Black Man / Thirteen

Carl snorted. “Yeah, lean on him from a couple of hundred million kilometers away. Ten-minute coms lag each way. That interrogation, I want to watch.”

“I didn’t say we’d lean on him, I said Colony would.”

“Colony couldn’t lean on a fucking wall. Forget it. What happens on Mars doesn’t play this end. It’s not a human distance.”

Ertekin sank deeper into her chair, bridged her hands, and stared across the office. Light from the tall window fell in on her like the luminous sifting sunset rains on Mars. Carl’s woken memories came and kicked him in the chest again.

“If the familias andinas helped get Merrin out of Mars,” she said slowly, and mostly to herself, “then they could be helping him at this end as well.”

“Not the South American chapters,” Carl observed. “They’ve had a war with the Martian familias for decades. Well, a state of war anyway. They wouldn’t be cooperating with anything at the Mars end.”

Ertekin shook her head. “They wouldn’t have to be. I’m thinking about the Jesusland familias, and what’s left of them in the Rim. They pay lip service to the altiplano heritage, but that’s about it. This far north, they run their own game, and a lot of it’s human-traffic-related. I mean, the Rim squashed them pretty fucking flat after Secession, ripped their markets with the drug law changes, the open biotech policies. Sex slaves and fence-hopping’s about all they had to fall back on. But they’re still out there, just like they’re still here. And in between, in the Republic, they still swing a hell of a lot of old-time weight.”

She brooded for a while.

“Yeah, okay. They’ve got the human-traffic software Merrin would have needed to get in and out of the Rim like that. Maybe they’ve got something going on with the Martian chapters, some kind of deal that gets them this Gutierrez’s services. The question is why? What’s their end of something like this? Where’s the benefit?”

“You think,” Norton ventured, “these are familia-sanctioned hits he’s carrying out?”

“They bring a thirteen all the way back from Mars to do their contract killing for them?” Ertekin scowled. “Doesn’t make much sense. Sicarios are a dollar a dozen in every major Republican city. Prisons are full of them.”

Norton flickered a glance at Carl. “Well, that’s true.”

“No, this has to be something else.” Ertekin looked up at Carl. “You said this Gutierrez did something for you on Mars. Can we assume you had a working relationship with the familias as well?”

“I dealt with them on and off, yeah.”

“Care to speculate on why they’d do this?” She was still looking. Tawny flakes in the iris of her eyes.

Carl shrugged. “Under any normal circumstances, I’d say they wouldn’t. The familias run an old-time macho, conservative setup, here and on Mars. They’ve got all the standard prejudices against people like me.”

“But?”

“But. Several years ago, I ran into a thirteen who tried to forge an alliance with what’s left of the altiplano chapters. Guy called Nevant, French, ex—Department Eight Special Insertion Unit. Very smart guy, he was an insurrection specialist in Central Asia. Warlord liaison, counterintelligence, all that shit. Given time, he might have gotten something working up there, too.”

“Might have,” drawled Norton. “So it’s safe to say he wasn’t given time.”

“No. He wasn’t.”

“What happened to him?”

Carl smiled bleakly. “I happened to him.”

“Did you kill him?” Ertekin asked sharply.

“No. I tracked him to some friends he had in Arequipa, pulled the Haag gun on him, and he put his hands in the air sooner than die.”

“Bit unusual for a thirteen, isn’t it?” Norton cranked an eyebrow. “Giving up like that?”

Carl matched the raised brow, deadpan. “Like I said, he’s a smart guy.”

“Okay, so you busted this Nevant, this smart guy, and you took him back.” Ertekin got to her feet and went to stare out the window. He guessed she could see where this was going. “So where is he now?”

“Back in the system. Eurozone Internment Tract, eastern Anatolia.”

“And you want to go and talk to him there.” It wasn’t a question.

“I think that’ll be more effective than a v-link or a phone call, yes.”

“Will he see you?” Still she didn’t turn around.

“Well, he doesn’t have to,” Carl admitted. “The Eurozone internment charter guarantees his right to refuse external interviews. If this were an official UNGLA investigation, we could maybe bring some pressure to bear, but on my own I don’t carry that kind of weight. But you know, I think he’ll see me anyway.”

“You basing that on anything at all?” asked Norton.

“Yeah, previous experience.” Carl hesitated. “We, uh, get on.”

“I see. A few years ago you bust the guy, send him back to a lifetime in the Turkish desert, and as a result you’re the best of friends?”

“Anatolia isn’t a desert,” said Ertekin absently, still at the window.

“I didn’t say we were the best of friends, I said we get on. After I busted him, we had to kill a few days in Lima, waiting for transfer clearances. Nevant likes to talk, and I’m a pretty good listener. We both—”

A phone chirruped from Norton’s desk on the other side of the office. He shot a last glance at Carl, then strode across to answer the call. Ertekin turned from the window and nailed Carl with a mistrustful look of her own.

“You think I should let you back across the Atlantic at this point?”

Carl shrugged. “Do what you like. You want to pursue another line of inquiry, be my guest and dig one up. But Nevant’s the obvious lead, and I don’t think he’ll talk to me in virtual, because a virtual identity can be faked. Tell the truth, I wouldn’t trust it in his place, either. Us genetic throwbacks don’t like advanced technology, you know.”

He caught the momentary twitch of her mouth before she locked the smile reflex down. Norton came back from the phone call, and the moment slid away. The COLIN exec’s face was grim.

“Want to guess?” he asked.

“Merrin’s holed up in the UN building with a nuclear device,” suggested Carl brightly. “And enough delegates held hostage to eat his way through to Christmas.”

Norton nodded. “I’m glad you’re having a good time. Wrong guess. You’re all over the feeds. Thirteen saves COLIN director, slaughters two.”

“Oh fuck.” Ertekin’s shoulders slumped. “All we needed. How the hell did that happen?”

“Apparently, some anal little geek at one of the city feeds had a fit of total recall. Got our friend here’s face off the crime scene footage, face reminded him of something, he matched it with the trouble down in Florida.” Norton pointed. “Or maybe it was that jacket. Hard to miss, and it’s not exactly high fashion. Anyway, the geek rings up the Twenty-eighth Precinct and asks some leading questions. Evidently he got lucky. He talked to either someone really cooperative or someone really dumb.”

“Fucking Williamson.”

Norton shrugged. “Yeah, or whoever. You’ve got to bet half an hour after Williamson got back to the Twenty-eighth, every cop in the precinct house knew they had a thirteen walking the streets. And probably saw no reason on Earth to shut up about it. In their eyes, it’s a basic public safety issue. They know they’ve got no leverage with us, they’d be more than happy to let the feeds do their demonizing for them.”

“Demonize?” Carl gri

“And slaughtering two,” said Ertekin wearily. “Don’t forget that part.”

“They’re asking for a statement, Sev. Nicholson says he figures you’re it. Former NYPD detective and all that, should make it easier to play down any anti-COLIN feeling the Twenty-eighth may have stirred up.”

“Oh thanks, Tom.” Ertekin threw herself back into her chair and glared up at Norton. “A fucking press conference? You think I haven’t got anything better to do than talk to the fucking media?”