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CHAPTER 8

I spent the next few hours sitting in a jail cell at the North Hampton Security Forces post. They’d confiscated all of my possessions, including my clothes, and gave me an orange prison jumpsuit to wear. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’d been well within my rights to shoot those skags. They murdered Dr. Ivery and attempted to do the same to Dagny and me. It was self-defense, but SecFor was still trying to sort out what happened. They never found the radio frequency jammer that the Green Dragons used and I wasn’t sure they believed me when I told them our attackers were using one. It had probably been in the pocket of one of the guys who got away.

I wasn’t being especially cooperative, either. All I told Security Forces troopers was a statement that we had been attacked, that we defended ourselves, and that I wouldn’t say anything else without my lawyer. In my experience, even if you think you’re in the right, even if you think you acted lawfully, you should never talk to law enforcement without legal counsel. Don’t lie, but don’t volunteer information, either. Keep your mouth shut and wait for a lawyer, especially if you were found near four dead bodies in a city park. I didn’t tell them about what Dr. Ivery had given me and was betting that they wouldn’t find it.

When given the opportunity I called Lily and told her I’d been arrested. I only gave her a quick rundown of what happened, since I couldn’t be sure the call wasn’t being monitored, and told her to get ahold of Dwight Cullender. When he made the offer to assist me if I ever needed it, I didn’t think I’d be taking him up on it within a matter of days, but I wasn’t going to turn down the help. Even in a clear-cut instance of lawful self-defense, an overzealous prosecutor can make your life miserable. Even if you’re eventually cleared, they can still bankrupt you with legal expenses.

Dagny was in the hospital, so far as I knew. The responding Security Forces troopers called for an air ambulance when they got on scene and it arrived a short while later. I watched the medics load her onto the VTOL bird as troopers cuffed me and took me into custody. Even if they decided to charge me, I hoped to hell they didn’t charge her, too. She’d had a bad enough time of it, between watching Dr. Ivery die, having to kill a man, and being shot twice herself. She was tough, but that was a lot for anyone to handle, especially when it all happened in just a couple minutes. I planned on going to see her whenever I got released.

In the meantime, there wasn’t anything for me to do but sit on the bunk and stare at the wall. By law, they could hold me for up to fifty-two hours, after which time they either had to release me or charge me with something. Depending on which district you find yourself in, sometimes they’ll hold you for that long just to inconvenience you. Either way, I thought I might be here a while. The best thing to do was to get comfortable, wait it out, and don’t let them see you sweat. At 23:00 hours the lights went out. I rolled onto my side and decided to get some shut-eye. I’d had a pretty rough day myself and I was exhausted. It didn’t take me long at all to fall asleep.

I was startled awake some time later when the lights in my cell came back on. Only a few hours had past and it wasn’t wake-up time yet. I sat up on my bunk, rubbing my eyes, wondering what the hell was going on.

“Novak, you have a visitor.” The voice had come from the speaker by the cell door.

“What?”

“You have a visitor. Get up and stand against the back wall of the cell. See the footprints painted on the floor? Put your feet there.” I did as I was told, figuring it was Dwight Cullender. I was pretty surprised that he’d come in the middle of the night, but I wasn’t going to fault the man for getting over here as quickly as he could.

Once I was up against the back wall, the door slid open. It wasn’t the lawyer who walked in but the Baron, holding his fedora in his hands.

“Deitrik?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

Before he could answer, the door slid shut behind him. “You got ten minutes,” a voice said over the loudspeaker.

“Thank you,” Deitrik said, but the intercom had already turned off. We were alone. “Good morning, Easy,” he said, taking a few steps into the cell. “I’m sorry to call on you at this hour, but the matter is urgent.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got time to talk, as you can see. I didn’t expect you to visit me. What’s going on?”

“The Security Forces are under the impression that I’m an attorney. By law they cannot listen to this conversation, so for the moment we have privacy. Dr. Ocean Ivery is dead. What happened?”

“She is,” I confirmed, then got him up to speed on what had gone down, leaving out the part where the scientist gave me the small plastic wafer. “Do you know how Dagny Blake is doing?”

“She’s at Mercy Medical Center North and is in stable condition.”

“Oh, thank God.” I’d done as good a job patching up her wounds as I could, but she’d lost a lot of blood before the medics got to her. Even with the best medical treatment available, a person can still die from complications after being shot.

“Dr. Ivery’s death is a tragedy, not only for the loss of human life, but because she had been privy to what was going on at Site 471.”

