Different Senses (82 page)

Shardul coughed. “What the
governor is asking, captain, is—how many people knew specifics of
the undercover plan, such as the implants and facial surgery,
besides yourself? Because one of them is a traitor.”

Captain Largosen was really
pissed off now. “I assure you I am not. But neither are the people
who know about this. I’ve investigated this and no one on my team
betrayed your son.”

“Those statements are incapable
of reconciliation,” Shardul said coolly. “Try again.”

“You have no authority—”

“I have,” Dad said. “Answer the
question or be arrested, captain. I have more than enough evidence
to lock you away for the rest of your life.”

“Maybe you do, sir, but I’m
telling you the truth.” A pause. Maybe Dad or Shardul made a ‘get
the hell on with it’ gesture. “Other than myself...Commander Reoda,
of course. You can’t suspect him, surely.”

“Go on,” Dad said.

“Right.” Now the captain was
rattled, but still confused. “The surgeons did the implants and
surgery, but had no idea why. Same as the voice coach, the medics
and so on.”

“Gafur Kawildin too,” Shardul
added.

“Yes, of course he did. Er, my
aide, and the commander’s aide, and two field operatives who
tracked the GPS signal.”

“Did they know about the
identity switch?” Shardul asked.

“No. They just knew they were
keeping watch on one of our people.”

“So five people knew the full
story. You, your boss, your two assistants, and Gafur Kawildin. No
one else?”

A pause. He really was
thinking. “No,” he said slowly. “And it’s inconceivable any of them
could have helped terrorist action.”

“Yet someone did,” Dad said.
“Captain, I’ve been a little unfair. We were almost sure you
weren’t our traitor before you walked in. Now, I believe we’re
completely sure. Is that right?”

I stepped out from behind
the screen. “Correct, Dad. Hello, captain.”

Largosen’s mouth fell open. It
was the first time I’d seen him genuinely off-balance. “Sergeant?
How...when...this is some kind of trap!”

His hand went to his weapon. My
hand rested on my own. “Now, now, captain, no need for any of that.
This isn’t a trap. Just our way of making sure my father and my
family don’t suffer any more nasty surprises.”

“How do I know you aren’t the
one behind all this, Ythen?”

I took an instinctive step
towards him before I got my temper under control. Shardul answered
for me. “Don’t be ridiculous, captain. Javen came very close to
dying at the hands of Denge’s man, and so did his brother and
family.”

I tossed the copy of the audio
recording at the captain. “Proof there too, if you want. The state
of the implants will verify they were damaged by an electrical
shock. I’m not your mole, you fool.”

My father cleared his throat.
“Gentlemen, calm down. Javen, please do join us. Captain, as I was
saying before, we were pretty sure you weren’t our traitor. Javen,
Shardul and I believe we know who is, but you need to prove it for
yourself.”

“How?” the captain snapped,
forgetting his ‘sirs’—his manners weren’t up to repeated
shocks.

“Check the political
registration and bank accounts of the other four people.”

“Follow the money,” I said.
“Basics of investigation.”

“And if I find nothing?”

“You won’t,” Shardul said.
“We’ve done it. You need to do it too. And when you do, you get all
our data, the names, places, the rest of it.”

“If I have it now, I could stop
further attacks.”

“Yes. But the mole can also
alert the people involved. What you don’t know, you can’t leak
accidentally.”

