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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE U.S. WAS IN UPROAR. Sovereignty had made public an account that it claimed was by an ISS defector they named as Reyvek of how the ISS had engineered the Farden-Meakes assassinations, along with documentary evidence. Officials denied it, of course. Nobody of that name had ever been employed by the ISS, they said. The documents were forgeries. Sovereignty retorted that Reyvek was killed in an assault that the security forces had admitted in Tennessee, the expunging of the record was standard cover-up, and they would soon produce proof of that too. Coming on top of the continuing challenges being voiced to the administration's legality, the story was causing a furore. There was open talk about a secession of western states. National Guard units in California, acting on orders from the state governor, had intervened to obstruct ISS operations.

Besides being concerned at the possible effects on his own personal future, Casper Toddrel was also disgruntled. The news detracted from what would otherwise have been a timely escape to an idyllic setting that he had been looking forward to. The Hyadean estate known as Derrar Dorvan had been built in the Andean foothills of southeast Peru for a leading government figure who had come to Earth on his retirement, accompanied by a retinue of family and special friends. It consisted of a thirty-room principal villa constructed Roman-style around a central court, designed by a specially commissioned Terran architect, situated on a clifftop facing a spectacle of foaming waterfalls plunging between forested mountainsides and rocky towers. A hundred acres of landscaped parkland, pools, and gardens on the reverse slope contained domiciles for lesser members of the tribe. With fast, convenient transportation always at hand, they enjoyed a rich and varied social life with other Hyadean immigrant groups scattered around the region's maze of uplands and canyons, revolving to a large degree around parties and sports, sightseeing trips, and elaborate social games played for recognition, prestige, and romantic intrigue.

Toddrel had arrived the day before with several others also attending the unofficial conference that Denham had arranged. The guest accommodation rivaled the best European hotels. After a champagne breakfast on a glazed veranda looking down over cataracts and greenery, he walked with the Englishman and the ISS colonel Kurt Drisson to the Hyadean hoverbus that would take them to the part of the estate where the talks would be held. With them was General Insing, who was Meakes's replacement—hand-picked by Toddrel and his associates, far more cooperative and understanding than Meakes had been. A significant improvement in relationships with the military was expected from now on. Thoughts for the immediate moment, however, were on damage containment following the story that was breaking in the U.S. The biggest threat right now were the Californian influence peddler Cade and the CounterAction woman known as Kestrel, who had gotten away from the motel in Chattanooga minutes ahead of the security forces after killing the ISS undercover agent Ruby. It was virtually certain that Kestrel was the only surviving witness to have heard Reyvek's story firsthand; Cade would be able to testify for her, and had possibly talked to Reyvek also, if only by phone. Producing them when the moment was right had to be what Sovereignty meant when it promised that proof of the Reyvek cover-up would be forthcoming. Hence, finding and getting to them first was imperative. Combing the Chattanooga area, and putting a watch on communications and on Cade's listed contacts in California had turned up nothing. Some of the intelligence people working on the case wondered if the pair were still in the country.

"Cade was friends with a Hyadean political observer called Vrel at their place in Los Angeles," Drisson told the other two. "Three days after the Chattanooga bust, Vrel took a trip to a military base near St. Louis, organized at short notice. Then, yesterday, the Hyadean records show him escorting a couple of academics, who happen to be a man and a woman, to the Hyadean mining center at Uyali in Bolivia."

"You think it's them?" Denham ased.

"I'd bet my next promotion on it. The names are in the system, but so far there's been no independent corroboration that they're real. They were accompanied on the flight by another Hyadean called Thryase, who's a critic of their policy toward Querl and is now questioning what's happening here. It smells from end to end."

"Why Uyali?" Denham asked.

"Who knows? Maybe it seemed out of the way and different—the kind of place nobody would guess. And who would?"

"And she's his ex-wife," Toddrel grumbled. "Does that mean he's been a source for Sovereignty all along? Didn't it occur to anyone?"

"That's exactly the reason Arcadia was put in there more than a year ago," Drisson said defensively. Arcadia was the ISS's live-in agent planted with Cade. "She never found any indication of communication between them."

"A strange way to rekindle an old romance, then," Toddrel commented. "So where are Vrel, this other Hyadean, and the academics now?"

