“The truth,” Anderson said grimly.

  “And C-Sec?”

  “We’ll contact them immediately after we talk to Nick’s parents.”

  Kahlee sighed. “They live on Anhur. I met them at the academy. I’ll work on a call.”

  “Use my priority—it could take days otherwise.”

  The call didn’t go well. Nick’s father was furious. He blamed Anderson and Kahlee for his son’s disappearance, calling them “careless” and “negligent.”

  Nick’s mother was a little more understanding, but not much, and broke into tears when she saw the holo. Both parents wanted to board a ship for the Citadel to join the hunt for their son but lacked the money required to do so. Anderson assured them that C-Sec would be notified immediately—and that both he and Kahlee would participate in the search.

  Nick’s mother was concerned about the possibility that Nick would break off all communications the way he had threatened to, but eventually surrendered to arguments put forward by the others, and left her husband to complete the call. By the time it was over both Anderson and Kahlee felt even worse than they had before.

  It was getting late by then, but they knew it was important to start the search as quickly as possible, so Anderson called a C-Sec officer named Amy Varma. She’d been one of Anderson’s aides before he retired from the navy and was currently working as a shift supervisor in C-Sec’s Customs Division. That meant she could help them file a missing person report—and ensure that the Citadel’s customs personnel were watching for Nick. Otherwise the shadowy biotics who had befriended the boy might try to take him off the space station. Varma promised to warn her people immediately.

  It had been a long and exhausting day. So Anderson and Kahlee ate a simple dinner and went to bed hoping C-Sec would find Nick during the artificial night and the whole episode would be over before morning. But it wasn’t to be. At the point when the alarm went off and they rolled out of bed, the only call waiting in their inbox was from a volus-run travel agency trying to interest Kahlee in a trip to Earth.

  So they showered, ate a quick breakfast, and went to meet with Varma. The officer had short black hair, bangs that fell halfway down her forehead, and brown eyes. They were bright with intelligence and Kahlee took an immediate liking to the young woman as she came out of her glassed-in office to meet them. The Customs Division was headquartered in one of the towers that circled the station’s inner ring. “Admiral Anderson. It’s good to see you again, sir. And Miss Sanders is ex-military as well, I believe.”

  The last was said with a smile and Kahlee responded in kind as they shook hands. “It’s been awhile, but yes. Have you been reading my file?”

  “Of course,” Varma said unapologetically. “With a case like this there’s no way to know what kind of information will turn out to be important.”

  “So, no luck?” Anderson inquired.

  “Nothing actionable I’m afraid. But all of our people are on high alert, so who knows? We could get lucky. In the meantime Central Command has been hard at work. So we have some images to review. Please follow me.”

  Anderson and Kahlee followed Varma down a sterile-looking hallway. “CENTCOM terminals are located at various places on the Citadel,” Varma explained. “And all of them are restricted. So we’ll have to pause for a scan.”

  Once cleared through the security checkpoint Anderson and Kahlee found themselves in a chilly room. The dome-shaped space was lined with what Kahlee thought were colorful tiles until the salarian seated at the center of the room pointed a wand at one of them. It blossomed into a large three-dimensional holo of a batarian holding his hands up. A pair of uniformed officers entered the shot moments later with their weapons drawn.

  “As you know there are hundreds of thousands of security cameras on the Citadel,” Varma said, as the holo was drawn back into the video mosaic covering the walls and ceiling. “And by monitoring them we’re able to respond to violent crimes within a matter of minutes. Fraud, confidence games, and the like are harder to detect as they take place. But later we can go back and search CENTCOM for relevant evidence. And that’s what we did in this case.

  “The photo you provided was uploaded to CENTCOM along with a command to scan all images of Nick Donahue captured since the moment you discovered he was missing. And here’s what it came up with. Officer Urbo? Roll the video for case number 482.976 please.”

