Perfect Dark: Second Front by Greg Rucka

Author:Greg Rucka [Rucka, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781429920582
Google: 27vX3y7HL1YC
Amazon: B001G8WUL2
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2007-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

dataDyne Executive Safehouse

37km ENE of Nelson, New Zealand

January 25th, 2021

“Entirely unacceptable,” Cassandra told Anita Velez, furiously. “Entirely and absolutely unacceptable.”

Velez didn’t speak, the line of her mouth so tight that she’d driven the blood from her already pale lips.

“Twelve of our people—of my people—dead,” Cassandra said, coming around the desk in her temporary office. She could feel herself shaking even as she moved, as if the fury she was feeling had invested every cell of her body.

Velez didn’t move, not even to track her approach.

“Twelve more dataDyne employees,” Cassandra said, moving in front of her, lowering her voice. “With mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and lovers and friends, and they’re dead, Anita. Lying on rooftops and in alleyways in Veracruz, Mexico. Lying with bullet holes through their chests and shrapnel through their brains and their limbs broken and their blood shed. Lying in Core-Mantis OmniGlobal–controlled territory, so we can’t even get their bodies back.”

She fell silent for a moment, feeling her heart pounding in her chest.

“And for what?” Cassandra added, quietly. “For nothing, Anita. For nothing at all.”

Velez stayed silent.

“You may speak.”

Velez glanced from the middle-distance, met Cassandra’s eyes, then looked away again. “I accept full responsibility for the failure of the operation, Madame Director.”

“You bloody well should. How could it have gone so wrong, Anita? How in the world did this happen?”

“We made a tactical error.”

“ ‘We’?”

“Director Mack and myself,” Velez said. “We correctly identified the CMO response team’s point of origin, but not its approach vector. As a result, the extraction vehicle for the dataDyne team was not properly staged to provide stand-off cover.”

“Where is Director Mack now?”

“I believe he is preparing his resignation, Madame Director.”

Cassandra turned away from Velez, back toward her desk. Message indicators blinked on her screen, three of them already marked as urgent, another six upgrading to immediate. She put a hand to her forehead, tried to massage out the tension headache that was squeezing her temples as if they were held in a set of oversized pliers.

“Who will you replace him with?” Cassandra asked.

“Madame Director?”

She turned back to look at Velez, saw that the woman still hadn’t moved, and waved a hand at her, dismissing the pose. Velez relaxed almost reluctantly. “Who are you replacing Mack with?” Cassandra repeated.

“That will be your decision, Madame Director, not mine.”

“It’s your division, it’s CORPSEC.”

“The director of counterintelligence operations must be appointed by the CEO, Madame Director.”

“As if I don’t have enough to do? Who came up with that damn rule?”

“Master Li, Madame Director.”

“Why the hell did he do that?”

“To prevent CORPSEC from gaining power to such an extent that the division might subvert or otherwise take over the corporation.”

Cassandra stared at Velez, blinked. “He was afraid of a coup?”

“Master Li was … a cautious man.”

He was a bloody loon, Cassandra DeVries thought.

“Fine, wonderful. And I suppose under that logic it would make no sense at all for me to consult you regarding the filling of the position, correct? Even though it’s your area of expertise and not my own.

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