Truthseer Page 4

  Kit laughed bitterly as he described the insanity of that moment. ‘I wanted it to look convincing so I ran straight at the three outlanders firing at us from the forest and somehow didn’t get hit. I took out one of them, crossed their line and kept going.’

  The smile faded as he recalled what happened next. ‘A minute later the air strike came in and there was nothing left of that part of the forest or anything in it.’

  ‘Did Daniel get away with filing the report?’

  ‘He was fine for almost a year. Then he tried to help another friend get out the same way. They were both caught and shot as deserters. Avarit media made a big thing of it.’

  He fell silent and Jac suddenly understood what had happened back then.

  ‘And he’s the reason you push yourself to be what Raine needs you to be. Someone to support Bel when she takes over from him soon. It’s for Daniel isn’t it? Because he gave you the chance to be here?’

  Kit watched her for a long moment. ‘You don’t miss much do you?’

  ‘With someone like you it’s not difficult. This last couple of weeks I’ve watched you hiding your doubts about your decisions––but you don’t lie and you always look out for everyone in your team before you think of yourself.’ Jac glanced back at the wall screen. ‘Now I’m meant to be using my supposed skill to figure out the motives of someone I don’t know––and what I’ve seen of him on TV quite frankly gives me the creeps... Hang on, more vid-news coming in.’

  She turned up the volume and stared at the images. The interview followed the usual pattern; President Moris holding forth on how fortunate citizens were to have his firm hand in control, defeating the terrorist threat and rebuilding their damaged country to achieve its former greatness. Twenty-three insurgents neutralized before they could carry out an attack in the city, and the hunt was on for the rest of the gang...

  Jac kept her eyes on the president’s bland expression. Dark hair slicked back above a pale, narrow face almost gave him an air of cool professionalism, but his eyes were shifty and when his hands twitched there was a pattern that didn’t quite fit...

  ‘Kit, twenty-three bodies... it’s too much of a coincidence. The lies I’m detecting have to be connected with the plague victims from that transporter that went missing. Moris is using those corpses as fake evidence that he’s just thwarted a terrorist attack. But there’s something more than that. I just can’t see it yet.’

  Kit reached for the borrowed night-sights Razz had given him. Jac caught the movement out of the corner of her eye and laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘Kit, don’t go out there. You should rest and look after those stitches. It’s too late to contact anyone on the surveillance team. They can’t use the airwaves now the op is underway, not with staz monitoring every transmission.’

  Kit fingered the night-sights restlessly. ‘Any extra detail just might pinpoint what to look for. It’s no help if you notice something and then we don’t use it. Never mind the coms blackout, I’ll go find them, pass the message on directly.’ He winced as he heaved himself to his feet. ‘Promise you’ll stay here in the clinic? It’s too risky outside.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be well occupied helping out with patients.’ Jac shrugged disparagingly. ‘In between watching our creepy president spin a few more versions of alternative facts.’

  7

  Jac sat in silence among the stacked bags and boxes, finding it increasingly difficult to feel sure about her conclusions. She felt confident in her observations of the president’s lies and she could see patterns emerging––but trying to use those patterns to work out what he was planning and when it might happen demanded a level of calculation that was new to her. She needed Bel’s skill at gestalt-analysis, her ability to draw many scattered threads together instantly and see the whole.

  If only Bel were here! We’d make a good team sharing intel. Might even figure this out. I guess they want her out there watching the security building to make sense of the surveillance data.

  On the surface the president’s election speech was about upgrading security measures to protect citizens from terrorist threats. He’d announced upgrades before and that usually meant another clampdown on the Resistance because their free clinics and food banks undercut Avarit’s profits. Jac glanced at her watch. The surveillance team weren’t due back for some time––

  She froze, the watch still in front of her face.

  Why do I suddenly feel so worried about Kit and the rest of the team?

  She scrolled frantically back through the recording of the vid-piece. The president was being interviewed alongside a series of clips showing citizens ‘going about their daily business in safety.’ It was the tiniest eye-movement, but there was something in Moris’ expression that hadn’t wanted that particular image shown.

  The central market. Dammit, if only I could figure out why!

  The cold sense of dread lying heavy in her stomach wasn’t exactly going to help tease new perceptions out of the depths of her subconscious. No matter, she’d go with what she had for now. She plugged her unregistered into the hotspot, holding her breath until the erratic connection went through and even produced a grainy image.

  ‘Raine, I can’t figure exactly what it might be, but there’s something bad about the centre-city area where the market is––close to where our surveillance team is staking out the security building, so...’ She had no experience for the kind of strategy needed for this.

  Raine kept to his usual calm analysis. ‘Bad enough for me to recall them? Because now they’re deployed we’ll have to use the airwaves and they could be tracked.’

  ‘I... I think so.’ Why does every decision bring extra complications?

  Raine frowned. ‘Speed often counts more than accuracy. I’ll contact the hive. See if they have anyone who can get there in time to deliver a message directly.’

  He cut the connection and Jac was left staring at the handset, hoping her intuition of danger was justified––and at the same time desperately hoping she was wrong.

  Lizzie stuck her head round the storeroom door. ‘Jac? I heard the edge in your voice. Something came up?’

