Anniversary Day (25 page)

Or that everything was so far gone that it didn’t matter who worked with her, so long as the work got done.

He took a deep breath, then headed back to the office to tell Selah about his change of plans.

Forty-three

Nyquist let himself into Space Traffic headquarters. It wasn’t much; a large room with a desk, and chairs for the handful of visitors that came into Space Traffic every year. A mural on the wall always caught his eye because he thought it so strange and out of character with the government drab the rest of the Administration Center had as its design. The mural showed the history of spaceships from the very first capsule-like thing to some of the high end models of ten years before. Someone needed to update the damn thing.

Someone needed to update the entire area.

Except the space behind Murray Atherton’s desk. The equipment there was truly the headquarters of Space Traffic Control. Not the Control systems that actually handled the Armstrong’s space, but the command systems for every single Space Traffic officer, as well as the ships, the squads, and the entire Port itself.

There were redundant systems elsewhere, but if you needed information about the Port and needed it quickly, the person who could get it for you was Murray Atherton.

Murray himself looked eighty, but had to be in his mid-fifties. Sometimes Nyquist wondered if the guy had gotten reverse enhancements, the kind that made a person look old, just so that he would have gravitas. He would have had to have done that years ago, and Nyquist used to wonder if Murray regretted it. Now that Nyquist had chosen not to get enhancements on his own, he understood: Sometimes not looking perfect gave a person a lot more power than looking like a shiny new model straight off the shelf.

Murray saw Nyquist and beckoned him to the crowded area behind the desk. Screens showed all kinds of numbers and dots and things Nyquist didn’t understand. Murray did—he could translate that into actual information quicker than anyone else could. It also prevented people from glancing at the screens and getting information quickly.

Nyquist knew from experience that there was a simple hand command that would turn the screens to information the average man could use, but he didn’t know the command. He didn’t usually have a lot of dealings with Space Traffic. Not of this kind, anyway.

“I just found her,” Murray said, “not two seconds before you came in the door. She really cocked things up.”

Nyquist slid into the tiny space behind Murray. Some of the screens still showed blips and dots, which Nyquist thought—but wasn’t sure—were ships. But Murray wasn’t working off those screens. He was working off two in the center. One showed Palmette’s desk—still empty—and the other showed a dim area around what seemed to be a ship.

“I thought you could track all employees,” Nyquist said.

“I’m supposed to be able to,” Murray said with some annoyance. “I’m supposed to be able to track
everyone
in this damn Port at any time that I want to. Apparently, I haven’t been tracking her for months.”

That sentence sent a chill through Nyquist. “What do you mean?”

“Ever since you contacted me, I’ve been scanning the visual logs while I’ve been trying to undo her mess.” Murray sounded annoyed. Maybe more than annoyed. Angry? Nyquist wasn’t sure he had ever seen Murray angry. “And I don’t see her anywhere she’s supposed to be. If her link says she was in the cafeteria, then I look at the visual and I don’t see her. She hasn’t been where she’s supposed to be for months.”

Nyquist clenched his right fist, then made himself unclench it. “Is she even around?”

“I have no idea,” Murray said. “Her personnel file says she lives alone, so no one would report her missing. She works by herself on that quarantine stuff, so no one’s really supervising her except your girlfriend.”

DeRicci. Nyquist repressed the urge to correct Murray about DeRicci. She was so much more than his girlfriend—if she could even be called that.

“It’s my understanding that Palmette has an administrative position,” Nyquist said. “I didn’t think you guys were supervised.”

Murray grunted, which Nyquist took for an assent. Murray was peering at one of the screens, the one with the very dim ship. He expanded the image tenfold. There was a woman in front of the ship, and it looked like Palmette.

But Murray, cautious man that he was, compared her image to one on file. Or maybe something in the floor or the air could do a DNA scan. Nyquist didn’t know, and he wasn’t sure he cared. He just wanted to find out what was going on.

“Is that her?” Nyquist asked.

“According to everything I have here,” Murray said, but he sounded unconvinced.

“You don’t trust this?”

“She fooled it for months,” Murray said.

“Or someone did,” Nyquist said.

Murray looked at him, frowning.

Nyquist shrugged. “When I met her, she didn’t have the skills to defeat a system like this. She was a detective, same as me.”

But not the same. A new detective. Six months on the job, with a new partner and unachieved goals.

“Her file says she just has minimal computer skills,” Murray said, glancing at yet another screen. Nyquist didn’t see the file, but then, he didn’t see much on those screens.

“Have you checked an old version of the file?” Nyquist asked.

Murray looked over his shoulder at Nyquist. “You think someone tampered with her personnel file too?”

Nyquist shrugged. “They tampered with her location files.”

Murray nodded. He touched a screen, put a hand to his ear, and his frown deepened. “I don’t like any of this,” he muttered.

Nyquist got the sense Murray was not talking to him. “The old file says something different?”

“No,” Murray said. “And these are backups no one can tamper with. She doesn’t have the skills anywhere. She’d have to have worked developing computer systems to have the skills to mess with our system. I only know a handful of people who could do it, and none of them know her.”

That Murray was aware of, but Nyquist didn’t say that either. He just kept his mouth shut and watched.

“We’ll figure out how she did this later. I need to talk to her now.”

“If that’s her, you ain’t talking to her,” Murray said.

It was Nyquist’s turn to frown. “Why not?”

“Because that’s Terminal 81, and you don’t have clearance.”

“What?” Nyquist asked. Terminal 81 was the place where they parked the bulk of the quarantined vessels until they got destroyed or sent back to where they came from. “What’s she doing in there?”