He didn’t like it. I didn’t
care. Certain bastards had been playing deadly games with my
family, and his people were part of it. Now we were fighting back,
and no snippy little army officer was going to get in my way.

~~~~~~~~

It didn’t take long, and we
already knew what Captain Largosen would find, because we’d found
it ourselves. Once he looked at the bank accounts, it became
obvious to him as it had to us which of five possible suspects had
sent Shardul and me to what he’d hoped was our deaths. Commander
Reoda was arrested, and the task then became to tease out the
links, the players, and the motives.

Once again I was
sidelined, but I had a good reason. While Shardul, Dad and the now
convinced captain traced the lines of the complicated web, I
underwent surgery to remove the implants—now vital evidence for the
prosecution—and to restore my appearance to what it had been
before. That turned out to be more time-consuming and more tiresome
than the first time, and I lost a full week to anaesthesia and
recovery before I could be released to Kirin’s care for full
recuperation. For political reasons, the pretence that I was still
on Kelon had to be maintained, so I couldn’t be seen in public, or
stay with Mum and Dad. Kirin didn’t mind, but I pushed his
hospitality to the limit with my grouchiness at being so out of the
game.

“For sanity’s sake, Javen, it’s
only for another week and then your ‘return’ will be announced,” he
said, after I’d delivered another rant at the media screen. Dad had
announced the curfew was over, and his opponents were making the
most of the opportunity to criticise him. I wanted to shoot some of
them, they annoyed me so much. “Calm down.”

“I can’t. I want to be helping
Dad, helping the indigenous community. I want to go back to work,
damn it.”

“Yes, I know. But you’re going
to pop something if you keep this up.”

I growled at him but only
because he was close at hand. “That’s another thing. I went through
all that bloody surgery for fuck all reason. All because of that
bastard.”

“Yes, but without it, you
wouldn’t have exposed that bastard and all he was up to.”

“We still haven’t.” I froze as
Kirin’s entry speaker beeped. “Expecting someone?”

“No. Better hide.”

I dashed up to my room and hid
behind the door, gun in hand. I heard Kirin talking to someone over
the speaker phone, and then he laughed. I relaxed. Maybe just a
friend—or old boyfriend—dropping over for a chat.

“Come on down,” Kirin called.
“It’s okay.”

I put my weapon in my holster
and put a jacket on. A little caution wouldn’t hurt.

Shardul grinned as I stopped
dead. “There you are. I bet you stopped to pick up a weapon.”

I opened my jacket and showed
him. “You should have called.”

“
And ruin the element of
surprise? It’s good to see you again, Javen. To see
you.
” He
came over and kissed my cheek. I winced but only a little. “Sorry.
Is it tender?”

“A bit. Mostly it’s reflex. How
are you?”

“Busy. Missing you.”

Kirin coughed. “I’ll just...go
clean up my closet or something. Javen, take Shardul into the
living room. Offer him wine. Tell him where the spare toothbrushes
are.”

“Kirin, piss off, will you?” My
eyes didn’t leave Shardul’s face.

“Pissing off. Nice to see you,
Shardul.”

“
And you.
Good
night, Kirin.”

I took Shardul by the hand and
dragged him into the living room and down onto the sofa. “If you
keep being this nice to my ex,” I said, nibbling his ear, “I might
have to kill him.”

“I have no interest in your ex,
Javen.” He opened my jacket and tugged on the holster. “This comes
off, or I refuse to stay.”

“Pushy man.” But I took the
jacket and holster off, took the charge bar out of the power pistol
and put it in the pocket of the jacket. “There. Safe.”

“Good.” He kissed me, using
tongue and lips, hands roaming carefully, pushing me down to the
sofa. My hands ended up on his firm butt, and I took shameless
advantage of the position. Shardul writhed on top of me like we
were slow dancing, and I pressed up against him, needing him,
wanting him to be close and never leave.

“You want to...uh...take this
upstairs?”

He pulled off me, and I
groaned in raw frustration.
Not again.

“I came here to talk to you,
actually.”

“
Now he tells me.” I
adjusted my erection and scowled at him. “You are a fucking
cocktease, Shardul. You’ve been turning me on remorselessly from
the day I met you, and you
still
want to talk?”

“Talk, then...perhaps
more.”

I sat up. “I need a drink.”

“Make that two.”

I found two beers in the
cooler and handed him one. “Talk fast. I’m cranky, bored and horny,
and I’m
really
ready to stop this dancing around
thing.”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to put
you off. But I wanted to let you know how matters stand on the
