Rebels and Lovers (26 page)

“Sorry,” Trip said, his voice a low, tired rumble in his chest.

Kaidee, on Devin’s left, changed her gaze from the Rada’s display to Trip across the table. “At least the message was never sent, and you found it when it could do no harm.”

“Seems like the only thing I’ve done so far that’s done no harm.” Trip scrubbed at his face with one hand. “I’m sorry. This is such a mess—”

“Can you get us some tea from the galley?” Kaidee interrupted him. “The unit in here doesn’t work well.”

That wasn’t all that far from the truth—her quarters held only a basic slurp-and-snack—but Kaidee also felt that Trip needed to be doing something more
than sitting glumly, listening to his uncle swear softly under his breath.

“See if Barty’s awake and wants anything,” she added as, with a nod, Trip headed for the corridor.

“Mind reader.” Devin’s low comment as the door closed behind Trip’s retreating figure brought her attention back to the table and the man seated inches from her.

“Pardon?” His words confused her.

He glanced at her briefly, then back at the holographic screen. “Trip really has no idea what’s going on, other than that whatever he does seems to cause trouble. Keeping him busy right now is a good move.”

“I can’t believe he’d leave his pocket comm around where anyone could access it.”

“He wouldn’t. At least, I’ve never known him to do so.” Devin poked at a line of code, dragging it to the right. “But it wouldn’t matter if he did. It’s a secure unit. No one can use it unless they know his personal passwords.”

Suddenly she understood the reason behind Devin’s low epithets. “This isn’t some outside operation. This is someone in GGS.”

“Or in my parents’ direct employ.” The look he shot her was bleak.

He didn’t have to say it; she could guess at the rest of his thoughts: someone who might be in the Guthrie home, even now. “Former employee?” For a chilling moment, she thought of Kiler. He often amused himself by creating password-encryption programs. Had another employee copied his codes, or had Kiler taught someone his methods before he died?

“If so, then someone in the last twenty-three days.” Devin touched a square databox and pushed it next to the line of code. Numbers and symbols moved rapidly
in and out of it. “We change passwords frequently for that very reason.”

Kiler had been dead for a lot longer than twenty-three days. And if someone had filched one of his programs, why would they wait until now to use it? “So as much as twenty-three days ago, someone intended to kidnap Trip and send this message through his pocket comm. But if they had Trip, or even just had his pocket comm, why preprogram the message? They have the password. They could create a message and send it anytime they wanted to.”

“I can only assume that the person who knew the password wasn’t going to be the person or people holding Trip hostage. They might have even intended to leave his pocket comm somewhere else. That would be logical, since law enforcement would be tracking the comm’s location.”

“It is possible to determine the send date?” That should tell them something. Was it keyed to send the day Halsey was killed? Or was Halsey’s death unrelated?

“More than possible. Almost there.”

Kaidee glanced at the hovering display again. Her experience with datacodes was confined to what she needed to know to run her ship and what she’d watched Kiler and, when she was younger, her uncle or her father create. She wasn’t remotely in Devin’s league but knew enough to recognize his skill. And that not all of it was university-issue.

Then something flickered.

“Damn!” He swiped quickly at a pair of databoxes, positioning them around a wavering line of symbols. “Okay.” He let out a long breath. “Let’s try that again.”

“Problem?”

“I hate self-destruct filters. Especially when they’re sloppily set.” He sat back from the display, then ran one hand through his hair, making it stick up in short spikes on the right side. “Whoever did this has just enough training to be dangerous but not enough to know how stupidly he could fuck—” He shot her an embarrassed glance. “Sorry.”

“Fuck things up?” Kaidee snorted softly, amused by his discomfort. “I grew up on the docks, Devin. I’ve heard worse.”

A half smile played over his mouth. “So I guess we’re friends?”

