Moving out of their way, Caillen turned the reader on and started scanning the open files. They all confirmed his suspicions. Typical hired hack. Nothing really to differentiate him from any of the other scum-sucking bastards eager to earn a credit at the cost of some poor soul’s life. At least not until Caillen bypassed the security on his device and started going through his secure files.
While they searched the body, he isolated himself in a corner to review what their little hemorrhoid had been up to. Typical credit transfers that any butcher would have. Wanted postings where the perp had searched for victims…
Encryption just difficult enough to keep a low-level expert at bay and one interesting nugget he hadn’t been expecting.
He stepped out onto the balcony to make a call he didn’t want anyone to overhear.
Nykyrian Quiakides picked it up a few seconds later. “I can’t imagine what trouble you’re in now, Dagan. How many you need for an evac and how covert?”
Caillen snorted at Nyk’s dry, thickly accented tone. And for all of his bravado, the last time Caillen had told him he needed an evac, Nyk had told him to suck it up since he’d have started a war to pull him out of the Garvon prison. “Not that kind of trouble.”
“Who is she then?”
“That either. Damn, can’t I explain before you jump to conclusions?”
Nykyrian let out a dry laugh—something that had never left the former assassin’s lips before he’d married a few years ago. “By all means enlighten me. If this isn’t about a woman or your ass in jail, I’m definitely intrigued.”
Yeah, okay, Nyk had a point. Caillen glanced inside where they were putting the assassin into a body bag. “What is a tirador?”
“Context.”
Obviously the word had a multitude of meanings, so Caillen kept the explanation of his circumstances short and sweet. “I have a hitter on the floor with a League dagger who tried to off my father. His reader has him listed as one.”
“Listed by whom?”
Only Nykyrian would revert to formal language in such a hostile situation. “Can’t read that part—language unknown and the translator is unable to ID it. I’m forwarding it to you now.”
Nykyrian paused to read it. “He’s a civ-con under League orders acting as an instigator to cause conflict for your father.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone wants a war and they want to start it by assassinating your father. League doesn’t want it traced back to them, so they hired your stain to try. Bad thing is, he won’t be solo. Another will rise to the greed and take the shot.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
Caillen fell silent as he contemplated how many assassins would want to be a million credits richer… yeah… that was one long list. “So what do I do?”
“Duck.”
“Tired of the one-word answers, Nyk. I need a course of action here.”
“There’s nothing to be done, Dagan. You’d have to know who wants the war and why. I can guarantee you that all the stain might—and I use that word with all due sarcasm—have known was who hired him, and that would be a juiceless flunky who would die before he or she talked.”
“So in other words, don’t bother looking.”
“It would be a waste of time.”
Easier said than done. Caillen didn’t operate that way. “I can’t do nothing.”
“Fine,” Nykyrian said in a strained tone. “I’ll look into it, but I can’t make any promises. Just because the League gave me amnesty doesn’t mean I have friends there.” Nykyrian was the only League assassin who’d ever left the corps and lived. The latter being a testament to the man’s incredible fighting skills. To this day, the League wasn’t happy about it and if not for the fact that Nykyrian was heir to not one, but two, major empires and married to the daughter for a third, he’d still have a death sentence on his head.
Caillen paused as he saw Darling on the other side of the door. He motioned his friend outside where his father was talking, then closed the door so that the others wouldn’t overhear his conversation.
Frowning, Darling stood across from him and crossed his arms over his chest.
“What can I do to protect my dad?” Caillen asked Nykyrian.
“Not much. Tiradors are pretty hostile. More than that, they always frame someone for their actions—it’s what they’re paid to do.”
“How do you mean?”
“I meant what I said. He was there to not only kill your father but to pin the crime on an innocent. You search him, you’ll probably find evidence he was going to plant.”
“I did search him and found nothing.”
Nykyrian paused before he responded. “Then that’s a good sign. It means whoever hired your assassin is probably close enough that they wanted to plant the evidence themselves and didn’t trust him to do it.”
“To protect their identity?”
“Exactly.”
Which meant the person who wanted his father dead could easily be one of the people standing on the other side of the glass. Caillen narrowed his gaze at his uncle and the other advisors who surrounded his father.
One of them was a traitor…
He met Darling’s gaze that reiterated his own thoughts. “I need proof.”