“He could have had his face changed.”
“In less than a week? With matching documentation? Rim States fenceline is the toughest frontier anywhere in the world. Anyway the same n-djinn we used for the face recog had instructions to flag anyone with bandaging or other traces of recent surgical procedure to the face. All we got was a bunch of rich brats coming home from West Coast cosmetic therapy, and a couple of over-the-hill erotica stars.”
She saw him hold back all but the corner of a grin. It was irritatingly infectious. She concentrated on the dataslate.
“The only options we are seriously entertaining are that either he was able to contact professional frontier busters within days of coming ashore, or he left the Rim for some other, intermediate destination before flying back into the Republic. It would be a tight time frame that way, but still doable. Of course once it goes global like that, there’s no way to run a comprehensive face recog. Too many places that refuse to let the n-djinns into their datasystems.”
“I take it these are both confirmed kills, Bay Area and then Texas?”
“Yes. Genetic trace material recovered at both locations.”
His gaze went back to the dataslate display. “What do Fort Benning have to say about it?”
“That Merrin was never provided with substantial datasystems training. He could run a battlefield deck—anybody in covert ops could. But that’s it. We’re assuming he upskilled on Mars.”
“Yeah. Or someone’s doing it for him.”
“There is that.”
He looked at her. “If he had systems help getting aboard Horkan’s Pride, and he’s still getting it now, then this is bigger than just some thirteen bailing out of Mars because he doesn’t like all the red rocks.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re out of leads.”
It wasn’t a question.
She sat back and spread her hands. “Without access to the UNGLA databases, we’re in a hole. We’ve done everything we know how to do, and it isn’t enough. The deaths keep coming, they’re steady but unpredictable. There’s no crescendo effect—”
“No, there wouldn’t be.”
“—but he’s not stopping. He’s not making any mistakes big enough to nail him or give us a working angle. Our inquiries on Mars have hit a wall—he obviously covered his tracks there, or, as you say, someone did it for him.”
“And down here?”
She nodded. “Down here, as you’ve also so eloquently pointed out, we are not on hugely cooperative terms with UNGLA, or the UN in general.”
“Well, I guess you can hardly blame them for that.” He widened his eyes at her, grinned. It’s not like you’ve been overly cooperative yourselves for the last decade.”
“Look, Munich was not—”
The grin faded to a grimace. “I wasn’t really talking about the Accords. I was thinking more of the reception we get in the prep camps every time we have to operate in them. You know we’re about as welcome down there as evolutionary science in Texas.”
She felt herself flush a little. “Individual corporate partners in the Colony effort do not necessarily—”
“Yeah, skip it.” A frown. “Still, UNGLA have a mandate requirement in circumstances like this. You report a loose thirteen, they pretty much have to show up.”
“We don’t really want them to show up, Mr. Marsalis.”
“Ah.”
“We need access to their datastacks, or failing that someone like you to talk to our profiling n-djinns. But that’s all. In the end, this is a COLIN matter, and we’ll clean our own house.”
Listen to you, Sevgi. Cop to corporate mouthpiece in one easy, well-paid move.
Marsalis watched her for a couple of moments. He shifted slightly in the chair, seemed to be considering something.
“Are you running this gig out of New York?”
“Yes. We’ve got borrowed space at RimSec’s Alcatraz complex, liaison with their detectives. But since this thing went continental, we’re back in the New York offices. Why?”
A shrug. “No reason. When I get on the suborb, I like to know where I’m going to be when I get off again.”
“Right.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, if we’re going to make that suborb, we should probably get moving. I imagine my colleague will have finished with the warden by now. There’ll be some paperwork.”
“Yes.” He hesitated a moment. “Listen. There are a couple of people in here I’d like to say good-bye to before we go. People I owe. Can we do that?”
“Sure.” Sevgi shrugged carelessly. She was already folding up the dataslate. “No problem. It’s a COLIN perk. We can do pretty much anything we want.”
The Guatemalan was still in his cell, flat on his back in his bunk and blissed out by the look of him on some of his newly acquired endorphin. A half-smoked New Cuban smoldered between the knuckles of his left hand, and his eyes were lidded almost shut. He looked up, dreamily surprised, when Carl strummed the bars of the half-open door.
“Hey, Eurotrash. Chew doin’ here?”
“Leaving,” said Carl crisply. “But I need a favor.”
The Guatemalan struggled upright on the bunk. He glanced up to the cell’s monitor lens, and the cheap interference slinger taped on the wall next to it. No attempt had been made to hide the scrambler, and it had hung there every time Carl had been inside the cell. He didn’t like to think what it cost the Guatemalan to have it overlooked on a permanent basis.
“Leavin’?” A stoned smirk. “Don’ see no fuckin trowel in your hand.”
Carl moved an African-carved wooden stool over to the bunk and seated himself. “Not like that. This is official. Out the front gate. Listen, I need to make a phone call.”
“Phone call?” Even through the endorphins, the Guatemalan was blearily shocked. “You know what tha’s gonna cost you?”
“I can guess. And I don’t have it. Look, there are seven more twenty-mil caps taped in plastic up in the U-bend of my cell’s shitter. All yours. Think of—”
“That ain’t gonna cut it, niggah.”
“I know. Think of it as a down payment.”
“Yeah?” The stoned look was sliding away from the other man. He put the New Cuban in the corner of his mouth and grinned around it. “How’s that shit work? You walkin’ outta here, how you gonna settle your account? Down payment on what? Come to that”—brow creasing—“you walkin’ outta here, why you need my little phone service?”
Carl gestured impatiently. “Because I don’t trust the people who are walking me out. Listen, once I’m outside, I’m going to have juice—”
“Yeah, sounds like it. Juice with folks that you don’t trust.”
“I can help you on the outside.” Carl leaned in. “This is COLIN business. That mean anything to you?”
The Guatemalan regarded him owlishly for a moment. Then he shook his head and got off the bunk. Carl shifted aside to let him past.
“Sound to me, niggah, like you ridin’. You sure those seven caps still in that shitter bend, not inside you? COLIN getting you out? What the fuck for?”
“They want me to kill someone for them,” Carl said evenly.
A snort from behind him. Liquid coursing as the Guatemalan poured himself a glass of juice from the chiller flask he kept on a shelf. “Sure. In the whole Confederated Republic, they can’t find one black man do their killin’ for them, they got to come flush some high-tone Eurotrash outta South Florida State. You ridin’, niggah.”
“Will you stop fucking calling me that.”
“Oh yeah.” The Guatemalan drank deep. He put the glass down and made a gusty, satisfied sound. “I’s forgettin’. You the only black man in here don’ seem to noticed what color skin he got.”
Carl stared straight ahead at the cell wall. “You know, where I come from, there are a lot of different ways of being black.”