Solfleet: The Call of Duty (94 page)

“Ready?” the
blond asked rhetorically.

“Don’t I
look ready?” Karen returned sarcastically. She slipped on her sneakers, opened
the door, and punched the lock code into the wall panel. “Well? Let’s go,” she
said, gesturing for them to lead the way.

“Not quite
yet,” the blond said. Karen looked at her, then followed her gaze when it fell
downward to the empty space between them. She was holding a set of handcuffs,
open and ready to be put to use. “For our own protection.”

“Oh no!”
Karen exclaimed. “You are
not
putting those on me!”

“It’s
regulations.”

“What
regulations? You said I wasn’t under arrest!”

“You’re not,
but it’s standard procedure when bringing in a potentially hostile witness.”

“I’m not
going to do anything!”

“Damn right
you’re not,” the heifer assured her as she grabbed the handcuffs out of her
partner’s hand. She stepped forward and grabbed Karen by the arm and spun her
around.

“Hey!” Karen
hollered. “What are you...”

The heifer shoved
her into the doorjamb with a thud and held her there as she twisted her arm up
behind her back.

“Ow! Stop
it! You’re hurting me!” She heard the ratchet and felt the cuffs lock into
place around her wrist. Fear filled her heart as the MP bent her other arm up
behind her and locked it in as well, and though she tried her best not to, she
began to cry.

The heifer
pulled her away from the doorjamb and let the door close. The blond took her
other arm, and as they started down the corridor, the heifer commented, “They always
have to do it the hard way.”

Except for
the one extraordinarily large, stalwart MP who stood silent guard beside the
windowless blue-gray door directly behind him, whose unwavering glare he could
almost feel burning through the back of his head, Admiral Hansen waited
patiently, all alone. The MPs had seated him at one end of a small rectangular
table near the center of the barren and immaculately clean but excessively
over-lit interrogation room. The sign on the door had identified the room as ‘Interview
2’, but the room had obviously been constructed with criminal interrogations in
mind. His chair was one of three, all identical to one another, which were
arranged around the table. But unlike the other two his was permanently affixed
to the dull gray plasticrete floor and had a set of security straps hanging
from its arms and the back of its seat. Had he been anyone other than a
flag-grade officer, he imagined, he’d likely have been strapped in.

There was
nothing else in the room. No additional furniture, no cabinets, not even a clock
or a video screen on the plain white walls. Had the table been made of old
dried out wood, its surface slightly warped and its paint chipped and peeling,
and had there been a single, blinding source of light hovering directly above
it, he would have felt like the newly captured suspect in an old police drama,
waiting to be interrogated by the hero detective.

Come to
think of it, the longer he waited the more he felt like that anyway, despite
the more contemporary surroundings. Probably because that was exactly what he
was
waiting for.

He’d been
waiting for nearly an hour and a half when Special Agent Krieger finally came
in. After asking the MP if he wouldn’t mind taking up his post outside the
room, which he did immediately, the young investigator set a handcomp down on
the table in front of the admiral and took a seat in the chair to his right.

“I apologize
for taking so long to get back to you, Admiral,” he said politely. “I was in
the middle of something pretty important when the special agent in charge
assigned me to go with Chairman MacLeod and bring you in. I had to finish it
up.”

“That’s
quite all right, Mister Krieger,” Hansen replied. Then, with obvious sarcasm,
he added, “It’s not like I have anything more important to do during wartime.”

Krieger
looked him in the eye for a moment, then said, “Yeah. Well, I don’t like this
any more than you do, Admiral.”

“I seriously
doubt that, Mister Krieger.”

“Yeah, I’m
not surprised. So, now that we both know where we stand, let’s get started,
shall we?”

