“There’s some kind of weird political ideology, calling themselves the Re-Mastered. Tonto went ReMastered forty or fifty years ago,” offered Jane. “Don’t know much about them: they’re not nice people.” She shivered. “Why do you ask?”
Rachel’s frown deepened. “If you can dig anything up I’d appreciate hearing it. George, you’re holding something back, aren’t you?”
The ambassador sat up slightly, then nodded. “Yes, I am.” He glanced round the table.
“You probably figured out why I wanted you; it’s because none of you had any conceivable link either to Moscow or New Dresden. Which, incidentally, is where we’re en route. It so happens that Ambassador Elspeth Morrow is in residence in Sarajevo, and Harrison Baxter, former trade minister of the Muscovite government — and the highest surviving government officer, he’s also on the code schedule — is there, too. He was sent just before the incident, to attempt to resolve the trade dispute. I strongly suspect that they’re the next logical target, being a two-for-one hit. Our cover story — for everyone outside this room — is that we’re here to discuss the R-bomb situation with Morrow and Baxter.
“The real task in hand is somewhat different. It’s to keep them alive and if possible capture one of the killers and backtrack to their masters. Which is where you come in, Rachel. Tranh, your job is to brief the embassy guard and the Dresdener Interior Ministry special security police and act as external security liaison. Gail, you and I are going to talk directly to the Minister and the Ambassador and impress the urgency of the situation upon them. You handle protocol, I’ll handle diplomacy. Pritkin, you’re our switchboard and front office. Jane, I need you on back office, coordinating any intel we get from home about the circumstances of the murders. Rachel, you’ve got a nasty, suspicious mind. I want you to try and set up a trap for the killers — assuming they surface. And I’ve, well, got a little surprise.”
“Surprise,” she mimicked. “Uh-huh. One of those surprises?”
“Those?” echoed Jane.
“Those.” Rachel grimaced. “Spill it, George.”
Cho took a deep breath. “For you, I’ve got a covert job in mind. You’re about the same size and build as Ambassador Morrow. You fill in the dotted line.”
“Oh. Oh no.” Rachel shook her head. “You can’t do this to me!”
“Oh yes?” Tranh’s smile wasn’t entirely friendly. “What was that you were saying earlier about wanting to nail the culprits?”
“Um.” She nodded like a puppet with a blown feedback circuit. “If you’re right about there being a hit planned.”
“I think we’re right.” George nodded. “Because there’s another datum I haven’t given you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“In addition to a time series on the murders, we ran a spatial map and a full shipping traffic analysis. It turns out that there are about three starships that called at each location a day or so before the hit, then moved on afterward. They’re busy places, mostly. Anyway, one of those ships is a freighter, and none of the crew went down from orbit at any port on its cycle. Another is — well, if you want to accuse the Malacian Navy of trying to start a war with three of their neighbors by whacking diplomats, you draw their attention to the suspicious maneuvers of one of their cruisers. Whose flight plan for the current goodwill tour was finalized nearly a year before Ambassador Black arrived on Eiger’s World. Which leaves just one suspect.”
“Stop winding me up, George. Just tell it straight.”
George looked at her, his expression one of wounded dignity. “My, my! Very well, then. It’s the WhiteStar liner Romanov, outbound from Earth on a yearlong tour circuit. It was in orbit around Eiger’s World when Ambassador Black was murdered. It was in orbit around Turku when Pendelton was murdered. And while it wasn’t parked over Kilimanjaro when Ambassador Davis was murdered, the smoking gun is that it arrived a day later, then departed. That was the zero incident. The arrival times line up. It is in principle possible that an assassin joined the Romanov after killing Ambassador Davis, then traveled to Turku and Eiger’s World to repeat the task.”
Rachel knotted her fingers together. “Tell me it isn’t calling at New Dresden next?”
“It’s not. It’s en route to Septagon Four — but first port of call after that is New Dresden, sure enough. We should get there a couple of weeks ahead of it. And that’s basically why I wanted you on board. We’ll show up as a special diplomatic team tasked with demonstrating that the Dresdener governments’ hands are clean. You will be attached to our team — that’s your cover story — but your real job will be to set up a trap in which you body double for Ambassador Morrow, a week before our killer turns up. And when they try to take you out, we’ll have them. And then” — his expression was fierce — “let’s hope we can get to the bottom of this before the assassins murder 800 million people.”
SPY VS. SPY
Wednesday was so busy working on a better way of expressing her rage that she didn’t notice when the walls around her recliner softened and flowed, containerizing her in a lozenge of dark foam and dropping her through the floor of the terminal into the cargo mesh of an intrasystem freighter bound for Centris Noctis. “Stupid brainless unplanned intelligence, no, stupid brainless unplanned stupid — what?”
Her itinerary cleared its throat again: “Please hold on tight! Departure in three hundred seconds! Departure in—”
“I heard you the first time, fuckmonster.” Anger was better than the gaping hole in her life, the absolute bitter despair she was trying so hard to ignore. The walls, flowing past and re-forming into the shape of a compact hexagonal cabin, did nothing to soothe her. “How long am I in transit?”
“Eep! Don’t hurt me! TransVirtual TravelWays welcomes all passengers to the transit shuttle Hieronymus B., departing Centris Magna hab four port authority bay sixteen for Centris Noctis hab eleven port authority bay sixty-two in four minutes and thirty seconds. Please familiarize yourself with our flight profile and safety briefing. After a few seconds of free fall, we will be under continuous acceleration at one-tenth of gee standard for eight hours, dropping to—”
Wednesday shut it out, nodding along vaguely and watching the blurred images in the wall through a thin haze of angry tears with her arms wrapped around her legs. Fuckmonsters, she thought vacantly. Following me, vaccing out the apartment, Mom, Dad, Jerm — The concrete horrors of the vision rubbed it all in, forcing it home. People chasing her, Herman admitting a mistake, unimaginable. Her credit balance when she’d checked it, This has got to be a mistake: there was enough money to buy a house, a good-sized cubic in an upmarket swing zone, never mind a ticket out of town on the next shuttle. “Give you a job.” Yeah, hut how much use is it? She’d give it all back in an instant to have the past day to run again with a different outcome. Just to be able to have that chat with Dad.
“How long?” she asked through her misery.
“Total transit time to Centris Noctis, currently six point one million kilometers distant, is sixteen hours and forty-one minutes. We hope you enjoy your flight and choose TransVirtual TravelWays again!”
The itinerary froze, motionless. Wednesday sighed. “Sixteen hours?” I should have caught the high-delta service, she realized. Not that she was used to flying anywhere at all, but this would take almost a day. “What shipboard facilities are available? Am I stuck in here for the whole trip?”