Dr. Darling-lean, middle-aged, the picture of a successful gynecologist-was looking between ven Hjalmar, Iris, and the muzzle of Mhara's silenced Glock in slack-jawed surmise. "You-you-"
"I'd like to thank you both for the little number you played on my daughter. It wasn't quite what I had in mind when I suggested the arrangement."
Ven Hjalmar flushed beneath the force of her glare. "What did you expect us to do?" he demanded. "She was under house arrest! With an execution warrant on her head! You wanted the leverage-"
"Nevertheless." Iris shifted uncomfortably in her wheelchair. "This is neither the time nor the place for this discussion."
"Excuse me?" Three heads turned to stare at Dr. Darling. "What are you-"
"Griben, do you mind?" Iris asked casually, speaking hochsprache.
"If you absolutely must. I'd finished with him, anyway."
"Did you get the disks from him?" she added.
"Of course."
"What do you want?" demanded Darling.
In hochsprache: "Mhara, now."
Outside the office, the two muffled shots would be mistaken for a door banging. Darling dropped forward across his desk, spilling blood and fatty tissue onto the keyboard of his PC.
Griben sighed. "Was that strictly necessary?"
"Yes," Iris said shortly. She glanced round. Mhara was standing, frozen, her pistol angled slightly upwards and a confused look in her eyes. "Mhara? Child?"
The young woman shook her head. "I'm sorry." She picked up the shoulder bag and carefully stowed her pistol inside, using hook-and-eye strips to secure it. "Never done that before."
"You've attended executions, surely…"
"Yes, milady. But it's different when you do it yourself."
"You'll get used to it," Iris reassured her. "Griben, he knew too damned much. Family Trade are on our tail and he's not Outer Family or personal retainer. He had to go. You've got the disks. Mhara, the other device, please."
"Other-oh." Ven Hjalmar looked at the PC in distaste. "You don't expect me to"-
"I surely do." Iris held up a pair of latex gloves. "You'll want these."
None of them were particularly experienced at black-bag jobs; it took them nearly ten minutes to unscrew the casing of the PC and position the bulk eraser's electromagnet above the hard disk drive. Finally, Iris hit the power switch. "Ah, good," she said, as the disk error warning came up on the blood-specked screen. "Mhara, you see the filing cabinets yonder? You take the right one, Griben can take the middle, and I shall take the left. Start at the top and work down. You are looking for anything pertaining to Applied Genomics Corporation, the W-316 clinical trial, Angbard Lofstrom, Griben ven Hjalmar here, or adoption papers relating to children."
"Adoption papers?" Mhara sounded confused.
"Legal documents," Iris said blandly.
"Iris." Griben looked worried. "This is going to take some time. What if someone-"
Iris snorted. "You have your locket, yes? I had the site prepared."
"But we're on the fourth floor!"
"So there's a net. Try not to break your nose with your kneecaps. It'll be harder for me if we have to take it, so let us start searching right away, no?" She levered herself out of her wheelchair and shuffled cautiously towards the wall of cabinets.
The office was overheated, and the smells of burned powder and spilled blood hung over them as they pored over the file drawers. After ten minutes Griben finally hit pay dirt. "He had a file on Applied Genomics," he announced.
"Ah, excellent." Iris gestured at her wheelchair. "In there."
"Milady." Mhara gestured politely at another drawer. "Is this important?"
Iris leaned over to look. "Well, how interesting." She lifted the fat, spiral-bound document out of its hanger. "Names and addresses. It seems you're not the only doctor who doesn't trust computers to remember everything for you, Griben."
"Dash it! We specifically told him not to do that!"
Iris sighed. "I ordered someone to black-bag his house this morning. His divorce came through nine months ago, so I think there is no need to trouble his ex-wife and children." She frowned, pensive. "What have I forgotten?"
Griben nodded across the room. "I should check the bookcase. And the desk drawers. Just to be sure."
"An excellent idea. Perhaps you'd like to see me out, afterwards?"
Ven Hjalmar raised an eyebrow. "Why-"
Iris nodded at Mhara. "She has other tasks."
"Ah, jolly good." He nodded. Mhara picked up the files and waited attentively as he scoured the bookcases and finally the desk drawers-working carefully around Dr. Darling's body-then nodded again. "That's all," he announced. Darling's desk was mostly for show; beyond the usual collection of stationary items, the pedestal unit was empty.
Iris shuffled back to her wheelchair. "Good. Mhara?"
"Milady." She bobbed her head, holding the files two-handed. "I want these files burned before we leave the building. Afterwards, make your way back to the house when you are ready."
"Yes, milady." Mhara smiled, a brief flash of expression crossing her face. Then she tilted her left wrist to expose the face of a wristwatch, and vanished.
"You're sure about the net," Griben said reflectively.
"She's sure about it, and that's what matters." Iris lowered herself carefully into the wheelchair. "Mind you, she was there when I ordered its construction."
A thoughtful pause, then: "I think I can see where your daughter gets it from."
"Oh dear." Iris whirred towards the door, then glanced over her shoulder with a fey expression. "Come on, Griben! We have a conspiracy to conceal and if you keep thinking about it we'll be here until suppertime."
They left the room with the conviction of a job well done, and no inkling of the significance of the encrypted memory stick attached to the key ring in the corpse's coat pocket.
In a muddy field outside Concord, behind a sign declaring it to be a HISTORY FAIRE, the circus-sized tent was swarming with spooks.
Colonel Smith's driver stopped outside the gate. A pair of police cars, their lights strobing, blocked the entrance; beyond the uniformed officers Smith could see parked buses and the tents of the forensic crews. Serious-looking officers in black windbreakers bearing the letters DEA paced around under the watchful eyes of guards in body armor and helmets. Casual rubberneckers might mistake them for a police SWAT team, but Smith was under no such illusion.
"Give me that badge." Smith waited as the cop checked his name against a clipboard, carefully compared his face to the photograph, then nodded. "Go ahead, sir. HQ is the third tent on the left."
"You heard him." Smith leaned back and closed his eyes for a minute as his driver crept across the rutted ground. Too many vehicles had come this way too recently. A familiar drumming noise prompted him to open his eyes. Sure enough, a big helicopter was thuttering across the sky, descending towards the field. It's not black; just very, very, dark gray. Smith suppressed a grin. What had happened at this site was no laughing matter. How the hell did they manage it he asked himself as he opened the door and climbed out of the back of the car.
The mood in the headquarters tent was gray, too, as he discovered the moment he walked through the door. "Sir? How up to date are you?" Judith Herz, latterly of the FBI but currently answering to Smith, had been on-site when the shit hit the fan. Now she looked drained, hollows under her eyes from close to twenty-four hours supervising the site cleanup.
"I've been too busy fighting brushfires and keeping the press off your neck to track everything. Have you got time to give me a guided tour?"