Thomas froze. Is he or isn't he involved? Well, there was one way to find out.

"Yes, sir. Here's what happened and here's what I think is behind it."

Pachefski was being very obliging. He allowed Thomas's New Galveston Police escort access to the prison, and he let them guard Thomas and Maximilian Vigil as they crossed the detention center to the hospital.

Aliens have replaced Admiral Pachefski with a pod person.

Doctor Lotts detailed a chief health service technician to suture Thomas's cut, a seven-inch slash that went from his left lower ribs to midstomach. The technician did a subdermal row at the deepest point, a full centimeter deep where a bit of abdominal muscle had been sliced.

"No sit-ups for a while, Commander.""Umm." He was lying on his back sipping lemon electrolyte prescribed for blood loss.

The technician was just finishing when Thomas heard Vigil's voice in the next treatment room weeping, huge heartbreaking sobs. Oh God, they've found the daughter... and she's dead. Thomas waved the medtech aside and rolled to his feet. "One moment!" He stuck his head next around the corner.

Admiral Pachefski had returned. Vigil's good arm was clinging to a slight, dark-haired teenage girl and shaking with previously suppressed grief.

Pachefski was watching them, his face drawn, but he turned when he saw Thomas, and stepped out into the corridor.

"His daughter," he said, gesturing. "Whoever it was didn't touch her. She was actually in the camp, in her assigned compound, but says she was called over to the prison last night, ostensibly to see her father who was gravely ill. They left her in an interview room for twenty minutes, then sent her back, saying a mistake had been made-a different Vigil was sick, not her father."

The admiral took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. "You'd have to be stone to be unmoved by his face when I brought her in."

Thomas nodded. "Do you believe his story?"

Pachefski nodded. "Yes, until I have strong evidence to the contrary. The guards who were on the wall didn't belong in that unit. They relieved the regular guards, saying the unit CO had authorized it. The unit CO denies it, but he was at his desk, two hexes away, and the regular guards didn't check with him." He glared at Thomas as if this was somehow all Thomas's fault. "I hate to say this-" He shook his head again, his face contorted like a man sucking on lemons. "I really hate to say this, but you were right to avoid briefing me on your investigation. I have no idea how far this thing spreads."

Thomas looked away, embarrassed. He cleared his throat and asked neutrally, "Where are the false guards, now?" He let the medtech steer him back into the treatment room.

Admiral Pachefski followed. "We don't know. They faded almost immediately."

"And their names?"

Pachefski shook his head. "The regular guards think the names were Jones and Smith." He exchanged a cynical look with Thomas. "I've got over three thousand INS personnel in the prison alone. We're running the file pictures past the guards who should have been on duty, but I don't have much hope. This is ugly, Commander. Even uglier than that last mess you investigated."

The medtech stuck a medicated dressing over the stitches and then wrapped an elastic self-clinging bandage all the way around his torso to keep it in place."Did you find the real Armando Ortega?" Thomas asked the admiral.

"Yes. They simply switched them. Ortega was in Vigil's cellblock over on the minimum-security side. He's on his way right now." He was watching Thomas's face and quickly added, "I sent my aide and my orderly, both of whom have been with me for years. They know not to trust anybody else. And we checked his retina pattern."

Thomas subsided. The medtech went to a closet and pulled out a set of surgical scrubs. "Looks like you bled on your uniform pants, too, Commander. Would you like to borrow these until you can get another uniform?"

"Excellent, Chief. I appreciate it."

The medtech smiled and handed him the clothes, a piece of paper on top.

"Here's a handout on taking care of those sutures. The inner ones will dissolve, but you need to have the surface set pulled in ten days. The lidocaine is going to wear off in about an hour, so you might want something for pain. You get any of the symptoms on the list, you hightail it to a medical facility." He pulled a plastic bag out of a cabinet. "You can put your uniform in here."

"Aye, Chief. Thanks again."

Pachefski waited until the medtech left before speaking. "I imagine you'll be camped out here for quite some time, checking this out."

Thomas shook his head. "No, sir. Not a bit."

"What?"

"I believe this was an attempt to get me to divert my investigation, to turn it away from where it really belongs. Between your intelligence unit and facility CID, I'm sure your people can get to the bottom of what happened here last night and today."

He paused and drank some of the electrolyte. "I am concerned, though, about the Vigils. Would you consider an administrative discharge? I mean, the man was in for border crossing, right? What is that-three months? How much of it has he served?"

"The man tried to murder you!"

"The man is more of a victim than I am. Don't you have a daughter, Admiral?"

Pachefski looked away.

Thomas pressed the point. "I won't bring charges against him, but I'm afraid he's at risk. He's another one who could identify those involved. And they might snatch his daughter, to keep him from testifying."

Pachefski looked back. "The man did ten weeks of thirteen. Yeah, I have administrative leeway over misdemeanor offenders, but if these villains are INS, they could still get at him in the camp."Thomas nodded. "You let him go, and I'll get them sponsored into New Galveston and hidden. I'll take them now, when I go, after I've met with Ortega."

"I can't discharge Ortega. Felonious offenders require judicial review, and they're mad at him anyway, since he wouldn't cooperate."

Thomas nodded. "I understand." He offered his hand to the admiral. "I'm extremely grateful."