  Urbo was seated on a raised platform behind a curved semitransparent control panel. His fingers seemed to flicker as he entered the number into a ghostly looking keyboard. Moments later another six-meter-tall holo appeared. It quickly became apparent that snippets of video from many different cameras had been edited together to create a jerky but nevertheless telling record of Nick’s movements after he left the Citadel Tower.

  Anderson and Kahlee watched via a number of camera angles as their charge passed through the Presidium, took public transportation home, and disappeared into their apartment building. The next shot was a time lapse that showed Nick leaving twelve minutes later. And there, waiting outside, were two individuals. Ocosta Lem and Arrius Sallus. Varma ordered Urbo to freeze the holo. “Here they are,” she said. “The biotics you told us about.

  “And, as it turns out, they had come to our attention before. Both have been involved in political demonstrations on behalf of an organization called the Biotic Underground. A couple of the gatherings turned ugly when some antibiotic pure breeders turned up and our friends began to throw people around. Officer Urbo has one of the scuffles cued up for you to take a look at. Watch the people in the background.”

  The holo jerked into motion. The image had been captured in an area where thousands of menial workers lived. Lem could be seen in the foreground “lifting” an irate turian off the ground. As that took place an illuminated circle appeared off to the right. It wobbled for a moment before settling over a very familiar face. Nick was not only there, but judging from the expression on his face, entranced by what was taking place. “So,” Varma said, “it looks like Lem and Sallus found what they were looking for. A new supporter.”

  “Nick’s more than that,” Kahlee observed. “He’s a Level Two biotic with the potential to become a three. So they could use him in all sorts of ways.”

  “Good point,” Varma agreed. “And all the more reason to keep looking.”

  “So where did they go from the apartment?” Anderson wanted to know.

  “They disappeared,” Varma said simply. “They knew about the cameras, everyone does, and were last seen in the red ward entering a restaurant with Nick. I sent an officer down to check the place out. A back door opens onto a narrow pedway. All three cameras in that area had been disabled by a local street gang.”

  “And the gang was paid off by the biotics,” Anderson said sourly.

  “That’s the way it looks,” Varma agreed.

  “But then what?” Kahlee inquired. “Surely you were able to pick them up somewhere else.”

  Varma shook her head. “Not so far. But we’ll keep looking.”

  “What about Nick’s omni-tool?” Anderson wanted to know. “Can you track it?”

  “We have it,” Varma countered. “The signal led us to a bin under a public disposal chute. There’s another possibility though … One I hate to bring up. A place we haven’t checked.”

  Kahlee frowned. “Where’s that?”

  “The morgue.”

  ABOARD THE LINER PARSUS II

  There were times when Kai Leng was required to deal with various forms of hardship. This wasn’t one of them. After receiving his orders from the Illusive Man, Leng traveled to Illium where he booked a passage on the Parsus II, which was bound for the Citadel. And, in keeping with the identity he had chosen, Leng was traveling first class. That meant he could watch the arrival process from the comfort of his suite rather than one of the public areas where lesser passengers were gathered.

  During Faster Than Light travel it was impossible to see anything, so the floor-to-ceiling viewport that occupied the outside wall of his cabin was filled with beautiful starscapes provided by the ship’s NAVCOMP. But after entering normal space Leng could see the incredible space station that functioned as the political, economic, and cultural center of the galaxy. The Citadel resembled a piece of fantastic jewelry surrounded by luminous particles that were actually stars.

  But before the Parsus or any other ship could dock with the Citadel it was necessary to get rid of the powerful charge that had accumulated in the ship’s drive core during FTL flight. That was accomplished by pausing at one of the free-floating space stations designed for that purpose. It was a tiresome business, but absolutely necessary for safety reasons, and gave Leng the opportunity to enjoy the space-going equivalent of a fireworks show as the Parsus came alongside a discharge station and fingers of coruscating blue light strobed the inky blackness. Then, having been cleared, the liner was free to proceed.