I wasn’t sure if Deitrik actually knew that or was trying to get me to confirm his suspicions, but I wasn’t in the mood for skullduggery. “She was. She told me as much herself before she was killed. Since I know you’re going to ask, no, I don’t think it was a coincidence or bad luck. I think somebody put a hit out on her and used the Green Dragons as a cutout to do the deed. The ones who got away will probably end up dead before they ever get paid.”

“As a matter of fact,” Deitrik said, “the authorities found two dead men, both in their twenties, wearing the colors of the Green Dragons gang. Both had been shot in the head from close range. No cameras or sensors managed to record the murders and they don’t have a suspect.”

“Of course,” I said, shaking my head. “Couldn’t leave a loose end like that running around. Deitrik, I think we can safely assume that the activity at Site 471 is not some ploy to unmask informants and industrial spies. They’re willing to kill to protect it.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Enough. She told me enough. Why are you here? I don’t suppose you’ve come to tell me that you located Cassandra Carmichael?”

“I’m afraid not. My inquiries thus far have been frustrated at every turn.”

“Dr. Ivery believed that the government is aware of what Ascension is doing up at Site 471. She said there were observers from the Confederation—intelligence, she thought.”

Deitrik didn’t say anything for a moment. “Is that so?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Interesting. What will you do now?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I need to talk to Dagny and see what she wants. She could have been killed.” I sighed. The whole thing was damned frustrating. “For the time being, it seems like I’m going to stew in here.”

“Ah, yes,” Deitrik said, as if he’d just remembered something. “About that. I have secured your release and have been assured that the district attorney won’t press charges.”

“What? How did you manage that?”

He shrugged. “The DA is an acquaintance of mine and a frequent customer at my restaurant. However, there is something I need from you.”

“Really,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “What might that be?”

“Six people are dead. The situation is rapidly escalating and we need to get to the bottom of it. You have had much better luck uncovering things than I have had so far. I need you to keep going, broaden the scope of your investigation, and keep me appraised of your findings.”

“In what way? I was hired to find Cassandra Carmichael and that’s what I intend to do.”

“I am aware, and you will of course continue to do so, but this may be more than just a missing person case. You will be compensated, of course. I am a man of means and will make it worth your while.”

“You’re asking me to compromise my client’s privacy in violation of her contract with me.”

“I am aware of that as well. I do not take this action lightly, Easy. Whatever is going on merits further investigation, and I want you to pursue it.”

“And if I refuse?”

“That would be unfortunate. Your presumed cooperation is what allowed me to convince the DA to let this matter go. Without that, I won’t be able to help you. You’ll be at the mercy of the justice system.”

I shook my head and chuckled humorlessly. “So it’s like that, is it?”

“I understand your frustration but I’m trying to help you. I need you to trust me.”

That was the trouble with someone like the Baron. As much as you might want to, you can’t ever really trust someone like him. His loyalty is with the system, and protecting it will always come first. On the other hand, what choice did I have? The unspoken threat was that if I didn’t agree, the DA would press charges on me. I might eventually be vindicated in court, but in the meantime they’d make my life hell, and there was always the possibility that they’d keep me imprisoned until trial. I was also worried about Dagny. With me locked in the clink she was all alone. “Fine. You win. I’ll do what you want, on the condition that you also guarantee that Dagny is protected from prosecution.”

He seemed satisfied with that. “Consider it done. Thank you, Easy. It will take a little while, but you should be out of here this morning. I will be waiting for you when you are released.”

He was true to his word. Within a few hours I had been released and my belongings were returned to me. It was a cool, gray, rainy morning as I left the Security Forces station. The Baron was waiting for me on the sidewalk out front. “Good morning,” he said, as I approached.

“As good as a morning can be when you woke up in jail,” I said, tersely.

The Baron shrugged. “Most people who wake up in jail will still be there at the end of the day. The district attorney has signed off on the decision not to press charges on either your or Miss Blake, citing a case of lawful self-defense. They have even agreed to waive the impound fee for your car.”

“Mighty generous of them. Look, Deitrik, I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate you helping me out, because I do.”

“I know you’re not happy about the situation. That’s understandable. Again, though, please trust me.”

“Trust can be difficult sometimes. You’re putting a lot of trust in me, you know. What will you do if I don’t uphold my end of the bargain now? Try to get the DA to reverse himself and charge me?”

“I don’t think it’ll be an issue,” he said.

“What is your role in all this? Who do you really work for?”

As I expected, the Baron didn’t answer. He patted me on the shoulder, turned, and walked away, leaving me standing in the rain.


Between getting my car out of the impound lot and driving across town in morning traffic, it took me a while to get to the hospital. On the drive over I called Lily and brought her up to speed on everything that had happened.

