Spin State - Chris Moriarty [90]
Li picked up her forgotten beer and took a gulp of it. It was grass-bitter and warm as blood, and it reminded her of things she couldn’t afford to think about now. “So you think Sharifi threatened to go to Haas, and Voyt killed her? And that the fire was . . . what, a cover-up? Do you have any proof of this at all?”
Daahl shrugged. “That’s your job.”
Li looked back over the figures. “Voyt couldn’t have done this himself. Who was running him?”
“Someone. Everyone who ever got within smelling distance knows that much. But as to who . . . that’s your problem.”
“And what was this someone having Voyt pay you?”
“Nothing. He just told me to sign off on the pithead logs and keep my mouth shut.” Daahl smiled. “He offered what you might call negative incentives. Besides, I would have done it anyway. There are good reasons for me to have dirt on Security personnel.”
“I can imagine,” Li said. She probed the hole where her tooth had been and thought about the dirt Daahl already had on her.
“I put these numbers together because I knew perfectly well where they’d put the blame if they ever got caught.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Crooked pit boss. Oldest story in the business. Anyway, I wanted to have enough information so I could roll over on Voyt if I had to. And make it stick.”
“Very sensible,” Li said. “But why tell me? And don’t say it’s all just about the miners. Union officials don’t lose any more sleep over dead miners than politicians lose over dead soldiers.”
Daahl glanced out the window. His eyes looked ice-pale in the faint beam of daylight. Sheepdog’s eyes. Wolf eyes.
“Sharifi’s death came at an awkward time,” he said, speaking slowly and deliberately, as if he were trying to relay a very complicated message over an unreliable channel. “We want to make sure there’s no ongoing UN presence in the mine. If that means helping you wrap up this investigation and leave, we’ll help. Also for you personally . . . it would be good not to be here too much longer. No more than”—he glanced over at Ramirez—“two weeks?”
“At most,” Ramirez said.
Li caught her breath, looked back and forth between the two men. “You crazy bastards,” she said. “You’re planning a lockdown. You think the Secretariat’s going to stand back and let you shut down their best Bose-Einstein source? They’ll crucify you!”
“What’s the UN going to throw at us that’s any worse than what the miners face when they go to work every day?” Ramirez asked. “Besides, it’s not your problem. Unless you’re telling us you want to make it your problem.”
“Oh no. That’s your fight. I’m not that crazy.”
“Then I suggest you wrap this investigation up and get off Compson’s at your earliest possible convenience.”
Li looked back and forth between the two men, took a last sip of beer, and pushed the glass away from her. “So where does that leave us?” she asked Daahl.
“With a deal,” he answered. “And make sure you keep it. I wouldn’t like to see something unpleasant happen to you.”
Ramirez flexed his long legs and his stool slid backwards, squeaking across the bare floor panels. “Do you know what a coffin notice is, Major?”
“Don’t threaten me, Leo. I know a hell of a lot more about them than you do. And I don’t plan on getting shot down in the street like a dog. Not by the Molly Maguires, and certainly not by some snot-nosed rich kid playing at coalfield politics.”
Daahl laughed suddenly. “You haven’t changed a bit, Katie. You must scare the hell out of humans.”
He pulled a fiche off the desk and bent over it. Ramirez got up and slipped back through the airlock, pulling the blanket behind him. Li started toward the front door, but before she made it Daahl came around the table and laid a hand on her arm.
“Katie,” he said, speaking quietly enough so Ramirez couldn’t hear him. “If you need anything, ask me. I’m not making any promises but . . . Brian will know where to find me. Understood?”
Li nodded and stepped into the front