The Administration Series (162 page)

No. The sensible thing to do was to cancel the surveillance at once, warn Uche to beware corporate snoopers, and pray that Warrick never found out anything more about it. Eventually SimTech would drop the investigation. No one need ever know what he'd done.

Toreth brightened very slightly as he spotted the silver lining. At least with Warrick locked in his flat and surrounded by security, he couldn't be playing personal liaison with Carnac.

Despite the combination of SimTech, Karteris and too much to drink, Toreth woke in the morning surprisingly refreshed. His shoulders ached a little, say one bad dream's worth, but he didn't remember waking. Maybe the stresses had cancelled each other out. Even so, hungry as he was after eating so little yesterday, he couldn't face breakfast.

When he arrived at I&I, Nagra was waiting in the office.

"More bad news?" he asked her.

"Not this time. Justice picked up Alexandros Vasdeki this morning."

"Alive, I hope."

"Yes. They caught him up at the station, trying to get a ticket out of the Administration. He had a fake ID, but it failed the security check. He tried to bribe his way out, but he was desperate enough that the station staff guessed he was running from something serious, and they held him instead of taking the money."

"A lot of money?"

"He had nearly five thousand on him. No accounts in his name missing that sum, so I expect it was a present from Karteris."

Interesting that Karteris hadn't simply killed the man — Toreth would have done, in his place. Again, the feeling nagged at him that there was something wrong with Karteris's death. Alone in a small boat . . . Toreth closed his eyes briefly. Stay away from the whole damn idea.

"I'll read his file one more time and go down."

It had taken two attempts yesterday before the guards managed to leave Toreth's prisoners sat at the table rather than putting them straight into the interrogation chair. The second, more forceful explanation seemed to have sunk in, because Toreth found Vasdeki there, waiting with his head in his cuffed hands.

He breathed harshly, sounding close to tears, and he didn't seem to hear the door open. Excellent start.

"Good morning," Toreth said.

With a startled exclamation, the prisoner looked up. Slighter than Theo, but good-looking in the same classically Greek way. He muttered something under his breath — a prayer, probably, but the desk microphone would pick it up for later examination.

Toreth sat down and placed a hand screen on the table to one side. "My name is Toreth. Senior Para-investigator Val Toreth, in fact, although I don't particularly care what you call me. I've heard it all before anyway."

Vasdeki took a shaky breath, but when he spoke his voice was only a little unsteady. "What are you doing here? This isn't your country."

"It's a part of the European Administration, of which we're both citizens. Now we're here, citizen, to talk about — "

"Forget it. I won't tell you anything." Vasdeki stood up. "I'm ready. You can do whatever the hell you like."

Not protesting his innocence, then. Toreth smiled and waved the man back into his seat. After a hesitation, he obeyed.

"Oh, no, no, no. Not like that." Toreth pretended to consult the screen. "We're not here to discuss
your
interrogation. Your wife is called Gina, isn't she?"

Dead silence, the low purr of the air cycling systems seeming suddenly loud.

"She doesn't know anything," Vasdeki whispered.

"I'm sorry?"

"She doesn't know anything." And then the realisation dawning that that didn't matter in the slightest.

"I'm sure I can come up with a reasonable suspicion that she does, which will be enough to get me a damage waiver. For example, she also works at the university. The case we're considering — a political case — has connections to there. Do you know what a section N interrogation is?"

When the prisoner shook his head, Toreth called the relevant section of the Procedures and Protocols up on his hand screen and held it where Vasdeki could see it. The heading, 'Approved Sexualised Interrogation Methods', always caught the eye.

"I won't touch her myself, of course," Toreth said as Vasdeki read. "There are section N trained guards who I'll bring in to do all that. I'll be standing right next to you, so that when you want it to stop you can tell me."

The problem with section Ns was reliability. Some prisoners folded almost at once but, especially if both partners were active resisters, it could make them more determined to resist, to show no weakness in front of the other. An even bigger gamble here, since it was unlikely he really could get a waiver issued for the section N. Making a threat he couldn't carry out was a disastrous way to start an interrogation.

Worth the risk, though, because it fell under both safe and quick.

No reply from the prisoner. An outright refusal would have come by now. Toreth decided to test the water. "How long had Karteris been helping the resisters?"

Laughter wasn't a sound often heard in the interrogation room. Not even, as with Vasdeki, when it was ninety percent hysteria.

Finally he said, "Helping us? Oh, God." He shook his head, laughter still escaping in hiccups. "You have no — they've been
blackmailing
us. For years. And in return they've been 'protecting' us."

The ease and completeness of Vasdeki's surrender stirred suspicion. "You don't think they'll protect you now?"

Vasdeki looked down. "No. And if I don't talk you'll get everything you need from them. It might take you more time, but I know what they are." His head lifted and he extended his hands, displaying the cuffs. "You're cowards, all of you. Threatening Gina because of what I've done. Coward. Karteris was the worst of the lot. I heard what happened to him — I hope he took a long time to die."

Easier not to react here in the interrogation room, where his training held most strongly, but it still sickened him. Not so much the images he couldn't stop, but the thought of dozens of interviews to come with Karteris's name mentioned again and again.

He'd get through them, one at a time. Start with this one. "How did the blackmail work?" Toreth asked.

The lack of reaction to the insult seemed to quench the brief defiance. "Oh, we did all the work. A few people were registered as informants and they collected the payments for the bastards here. Cash, or goods and services, whatever we could give them. Wanting more and more . . . it couldn't have gone on for much longer."

Toreth felt his focus coming back as he kept the questions away from the danger topic of Karteris's death. "How did they find the resisters?"

