be convincing enough that it would do until he could start finding the real thing. He sent her an e-mail telling her he’d be sending a report first thing Monday morning. Best not to put them off any longer than that.

Smart money was that it was a hit, of course. But he wasn’t going to keep his new job by restating the obvious. He needed something and he needed it now. Maybe a little misdirection would help. People died all the time. If he couldn’t find anything about Worth’s death, maybe he could find something about some other death and claim that they were linked. It didn’t really matter if they were or not. Paranoia always played well, and it was like that numberology con — you could link anything to anything else if you tried hard enough. Some of his best rumors had been built that way. Besides, if he turned up anything later that contradicted the link, chances were it would give him something real about the Worth business, and he’d just be doing a good job. And if he didn’t turn up anything contradictory, well, then there would be nothing to detract from his story, would there?

Once Mary Lynn was safely occupied by the big pink and black bumblebee surrounded by a mob of smiling children that seemed to have taken over their vidscreen, Johnny opened a tray table and had his AID project a virtual keyboard and a holographic screen. The trick was to find anyone else who had ever worked for the Darhel and died, preferably since Worth bought it, but before would do in a pinch.

“Leanne, I need you to search the database of people who have done work for our organization. List me anybody who’s died or disappeared between May ninth of this year and now,” he said.

“Worth, Charles. Reported missing as of May thirteenth, death is likely. Fiek, Samuel. Missing as of May thirteenth, death is likely. Greer, Michael. Dead as of May fifteenth, purposeful termination of contract. Samuels, Vernard. Dead as of May nineteenth, car crash. Petane, Charles. Dead as of May twenty-first, drug overdose. List complete,” it recited.

Okay, Fiek and Worth were almost certainly linked, which meant they disappeared after six forty-five p.m. on May tenth, when a boy remembered delivering a pizza to a man at Fiek’s apartment. The pizza boy had picked Fiek’s face out of a slideshow of images, after he handed him a half dozen twenties.

Fiek had no known reason to have a particular grudge against Worth, and vice versa. More to the point, the Darhel had checked their local bank accounts, and their personal numbered bank accounts in discreet countries, that each man had set up secretly, and their money was untouched since Worth had drawn out a modest amount of cash on the morning of the tenth. It was almost inconceivable that someone who would work for the Darhel would run without their money.

If he’d just had to guess, he’d have said whatever happened was at Worth’s Chicago apartment. Fiek lived in the same building, and although Worth didn’t actually live there most of the time, he frequently used the place when he was in town. He’d searched both apartments himself, along with a cousin who used to work in the sheriff’s department in Silverton. Bobby had said that Worth’s apartment looked a little too clean to him, and pointed out the lack of dust and fluff, especially below the wall with the kinky crap bolted onto it. And what his dead boss had done with that, Johnny hoped he’d never have to know. At least, not unless it was just business.

Getting his cousin set up had been the kind of thing he’d taken this job for in the first place, and it made him proud. A man liked to be able to take care of his kin. And after Bobby got himself fired for being high on the job, Johnny had seen the opportunity in the situation and had helped Bobby out, getting the nanodrugs to get the monkey off his back as well as getting him an income his ex-wife couldn’t get her hands on. That was a situation he was glad to fix. Brenda was a two-bit whore and that was Jimmy Simms’ kid, not Bobby’s, and everybody in town knew it. The judge just also knew Jimmy was a worthless drunk who still lived with his momma and so had stuck poor Bobby with the bill for the cheating bitch’s brat. Johnny liked kids as well as anybody, hell, he’d do anything for Mary Lynn and damned near had, but a thing like that just wasn’t right.

So anyway, Worth and Fiek got done in his apartment sometime over the weekend of the tenth. And that was all he had. Worth had changed his appearance and changed his pattern so often that normal search techniques to see where he’d been and who’d seen him last just wouldn’t work with him. And that meant that unless Johnny could pull a good story out of the air on short notice, his ass was in a crack.

