[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"Yes, sir."
They reached an intersection, one corridor leading up to the flight bay,
the other down into the lower levels where the Tek Labs and medical
centre were located. Kontarsky took two steps toward the upper levels
before she realised Dredd wasn't walking with her. "Sir?" she repeated.
"What are you doing?"
"What is necessary. Come on, let's go talk to J'aele. I've got a job for
him."
The Simba City Tek-Judge placed his hands flat on the desktop and
shook his head. "Out of the question. Frankly, Judge Dredd, I am shocked
that you would even ask me to do such a thing."
"Too difficult for you?" Dredd asked lightly. "I'll understand if it's
something beyond your skills."
J'aele's eyes narrowed. "I can do it. I just don't want to."
"Remember when Che said we were an autonomous investigation
team? That means we have free rein to pursue this matter wherever it
leads."
"Even if that risks an international incident?"
Dredd gave him a level look. "You know as well as any of us that all
secured records of Judge Rodriguez will be purged from the system the
moment his corpse leaves the city. I'm not asking you to break the law."
"No, but you are asking me to bend it and bend it a lot."
"I could make it a direct order."
"I would refuse."
"Really?" Kontarsky broke in, watching him over the top of the monitor
screen in the Tek Lab cubicle. "And then what? You would be relieved and
shipped home on the next flight& and I think that the reception you would
get there would not be a warm one, da?"
J'aele's expression darkened. "No," he said at length. "It would not. I&
was not favoured by the commanders of the Simba Justice Division."
Dredd mentally ticked off another conjecture. As he suspected, J'aele
was another problem case, an officer sent to Luna-1 as some kind of
punishment for a misdeed back home. But for now that didn't matter. He
leaned forward. "You know as well as any one of us that we're on the clock,
J'aele. I need to see the autopsy report on Rodriguez."
"Why don't you just ask Judge-Marshal Tex?"
"He has other concerns right now& And I'm not sure we can trust Tex's
people," Dredd said quietly. "I'm not going to take the chance."
J'aele crossed his arms. "And what makes you think you can trust me?"
"I'm a good judge of character," retorted Dredd, "and besides, if you're
willing to admit it to me or not, you want to bust this case as much as the
rest of us, if for no other reason than to show the folks back home how
wrong they were about you."
A broad grin crept across the African Judge's ebony features. "You have
an eye for people's flaws, I'll give you that. All right, I'll do it." J'aele began
to work the keyboard before him, swiftly tapping into the medical centre's
data core, descending though layers of stored information. "What do we
tell them if the South Americans catch us with our noses in their
business? If they detect me, it could be very bad."
"Then don't let them catch you," said Kontarsky.
Dredd watched the holo-screen in front of the Tek-Judge writhe and
flex like a live thing, panels popping open and closed as he navigated
through dense storehouses of material, circumventing pass codes and
security protocols. "You're good at this," he remarked. "You've done it
before."
J'aele nodded. "I'm part of the central computer division's tiger team.
One of my duties up here is to monitor data defence strength from outside
hack-attacks. We regularly simulate data penetration by staging mock
raids on our own systems, looking for loopholes." He frowned. "No matter
how hard we try, though, those Moon-U perps are still getting in. It's
infuriating."
Kontarsky said what Dredd was thinking. "Do you suspect the
involvement of an insider?"
J'aele shrugged, still typing at a furious rate. "There are Judges from all
over the world stationed here. Odds are that some of them will have
viewpoints opposed to the people in power& " His words trailed off as a
scroll of text began to march up the screen. "Here. We're in."
"That was fast," noted Dredd.
The Tek-Judge made a casual gesture. "I told you I could do it."
Kontarsky scrutinised the data. "It may have been for nothing. I don't
see anything unusual here. It is as Che said, just, the basic report."
"Freeze it there," Dredd interrupted. He pointed a gloved finger at a
blank section of the virtual document. "There should be a comparative
DNA scan listed. It's a standard stage-one post-mortem procedure."
"You're sure?" asked Kontarsky.
The senior Judge nodded. "I've signed off enough death certificates in
my time to know the difference. Any Med-Tek examining Rodriguez would
have done that, even on a quick check."
J'aele studied the display, working the console. "Dredd is correct. This
is suspicious. I'm finding broken data tags in this part of the file."
"Which means?"
"The comparative DNA scan was entered here, but then it was erased.
Rather sloppily, too." The Tek-Judge ran a few more commands and a
cluster of red indicators blinked into life on the screen. "And that's not all.
This file has been tampered with. Someone altered Rodriguez's autopsy
report after the fact."
Dredd's brow furrowed. "Who has access to these records? Who could
do that?"
