Duarte stood and moved to the door, not touching it, but looking. His head bent a degree. “This isn’t the sort of thing we talk about. I don’t break the chain of command.”
“I respect that,” Alex said. “I’m not asking you to be disloyal to anyone. Only I have some information, you maybe have some too. I’ll tell you what I’m comfortable sharing, you do the same. Maybe we can do each other some good.”
“I have an investigation in progress.”
“Anything I give you, I don’t mind your passing on,” Alex said. “And maybe it’d be best if it was like that for you too.”
Duarte considered, his lips pressing together. “All right. What have you got?”
“Blips in the inventories. Things that got lost or destroyed that showed up again later. Weapons. Medical supplies.”
“Ships?”
“Yeah,” Alex said. “Ships.”
“Give me a name.”
“Apalala.”
Duarte seemed to deflate. He went to his desk and sank into the chair behind it, but when he spoke, his voice had a relaxed tone that made Alex feel like he’d passed a test. Like the false and cordial ease that had begun the meeting had fallen away like a mask.
“That’s one I’ve been looking at too,” Duarte said.
“What are you seeing?”
“I don’t know. Not exactly. We’re stretched thin. You know that?”
“People heading out for the new planets.”
“Inventories are running slow. I think more of them are being dry-labbed than anyone wants to admit. I’ve been trying to convince the admiral that it’s a problem, but either she doesn’t understand or…”
“Or?”
Duarte didn’t finish his thought. “There has been a pattern of attacks too. They may be political or it may just be theft and piracy. You heard about the attack on Callisto?”
“Heard about it.”
“Have you come across anything about it particularly?”
“No.”
Duarte clenched his jaw in disappointment. “There was something about that one that bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it. The timing was precise. The attack was well coordinated. And for what? To loot a shipyard?”
“What did they take?”
Duarte’s gaze clicked onto Alex. His smile was sorrowful. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. I think nobody will ever know, because I can’t even figure out what was there. That’s how bad it is.”
Alex scowled. “You’re telling me that the Martian Navy doesn’t know where its own ships are?”
“I’m telling you that the tracking of supplies, ships, and material has all but collapsed. We don’t know what’s missing because we don’t know. And I’m telling you that the leadership is so focused on trying not to lose face in front of Earth and the OPA that they’re downplaying it.”
“Covering it up.”
“Downplaying it,” Duarte said. “Prime Minister Smith is making a big show right now of taking a convoy to Luna to meet with the UN secretary-general and swearing that everything’s fine, and he’s doing that because it isn’t true. If I were a criminal and a black marketer, all this would look like a permanent Christmas.”
Alex said something obscene. Duarte opened his desk and took out a pad of paper and a silver pen. He wrote for a moment, then tore off the sheet and handed it across the desk. In precise, legible handwriting he’d written KAARLO HENDERSON-CHARLES and an address in base housing. The act of physically writing something down, not trusting the information to electronic transfer, felt like either sensible precaution or paranoia. Alex wasn’t sure which.
“While you’re here, I’d recommend talking to Kaarlo. He’s a senior programmer that’s been working on a project that was supposed to coordinate the databases. He was the one who came to me first to say he was seeing problems. If you have specific questions, he may be able to give you answers. Or he may be able to point you to where they are.”
“Will he help me?”
“He may,” Duarte said. “I did.”
“Could you… give him cover?”
“No,” Duarte said, with his sad smile. “I’m not ordering anyone to do anything with you. No offense. You’re not Navy anymore. Whatever we do, you and I, we do as part of my investigation. And I report all of it, down to the letter, to the admiral.”
“Covering your ass.”
“Hell yes,” Duarte said. “You should do the same.”
“Yes, sir,” Alex said.
Fermín wasn’t in the waiting area when he left, so Alex went out and caught one of the moving walkways heading east, toward base housing. His head felt a little light, like he’d been running the oxygen too lean for too long.