"Whenever someone was reported, they'd drag them in and sound them out. See if they were guilty, and what they'd be willing to do. Sometimes if people were innocent they still might pay to have their names cleared completely. Even an accusation of anti-Administration activity damages."

Perhaps arranging a few extra accusations of suitably rich targets too. An old scam, and one cracked down on by I&I management wherever it appeared, because it inevitably ended in tears when an ambitious para tried to strong-arm the wrong corporate. "But what about real resisters?"

"Nationalists." He shifted his wrists in the cuffs. "Sometimes the accusations were true. And from time to time they'd pick up someone who knew a few names, other nationalists, and they'd suck them into it too. Theo was like that — he knew my name, I don't know why. If people wouldn't cooperate, they died under questioning or went for reeducation."

"I need names, Alex. Resisters being blackmailed, who was doing the blackmailing. Give me that and if it all checks out —
if
— then Gina is safe and you're on reduced charges."

Vasdeki smiled grimly. "I can give you some of the bastards who work here. But not the rest. I don't know any of our names. We weren't stupid."

Of course, once Toreth had the names of the paras, the resisters would be easy. Whether Vasdeki hadn't thought about that, or was lying to himself about it, Toreth knew better than to point it out.

"You can't give me any resisters at all?"

"Nationalists," Vasdeki repeated. "No — I know one name. Theo. And I only know because I heard you call him that."

"You were there?"

"Yes. On the roof." He lifted his head. "I thought he was dead, or I never would've left him."

As if Toreth cared. "Who was behind that?"

"Karteris arranged it all — I was there when he did it. Theo took me along, because it was set up in such a rush. He told Theo what to put in the message, he gave us the comms jammer. Just like he did with the woman. The Citizen Surveillance agent."

Exactly what Toreth had hoped for. "You were there when Theo and Karteris talked about Grant?"

"No. Theo told me about it afterwards." Vasdeki smiled bitterly. "Our first joint operation. We had as much to lose as they did, by then. Mutual destruction. Karteris told us she was there. I worked at the university, so I was chosen to keep an eye on her. I tried to steer her away from things that mattered, but she kept asking questions — she wouldn't stop looking."

"But you weren't there with Theo when the murder was arranged?" Hearsay, and so difficult to get a warrant on when corroboration from Theo or Karteris was unfortunately impossible.

The prisoner shook his head. "If you want to hear about it firsthand, Theo said another one of them was there — another para. Shorter, heavier build. Pale."

Easy description to match up, but Toreth waited patiently for the prisoner to produce a name unprompted.

"P-something, I think."

"You tell me."

Vasdeki closed his eyes. "Priftis. Emmanuel Priftis."

Toreth paused briefly, but prompting would be acceptable now. "Manos Priftis?"

"Probably. That's what Manos is short for. He went with Theo when she was killed. For all I know, he might've been the one who did it. Theo never told us the details."

Beautiful. Finally, a live fucking witness — the first crack in the wall. There would be more.

"Well done. Gina will be grateful."

Vasdeki looked down, shaking his head.

The next time Toreth opened the door to the interrogation room, he found his prisoner uncuffed and pacing the floor. The single guard watched; Toreth decided not to bother with a reprimand, which would only add to the resentment against him.

"Sit, please," Toreth said.

Priftis did as he was told. "What's going on?"

Toreth didn't answer. Instead he spent a minute or two checking the camera feeds and recordings, watching the junior para out of the corner of his eye. When he began to fidget in the chair, Toreth sat down.

"Okay, here's what I'll do. Straight, simple deal. I know that you can give me the names of the people blackmailing resisters, and the names of the resisters too."

He said it with such matter-of-fact confidence that it took Priftis a moment to register what he'd said. Toreth watched horrified realisation dawn before the junior struggled for control — too late, as they both knew. Even so, Toreth had expected Priftis to try to lie his way out of the situation. Instead he put his head in his hands and said, "Hell."

"I hope for your sake you can tell me how it worked, where the money went, and who else was involved. Do that, and I promise you'll get treated as leniently as I can arrange. I&I can't discipline the whole section. You know the drill. You can go to a new division with a nasty mark on your record, or you can be one of the scapegoats the Administration hoists up on high to show the good citizens we're serious about corruption." Toreth smiled. "I choose which."

Priftis took a deep breath and looked up. "I don't know where you're getting this crap, but I don't know anything about it."

Much too late. "If I were you, I'd be looking harder for friends than that, because the ones you've got already aren't doing you much good. Alexandros Vasdeki has pointed the finger at you." Toreth watched the name sink in. "Yes. He's made a statement that he spoke to you about the blackmail, more than once, with Karteris."

"The word of a resister?"

"He also said that you were there when Karteris arranged to have Grant killed. Remember Theodora Grant? She was a Cit Surveillance agent, Junior."

Priftis look away, breathing more quickly.

"Suit yourself. If I don't clear this up soon, you know what will happen — Internal will hear about it. You can talk to me, now, here, or you can talk to Internal later, when they're holding a report saying you were an uncooperative prisoner."

Another pause before Priftis slumped back in the chair. "You're good at this."

"Yes — it's my job. Want to see my commendations?"

"It's no fun from this side." He sighed. "Okay. Christ, I feel like I ought to ask for a guarantee signed by my Justice rep."

"Names, please."

Priftis looked at him, doubt still plain on his face, then nodded slowly. "Okay. No problem."

Toreth took Priftis and Vasdeki over to Justice and left them in cells there, where they would have a much harder time getting a message to their respective friends, and where the friends would have a harder time getting at them. Now he had a brace of live witnesses, he intended to keep them that way.