"Senior medical department staff& " J'aele tapped out another string of
commands. "The senior technician on duty today was Sanjeev Maktoh."
Kontarsky was already speaking into her helmet mike. "Control, query
and locate Sanjeev Maktoh."
"Checking& " came the reply. "Confirming, Maktoh, Sanjeev. Justice
Central medical department civilian auxiliary, Indo-Cit resident on lunar
placement. He checked out from work a couple of hours ago, logging
absent due to sickness."
"It's him!" she snapped. "Dredd, he must be the one."
"I need an address," Dredd told J'aele.
The African Judge nodded and flickered through to a personnel file.
"Here it is. Ventner Boulevard, con-apt 44/LK/31."
Dredd threw J'aele a nod. "Good work."
J'aele sighed heavily. "Just don't tell anyone I gave in so easily."
Ventner Boulevard was in the midst of one of the central dome's
mid-level residential districts, well appointed with a handful of block
parks and shopperias between the stubby half-ovoids of the con-apt
buildings. Maktoh's small two-pod habitat module was on the thirty-first
floor, facing outward. Dredd and Kontarsky made a landing on a nearby
Multistack, giving them a clear line of sight into the medical technician's
apartment.
Kontarsky studied the windows through a compact pair of Sov-issue
binox. "I see movement inside. A single person, I believe. He appears quite
agitated."
Dredd accepted the field glasses and took a look for himself. "He's
packing a bag. What do you reckon, he's already bought a ticket back
Earthside?"
She nodded her agreement. "If he's running scared, that might explain
why he made such a bad job of doctoring the autopsy report. His disquiet
could be helpful in interrogation."
"Agreed. We'll take him now. You go through the front door."
"You're not coming with me?"
Dredd gunned the Krait 3000's gravity drive. "I'll be around."
Sanjeev caught his foot on the trailing cuff of a shirt dangling out of the
pile of clothes in his hands and tripped over. He landed on the suitcase
that lay open on his folda-bed and it flipped, spilling out the contents he'd
frantically packed into a mess of unkempt clothing. He fell to his knees
and had to struggle to keep from crying. Sanjeev's stomach turned over
and he felt the same about-to-throw-up sensation that had been dogging
him since the phone call.
That voice at the other end of the line. Menacing him, intimidating,
making veiled threats about what would happen to his mother and father,
his wife and the pod where they lived in Indo City. He had done as the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl karpacz24.htw.pl
"Yes, sir."
They reached an intersection, one corridor leading up to the flight bay,
the other down into the lower levels where the Tek Labs and medical
centre were located. Kontarsky took two steps toward the upper levels
before she realised Dredd wasn't walking with her. "Sir?" she repeated.
"What are you doing?"
"What is necessary. Come on, let's go talk to J'aele. I've got a job for
him."
The Simba City Tek-Judge placed his hands flat on the desktop and
shook his head. "Out of the question. Frankly, Judge Dredd, I am shocked
that you would even ask me to do such a thing."
"Too difficult for you?" Dredd asked lightly. "I'll understand if it's
something beyond your skills."
J'aele's eyes narrowed. "I can do it. I just don't want to."
"Remember when Che said we were an autonomous investigation
team? That means we have free rein to pursue this matter wherever it
leads."
"Even if that risks an international incident?"
Dredd gave him a level look. "You know as well as any of us that all
secured records of Judge Rodriguez will be purged from the system the
moment his corpse leaves the city. I'm not asking you to break the law."
"No, but you are asking me to bend it and bend it a lot."
"I could make it a direct order."
"I would refuse."
"Really?" Kontarsky broke in, watching him over the top of the monitor
screen in the Tek Lab cubicle. "And then what? You would be relieved and
shipped home on the next flight& and I think that the reception you would
get there would not be a warm one, da?"
J'aele's expression darkened. "No," he said at length. "It would not. I&
was not favoured by the commanders of the Simba Justice Division."
Dredd mentally ticked off another conjecture. As he suspected, J'aele
was another problem case, an officer sent to Luna-1 as some kind of
punishment for a misdeed back home. But for now that didn't matter. He
leaned forward. "You know as well as any one of us that we're on the clock,
J'aele. I need to see the autopsy report on Rodriguez."
"Why don't you just ask Judge-Marshal Tex?"
"He has other concerns right now& And I'm not sure we can trust Tex's
people," Dredd said quietly. "I'm not going to take the chance."
J'aele crossed his arms. "And what makes you think you can trust me?"
"I'm a good judge of character," retorted Dredd, "and besides, if you're
willing to admit it to me or not, you want to bust this case as much as the
rest of us, if for no other reason than to show the folks back home how
wrong they were about you."
