Ride The Rising Tide (The Maxwell Saga) (35 page)

“
Yes, so did I.”

Levi glanced at the entrance to the restaurant as they passed it. The diners in the courtyard were milling around, clearly wanting to come out and see what was going on, but were being restrained by others, presumably BuIntel operatives. The Sergeant snorted in disgust.

“Typical! Whenever shots are fired, the first thing idiots want to do is come out and gawk! The fact they might get shot while doing so doesn’t even occur to them! You two, go help the BuIntel people sort out that lot. Make sure we get statements from any witnesses.”

“
Yes, Sergeant,” his two colleagues replied in unison, and trotted towards the entrance.

Levi’s comm unit buzzed. He scooped it from his belt, identified himself, and listened intently.

“Understood, Sir. I’ll tell them.”

Replacing the unit on his belt, he smiled. “That was Inspector Gilon. They got them! The aircar pinned them down, and our patrol cars were able to catch up to them. Three people, the driver, the shooter and one other, all in custody — and you hit the shooter, Sir. Your first round went through the open window, cut across his left cheek and ear, and went on to break the window behind him on its way out. It apparently made a hell of a gash, with a lot of blood, but it’s only a flesh wound.”

“Good. That means he’ll be able to answer questions.”

“
Yes, Sir.”

At his car, an unmarked vehicle, the Sergeant photographed Miriam’s arm, then retrieved a first–aid kit from the trunk, cleaned the graze, and swabbed it with antiseptic. She winced at the sting of the astringent liquid, but smiled at Steve to show it wasn’t too bad.

As Levi opened an adhesive dressing and applied it to the graze, Steve’s comm unit buzzed. He took it from his belt.

“
Lieutenant Maxwell speaking.”

“
Lieutenant, this is Commander Wu.” The other’s voice was hurried, his breathing heavy, as if he’d been running. “I’m at the scene where APD is holding the shooter and his accomplices. I just wanted to confirm to you that we have them. I don’t know what happened to let them get into position like that, but I intend to find out.”

“
Yes, Sir. I’m informed that BuSec was responsible for the outer perimeter.” Steve had to bite his lip to refrain from adding several very rude remarks concerning their competence.

“
Don’t say any more, Lieutenant — this is an open channel. All I can say right now is that there’ll be further developments through the night. Go back to your hotel and relax. I’ll give you an update tomorrow morning.”

“
Aye aye, Sir.”

~ ~ ~

“Hi, buddy.” Brooks grinned as Steve opened the door to his room. “I hear you made a nuisance of yourself again last night.”

“
Come in. Yeah, I’ve been keeping myself busy. What brings you down to the planet?”

Brooks tossed his overnight bag onto the bed, and sat down beside it as Steve resumed his seat. “We’ve been working like dogs checking everything aboard
Vargash
. Midrash’s System Patrol Service were real grateful for our help — having an extra sixty trained bodies on hand has speeded up the work enormously.
Achilles
gets out of the dockyard tomorrow, so they gave us all liberty tonight and flew us down here. They’ve arranged accommodation for everyone planetside. They’ll fly us back up to orbit tomorrow evening to rejoin
Achilles
.”

“
Sounds good. Where are you staying?”

“
Right here! Lieutenant–Commander Maram arranged a room for me. Said it was the least they could do for both of us, seeing as we’re buddies. I’m shamelessly playing on your fame for all it’s worth.”

Steve pretended to throw a cushion from the chair at him. “Bribery and corruption, that’s what it is!”

“Maybe.” Brooks’ face sobered. “Speaking of corruption, what’s this I hear about a judge of the planet’s Constitutional Court being part of this mess?”

“
I guess bad apples can crop up anywhere, or a good apple can be bruised. In this case, enough money was involved to tempt a saint!”

“
How did they catch him so quickly, anyway?”

Steve thought fast. He couldn’t reveal that the Dragon Tong had provided the judge’s name, amongst others, to Inspector Gilon. “The authorities became suspicious about five people — two directors of the Fargin conglomerate, the judge, and two other businessmen. They got a court order to tap all their comm units and messages. Turns out some of them had additional, unregistered comm units — they found out about them when the others called those codes. They used voice and data encryption, but the authorities got around that by downloading a program to their devices, disguised as an ‘operating system update’. It recorded everything seen or heard on their end — after decryption or before encryption, in other words — then called a data repository and played it back on receipt of a coded signal.”

Brooks frowned. “I didn’t know they could do that! Sounds like something we should be aware of in terms of Fleet security.”

“
Apparently they already are. Commander Wu says BuSec builds defensive measures against that sort of thing into our issue comm units. Anyhow, they were able to catch all five discussing the smuggling among themselves, and trying to figure out how to get their tame Judge to give them a court order setting aside some of the warrants already served and seizures already made. Three of them also spoke about the contract on my life. Apparently they hoped it’d send a message to investigators to back off — you know, ‘If we’re prepared to kill a Fleet officer, just think what we can do to you and your family’, that sort of thing. They were pretty upset when the hit failed, and called each other to discuss setting up another attempt. That was good enough for the prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for all of them.”

“
Will those taps stand up in court?”

“
I guess so, or they wouldn’t have used them as justification for the arrests. I’m betting some of the five will crack under interrogation, too. After all, the three we caught last night are singing like birds, and implicating some of them. They’re looking at forfeiture of all their assets, which will hurt their families very badly, plus incarceration for the rest of their lives on a prison planet. I figure one or two of them will co–operate in the hope of getting at least some leniency from the authorities — perhaps being allowed to leave their families enough money to live on, something like that.”

“
Let’s hope so. Did they find out how the kill team penetrated the security cordon?”

