The good news was that her arm was finally healing. The bad news was that it was healing very slowly, and two of her fingers remained immobile. Alma had found a child's rubber ball among the pile of junk in the cafeteria and was trying to get her fingers to work properly by squeezing and releasing the toy.
Daniel and Romana were driving around the city today. Kerim was cooking dinner for everyone, Gitana was watching the perimeter, Hector had gone somewhere. Vince was counting their remaining money, weapons, and supplies — so Alma was very surprised when he appeared in the cafeteria doorway and grunted:
"Go to him. He's back."
"Did he call for me?"
"Yes. Something's wrong with him," Vince whispered as she walked past him.
"Was he wounded? Spotted?"
"No, just... something's wrong. He's not himself."
Alma climbed the stairs to the room they'd set up as an armory. Hector sat on the edge of a sagging armchair, staring blankly at a sniper rifle. Alma adjusted it so it wouldn't fall and leaned against the wall opposite Hector.
"You shouldn't have gone out. They might find out who you are."
"How would they?"
"The journalist saw my face. Identifying and connecting the dots would take a few minutes. Why did you go out?" Alma asked. Hector rubbed his face with his hands and muttered:
"I haven't told you everything."
"That was our agreement," Alma shrugged. Her arm ached faintly. "Those who know nothing can't talk."
"I've been hiding something... someone from you."
"Someone?"
Hector was silent. Had he really managed to...
"I had a person on the Briareus crew," he confessed. Alma exhaled faintly. So that's how he'd gotten the container onto the train — and it had been so simple...
"Did you meet with them?"
Hector let out a nervous laugh.
"Well... I tried."
"What do you mean? Did they — or she — not show up? You wanted your person to retrieve the container and bring it back to you?" She didn't like prying, pulling out what he didn't want to share. But he'd started this conversation himself, and Alma already understood why — the meeting had clearly gone wrong.
"I couldn't get close," Hector said. "I... we decided she would find a way to leave the train."
"She? Who?"
"The Express dispatcher. Claude Reneal."
"Oh God, Hector!" Alma cried out. "How did you manage that?!"
"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter anymore. She... she slipped up somehow. The security service's sniper shot her as soon as she left the carriage."
Alma froze for a moment, then rushed to him and gripped his arm. He had been so close!
"How could you?" she hissed abruptly. "How could you get that close and not even think they might see you?!"
"No one saw me. They probably didn't know why she came out."
"Then why kill her? Why not try to capture her?"
"I don't know," Hector forced out, lowering his head. "I got out of there as fast as I could, without waiting for them to sweep the perimeter."
"Are you sure they didn't see you?"
"Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it back."
Alma sank to the floor with a heavy sigh, wrapping her arms around her head. The relief that he'd returned was too strong for her to think about anything else. But after a few seconds, she said quietly:
"So it was all for nothing. If the container was with her, the SS soldiers have already found it. We've failed, Hector."
"Not yet. The only good news today is that she couldn't bring it out. Wherever she hid it, it's heavily guarded. That's probably how she got caught — when she tried to retrieve it."
"So the container is still on the train, and no one knows where it is? Hector," after a pause, Alma asked, "do you know where she hid it?"
"No," he hissed, "and that's our main problem."
Al-Haiyan, the capital of the Sultanate of Er-Rummal's colonies on Tar-Mariat
"Truly, audacity is a special kind of happiness," AlNilam hissed, and Murad couldn't agree with him. Though he would have added something about a lack of fear and brains. It was remarkably easy, it turned out, to kidnap a woman whose security was being handled by Al-Shadiyar — if you simply didn't burden yourself with conspiracy, planning, secrecy, or other such nonsense.
The terrorists had acted simply and directly. While one boy distracted the agent by pretending to break into Gemma's car, a second terrorist crept up behind her as she left the bakery and injected her with a sedative. All of this — without the slightest concern for the surveillance cameras that had captured everything in detail.
"When were you planning to inform me of this?" the Wad-Prince asked Al-Saghir coldly. The Al-Shadiyar officer paled slightly and muttered:
"We immediately took all measures to find Saida Nightbird as quickly as possible."
"Before I noticed her disappearance?" the Wad-Prince asked, fixing the officer with a fiercely blazing stare. When angry, AlNilam resembled his father, who in moments of rage was like a man-eating lion. Al-Saghir swallowed and stepped back toward the door.
