Chapter 10 #2
No wonder he was looking exhausted. And there was no point in protesting, or insisting that the Conclave must change its mind and see sense. These were the highest ranked among the elite, the rulers of the world. They wouldn’t bow down to a threat, even on the advice of the director.
“Good thing I got some sleep on the plane, then,” Hallie said, turning to the director. “Where do we start?”
The start turned out to be a brief journey in one of the vans from the landing strip back to the investigators’ offices.
Hallie had only seen the white, modern building from the outside on the day that she and Girard had taken the helicopter to Paradise, and found herself distracted as Peredur led them through a pair of doors leading off the parking lot and into a high-ceilinged space that was far more refined than any office building Hallie had ever been in before.
There was a set of frosted glass doors to one side with the words Science Division etched on them, and Hallie noted both the camera above the door and the keypad to open the doors.
She assumed that was where the forensic team and medical examiner worked and wondered if someone would give her a tour at some point.
She didn’t particularly want to see the mortuary, but she was curious about the equipment that Isoud and the others had for their work.
Peredur led them in a different direction, through another set of frosted doors with another camera and keypad, and along a short, wide corridor to a gleaming wooden door.
The door opened onto a large meeting room, which seemed to be their destination and despite the tiredness from the long flight and change in time zone, Hallie found herself disappointed that she wasn’t going to get to see more of the building.
She would have to content herself with the meeting room, which was a novelty in itself - she’d seen this sort of room in television shows, but never in real life.
It had a large table with a gleaming wooden surface almost entirely covered with papers and computers and tablets and evidence bags.
There was one row of windows that looked out onto a wide expanse of grass bounded at a distance by a tall stone wall, but other than that the meeting room walls were covered with a few large screens, all of them blank just then, and large cork boards with photographs and notes on colour paper and red string.
As they walked into the room, Peredur’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and Hallie heard a muffled word that sounded like a curse. “I need to take this.” He headed back into the corridor, bringing the phone to his ear. “Nanters Gable, what can I do for you?”
The door swung shut behind Peredur, cutting off the rest of the conversation.
Hallie racked her memory for a moment as the name was familiar, then placed it as one of the Conclave members.
She couldn’t put a face to the name, and couldn’t help but wonder just how many Conclave members were calling Peredur on a daily basis.
She didn’t spend more time worrying about that as she had the contents of the room to study.
As Hallie moved to the long wall, she saw that the first board was covered with familiar images.
The photographs that she’d taken back in Minamaan, before the house had burned.
There were red circles around the abbreviation that she and Girard had discussed - DYN32 - and the handwritten note Freedom through fire.
Next to the photographs was a sheet of coloured paper with a series of abbreviated notes that made no sense to Hallie at first glance.
Some kind of indexing system, she guessed, tying into the other boards and papers on the table.
She turned back to the room to find that Girard had taken a seat near the head of the table, at a spot that was relatively clear of papers, and concern spiked.
It was not like Girard to rest when there was work to be done.
The director was back in the room, standing at the head of the table, frowning down at his phone screen.
He glanced up, perhaps sensing Hallie’s attention, then looked at Girard.
“You’re a bit pale,” Peredur said, concern shading his voice. “Do you need medical attention?”
“It will wait for a bit,” Girard answered. There was a tightness to his mouth and an unhealthy sheen to his skin that just deepened her worry.
“We’ll make this quick and then I’ll turn you over to the medics,” Peredur said, and held up a hand as if forestalling Girard’s protest. “No argument. We need everyone ready to work.”
“Alright,” Girard said. The lack of argument did nothing to calm Hallie’s worry.
“Before I forget, we’ve set up a new phone for you.
We cloned your number and it has everything from the last backup.
” Peredur dug into his pocket and handed over a sleek, thin mobile phone.
It was the sort of cutting-edge technology that was out of reach for everyone in low city.
Girard accepted the device without a second glance, tucking it away into his pocket.
Then the director looked across at Hallie.
“I’d like to hear from you both about what happened. ”
Hallie took a seat opposite Girard and paused while one of the junior investigators - Dudon Sharpe, a young man she had met before - brought in a large tray laden with a huge coffee pot, mugs, and savoury muffins.
The young man left the tray at Peredur’s request and headed out of the room.
Hallie barely noticed, distracted by the scent of fresh baking as Peredur handed out coffee.
She had inhaled the first muffin before realising that she hadn’t answered the director’s implied question.
“Sorry,” she said, heat rising in her face. She gave one longing look at the second muffin on her plate, then turned to the director and began as concise a summary as possible of the two visits to the house where the group of attackers had been staying.
By the time she’d finished, Girard had finished his share of the baking and had a slightly better colour in his face.
“Anything to add?” Peredur asked, looking at Girard.
“Not about the house, no, sir. Hallie has very good observational skills. But I may be able to add something about the equipment and the people who came after us.”
“Go on,” Peredur invited, standing up to refill their coffee mugs.
“They reminded me a lot of house security,” Girard said.
“They were proficient with their weapons, and had clearly had some training, but not the kind of discipline or advanced training of our tactical team or any formal military group. If they’d had that kind of training, they would have stayed together as they went through the house and we wouldn’t be here, having this conversation. ”
Hallie couldn’t suppress a shiver. At the time she had first met Girard, when she’d been under suspicion of killing one of the elite - Bohort Jacobs, the elder son of the powerful Jacobs family - she had been captured by hochlen house security.
They had been well-trained, disciplined and, from her perspective, terrifying.
“They weren’t as good as the Jacobs’ family team,” she observed.
The head of that family’s security, Raff, had been quite willing and prepared to torture her for information.
And she was quite sure that if Raff had sent a team after her and Girard, with orders to kill, then she and Girard would even now be lying with Oreste and Kasmo in the mortuary.
“No. But few teams are,” Girard said. “Most of the Conclave member households and some of the oldest families, like the Jacobs, have that level of training and discipline, but it’s not common.”
“Good to know,” Hallie said. She couldn’t help but wonder just how he knew so much about hochlen family security teams, and also just where he would rank his own family’s agents.
She had met his father, Verain Abbott, once, and had a feeling that nothing less than excellence would be tolerated in the Abbott household.
“The attackers you found were all human,” Peredur said. It was a statement of fact, not an argument.
“But hochlen do recruit karlen from time to time,” Hallie said, thinking back.
The team that had, in fact, killed the eldest Jacobs son had been human, recruited by a cousin in the family tree with ambitions to move up the line of succession.
Then she straightened, a chill running over her, and stared across the table at Girard.
Karlen didn’t have house security. Not in the same way as hochlen did.
“Does that mean you think that hochlen are behind this?”
“Not necessarily. I’m just saying what I noticed,” Girard said. He turned to Peredur. “What do you think, sir?”
“I honestly don’t know,” the director answered, and Hallie could see the weight of the investigation and the pressure he was under.
“We’ve been trying to keep an open mind.
The kind of explosive materials that were used are heavily restricted and we’ve been trying to work out how anyone other than hochlen could have got their hands on it.
But if there’s hochlen involvement, well, that changes things. ”
“We can’t be sure,” Girard pointed out. “I just observed that the attackers reminded me of household security, not that they actually were. We do know that some wealthy human families in other places have family teams.”
“That is true,” Peredur said, sounding both exhausted and not entirely convinced.
“They wouldn’t be from Daydawn, though,” Hallie added.
“The restrictions on weapons outside high city mean that no one in midtown or low city will have the necessary training. The family vines do have what I’d call enforcers, but they are more like individual bullies going after unpaid dues rather than what you might call a team, or a security force. ”