Endurance: The Complete Series Page 11

  “I did not have time,” Viktor said. “To be honest, I did not think I would actually find him.”

  “But you did, and you chased him into an empty area without calling it in. For crying out loud, Ivanokoff, you’re not even in your own jurisdiction.”

  “If I had caught up to him, we would not be having this conversation.”

  “No, we’d probably be discussing your funeral arrangements because you went somewhere without backup and got shot!” Okoro threw his hands up. “You’re supposed to help me solve this case.”

  “I am doing so.”

  “By not reporting your movements?”

  “I informed you as soon as I had something to report. And I sent the witness we found directly back to you.” Viktor nodded to where the female tourist sat poring through digital photographs. “Even if she does not identify anyone, we have learned something important.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That the murderer is still in the area.”

  “Assuming the man you saw really was the killer.”

  “The witness saw him with an energy weapon, and he fled when I tried to speak with him. I doubt very much that this was a coincidence.”

  “Even if you’re right, that proves what, exactly?”

  “That the list was not fake. That we are on the right track in our suspicions.”

  Okoro begrudgingly nodded. “All right, I’ll give you that. The other teams didn’t come up with anything to implicate someone else from Soun’s life, so this does give more credibility to our working theory. And I admit it took guts to run after him. Though it doesn’t get us any closer to finding the killer, or to figuring out who’s targeting us and why.”

  “Then we will have to hope our witness recognizes one of the Uprising members in the photos.”

  Said witness chose that moment to look up from the computer. “I’m done. None of them jumped out at me. Like I said, I didn’t get a good look at him. Sorry.”

  Okoro raised an eyebrow at Viktor, who amended his previous statement. “Then we will have to hope we find a link between the list and one of the previous investigations.”

  Okoro nodded. “We’ll all keep looking. It’d be easier if we had more people, or hell, if we just had more security recorders in the area. We could’ve gotten a look at that guy’s face and be done with this already.”

  “Those were private homes and businesses. You could not put recorders there even if you had the budget for them.”

  “Unfortunately, you’re right.” Okoro sighed. “In any case, tonight’s work gave us some movement in the case, unproductive as it was. Tomorrow we’ll try to find something more useful. Now get out of here before the department has to pay you overtime.”

  Viktor took that as an obvious dismissal. He collected Areva and headed back to the ship.

  * * *

  After returning home, Viktor seated himself at one of the long tables in the Endurance’s rec room and continued to study the old case files and drink coffee by the liter. The rec room was almost empty—most of the crew had left the ship to take advantage of being on Earth for the inspection. Chris Fish and his wife both sprawled on the rec room’s couch, reading digital books, and a handful of other officers passed through, but the room remained essentially silent.

  That changed when Matthias Habassa arrived, the pants of his black uniform streaked with dust from crawling around in the reactor room’s network of machinery. He headed to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup of decaf. “Hi, Ivanokoff! How’d the investigation go?”

  Viktor looked up from his computer pad. “I see the rumor mill has not slowed down at all.”

  Matthias shrugged. “It’s not classified. Somebody on the ship inspection team is friends with a bunch of the Org Crime people, and he told Officer Lee that he saw you up there this morning, and then Lee told the rest of engineering, and now the whole ship knows. I think the captain was mad that it all spread so quick, but he’s probably over that by now.”

  “Why?”

  “He went out with Loretta Bailey tonight. Hard to stay mad when you’re on a date.”

  “Ah.”

  Matthias seated himself at the table, across from Viktor. “So how’s the investigation going? Is it true you’re on some kind of list of Uprising targets?”

  “Uprising targets?” Chris Fish looked up from his digital reader. “Who else is on the list?”

  “Not you,” Viktor answered. “Only a few people from Organized Crime.”

  Chris pocketed his book and crossed the room to join them at the table. “Do we know why it’s these specific people? What’s the connection between them?”

  “Chris, it’s none of your business,” his wife said from the couch. “Just leave it alone.”

  “You never know when my knowledge might be useful,” Chris said. “Or yours, for that matter. Come over here and help us figure this out.”

  “I do not need help,” said Viktor.

  “So you know who did it and how to catch them?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then you need help.” Chris leaned forward and grabbed Viktor’s computer. “What do you have so far?”

  Viktor took the computer back, but admitted to himself that a unique perspective might prove useful. And though Dispatch liked to ignore the Endurance crew, they had uniqueness in spades. “We believe everyone on the list was involved in one of six previous Uprising investigations. The first person—the murder victim—was crossed off.”

  “How are they going to keep the rest of you safe?” Matthias asked. Before anyone could answer, he said, “Ooh, I have an idea! We can pick everybody up on the ship and then use the D Drive to take you all out of the solar system so the Uprising can’t get to you!”

  Chris snorted. “That’s called kidnapping.”

  “Only if we do it without permission. What if …”

  “Dispatch has already assigned each of us a bodyguard until we find the killer,” Viktor said. “Also, I doubt they would like us to show such weakness by running away from the Uprising.”