“Okay, Leanne, give me a file on each of them, in print where you’ve got it, on my desk top, with all we know about each man’s death.” No women. That was funny, but then a lot of their field people were guys, so it could be just coincidence. All right, before weeding through the small stuff, he’d get a big picture.

“Leanne, gimme a map of the world, about so big.” He spread his arms, watching a holographic illusion of a large flat screen project in the air in front of him.

“Put a pin in it where each guy died. Waitaminute, is that three? Magnify Chicago. Who’s that third pin?”

“What third pin, please?” The AID sounded confused. They were pretty smart, but sometimes they didn’t track too well.

“Which one of the organization deaths you listed for me, besides Fiek and Worth, was in Chicago?”

“Petane, Charles.”

“Well, isn’t that something. Thanks, Leanne. Go to standby.” There was a trick to managing the AIDs that a couple of old veterans had brought home after the war. The big point was if you were planning anything to keep your thoughts to yourself. They recorded everything, all the time, but so far nobody had found a way as far as he could tell to read a man’s thoughts. So the trick with something like this was to keep all his thoughts to himself, read everything in the file, connect the dots, even if they didn’t strictly speaking go together, and then lay out his case talking to the AID, making it sound like thinking aloud. When you could record a whole hell of a lot, it was easy to forget about the things you couldn’t record. Besides, who knew, maybe he’d find something.

Okay, Petane was the drug overdose. That was good. You could always make something suspicious out of a drug overdose. Bad was that it wasn’t another disappearance, but he could just argue that “they” were crafty enough to change methods. Coroner had ruled it an accident, but that didn’t matter. First thing would be to have his own people get hold of any stored tissue samples and run them for anything he could use. Found in his mistress’s bed. Had to be hard on the wife. Mistress had been drugged, cops figured by him, was unconscious while he died next to her. And, not to put too fine a point on it, forensics said he hadn’t come. Well, didn’t that stink to high heaven. Good. No telling who had really offed the puke. Could have been the wife. Unlikely as hell to have been anything to do with the Darhel. He had only done something useful once and it had been thirty years ago. Still, make the story good enough and it was a whole lot better than reporting in empty handed.

They were in the same conference room as Thursday for their final pre-mission check. The cheap folding conference table and bare Galplas walls didn’t improve with familiarity, but the coffee was good, and the corn muffins were… well, they were at least predictable, anyway.

“Okay, people, one more time through. Cally, you first.” Papa O’Neal, with sandy brown hair and looking rather strange without his usual wad of tobacco, spitting absentmindedly into a mug, nonetheless.

“Baggage check-in at six, security around six-forty-five, in the women’s room across from the gate Sierra-six departure lounge by seven-oh-five. Once there, if I didn’t see Granpa and Tommy on the way in, I send an ‘arrived’ text message so you know I’m in place. I wait until my PDA tells me that the target is in motion, then when she enters, I inject her with my handy-dandy tranquilizer, trade clothes with her with Tommy’s help, go back out and catch the shuttle to Titan Base, et cetera,” she said, pointing to Jay. For the insertion, her silver-blond hair was unkempt, and the white sweatpants and oversized men’s sweatshirt with horizontal blue and white stripes made the most of her figure, most very definitely being the word. Contact lenses muted Sinda’s cornflower blue eyes to a nondescript grayish hazel. Cheap, zero-prescription glasses were fitted poorly enough that they kept sliding down her nose a bit, and she pushed them back nervously, furtively nibbling at a candy bar now and then.

“Hey, how come she gets chocolate and we get these?” Tommy said, staring disgustedly at one of the muffins.

“It’s a prop,” she responded haughtily, and harrumphed, wiggling a bit as if settling into a new suit of clothes as she got back into character. “Go on, Jay.” But she surreptitiously slipped Tommy a candy bar from her purse.