It took her a moment to catch the line of his thought. Devin. She’d called him Devin. She damned her lapse and the heat she could feel creeping across her cheeks. It had always been so easy to be with him. And so easy to forget why she shouldn’t be.

“I respect all the Guthries. And that includes you.” But that sounded lame, even to her ears, and he was still smiling.

Then his smile turned wistful. “I hope that respect doesn’t fade when I ask you to be my partner in crime.”

For a moment alarm flared. But he was pointing to the Rada’s display, and she knew it had to do with Trip’s pocket comm and not her heritage.

“I need to do a little, um, creative coding here to disarm that self-destruct. But it will involve altering, temporarily, your ship’s comm link relay—”

“You want to create a Corrinian parabola.” She didn’t try to keep the slight but noticeable smug tone out of her voice. She might not have his talents, but she wasn’t ignorant. Especially of things less than legal and more than helpful, thanks to her uncle. Knowing those kinds of things improved your chance to survive,
as long as you didn’t get caught. “I grew up on
freighter
docks,” she reiterated. “I’ve spent a lot of time on Dock Five.”

He arched one eyebrow. “Maybe GGS should have hired you as security, not a pilot.”

Except a security position would have required a deeper background clearance. Something she couldn’t afford. “Those were my uncle’s skills. Not mine.”

“Why do I think I’d like your family?” he drawled. Then, before Kaidee could voice her disbelief, he pointed to the suspended display. “In the meantime, we have work to do.”

That work—much of which would have drawn praise from her uncle and Kiler—took a little over an hour. Trip brought tea and bottles of cold water, but Devin wouldn’t let him help with the programming.

“He doesn’t need to know this at his age,” Devin said, after sending Trip down to sick bay to watch over Barty.

“How old were you when you learned to hack system codes?”

“That’s not the point.”

Younger than Trip, then. She wondered if Philip had taught him, but, no, she never remembered Philip Guthrie having much of an interest in that area. Laser pistols, yes. Computers and data pathways, no.

She returned to the bridge, the last bit of encryption on a datapad in her hand, and dutifully sat at the communications console, entering it on cue. As before, she knew enough to know that a professional had programmed this, bypassing security traps and hard walls that were supposedly impenetrable and wrapping it all around and into the smaller but equally complex systems of Trip’s pocket comm.

Or something like that. She knew it was used to extract
security-locked information, but since it had little to do with piloting a ship, she’d never paid much interest to it or to other hacks her uncle had excelled at.

Now, in a way, she wished she had. It might have made her feel on a bit more of an equal footing with Devin.

Why? So you could be friends, like he said? Do you really think you could be friends with Devin Guthrie?
His pilot, his bodyguard, sure. His mistress? Hell, what was it Kiler always said? If it pays well enough …

But anything more than that, you’re kidding yourself, Kaid. J.M. would find out about your family and have you fired and spaced. And not necessarily in that order
.

A noise in the corridor by the lift made her turn from the console: Devin, alone, his fingers wrapped so tightly around Trip’s pocket comm that his knuckles were white. His mouth was a tight line.

Kaidee’s gut went cold.

He took the seat next to her at the comm, then tossed the pocket comm with a careless ferocity onto the console’s wide work area. The rectangular unit hit with a sharp clink, spun three quarters of the way around, then stopped, wedged against the edge of a keyboard.

“What?” she asked, meaning who, where, and why as well.

He seemed to understand. And the answer, she could tell, wasn’t easy for him.

“My father,” he said finally, putting a hard pause between the two words. “The indomitable Jonathan Macy Guthrie the First. The man who always has the right answer. The man who will not be disobeyed.” He dropped his gaze for a moment and clenched his hands
together, elbows on his knees. “I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

“Your father wanted Trip kidnapped, Halsey killed?” It sounded bizarre as she said it, but she understood his grief. As a child, she loved her aunts and uncles. Then she found out what they did for a living.