Pachefski stared at the hand for a moment and then shook it. "You're welcome."

Thomas walked through the hospital to a public comm terminal.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

NEED HIDDEN SANCTUARY.

FROM THE MOUTH OF HELL.

YOUR UNCLE PERHAPS.

T.

They moved the Vigils down to an empty observation room guarded by the civilian police. Thomas met with Armando Ortega in an empty lounge down the hall.

"Buenos dias, Armando. Es bueno verlo."

Armando looked surprised. "Senor Cicatrizado. Mucho gusto." He pointed at the surgical scrubs Thomas was wearing. "Es un doctor ahora?"

Thomas lifted up the shirt to show the bandage. "Se cortada. Mi uniforme esta ensangrentado."

"Que lastima!"

Thomas shrugged and showed Armando the copies of the forged ID's. "

Conoces a estas personas?"

Armando glanced at the pages and his eyes widened slightly. He handed them back without looking any closer. "No puedo decir." He licked his lips and looked around the room.

Cannot say? "Por que?"

Armando shrugged.

Thomas tried shock. He tapped the pages and said, "Todos estan muertos.

Todos ellos." All dead. Every one of them.

Armando turned white and sank down onto the lounge's couch. "Esto rompe el acuerdo!"

What agreement is broken? "Cual acuerdo?"Armando seemed no longer in the room, his gaze far away and distressed. "Entre las Encinas y el Cartel de Gomez."

"El cartel de la droga? En Colombia?"

Armando came back to himself and stared up at Thomas. "Que? Nada. No tiene sentido."

Thomas tried for several more minutes, but while Armando was polite, he wouldn't expound further on what he had said. He would only repeat, "No tiene sentido." Only a thing without sense: nonsense.

Reluctantly, he turned Armando back over to the admiral's aide. "Try to keep him alive, please."

"The admiral has taken special measures. Solitary and guards who'll watch each other as well as him."

Thomas's pager went off before he went into the Vigils.

IVE A SOFTNESS FOR FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS.

THRICE WELCOME.

MY UNCLE AWAITS THY PLEASURE.

IF YOU ARENT WITH THEM.

THE WORD IS.

DROWNED VIOLA.

P.

I love you, Patricia.

14.

Beenan: Los colores

After Thomas left, Patricia's mother told her, "Your father and I knew each other for four years before we became engaged. Didn't guarantee a successful marriage." She leaned over and kissed Patricia. "Just a wonderful child." The congresswoman blew her nose. "You do what's right for you."

Patricia stared back, openmouthed. Aliens have replaced my mother with a pod person.They ate a room-service lunch together and for the first time in a long time, Patricia felt she'd found her mother again. Maybe we're both done blaming each other for Dad's death.

She left after lunch, reluctantly, to let her mother pursue her official agenda.

When she got Thomas's page, she went to a public phone, voice only, to ask Tio Rodolfo if he would take in Thomas's "father and daughter." Rodolfo had agreed with remarkably few questions, which made Patricia very uneasy. What if these two were a disaster, throwing the restaurant into disorder? Or thieves?

Oh, Thomas, I must trust you a great deal.

She sent the page and returned to the Posada del angel, alternating between staring at her engagement ring and worrying about Rodolfo and the refugees.

Finally, unable to avoid it, she did a full makeup job: foundation, powder, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, mascara, and lipstick; then she put on the "rig"-the false boobs, the shoulder strap, and the boots with lifts, plus a newly purchased dress, a white linen sundress that she had to admit she'd bought to maximize her false cleavage. Take that, Angela Bustamonte!

The Posada del angel was in the same subdivision as Cosas Muertas del Mar, but she took a water taxi anyway, from the far side. The driver kept turning his head until Patricia said, "No tip if we run into something."

He grinned and kept more of his attention on the water.

Standing on the wharf at the restaurant, she rewarded him by bending forward when she paid him. His eyes never met her face.

She shook her head, amused and disturbed. O, peace! now he's deeply in: look how imagination blows him. Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

Tio Rodolfo was standing at the reception station. He'd watched Patricia arrive but moved his eyes back out to the bay to watch traffic. He handed a menu to Ferdinand, one of his nephews, and nodded toward Patricia, but his attention was still out there on the traffic.

Ferdinand approached. "One for dinner, senorita?" He was very dignified, very serious, which Patricia thought funny since his usual manner was comic, snapping dish towels at the busboys and imitating the more pompous customers back in the kitchen.

She said, in an artificially husky voice, "Go on, Ferdi, I want to talk to Rodolfo."

Ferdinand looked puzzled. "As you wish, senorita." He clearly didn't recognize her. He conducted her over to Tio Rodolfo. "La dama quiere hablar con usted."

"Madam?" Rodolfo turned and bowed slightly. "How may I be of service?"She took the menu from Ferdinand and put it back with the others in the reception station. With the husky voice she said, "Run along, Ferdi. Privado."

Ferdi bowed and backed away, searching his uncle's face for a clue, but Rodolfo was also puzzled.

"I see you know my nephew."

She used her own voice. "Claro que si, Tio. Como mi hermanito."

Rodolfo's jaw dropped. "Patricia?"

"Shhh. It's a disguise-un disfraz."

He shut his mouth and looked her up and down. "Muy atractivo," he finally said.