Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 69

He squirmed for a few more seconds, then shook his head and sighed.

“She is someone my father knew in the army,” he said. “Someone from his unit. We talked about guns one day, and she told me where I could find one to buy. Her name is Elin.”

“Does Elin have a last name?” Dahl probed.

“Elin Sorenson. Corporal Elin Sorenson. But we have not talked in weeks. I do not even know where she lives. I just ran into her one day on the Artery ride home from the spaceport. We met a few times after that, but always out in the city, after work.”

“You know what happened the last time you gave us a name and we went looking,” Idina said. “You can’t be dumb enough to believe we’ll fall for the same trick again.”

“I did not know,” Haimo said. “You said to be honest. I am being honest, I swear it. You know I support what they do. I am not sorry those invaders are dead. But I had no idea what the Wolves were planning.”

I don’t doubt that, Idina thought. If these people are military veterans, they know better than to let some expendable kid in on their operational plans.

She exchanged a glance with Dahl, which told her that the other woman had roughly the same assessment of that answer.

“So Corporal Elin Sorenson said she knew your father. And she told you about Odin’s Wolves,” Dahl continued. “Go on.”

“We got to talking after that thing on Principal Square a few months back,” Haimo said. “The bombing. Everyone at work said it was the Alliance because most of the dead were loyalists. She did not tell me anything about the Wolves at first. I was telling her that I wished I knew how to fight back while we still can. Before we become just a Rhodian labor colony with Palladian guards.”

He glanced at Idina again.

“She set me up with Vigi. She gave me a loan, too. For the gun. A thousand ags. I told her I would pay her back over time. She said I could make payments whenever I had anything to spare, no hurry.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Dahl asked.

From the way his face reddened and his eyes darted around the room before settling on a spot half a meter in front of his feet, Idina knew the answer.

“She is young. Much younger than my father,” he said in a slightly defensive tone.

“So you are together. But you have not seen her in a few weeks.”

Haimo shrugged.

“She is taking a trip south to Skalanes. To stay with family for a bit. And we are not together. We are just bed friends sometimes. You know how it works. I do not have time to be with anyone.”

“I am sure that is exactly what she told you,” Dahl said. She looked at Idina and sighed. “Young people can be such simpletons. Soak a juvenile brain in hormones, and it turns into modeling putty.”

“It would have been better if you had told us the full story two days ago,” Idina said to Haimo. “You must realize by now that they used you to get us to go after Fuldas.”

Haimo shrugged again.

“If that is true, then I have done my share for the Wolves. Once they win, they will open the detention facilities. And people like me will get to leave first. The political prisoners.”

Idina suppressed a snort.

“Political prisoners,” she said.

“That is what I am.”

“What you are,” she said, “is a single-use tool. And they just used and discarded you.”

She could tell he wanted to contradict her, maybe mouth off with something clever, but her warning from earlier still seemed to be fresh in his mind because he bit off his response.

“Fuldas was far more useful to them than you are,” she continued. “And they killed him without a second thought when they sprung that trap. Just to tie up a loose end before it could get off the planet and out of their reach. What do you think they would do with you if you weren’t in here?”

She shook her head. The rage from earlier had dissipated, leaving only disgust behind in its wake.

“Think about that sometime. In between your fantasies about Elin giving you a hero’s welcome.”

“Do you believe him?” Dahl asked when they left the interrogation room half an hour later, satisfied they’d squeezed every drop of useful information out of Haimo’s brain.

“I believe that he believed everything he told us,” Idina replied. “Whoever recruited him knew exactly what they had in him, and how to use him best. And we fell for it.”

“They must have known he would give us the rest,” Dahl said. “That is why he only knew one contact other than Fuldas. That way you know exactly who talked when the police come calling. And one person cannot compromise more than one other person in the group.”

“So Elin probably knows by now she’s been burned.”

Dahl nodded.

“If there even is an Elin. They have groomed him for this. They know how to operate in covert cell structures. I very much doubt they would make a mistake and give up one of their own by accident like that. I think that when we go looking for that name, we will find that she died in the war. Or that she never existed.”

“There was somebody,” Idina said. “Whatever her name is, she recruited this kid. Slept with him, groomed him. Put thoughts of glorious nonsense in his head. Spent time with him in the city. They rode the Artery together. You dig deep enough, you’ll discover a face to go with the name. Just look at wherever he popped up in the last three months, and sooner or later you’ll find her, too.”

Dahl smiled and shook her head lightly.

“Listen to you, giving me investigative pointers. Maybe you have come to like this line of work more than you admit.”

“No, thank you. Not enough interrogation