"I've deployed all my people to search for the terrorists. We've already received data from police cameras and are processing it. As soon as my people have results..."
"By then it will be too late," the Wad-Prince hissed, gesturing sharply for Al-Saghir to leave Shufrir's office, which the officer did with obvious relief.
"Effendi," Murad said with a hint of reproach.
"She's not an SS operative, not a special agent, not even a being. She's just a girl," Irfan said quietly, pulling the scarf from his face and sinking onto the sofa, dropping his head into his hands. "I'm an irresponsible idiot. I should never have taken her to Fialkovskaya's apartment."
"It's not too late, Effendi," the Yakzan said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "They need to get to a hideout or safe house. They'll want to interrogate her there. That will take time as well. We still have a chance."
"But what will they do to her while we're messing around here!" the Wad-Prince stared at the panel from under his brows, where the camera footage was still playing.
"She can't fight back, Effendi, so she won't be seriously harmed. Besides, truth drugs eliminate the need for physical torture."
"What if this is a trap? What if they're luring us in?" AlNilam murmured. "Think about it — how stupid would they have to be to kidnap someone in broad daylight, with cameras on every lamppost?"
"Young and stupid," Murad took the remote, selected a couple of frames showing the kidnappers, and zoomed in. "Their faces are hidden under kaitas, but they're not acting like experienced terrorists. Experienced ones wouldn't have gone near Gemma."
"But I just don't understand why!" AlNilam jumped up and began pacing the office. "Everything they do only draws our attention... or distracts us," he whispered suddenly. "All these young terrorists with their stunts make an excellent smoke screen. While we've been dealing with Kamal and Silverberg, Fialkovskaya could have already left Tar-Mariat!"
"That's a risky strategy. The more terrorists we see, the more information we get. Luther Magrinha's name has already come up, and his patron's. I'd suggest Magrinha left the young ones unsupervised, and this is all just childish amateurism."
"They're dying from this amateurism," the Wad-Prince said dryly. "Still, I wouldn't be surprised if we're both right. But kidnapping Gemma is a step too far. Even the dumbest young thugs must realize that a woman from the SS will be searched for with triple the force."
"Maybe they panicked. Which is understandable if Magrinha left them here, as you say, as a smoke screen, and is no longer in contact."
"And while we're searching for Gemma, Fialkovskaya will slip off the planet with the hostages, embryos, and archive," AlNilam brought up an image of Tar-Mariat rotating around the yellow star Ulamani. Red dots marking the Sultanate's colonies clustered in a pathetic little group on the edge of the northern continent.
"If the terrorists flew their jets into the unexplored depths of the continent, we'll never find them there," the Wad-Prince sighed bitterly.
"But to leave the colonies, they'll inevitably have to return to civilization and board a train," Murad said. Whatever threatened Gemma, he was far more worried about the risk of failing the mission. The Sultan did not forgive the prince's mistakes and punished them cruelly. And Irfan had only just been released from the hospital a month ago, after the incident on Alviont.
"But they could also hide among the florofauna and wait it out," AlNilam noted. "I wonder if the kidnappers are connected to Fialkovskaya's group? Could someone older be coordinating the young ones' actions?" He tilted his head, thinking. "If so, by rescuing Gemma, we'll kill two birds with one stone — the main thing is not to miss."
A knock came at the office door. The Wad-Prince covered his face with his scarf and pressed the button to let Al-Saghir in.
"Effendi!" he blurted. "We've found their car! The last recording is from today, nine in the morning! They abandoned the vehicle at an old drain access point and dragged the hostage inside!"
"Oh!" AlNilam exhaled. "That's not bad! Prepare thirty people. We'll take them right in their lair."
Almonzeia, the capital of the MT Corporation's colonies on Almonzis
Fontaine pulled back the sheet. The laser shot had passed directly from her right temple to her left, leaving her face untouched — frozen in a childlike expression of surprise.
"A productive day for corpses, isn't it?" Frina asked dryly, as if it were his fault.
"It was Aviles," Ax couldn't explain why he was so certain it was the group's leader who had killed the girl. Though if the poor fool had been meeting with him and had seen his face, or even just corresponded with him, she was doomed.
"Was the container on her?"
"No, Madame," Ax replied. "She must not have had time to retrieve it. Or she couldn't, if it's hidden somewhere under constant surveillance by Kellerman and me."
Anna Dmitrievna placed her hand on Claude's shoulder, as if she were merely asleep and could still be woken.