Steve shook his head in disgust. “They can’t have known about all the security precautions, but even so, they used one of the oldest tricks in the book, and it worked as well as always. They simply set up their ambush before the cordon was established. Traffic vid showed their car being parked there early in the morning. The driver paid at the meter for all–day parking, using an untraceable prepaid credit chip, then simply walked away and left it there. The Bureau of Security team checked it out when they established the outer perimeter during the afternoon, but there was nothing suspicious about it.

“About half an hour before we left the restaurant, the three–man team walked up, got into the car and sat there, cool as you please. A passing patrolman wondered why they didn’t leave, and asked them if there was a problem, but they told him they were waiting for someone to join them. He accepted their story and didn’t think any more of it.”

“
He didn’t notice their bead carbine?”

“
He says not. Apparently it was stowed in a concealed compartment beneath the back seat. They must have taken it out when they needed it.”

“
I bet BuSec’s smarting about that right now.”

“
That’s what I hear. It seems there’s an ongoing ‘turf war’ between BuIntel and BuSec at the best of times, so this mess is allowing BuIntel to score points off their rival. Commander Wu seems to be enjoying their discomfiture, anyway. I think he’ll get an official feather in his cap from the Fleet for coming up with a plan to capture the team of assassins, and probably another from Midrash for helping the planetary authorities break up a major smuggling network. To be fair, he deserves both. He’s in a good enough mood that he’s even offered to arrange a two–year tour of duty at BuIntel for me in a few years, when I reach O–3 grade or higher. Apparently they don’t take line officers in more junior grades.”

Brooks’ eyebrows rose. “He must have some pretty serious influence if he can do that! BuIntel doesn’t open many of its assignments to general service officers. Will you take it?”

Steve nodded. “Lieutenant–Commander Kilian said it’s a great opportunity, because Intel experience can open doors later in one’s career. If Commander Wu makes good on his offer, I’ll take it, but only for two years. I don’t want to specialize in Intelligence work. He’s got an idea for my next planetside tour of duty, too. He’s offered to arrange an assignment for me to the Accident Investigation Unit on Lancaster. He says their investigations are as thorough as those of BuIntel, sometimes even more so. He reckons I’ll learn a lot from a stint there that’ll stand me in good stead for a later tour at BuIntel. I like the idea.”

“
OK, but if all that's in the future, but what are they going to do for you now? Without you they’d never have captured the kill team, and wouldn’t be able to use their interrogations to gather evidence against the others. Come to that, without you and your team, they wouldn’t have an investigation to begin with – those smugglers would have taken the inertial compensator over the protests of the System Patrol and got clean away!”

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I’m sure they’re planning something. Commander Wu’s already written up Lieutenant Sabran and myself for a Planetary Combat Badge award. Neither Miriam nor myself wanted one, because this wasn’t much of an engagement, but he pointed out that the Regulations are clear. If you come under hostile fire while on an official assignment, you’re considered to have been in combat. He wanted to write up Miriam for a Combat Injury Medal, too, but she refused. She said it wouldn’t be right to accept it for such a tiny scratch.”

“Good for her! Both of you deserve more than just combat stars, though. After all, you were both aboard
Vargash
when things went pear–shaped, and you were both involved in this latest incident too.”

“
I don’t know what else he has in mind. What’s been going on in orbit?”

“
Plenty! The most interesting thing right now is that rhodium. Ever heard of something called an ‘elemental profile’?”

“
Can’t say I have.”

“
It’s the unique chemical ‘fingerprint’ of a particular sample of any element on the Periodic Table. It comes partly from trace elements at the place where it was extracted, and partly from the way it was refined. They tested the rhodium we found, and guess what? Its elemental profile doesn’t fit any source listed in the United Planets mining registry. The scientists reckon it must come from a completely new source, probably an asteroid mining facility set up in an uninhabited system somewhere. That’s big news, because rhodium’s scarce at the best of times. If we’ve just found over a ton of the stuff, that implies the same source must be producing other platinum group metals as well. If their output’s big enough, it might affect markets and prices throughout the settled galaxy.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose. “That big, huh?”

“So they tell me. We know
Vargash
came here from the Sigma system, stopping at a couple of planets along the way to collect more cargo. I guess they’ll try to find out where she loaded the inertial compensator, then send investigators there to back–track it and see whether they can find the source of the rhodium.”

Another knock came at the door. Steve opened it, to reveal Miriam standing in the corridor. She stepped inside and embraced him, kissing him lingeringly. He put his good arm around her and hugged her close, returning her kiss with interest. Behind them, Brooks whistled approvingly.

“I didn’t know you two were an item?”

Miriam grinned at him. “We aren’t, not long–term — I know Steve won’t be settling down here. Even so, when a gentleman shoves her out of the way of a bullet, and nails the guy responsible, the least a lady can do is show her gratitude!” She turned back to Steve. “I’m famished! Are you ready to eat?”

“I sure am!”

“
Oh, good! Are we all eating together?”

“
If you don’t mind my tagging along,” Brooks agreed.

“
I’m glad you’re both here,” Steve admitted. “It’s a special anniversary tonight, and I didn’t want to spend it alone.”

“
Oh?” Brooks’ face and voice were intrigued. “It’s not your birthday, is it?”

“
No. Let’s eat, then I’ll tell you more. Miriam, you’re a local. I want to go to a restaurant or nightclub with a really good selection of Scotch whiskies, including the rarer single malts. Any ideas?”

“
There’s a place called Balmenach. The proprietor’s grandfather emigrated here from Scotland, and established a pub. It’s still in his family, although it’s added a retail store and a pretty good restaurant with traditional Scottish food. They boast there are never less than fifty Scotch whiskies available.”