Peter Hamilton - Manhattan in Reverse

‘It will happen. However, I will only be going after the team responsible for the actual attacks. Unless we discover complicity or a funding link with their political wing, the rest of the movement will remain untouched by the Directorate. They have a right to free speech no matter how unpleasant their views.’

‘I am aware of article one in the constitution, thank you; Nigel helped draft it. Leave the politicians to us.’

‘I still don’t understand the point of it,’ Paula said. ‘Merioneth is barely self-sufficient. They need continuing investment. They must know that.’

‘Ideologues aren’t rational people.’

‘A convenient label for us. But—’

‘Got a boat!’ Christabel shouted out. Everyone in the van craned for a look at her screens. The satellite image wasn’t good. It showed the coast next to the launch site, land and sea dividing the screen in half. A small clump of grey pixels formed a blob in the centre. ‘Time code checks,’ Christabel said. ‘This is fifteen minutes prior to the crash.’ The image changed as the satellite slid along its orbit, showing the coastline further to the east, there was little overlap; the boat was right on the edge of the screen.

‘We’re going to lose it,’ Nelson said. ‘This satellite is moving too quickly. It won’t be overhead after the launch. When’s the next pass?’

Christabel consulted a display. ‘There’s another satellite coming up in forty-two minutes. So we’ve got no coverage during the launch. I guess they worked that out, too.’

‘I don’t need to see them fire the missile,’ Paula said. ‘I just needed confirmation it was a boat. Aidan, get me access to every camera in every marina in Ridgeview. I want the image files from fifteen minutes before the launch to now. Find me a boat coming in. If they took a direct route it’ll be about twenty minutes after the attack. Christabel, start there.’

Aidan slipped into the seat next to Christabel, and used his police authorization to establish links into the city’s marinas.

‘How many trains left between then and now?’ Paula asked Nelson.

‘Seven.’

‘Get the station camera records ready for access.’

‘Way ahead of you,’ he grinned. ‘I’m pulling up passenger carriage camera files as well.’

It took Christabel another eight minutes to find a boat mooring at the Larsie marina. A man in a yellow shirt stepped off. ‘Here we go,’ she said with a trill of excitement as the camera observed him walk along the wooden quay used by Danney’s Boat Hire. She froze an image as he was just short of the camera, revealing the round face of a man in his late forties, with flesh starting to build up under his cheeks and round his chin. Dark skin, with stubble. Thinning grey-brown hair dangled out of his blue cap. His yellow shirt was open at the neck, revealing a dark necklace cord.

‘Nalcol, get over to the Larsie marina,’ Paula said. ‘We’ve found the boat. Captain, call up the hire company office, tell them it’s impounded. It must not be cleaned.’

‘You got it,’ Aidan said.

‘Nelson, transfer the station files to our RI, it’ll run visual recognition on that face. Christabel, get into the hire company’s records. Who paid for the boat?’

‘Yes, boss.’

The Directorate RI took ninety seconds to review every camera record from the station, running each face through a recognition program to identify the man on the marina.

‘There he is,’ Paula exclaimed contentedly as the largest screen in the situation van showed their suspect strolling down the main platform to a waiting train, still wearing his yellow shirt. The timeline was thirty-seven minutes after the attack. They watched the RI follow him through the cameras until he was sitting in a carriage on an express train heading for Earth. The train moved out of the station.

‘Let’s go,’ Paula said.

The three of them took Nelson’s helicopter back to the station. There was a train already waiting to leave, packed full of passengers angry at the delay. Paula, Christabel and Nelson hurried into the first class cabin and it left immediately, trundling along the track to the big wormhole generator half a mile beyond the marshalling yard. Once it was through, it made an unscheduled stop at a small service platform in EdenBurg’s vast terminal. They transferred over to an express heading for Earth.

Nalcol called as they reached the platform. ‘DNA match confirmed,’ he told Paula. ‘The man on the boat was the one who took a leak at the launch site.’

‘Send the file back to Paris,’ she told him. ‘Find his profile.’

‘He bought his train ticket with a one-time account,’ Nelson told them. ‘Untraceable. But we’ve followed him through LA galactic. He caught a trans-Earth loop, and got off at Sydney an hour ago. Caught a taxi.’

‘Leave that to us,’ Paula said. ‘The Directorate can track him.’

They sat back as the express accelerated out of EdenBurg. Five minutes later it was pulling in to LA Galactic.

‘Basker just called,’ Christabel said. ‘We’ve got a positive identification; visual corresponding to DNA. Dimitros Fiech. Address in Sydney. Works for Colliac Fak, a software development company. He’s a sales rep so he travels round a lot. Oh get this, Colliac’s Leisure Division supplies software to the travel industry, including the resort at Fire Plain.’

They left the express and started to run through the vast terminal to the platforms serving the trans-Earth loop. ‘Mine his background,’ Paula told Christabel, then put a call into the Directorate’s Sydney office. ‘I want a tactical team armoured up and ready when we arrive. Have a helicopter pick us up at the station.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ the duty officer replied. ‘The suspect’s taxi dropped him at the Wilkinson Tower off Penfold. We have two officers there now. As far as we know he’s still inside.’

‘Good work, we’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

‘I’d like to observe, please,’ Nelson said.

‘Yes,’ Paula said. ‘But that’s all.’

‘I know.’

The loop train took them to Mexico City followed by Rio, down to Buenos Aires and then over the ocean to Sydney. A Directorate helicopter was sitting on the station security division pad, rotors spinning idly.

Paula and Christabel started putting on their armour as it lifted into the dark sky cloaking the city. Nelson watched enviously.

‘If you do need back-up…’ he said.

‘Then the city police will be happy to provide it,’ Paula said.

He sighed and gave up.

The ancient harbour bridge was illuminated in orange and blue holographic outlines as they flew in parallel to it. A wall of skyscrapers punctured the cityscape behind Circular Quay, their surface illuminations throwing cold monochrome light down onto the deserted night-time streets below. They landed on the roof of the fifty-storey Wilkinson Tower. Five of the Directorate’s tactical team were waiting for them.

‘Stay here,’ Paula ordered Nelson as she hopped down onto the roof.

Dimitros Fiech’s apartment was on the thirteenth floor, looking inland. The Directorate team were evacuating the residents above and below.

‘Fiech is a legend,’ Christabel said as the lift opened on the thirteenth floor. Three tactical team members were waiting for them, dressed in black armour and holding big ion pistols.

‘Basker validates an eighteen-month employment record with Colliac Fak, Fiech’s CV and general background are false. It’ll withstand a standard employment agency search, but our RI burned right through it. Records were inserted, referees are false. He’s a genuine undercover agent for someone all right.’