In Her Name: The Last War (80 page)

“Autolock sequence engaged,” the navigation computer announced. “Transpace sequence in five...four...three...two...one...jump initiated.”

In the blink of an eye, the ships of Commodore Hanson’s task force vanished.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The fleet was coming
. That was the only thing that Valentina could think about. She didn’t know the details of how many ships would be coming, but she knew when they would jump in-system, and she had to be ready for them: not just for her own retrieval, but to get them the information she had been sent here for in the first place. She knew that she didn’t have all the information she would have liked, but she had found out the main things the Confederation needed to know. Now she just had to get them the data, and hopefully survive.

That was going to be a bit difficult from where she had been imprisoned in the secret police headquarters.

She and Sikorsky had escaped from the underground club, but it had been a near thing. A
very
near thing. They had run for their lives through the filthy sewer and utility service tunnels that snaked under the industrial district, finally emerging through a sewer manhole cover behind a grim, gray apartment complex that was at the edge of the adjacent residential district. They had been able to hear people in the tunnels pursuing them, but none of the tracking devices their pursuers had could function through the stench, moisture, and flowing muck in the tunnels and sewers. The secret police had fired random shots and even thrown a few grenades to try and frighten them and draw them out, but after nearly an hour of running through the tunnels, the sounds of pursuit began to fade: the secret police did not have enough men to sweep the entire tunnel network at once, and fortuitously they headed off in the wrong direction.

While Sikorsky was a strong man, he was not used to such running. Nearing exhaustion by the time they exited the sewer tunnel, she had to help him up the ladder to ground level. Once there, they used water from one of the outdoor faucets protruding from a nearby work shed to rinse the muck from their shoes and the cuffs of Sikorsky’s pants. 

Then there was the question of what to do next.

“I must return to my wife,” Sikorsky argued quietly but forcefully. “She will be worried, and if what you say is true, I need to get her to safety.”

Valentina shook her head. “They’ll be waiting for you, Dmitri,” she explained. “You’ll be walking right into their arms.”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “If Medvedev did not tell them—”

“Dmitri,” she hissed, “he told them everything! They know it was you who was asking about the trains. That’s why they raided the club: to catch us. It wasn’t just a random act. The entire thing was Medvedev’s doing.” Her voice softened slightly. “The best thing you can do for your wife now is to try and distance yourself from her. Perhaps the secret police will believe she had nothing to do with all this.” She couldn’t see his expression in the darkness, but she could tell that he was brooding. “Listen, we only have to stay hidden for another eight hours,” she told him, revealing more operational information in that one brief sentence than she would have liked. “After that...if you want, I’ll try to get you and your wife out.”

“What do you mean,
out?
” he asked, curious.

“The Confederation will be willing to grant you asylum for what you’ve done here,” she explained. “You can get a new identity, a new life on a different world. Even Earth, if you want.”

“I am a patriot,” he said quietly, “not a traitor. I did what I did to bring about changes here, to my homeland. Why would I want to leave? I—”

“Shh,” Valentina whispered. She had heard something outside. She had already prepared an act in case they were discovered: she was a prostitute with a client, and the work shed had been a convenient spot for their business transaction.

Such was her surprise, then, when the door flew open and half a dozen men holding automatic weapons burst in, shouting, “
On the ground, now!
” 

She had a fraction of a second to decide to fight or surrender. She was confident that she could win a close-in fight with the men who had come into the shed. It was the additional dozen outside that gave her pause. 

No way out
, she thought. Her first objective had just become survival. Without a word, she got down on the ground, face-down, next to Dmitri. His face was turned to hers as the secret police cuffed their hands and shackled their feet before roughly hauling them out of the shed.

From his expression, he was not at all surprised.

* * *

“The Confederation spy and her accomplice have been captured,” Vasili Morozov, head of the secret police, announced as he put away his secure vidphone. The call had come at a most opportune time: just when the chairman himself was calling into question Morozov’s competence in dealing with the situation that had first been brought to light a few days before by the now-dead informant, Medvedev.

“At last,” Chairman Iosef Korolev said with just a hint of sarcasm as he leaned back in his plush leather chair, glowering at Morozov. Around the polished antique wooden table that was worth more than ten thousand times the average annual income on Saint Petersburg sat the planet’s ruling body, the Supreme Council. It was a loose coalition of vicious predators who ruled a world, and who dreamed of ruling much more. As its leader, and the most powerful man on the planet, Korolev was the most dangerous predator of them all. Yet he only retained his superior position by playing his colleagues and subordinates against one another. It was this skill, more than any other, that had seen him rise from the disgrace of being a “rehabilitated communist” to the position he now held.

Morozov had always been a threat to Korolev, but he was also a key to Korolev’s own power: Morozov and the secret police held the military in check and cowed the populace. In turn, Korolev made sure there was constant friction between the military and the secret police to counter Morozov, using the other ministers as necessary to add the perfect amount of weight to each side of the political equation. It was a balancing act in which only true masters of the art could participate. While Korolev periodically derided Morozov in council, he was acutely aware of the man’s intelligence and political cunning. Were he not so effective at his job, he would have been “retired” some time ago.

“I would have thought that between the information from your informant and that provided by Sikorsky’s wife you would have been able to bring them in far earlier,” Korolev said in a voice that was quiet but far from pleasant. “And without the needless deaths of dozens of citizens. That was sloppy, Vasili. Very sloppy.”

The others around the room fixed their eyes on Morozov. All of them knew that Korolev cared as little about those who had died in the raid as they themselves did. That is to say, not at all. It was merely an easy and effective way to embarrass Morozov before the council. It was a game, albeit with the highest possible stakes.

