Perfiditas Read online

  ‘Come with me,’ she said with gritted teeth and turned, stalking off. At her office door, I studied the worn indents on the old-fashioned keypad lock. Anything to distract my mind from what was coming. Inside, it had everything you’d expect, plus a wall of around twenty photos of Mossia in her arena competition days. One with a gilt frame predominated and showed her triumphant, magnificent sword in her hand, her long, black hair loosened, curling down her back. She was receiving her prize in the Circus Maximus on a sunny day several years ago. She stood now, arms crossed, with her back to them so that I faced a horde of dangerous and armed Mossias.

  ‘I hope you have a good explanation for how you treated me.’ Her mouth was a tight, puckered line. I saw anger in her eyes, but also embarrassment in the red patches on her cheekbones. ‘I was upset and you cared less than if I was a dirty arena fly.’

  She turned her back to me and took her time running her fingers over the pommel and down the creamy wire-inlaid grip of a ceremonial pugio dagger in the open glass display cabinet. The grooved, waisted blade was flat and wide with razor-thin edges. It was twenty centimetres of meanness.

  I walked over to her desk, away from the knife, willing her to follow.

  ‘I want to show you something.’ I pulled out the crystalline pyramid from its velvet cover and placed it in the centre of the desk. ‘Now we can’t be overheard.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It scrambles sound waves within a fairly tight area around itself. It sounds like gibberish on surveillance bugs or recorders.’

  ‘You think my office is bugged? Are you paranoid?’

  ‘It’s unlikely, but something strange is going on, and I’m not taking the least chance.’

  ‘What do you mean: “something strange”?’

  ‘That’s the problem – I haven’t worked it out yet.’ I waited for a few moments then took a deep breath. ‘Mossia, I’m sorry if I upset you the other day. I had so much else on my mind. I didn’t mean to put you down.’

  I let my words settle in and waited for her reaction. She frowned at me, her dark eyes mobile, unreadable. After a few moments, the red faded from her cheeks. The tension swelling her face lessened and her jaw relaxed.

  ‘Oh, for Hercules’ sake, get on with it,’ she said and plunked herself down on her red leather chair.

  ‘Just how close were you to Aidan?’

  She shrugged. ‘We got together about three months ago,’ she said, ‘but it’s a very open relationship.’ She sounded defensive. ‘We’re both professionals with personal clients we can’t neglect.’

  So, the bottom line was still important. A lot more like the Mossia I knew.

  ‘We agreed that if we needed to give a client personal attention, then that was how it had to be.’ She grimaced.

  ‘It goes back to that night you brought your new group here. Aidan was helping out as part of the massage team for your lot after your game. One of the girls had gone off sick, so he stepped in. It was a while since he’d worked as a masseur, but he remembered all the moves.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He and your friend Tacita seemed to hit it off. I think he saw her a few times after that. One night, she was leaving in a hurry and looked upset. She looked as guilty as Hades. I wondered if she’d left without paying. The next day, I got that letter from Aidan. He put it in an envelope with another note saying I was to take his lucky gaming chip to the scarabs and ask for Bruna.’

  I raised my eyebrows at that. Tokens were personal, not transferable.

  ‘I threw it in the bin with the letter. But when I calmed down, a little, I thought about how he would always keep it within reach. It was the last thing out of his pocket at night. He’d put it carefully on the bedside table. Telling me I had to take it to the scarabs was weird so I rescued it from the bin. I hadn’t seen you for days so I took it to the central custodes station. I knew they’d make sure it reached you.’

  She paused, looking over my shoulder, plainly not wanting to meet my eyes.

  ‘Then you were so cold-blooded.’ A hard edge crept into her voice. ‘Perhaps it was good. It made me stop feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to kill you, but I knew I couldn’t do it there, surrounded by scarabs.’ She gave me a calculating look. ‘I knew you’d come here eventually and I’d get my chance.’