  “Bodyguard?” Chris looked around the room. “Where’s yours?”

  “I’m here.” In one corner of the room, a hand appeared from behind a potted plant and waved.

  Matthias waved back. “Hi, Areva!” To Viktor, he said, “I thought you’d pick her.”

  Viktor frowned. “Why?”

  “You guys do everything together.”

  “No, we do not.”

  “Gentlemen, can we get back to the important matter?” Chris said. He pointed at the computer tablet. “Somebody is trying to kill our first officer. We need to figure out who it is and why before they target the rest of us, too!”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Matthias.

  “I don’t know yet. That’s why we need to figure it out.”

  Viktor relinquished the computer across the table. “You are welcome to look for any connections, but I see nothing to make one case stand out from any other. All six seem equally plausible, and at least one person in each case has motive to eliminate everyone on the list.”

  “What about the order of the list?” asked Chris.

  “What?”

  “The names on the list. Were they in any particular order? Alphabetical, age, rank?”

  Viktor thought back over the list, which he’d read enough times to memorize it. “No.”

  “Then why put them in that order? There has to be a reason.”

  Matthias bounced in his seat. “Ooh, maybe it’s a code!”

  Chris scoffed. “Calm down. We need to look at this logically.”

  “Occam’s razor,” said his wife, still engrossed in her book.

  “What?” asked Matthias.

  “Occam’s razor,” said Chris. “It’s a principle of logical reasoning. It says that you should go with the simplest solution to a problem, unless or until a more complicated solution presents better supporting evidence.”

  “I like that,” said Matthias. �
��So what’s the simplest explanation for the order of the names in the list?”

  Viktor thought about it for a moment. “If the murderer chose his targets based on who worked on his case, he probably consulted the official UELE write-up to determine who was involved. Perhaps the names go in the same order as one of the reports.”

  They spent a few minutes looking at each case’s official write-up, but none of them contained the investigating officers’ names in the same order as the list.

  “So that’s not it,” said Matthias. “What else? How would you go about making a list if you wanted revenge on a group of people?”

  “Alphabetical order,” said Chris’s wife. She still didn’t look up from her book.

  “I’d make mine as convoluted as possible to throw people off the scent,” said Chris.

  “Ease of eliminating them,” Areva said from behind the plant.

  Viktor thought over famous revenge stories from literature. Moby Dick, The Count of Monte Cristo, Hamlet … the characters in each story went about achieving vengeance in a different way, but they all targeted their wrath specifically at a few people. If they had bothered to make lists, how would they have organized them?

  Then Viktor thought about his transfer to the Endurance and how he would arrange the list of people responsible for it. The man whose arm he’d broken (whose lawsuit had led to the disciplinary hearing) would definitely go toward the top of the list. Viktor’s partner at the time was a female officer who called Dispatch for backup instead of intervening to help stop the fight before it got out of hand. She’d be up there, though below the man himself. He’d include all of the other Org Crime officers who hadn’t stuck up for him at his hearing, including Okoro. Commissioner Wen from O&I would go toward the bottom. She’d assigned him to the Endurance, but she could just as easily have fired him completely. She, at least, had heard his side of the story, so while he harbored some resentment toward her, he didn’t think of her as a huge target.

  The first place on the list would have to go to Adwin Soun for signing the order that kicked Viktor off the organized crime team. Others had contributed to his fall, but Soun had overseen the entire process.

  “How involved they were in the event that I wanted to avenge,” Viktor finally said.

  “That makes sense,” said Matthias. “Sounds like the simplest solution to me!”

  “Good.” Chris leaned over the computer tablet. “Then we can eliminate it.”

  Viktor frowned. “I thought you said the simplest solution was most likely correct.”

  “No, Occam’s Razor says that. I say the simplest solution is too easy and should be rejected outright. Now, if I rearrange the letters in the names of each person on the list …”

  An idea occurred to Viktor, and he pulled the tablet back over to himself, eliciting a protest from Chris. He pulled up one of the six probable cases and began reading the investigation overview.

  It had been a tough one. A key player in the Uprising crime organization had stolen a shipment of body armor intended for a military base on Mars. Technically the UE military had no jurisdiction in space, which was considered civilian territory under the Lunar Treaty of 2084, so the UELE began investigating the theft. Because of the Uprising connection, Org Crime took the lead. They eventually recovered the stolen armor, and though the leader of that particular group of operatives escaped, they arrested some of his subordinates and shot and killed his number two, who also happened to be his nephew.

  The nine people on the list played the key roles in the case. The bottom two discovered the connection to the Uprising operative and figured out his hiding place. The five above them, including Okoro at number three, manned the strike force that recovered the stolen goods. Viktor, second on the list, led the strike team and fired the shot that killed the leader’s nephew. Adwin, at the top, oversaw the entire operation and approved the use of lethal force in the first place.

  A simple explanation. It made sense.

  Viktor looked across the table at his crewmates. “This is the one.”