"Bastard," Ax thought in impotent fury, "she's not even twenty-five!"
"Send me the autopsy report, Doctor," Lavrova said and left the morgue. Fontaine hurried after her — he sensed Frina was in no mood to talk to him.
"A squad of our soldiers will participate in the operation to capture the terrorists, unless you countermand the order..."
"Kill him," the Express Chief said impassively.
"Yes, Madame."
Phan had wanted to take the bastard alive for interrogation, but Lavrova's word was law, and besides, Ax wanted to wring his neck with his own hands.
"The journalist wasn't harmed, as I understand?"
"No. Though I think Aviles was hoping to shoot them both."
"What would be the point? He must realize we've already interrogated the boy and made all the necessary connections."
"Killing the pup would be a nice bonus, especially for a vindictive bastard like him. Luring the journalist out of the train was a pretext to get Claude out. Aviles couldn't reach her while she was on the express, and she couldn't just leave."
"That container is still here," Lavrova murmured. That troubled Ax as well. He was sure this was all a result of their operation at MT Express. Guy Montelu had probably managed to warn his people before his suicide mission, and they'd panicked. Aviles had ordered Claude to bring the journalist out of the train so he could kill her once she was on the platform, thereby severing the only link between the train and his cell. And if Aguilar hadn't sensed something was wrong from the girl's behavior, Aviles would have killed Ross too.
But at least now they knew how the terrorists had smuggled the container onboard. But where was it now? Had the girl sewn the damned tube into the Express Chief's mattress?!
They reached the elevator, and Ax pressed the call button. Meanwhile, SS soldiers and Kellerman's people were searching the office, the reception area, the Express Chief's personal compartment, and the dispatcher's compartment. Fontaine wanted to check on their progress and then oversee security for the passenger compartment Anna Dmitrievna had temporarily taken over.
"Maybe she wasn't alone," the Chief said suddenly.
"Why do you think that?"
"Claude had an engineering degree, not a programming one. When would she have had time to learn how to fake video recordings, when her dispatcher training left her almost no free time?"
"Well, who knows... some online courses..."
"We use proprietary software; they don't teach that in just any courses. All IT department specialists undergo retraining."
The elevator doors slid open, and Ax involuntarily stepped forward, shielding his boss. The car was empty, and he'd been ready to see a gun barrel...
"Replacing a section of video footage isn't that complicated a task," Fontaine said, pressing the button for the command car. "I'll talk to Kellerman. He took it upon himself to analyze the forgery."
"The difficulty isn't the task itself, but how a girl with no training and no access rights managed to get into the video data storage and replace a section of footage. And on the same day she damaged the communication modules between the command post and the navigation panel. The greater the time gap, the higher the risk of being caught."
"We need to go through the IT department personnel again. Kellerman won't be happy."
"Security checks aren't meant to make him happy," Lavrova replied sternly. "See to it today."
"As soon as I've checked on our people in the command car..."
"Right now."
"Yes, Madame," Fontaine replied obediently, adjusting the elevator's route to include the IT car.
***
Lars Kellerman, as Fontaine had predicted, was not pleased. The head of the IT department, resembling an indignant walrus, fluffed his bushy mustache and said dryly:
"Of course, if that's what Madame wishes."
"Oh, come on," Ax said, sinking wearily into a chair. "It's not feudalism. Admit it, she has a point. This isn't some amateur video edited on a phone."
"So you admit you let two terrorist accomplices onto the express, not just one?"
Fontaine grimaced in frustration. He didn't like the thought, but he had to face the truth, even if it was damned unpleasant for his pride.
"I admit it. And that's why I want to catch at least one of them alive, not as a cooling corpse."
Lars sighed heavily and muttered:
"I feel sorry for the girl. So young, she could have done so many stupid things..."
"But she only did one, and it was fatal," Ax thought. What could have driven Claude to the terrorists? She came from an ordinary, good family; she'd received an excellent education on a scholarship; she'd won an internship on an elite express — only six months, just one voyage, and Lavrova would have transferred her to the engineering team. So why?
"Anyway," Kellerman grumbled, his anger subsiding. "I've analyzed the camera footage. The forgery is, as I said, fairly high quality, but to create it, you'd need access to the server storage," Lars's thick fingers flew across the keyboard. "We have daily duty shifts, in case of emergencies. Here's the account of the employee on duty that day."
The IT chief pulled up a long list on one of the monitors, slowly scrolling from top to bottom.
