During the winnower attack, Shuos infiltrators in other wards had been busy with sabotage. A lot of sabotage, carefully targeted.
Out loud again: “Get me Captain Damiod and Captain Ko.” The cryptology team and the Shuos. Their faces appeared next to her primary display.
“Sir,” Ko said, saluting.
“Sir,” Damiod said. “You wanted to hear about that line.”
“Yes,” Cheris said. He had brought it to her attention not long ago.
“With aid from the infiltrators, we’ve confirmed that Line 92832-17 goes directly to the Fortress’s command center. It’s probably Inaiga Zai’s direct line. We haven’t had any luck decrypting the packets. I suspect there’s some cutting-edge theorem being used because the structures smell funny, but never mind that.
“More to the point, we’ve confirmed that the tap on 17 goes to an individual associated with Zai’s lieutenant Gerenag Abrana. Unless the Shuos have gotten bored, no one’s tampered with the tap. We think Zai doesn’t realize it’s there.”
“Do you concur?” Cheris asked Ko.
“I do, sir,” Ko said.
“I’m sorry not to have better news for you,” Damiod said, although he sounded as though what he was really sorry about was this demand on his time.
“It’s all right,” Cheris said, and took note of Ko’s eyes, momentarily narrowed. “That’s not what I need. You’ve prepared that dummy cipher for me?”
“It’s ready,” Ko said. “It looks like a hedgehog, but a good team should be able to crack it in days if they approach it the right way, especially with the Fortress’s computational resources.”
Cheris was betting that Gerenag Abrana had an excellent team.
“Then here’s the next thing,” Cheris said. “Can we insert a message into Line 17? And make sure the tap sees it?”
“It’s an excellent tap,” Damiod said scornfully. “It probably sees more than the main line does. But sir, once you do that, they’ll be able to run a trace. You’ll blow our ability to listen in.”
“That’s fine,” Cheris said. “After this message we may not need to listen any longer.”
Ko was thoughtful. “How very Shuos of you, sir.”
“Do you have an objection?” Cheris said.
“It was merely an observation, sir.”
“This is the message I want inserted,” Cheris said to Ko and Damiod, “by whatever means necessary. Full video, show the shadow. Open with the Deuce of Gears.” Jedao had insisted on this. “This is Garach Jedao Shkan, forgive the cosmetic changes; my options were limited.” The name sounded unnaturally natural. “As per your request, I’ve cleared out the pests in your house. If you take care of your end, you should have a free hand to negotiate once the Hafn arrive. Meanwhile, I have some Kel to attend to. I trust we can discuss further arrangements over dinner as previously agreed. Enjoy the peace and quiet.”
If this worked, if Zai’s lieutenant cracked the dummy cipher and overheard Zai’s “negotiations” with Jedao to get rid of Zai’s subordinates, the heretics would tear each other apart and they could all go home soon.
Cheris looked down at her half-gloved hands so she wouldn’t have to notice the way people were looking at her.
“That’s it,” Jedao said. “Now we wait.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHUOS HAODAN HATED assassination assignments. Years ago, an instructor had explained that this was why he was ideal for them. Certainly he had the requisite skills, some of which had come from growing up in a Kel family, and he had excelled in academy. Originally, however, he had hoped for something quiet in analysis or adminstration.
On one of his first missions, his supervisor had sent him as a backup field agent anyway. The primary agent was talented but erratic. She got herself tangled up in some side scheme involving art fraud (he would have loved to see the wording of the reprimand), and Haodan had to dispatch the target himself.
He did too good a job. His supervisor told him it was his duty to take on more assassination assignments. When he protested that he didn’t enjoy taking lives – in some Shuos divisions you could go your entire career without taking a life, not that the general public would ever believe it – the supervisor said, with cruel persuasiveness, that if every Shuos weaseled out of wetwork, that would leave no one but the bullies and sociopaths. Hence it was Shuos policy to retain some assassins who didn’t glory in their work. Not that the general public would believe that, either.
Haodan knew that the argument was an appeal to his ego. It worked.
So here he was in the Fortress’s Dragonfly Ward years later, getting in position for his attempt on the head of the heretics’ analysis section, a foreigner named Vahenz afrir dai Noum. Shuos eavesdropping on the heretics’ discussions suggested that she was influential in policy-making as well. As his handler had explained, they hadn’t wanted to make an attempt on Vahenz earlier because it was more useful to monitor her activities without doing anything that would trigger an inconvenient stepping up of security. Now that the Fortress was all but taken, however, they wanted to make sure that Vahenz didn’t escape to cause trouble elsewhere, considering how much damage she had done already. They’d considered trying to capture her alive, but in the end they had decided against it on the grounds that the operation would be too uncertain.
Haodan had secured a job as a delivery man for a fancy confectioner; the Fortress’s citizens apparently took a certain level of decadence for granted, even while under siege. The previous delivery woman had gotten sick with Haodan’s encouragement, and Haodan had made all the right noises at the interview. Some research had turned up the manager’s worry for relatives trapped on the Drummers’ Ward, which Haodan played on shamelessly. He could have told her that life wasn’t going to be any better in the Dragonfly Ward now that the campaign was drawing to a close, even if the confectionary was in one of the areas least affected. Once the Kel had secured the Fortress, they would send for the Vidona, and the Vidona were bound to be more thorough than usual about reeducation procedures with a nexus fortress in the wake of a rebellion.
Vahenz ordered confections every other day like clockwork. Haodan despaired of predictable people. They made his job too easy. But then, the easier the job, the likelier it was that he could pull it off without excessive secondary casualties, so he ought to be grateful.
The parcel he was interested in was pasted over with cunning cutout paper shapes, farm animals in accordance with the heretical calendar. The effect was elegant, espeecially with the tasteful subdued colors of the paper. It would be his third delivery.
It amused him that the confectionary’s manager insisted on hand delivery during a siege. The human touch or something. She claimed people paid extra for it. Servitor delivery wouldn’t have made his work significantly harder, though. He knew ways of handling civilian servitors.
The manager was giving him instructions. She liked the fact that he stood practically at attention – something you learned fast with a Kel father, albeit one who was a medical technician – and treated her seriously. “Don’t forget to tell Leng that I’m thinking of their son,” she was saying. “And be certain to tell Ajenio that I’ve got those new sesame cookies in production, if he wants to place an order. I’ve included samples in his parcel so he can try before he decides, but he’ll like them. I’m always right about these things. Oh, and avoid the 17-4 passage. They’ll be marching soldiers through there around the time you go through, and you don’t want to be mixed up in that. Some kind of parade, but you’ve got a job to do.”
At last she had said everything she was going to say, and Haodan was able to leave. He rode his scooter in the designated lane. The passages on this level were messy, and the lifts were a disaster. Then again, the Fortress had originally been intended as a retreat for the heptarchs, with wards designed by separate teams, and for reasons of Doctrine they had demolished and reconstructed great chunks of the interior to do away with the seventh ward after they destroyed the Liozh. It was a wonder the thing was habitable.