Despite his
unfortunate circumstances, Hansen grinned as he gazed at the young man in front
of him. If he was the old police drama’s newly captured suspect, then Special
Agent Krieger was indeed its hero detective. He fit the part to a tee. He
looked unusually young for a man in his position, was probably single, and was
quite obviously physically fit. And he was exceptionally handsome—Hollywood
handsome, to invoke the old phrase—with smooth, clear skin that looked like it
hadn’t grown a single whisker, a healthy tan, perfectly chiseled features, well
groomed short dark brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a glistening white
smile that could have melted even the most frigid woman’s heart. Heather would
probably fall instantly in love with the guy if she ever got the opportunity to
meet him.

And given
her behavior over the last couple of years, the chances of that happening were
not entirely small.

“What’s so amusing?”
Krieger asked, seeing the admiral’s grin.

“Nothing,”
Hansen told him. “It’s not important.”

“All right,”
the investigator reluctantly accepted. “Then let’s get started.”

“Why not.”

Krieger
pointed out the small camera mounted near the ceiling in the center of the room’s
back wall and said, “This interview is being recorded in its entirety. Upon
completion of this interview, the recording will be entered into the official
record of this investigation.

“Vice-Admiral
Icarus Hansen, Commanding Officer, Solfleet Intelligence Agency, you have been
placed under lawful arrest and are preliminarily charged with the commission of
a capital crime against humanity, that being the willful violation of the
Brix-Cyberclone Cessation Act of twenty-one sixty-two. You are also charged
with grand theft of government property and unlawful use of government
equipment and/or facilities in furtherance of criminal activities. In addition,
you are suspected of the unlawful alteration or falsification of official
Solfleet records, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to commit murder.”

“Whoa! Wait
a second!” Hansen exclaimed. “Murder? What murder? What are you talking about?”

“Just a
minute, Admiral, please,” Krieger said as he raised an open hand between them. “Let
me get the necessary formalities out of the way first. Then I’ll fill you in on
all the details and we can talk as much as you want to.”

Hansen fell
silent, as requested, genuinely impressed with the young investigator’s polite
and professional, yet somehow still warm and friendly manner. He’d worked with
a lot of the older and more experienced, and consequently more cynical criminal
investigators in the past, and in his experience such qualities were rarely
seen among them. No doubt that was at least partly the reason why Krieger had
been chosen for this case. Hansen might have been a criminal suspect, but he
was still a flag-grade officer, still an admiral, and as such was owed a
certain measure of consideration and respect.

Krieger dropped
his suspect-silencing hand to his lap and asked, “Admiral Hansen, do you understand
the nature of the charges and allegations against you?”

“Of course I
understand,” the admiral answered curtly. “Now can we just get this over with,
please? I have a lot of work to do.”

“Certainly,
Admiral. But as you know, before I ask you any questions I must advise you of
your legal rights and make sure you understand them. They appear...”

“I
understand them perfectly, Mister Krieger,” Hansen interrupted.

“I still
have to go through them, sir,” Krieger patiently explained. “As I was saying,
they appear in text form on the handcomp in front of you if you’d like to
follow along.”

Hansen
glanced down at the device without actually reading the words as Krieger pulled
a small card from his shirt pocket and began to read.

“You have
the absolute right to remain silent. You do not have to answer my questions or
say anything. If you choose to waive that right, anything you say can and will
be used as evidence in an administrative hearing, a criminal court-martial, or
both. You have the right to consult with an attorney before questioning and to
have an attorney present with you during questioning. This can be a military
attorney assigned to you at no expense to you, or a civilian attorney that you
arrange for at your own expense, or both. If you choose to waive any or all of
your legal rights, then later wish to invoke those rights, you may do so at any
time.

“Vice-Admiral
Hansen, do you understand your legal rights as I have explained them?”

“Yes, damn
it, I understand,” he answered impatiently. “I understand the nature of the
charges and allegations against me and I understand my legal rights. What I
don’t
understand is what this murder conspiracy charge is all about!”

“Regarding
your right to remain silent, Admiral, do you choose to waive or invoke that
right at this time?”

“I choose to
be told what the hell this murder conspiracy charge is about, Agent Krieger,
before I say a damn thing!”

