We Few by Weber David & Ringo John

Author:Weber, David & Ringo, John [Weber, David & Ringo, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780743498814
Google: PVqtc9-_HkoC
Amazon: 1416520848
Goodreads: 1115616
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2004-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“Do you think Adoula has this?”

Buseh Subianto had been in the IBI for going on forty years. She’d started out as a street agent, working organized crime, and she’d done it well. There’d been something about her fresh face and dark-green eyes that had gotten men, often men who were normally close-mouthed, to talk to her. Such conversations had frequently resulted in their incarceration—frequently enough, as a matter of fact, that she’d been quickly promoted, and then transferred to counterintelligence.

She’d been in the counter-intel business for more than twenty-five years, now, during which she’d slowly worked her way up the ladder of the bureaucracy. The face wasn’t so fresh any more. Fine lines had appeared in her skin, and there was a crease on her brow from years of concentrated thought. But the green eyes were still dark and piercing. Almost hypnotic.

Fritz Tebic had worked for his boss long enough to know when to avoid the hypnotism. So he swallowed, then shrugged, looking away.

“He may have it,” he replied. “He’s seen the report on the Mardukans who met with Helmut’s courier. And New Madrid was definitely having Catrone followed. Catrone went to the Mardukan restaurant here in Imperial city, and a week later, he’s meeting with the hard-core members of the Associations. But…there are a lot of threads. Adoula’s people might not have connected them. Might not.”

“If they had, we’d already have an Imperial arrest warrant for treason for Catrone and…” she looked at the data, frowning, the thin crease getting deeper, “this Augustus Chung. What gets me is that the players don’t make any sense. And where are the materials Chung’s been receiving coming from?”

“I don’t know,” Tebic said. “OrgCrime Division’s already looking at this Marduk House pretty closely—they think Chung is laundering money. But they don’t have the information on the shipments. I haven’t put any of this into the datanet. The original report on the meeting with Helmut’s officers is in there, but none of the connections. And…there are a few Mardukans running around. They don’t have any skills, so they tend to end up as heavies of one sort or another. Some do work for orgcrime, so basically, the Sixth Fleet link looks like a false-positive unless you also have the information on the equipment Chung’s been receiving. Ma’am, what are we going to do?”

It was difficult to hide much from the Imperial Bureau of Investigation. Most money was transferred electronically, as were most messages, and everything electronic went past the IBI eventually. And the IBI had enormous computing power at its disposal, power that sifted through that enormous mass of data, looking for apparently unconnected bits. Over the years, the programs had become more and more sophisticated, with fewer and fewer false hits. Despite draconian privacy limitations which were—almost always—rigorously observed, the IBI had eyes everywhere.

Including inside the Imperial Palace. Which meant the two of them knew very well the actual condition of the Empress.

Tebic remembered a class from early in his Academy days.

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