“So that’s it?” she asked. “We’re just going to give him everything we have on the case?”

“I think it’s in our best interest if we go along with this for now,” I said, mindful of the fact that my handheld could have been bugged while I was in jail. SecFor couldn’t legally do anything like that, but the Baron seemed to operate under his own rules. “We’ll talk about it more when I get back to the office.”

“You going to see Dagny?”

“Yeah.

“I’m glad she made it. I’m sorry about Dr. Ivery. Did . . . did we get that woman killed, Boss?”

I sighed. It had been gnawing at me, too. “The only ones to blame for her death are the people who murdered her,” I said, trying to convince myself as much as Lily. “Besides . . . odds are, they were never going to let her get off Nova Columbia alive. Sooner or later they would have made a move.”

“I hope you’re right,” Lily said. “Give my best to Dagny when you see her.”

“Will do. Talk to you later.” When I ended the call, my handheld notified me that I had a message from Dagny. She said that she’d just woken up and told me what room of the hospital she was in. I sent a quick reply, telling her that I was on my way over, and asking her to make sure the hospital would let me in to see her. Sometimes they restrict who they allow to see patients.

Dagny’s face lit up when I walked into her hospital room. “Easy!” she said, happily. She was sitting up in bed looking at her handheld. An IV tube was sticking into her arm.

“Here, these are for you.” I handed her the bouquet of flowers I bought at the gift shop in the hospital lobby.

“You brought me flowers?” She smiled at me. “You’re a real sweetheart, you know that? You act tough but you’ve got a heart of gold. Come here.” Before I could say anything, she reached up, wrapped her arms around me, and hugged me. “Thank you for everything. You saved my life.”

“Yeah, well . . . I’m just glad you’re alright. How are you doing?”

She let go of me and settled back into her bed. “I am really high,” she said with a smile. “They shot me up with a bunch of drugs. I’m not in any pain right now, but they tell me it’ll hurt later. I was lucky. They were able to surgically repair the tissue and bone. It’ll take me a few weeks to heal but I should make a full recovery. No infections.”

“Let’s be grateful for gangbangers who can’t shoot worth a damn,” I said. “How long are you going to be in here?”

“They want to keep me overnight for observation. I should be released tomorrow morning. What happened to you? Where did you go?”

I closed the door, sat down in a chair next to her bed, and held my hat in my hands. “I spent the night in jail.”

“Oh wow.”

“Eh, wasn’t the first time.”

“What for? We were defending ourselves!”

“It’s complicated.” I took a few minutes to explain to her everything that had happened to me the night before, including my encounter with the Baron. I explained who he was, how we met, and how he came to be involved in the case. “He didn’t want me to tell you any of this,” I said, “but keeping it from you didn’t seem right. You’re the client. This is your case. You have a right to know that my investigation is . . . well, it’s compromised, in a manner of speaking.”

“Wow,” Dagny said again. “This is a lot to take in.”

“I was worried that if I didn’t go along with it, they’d come after you as well. I never should have brought you with me out there. I’m sorry. I screwed up and you could have been killed. Listen . . . it might be time to let this go.”

“Are you saying we should just give up? After coming this far?”

“Knowing when to hold and when to fold isn’t just good advice for poker,” I said. “This isn’t just a case of a missing person anymore. These people are playing for keeps, I’ve got someone from the Security Intelligence Service breathing down my neck, and I can’t guarantee client confidentiality anymore. I know you want to find your sister, but that won’t happen if you’re dead.”

She looked up at me angrily. “Why did you tell him any of this? Why did you get him involved?”

“He’s been a good source in the past, especially for cases like this. He’s never tried to butt in like this before, either. You know, though, if not for him, I’d still be in jail and both of us might be looking at criminal charges. I couldn’t risk that happening to you. I’m sorry.”

She reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s okay, Easy. I understand. I was the one who wanted to be there, remember? I’m a big girl. I can make my own decisions.”

I smiled. “I never doubted that for a second.”

“I thought about this a lot last night, while they were prepping me for surgery. I don’t want to let this go, not even after what happened. They murdered Dr. Ivery and tried to kill us! They can’t get away with it. It’s not right.”

“It’s not, no, but sometimes that’s how the world is.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to just lie down and accept it,” she said, firmly. “No, I’m not giving up now.” She looked up at me again. “Are you still willing to be my detective? You risked your life trying to protect me and a woman you didn’t even know. I’ve brought you nothing but trouble, got you arrested, almost got you killed, and what do you do? You come to see me in the hospital and you brought me flowers. Even if you do have this Baron guy on your back there’s nobody I trust more right now. I want to see this through to the end, whatever that might be, if you’re willing.”