  Juno! I tamped down a stab of fear. I was considered an efficient fighter. I’d even beaten Mossia occasionally, but she had been a professional gladiator. Although they never fought to the death these days, she was perfectly capable of terminating me without a moment’s second thought.

  ‘Don’t worry, Bruna.’ She grimaced at me. ‘I’m not going to kill you today. You’re too valuable a client!’

  VII

  I arrived home after an exhausting round in the indoor arena with Mossia. The massage and a restorative session in the baths had eased the muscles, but not the tiredness. But now I knew why the token had been cashed in: Aidan had no other way of calling for help.

  I hung around in the main house making conversation with my grandmother about the upcoming family day, the fall holiday at the farm with the children, her travel plans.

  ‘Stalling, darling?’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  She snorted. ‘I know a delaying tactic when I see one. You’ll have to have it out with him sometime, but if it’s about work, try not to quarrel before sleeping.’

  I tipped my head sideways, gave her a half-smile and conceded. ‘Something trivial is becoming more of a problem than I thought. It’s like chasing spaghetti around a plate with a knife. Then, today, I was attacked by another guard.’

  ‘You’re unhurt, I presume?’ she asked in a calm voice, knowing how I hated a fuss.

  ‘I’m fine. But let’s say I was more than surprised.’

  ‘Did you tell Conradus?’

  ‘Not directly.’ I looked away. ‘I reported it through the proper channels,’ I said to the floor.

  ‘Ha!’ She looked at me with a sardonic gleam in her eye. She folded her hands, the thumbs interlocking. ‘Have you considered that restructuring the land forces, including the PGSF, may have upset people at a political level?’

  I stared at her in surprise.

  Then I realised I was being naïve. Apart from discomfort felt by individuals within the unit, the changes could have upset the delicate client/patron system that dinosaur families like the Varae still practised.

  After retiring from active service in the PGSF when her mother died, my grandmother had served abroad as a diplomat and, later, as senator and foreign minister at home. She knew how to swim around the oily political sea, and which fish would bite.

  I kept forgetting this sort of thing was instinctive to home-bred Romans like my grandmother and Conrad. I’d studied hard and read everything I could grab hold of to catch up since that waiting time in the legation in Washington, but the delicate stuff of the political system still flowed way over my head.

  Drained mentally and physically, all I wanted to do was fall into bed. My limbs were aching with tiredness when I arrived at the door to our apartment.

  Inside, Conrad was waiting for me.

  As soon as I came through the hallway and made for our bedroom, he followed me in. He leaned his shoulders against the wall and crossed his arms. Only his eyes moved, tracking me as I threw my gym clothes in the wash basket, cleaned my face and brushed my teeth. He didn’t say anything, just stared. This was stupid. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel like a deer caught in headlights. I hadn’t done anything wrong. He could stand there looking dangerous and enigmatic all night for all I cared. I was going to bed.

  ‘Something you might possibly think you should mention to me?’

  ‘In what connection?’ I replied, equally coldly.

  ‘Like nearly getting yourself killed this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yes, that. I nearly choked when Lucius sent the report through. Didn’t you realise that I needed to hear it direct from you? Yet I learned second-hand
you’d swanned off to the gym. What in Hades were you playing at?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said sullenly.

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘I followed the correct procedure and the report came through to you. I only did what any other guard would have done – I filed my accusation through the senior tribune.’

  ‘So I’m supposed to ignore the fact that you might be lying in the mortuary with a knife sticking out of you?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘We agreed a long time ago you can’t give me special treatment. It works both ways.’

  The expression on his face hardened. He launched himself from the wall, reached me in one stride and grabbed my wrist. The outer edges of his eyes seemed to tilt upwards. Copper brown flooded out the green. and his eyes blazed as they bored into mine. I shivered inside. He was scary as hell when he lost his temper. And his grip was hard, pinching my skin up into folds.

  After a minute, he swallowed and dropped my wrist. He turned sideways to me, poured himself some water from a bottle. The surface of the water in his glass trembled with his hand.

