“Oh, it’s true. It’s true he’s dead. I have no doubt of it. I have no doubt I’m targeted and your father is, and Planys Security can’t even take care of its own, let alone protect me here. These aren’t reasonable people.”
He didn’t like it. His heart had picked up the old familiar heavy beat. On one hand it felt like a trap. On the other…this woman might be inone, and in possession of information ReseuneSec was going to want. And if he could stay on the line and get a record down of this little playlet, naming names, it was safer for him and everyone attached to him.
“I don’t understand why my father has anything to do with this. And if you want protection, I can get ReseuneSec to go wherever you are–”
“Thieu,” she interrupted him, and somewhere in the background there was a noise, a thump, of some sort. “Oh my God,” she said. “Warrick, tell them! Tell them!”
“Tell them what?”
“Clavery! The name is Anton Clavery! Just–”
Something thumped. The phone quit. He grabbed his own robe, shoved his arms into the sleeves and headed past the end of the bed, out of the bedroom, taking down the small, useless table next to the door as he headed down the hall. Lights in the living area had come on, where Grant had passed.
He got that far before the front door opened and black‑uniformed security came bursting in–Marco and Wes, specifically, night shift, with Grant’s conspicuous red head just beyond that tall blot of black uniforms.
“Her phone went dead,” he said, out of breath. “I recorded it, as far as it went.” In that moment Catlin arrived, in a black tee and workout pants, unarmed, to all appearances, and probably straight from bed, while Marco walked over and took a look at the house minder unit. He didn’t know which one to address, or which, Marco or Catlin, was technically in charge. And he had a shaky moment of realizing he, ReseuneSec’s main target for years, had been babbling in that call, urging a woman’s cooperation with ReseuneSec, anxious to keep himself and Grant safe from whatever damned fool thing Jordan had brought on them in his eternal feud with Admin–and too sure, maybe, that his father hadn’t had anything to do with whatever was going on in Novgorod. He felt a vague sense of shame about turning coat on his father. But not enough. That collection of ReseuneSec in the hall–that had been Ari, young Ari, taking real power over a segment of that organization that had repeatedly arrested him. And he had urgently to deal with them–for Grant’s sake. “Catlin, it was Patil on the phone. Something’s wrong. She needs help. Security. Fast. She’s saying Thieu was killed. Someone interrupted her on the phone. Apparently violently.”
Catlin didn’t waste a breath. She had her com unit, and delivered a fast message somewhere that consisted of, “Information on Patil. Code 10. Her residence?” The last was a question aimed at him.
“I think it was,” he said. “Residence.” Second thought. “Maybe her office. I don’t know.”
“Residence andoffice,” Catlin said into the com. “Stat, find her, wherever she is.” She broke the contact. Grant, meanwhile, had gotten past building security at the door, still with the robe held like a towel, and Florian showed up behind him in the bottom half of a workout suit, dark hair in its usual curling disarray.
“Sera’s awake,” Florian said. “Ser Warrick. Did you call Dr. Patil?”
He shook his head. “She called me, out of nowhere. Said Thieu was dead.”
Up went the com unit, same fast contact. Florian said, into it: “Planys‑Sec, report on status of Dr. Raymond Thieu, researcher, retired.”
There was perhaps a brief silence on that contact. Grant made a quiet move toward him. Building security moved to restrain him. Catlin simply lifted a hand, on the phone with someone else, and security stood down, letting Grant through.
He grabbed Grant by the arm, in no mood to have them separately questioned. Gone over. Drugged. Any of those things. “I’m worried about my father,” he said to Florian. “She said someone was inside. On the inside.”
“Thieu is dead,” Florian said. It was a measure of trust that someone of Florian’s nature gave a piece of information to an outsider. And Florian immediately thumbed buttons on the com and called someone else. “Guard alert, Jordan Warrick’s residence. See to his safety. Report.”
“Thanks,” Justin said quietly. Two more individuals in security uniform had shown up at the door, and found their way in, people Justin had seen at Ari’s door this evening, people with the com rig and armament of personnel on duty. Her people. He stood there. He didn’t know what to do. He was in the middle of the mess, as clued in as anyone could be without that vital comlink. Meanwhile Grant, unflapped, dropped half his hold on the robe, calmly sorted out the top of it and put it on, tying it this time.
“Young sera, I believe, is more than awake,” Grant said, indicating it wasn’t all a case of Catlin and Florian running things at the moment.
“Your father has answered his phone, ser,” Florian said, “and agents are on their way to his door.”
That was a relief. He hadn’t known how much relief. He was scared for Jordan. He didn’t know why he was. Jordan hadn’t earned it, giving him that card. But he was glad to know Ari’s version of ReseuneSec was between Jordan and anything else stupid. He moved quietly over to the sideboard, out of the way, his own foyer and his living room having become security central in the last few moments. Feigning calm, he started to ask Grant to pour them both a vodka and orange, but at just that moment Ari showed up in the foyer, in a night robe, and with her dark hair in a pigtail.
“Justin?” she asked.
“It’s the card,” he said. “It’s that damned card. I don’t know what’s going on. Patil called, for no apparent reason, except she found out Thieu’s dead and then something happened when she was calling us. We have noidea. Would you like a vodka and orange?”
“I think I’d love one.”
“Sera,” Catlin said to her, “agents have entered Dr. Patil’s residence. They were on watch. They saw no one. But Patil has fallen out her window.”
“Fatally.”
“Quite fatally, sera. It’s twelve stories.”
“Oh, this is splendid!”
Grant had gone after the drinks. Justin stood frozen, rethinking what Patil had said last.
“Anton Clavery,” he said, then. “She gave that name, before–whatever happened.”
“The name is a new one,” Catlin remarked.
“We recorded everything, from the start. It’s all on the system, fast as Grant could get over and push the button.”
“Why would she call you?” Ari asked.
“I haven’t the least notion,” he began, then: “Hell. Yes, I do. She asked if I could get Jordan down the hall. She had my number, not his. She has–had–no concept of where we live, or the conditions he lives in. She couldn’t get through security to phone him.”
Catlin lifted a pale eyebrow, that was all. He suddenly wondered if that last statement was even true, or if for some unfathomed reason, Patil had specifically wanted to go through him–and just gave a wave of his hand.
“It’s all recorded. It’s what she said. I don’t know if she was telling the truth. She was upset. I guess she had reason.” He wanted to ask if Thieu had died of natural causes, curiosity being as natural to him as breathing; but no, he didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to know anything about it.
Grant showed up with three drinks, poured the fast way, from the autobar unit. It was rescue. He presented the first to Ari, and only then it occurred to him that Ariane Emory didn’t drink things handed to her by people who’d just occasioned a midnight security alert.
But this Ari did, with only a little lift of her own brow. “Can we sit in your front room? It seems we’re all in the way here. It’s become ops. I do apologize for that.”
“Certainly,” he said, and showed her in, past Grant, at the small bar. “Sorry to have waked the whole house.”
“Thieu and Patil. What do youthink?”
Sideways jolt. She was good at that.
And two new thoughts hove onto the horizon, desperate and little likely. “Maybe someone’s tryingto involve my father. Maybe he thought that card somehow involved me in the first place. I don’t know what went through his mind.”