I was quiet for a few moments, thinking real hard about what to say next. The smart thing to do would be to walk away. I’d pushed my luck far enough, and given how the case was spiraling out of control, it seemed less and less likely that this would end with a teary reunion for Dagny and her sister.

“I’ve never backed out of a case,” I said, looking her in the eye. “I don’t intend to start today.”

Dagny nodded. “Thank you, Easy. You’re a good guy.”

I felt myself blushing a little. “I’m a lousy poker player, though.”

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Dagny asked. “How did you become a private detective? It just seems like an odd job choice for someone who went to school to be an automated systems technician.” I glanced over at her, surprised, when she said that. “What?” she asked. “You have the certificate on your office wall.”

Impressive attention to detail, I thought. I chuckled again. “To be honest, it wasn’t my idea. The agency was founded by my friend Victor Redgrave.”

“He was your, um, sergeant, in the war, right?”

“The same.”

“You said he bequeathed you that big gun you carry. He passed away?”

I sighed. “He did. Eight years ago now.”

“How did he die?” Dagny asked, matter-of-factly. Her openness and lack of candor was likely a product of whatever painkillers they had her on.

I was quiet for a few seconds. I hadn’t told anyone about this in years. “He was murdered.”

Dagny’s eyes went wide. “Oh no! I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“Red had this idea to start a detective agency when he got home. Apparently he had an ancestor who did it back on Earth and he was in love with the idea. I thought the idea was kind of dumb, to be honest.”

“But you didn’t have the heart to tell him,” Dagny said.

“Huh? Oh no, I told him. I was pretty blunt about it, too.” That got a laugh out of her. “He didn’t listen to my naysaying, though. Told me that if he got his agency off the ground, he’d hire me when we got home. After my divorce from Marian, I was looking for a change, so I gave him a call. He was good to his word, hired me on and started training me. About a year later he made me a full partner.”

“But he was murdered?”

“He was. We got hired by an off-world businessman, a rich Japanese fellow named Murayama Masahiro. We provided protection for him and investigated potential threats. It was good work and he paid us well.”

“Was somebody after him?”

“Oh yeah. The Yakuza were after him.”

“What’s a Yakuza?”

“Japanese organized crime syndicates. They go back to the seventeenth century on Earth. You’ll find them everywhere there’s a Japanese population.”

“Oh wow. That’s crazy! What happened?”

“We were escorting Masahiro while he inspected one of his properties, a casino he was building, when the Yakuza made their move. It would have worked, too, if they weren’t so damned old-fashioned about how they operate.”

“Old fashioned? How do you mean?”

I chuckled humorlessly. “They tried to kill him with a sword.”

“A sword? The guy who killed Dr. Ivery had a sword!”

“He did,” I said, vividly recalling the look on her face when she’d been stabbed through the heart. I knew right then that that image would be with me the rest of my life. “The Green Dragons are just a bunch of punks, though, petty thugs who like to mimic Chinese crime syndicates. The Yakuza? They’re professionals. They’re dedicated like few other criminal organizations are. When one of them screws up bad enough, his boss might ask for his life in recompense.”

“His life? You mean . . . ?”

“Yeah. He kills himself. They go through with it, too. It protects their families, sure, but mostly it’s dedication. They care a lot about loyalty and tradition. That’s why they use swords, even in the modern world. When they came after Masahiro, they had guys with guns, but those guys were focused on me and Red. The actual assassin tried to cut our client’s head off with a long, curved sword called a katana. It’s a design that originated from Earth, specifically medieval Japan. They used to make them by folding steel onto itself over and over again. Now they have self-sharpening, nanotech blades with cutting edges only a few molecules wide. You can slice a man in half with one of those swords, with ease.”

“Holy shit. You sure know a lot about swords.”

I shrugged. “I watched them try to murder a man with one of these things. I felt like it was worth reading up on.” It was strange talking about this. The only one I’d ever told all this to was Lily. “Anyways, Red held them off while I got Masahiro into the car. He shot and killed the guy with the sword, with this revolver”—I tapped the gun butt under my right arm—“but he’d been shot several times himself. I tried to stop the bleeding, but . . .”

I trailed off, then looked over at Dagny again. “It was a hell of a thing. We got through the entire Harvest Campaign together, from beginning to end, and Red never got a scratch on him. Believe me, there were a few times when we didn’t think we were ever going to make it home. We saw things that nobody ought to see. The Ceph were absolutely vicious. Their soldier class doesn’t even understand the concept of surrender. They’d fight to the last every single time and never took prisoners. When we finally wiped the bastards out on Harvest, we thought we were going home, but then we got orders for 220 Colfax-B.”

