Connor removed the necklace bearing the Cauldron’s centuries-old symbol and placed the pendant against the center of Estefan’s chest. He retrieved a phasic knife from inside the coat and ignited its slicing flame.
Holding the pendant steady with one hand, he executed cuts along the symbol’s eight-sided outline then along the internal lattice.
He heard a brief flurry of laser fire in the outside corridor as he finished the work. Connor removed the pendant and examined the detail. Perfect. It adhered to the message left behind by Cauldron assassins for centuries.
“Beautiful,” he said, checking the time stamp.
Connor puffed the last of his cigar and flicked it toward the panel window. It bounced off the glass with a small shower of embers.
A relic, Estefan said of the Cauldron.
The headlines in coming days would reflect the opposite. As for the actual Cauldron? They wouldn’t deny involvement – it would make them look weak. If anything, they’d have to embrace the “success” of the coordinated attack.
Not every duo from Red Team walked the city wearing the hat and the trench coat, but all were meant to burnish the pendant into their victims.
Connor met Kaz near the lift. Two former badges lay dead.
“Done?”
Kaz grinned ear to ear.
“Silence is golden, Big C.”
Connor checked the time stamp. Twenty seconds to spare.
Perfect.
3
Amity Station, Harmony Sector
Two days later
TREVOR STALLION FLUFFED his collar, something he felt compelled to do before every meeting and public event. He never got the collars quite right on these suits. Why couldn’t they lay down like the neckless variety on the uniform he wore for sixteen years?
That spoke to the real problem: He hated the fashion. As a Sec Admin deputy, he saw this collar as a symbol of the condescension and bias he felt from the diplomatic and political classes. Ambassador Pousson, the man who almost got Trevor fired a year ago, wore some of the most flamboyant collars. As if the bastard belonged to royalty.
Trevor’s instinct before the swearing-in ceremony: Remain in uniform. Break the mold. Show everyone he’d be a different kind of Governor.
The three most significant women in his life – Effie, Shireena, and President Kieran Haas – pushed back with equal force. They said the job required a less intimidating style. The job was, as they pointed out, often as ceremonial as it was administrative.
Fine. He’d buy a rack of suits but rely on one person’s approval – his best girl.
Trevor spent a day shopping with Ana Marie. Despite her tender age, she developed quite the fashion sense. Almost eight years surrounded by her mother’s associates in the Diplomatic Resolution Corps did the trick.
Ana stood by his side when the President swore him in. He received ample compliments on his black ensemble with green trim.
Sixty days later, pacing at his desk, Trevor sported a teal ensemble with a white ruffled collar. It looked nothing like the combination his predecessor wore, which is why he chose it.
His desk chimed, to which Trevor responded.
“Yes?”
Shireena answered from outside the office.
“He’s here.”
“Early. What a shock. Give me thirty seconds then send him in.”
Trevor pulled back his left sleeve and tapped his wrist plate.
“It’s time,” he said. “I want to thank you for doing this. Give me ten minutes, and I’ll call you forward. Stallion out.”
He checked his suit again, looked around the spacious office – matched in size only by the President’s – and once more could not believe fate brought him here. Elegant furniture for casual confabs and negotiations, his own kiosk and liquor supply, three-dimensional paintings of the station’s interior, and a solid wood antique desk donated by Grandfather Max. Plus an adjacent flat.
Trevor took a casual pose near the liquor display. When the door slid open, he reached for two glasses.
“Stallion,” the visitor said.
“Mr. Murrill. Please, come in.”
Rafe Murrill, once the station’s longest serving Governor, still dressed as if he were entitled to the big desk.
“I was about to have a drink,” Trevor said. “Join me?”
“Straightaway with the mock charity, are you? I see your game, Stallion. And no, I don’t care for a drink.”
Neither did Trevor, but he thought a short whiskey might ease him through the difficulty ahead.
