Kowacs’ skin burned as anger drove blood to its surface. “Ah, sir,” he said. “We’re a Marine Reaction Company.”
“Well, I want men who can react, don’t I?” Sitterson retorted.
Kowacs said nothing further.
Security Headquarters was kitty-corner from the government building, a hundred meters away; but Kowacs had never thought Sitterson needed the vehicle for any reason but status. It was a windowless single-story structure, three times as long as it was wide—a module rather than a pre-fab. The door was at one end; Sitterson buzzed for admittance instead of touching the latch himself.
The door opened to reveal an aisle running half the building’s length. There were four closed doors to the left and eight barred cells on the right. The individual civilians in five of the cells leaned with their arms against their sides and their foreheads resting against the back wall.
It was an extremely painful position. The petty officer who’d opened the door had a long shock rod with which to prod any of the prisoners who sagged or touched the wall with a hand.
“Interrogation rooms,” Sitterson said, gesturing toward the closed doors. He chuckled and added with a nod toward the cells, “I like my visitors to see that we mean business, here. This is the only entrance to the building.”
“What have they done?” Kowacs asked in a neutral voice.
“That’s what we’re here to find out, aren’t we?” Sitterson replied with a broad grin.
One of the women in the holding cells was sobbing, on the verge of collapse. Kowacs lengthened his stride, drawing the security chief a little more quickly with him to the door at the far end of the aisle.
They weren’t quite quick enough into the office beyond. As Sienkiewicz shut the door behind them, Kowacs heard the reptilian giggle of the shock rod loosing its fluctuating current. The woman screamed despairingly.
The senior petty officer behind the huge desk threw Sitterson a sharp salute without getting up. He didn’t have room enough to stand because of the data storage modules in the ceiling, feeding the desk’s computer.
Sitterson tried to project a sense of his own power—but the quarters assigned his operation were a far cry from even the jerry-built luxury of the District Government Building.
Fleet officers assigned to admin duty on the ground weren’t usually the best and the brightest of their ranks. That was something Kowacs had to remember—though he wasn’t sure how it would help him.
“Colonel Hesik has reported, sir,” said the petty officer, nodding toward the tall, intense man who had leaped to attention from the narrow couch opposite the desk.
“Wait here, Hesik,” Sitterson said as he strode between desk and couch to the room’s inner door.
Kowacs eyed—and was eyed by—the tall man as they passed at close quarters.
Hesik’s uniform was of unfamiliar cut. It was handmade, with yellow cloth simulating gold braid on the pockets, epaulets, and collar tabs. The slug-throwing pistol he wore in a shoulder holster was a Fleet-issue weapon and well worn.
Hesik’s glare was brittle. Kowacs wouldn’t have had the man in his own unit in a million years.
Sitterson’s personal office had almost as much floorspace as the governor’s did, though the ceiling was low and the furnishings were extruded rather than wood.
On the credit side, the floor didn’t seep mud.
“Have a seat, Captain,” Sitterson said with an expansive gesture toward one of the armchairs. Another door, presumably leading to living quarters as cramped as the reception area, was partly screened by holo projections from the interrogation rooms they had walked past. In the holograms, seated petty officers confronted civilians standing at attention, nude, with their clothes stacked on the floor beside them.
“We’ll be working closely together, Captain,” the security was saying. “I don’t mind telling you that I regard this assignment as an opportunity to get some notice. It’s a job we can sink our teeth into. If we handle the situation correctly, there’ll be promotions all around.”
The bearded civilian in the projection nearest Kowacs was babbling in a voice raised by fear and the clipped sound reproduction, “Only eggs, I swear it. And maybe butter, if they asked for butter, maybe butter. But they’d have taken my daughter if I hadn’t given them the supplies.”