He looked up, pain on his face. “I don’t know about Halsey. But the ransom message on Trip’s pocket comm was originally created on my father’s personal system. There are … hallmarks. Telltales. And they’re there.”

“Why would he do that?”

Devin barked out a harsh laugh. “Because he will not be disobeyed. And if he had to create a crisis to ensure that, he would. Except Trip’s leaving ahead of schedule completely skewed his plans. As for the purported kidnapping, I’m guessing it would have been something easily solved but it would have manipulated certain people into the positions he wanted. Instead, he had a real crisis. And no easy solution.”

“How would Trip being kidnapped make people do what he wanted?”

“Maybe he saw that as a way to force Philip to come home. Or maybe he thought that would encourage Tavia and—”

Kaidee waited for Devin to finish his sentence. He didn’t. “Tavia?” she prompted.

He shook his head. “Another minor family problem. Non-problem, actually.” He shoved himself to his feet.

Kaidee thought he was leaving the bridge, but he paced over to the empty pilot’s chair and stood there, hands loosely on the chair’s back, staring out the blanked viewport. There was nothing to see in
jumpspace. It didn’t matter. She had a feeling Devin was seeing things he didn’t want to see.

His father setting up some childish game with Trip’s supposed kidnapping? All because he wanted Philip Guthrie to return home? Or was it over some other family problem Devin hinted at? It didn’t matter. It was a stupid and dangerous thing to do, and Devin knew that better than she did.

“There’s more.” He angled around and looked at her over his left shoulder.

Kaidee leaned forward in her chair, the grimness in his voice making her gut clench.

“There was a stealth pointer embedded in Trip’s pocket comm.”

A stealth pointer was an expensive and complex long-distance locator program. For the Guthries with a rambunctious teenager, it could make sense. “Trip’s parents probably thought it was necessary—”

“It doesn’t report back to Jonathan or Marguerite. It goes back to a location on Aldan Prime. Actually, an Imperial aide’s office. Does the name Pol Acora mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“He works for Tage. I didn’t recognize the comm address, only that it was a government one. But because we’ve handled supplies for various Imperial shipyards, GGS has a listing of key contacts. I ran it through my Rada to confirm it.”

“Why would Tage or this Pol Acora care where Trippy is?”

“You’d have to ask my father that.” He turned back to the blank viewport. “The stealth program was uploaded when the ransom note was.”

Kaidee sat for several moments in stunned silence, the implications of Devin’s information circling in her
brain. “Your father’s sending the
Prosperity
to Port Chalo. Do you still think it’s wise to meet up with the ship?”

“Reading my thoughts again, Makaiden?” Devin answered without turning around. His shoulders were stiff, his posture radiating pain. “My gut instinct is to say no, we shouldn’t. But maybe this is what Ethan was hinting at. Maybe this is the real reason my mother’s in the hospital.” He shook his head slowly. “And for the next three days, all we can do is chase suppositions.”

Kaidee glanced at the time stamp on the comm console. It was late and, considering all that had happened today, felt even later. “No. For the next two and a half shipdays, we can go over what we know and make well-thought-out plans. Contingency plans.” She had one, but it was hugely risky. It could save them, if this was indeed a trap. But it would also damn her.

She shelved it for now. There had to be other, safer options. “We’ll need them if your father’s playing some kind of game.”

Devin twisted around to face her. “If my father’s playing some kind of game where he’s willing to risk his own grandson’s life, then any contingency plans we come up with won’t be good enough. Trust me on that.” He jammed his hands into his pants pockets and looked at her levelly. “Can you leave the bridge?”

“Why?”

“We need to go see if Barty can give us a crash course in ImpSec tactics. If my father and Tage are planning another crisis, Port Chalo would be an excellent place to stage it.”

The dim lighting in the
Rider’s
sick bay told Kaidee that there would be no strategy session with Barty for several hours yet. They found Trip half asleep as well in the armchair near Barty’s bed. A tray with an empty soup bowl was on a table behind him.