Steven Brust - Orca

“Yep. That’s what ‘he didn’t break the stick’ meant. It bothered me that someone like Loftis would be that careless. It either meant we were wrong about him or there was something we didn’t know, and now we’ve figured it out.”

“Yes,” I said. “He was set up by his own side.”

Vlad nodded. “He wasn’t given the warning he was supposed to get if there was any danger. They’d probably picked that spot out, and there was supposed to be some indication either that it was all right or that it wasn’t. And so he thought he was safe, and that’s why they could take him out so easily.”

“Right. Domm?”

“His name popped into my head,” said Vlad.

I nodded. “Domm would be a safe guess. Reega set it up, and Domm made sure Loftis wouldn’t be ready to defend himself, and they used you—”

I stopped, and looked at Vlad. He said, “What?” Then, “Oh.”

“They were too ready, and you were too convenient.”

“I didn’t give the game away,” said Vlad. “I didn’t slip up. They already knew about me when I walked in, which means they already knew about you.”

I nodded. “And that explains something else: namely, why it’s been so easy to fool these people. We haven’t fooled anyone, except maybe Vonnith. They’ve been playing with us, and letting us think we were playing with them.”

“Not Vonnith, either,” said Vlad. “She was onto me from the moment I first showed up.”

“Stony?”

“Yes. I figured that it was just bad timing, him being there right then. But she must have gotten hold of him when I got there, and then all she had to do was delay me until he was ready to move.”

I nodded.

He said, “Well, aren’t we a couple of idiots?”

I nodded again. “Stony,” I said. “That son of a bitch.”

“What now, then?”

“Now, Vlad? What is there to do? We’ve solved Hwdf rjaanci’s problem, which was all we intended, and we’ve figured out what’s going on, and we’ve also figured out that they had our number from the beginning. We’re done.”

He stared at me. “You mean, let them get away with it?”

I grinned. “I will if you will.”

“For a minute there,” he said, “you had me worried.” Then he frowned. “When do you think they caught onto us?”

“Early,” I said. “Remember Stony asking if I’d seen you?”

“Sure. I just figured it was a sign of how bad they want me, and they know we know each other.”

“That’s what I thought, too. And, right then, that’s probably all it was. But then they put it together. Fyres’s place is broken into, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay. You didn’t tell me why you wanted me to do that. If you had, maybe I’d have been messier, or done something atypical, but, as it was, it was a usual Kiera job, and anyone who knows my work, which certainly includes Stony, would—” I held up my hand as he started to speak. “No, I’m not blaming you: you had no reason to think I’d be involved after doing what you wanted; neither did I, really, I just got interested. But think about it. What’s the next thing that happens after I break into Fyres’s old place and steal his private papers?”

“You start asking Stony questions about him.”

“Right.”

“And we didn’t know that Stony was involved enough to be hearing everything that happened regarding Fyres, the banks, the investigations, and everything else.”

“That’s it,” I said. “Stony knows, right then and there, that I’m looking into Fyres’s death, though he probably doesn’t know why. But he knows Kiera the Thief is sniffing around the death of this rich guy who’s made so much trouble.”

“And then what does he do?”

I said, “He starts asking himself where the next logical place to look is, if someone is interested in Fyres’s death. And it is?”

“The Imperial investigation.”

“Exactly. So there he is, alerting Loftis and his merry band that Kiera the Thief might appear out of nowhere, or maybe someone working for Kiera. And who shows up there, right on schedule, but to everyone’s amazement?”

Vlad nodded. “I do,” he said, with more than a touch of bitterness in his voice. “In my great disguise that fooled them so completely.”

“Yes. Loftis is looking for people to show up asking questions, and he’s looking carefully for anyone in disguise, and there you are. We had no way of knowing that Loftis and Stony were in touch—and maybe they weren’t, directly. But, one way or another, Stony hears that Loftis had a visit from an Easterner trying to disguise himself as a Chreotha. ‘Tell me about this Easterner,’ he probably says. “And what kind of questions did he ask?’ “

Vlad nodded. “Yes. And, all of a sudden, you and I are tied together, looking into Fyres’s death.”

“Right. Now the Jhereg is hot for you. Somehow or other, Reega learns of it.”

“Not somehow or other,” said Vlad. “Because they went to her, the same way they went to Vonnith, and probably Endra as well. After all, they followed me. I let them. I thought I was being clever. Vonnith is so far into the Jhereg that she had no choice, and they probably offered her a good piece of change to help them. But Reega had her own ideas.”

“You’re right,” I said. “That’s probably how it worked. If we’d gone back to Reega, rather than to Vonnith, the same thing would have happened, most likely. But first, Reega either decided or, more likely, was told to get rid of Loftis.”

“Yes. And Loftis was told to try to pump me. So Loftis tries to pump me, and he brings me to this place where the arrest is planned, and then, bang, no more Loftis. All without the Jhereg’s knowledge, because the Jhereg wouldn’t have let me out of there alive. Do I have it?”

“That’s how I read it,” I said.

“Kiera, we have been thoroughly taken.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t like it any more than I do, do you?”

“Rather less, in fact, I would imagine.”

“So, what are we going to do about it?”

“At the moment,” I said, “I cannot say. But, no doubt, something will occur. Let us consider the matter.”

“Right,” said Vlad, who was looking at me a little funny.

I said, “What about the information from Vonnith? Can we trust it, if she knew you weren’t who you claimed to be?”

“I think so,” said Vlad. “She knew her job; she was supposed to keep me there long enough for them to kill me. Why bother to think up lies when the guy who’s hearing the truth is about to become deceased?”

“Good point.”

“So, what now?”

I said, “Lieutenant Domm?”

“Eh?” said Vlad. And, “Oh. You think he’s the one who wanted Loftis out of the way? There was no love lost between them, but they were in the same corps.”

“Were they?” I said.

“Eh?”

“Think back to that conversation you overheard—”

“You don’t mean that was staged, do you? I don’t believe—”

“Neither do I. No, at that point they didn’t know who you were, and they weren’t looking for witchcraft. I mean after that.”

“My talk with Domm at the Riversend?”

“Yes. They probably hadn’t had time to figure out who you were yet, so you might have even had them fooled. But maybe not. Think over that conversation. You made Domm slip and let what’s-her-name, Timmer, know that something wasn’t right.”

“What about it?”

“I think that was legit. But what evidence is there that Domm was in the same corps as Loftis?”

“Then who—”

“Who would normally conduct such an investigation?”

“Uh ... I don’t remember. That group that reports to Indus?”

“Right. The Surveillance group. And there almost had to be someone from that group involved, just because it would look funny if there weren’t.”