  ‘There’s also the inconvenience,’ he said as he turned back to glare at me, ‘of having no head of my Intelligence section.’

  ‘Oh, good, now we have our priorities sorted out. I’m glad that’s clear.’

  Neither of us moved a muscle. We both raged: he from deep concern, me from his over-protectiveness. I despaired. Would we ever hit the right balance?

  ‘All I’m saying is that I’d have preferred you to come and see me,’ he said sullenly.

  ‘I couldn’t come running to you like teacher’s pet.’ I glanced at him. ‘If it helps, I was blindsided. One minute, Aburia and I were colleagues; the next, she’s trying to split me open with a knife.’

  ‘I hate seeing you threatened in this way.’ He came over and took my hand, cupping it in his. ‘You were right to go to Lucius.’ He let a deep breath out then kissed my forehead. ‘I know it’s not easy for you,’ he said. ‘Or me.’

  I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face into his neck.

  ‘Drink?’ he offered, a little later.

  We sat on the balcony, not quite warm enough in our robes, but friends again as well as lovers, his arm resting along the back of the teak bench, his fingers playing with my hair. We sipped wine, letting our eyes rest into the distance out over the backyard as the sun gave out its last light. A pretty garden with walkways, now illuminated, it gave way to lawns which sloped gradually down to the river. Tall cedars and oaks provided welcome shade in summer over part of the parkland; the result of my great-great-grandmother’s time in England as a diplomat. She’d obviously visited too many big piles over there and fallen in love with the Capability Brown look. Luckily, another more capricious ancestor with a sense of humour had planted a maze as well as secluded intimate gardens on the south side.

  ‘So how far are you along with your investigation?’ Conrad asked.

  I was relieved to tell him everything I’d discovered. He listened carefully; his face tensed when I recounted my second heart-to-heart with Mossia earlier that afternoon.

  ‘Well, in light of Aburia’s attack, this is looking far more serious,’ he concluded. ‘Let’s extract Aidan and have a chat with him.’ He glanced at me. ‘You’ll lose your anonymity over this one.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’ll be all right with Mossia – she doesn’t give a damn about status. As for Aidan, he’s been a useful source – I’ve had my money’s worth out of him. I’ll see how things work out once we’ve finished.’

  ‘Your op. I’ll advise Lucius and Daniel. I presume you’ll want to use your own team as core?’

  ‘We’ll start rehearsing tomorrow.’ I was already playing different tactical scenarios through my mind.

  He nodded. How illogical he was. He was perfectly happy for me to lead a dangerous operation, but had gotten more than uptight about Aburia’s attack.

  We sat for a few more minutes in silence, before I asked the question at the centre. ‘So why do you think the thugs holding Aidan wanted this particular info about you? Not your military role but the stuff about your attitudes, corruption and your wider family.’ Which of course, meant his former partner, the Imperatrix Silvia and their three children. But that was public knowledge; it was recorded in the imperial family records.

  ‘Sounds like standard intelligence gathering to me,’ said Conrad. ‘But go through the threat board tomorrow. Nothing came up on the joint watch report today, but worth checking if Justice and the custodes have anybody on their radar at the moment. It’s starting to sound political, and that could mean terrorists.’ His voice hardened. ‘I won’t tolerate anybody’s active service units operating here. Any we find will be terminated.’

  Next morning, I took off for the office straight after I’d showered and dressed. As I rode through the streets on my new toy – a Ducati – I was fuelled by the blood-adrenalin mix pounding through me. I took that extra risk sliding into gaps in the traffic, stopping a little too quickly, edgy to storm away the second the red light flashed to green. I loved the strong surge of energy when faced with a new challenge, a “call to action high”, Daniel called it. It would power me through until the operation was finished.

  I messaged my Active Response Team to assemble in my unfinished strategy room for 13.00. Fausta and Drusus had rescued two folding tables and a dozen stacking chairs that didn’t from the recycling pile. I darted between the hard plastic chair where I sat when attacking my el-pad keyboard and the easel where I scribbled diagrams on my flipcharts. Where in Hades were my network and large electronic touch displays?