“At five-forty-five, I go through baggage claim and check a dummy bag. By six-fifteen I’m headed through security. By seven, I’m at the S-six departure lounge, seated, with a cup of ice water from one of the snack counters. When Makepeace enters the lounge and sits, I move nearby. I take a brief video capture of the target and her location and forward it to the team so Cally knows where to sit and which stuff is ‘hers.’ If the target doesn’t go to the ladies’ room on her own by seven thirteen, I make a klutz of myself and spill my drink in her lap. I apologize profusely, and as soon as she heads for the door I hit the button on the screen of my PDA which alerts you three. When Cally comes back out as Makepeace, she touches her right ear to confirm the switch. I proceed to the rendezvous with Tommy and O’Neal, arriving no later than eight-thirty. I change clothes, we return to the port by the freight entrance, board the freighter, and take off for Titan at eleven-fifty. Tommy?”

“Papa and I arrive at the freight entrance in the vehicle at oh-six-forty-five, dressed as crew, with Jay’s clothes and cleaning crew uniforms in the trunk. We change on the freighter and retrieve the cleaning cart stashed there. We have until oh-seven-hundred to make it to the Sierra-six departure lounge women’s room. I send Cally an ‘arrived’ text message. We put up an out-of-service sign but admit Cally. We remove the sign and wheel the cart aside towards the men’s room when we get the word the target is in motion. We politely turn anyone but the target away. When the target enters the restroom, we return with the sign and wait until Cally signals. Then I push the cart in and help as needed with the clothes switch and put Makepeace in the bottom of the trash bin, covering her with appropriate debris. We maneuver Makepeace back to the car, add the wig from the glove box, douse her with the cheap beer and whiskey samples in same, drive her to rendezvous one, Hiberzine her, and hand her off to the cleaning crew for live handling. Make rendezvous two no later than oh-eight-thirty and proceed like Jay said. Papa?” He licked bits of chocolate off his fingers before wadding the wrapper and making a basketball shot into the trash can in the corner.

“I got the easy recital. Same as you, Tommy, except I wait outside the restroom while you assist in the switch. Abort code?”

“Toledo,” they chimed.

“Right. Your PDA or AID calls Toledo, disappear and lie low for at least two days before returning to base or dropping the Bane Sidhe a cube, your best judgment which. We’re all seasoned operatives. If your best judgment says ‘abort’ somewhere along the line, call it. There’s no points for heroism in this business. Jay, it’s way out of line from her profile, but if Makepeace comes running up to the gate right at boarding and never sits down, just call Toledo. A switch that’s not clean would be worse than an abort, especially with this mission. All right. Let’s split up and move.” He grimaced at the muffin in his hand and paused by the door, apparently debating whether to toss it uneaten. He took another bite of it and walked out the door.

“What’s the matter, Granpa? Don’t you like corn? We have it so seldom,” she said, grinning.

“I can eat cornbread for every meal if I have to, you hellion. Even if the yankees do insist on putting sugar in it.”

Cally’s dummy suitcase was a good match for the persona. Her ID said she was Irene Grzybowski. Irene was the kind of woman nobody would look at twice in a crowded area like an airport: maybe forty to fifty, dumpy figure, eyes on the ground most of the time, polite but not friendly to security. And nobody did. Nobody looked at her as she heaved the battered cloth suitcase, made out of fabric that looked like a college student’s sofa, onto the counter. Nobody looked at her as she walked through security with the all-plastic syringe of tranquilizer taped into the reinforced elastic under band of her sports bra, which did a good job of helping her look fat and lumpy rather than well-endowed. Nobody looked at her as she walked to gate S-six and went into the ladies’ room across from the departure lounge, taking up a natural-looking position in the second stall from the end. She had beaten Granpa and Tommy in getting here. She had not looked for Jay. It would have been bad tradecraft.

She took her PDA out of her purse and flipped it open, setting it on the top of the tissue dispenser. The buckley’s voice access was, of course, off. Should the abort code come in while the screen was off, the PDA was set to vibrate. She hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

She looked at the clock icon on the screen. Six-fifty-three. She had made good time. After sending Tommy her arrival message, getting the syringe out and ready, and brushing her hair, there was really nothing to do but hurry up and wait. The trick on this type of setup was to keep her attention focused on the PDA screen without her mind and eyes wandering off and without falling into a daze staring at the screen. Cally’s solution was to split the screen, with the small custom icons labeled “in motion” and “video” on the top half and an old logic game based on hunting for hidden mines on the bottom half.

