Gary Gibson - Final Days

Saul had first met Olivia on being assigned, along with Mitchell, to security on the Jupiter orbital platform. The station had been huge even then, constantly growing as pre-assembled units were shipped there via the Inuvik gate back on Earth. Her husband, Jeff, had worked on experimental helium-dredges dropped into the Jovian atmosphere, while Olivia herself had served as the platform’s communications specialist. The sheer scale of the station made it easy for the couple to avoid each other once they’d decided to separate.

‘Mitchell and Danny both grew up near the DMZ in post-partition Chicago,’ Saul went on, and Olivia nodded to signify that this much she knew. ‘It was still a pretty rough place, even a couple of decades after the war. Mitch joined the ASI just to get away from the gangs, but . . .’

‘Danny didn’t?’

‘No.’ Saul could feel a sour taste building in the back of his throat. ‘Danny disappeared, and Mitchell was frantic. He asked me to help try and find him. I was already doing undercover work, so had an idea how to track him down. To cut a long story short, I was the one who found him.’

Olivia had that faraway look that told Saul she was accessing public records on the incident. ‘He got himself involved with traffickers,’ she said, glancing back at Saul a moment later. It was a statement, not a question.

‘I eventually found him in an illegal gene-lab that had been set up in an abandoned apartment building. The traffickers Danny had been working for were all long gone when I discovered him.’

‘They killed him?’

‘That’s whatthe coroner’s report said.’ He could clearly picture Danny’s lifeless face, still twisted up in anger. ‘The lab had been developing customized embryos for unregulated off-world labour markets. Slaves, essentially.’

‘Jesus. And you’ve no idea why they killed him?’

Saul shook his head. ‘Let’s just say it was all pretty rough on Mitchell, so when he said he wanted me to go along on that jump, six months later, I didn’t really feel up to saying no.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Yeah, well, it’s like you said. We were all moving in different circles by then.’

Saul stood up and gazed down at her. ‘Look, I’m sorry about the way things worked out for us both, but talking to you this way brings back too many bad memories. Deanna would never have gone to live on Galileo if it hadn’t been for us two.’

‘Saul—’

‘Please,’ he insisted, ‘just hurry the hell up and tell me whatever it is you came here to say, otherwise I’m gone.’

She crumpled slightly, and he could see lines around her eyes showing how much older she’d become since he’d last set eyes on her.

‘Just give me one minute.’ She patted his vacated stool.

He slid back down on to the seat with evident reluctance, keeping one foot planted on the floor. ‘Make it quick.’

‘Like I said, I’m here because of Jeff. We had a reconciliation, just in the last year or two.’

Saul couldn’t hide his surprise. ‘Seriously?’

‘I know.’ She smiled wryly. ‘Took both of us by surprise, too. Most of that time he’s been involved in some kind of off-world research that takes him away for weeks or even months at a stretch, so it’s not like we really get to see that much of each other.’ She licked her lips and took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, now he’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘More than a week ago. I knew for a good long while that there was something on his mind, something to do with his work, but he wouldn’t talk about it.’

‘Maybe he couldn’t talk about it? The ASI had him working on a lot of high-security research projects, didn’t they?’

She shrugged. ‘I guess so. Thing is, we’d planned on spending some time together when he got back from his last trip out. Instead he cancelled everything and told me he was heading off somewhere on his own. He wouldn’t tell me whygood long I could tell that something bad had happened.’

Saul finally lifted his foot off the floor, and shifted himself into a more comfortable position. He was curious, despite himself. ‘And you haven’t heard from him since?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Here’s the thing, though. Two different people contacted me since he vanished, both desperate to find him. The way they talked made me sure he was in some kind of trouble.’

‘Olivia,’ he spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, ‘I don’t mean to sound callous, but I’m not sure what any of this has to do with me.’

She gave him an angry look. ‘Jesus, Saul, he’s your friend.’

‘ Was my friend, until I started sleeping with his ex-wife.’

She stared back at him in silence.

‘All right,’ he raised his hands, ‘I’m sorry. Don’t you have any idea where he might have gone?’

Olivia shook her head. ‘Before I tell you anything else, there’s something you need to see.’

Saul’s UP informed him that she had just sent him a video file.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Just take a look.’ She rolled her eyes.

Saul pushed his glass to one side, then tapped the four corners of an imaginary square on the bar counter with one finger. His contacts responded by projecting the clip she had sent within the confines of the same square.

It turned out to be something snatched from one of the main news feeds. He saw men in diving suits falling backwards off a boat into the waters of a lake, snow-capped hills dense with pine visible beyond the shore.

He glanced at Olivia, as the video clip remained locked to the counter. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘They dredged Jeff’s body out of that lake yesterday morning. We have a cabin up in Montana, where we used to spend our summers. There was a local news report saying it was suicide.’

Saul swallowed. ‘Shit, Olivia, I’m so sorry.’

‘No, don’t be. I don’t believe it.’

‘Don’t believe what?’

‘That it was suicide.’

He gave her an appraising stare.

‘I’m not out of my head, all right?’ she snapped. ‘It just . . . not something he would do.’

‘You can’t possibly know that, Olivia.’

Tendons stood out on her neck as she replied. ‘I know him, Saul, and I know he wouldn’t drown himself deliberately. I think somebody killed him.’

‘Does this have anything to do with the people that were looking for him? Who exactly were they?’

‘One was a guy called Dan Rush who’d worked with Jeff. The other was Mitch.’

Saul shook his head. ‘Mitch?’

‘Mitchell Stone.’ She peered at him like he’d lost his mind. ‘We were just talking about him, remember?’

Saul froze, with one hand clasped around his second Drambuie. He nodded slowly, his expression impassive.

‘He called you during the last couple of days? What day was it exactly?’

She thought for a moment. ‘It would have been the 29th.’

‘Of January?’

She nodded. ‘The other man, Rush, called me a few days before that.’

Four days ago , Saul realized. ‘I need you to be sure about that.’

She gave him a reproachful glare. ‘Jesus, Saul, of course I’m sure.’

He picked up his drink and took his time with it in order to give himself some more room to think. Donohue and Sanders had told him about Mitchell’s supposed death on the 20th – which was more than a week ago.

‘This guy, Rush, you ever met him?’

‘Just once, not long after I and Jeff got back together. So I already knew they were colleagues. When he called, he told me Jeff was in some kind of trouble.’ She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I had a feeling Jeff might have gone up to the cabin, but he never replied to my messages. I was going to drive up there to try and see if I could find him for myself, but then I heard about him on the news.’