  I shook off my irritation and started. After an hour, I had fingers stained with red, blue and green ink, but I had the whole thing pulled together. I sat back and shut my eyes for a few minutes.

  The heavenly aromas of fresh brewed coffee and just-baked rolls. I opened one eye. Fausta smiled down at me. ‘I thought you might like to eat something, ma’am, as it’s nearly ten o’clock.’

  ‘Fausta, you are wonderful, thank you.’ Especially as I’d discovered that she regarded coffee as a recreational drug of dubious choice. ‘Can you fix me an appointment ASAP with the legate, please? And ask Major Stern to attend.’

  I ran my plan past Conrad who grilled me for a full twenty minutes. Daniel listened quietly and added a few tactical and equipment suggestions. He was the operational expert and transformed into a cool, analytic commander when something serious was going forward. He thought my Active Response Team would be more than enough to carry it through. When I suggested using some of the Intelligence section for the first stage, I glanced speculatively at Conrad.

  ‘Yes, of course, you’ll need them,’ he answered, his voice downbeat. He looked preoccupied for a few moments, and then came back to us. ‘I’ll put Aburia’s number two, Sepunia, in charge for the moment. Liaise with her.’ He handed me a signed operations order, gave me a quick nod and went back to his desk.

  As Daniel and I walked back to the strategy room, he said, ‘Do you want me to sit in the team briefing session?’

  ‘If you like,’ I answered automatically, momentarily distracted by Conrad’s sombre mood. I could see how stricken he was by Aburia’s betrayal, particularly as he was trying to rebuild morale in the unit. Dishonour of core Roma Novan values was offensive, particularly in a military officer sworn to state service. Despite the lack of them around them in Rome in the late fourth century, Apulius and the founders knew upholding values was critical to survival in their new colony and had hammered them into every part of life in Roma Nova.

  ‘Sorry, Daniel, that wasn’t very gracious of me. Yes, of course.’

  ‘Tough times,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ Livius said. ‘This is a simple extraction, surely?’

  A fast-tracker because of his military skills and ability to think, Livius was already an optio waiting for his promotion to centurion. But sometimes he was a little too confident.

  I looked at him and t
ipped my chin up. ‘If it was, do you think I’d be wasting my time trying to herd you bunch of prima donnas into line? No, it isn’t that simple,’ I continued. ‘We not only need to rescue the hostage, but take all the hostage-takers alive and uninjured, and immobilise booby traps without triggering any remote systems. Anybody with these resources has to have a remote warning or surveillance system.’ I jabbed my index finger at the probable enemy capabilities and threat list on the flipchart.

  ‘The extraction must not be seen as such, or as an arrest from the street, either before, during or after. The opposition will be watching. We also have to assess both work and home locations, and plan for both.’

  Something in my expression kept them quiet for a few moments, even Trebatia, who could have won prizes for wholesale chattering. Of all the team, Flavius looked the most serious, eyes creased but unfocused. I remembered that expression from my first undercover mission seven years ago when I met him. Novius chewed his lip, already sketching some overlapping line diagram for the technical framework.

  ‘Is there a particular reason for this level of stealth?’ asked Paula Servla.

  ‘There’s always a good reason – just take it as read,’ I said, drawing breath to move on to the next subject.

  ‘Yes, obviously,’ retorted Paula. I could see from her sceptical expression that she didn’t buy it. She saw too much. When I’d transferred into the PGSF, she’d been the first to work me out.

  ‘What I meant was,’ she continued, ‘is there a wider security or even political aspect here?’

  The others gaped at her except Flavius who smiled to himself. He knew me too well. As always, Paula detected the underlying dimension. Was it simply experience, intuition, or was she borderline telepathic?

  I glanced sideways to Daniel, who nodded. I pulled out the pyramid jammer and placed it on the table. Seven other pairs of eyes looked down at it, some diverting glances to me.