They had laughed, both aware that he was teasing her in her persona of Rector, not partner. She was used to his going about his duties—vaguely defined as they were—without consulting her on every plan or change thereto. “Lunch?” she asked. “Today’s fish stew.”
“Maybe. I’ll let you know.” He waved; she waved; she entered her office to find not only the quarterly meeting, but a string of appointments, waiting.
The quarterly budget meeting went on too long, as it always did. Grace paid close attention to which departments wanted more resources, and what for, and refused to commit to approving the whole thing until she had time to “make more inquiries.” Nobody left satisfied, including her. She managed to keep her temper in check. Mostly.
Her assistant Derek’s com light blinked. “Rector, Master Sergeant MacRobert requests that you receive a skullphone call from another party.”
Grace blinked. That was not the way they usually communicated, and what other party? “I will speak with Master Sergeant MacRobert,” she said. “Is he here? Send him in.”
“He is not here, Rector. He was calling from… um… Joint Services Regional Command Three. That’s—”
“Ordnay, I know,” Grace said. Half a continent away, hours away by the fastest transport, and he hadn’t told her he was going that far. Why?
“He disconnected after making his request, Rector.”
Grace’s skullphone gave its usual annoying internal buzz that made her back teeth itch. “Thank you, Derek,” she said and punched the intercom off. The skullphone buzzed again. Why was Mac being this roundabout, setting up a call from another person through her assistant, instead of calling her himself? It had to be both important and secret, but why? He knew she preferred directness, especially with allies. What could possibly—bzzzzt—be his motive? Or… someone else’s motive. That thought sent a cold chill down her back. She tongued the skullphone’s alarm, turning it off.
“She’s not answering.” Arne Savance looked up from the console. “Nothing.” He glanced at his boss, then at the older man strapped to a gurney, his unconscious face slack with the drug. He knew who the man was: retired master sergeant MacRobert, rumored to be the Rector’s lover and certain to be her agent. “Maybe should have kept him awake, Ser?”
“No.” His boss had never shared a name. “He wasn’t cooperative, and he’s got a block it’ll take longer to break. The assistant believed us, but perhaps the Rector had her alarm turned off. Perhaps she doesn’t take skullphone calls in work hours. We’ll keep trying.”
“Call the assistant back, ask again?” Arne thought it just as likely the Rector had smelled a rat, but he had learned early in this organization not to offer suggestions.
“No. Static on the line won’t fool the assistant again. We’ll move MacRobert to another location; you stay here and monitor—if she answers, play the tape, and of course record anything she says. Full band.”
“Yes, Ser.”
The boss gestured to the two other men in the room, both burly and wearing what looked like hospital uniforms. They wheeled the gurney away, and the boss left with them. “Don’t doze off, Arne. No breaks. Your relief will be in later.”
Warnings, demands… he did not glare resentfully at the door when it closed, because he was sure the room had surveillance. He had thought—and Len as well—that this job would be both easy and stable, something they could rely on while the children were young, so Len could stay home with them and also work on his sculpture. So even though he had known, vaguely, that Malines & Company was bent as a corkscrew, he had believed that there was a straighter side, hiring ordinary techs and clericals, where he could draw a good salary and keep well away from the harsher activities that gave Malines its reputation.
It hadn’t worked that way. But as long as he kept his head down and said yes, Ser, no, Ser, and right away, Ser, the money came in regularly, sometimes even a bonus. He and Len had a pleasant apartment in the Malines & Company neighborhood, the children were thriving in school, and Len could afford studio space and materials for his work.
He felt vaguely sorry for the old man on the gurney—but that wasn’t his problem. His problem was monitoring all the Rector’s communications, and especially her skullphone calls. And, long-term, doing exactly what he was told, when he was told, so that Len and the children were safe. He had been shown images of what could happen to the children of those who attempted to leave Malines & Company.
Over the next two hours, his mind wandered occasionally to the Rector, the little he knew about her, and the old man on the gurney. She was a Vatta, she was old, she had a bud-grown arm from having the original shot off. That cost a lot, and it had happened before she became Rector. How had she paid for it? What did it look like? He’d never seen her, except on a newsvid, and she was dark, like most of the Vattas, wrinkly, old. That’s all he could remember. This old retired sergeant—was he a friend? Why would a Vatta like her be friends with someone like him? Surely they weren’t really lovers.
Finally, his diligence was rewarded by a light on the console: the Rector was making an outbound skullphone call. Not, unfortunately, where the boss wanted her to make it. He captured the code; his console ran the code against the pre-loaded list. Her home com. He logged the call, and its duration, but was not able to record content. Skullphones had tighter security than ordinary phones, and the boss had told him not to tinker with any of the Rector’s modalities. “Just record, or send the tape if she replies to the call.”
Teague answered Grace’s call on the house phone, and listened as she reported what had happened and what she had learned so far.
“He’s not at Joint Services Regional Command. Wasn’t expected, hadn’t arrived, no one had seen him. My assistant says the call supposedly from him was full of static, and that he apologized for it. He thinks it was MacRobert’s voice but he’s not sure now that questions are being asked. All my incoming calls are recorded; I’ve listened to it and I don’t think it’s Mac, but it’s close—it might be a composite recording or they might have an actor capable of sounding like him. I doubt the call came from that far away; it might even have originated from Port Major, but I can’t tell. Would you be able to trace it?”
“Not from here,” Teague said. “I’d need to get into your office system to have a chance. It’ll have to be accessed there, I’m almost certain. You want Rafe; he’s better at that.”
She’d kept Rafe away from her workplace since that first day. She could hardly bring him in now and turn him loose on the communications system without risking his being discovered. So far—she thought and he thought—the cover story of his being an ISC technician sent to work on the system ansibles had held up.
“Problem?” Rafe asked. He sounded less sleepy than she expected.
“Yes,” Grace said. She explained again, adding, “I think someone’s snatched MacRobert. That would take very experienced operatives. I don’t know if it’s our main opposition or something else. He was close to the former Commandant; it could be that other elements have other agendas.”
“Priorities,” Rafe said. “Is it more important to find out where that call came from, or find and retrieve Mac?”
“Can you do one without the other?”
“How much time between when you two parted and the call?”
“Several hours; the meeting started ten minutes after I got there and lasted about two and a half. The call came in shortly after that.”
“My take is he’s here, in Port Major. I’ll put Teague on that. Can you get me a hard-line link to your assistant’s desk com?”