“In a hospital—oh. You mean she’s Rector. But her family died, and the President himself asked her—”
“He didn’t know. Records were sealed. But it occurs to me that her family dying opened the door for her. And there’s something else. She rescued a child during that war—it was one of the things her family claimed showed remorse. Guess who that was.”
“I haven’t a clue,” Morrison said.
“The former Commandant, Armand Esteban Burleson.” Morrison had never heard anyone use the name before. “He testified at the hearing that saved her from execution—as a child, his testimony wasn’t given much weight. But some years later, he testified again at the petition to have her transferred to her family’s custody, when he was a military officer himself. And that did carry weight. They stayed in casual contact over the years. After the attack on Vatta, he assigned Master Sergeant MacRobert to liaise with her. There was speculation that she used MacRobert to persuade the Commandant to provide a suicide means to President Quindlan, because she’d lost an arm and couldn’t do it herself.”
“That seems far-fetched, sir,” Morrison said. She had opened the folder; the first page had only the file number and a repetition of the security level. The second had the ID photo of the young Grace Vatta—Graciela Miranda Vatta was her full name. She’d had a healthy young teenage face, striking mostly for its lively, intelligent expression. She had been happy and relaxed—not that common for ID photos. Not beautiful, but pretty in the way healthy young women often were. The next photo was different—a blurry image of a thin young woman holding a long-barreled firearm—too blurry to tell much about her or the firearm—while moving through thick vegetation. Face in profile, slightly blurred; it might have been Grace or someone else. A third—obviously using the firearm, the muzzle blast clearly visible, and the face in focus. Definitely Grace. Angry, determined, expressing—could that be contempt? A fourth, of the same face as the first, but different—older, gaunt, lips tight, brows down in a scowl, eyes narrowed and—even in that still image—hostile, dangerous.
“It does. And I’m not sure the speculation has any basis beyond those who hate Grace Vatta for what she did in the past. You know, the family she took refuge with after the gas attack—the man is from Esterance. His family was active in the war.”
“So—are you suggesting that he set up the gas attack?”
“No. What investigation we’ve had time for says he’s clean. And beyond the Rector’s history, there’s this rogue element of our military that’s been on and off Miksland for years, in a base deliberately hidden from satellite surveillance. Whose members, even with their commander dead, are surprisingly hard to talk to. They’re on maneuvers, they’re sick, they’re… anything but sitting down with the right officers to explain what the farkling hells they were doing down there, and why. And who’s behind it.”
Major Hong, it was clear, was close to losing his temper. Morrison waited. He took a deep breath, blinked once, and said, in a calmer voice, “You visited the Rector after she was in the hospital.”
“Courtesy visit, yes, sir, but I didn’t get to see her. I brought some flowers and a card, and the clerk at the intake desk said she wasn’t allowed visitors. I gave him the card and the flowers; he said he’d take care of it.”
“But you didn’t physically see her?”
“No, sir. I was told she wasn’t allowed visitors.”
“Ah. Your name was on the list of those who came to the hospital. It wasn’t clear who actually had access to her room. There’s a Colonel Dihann who should have had that list but claims he doesn’t. Another break in the chain.”
Morrison wasn’t sure which way Hong was going with all this, and decided that asking would be the simplest way to find out. “Sir, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
He shook his head. “I’m not entirely sure myself. But that file—” He nodded toward it. “—was on your desk in your base quarters when we got the alarm and went to check it out. Right on top, out in the open, where anyone could have gotten it and read it, since the door had been broken in. I’m going to guess that you didn’t leave it there.”
“No, sir. I’ve never seen it before. I didn’t know it existed, or that Rector Vatta had been involved in that war.”
He nodded. “I believe you. But someone wanted to make it look like you’d left a classified file lying there out in the open. Your safe was open, with the files you’d put in it—at least I suspect those were the same, as they all refer to your recent assignments—still there.”
“They broke into my safe? It’s military-issue, approved and installed by your division; that’s why I’m authorized to use it in my quarters!”
“Yes. I checked your authorization, of course. Whoever this is had an official passcoder, because they didn’t actually break the safe, just opened it. Now, here’s what I want you to do, because I can’t. I want you to contact Ky Vatta and let her know you have important information about the Rector. I will contact the Rector. She will probably want to talk to you, after that. On my authorization, you may tell Ky Vatta anything I’ve told you about this entire situation. Including my difficulty in contacting Ky Vatta’s fellow survivors.”
“She’s not… a member of Slotter Key military anymore, sir.”
“I know that.” The muscle in his jaw jumped again. “But I also know she knows what really happened in Miksland, and knows her aunt. Something needs to be done about both, and she’s the link between them. Or she could be. And I’m damn sick and tired of the shilly-shallying going on here. I know what my duty is, and I’m going to do it whatever—somebody—says.” He took another long breath. “So—you will meet with Ky Vatta, at your mutual convenience, and if that file should happen to travel with you, so much the better. She may know about it already.”
“Yes, sir,” Morrison said. “The other files that were in my quarters?”
“Here.” He pulled out a stack and handed it over. “You’ll want them. Your base quarters are off-limits for another ten days. I hope this time we’ve got enough surveillance on it to catch anyone who tries to break in again, even if they have every key in the box.”
Morrison thought about telling him the Rector might be sharing her city apartment, but was he cleared to know where the Rector was?
“What’s the status of my base office?”
“Closed today and tomorrow while I install better monitoring equipment in hopes that, again, we can catch whoever’s getting in.” He grinned. It was not a happy grin, more like Ginger showing teeth. “As you know, Sergeant Major, every department has its own internal… dominance disputes, you might say. I do not intend to drag you into ours, but will confess that the colonel you met at the hospital is neither my boss nor a friend of my boss. That’s all I can say.”
“Yes, sir,” Morrison said, tucking the information into a rapidly growing mental file of things that might be useful someday.
“I’m giving you all my contact numbers—well, all the ones I can. I’ve already arranged for calls to your clerks to be transferred to their skullphones, so they can let you know when other things show up. Everyone in the building knows that your office was illegally entered—twice—and that your quarters on base were also entered, vandalized, and entered again. They know you’re not supposed to visit your office or your quarters without my permission and an escort. The flags have all contacted me, and I’ve explained what I feel they need to know. So nobody expects you to be there. My advice—and this is not an order, but advice—is that you quietly go someplace you’re not expected to be, read that file on the Rector, deal with the other files as you normally would, and contact me when you’re done. I can have my people remove anything from your quarters you need—”