Krieger sat
back in his chair with a sigh, seemingly discouraged, and slipped his rights
advisement card back into his shirt pocket. “You know, Admiral, I’m trying to
be polite and respectful here. With all your years of service you’ve earned
that, probably many times over. But you’re not making it very easy for me, sir.
You of all people should know that we have to go through this rights advisement
first, word for word, by the book, before we can discuss anything. After all,
it’s not like you’ve never been through it before.”

Hansen
glared at the investigator, his jaw clenched so tightly that he almost ground
his teeth to dust. He knew all too well exactly what Krieger was referring to.
There wasn’t a Solfleet officer or a criminal law student alive who hadn’t, at
some point in their professional education, thoroughly studied the massive
investigation and courtroom drama that had followed the tragic deaths of the
Earth Federation’s vice-president and his family all those years ago. The
numerous interrogations, the private and public hearings, and the
very
public
humiliation that Hansen had been forced to endure, particularly over the deaths
of the Security Police troops under his command. It had been one of the most
heavily covered news stories of its time and would have cost Hansen his career,
not to mention his freedom, had it not been for his willingness to go along
with the government’s dire need to keep some of the details of the incident
quiet.

It was still
a painful memory and Krieger was a lowlife bastard for bringing it up. But he
was also right, about both the legal requirements of the rights advisement and
the fact that he was well aware of those requirements. And, as the investigator
had pointed out, he really was trying his best to be polite and respectful,
with that one unfortunate exception. So, reluctantly, Hansen acquiesced. “Very
well, Mister Krieger. Go ahead.”

“Thank you,
sir,” the investigator replied as he sat up straight and took the card out of
his pocket again. “Now, Admiral, regarding your right to remain silent, do you
choose to waive or invoke that right at this time?”

“I choose to
waive that right,” Hansen declared. “For now. But say the wrong thing...”

“Noted.”

Under normal
circumstances, of course, Hansen would never have waived it, even if he were completely
innocent of the charges. Lawyers were far too skilled at twisting a person’s
words and attributing new meanings to them. But circumstances were anything but
normal and he really wanted to know exactly what Chairman MacLeod had
discovered that had enabled him to persuade the president to issue the arrest
orders. More than that, he
needed
to know. He needed to know if the
Timeshift mission, and therefore the existence of the Portal, had been
compromised in any way.

“Regarding
your right to consult with an attorney before questioning, do you choose to
waive or invoke that right at this time?”

“I choose to
waive that right,” Hansen repeated. “For now.” Again, had the circumstances
been different...

“And
regarding your right to have an attorney present with you during questioning, do
you choose to waive or invoke that right at this time?”

“At this
time I choose to waive that right.”

“All right
then,” Krieger said, flashing a brief but friendly smile as he relaxed his
posture, just a little, and poked the rights advisement card back into his
shirt pocket again. “Now that we’ve gotten that little formality out of the
way, Admiral, I’d like to start by asking you a few questions about a group of
cyberclones you allegedly had something to do with.”

“Ask away,
Mister Krieger.”

As if it weren’t
really that big a deal, the agent started by saying, “As I understand it, the
issue has something to do with you overseeing the development of several series
of cyberclones before you obtained the properly authorized signatures on the
correct legal documentation, or something to that effect. What can you tell me
about that?”

He was
pretty good, this self-confident young criminal investigator. The C.I.D.
Academy instructors truly would have been proud. But Hansen, being an equally
well-trained interrogator himself, easily saw through the much younger and much
more inexperienced man’s act.

“Don’t
insult my intelligence, Mister Krieger,” he impatiently suggested. “We’re both
very well aware of how serious the allegations against me are.” It wasn’t that
he was necessarily offended by the young investigator’s obvious attempt to get
him talking by downplaying the seriousness of the charges. He was just a little
irritated by it. It was a simple, basic textbook method commonly used on the
more naïve and inexperienced suspects. Krieger should have known it wouldn’t
work on him.