“I’ve heard stories about that campaign,” Dagny said.

“The Confederate fleet bombed the planned landing sites for weeks before the invasion, but the Ceph, they’d hide deep underground and ride out the attack. There were still six million colonists trapped down there, too, so they wouldn’t just, you know, drop a big asteroid on it and wipe everything out. The only thing to do was land and retake the planet. Operation Sovereign, the biggest planetary invasion in history. Over a million troops were involved in the initial drop, including our unit. A hundred thousand men died in the first six hours.”

“Oh my God,” Dagny said, quietly. “It’s one thing to read about this. It’s another to talk to somebody who was there.”

“A couple years back I heard that the colonists on 220 Colfax-B finally settled on a proper name for their planet. They voted to name it Sovereign, after the operation. Our unit was rotated home after securing that initial foothold, and that was the end of my part in the war. All that, all that carnage and death, and Red comes home to be murdered by some assassins from a crime syndicate.” I shook my head. “Seems like such a waste.”

“That’s how you came to have a detective agency,” Dagny said.

“Yeah. Quite a tale, ain’t it? I thought about quitting, but the agency was something Red built. He didn’t have a wife or children. It’s his legacy. Somebody had to maintain it. Masahiro was so grateful that he paid for all of Red’s funeral expenses on top of the very generous fees he’d agreed to. He even lobbied to make sure Red was buried in the Colonial War Memorial Cemetery with full military honors.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re an interesting guy?” she asked with an uneven smile.

“Not too often. I don’t talk about this stuff much. Everybody’s got a sob story. A million other guys went through the same things we did and worse. It is what it is.”

“Well, thank you for telling me.”

I smiled. “What can I say? You’re easy to talk to. You had Dante eating our of your hand the other day, and now me.”

To my surprise, that actually made Dagny blush a little bit, and smile. What a smile it was, too. I was forced to admit to myself that I wasn’t doing all this just to do right by a client, not anymore. I got out of jail and the first thing I wanted to do was see her, before I even went home. You big idiot, I thought. This won’t end well.

“Easy? Dagny asked. “Are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

“You kind of zoned out there for a second.”

“Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“I’m really glad you came to see me.”

I nodded and smiled. “I’m glad, too.”

“What will you do now? What’s our next move?”

I was quiet for a moment while I thought about that. “The first thing I need to do is see if I can’t have a look around Dr. Ivery’s residence. After that, I’m not so sure. Your sister left some other contacts that we could try and track down, but now I’m worried that doing so will put them in danger. I think . . .” I trailed off.

“What do you think?”

“I think I need to get ahold of your stepfather, see if he’ll talk. Dr. Ivery told us he was involved and that he got your sister a position up there. If anyone knows what’s going on, it’s him.”

“Are you sure? Won’t that, I don’t know, expose us?”

“You caught two bullets in your back just a few hours ago,” I reminded her. “If you don’t want to go this route, I won’t, but I think it’s the best way forward.”

She looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then frowned. “No, I think you’re right.”

“Do you have a way of contacting him directly? A private number or personal account?”

She shook her head. “No, sorry. When I went to him before I looked up his contact information on the Net and called his office.”

“That’s alright. I’m a detective, I’ll figure it out.”

“When can we get started?”

“Not so fast. I want you to sit this one out.” I held up a hand. “It’s not that I don’t think you can take care of yourself. You handled a dangerous situation like a pro, but you could have been killed. I want to find your sister, too, but I’m not willing to sacrifice your life to do it. Leave the snoop work to me. As for your stepfather . . . it might be better if I can talk to him man-to-man. Having his estranged stepdaughter there might set him off, given your history.”

I could tell she wasn’t thrilled with being left behind, but she didn’t argue with me. I was glad—I didn’t want to put her in any more danger. “Yeah. He wouldn’t talk to me before. Maybe he’ll talk to you now.”

“We’ll see. It might take me a while to get into Dr. Ivery’s place and track your stepfather down. In the meantime, I’m going to go home and take a shower. We both had kind of a rough night.”

“We did,” she agreed. “Come here.” Still sitting up in bed, she held out her arms like she wanted another hug. I stood up and awkwardly bent down to hug her; she surprised me by throwing her arms around me and kissing me, deeply, her tongue teasing my lips just a little. “That’s for saving my life,” she said, softly, into my ear.

“It was, uh, my pleasure,” I said, standing up, trying not to blush again and failing miserably. I grinned. “Probably gonna need to make that a cold shower, now.”

She laughed. “I’m going to rest now. Call me later?”

“You got it.”


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Framed