Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(62)

His eyes grew soft, then, full of more compassion than she had ever seen in them. “Start by looking at who might have done this to your family, Miss Park. Take them, make sure they can’t be tracked in any way, and bring them to base once you find them. We will get answers from whoever is responsible.”

Beck’s eyebrows rose in shock. “We, sir?”

Bowers favored her with a grim smile. “Oh, yes, Park. Your parents and brother were my people, too. You do good work. If I can repay that, and their loss, by lending my expertise, it’s the very least I can do. Find them, and let me know when they’re in custody. I will be there.”





29


Eshton pulled the blindfold from the prisoner’s face. The sudden flare of light made the sweaty, pale-faced man wince in pain before his eyes could go round and wild.

“There he is,” Eshton said, taking a step back.

The prisoner, a nurse named George Mazur, fought with himself to find just the right reaction. Eshton read it on his face as easily as he would a child, that frantic search for the angle of attack that would come across as the most genuine. Fear would have been the smart call. Anyone taken in the middle of the night from their home, gassed while unconscious only to wake up in a blank stone room tied to a chair would be afraid. The difference was that an innocent person was far more likely to stay afraid. Only the guilty had to look for a reason for any other feeling.

“Where the hell am I?” Mazur said, trying to move his head around to take in the room. Eshton made sure he couldn’t; every limb was secured and his head braced by a pair of thick polymer blocks. “Who are you? How did I get here?”

“You have a lot of questions,” Eshton noted. “That’s almost funny. I have some of my own. But first I want to say something to you. Fade B.”

Mazur paled a little further, his eyes went a little wider. Eshton nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“What about it?” Mazur asked, his voice thick. “It’s not something I have to treat at the clinic. It’s always fatal.”

Eshton feigned an exaggerated wince. “Oh, George. That might not be something you want to bring up right now. I wanted to see your reaction to hearing someone mention Fade B, since I’ve had to use the incineration protocol on more people than I care to remember. Lost my own parents to it, though I’m sure you don’t care. But this, as the old world saying my friend taught me goes, is not my show. I was just the one to win the right to haul you in.” He stepped back and nodded at the pair standing out of sight behind the prisoner, and stepped back to lean against the wall and watch the show.

“Hi, George,” Beck said as she moved in front of him. “Remember how you always told me to use your first name when I came in for checkups? You were so nice to me. Did my face flash through your head when you murdered my family?”

Mazur flinched at the words but came back with heat. “I didn’t kill anyone. I’ve never even been in a fight.”

Beck kept herself as empty as possible, not allowing anger or hate to intrude on the space in her head she had carved around her consciousness. She pointed back at Eshton without turning to look at him. “That man right there? He was the one they sent when my family turned themselves in with Fade B symptoms. He’s the one they spoke their last words to. My mother. My father. My little brother who hadn’t even kissed a girl. He took their lives to save everyone else’s. But you’re the one who murdered them when you injected them with the disease.”

“That’s crazy!” Mazur said. “You don’t have any proof—”

Bowers walked from behind the chair and slapped the man in the face hard enough to make his nose bleed. It wasn’t a traditional slap from the side thanks to the blocks, but a hard swat directly onto his face from above. Mazur let out a muffled scream.

Bowers sat against the table directly in front of Mazur’s chair. “You need to stop lying to us. You know who I am. You know that if I choose to spend the next month cutting you apart a quarter inch at a time, no one in the world would raise a hand to stop me.”

Eshton saw the context of this situation shift in Mazur’s mind as it happened. Two normal people, even members of the Deathwatch, taking him prisoner was bad. The High Commander himself sanctioning the action was a new universe of terrible.

“We’ve looked at the records,” Bowers said flatly. “Every Rez you work in has had patients who’ve developed Fade B less than two days after seeing you for their required checkups. Miss Park—apologies, Sentinel Park—seems to have been spared because a cold put off her scheduled appointment for a few days. Interesting how you transfer to a new Rez after each one of these incidents. More interesting how other medical personnel at other Rezzes do the same with almost mechanical precision. But then I suppose sowing fear by creating an artificial threat—because heavens know we don’t have enough real ones—is busy work. Can’t have the numbers slacking or your division might lose some of its resources, am I right?”

Mazur’s face fell. His expression went flat. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it. I’m not saying anything else.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Beck said.

Bowers jerked a thumb at her. “She’s absolutely right, even if she doesn’t know why. You see, she’s young. Relatively innocent, too, until that bloom in Shān happened. That changes a person. It doesn’t give them the sort of experience I have, however. I’m old. I have seen and done things that would shrivel your balls if I explained in detail. I always abhorred people who said that wisdom comes with age, and I was right to. Wisdom can come with any judicious application of thoughtful consideration applied to an experience. But what being old does bring is knowledge.”