The chief of the secret police, however, was unfazed. “Regrettable, but let us be honest, comrades,” he said, looking around the table. “Those who died and those who were arrested were clearly engaged in illegal acts. And the shooting only started after a gunman in the crowd opened fire, killing one of my men.” He did not add that the gunman had actually been a secret police operative whose specific job was to provoke violence during the raid. He had succeeded quite well, and his reward had been a bullet to the head once the raid was over. Morozov lived, and others died, by the motto that dead men told no tales. “You will also notice that there were no...potentially embarrassing deaths or arrests.” 

Korolev’s expression did not change, but he could feel a rush of heat to his face. His grandson, the only one he had and a young and impudent fool, had been at that underground club. So had the sons and daughters of a number of other powerful Party members. But Korolev was the only member of the council with a family member involved. It was an inexcusable embarrassment, but its resolution would have to wait until later.

Shying away from the bait, he merely grunted. Turning to the defense minister, he said, “And how, comrade, does your expensive space navy fare? Is it ready to protect our world from this so-called
Confederation?
” He said the word as if it were a particularly vicious expletive.

Marshal Issa Antonov nodded. “Yes, comrade chairman,” he said in a deep baritone voice. “Our navy is not yet ready to meet their entire fleet head-to-head—” Korolev shot him a frigid glare “—but unless they send the majority of their fleet, we will enjoy a significant advantage. Their newest ships are better in some respects than our own, particularly in targeting and navigation systems, but ours are far more heavily armed.” He paused significantly, glancing around the table, making eye contact with everyone except Morozov, before saying, “And all of our heavy cruisers are armed with torpedoes tipped with special weapons.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Morozov chided. “Call them what they are:
nuclear
weapons. Everyone in this room knows about them. Everyone in this room gave up resources to fund the program. Stop playing silly word games.”

Antonov only glared at him, clenching his fists. “
You
—” 

“Enough,” Korolev interjected. “We must assume that there are Confederation forces on the way,” he went on, “coming to protect those spineless traitors on Riga.”

“But when?” Antonov asked. “I do not doubt that we can defeat them, but I cannot keep the fleet at peak readiness indefinitely.”

“It must be soon,” Morozov said quietly as he studiously examined his fingernails. “We know from Sikorsky’s wife that he was very adamant that they should take a holiday by a particular date, something that was very out of character for him. I suspect that may be a clue.”

“And when is that supposed to be?” Antonov asked, his hands clenched into fists on the table.

Morozov looked up and smiled. “Why, today, of course,” he said pleasantly. 

Antonov looked about to explode.

“Vasili,” Korolev said carefully, leaning forward, his gaze locked with Morozov’s, “when, exactly, did you discover this insignificant bit of information?”

With a shark’s smile, Morozov told him, “Only this morning before this meeting, comrade. When we brought in the two fugitives, I thought it prudent to bring in Sikorsky’s wife, as well.”

“You interrogated her?” Korolev asked, surprised. While Sikorsky’s wife, Ludmilla, was not a high-ranking member, she had gained a wide circle of supporters. Her rise to a modest level in the Party had been a marvel of social engineering in the wake of her daughter’s arrest and subsequent execution.

“Of course,” Morozov said, shrugging. “She is married to a spy. He has not yet divulged anything of interest. She, however, told us what little useful information she knew immediately. The only thing that required any time was...verification.”

Torturing her to make sure she was telling the truth, you mean
, Korolev thought.
And this is the man who tells us to not play games with words?
“And what of the Confederation spy?”

Morozov frowned. “She has been difficult, I must admit,” he said grudgingly. “She
will
break, comrade. I assure you of that. We will know what she knows. She was obviously interested in the nuclear weapons program, and no doubt learned of its location from our now-deceased informant. But it will take time to learn what we wish to know.”

“Perhaps that is not the best use of her,” Antonov mused.

“You have a momentous thought for us, marshal?” Morozov said with a bored sigh.

Ignoring him, Antonov turned to the chairman. “I suggest we use her as bait,” he said. “She clearly came here to learn of our
nuclear
,” he glanced sourly in Morozov’s direction, “weapons. Perhaps the Confederation fools hope to find them still in their storage bunkers at the Central Facility.” The place where the weapons were built and stored, a massive underground labyrinth of nuclear labs and storage bunkers deep in the mountains to the north, had never been given a name, only a bland project number. Yet everyone who knew about its true function simply called it the Central Facility. It was an underground fortress, protected by a full division, over fifteen thousand men, who were stationed inside the facility and in several well-concealed garrisons nearby. If there was an impregnable location on the entire planet, that was it. “I say, let them find the Central Facility. Let them come for the weapons. Let them
try
.”

* * *

Valentina lay naked on the frigid bare concrete of the cell, eyes closed, feigning unconsciousness. She was handcuffed, with the cuffs chained to a ring bolt set in the floor. Her face and body were badly bruised and bloodied from the beatings she had received. Her interrogators had been quite professional about it, and no doubt would have been disappointed had they gotten any information out of her so soon. They had not raped her yet, but she knew that would not be far off. The pain she had endured thus far was hardly trivial, but it was something she had been conditioned to in her training: they would not break her through mere physical torture.

She was surprised that they had not already tried to use drugs on her, although that would also do them little good: she had chemical implants that had been inserted into her body at several key locations, deep in the muscle tissue. Transparent to modern medical imaging technology, they would react to a variety of drugs that were typically used for interrogation purposes, counteracting their effects. It would be up to her acting skills to convince her tormentors that she was under the influence of whatever drugs they chose to use, while keeping her wits about her, prepared to take advantage of any opportunity to escape. If that moment never came, one of the implants was a failsafe device: once the level of certain chemicals in her bloodstream reached a critical threshold, the implant would automatically release a poison that would kill her almost instantly. She would tell her captors nothing other than what she might choose to say to further her own goals.