  The better part of three hours passed before the Parsus was allowed to dock with the Citadel. Being a first-class passenger had its advantages and Leng was among those allowed to leave the ship first. The Cerberus operative was equipped with a pair of self-propelled suitcases that trundled along behind him as he left the ship. It wasn’t that he needed everything stored in them, but the luggage served to support his cover story and provided more things for the customs officers to inspect. Because the more material they had to look at the less time would be spent on each individual item, thereby increasing the likelihood that agents would miss the fact that his cane could be converted into a rifle barrel—that the ornate carving set acquired on Illium included a razor-sharp knife that could be used for slicing just about anything.

  So Leng felt a not altogether unpleasant sense of tension as he led his suitcases across a causeway and into customs. A turian with white facial tattoos was seated behind a waist-high counter. “Good afternoon, sir. Passport please.”

  The folder that Leng handed over was nothing more than a frame for a chip on which information regarding his false identity had been painstakingly recorded by one of the first-class forgers that worked for Cerberus. The idea was to protect his real identity for as long as possible. A tone sounded as the turian slid the passport into a reader and CENTCOM acknowledged that the chip was properly formatted. “Thank you, Mr. Forbes,” the customs officer said, as he eyed the screen. “Look at the scanner, please.”

  Leng knew the moment of truth was at hand. Would the colored contacts he was wearing spoof the retinal scanner the way they were supposed to? Or set off an alarm and bring a quick response team down on him? His heart beat a little bit faster as he took a step forward and turned right. A tone sounded and the turian removed the passport from the reader. “Welcome to the Citadel, Mr. Forbes. Please proceed to station two.”

  Leng smiled. The specially designed contacts were a success. “Thank you.”

  Flashing arrows led Leng and his suitcases to station two, where a robot was waiting to lift his luggage up onto a stainless-steel table. A uniformed officer greeted him, asked Leng to open both cases, and gave the contents a cursory examination. The cane, which he continued to lean on, went uninspected. “Welcome to the Citadel,” the officer said, as he motioned to the robot. “Please follow the floor lights out to the arrival area.”

  Leng ordered the suitcases to close themselves, waited for the robot to place them on the floor, and made his way out into a large room where a crowd of about a hundred people was waiting to greet friends or relatives who had arrived on the Parsus. From there it was a short walk to the Presidium. Leng was on the Citadel—the Illusive Man would be pleased.

  Thousands of people died on the Citadel each day. Most of them were identified within a few minutes or hours at most. Then, in accordance with the directives they had left behind, or in keeping with instructions from the next of kin, their bodies were shipped to whatever planet they called home, or disposed of on the Citadel itself.

  But there were some, a few hundred each day, that went unidentified. So on the chance that Nick had been murdered, Anderson and Kahlee had agreed to take the grisly stroll through the section of the space station’s morgue dedicated to bodies waiting to be identified. They could be seen inside gas-filled capsules, each standing as if still alive, eyes closed.

  Only twenty-two percent of them were human. That made the process a bit easier. But it was still hard to take and Kahlee was grateful as they followed Varma out of the morgue and into a brightly lit hallway. “I’m glad that’s over. Thank god Nick wasn’t there.”

  Varma nodded. “I’m sorry you had to go through it, but now we know. That’s all we can do for the moment. I’ll let you know if any new leads come in.”

  “So what now?” Kahlee inquired, as they followed the flow of foot traffic to the elevator that would take them up to the Presidium level. “Any ideas?”

  “Yes,” Anderson replied. “First we need to have dinner. A good one. Then we’ll go home and get ready for tomorrow. I’m going to become a shady businessman—and you’ll play the part of my girlfriend.”

  “I am your girlfriend.”

  Anderson smiled. “Yes, you are. That makes you perfect for the role.”

  Kahlee laughed. Anderson liked the sound of it. Their relationship had begun when they joined forces to battle the Spectre named Saren, been interrupted by the requirements of two different careers, and rekindled when the threat represented by Cerberus brought them together again. “So,” Kahlee said, “why are we going to play dress-up?”

  “Because as we used to say in the navy, there’s the way we’re supposed to do things, and there’s the way we actually do things.”

  “Which means?”