investigations.”

I drank, he talked. Our three
kidnappers had been arrested but weren’t talking. Others connected
to the so-called ‘Justice for Nihan’ group were, though, in
exchange for possibly seeing daylight again before they died. There
was a genuine indigenous membership—the anger was real, after
all—but not just Denge, but other leading citizens, were paying all
the active players. Members of the Medele Freedom party—Dad’s most
persistent critic—were prominently featured.

“
It’s enough to bring
them in for questioning, but we can’t
prove
a causal connection,
although we know there is one. The motive appears to be purely
political—unseat your father and his party, and put rights for our
people back to when the Kelons ruled and we cowered.”

“Not all the unrest was at
their hands.”

“No, certainly not, and, to my
sorrow, our people committed serious crimes. But the attack on your
family, the murder of that child, the other most heinous acts—these
were paid for by Kelons.”

I swallowed some more beer and
considered. “What’s Dad going to do?”

“That’s being discussed. I
think he’ll want you ‘home’ before he makes a move.”

“Right. You know, I still have
no idea why we were kidnapped and not killed outright.”

“Hmmm. The captain says they
probably hoped to embarrass and disarm me by revealing me as a
traitor to my people. It might also have been a way of putting
pressure on your father. What’s certain is that we were valuable
commodities and not to be discarded lightly. No one’s talking who
knows the truth. Denge is hiding behind his lawyers for now.”

“Of course he is, the gutless
wonder.” I’d finished my drink. “Another one?”

He put his hand on my wrist as
I set the bottle on the table. “Actually, no. There’s something
else I wanted to talk to you about before...things go where they’re
fairly obviously heading.”

“If you’re breaking up with me
again, I’m going to cry. Just warning you.”

He grinned. “I might cry too.
No, I still have some explanations to make. About that night—”

“No. Really. You don’t. No
explanations, no apologies. All I want to know from you is—do you
love me, and do you want to be with me?”

He touched my face, then leaned
in to kiss me. “Yes, and yes.” He kissed me again, and stroked his
fingers down my face. “I love you, and I have for a long time.
But,” he added as, overwhelmed with desire and affection for this
extraordinary creature, I reached for him, intending to never let
him go again, “what I said that night, and since about the
difficulties.... Javen, consider the problems.”

“I have, and I don’t care.”

He leaned back, for the first
time his emotions less than bright. “I haven’t that luxury, and you
know why. Things are so inflamed right now, and the risk is also to
your father.”

“So we’ll be discreet. I’m not
stupid, Shardul. I know what could happen. I only meant that I
don’t care what pain it brings me. But I love you and want to be
with you. I want to fight for what you fight for, and help both our
races. I’ll face anything, so long as I can face it with you. The
only thing I’m afraid of is losing you.” I picked up his hand and
kissed it. “I made my mind up a long time ago. I can live without
you. I have no wish to, and never will. If I have to wait, I will,
but tell me you’ll be there in the end.”

“You’re much braver than me,”
he murmured, letting me take him in my arms.

I nuzzled under his ear. “I can
afford to be. I don’t risk as much. You wouldn’t have come here
tonight if you hadn’t decided to stay.”

“And yet I hadn’t...not
finally.”

“
You’re trying to drive
me
insane
.”

“No, I’m not. You confuse my
thought processes. When I’m with you, all I can think about is
being with you, but I want to make the right decision for
everyone.”

“Shardul, your people and my
people have been getting together for centuries. It won’t ever be
easy, but it doesn’t have to hurt anyone. Look, go if you have to
think about it some more. I won’t pressure you. I won’t be angry
either.”

He didn’t move. “No. I won’t
go.” He leaned down until his face was resting against my neck.
“I’m so tired, Javen. Tired always of the politics, the struggle.
If I hesitate, it’s because of that weariness. But being with you
gives me more peace, more strength, than anyone or anything outside
prayer.”

“
I can never believe what
you do, you know that. I will always be a
guko
.”

“Believer or not, your feet
tread in the ways of the Spirit, and as the Seeker teaches. Your
heart is pure, and that can only be a gift from Him.”

“Did you just convert me?”

He lifted his head to grin at
me. “I wouldn’t even try.”

“Come to bed?”

“In this house?”

“You’d prefer my parents’
place? Kirin doesn’t mind, and if you do, I can promise to distract
you.”