  * * *

  “Killian Yang.” Okoro tapped the digital photo to enlarge it on the projection board. It showed a tan, bald man somewhere in his sixties. Despite his age, he had a strong cut to his chin and toned musculature, and he looked at the camera with bored indifference. “I thought the Uprising dumped him after he failed to get that shipment of armor.”

  “Apparently not.” Viktor handed him a computer tablet with a list of recent flights into Median Interplanetary Airport. “I found this flight record from the day before Adwin Soun’s murder. It is for a man named Darwin Yang. While his fingerprint scan and identification initially seemed in order, I ran a comparison to all existing Darwin Yangs who are the same age as this passenger. The fingerprint record is a fake, and so were the identification cards, but facial recognition matched the passenger to one of Killian Yang’s associates—an Uprising contract killer known as Cassius. I believe he flew in under the name Darwin Yang in order to eliminate Soun.”

  “Darwin Yang. That was the name of Killian’s nephew. The one you killed in the strike.”

  “Yes.” Viktor tucked his thumbs into his belt, missing the presence of Dickens and Dante. His service weapon just wasn’t the same. “They want us to know why they are doing this. We were meant to find this information.”

  Okoro frowned at him. “How did you find all of this?”

  “I consulted with the other officers on the Endurance.” Viktor allowed himself a small smile. He and his team of washouts had outperformed the acclaimed Org Crime division, and he enjoyed the opportunity to rub Okoro’s face in it.

  “You went outside the investigation team?”

  “You did not tell me not to.”

  “You should’ve asked.”

  Viktor raised his eyebrows. “Very well. Next time I will check with you before solving all of your problems.”

  “Not all of them.” Okoro tapped the flight record. “We may have found a suspect, but that doesn’t help us figure out where he is now, or prove that he was hired by Killian Yang.”

  “We can check security footage from the area for facial matches to Cassius.”

  “True, but there aren’t nearly enough of them for it to be a sure thing. If this guy kills for the Uprising, he knows enough to keep himself off the grid. We don’t have enough infrastructure in place to track him everywhere.”

  “We will not need to track him. There are other names on the list. We know he stayed in the area to finish his job. Eventually, he will make a mistake, and we will either catch him, or follow him back to Killian Yang.”

  Okoro paused. “If he shows himself again, he’ll be trying to kill you.”

  “I know.”

  Another pause. “I’ll do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  Viktor cocked an eyebrow. That had sounded like an attempt to make amends. “That would be appreciated, as is the sentiment, although it is a bit late.”

  “Nothing’s too late ‘til you’re dead.” Okoro bit his lip and winced. “Poor choice of words. The point is, you know what you’re doing, as you showed yesterday by finding that witness, and again just now by finding this connection. You’re a good officer.”

  “Not good enough, apparently. I work on the Endurance.”

  “Maybe not for long.” Okoro waited until Viktor looked at him to continue. “I know the new captain they’re bringing in to head Org Crime. He’s against having too big a police force, but he values my opinions. If the rest of this case goes well, I’ll put in a good word with him and suggest that you return to the team. Consider it a way of making up for everyone abandoning you before.”

  Viktor hoped Okoro missed the look of shock that crossed his face before he forced it back to neutrality. “And what do you want in return?”

  Okoro chuckled. “Seriously, this isn’t a hostage negotiation. I’m being up-front with you, Ivanokoff. All I ask is that you do the same with me. Let me run the investigatio
n without you questioning my every move. Prove to me that you can be a team player again. You do that, and I’ll do my best to see that your move here is made permanent. Deal?” He held out his hand.

  Viktor hesitated. “What makes you think I wish to leave the Endurance? We recently made history.”

  “That was a fluke, and everyone knows it. By this time next month, that ship will be back at the edge of the solar system with nothing to do. Hell, you’re only still here because we needed your input on this case.”

  Well, that confirmed one theory, though Viktor couldn’t shake the feeling that Okoro’s offer was less than genuine. Maybe he thought the job opportunity would make Viktor easier to work with until he could get rid of him again. On the other hand, maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he did want Viktor back on the team.

  But did Viktor want to return to that same team? Everyone knew the Endurance was a dead end, and no one in their right mind would actually enjoy working on it. While everyone on the ship would understand if he took a new job, something felt smarmy about getting reinstated into the position he had before his fall from grace. Could he do that to them? Could he do that to himself? Or should he wait until something else came along? That would mean more time on the Endurance. The thought might fill another person with dread, but it didn’t bother Viktor. And Okoro’s offer didn’t excite him as much as he thought it should. That meant he needed to think long and hard before he made a decision.

  He ignored Okoro’s hand, but smiled to show that he appreciated the offer. “I will consider what you have said.”

  Okoro nodded. “Good enough.” He turned back to face the board and pointed to the photos of their two suspects. “We should keep running security footage to see if either of these two showed up near the crime scene, and also see if either of their communication records are on file. If they’re talking to each other, that could help us pinpoint their locations, as well as prove a connection between them. I’ll get the other two officers on it, and hopefully something turns up. In the meantime, you watch your back. I don’t want you getting shot just before you rejoin the team.”