“I don’t like this,” Murray said again, and this time, Nyquist realized he wasn’t talking about Palmette’s computer skills.

“Murray,
what’s she doing?”

Murray looked up at him, expression tight, as if he didn’t want to show his true emotions. “She’s going through a web of protection.”

Nyquist’s breath caught. Webs of protection were put around extremely dangerous items, from tiny bombs to large ships. Webs of protection were designed so that no one, not even anyone authorized, could get into a ship without moving slowly and cautiously. All the way along, the webs asked if the person wanted to go farther, and sent out all kinds of warnings.

Only Murray should have been notified of those warnings. Apparently he hadn’t been.

“You’re sure?” Nyquist asked.

“My system ain’t lying to me about this,” Murray said.

“But it didn’t notify you.”

“It didn’t, did it.” Murray didn’t sound surprised. “She’s not wearing hazmat gear.”

Nyquist let out a small breath. “Should she be?”

“If she don’t want to die,” Murray said.

“What the hell’s in that ship?” Nyquist asked.

“I don’t know,” Murray said. “The file’s tampered with.”

“Someone’s been planning this,” Nyquist said.

“No kidding. I’m going to the old file.” He worked.

“I need to get in there,” Nyquist said.

“You don’t have the training,” Murray said. “I’m sending in the Quarantine Squad.”

“They’ll spook her,” Nyquist said. “I can talk to her.”

Although he wasn’t really sure he could.

“This woman don’t look like she’s in the mood to talk,” Murray said.

“You don’t know that,” Nyquist said. “She might be taking action to protect someone else. She might be coerced.”

“She’d tell you that?”

Nyquist shrugged. “Me as much as anyone.”

He wasn’t going to mention that he saved her life once. He would if Murray didn’t authorize him.

“You got exactly ten minutes to get to Terminal 81 and gear up,” Murray said. “That’s how long it’ll take the squad to get there.”

Nyquist’s heart pounded. He’d won, but he wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Murray said. “At the moment, I got no idea what’s on that ship. For all I know, it could kill anyone wearing a hazmat suit. So you’re risking your life.”

“I risk my life every day,” Nyquist said. “It’s the job.”

“Maybe on the street that’s the job. Dealing with this kind of mess, that’s not your job.”

“I’m not dealing with the mess,” Nyquist said. “I’m dealing with one woman, who might or might not need help.”

“Don’t you touch nothing,” Murray said. “Let the squad do that. You talk to her. Nothing more.”

“Got it,” Nyquist said. Then, because he truly didn’t know, he asked, “Where do I meet them?”

“In front of Terminal 81. I’ll send you the guidelines as to what ship she’s messing with.” Murray wasn’t looking at him. Murray was working at least two screens, maybe more.

“Thanks,” Nyquist said as he headed toward the back exit.

“Don’t thank me,” Murray said. “I hate it when people thank me for doing something that could get them killed.”

“My decision, Murray,” Nyquist said, and headed into the corridor. He had less than ten minutes now to find a hazmat suit that fit and meet the squad at Terminal 81. Maybe by then, Murray would know what Palmette was doing.

Maybe by then, they would all have some answers.

Forty-four

They’d cleared out the Top of the Dome except for the hostages in the circular restaurant. Captain Polly Keptra hated this place. She had warned people for years about it, but no one listened to her. She even went before the licensing board here in Tycho Crater to get them to rescind or at least fail to renew Top of the Dome’s business license. But that hadn’t happened either.

She had expected something to happen, but she hadn’t expected it to reach the upper levels of Tycho Crater’s government. The mayor was safe—squirreled out of the Sky Auditorium by his protective detail the moment the image of the assassin came through everyone’s links.

But the damn assassin had realized he’d been made, ran out of the auditorium brandishing, of all things, a laser rifle, and reached the circular restaurant before anyone could catch him.

She stood outside the restaurant’s main doors now, along with three members of her team. The doors were closed and bolted shut from the inside, but she already had confirmed that the department had an override code.

She would get in. The question was what she would find once she was inside.

Half the lunch crowd escaped. The rest were inside with a madman who, the United Domes of the Moon Security Office told her, would commit suicide before he’d get caught.

Keptra wanted to turn to Josiah Strom, her second in command, and ask him to remind her again why she had taken the Assistant Chief’s job. But he would just give her a sideways look that would say everything: she hated the way the department was run; she felt that someone who actually knew how to do the work should be in a position of power; and she had no family, so she could show up day or night if there was an emergency.

Like this one. Which somehow managed to happen in the middle of a very long day.

She had a tactical team of twenty officers with her. She’d been drilling them in hostage rescue and dome security for six months now, but this was their very first actual test. Tycho Crater was at the end of nowhere, even though it tried to set itself up as a tourist destination. That’s why the Dome government had been unwilling to get rid of the Top of the Dome—because it was the only hotel/resort of its kind, and it was Tycho Crater’s biggest draw.

And its biggest potential disaster.

Built literally in the circle at the very top of the Dome, with “sky elevators” leading to it, the Top of the Dome had been part of Tycho Crater since the Dome was built. Initially it had provided housing for the workers who did the intricate work on the Dome layers. Then someone got the bright idea to attach the free-floating platform, and turn it into a restaurant. The restaurant became a hotel, the hotel became a resort (with a terrific view), and the Top of the Dome was born.

Of course, no one cared that the thing—because of all the continual jury-rigging that the engineers did—was unstable and could fall onto the population of the city. Nor did anyone care that the damn thing blocked the view of thousands of residents who lived below the Top of the Dome.