  Jac nodded miserably. ‘Yeah. Wish I knew what it was though. Another of my vague suspicions and now Raine has to recall everyone.’

  Lizzie wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders. ‘Fine. So long as they all get back in one piece, it’s one wasted surveillance exercise, no big deal. We’ll find out soon enough.’

  Lizzie was right. Less than half hour later the door flew open and Kit burst into the room, eyes scanning the area until he found Jac and headed straight for her. She could see and sense his anger and took an involuntary step back in shock. Kit had a fierce side to him but his habitual self-control usually kept it well hidden.

  ‘Kit, I’m sorry! I––’

  If someone on the team was captured or shot because of me...

  ‘How did you know?’ He leaned against the wall, chest heaving from a hurried journey with an injured leg.

  ‘Wh––’

  ‘We barely got out in time! I’d just caught up with the others when we got the message to abort and the streets were suddenly swarming with patrols. Someone must have tipped off staz about us.’ He glanced around the room. The four volunteer medics who had followed him in stopped abruptly in alarm. No one spoke.

  Jac understood with a clutch of deeper uncertainty that she’d misread Kit’s anger. Not directed at her but at some unknown person who might have betrayed them. And she’d misread it because there was something different about him.

  He’d been calm and in control in spite of the gunshot wound and the risks he’d been taking, aware of everyone and everything around him. The perfect co-leader Raine was training him to be. Yes, maybe too perfect, maybe pushing himself to breaking point...

  All she could sense now was a deep pain kept at bay with difficulty and she had no idea why. ‘Kit, I don’t think the enforcers were after you. When I watched the newscas
t there was something dissonant between the carefully prepared presidential speech and a brief image of the market. Not the security building where you were. But because they’re so close to each other...’

  ‘Show me.’ Kit leaned forward to watch as she replayed the sequence, then stepped back in bafflement. ‘I can’t see anything beyond the usual. Keep watching in case anything gets clearer’

  He straightened his back, the controlled self-discipline almost in place again. ‘The rest of the team are regrouping at the hive but Fin and Bel are on their way here. We can go through the few surveillance images they managed to collect before we were recalled.’ He moved to the end of the room and cleared a space to work on one of the benches.

  Jac steeled herself for her longest session ever of watching city newscasts. TV didn’t reach far beyond the city perimeter. Outlanders living in the western forest always relied on a few people bringing back capsule-recordings for everyone to pass round the holdings in their own catchment. She’d never bothered with much of it because she’d always had the unsettling feeling that it presented only a fraction of what was really happening, and half of that probably not true in the first place. She relaxed a little as Fin’s wiry outline appeared in the doorway.

  At least the team made it out and my supposed intuition hasn’t cost a life...

  ‘Fin, tell me this is real, not just coincidence. Tell me I’m not imagining things.’

  Fin pulled up a chair, brows furrowed in concentration as she studied Jac’s reactions. ‘Now. Tell me what you saw in that broadcast, before you forget.’

  Jac let out a long breath of relief. If anyone could make sense of these disparate glimpses of truth it would be Fin.

  ‘It’s a carefully prepared fake story about thwarting a terrorist plot. And there’s something about the central market that the president felt... awkward about. I think the patrols Kit saw were heading towards the market––just coincidence that it was close to where our people were.’

  ‘But your warning got everyone out in time. Let that boost your confidence when you analyse the next set of vids. You’re doing well so far. Sharper insights than mine and I’m supposed to be the expert. You just need more training. So keep focused and stop fretting.’

  The acerbic manner hadn’t changed. Jac almost managed a smile. ‘Fin, you’re always so reassuringly grumpy. I was losing confidence. All my training with my grandfather was as medic and herbalist. I’ve always been... empathetic I suppose. But using those insights to figure out whether someone is planning to cause harm... it just leaves me feeling sort of shocked and confused. Too much of a sheltered life probably. I’ve no experience of devious plots.’

  Fin pushed a clump of damp hair aside before noticing how dirty her hands were. She wiped them on her grubby fatigues.

  ‘Chaos! I need a shower. I won’t try to describe where Razz had me posted to take surveillance photographs.’ She glanced at the screen. ‘The TV’s just comment and padding now––you won’t get much from ordinary presenters. They’ll be reading the autocue and thinking about dinner. Switch to record.’

  Jac pressed the remote and the sound went mute. ‘Fin? Anything more you can tell me about what I’m supposed to do to make things clearer?’

  Fin’s brows furrowed in concentration. ‘Trying to put the psychological crossover point into words is tricky. Remember when you had to get used to controlling your lieth focus yourself, after I took out your neural implant? Making the link between instruction and instinct, like learning to swim. Your deep perception, truthseer ability, is intuitive, right-brain function––which is why when you impose left-brain control to make it happen on demand, you have the opposite effect. You drown it out. Like thinking too much about the swimming instruction manual makes you suddenly breathe in a mouthful of water when you’re trying to actually swim.’

  ‘So how do I do it? I’m not going to get answers in time to protect everyone just by staring into space and waiting for insights to magically arrive!’