At six-fifty-eight, the message icon on the control bar blinked at her. Tommy and Granpa were in place.

The blinking of the video icon caught her eye at seven-oh-five. She set it to play on the lower screen and had just caught her first glimpse of the target when the in-motion icon started blinking at her. Okay, time enough to watch the movie after I take the target. If she’s moving on her own, she needs to be here. Best to take her on her way out of the stall.

She breathed evenly as the door opened, all senses hyper-alert. Something was wrong. The tread was too heavy on the floor, and not a woman’s shoe. She tensed.

“Cally?” a voice whispered.

That could be Tommy. Or not. “Um… this restroom is occupied.”

“She bought a donut and went back to sit down. Reset and wait for him to send it again,” he said.

“Got it.” The voice was definitely Tommy. She heard him leave again as she tapped options on the screen, working quickly to reset everything so she’d know when the target left her seat again. It didn’t matter what the mission was, there was always something. Although I hope to God this is not another mission day from hell. Good grief, under the damn bed!

She watched the video, taking note of the target’s seat location and that she had a laptop computer with her. It made sense, since the assignment was clerical. Real screens were still the best option for minimizing eye-strain from all-day use.

As she waited, she could periodically hear apologetic male voices as Tommy and Granpa redirected a female traveler to the next nearest restroom. At seven-fourteen the in-motion icon blinked again.

She shut off and pocketed the PDA, palmed the syringe, and stood. As the door opened, she flushed just for verisimilitude and opened the stall door, going to the sink as the target came in the door looking down at her silks and swearing softly.

By the time Cally reached the sink, the other woman had grabbed a handful of paper towels and was rubbing at the large wet blotch. She didn’t even look up as the assassin slipped behind her and clapped a hand over her mouth, finding the right spot for a neck injection with the ease of long practice. Makepeace didn’t have time to struggle much before the strong drugs hit her system and she went limp, breathing smoothly and evenly as Cally lowered her to the floor.

You’re lucky. I get to let you live. She went to the door and opened it a crack, motioning Tommy inside with the cart. Granpa nodded shortly to her before turning to look back outward, watching for threats. As Tommy came through, she was back out of direct sight of the door, over by the sinks and already unfastening the top of the target’s gray silks.

“I’ll get her, you get out of those.” Tommy waved her away from the unconscious woman.

She quickly stripped to her panties, leaving the clothes neatly on the floor in the order they’d need for the other woman. She shrugged into the woman’s thankfully well-designed bra and the silks, finding enough in the woman’s purse to do a passable copy of her makeup, pinning the silver-blond hair in a knot at the base of her neck. Thank God she doesn’t wear nail polish. Having to match the shade on the go would have been annoying.

Socks and women’s low-quarters, which were thankfully not quite regulation — having added support insoles — and she was almost ready to go. The buckley on her PDA and the on-board storage had been sanitized by the best the night before and given a surface makeover to the make and model of the other woman’s. As far as it was concerned, she already was Captain Sinda Makepeace. The cube in the reader slot had the only sensitive information. She handed her PDA and Makepeace’s to Tommy and took over finishing dressing the target while he convinced the other PDA to surrender its files to hers. He opened a bottle of “cleaning fluid” and dropped the cube in, handing her back her PDA.

“Now remember, to access the transmitter, you need to go to your photopak icon, open it, select help, then transmitting a photo. The application will let you transmit anything on your PDA or in the cube slot,” he said.

She helped him clean up the scene quickly, getting the now nameless woman squared away under the trash. She had to work carefully to avoid further mussing the uniform. The wet patch would look bad enough until it dried. And it felt clammy. Ick. It probably won’t even be dry by the time we get up to the ship. I’m definitely going to need to stop in my quarters and change before I do anything else.

“See you on Titan.” She gripped his hand quickly and was gone.