Richard Morgan - Black Man / Thirteen

“And Merrin never knew who was hiring him, either?”

“Merrin was never aware that he had a twin in the first place. As I said, it was only through Scorpion Response intelligence that Onbekend discovered what had been done. Merrin never would have had access to the data. And you’ve seen Onbekend; he changed his face when he went underground back in ’94. No resemblance any longer.”

Carl thought about the echo in the features he’d seen the night Sevgi was shot. “No, there is a resemblance. If you look for it.”

“Well, as I understand it the actual hiring was filtered through the Martian familia machine anyway. I doubt Merrin and Onbekend ever actually saw each other across the screen. The familias knew only that this was a personal matter, that the people at this end had chosen this particular man, Merrin, and that if they could not recruit him, there would be no deal.”

“And Merrin?” Norton wanted to know. “What was he told?”

Another fragile shrug. “That he had friends here on Earth who wanted him back, who would provide him with a new identity and the resources to disappear in comfort. We made it a very attractive package.”

The COLIN exec shook his head numbly. “So Onbekend just sold out his brother? His twin?”

“Sacrified him, yes. What of it?” Ortiz gestured. “They had never known each other, never met. What bond could there be?”

“That’s not the point!” But now Norton was looking at Carl. “He was his brother, for Christ’s sake!”

“That is the point, Tom,” Carl told him quietly. “Thirteens don’t do abstract allegiance. It’s not part of our makeup.”

“But…Bambarén.” Norton held out his hands. “That’s an abstract blood tie.”

Ortiz made an arid chuckling sound. “Yes, one that Onbekend has exploited to great benefit.”

“Bambarén got used,” said Carl, looking down at Ortiz. “Just like everybody else. Just like Scorpion Response, just like Human Cost. Just like Onbekend and Merrin. You got everybody dancing.”

“Mr. Marsalis, please understand—”

Enough.

Carl grabbed Ortiz under the arms and hauled him out of the chair in a single violent motion. The other man seemed to weigh almost nothing, but that might have been the mesh kicking in, or the rage. Ortiz kicked and struggled, but feebly. Carl held him in what felt for a moment like an embrace, stepped back clear of the panic-wired wheelchair, and laid the COLIN director carefully down on the polished wood floor.

“Wait, you can’t—”

But Ortiz’s voice was as weak as his struggles. Carl knelt and pressed a hand to the COLIN director’s chest to hold him still. He leaned over him, face impassive.

“I know you, Ortiz,” he said. “I’ve seen your kind making your speeches from every pulpit and podium on two planets, and you never fucking change. You lie to the cudlips and you lie to yourself so they’ll believe you better, and when the dying starts you claim regret and offer justification. But in the end, you do it all because you think it’s your right, and you do not care . If you really suspected Jeff Norton, if you knew what kind of man he was, you could have squeezed him for the names, dealt with whoever it was—”

“It was Tanaka,” Norton said, standing over Ortiz. “Only Tanaka.”

Carl nodded. “You could have stopped this thing as soon as it started. But what Tanaka and Jeff Norton could do, so could someone else sooner or later. So could any of the ones who knew about Wyoming, any of the ones who were left, and it could happen at any time. No matter what position you achieved, Scorpion Response was going to hang over you to the grave. You’d never be safe. So you saw a chance to clean house, and you took it, at whatever cost.”

And now Carl found a small truth seeping up inside him, an understanding.

“You know, Ortiz, you would have made a pretty good thirteen. All you ever lacked was the strength, the power, and that, well, I guess you can always find a mob of cudlips to supply that for you.”

“All right.” Ortiz stopped struggling. The force came back into his voice. He spoke clearly and urgently. “Listen to me, please. If you kill me now, I have alarm systems attached to my body. They’re under the skin, inside me, you’ll never find them. There’ll be a crash team here in minutes.”

“I won’t need that long,” Carl told him.

Ortiz broke. His face seemed to crumple, his eyes closed, blinked open moist with tears.

“But I want to live,” he whispered. “I want to go on, I have work to do.”

Cold, cold pulse of rage. He felt his face move with it. “So did Sevgi Ertekin.”

“Please believe me, Mr. Marsalis, I truly do regret—”

Carl leaned closer. “I don’t want your regret.”

Ortiz swallowed, mustered control from somewhere.

“Then, I have a request,” he husked. “Please, at least may I phone and speak to my family first. To say good-bye.”

“No.” Carl hauled the COLIN director up onto his lap, locked an arm around the man’s neck, positioned his free hand against the skull. “I’m not here to ease your passing, Ortiz. I’m here to take what you owe.”

“Please…”

Carl jerked and twisted. Ortiz’s neck snapped like rotten wood.

Soft, chiming sirens went off everywhere in the suite, the wail of distressed cudlip society. Man of substance down. Rally, gather, form a mob.

The beast is out.

The crash team were fast—less than two full minutes from when the micro-docs tripped under Ortiz’s skin and the sirens went off. But well before that, the COLIN Security detachment had heard the alarms and come through the door on general principles. They found Ortiz in his wheelchair, slumped over to one side, Norton and Marsalis standing staring at him.

“Sir?” The squad leader looked at Norton.

“Lock this whole floor down,” Norton told her absently. “Call in some more support to do it. I don’t want anyone, not even NYPD, getting up here without my say-so.”

“But, but—”

“Just do it.” He turned to Carl. “You’d better get moving.”

Carl nodded, looked once more at Ortiz, and then stepped outside the unconsciously tightening ring the security detachment had formed around the body. He headed out of the room without looking back, out of the suite and into the corridor where he met the crash team head-on, all lifesaving speed and resuscitation gear, gurney and white coats, dedicated emergency room doctor and all.

He stood aside to let them pass.

Outside the hospital, he walked rapidly away, two blocks west and four south, lost himself in the sun-glinting brawl and bustle of the city. He peeled off his S(t)igma jacket, pulled his pack of phones from it, then balled it up inside out and dropped it into the first recycling bin he saw. The cold bit through his shirt, but he had COLIN-approved credit in his pockets, and he had time.

He stopped on a street corner, checked his watch, and calculated traveling time to the JFK suborb terminal. Hoped Norton could hold up his end.

Then he pulled a new phone loose from the pack, clicked it on, and waited for Union cover to catch up with it. With his other hand, he dug in his trouser pocket and tugged out the photo and list of scribbled numbers Matthew had hooked for him the night before.

“Okay, Sev,” he murmured to himself. “Let’s do this.”

She stepped into the gloom of the bar uncertainly, but with a certain confidence as well. They were, after all, on her home ground, Lower Manhattan, only a couple of blocks north of Wall Street and the NYPD dedicated Datacrime HQ. She hadn’t had to come far.

Two short steps in to let the door hinge shut behind her, and she scanned the room. He raised a hand as her gaze passed down the line of booths along the sidewall opposite the bar. She didn’t respond to the wave, but she headed over. The single sodden suit, marooned on a stool at the end of the bar with his nth martini and no friends, gave her an unsubtle once-over as she passed him. Carl supposed she was worth the look. Long-limbed and well-shaped under her casual wear, shown off in her stride and the way she held herself. The single old-style bulb lamp in the middle of the ceiling burnished her hair golden as she passed beneath it, briefly lit the cheerleader good looks as well. She hadn’t changed much from the photo.