  ‘Practice. The training is just practice-with-guidance really. Step one, stop panicking. And do your best with what you’ve got for now. It’s working just enough to give us a few extra clues. You’ll get better with time. Meanwhile there’s something else useful you can do.’

  ‘Anything. It would be nice to feel I’m contributing something.’ Jac followed Fin’s gaze to the far end of the room. Bel had arrived quietly and unnoticed while they had been talking and was now working with Kit at the bench, hunched over her tablet as they downloaded the few images she’d grabbed before the recall.

  ‘What are you sensing from those two?’ Fin spoke softly now, as if to avoid disturbing Jac’s concentration.

  Jac focused. She could read tense body-language, awkward interaction... this went far deeper than a mere lovers’ quarrel. In the brief moments she had seen Kit and Bel together at the Warren, they had seemed a perfect couple, working closely with an intuitive understanding. But now...

  ‘Fin? What happened out there when the surveillance was recalled? I could tell there was something wrong when Kit came back in. And now both of them are desperately unhappy.’

  Fin sounded worried. ‘Bel was the first person Kit found on the surveillance team when he went to give them your extra intel. That’s how he learned his best friend had been killed in the Warren attack. And with Bel blaming herself for it as well as grieving for Greg, they’re not helping each other to deal with it. I tried to get through to Bel on the way down here but I failed completely. Maybe with your extra perception you’ll have better luck. We need their expertise and they need to get back to perfect focus while things are still precarious.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘Good. I’m off to the shower.’

  Jac walked over to sit with Kit and Bel, unsure how to deal with the waves of pain and anger she could feel radiating from both of them. Back at the Warren Bel had confided that her greatest fear was not for her own life, but that she might lose someone she was close to. And the very next day Greg, one of her lovers, had died. It was a fear Jac could identify with all too well, but it didn’t give her any insight in how to help.

  ‘Hey. Fin just told me what happened. I’m supposed to help you deal with it so you don’t lose concentration and get yourselves killed in the next few hours.’

  Kit raised an eyebrow. ‘Seems you’re picking up on Fin’s somewhat direct approach.’ The heavy resignation in his voice wasn’t encouraging.

  Jac shrugged apologetically. ‘Best I could think of at short notice. I only met Greg briefly before we all left the Warren, but it’s still a shock to know he’s gone.’

  Bel stood up to leave. ‘It was my fault––’

  Kit reached out and pulled her back. ‘Bel. Stop blaming yourself. I know what you’re like when things get dangerous. You protect everyone else even if it means putting yourself at risk. Just like Raine does.’

  Bel turned to look at him. ‘And just like you do. Because we’ve both learned things from Raine he didn’t intend to teach us. At least I’ve learned that I don’t have enough experience to take over from him yet.’

  Jac interrupted. ‘What I’ve learned from being under Kit’s command for the last two weeks is that he’s the same, pushes himself too hard. You’re both experienced enough to set aside grief until there’s space for it so as not to put other people’s lives at risk. But what’s mostly affecting you is the fear that your judgement is off and you might get someone else killed.’

  Bel sat down again. ‘Fine. Accurate. But I still don’t know what to do about it.’

  Jac tried to sound more confident than she felt. ‘You carry on as before because you’re the best we have. I’m having the same doubts about my ability to decipher what the president is planning, but with Fin saying my truth-perception is even deeper than hers, I just have to trust that what I find will be useful.’

  Kit frowned, staring at the surveillance photos on the screen in front of him. ‘Speaking of which, we still don�
�t know why all those patrols were suddenly moving into positions around the city centre and the market.’

  8

  Raine’s handset buzzed. He transferred the now-familiar icon to the office wall screen and Parry’s flickering image appeared, blurred outlines of the city park in the background. He looked even more strained and anxious than usual, making Raine wonder how much longer his new contact would be able to go on balancing lifelong loyalty to the Avarit imperium with the demands of conscience.

  ‘Michael, what happened?’

  Parry’s reply was flat. ‘Burton says your people planted a powerful IED in the central market.’

  ‘Was that a statement, an accusation, or a question?’

  ‘Take your pick. I just want a response.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re asking, I’ve trusted you this far, was it a mistake?’

  ‘I need to hear it from you.’

  Raine could hear the quiet desperation in Parry’s voice. The risk of new trust already betrayed. ‘The answer is no. I already told you we don’t do that. That smoke-circus at the western checkpoint was ours. We had to get a medical shipment in.’

  He almost added that it wouldn’t have been necessary if the colonel’s Avarit paymasters were willing to take care of sick citizens who couldn’t afford their expensive hospital. He held back the words. Parry was finding it difficult enough just being in contact with outlaws, however much he might privately agree with their aims.

  The strain on Parry’s face seemed to ease a little. ‘I guessed that nonsense at the checkpoint was probably more your style. And I’m aware that Burton doesn’t have a great regard for the truth. So assuming it’s not yours, any idea who’s responsible for this bomb?’

  For Raine, it wasn’t a difficult piece of guesswork. ‘Most likely Force2 paramilitaries. Other groups don’t do much beyond street crime and drug dealing. F2’s bigger and more dangerous. We couldn’t get near anyone in it.’