  “Which means that while C-Sec continues to do things by the book we’re going to break the rules.”

  Kahlee smiled as they strolled out into the artificial sunlight. “A naughty admiral. I like it. Come on,” she said. “I’m in the mood for an asari stir-fry tonight.”

  He grinned. “And for dessert?”

  “That,” Kahlee said, “is for me to know and for you to find out.”

  They rose early the next morning and ate at a local restaurant before beginning the journey into one of the Citadel’s more dangerous neighborhoods. Anderson was dressed in an expensive business suit of the sort that was way too flashy for an actual businessman. A stylish wraparound visor concealed his eyes and part of his face. And Kahlee was attired the way his companion should be, in a formfitting emerald green pantsuit with lots of gold jewelry.

  But the most impressive part of the disguise was a krogan bodyguard Anderson had hired through a security firm. His name was Tark, he was dressed in light body armor, and he was armed with a stunner and baton. Both of which were properly licensed. The idea was to make Anderson and Kahlee look like bona fide members of the Citadel’s underworld.

  So as they dropped two levels down, and gradually entered what was both literally and figuratively the underworld, Tark led the way. Just the sight of him was sufficient to keep beggars, street thugs, and pickpockets at bay. Of course, the hulking bodyguard drew attention as well—and that made Kahlee feel uncomfortable. “Where are we headed again?”

  “We’re going to visit a batarian named Nodi Banca. He runs a company called Camala Exports. And, according to my old friend Barla Von, he’s an expert at getting things off the Citadel. That means cheap manufactured goods for the most part. But Von says that Banca has been known to smuggle people too.”

  Kahlee had met Von and knew the volus to be a financial whiz who had helped Anderson before. “Which means that the Biotic Alliance could have hired Camala Exports to get Lem, Sallus, and Nick off the station,” she said. “But how likely is that?”

  “Not very,” Anderson admitted. “But C-Sec is working on everything else so it’s worth a try.”

  A group of rough-looking types scattered as Tark plowed through them and led his clients down a sloping ramp. A great deal of the Citadel had been reworked over thousands of years to keep it functional and to meet the needs of the millions who lived there.

  But the lower they went the more Anderson was reminded of the station’s true origins. The Reapers were responsible for the basic structure of it, including the invulnerable hull and the massive machinery that enabled it to open and close. But the hallways, ramps, and other structures that surrounded Anderson were the work of the various races that had chosen to occupy the Citadel.

  The threesome were directly beneath one of the Citadel’s major spaceports by that time, in an area that was thick with manufacturers, warehouses, and shippers. Spacers, business types, and all manner of dockworkers, technicians, and vendors were forced to make way as Tark took a right and led the humans down a gloomy passageway. A glowing sign could be seen at the other end. It read, “CAMALA EXPO TS.”

  Two batarians were slouched against opposite walls. They came to attention as Tark approached them and one issued a challenge. He was armed with a length of decorated steel pipe. “That’s far enough, big boy … Who are you looking for?”

  “We’re looking for your boss,” Anderson said as he stepped forward. “Tell him that a potential customer is here to see him.”

  The batarian blinked all four eyes at once. “What’s your name?”

  “Ray Narkin.” There was a real Ray Narkin. A shady type who had been in trouble with C-Sec on numerous occasions but had never been convicted of anything serious enough to get him shipped to a prison planet. If Banca took the trouble to go online he’d see a list of Narkin’s crimes right next to a picture of Anderson. It was a simple hack that was likely to go unnoticed unless Narkin objected and put it right.

  “Wait here,” the batarian said. “I’ll see if Mr. Banca has time to see you.”

  “You do that,” Anderson said casually. “But don’t take too long. We don’t have all day.”

  Tark and the second batarian spent the next three minutes trying to stare each other down, Anderson pretended to send messages via his omni-tool, and Kahlee took the opportunity to examine her makeup in a small hand mirror. Then the door slid open and the first batarian motioned for them to enter. “The boss will see you now … But the krogan stays outside.”