Rogue(116)

That got his teeth gritting.

I said, “Rothman, Lee, Janich, Lenz, Roberti, Rosencrans, Boulain, Groom. That’s him.”

“It could as well be you, trying to distract attention.”

I shrugged. “I’ll remain here until the next assassination if you like. I hope after that you’ll give me all the intel you have to help chase him down.”

That seemed to register.

“Will you come with me peacefully? Where we can discuss that in greater detail?”

“I would very much appreciate that,” I agreed. “The information will be useful.”

“This way, then,” he said, and stood. He never took his eyes off me. He gestured for me to go first.

They didn’t do badly. There were armed guards in enough angles to make any firefight lethal. I’d probably get most of them, but I’d be unlikely to get all. They had lethal and nonlethal weapons, and their armor was head-to-toe, so they could blaze away at a melee.

I preceded him into a limo and immobility kicked in again. I don’t blame him, and didn’t think it was rude. I was nervous myself. I couldn’t do anything here. If I started a major fight, they’d certainly kill me. If they were smart, they’d just blow up a building with me under it, and blame me. That would leave me dead, my daughter distressed, and Randall on the loose.

We got out underground of some tower or other in the Washington area. It wasn’t their actual HQ, but probably had a secure pipe to it. We went into a carpeted conference room that obviously had full shielding. He even left his phone outside.

They were professionally cordial. I accepted a sealed bottle of mineral water, though of course it could still have been doctored. We were going to feel each other out until we had some level of trust.

“There were four people in my section,” I offered. “Apparently, two of us escaped.”

“Where was this?” he asked.

“Minneapolis. Two zero nine five six East Trone Road, Executive Storage Solutions.”

He nodded. “That checks.”

“I wasn’t there, and apparently he escaped.”

“And he is . . . ?”

I wasn’t going to give real names even after the fact. “It hardly matters. He never uses it, and never did. At the time, he was going by Doug Rognan.”

“What name did he use to escape?”

“I would have no idea. We had multiple IDs cleared ahead of time, and none of us knew any of the others, nor even some of our own.”

It was true. I wasn’t going to tell him we had buried caches on Earth. They might still be here and I might still need some.

“You understand that you are . . . reviled here.”

“I do,” I said. “I’m not going to make excuses about the events during War. There’s nothing I can do about that now.”

I tried not to let that show. I didn’t want to think about it, because I couldn’t function if I did.

He said, “We didn’t find you, of course. We didn’t find him, either. We have nothing on him at all. I reviewed all the videos of those events today. Nothing.”

That caused an acidic burn inside.

I said, “You viewed them today?”

“I did. Are they useful to you?”

“Yes, very.”

“Then I want a name.”

“I went by Marquette,” I told him, deliberately misunderstanding the question. “He left Earth, I took over his persona. He didn’t know what for and was resettled elsewhere. I think everyone who might know where he is now is dead. We were in Minneapolis.”

It worked, though. He nodded and spoke to the desk.

“Play video, this archive, of Minneapolis assault.”

I turned to the wall.

It was raw footage. They hadn’t stabilized the bobbing of the helmet cameras, nor clarified anything. This was an intelligence file.

They were good, I had to admit. Their first assault tried hitting the building’s roof from two adjoining ones. The mines, zap fields and other boobytraps we’d laid disabled several troopers, probably killed two who fell twenty meters. They stopped that as soon as the first wave hit it.

A ground team materialized from several directions, stacked and hit the door in under five seconds. They threw low-grade explosives, jammers and EMP ahead, to clear the entrance. They made it past the first few traps unhindered, before taking two casualties to nonlethal stuff we’d set against common gangers or thieves.

It was less than another ten seconds before they hit the stairs. I watched the multiple views along the sides as well as the photographer’s view center screen.

And there was Deni, alone on the first landing of the stairs. It was just a glimpse, but even after fifteen Earth years her face was burned in my brain. Seeing her was gut wrenching.