"What's that?"
"The account log. A list of all actions taken, in simple terms."
"And what's in it?"
"This," Lars highlighted a whole block of lines in bright color. "This section is fake. Someone performed certain actions, then deleted the records and inserted a forgery."
"Whose account?" Fontaine asked.
"Aimo Virtanen's. But I'm not sure it was him."
"Why?"
"The morning after this," Kellerman nodded at the log, "his replacement found him lying on the floor unconscious. The guy nearly choked on his own vomit, and we sent him to the medical car. He's still there."
"Can we talk to him?"
"If you can remove forty-six tubes from his body, then yes."
"Damn it! Why wasn't I told?!"
"Why should we have told you?" Lars raised his eyebrows. "No one had any idea it was connected to this back then. Though before that, I heard the guys were teasing him about his thing for blonde chubby girls."
"So one of your guys might have been using drugs, and that didn't concern you?"
"My people are just people," Kellerman said dryly. "Not trained fighters, not beings, certainly not epsilon-class. They get tired, you know."
Ax remembered the stashes Fleischmann had reported, grimaced, and sighed. He'd never used anything himself except authorized stimulants, which were issued for particularly difficult missions under strict signature.
"Fine. Did they tell you what he was doped up on?"
"Spiruley... spirulan... just a second, I'll find the report... ah! Spirulea aurea mushroom. A powerful neuro-paralytic agent of natural origin."
"Hmm... interesting. Is it easy to buy?" Ax murmured. "And could you slip it into someone's coffee unnoticed?"
"It says here the spirulea was found in his stomach and vomit. That's why Aimo survived — he vomited a significant portion of the poison."
"Small mercies. We'll talk to him when he wakes up. For now, tell me — could a reasonably clever girl with a technical education, under the guidance of someone experienced or following their instructions, have pulled off all these tricks with the recordings?"
Lars's mustache bristled beneath his prominent nose like a ginger tidal wave, but the IT chief's indignation went no further. He stared thoughtfully at the log lines, then at the video footage playing on one of the countless monitors.
"Well, it's possible, I suppose, but he would either have to describe the exact sequence of actions — meaning he'd have to be working within our system himself — or be giving her instructions over the phone."
"So the girl smuggled a personal phone in here," Ax concluded. Personal phones were forbidden during voyages and between them — they were all kept in Fontaine's safe. Axel had always been troubled by the thought that in this regard, they could only rely on the employees' honesty — they couldn't conduct strip searches every week.
"Would your people have detected a call from a personal phone on the train?"
"Well, we could, but it's actually illegal unless the person or being is suspected of a crime."
"Alright. Thanks," Ax stood up. "At least the chances of another terrorist lurking here are reduced. That's a relief."
"You think the girl poisoned Aimo?"
"I think not on purpose. She probably just wanted to knock him out but miscalculated the dose, or her hand slipped. I'll go see what our people found in her compartment."
"Probably not her phone," Kellerman said skeptically. "She's not an idiot; she wouldn't keep it there."
"Hope dies last. We still haven't figured out where our thieving terrorists are hiding, and I'd very much like to visit them and give them Madame's regards — and ours."
"Drop a bomb on this fucking bastards," Lars advised Fontaine.
Chapter 8
June 21, Year 214 NPrE
Al-Haiyan, the capital of the Sultanate of Er-Rummal's colonies on Tar-Mariat
Something had gone wrong. Gemma sat in a corner, watching the young terrorists fiddle with the stream-communication module, so far without success. When one of the boys walked past her, she glanced at his watch — it was past midnight. They'd been in the drainage system for almost a full day — yet they'd initially planned to get out of the city before sunset.
Nightbird wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her chin on them, never taking her eyes off the budding regime fighters. She tried not to think about Eric. She'd been missing for nearly a day now, and Eric must be beside himself with fear and worry, calling her work, calling hospitals and morgues. And no one could tell him where she was or what had happened to her.
Gemma sniffled, blinked quickly, and focused on the terrorists again. They'd removed the paralytic net, given her coveralls and boots, and put magnetic bracelets on her wrists and ankles, so she couldn't jump up and run down the corridors. But the very fact that they'd replaced the net with bracelets, which allowed Nightbird to at least shuffle and eat, meant something.
"They wanted to throw me in the trunk and take me out of the city," Gemma thought. "Not just run anywhere, but drive to a specific place. But it seems they're not expected there."
