Empire Games Series, Book 1(105)
“Morgan here. Yes?” Inspector Morgan picked up the headset and listened attentively. Rita tried to overhear, but the speaker wasn’t very loud. “Yes, I’m in the process of—no, you can’t. I’ve already charged her and am interviewing the accused.” (Rita sat bolt upright at that. Charged? she thought. But she hasn’t—) “She’s in Transport Police custody. No, you can’t. This is a matter for the Police. You clearly have no standing in this case and I will thank you for not interfering in an ongoing Police investigation. Good day.” She slapped the handset down with sufficient venom to rattle the table.
Rita cleared her throat. “I couldn’t help overhearing. You told whoever that was that you’d charged me. Are you supposed to read me my rights, or let me ask for a lawyer, or something?”
For a moment the inspector looked as if she was about to explode. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Then she looked Rita in the eye: “You didn’t hear that conversation. You must have imagined it.”
“Uh, I don’t understand?”
“Because if I had not in fact charged you already, I would have been lying when I told the Specials to piss up a rope.” Morgan looked past Rita’s shoulder. “Jerry, I do not believe our guest here has made the delightful acquaintance of the Special Counter-Espionage Police.”
The cop behind her shuffled nervously. “No, ma’am.”
The inspector flashed him a toothy, indefinably uneasy smile. Then she turned back to Rita and explained: “The Specials are not a real Police force: they’re a branch of the Inner Party apparatus. Politicals. The Commonwealth Transport Police is a national organization, working for the people. Our hands are bound by the law and the constitution of the Commonwealth. The SCEP men are not so constrained…”
Constable Jeremiah cleared his throat pointedly.
“Yes, well,” Morgan said briskly, “Miss Douglas: by the authority vested in me as an Inspector of Constabulary in this force, I am officially charging you with trespassing on the permanent way, within the meaning of section forty-nine of the Public Transportation Regulation Act. I also intend to charge you with eight counts of littering, to wit, leaving objects all over the southern switchyard. And, ah, of being present on the platform of Central Station without a valid ticket. Witnessed, Jerry? As of an hour ago?”
“Oh good,” Rita said weakly.
“You do not need to say anything. The charges mean that I can now hold you for up to a week for questioning. More importantly, they mean that Mr. Pierrepoint can’t get his hands on you without first obtaining a bench warrant. Which he will no doubt hasten to do, but because I have both you and the evidence he would need to bring charges of treason and spying against you, we have a few hours’ breathing space in which to prepare my report and get it in front of the right people.”
“Who are…?”
“The people who want to negotiate with your bosses before they do anything stupid, Miss Douglas.”
IRONGATE CENTRAL POLICE STATION, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020
Meanwhile, ten floors down, the sergeant on the station front desk was having a bad morning.
“Please tell Commander Jackson that Olga Thorold is here to see him,” the woman in the wheelchair repeated firmly. This time she added: “Immediately.”
The sergeant, flustered, stared over her head. “The Commander is very busy—”
“If I don’t see him within the next five minutes he will be even busier, boy!” The cop looked to be only a few years younger than Olga herself, but she was determined not to let him regain authority in this situation. “I’m here on official business of the Department of Para-historical Research. Call the Commander’s office at once. It’s urgent.”
The word “urgent” seemed to galvanize the man: or perhaps it was the way Olga’s attendant shifted his balance. She hated the wheelchair, but it gave her an excuse for bringing a bodyguard into places where bodyguards caused raised eyebrows, such as Police stations and military bases. Jack wasn’t in uniform, but his posture bespoke his background—and the desk sergeant finally made the connection. “Who did you say you were, madam?”
“Olga Thorold, from the Department of Para-historical Research.” A thumb over her shoulder: “He’s with me. Commonwealth Guard, Security Section. Show him your warrant card, Jack.”
Jack flipped a card wallet open and held it before the desk. The sergeant swallowed, then picked up his telephone receiver and dialed, hastily. “Front desk, visitor asking for Commander Jackson’s office? A Missus Thorold … Yes, sir, right away.” He stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. “You’re to go right on up. Sorry ’bout this—nobody said you was expected and you’re not on the list—”
But Jack had already backed up and set Olga’s chair rolling toward the elevator in the corridor beyond the front desk. She clung to the armrests. I hope I’m in time, she told herself. Her office had received the eye-opening transcript of Inspector Morgan’s first day with the suspect late enough that Olga had been asleep when the phone jangled, pulling her straight into crisis mode. The arrest of a world-walker from the United States would have been sufficient to trigger a political earthquake on its own, even without the horrifying questions hanging over the identity of the spy in question. What little hope she had that the intruder was merely a common or garden-variety spy dwindled with every update.