A broad grin crept across the African Judge's ebony features. "You have
an eye for people's flaws, I'll give you that. All right, I'll do it." J'aele began
to work the keyboard before him, swiftly tapping into the medical centre's
data core, descending though layers of stored information. "What do we
tell them if the South Americans catch us with our noses in their
business? If they detect me, it could be very bad."
"Then don't let them catch you," said Kontarsky.
Dredd watched the holo-screen in front of the Tek-Judge writhe and
flex like a live thing, panels popping open and closed as he navigated
through dense storehouses of material, circumventing pass codes and
security protocols. "You're good at this," he remarked. "You've done it
before."
J'aele nodded. "I'm part of the central computer division's tiger team.
One of my duties up here is to monitor data defence strength from outside
hack-attacks. We regularly simulate data penetration by staging mock
raids on our own systems, looking for loopholes." He frowned. "No matter
how hard we try, though, those Moon-U perps are still getting in. It's
infuriating."
Kontarsky said what Dredd was thinking. "Do you suspect the
involvement of an insider?"
J'aele shrugged, still typing at a furious rate. "There are Judges from all
over the world stationed here. Odds are that some of them will have
viewpoints opposed to the people in power& " His words trailed off as a
scroll of text began to march up the screen. "Here. We're in."
"That was fast," noted Dredd.
The Tek-Judge made a casual gesture. "I told you I could do it."
Kontarsky scrutinised the data. "It may have been for nothing. I don't
see anything unusual here. It is as Che said, just, the basic report."
"Freeze it there," Dredd interrupted. He pointed a gloved finger at a
blank section of the virtual document. "There should be a comparative
DNA scan listed. It's a standard stage-one post-mortem procedure."
"You're sure?" asked Kontarsky.
The senior Judge nodded. "I've signed off enough death certificates in
my time to know the difference. Any Med-Tek examining Rodriguez would
have done that, even on a quick check."
J'aele studied the display, working the console. "Dredd is correct. This
is suspicious. I'm finding broken data tags in this part of the file."
"Which means?"
"The comparative DNA scan was entered here, but then it was erased.
Rather sloppily, too." The Tek-Judge ran a few more commands and a
cluster of red indicators blinked into life on the screen. "And that's not all.
This file has been tampered with. Someone altered Rodriguez's autopsy
report after the fact."
Dredd's brow furrowed. "Who has access to these records? Who could
do that?"
"Senior medical department staff& " J'aele tapped out another string of
commands. "The senior technician on duty today was Sanjeev Maktoh."
Kontarsky was already speaking into her helmet mike. "Control, query
and locate Sanjeev Maktoh."
"Checking& " came the reply. "Confirming, Maktoh, Sanjeev. Justice
Central medical department civilian auxiliary, Indo-Cit resident on lunar
placement. He checked out from work a couple of hours ago, logging
absent due to sickness."
"It's him!" she snapped. "Dredd, he must be the one."
"I need an address," Dredd told J'aele.
The African Judge nodded and flickered through to a personnel file.
"Here it is. Ventner Boulevard, con-apt 44/LK/31."
Dredd threw J'aele a nod. "Good work."
J'aele sighed heavily. "Just don't tell anyone I gave in so easily."
Ventner Boulevard was in the midst of one of the central dome's
mid-level residential districts, well appointed with a handful of block
parks and shopperias between the stubby half-ovoids of the con-apt
buildings. Maktoh's small two-pod habitat module was on the thirty-first
floor, facing outward. Dredd and Kontarsky made a landing on a nearby
Multistack, giving them a clear line of sight into the medical technician's
apartment.
Kontarsky studied the windows through a compact pair of Sov-issue
binox. "I see movement inside. A single person, I believe. He appears quite
agitated."
Dredd accepted the field glasses and took a look for himself. "He's
packing a bag. What do you reckon, he's already bought a ticket back
Earthside?"
She nodded her agreement. "If he's running scared, that might explain
why he made such a bad job of doctoring the autopsy report. His disquiet
could be helpful in interrogation."
"Agreed. We'll take him now. You go through the front door."
"You're not coming with me?"
Dredd gunned the Krait 3000's gravity drive. "I'll be around."
Sanjeev caught his foot on the trailing cuff of a shirt dangling out of the
pile of clothes in his hands and tripped over. He landed on the suitcase
that lay open on his folda-bed and it flipped, spilling out the contents he'd
frantically packed into a mess of unkempt clothing. He fell to his knees
and had to struggle to keep from crying. Sanjeev's stomach turned over
and he felt the same about-to-throw-up sensation that had been dogging
him since the phone call.
That voice at the other end of the line. Menacing him, intimidating,
making veiled threats about what would happen to his mother and father,
his wife and the pod where they lived in Indo City. He had done as the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]