Aishe and her friends had been trying for hours to contact someone — either via stream-communication or an old-fashioned radio transmitter — but all their attempts were in vain. Nightbird suspected the youngsters were trying to reach either their handlers or Fialkovskaya's group. But for some reason, no one answered their desperate calls.
"Fialkovskaya could have already left the planet, but why isn't the senior handler responding?" Gemma looked closely at the communication module. It seemed functional. "Could it be because they've been abandoned here, like used tissues?"
"Damn," Ben, the boy with the pleasant baritone, hissed. "This is useless!"
"Quiet!" Aishe snapped. "Maybe they're just asleep. Time difference and all."
"They probably contacted the handler or Magrinha a couple of times," Nightbird thought. "Passed on news. But now the senior comrades have apparently decided to cut ties before they themselves are found through these stupid pups."
"She's not answering either," the other boy — Leonidas, or something like that, Gemma hadn't quite caught it — said quietly. "I think they've already been taken out."
"Shut up!" Aishe yelled, glancing back over her shoulder at Gemma.
"What difference does it make now? You've already decided to kill her," Ben said angrily.
"It's better to hand her over to Papa. She's too strange for a secretary," the girl muttered, and Nightbird smiled crookedly. She hadn't disgraced her ancestors; she'd maintained the composure of a true Chokon in the face of the enemy. Eric would laugh... if he knew. If she ever saw him again.
"They won't answer," Gemma said. The youngsters jumped and stared at her like lambs at a wolf. "Magrinha isn't going to reveal his location."
"Shut up!" Aishe shouted.
"Think for yourselves, if you can," Nightbird continued coldly. "Why would your handlers get in touch? So my colleagues could trace them?"
"We don't abandon our own!" Ben bristled. Gemma winced.
"You don't, of course. But your senior comrades do. That's why they haven't been caught yet, in fact."
"If you don't shut up, I'll knock you out!" Aishe threatened.
"As you wish," Nightbird shrugged. "That won't change the truth."
Aishe snorted and went back to torturing the stream-communication module.
"That's why Papa recruits young people," Gemma sighed. "They're much easier to fill with stupid ideas about the Righteous Cause, and then just discard. Especially since they know almost nothing — even epsilons would have a hard time extracting anything useful from them during interrogation."
Nightbird surveyed the corridor the terrorists had turned into their temporary lair. Someone had brought in a small generator to power the communication module and a few lights. Fuel bricks were stacked in a corner; Gemma couldn't tell what kind. Several boxes of simple supplies, like cheap coveralls, field rations, and first-aid kits, were piled against the walls.
"Maybe we should move out?" Leonidas suggested uncertainly. "We've already wasted so much time here, and they are looking for us. Let's take the stream module with us and try to establish contact outside the city. They have to answer eventually!"
Nightbird snorted loudly. Ben shot her a venomous look and said:
"Let's try a couple more sessions. I'll check the settings now to make sure there's no interference. They don't abandon their own."
"No," Gemma observed. "They simply kill them."
"What?!" Aishe spun around. "Say that again!"
"We found Diego Ramos's body in the forest outside the city," Nightbird said. Aishe froze for a moment, then whipped out a vibro-blade and lunged at her with a furious scream. Leonidas barely managed to grab the girl and drag her aside.
"You're lying!" Aishe snarled, struggling like a wild thing. "You're lying, you bitch! They couldn't... they couldn't..."
"They could," Gemma said calmly, though her heart was pounding in her throat. "We didn't catch Fialkovskaya's group, so only your fellow cell members could have left Ramos's body in the forest with a laser hole in his skull."
"You're lying!" The girl's voice cracked with tears. "Don't you dare, don't you dare..."
"You can inject me with more truth serum. I promise not to sing," Gemma smiled thinly.
Aishe sobbed loudly and dropped the knife. Leonidas released her, and the girl ran off down the corridor. Soon she was out of sight, but muffled sobs drifted from the darkness. Nightbird felt a sharp pang of pity (if someone had told her that about Eric... no, better not think about him, not now).
"Why did you..." Leonidas faltered. "Why did you tell us the truth..."
"It doesn't matter anymore," Nightbird settled more comfortably on the cold floor. "Your handlers have abandoned you, and an MT special forces unit and Al-Shadiyar will be here by morning at the latest. You won't be telling anyone anything."
"We can kill you!" Ben cried hysterically.
"You can. But it doesn't matter anymore. You're not getting out of here."