"Smith, Kristine - [Kilian 2] - Rules of Conflict" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Kristine)

He eased into the passenger seat beside his rose-loving attorney and looked out at the bowl of poured concrete that some architect had inverted and dubbed the Service Investigative Bureau. Odd area of Sheridan for the supreme commander to be wandering, despite his reputation for digging into the daily workings of the base.
Whatever's going on, he needed his hatchet along to check it out. Evan remembered the feelingЧhe had dragged Durian Ridgeway along on so many cleanup projects, the man had earned the nickname the janitor.
Made one wonder what service Scarface had performed to merit the confidence.
"Did an officer named Pierce serve on either the Hilfington or the Kensington, Quino?" Evan must have done a good job keeping the curiosity out of his voiceЧJoaquin barely glanced up from his handheld.
"Crew rosters are included in the documents we've requested from Veda, Evan. I can't answer that question until I have them in hand."
Evan nodded. "It's just that he looks familiar." He tapped his thumb on his knee and watched Joaquin's face in the angled reflection of the driver's rearview mirror. "I could have seen him at the Consulate, I suppose."
"Those rosters we have, thanks to your father's meticulous recordkeeping. I'll have one of the clerks check when I get back to the office." He looked at Evan with an air of quiet interest. "Do you recall the circumstances under which you think you saw him?"
Evan shook his head. "No. Sorry. If anything comes to me, I'll let you know." With that, he dropped it. He had known Joaquin for over thirty years and had worked with him professionally for fifteen. The man sensed a possible lead; therefore, he would check. Whichever Service records
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he could access. Whatever other official sources he could tap. Then, just to make sure he hadn't missed anything, he would assign an agent or two to work the unofficial side of the street, to research Pierce's past from the cradle to what he had for breakfast that morning, and see where the reports overlapped.
Or didn't.
And then I'll know. It didn't have to be bigЧit just had to hurt. A failed marriage. An embarrassing relative. A rumor of cheating in school. Something to fling in Pierce's battered face the next time they met. Pierce, Pierce, I'd heard of a Pierce whoЧoh, I'm sorry. Are you related?
The skimmer passed beneath the base entryway. The shadow of the Shenandoah Gate darkened the vehicle interior; the illuminated names of the Greatest War dead inscribed on the stone's surface shone like stars. The sudden nightfall shook Evan out of his bitter daydream. Why the hell am I bothering? Did he crave a respite from his legal travails? Or did being rebuffed at by a colonial counter-jumper aggravate him that much?
Which colonial counter-jumper am I thinking about? He rubbed his aching knee and pushed thoughts of Jani from his mind.
CHAPTER 4
"I can't find it, Mr. Duong."
Sam looked up from the stack of files that he had balanced precariously on his lap. "Which is it, Tory? The Hilfington passenger roster or the Kensington master?"
The Clerk Four shifted from foot to foot. "Both. Neither." Her eyes filled. "Mr. Odergaard said that Mr. Loiaza threatened to notify the Prime Minister."
Sam closed the file he had been rooting through and hoisted the pile from his lap to the tabletop. "He can try," he said as he smoothed his rumpled civilian greys. "Prime Minister Cao does not jump to the beat of lawyers who make a show of stamping their well-shod feet."
"But Mr. Loiaza is Mr. van Reuter's lawyer."
"That's no great honor." Sam stood, shivering as conditioned air brushed across his sweat-damp back. He could visualize the light grey shirting darkened to charcoal, and wondered if he dared escape to the locker room for a shower and change of clothes. It wouldn't make the hell that the day had become go any more smoothly, but at least he would feel better. Comparatively speaking. He felt a battered wreck now.
"Mr. Odergaard says that if we can't track down the docs in the next half hour, you have to contact Lieutenant Yance." Tory's eyes widened. She was seventeen years oldЧthe Clerk Four position was her first job since graduating prep
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school. Judging from the mounting panic on her round, fresh face, she would be starting her second position sometime next week. "Mr. Odergaard saysЧ"
"As second shift Tech One, Mr. Odergaard is responsible for the live documents on his watch." Sam folded his arms. "I am the archivist. The dead belong to me."
