“Sure, Doc,” MacRobert said. Turning to Morrison, he said, “Sera?” as Kris rolled the cart out the door and shut it. Then he grinned. “Safe space. Here’s what’s I know at the moment. Someone did indeed kick Immigration into action. High-ranking military, but I don’t have a name yet, or any connections other than the obvious. They’ve tied the citizenship thing and the murder accusation up tight. Did you hear about the attack on Stella Vatta yesterday?”
“No. What happened?”
“Supposedly Immigration, but Immigration’s not confirming, rammed Stella’s vehicle as she was arriving home. Ky, Stella, and Rafe agree it was probably an attempt to get into the house and grab Ky.”
“They want her unable to plan a rescue of the other survivors,” Morrison said.
“Exactly. Given that attack, and the near-certainty that someone in the hospital’s bent, the Rector’s medical team has agreed that she’ll be safer somewhere else. We’ll take her out under cover and with luck Dihann won’t figure out she’s gone for another day or so. Plenty of time to get her into a safe place. There’s an apartment open in one of the towers about two blocks from where your off-base is; it’s been swept for her now. She wants to see you; you’ll be on the approved list.”
“Why not put her in my apartment?” Morrison asked. “Then anyone following me will see me going in and out of my own apartment—irregularly, as I do. I can use the other one you’ve rented if she wants to be completely alone.”
“She’s not going to be completely alone,” MacRobert said, a grim tone in his voice. “She’ll have permanent in-residence security, like it or not. But that’s a good idea, Sergeant Major, just for the first few days. Thank you for the offer.”
“It’s not that big,” Morrison said, thinking of the “in-residence security.”
“It’s big enough,” MacRobert said. “We have seen the layouts of all the apartments in that building. Since it’s known your office and quarters were hacked into, doing a sweep there shouldn’t arouse interest. And I’m presuming you had military-grade communications put in when you took the lease?”
“Yes.” Morrison paused, then went on. “Have you found out more about the personnel who transported and guarded the survivors—or the ones who will?”
“All taken from a group that did not join the rest of the those who’d been under Greyhaus’s command when that group went north for cold-weather training this past summer. Argument for using same group was possible contamination/infection. We are concerned that a flag officer arranged both their assignment and Greyhaus’s ‘accident.’”
“Do you know which flag officer?”
“You don’t need to know that at this time, Sergeant Major.” MacRobert smiled at her, an unexpectedly wistful look. “Thank you for the offer of your apartment; I’ll let you know if it’s feasible later today. And I can certainly adjust your dog’s rations to accommodate a favorite treat. Have some with you?”
Morrison took the sack of treats from her bag, fished out the duplicate key to her city apartment, dropped it in with the treats, then handed the treat sack to MacRobert. “I meant to give you that anyway,” she said. “For ease of communication.”
“Been a pleasure doing business,” MacRobert said. “The doc will contact you.”
Morrison left through the clinic door, stopped to let Ginger lick her fingers again, and went outside, thinking hard all the way. Who—which flag officer—would have the authority to assign a subgroup of Greyhaus’s command? Slotter Key’s military had a command structure that was not rigidly hierarchical, as a safety feature, she’d been taught. From recruit to one of a branch’s commanders, through the Senior Command Circle to the President, it was hierarchical. But there was a side branch, established shortly after the Unification War, described to her as a workaround when there was something seriously wrong with the main command structure. As there seemed to be now. The concern had been the sudden influx of volunteers from the former anti-Unification areas, a mutiny that could lead to another war.
It hadn’t happened. Both Dorland and Fulland thrived with Unification. So now, all this time later, why would it? Except, on the evidence from the three fugitives and Ky Vatta, someone had built a secret military base, trained a secret military force. It had been building up for… none of them knew how long. And clearly the target of the shuttle attack was the former Commandant of the Academy.
She unlocked and entered her vehicle. Started toward the base, still thinking. Her comunit chimed; she clicked on the vehicle’s sound system. “Sergeant Major Morrison,” she said.
“Sergeant Major, this is Major Hong. Where are you now?”
“Leaving Petsational—I dropped by to check on Ginger. I’m on the way to base.”
“There’s been more vandalism at your base residence, and your clerk reports that the seal we put on your office door was broken last night. Were you on base at any time last night?”
“No, I spent the night in the city.”
“I need to brief you on all this; if your schedule permits, could you come to my office? Security 2-351?”
“Just a second, sir.” Morrison flipped to her schedule. What she had was the work left over from two days ago, and there were no urgent requests from anyone. “Yes, sir; I’ll park in my regular spot—”
“Don’t. You’ll be stopped at the gate; I’ll have transportation for you there.”
This sounded more and more serious. Even dangerous. “Yes, sir.”
At the gate, she pulled into the designated parking lot just inside, and locked her vehicle. Major Hong was in the one that pulled up behind hers. He said nothing as he drove her to the headquarters complex; she followed him to his office. Once inside he turned on a scanning device first, then a jamming device, locked the door, and then waved her to a chair.
“Yes, things are this bad,” he said. “It turns out that for a unified planet with no declared enemies, we seem to have a lot of spying going on. Of course, corporations spy on one another, and presumably sometimes on the military, hoping to figure out how to get us to buy their proposed weapons systems, but this is different.” He unlocked and opened a drawer in his desk, and passed her a fat file in a battered green-and-black cover with EXTREME SEC on the front. “What do you know about the Unification War?”
Coincidence is a bitch, Morrison almost said. “Only what we were taught in military history classes, sir.”
“Incomplete,” he said. “Did you know, for instance, that the Rector was involved, as a civilian? And was later tried as a war criminal?”
“What? But that’s—I mean, she’s old, but she’s not that old.”
“She was very young. A teenager. On a visit to friends of her family in Esterance, on Fulland.”
Morrison nodded. “I’ve been to Esterance several times, visiting our base.”
“Yes. When she was there, she met a young man, and they started spending time together, as young people do, and he got her involved. Some street demonstrations, that kind of thing. Then she disappeared.”
Morrison tried to imagine the Rector as anything but the formidable old lady with gimlet eyes and a legendary memory, but couldn’t. What had she looked like as a girl? Like Ky Vatta? Surely not Stella; she was too short and too dark.
“Afterward—when the war ended—she was brought back to Port Major as a prisoner, under arrest for war crimes.”
“I don’t—it must have been a mistake.”
“Apparently not. You will find… what may be evidence, or not, but was accepted as fact at her trial. Pictures. Testimony of alleged witnesses. They could have executed her. Her family petitioned to have her declared insane; she spent years locked in a hospital for the criminally insane. Then her family took custody, promising that she would never intrude into politics again, and—look where she is.”