A sealed, transparent evidence box appeared in a window on one wall, illuminated and secure.
“So where’d you get this gun?” he asked.
I gave the only reply I could. “I brought it in my luggage.”
“The number says it was stolen here.”
I shrugged. “I brought it in my luggage.”
He sighed and looked annoyed.
“I’m trying to help you,” he said. “I know you’re a Freeholder. Have you military ID? If you do, we can clear any weapon charges and just return it to the owner.”
Technically, that was illegal. They did do favors for military, though. He was lying about the latter. They’d chop it up for “analysis.”
“No,” I said.
He looked me up and down. He knew I was military, and was probably starting to figure I was clandestine. That could be problematic.
“Sir . . . ”
I stayed uncommunicative. “Sorry.”
A beep on his phone caught his attention.
“It seems bail’s been posted.” He sighed again. “You’ll be given a sheet with reporting instructions and bonding rules. You must obey them, and may not leave the system in the meantime. We’ll see you in court.”
“Very well, sir. Good day,” I said. I waited until he indicated I should stand and leave.
I wasn’t released, though. I was shoved back into the cage. I figured out afterward it was just bureaucratic idiocy. At the time, it seemed like a clumsy interrogation technique.
At 1800, we were brought dinner. You guessed it—fake ham and soggy bread with stale cheese and corn chips and nasty cookies and orange juice. The man trying to exchange his sandwich for a drink had no luck again.
I stayed with my form. I ate leftover chips to keep up my strength, poured a bag of water to keep myself hydrated. Nodded to conversation but said nothing. Stayed with my bunk so my mattress wouldn’t be stolen, though no one seemed disposed to fight.
About twenty-two hours, some fool who had smuggled marijuana and matches in past their search lit up. The guards made no attempt to find out who had done so, they simply shut off the phone again. People who had been brought in at the same time I had, just now getting up to the cell after twenty-two hours, came in and had no way to call.
They still had no way to call when I left at midnight.
Someone called my name again, on a list, and I was first at the bars, having moved my mattress to a front bunk during an earlier lull. I lied and said I didn’t have a mattress, so someone else would have the use of it.
We were marched downstairs, lined up, processed out in ten minutes. I was never actually told that my charges were dropped. We weren’t actually told we were being processed out until another prisoner asked and was answered. They scanned me again, loaded a bag with my possessions minus the gun, the glasses, invoice and the coding tools, but I did have the pocket knife, phone and pieces I’d picked up. A bored overweight woman handed me the bag through a grille and said, “Don’t open that until you’re outside.”
They opened the locked steel door, told me to go up to the first floor and through the door. I did so, and was in the lobby of the police department. No warning, no nothing. Through that door and out of our hair, you. To be fair, the guards on this last leg were fairly decent, probably because they knew we were being released.
Even though I’d known I was safe, seeing Silver was a great relief. I was pretty fatigued, too. There wasn’t much time for that, though.
Once we were outside and in the car, I fished the sliver out of the bag.
“Chameleon,” I said.
“Novaja Rossia,” she said, that fast.
“Good. Does that help?”
“It will. Right now we need to follow up. I think they’ve cordoned him.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
She shrugged. “Activity, radio traffic, some media presence.”
“Ah, hell, we don’t need a circus.”
I was emotionally beat and physically wiped out, but we had a job to do.
CHAPTER 8
We hit the room, I showered and cleaned up, washing several cubic meters of grit and grime away, dressed in business combat wear—suit and shoes designed for maneuvers and wrestling—and went out on the hunt.
They’d tightened communication protocols and Silver couldn’t bust their signal in time. We blocked the city on map and drove, using traffic analysis. Lots of signals came from the north central. I tracked the news to rule out other incidents. We found signals only to have them fade, then find tantalizing taunts that went nowhere. We located other incidents including a vehicle crash that made the news about the time we arrived. Then there was a report of a police cordon on the RumorNet node. It did not show up on any official press. That was promising.