Брайан Макклеллан - Sins of Empire

“How about the Iron Roses?”

Blasdell tilted her head. “We were told not to approach the case from that angle.”

Michel considered Blasdell’s reputation. “But you have, haven’t you?”

“I would never disobey a direct order.”

Michel threw up his hands. “I don’t really give a damn about orders. I need information, and anything you can tell me about those Iron Roses would make my life a hundred times easier.”

“And what do I get out of it?”

Michel rolled his eyes. That mistrust that Blasdell was known for would be twice as annoying if it wasn’t quite so warranted. People did things by the book in the Millinery or life could take a nasty turn. But what could he possibly give her in return? She was a hardworking bureaucrat who went to great lengths to avoid Landfall politics. What did she want?

“I could probably arrange a bonus.”

“Not interested.”

“How about for your men? This skeleton crew you’ve got working around the clock. What if I authorize time and a half for night work?”

“You can do that?” Blasdell seemed skeptical.

Michel considered his unlimited expense account. It was a risk, of course. Giving her some leeway with her men might give her the edge, letting her solve this case before they presented a scapegoat to the public. It wasn’t the worst possible scenario – a solved case was a solved case, and it wouldn’t ruin his career. But it wouldn’t get him his Gold Rose, either. On the other hand, a bunch of grunts doing his work for him could be very useful. “Yes.”

Blasdell considered this a moment. “All right, Agent Bravis. We have a deal. My men have discovered a few things. First of all, we know the Iron Roses weren’t forged. We checked with every jeweler and metalworker in the entire city. No one would touch that kind of work.”

“They could have been forged outside of the city.”

“That’s a possibility.”

One that Michel couldn’t do anything about. He wasn’t going to travel all over Fatrasta on a wild goose chase, so he’d have to make the assumption that no one outside the city forged the Iron Roses, either. Michel tried to think like an investigator. He was a spy but, he supposed, a good spy should make a decent investigator. They always had their eyes open, following rumors, digging up traitors. “Stolen?” he asked.

“We’re following up on that. No Iron Roses are missing within the Landfall city limits. We’ve sent messages to our sister precincts all over the country.”

Nothing he could do about that but wait. “So it’s possible they were originals?”

“Possible,” Blasdell conceded.

“What do you think?” Michel asked.

Blasdell drummed her fingers on the desk. “I think they’re most likely forgeries. They’d know we’d track them to their source, so they would have done the forgeries outside of our influence.”

“The Nine?”

“It’s what I would do, anyway. Puts a lot of distance between us and whoever did the forgeries, and we’ll likely never know who did it. That’s what I told the grand master two days ago, and in light of our investigation so far, I stand by it.”

Something clicked in Michel’s head. Fidelis Jes already suspected that the source of the Roses would never be found. That’s why Michel needed to be disposable. If nothing came up from the investigation before they buried it, Michel might be forced on the goose chase he’d just decided to avoid. He might even have to sail to the Nine.

He was disposable in that the Blackhats could easily go on without him if he had a case that would take him a great deal of time.

The very thought of it made his stomach turn, and a panic seized his chest. He couldn’t spend the next several years chasing ghosts. His career would stall, his mother would be left alone in Landfall, and he would never earn his Gold Rose. He needed to solve this thing, and fast.

“Have your men write up everything you have on the investigation so far and send it to my office. Keep them working. I’ll authorize a fat bonus.”

“Is there something you want them looking for in particular?” Blasdell asked.

Michel glanced at her sharply, but she didn’t look suspicious. She just seemed glad to have something real for her men to work on. “Double-check with the local forgers. Keep digging around, and find out if any Iron Roses have been reported missing or stolen.”

“Have it all sent to your office?”

“Yes, if you would. Thank you for your help, Captain.” Michel left the captain’s office, heading down the hall and toward the other side of the Millinery, where he had his own small, closetlike office. He rested there for a few moments, considering his meeting. He hadn’t intended on taking over Captain Blasdell’s investigation. In fact, he was fairly certain Fidelis Jes would be furious if he found out. Best to keep it quiet then, and hope that Blasdell didn’t have occasion to bring it up before Michel could find the Roses.

Blasdell thought they were foreign forgeries. Michel had no way of testing that theory, so he thought it best to come at it from the opposite direction.

“What if they’re originals?” he asked himself.

“Stolen?”

“Or misplaced?”

A thought occurred to him – one that made his jaw clench. “What if they weren’t stolen? What if they were used by their rightful owners?”

“Are you suggesting fifteen Iron Rose traitors?”

“It’s possible.”

“Not likely.”

He ran his hands through his hair, staring at the blank wall of his office. “I think,” he said, “I’m going to look at a few bank accounts.”

Vlora went to meet Michel Bravis on the edge of Greenfire Depths the afternoon after her arrival in Landfall. The sun was scorching, and she fanned herself with her bicorn, a skin of warm beer hanging from her saddle horn as she rode at the head of the column snaking its way through the streets of the plateau. Olem rode at her side, with no comment but for the occasional complaint about the heat.

Around four o’clock Vlora called a halt as they reached a building that looked suspiciously large and fortlike. It was a long wall of rotten timbers, two stories high and punctuated every so often by a guard tower. Almost every inch of the wall was painted with graffiti in a dozen different languages or stuck with playbills advertising the latest ribald comedy. She looked up and down the street, ignoring the people who stopped and stared at her column of troops.

“This can’t possibly be it.”

Olem consulted a map spread out across his saddle horn and then rode over to the nearest crossroads, peering up at the wooden placards. “This is it,” he said. “Loel’s Fort.”

“That Bravis bastard promised me a barracks.”

“Looks like a barracks to me,” Olem said.

“It’s a fort. A frontier fort, by the looks of it, old enough that it was built when this was the frontier.”

“Doesn’t look so bad,” Olem responded with a halfhearted grin.

“This is supposed to be a modern city.”

“Adopest still has a stone wall. The past sticks around.”

Vlora cleared her throat. “Why can’t we have the big fort out on the bay? What’s it called, Fort Nied?”

“I think the garrison is stationed there.” Olem rode his horse about half a block, then returned. “It looks cozy,” he reported unconvincingly.

“You light a cigarette in that place and you’ll kill us all.”

Olem’s look soured.