Tory's agitation ceased, replaced by the so-still attitude Sam had encountered more and more frequently as the weeks passed. The weeks since ex-Interior Minister van Reuter and his lawyer had begun visiting Fort Sheridan. The weeks since they had begun asking for documents from the Service Investigative Bureau Archives. Documents describing murder. Mutiny. Conspiracy. Documents that could not be found.
And everyone blames me. Little SamЧyou know him. Small, wiry chap. Hair like tar. Face like a daze.
He stepped from behind the table and beckoned for Tory to follow him back to the aisle after aisle of paper-crammed shelving that constituted the SIB stacks. Because they think I'm ... unwell.
"Unwell or not, K still comes after H." He waited at the stack entry for Tory, who lagged behind. He'd gotten used to that, too. The aversion people evinced at having to work with him, talk to him. The vague feeling that people just wished he'd go away.
We have that in common, van Reuter. The ex-minister's hawklike visage surfaced in Sam's memory. From the stairwell scuttlebutt he had heard, the man who had once been the V in the NUVA-SCAN technology conglomerate had become a pariah amongst his own. Isolated. Maligned. Blamed for every misstep taken by the Families in the last twenty years.
Sam felt a chill sense of kinship with van Reuter, in spite of the crimes the man was alleged to have committed. It's all your fault, and no one wants to hear you explain. He held the door open for Tory, and maintained his air of polite reserve as she dodged past him into the stacks. A great thing, to have so much in common with such a great man.
38 Kristine Smith
"I apologize for taking you away from your work, Sam. I understand you've been very busy."
"That's all right, Doctor."
"Look into the light."
"Yes, Doctor." Sam lifted his head and stared into the red glow, positioned a scant meter in front of his face. At first, it shone with a single, steady beat. Then it fluttered, skipped, skittered across its source surface like a bug in a bottle.
Another light joined it. Another. Finally, an entire series of red pulses stuttered and popped, filling his range of vision like a silent, monochrome-fireworks display.
After a few minutes, the reversal began. Fewer lights. Fewer. Mad perturbations slowed and steadied. A handful of lights. Five. Three. Two. One.
Stopped.
Sam blinked, worked his neck, yawned. Sitting in the dark had reminded him how tired he was. The Hilfington rosters had finally turned up. Tory had found them shoved in between two accounts-receivable folders, under the letter P. One crisis averted. But the Kensington rosters remained missing, as were so many other things. The day's single success did little to lessen the pressure Sam felt from Odergaard, who felt it from Yance, who felt it from the Head of Archives, who in turn had to deal with Veda's foot on her neck.
Normally, he despised his visits to Sheridan's Main Hospital. But today, the relief he felt at being able to leave the SIB basement made him want to cry.
The room lights blazed to life. Sam shut his eyes against the assault.
"Did that bother you at all?"
He opened one watering eye to see Dr. Pimentel standing near the examining-room entry, his hand still resting on the lighting pad. He shrugged. "I found it interesting, at first. Then it became irritating."
Pimentel hung his head. He seemed to grow older with each passing visit. The blond hair, more dull and lank. The eyes, more fatigued. He had to be at least twenty years younger than Sam, no more than thirty-five. What did he do that drained him so? "Irritating? How?"
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Sam struggled to construct an explanation. It seemed such a trivial thing, hardly worth the effort. "It appeared so... tentative. I kept waiting for it to make up its mind."
Pimentel continued to watch him from his post by the door. Then he walked back to his seat next to Sam's examining table with the round-shouldered trudge of someone who bore the weight of the world. "Sam." He always took care to pronounce Sam's name in proper Bandan fashionЧ Sahm rhymes with Mom, not Sam rhymes with damn. "I subjected you to that test for a reason. If you were indeed augmented, as you claimed during your last visit, you would not have been able to look into that light for more than a few seconds without it affecting you."
Sam thought back to his previous visit. Tried to think back. It had been sunny ... no, rainy ... wait, they hadn't had any rain for over a month. Or had it been two? "Affecting me?"