He stepped closer. “Still . . . they didn’t have to prove me guilty. Just create enough anger and suspicion to scuttle the talks.”
She smiled. “And that hasn’t happened. Your reputation carries much weight, it seems.”
“And you were just . . . protecting that reputation,” he added in slow, skeptical tones, “when you refused to come forward.”
Hemnask came up to him and stroked his cheek. “I’m sorry, Jonathan. It was selfish of me. But please believe me . . . there are . . . family obligations that keep me from admitting the truth. Obligations I can’t explain in terms you would understand. But it’s not a problem anymore. There’s no reason it should—”
She had begun moving in to kiss him, but he stopped her with his hands on her shoulders, then stepped away. “I don’t think you give me enough credit for understanding, Sedra.”
Archer moved to the door and opened it, watching Hemnask’s face as she saw who stood beyond it now. “You know T’Rama,” he said as he showed the new guests in. “And I believe you’re acquainted with Lieutenant Commander ch’Terren, the head of security here.”
Hemnask nodded at them, her response wary but tightly controlled. “Madam. Commander. To what do I owe this visit?”
Archer fielded the question. “I thought you’d like to know that they’ve captured the shooter.”
After a brief moment of surprise, she smiled. “That is excellent news. Who was it? What was their purpose?”
Commander ch’Terren moved forward and held up his scanner, whose screen displayed an image of a humanoid with skin flaps on his cheeks and white hair along his temples. “Director, do you recognize this man?”
Hemnask studied the image. “I believe he is a Mazarite, but beyond that I do not know him.”
“He registered with Babel Security under the name Rihat Diraf,” ch’Terren told her. “He was posing as the proprietor of a clothing shop on the esplanade.”
“Posing?”
“Since his arrest,” ch’Terren replied, “we have determined that he is in fact Ibed Tarzah, an assassin for the Zankor syndicate, a prominent Mazarite criminal organization.”
“Of course,” Hemnask said, almost to herself. She gave a small laugh and shook her head. “Another syndicate threatened by the Federation’s rise.” Her large eyes focused on the investigators again. “How did you find him? What led to his arrest?”
T’Rama stepped closer. “When we interviewed neighboring proprietors, they remembered seeing you and Admiral Archer visiting his shop on the evening before the shooting. He scanned the admiral to measure him for a suit. We determined he used the biometrics thus gathered to gain entry to the admiral’s quarters and steal the uniform used to impersonate him.”
She scoffed. “A careless frame.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Sedra.”
The director stared at him. “Jonathan, what do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember? You were the one who got me to stop at that kiosk. You talked me into getting scanned. You talked with that man for twenty minutes—the man you just said you didn’t recognize.” His expression hardened. “I would’ve thought you’d have a more vivid memory of the night we first kissed.”
She froze, staring. After a moment, she lowered her gaze, thinking, and finally sighed. “I see where this is leading,” she said, turning away. “You’ve investigated me now.”
“That’s right,” Archer said. “We got some information last night from Pioneer’s first officer—a lead on the abduction and replacement of your assistant Rehlen Vons with a Malurian operative. Now, Malurian mask technology is good enough to fake the biometrics they needed to get into the vault, but someone had to give them Vons’s code phrases and teach them enough about him that they could carry off the impersonation. T’Rama had a hunch—sorry, a logical hypothesis—that you might be involved. So she and Commander ch’Terren asked my people at Rigel to help them look into your past. The Trade Commission was very cooperative as well, in light of recent events there.”
She turned back to him, pleading and fear in her eyes. “But you already know my secret. You know I am the last person that would have anything to do with the First Families.”
“That’s the secret you shared with the Commission. But a secret isn’t much use to you if you tell the whole thing. My people dug a little deeper. They found that your mother—and you—have had periodic contact with your birth father, Voctel Thamnos.” She winced at the name. “Clandestine contacts, but fairly regular—and initiated on your end. Not something you’d do with a man who violated your mother.