"If they've left Uyali, the vehicle they used isn't registering," Drisson said. "We're giving it maximum effort. The minute anything comes up, I'll be informed."

"So is Arcadia still there—at the house in Los Angeles?" Insing asked.

"For the present, yes."

"Isn't that risky? They must know now about Ruby. If she was supposed to have been an old friend of Arcadia, that implicates Arcadia too."

"Right now, the group in Uyali are the only ones who know," Drisson said.

"All they have to do is get a message back to LA."

"And what would the people there do? Cade's friends are just good at making money. And Hyadean clerks?" Drisson shook his head. "This isn't their line of business. If they're onto her, Arcadia will know in time to get out. In the meantime, with all the uncertainty out there, she's still a valuable resource. She's also the bait if we're wrong about Cade and Kestrel, and they show up there again suddenly."

"It still sounds like a hell of a risk," Insing said heavily. "I read Kestrel's profile. She's good. And she has a big score to settle here."

"Arcadia's a professional. She can take care of herself."

"So was Ruby."

They arrived at the bus and waited while several others ahead of them boarded. Chen, a youthful Hyadean member of the household, was waiting, smiling, to usher them inside. Two of the native house stewards were standing with him. An additional attraction for wealthy Hyadeans acquiring estates on Earth was the availability and willingness of domestic help, which they regarded as a big status symbol. Employing menial labor on Chryse entailed political problems and was generally a privilege enjoyed by only the most prestigious or influential. Screening the flood of native applicants was a full-time job for specialized Hyadean security experts aided by Terran psychologists. Armed native guards supervised by a Hyadean officer watched from a discreet distance in the background.

The interior of the bus was like a luxurious but uninspired waiting room, with Hyadean-size seating and a front-end display screen, at present blank. The doors closed. The bus rose on an invisible cushion and moved away smoothly and silently. The sight of rolling lawns, lakeside walks among trees alive with birds and crossing ornamented bridges, knots of llamas and alpacas staring curiously from grassy glades and rocky stream banks dispelled further thoughts of assassinations and political coverups for the moment. Toddrel lounged back and looked enviously out over the scene and at the mountains beyond. What, he wondered, would be the prospects for somebody who cooperated sufficiently with the Hyadeans one day finding a niche in a place like this too? What a change it would make from the familiar environments he had come to detest, of stultifying boardrooms and choking, congested cities.

Denham's voice brought him back. "One item that the Hyadeans are going to bring up is a proposal to supply remote-detonatable munitions to Earth from now on, and retrofit existing stocks. It's the ideal answer to matériel disappearing. Wherever it's gone to, you can press a button and explode it. How's that for a deterrent?"

Toddrel frowned. "Hmm. . . . It's inviting high collateral. There'd be a lot of outcry, bad press. Do we need more right now?"

"That could actually help us," Denham pointed out. "The scarier the publicity, the better. Nobody would dare touch any of the stuff. Just what we want."

"Let's see what the general reaction at the meeting is when it's proposed," Toddrel suggested.

They came to one of the outlying residences, which had been made ready with conference facilities, a catering and domestic staff, and additional guards. They got out, and Denham and Insing moved ahead as they approached the building. Just as they entered, a high-pitched tone came from the compad in Drisson's jacket. He drew it out and looked at Toddrel meaningfully. "Emergency band. This could be something new." Denham and Insing stopped to look back. Toddrel motioned for them to go on, and that he and Drisson would catch up. They looked around and moved into a more secluded space off the entrance hallway. Toddrel watched the screen as Drisson activated it. The face and shoulders of a Hyadean appeared, in a tunic carrying military insignia. "Borfetz—Hyadean security," Drisson muttered.

The Hyadean peered out at them guardedly. "You are not alone. I need to speak urgently."

"It's okay," Drisson said. "This is Toddrel. He's with us."

Borfetz nodded but didn't look happy about it. "We have located them, both—the man and the woman," he reported. "They are at a house that belongs to an eccentric Hyadean, two hundred miles from Uyali. They don't seem to be planning to depart anytime soon. We can be there within an hour."

"Not another cowboy circus this time," Toddrel murmured in Drisson's ear. "We need them to talk. I have to find out how much they know and who else they've passed it on to. Everything could depend on this."

"Minimum force, no lethality," Drisson relayed. "They're wanted alive."

"I understand," the Hyadean acknowledged.

 

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Framed