Chapter 161 - Improbable Cause - Part 2
Stardate 48642.3 - August 23, 2371 - 10:32:52
With Odo having for all intents and purposes called dibs on handling Garek's extensive interview, Raine had been tasked with following up on other possible leads. Something that had quickly led her to a newly arrived Flaxian merchant by the name of Retaya Nos with a penchant for moonlighting as an assassin for hire.
“Mister Nos,” Raine greeted the man as she sat down in the conference room chair across from the man.
“Retaya, please.” He corrected, offering her an almost charming smile.
Taking a moment to pretend to add a note about that into her padd, Raine nodded. “Very well, Mister Retaya then. Your docking papers indicate that you're a luxury goods merchant?”
“Mostly fabrics and fragrances,” Retaya confirmed with a nod.
Raine added that into his file as an actual note. “You'll hopefully forgive us for the imposition, due to the explosion we're having to question everyone with anything even approaching a criminal record.” She gave a fake chuckle. “A bit awkward all things considered given the Paradan government still has an arrest warrant out on me for crushing a large part of their central intelligence building with my psychic powers.”
“The Paradans?” Retaya frowned. “I don’t think I’ve heard of them.”
“I'd be surprised if you had,” Raine honestly admitted. “They're a Gamma Quadrant species, the Federation was attempting to make diplomatic inroads with them. But that kind of fell apart after they attempted to kidnap and replace me with a replicant as part of their ongoing civil war.”
A civil war that the last she had heard was going really badly for the overly oppressive Paradan government.
“Moving away from my own sordid past, you came to our attention due to the fact that you were a suspect in the murder of Dekora Assan, on Japori Two.”
And had a bad habit of leaving locations just as various dead bodies began to show up, but she wasn't going to put the man further on edge by saying that out loud.
Leaning back slightly in a way that all but screamed nervousness, Retaya began to fidget with his hands for a moment before seeming to catch himself. “I can assure you I was cleared of those charges, it was nothing more than a case of mistaken identity.”
“I'm fully aware,” Raine said. “And it's not like Dekora Assan was killed by a bomb anyways. So even assuming you hadn't been cleared, the bombing would have been far far outside your preferred way of doing things.”
Retaya furrowed his brow, clearly trying to work out just what Raine meant by that. “Then… I'm free to leave?”
“Not yet.” Raine admitted, focusing her gaze on the sample kit that was practically glued to the man's side. “You see, we did a thorough scan of your equipment to check for Nitrilin residue. And while we didn't find any of that, our medical officer was shocked to discover that you were basically carrying around a biochemical poisoners kit.”
“What!?’” Retaya reeled back feigning shock. “I don't know what your medical officer thinks they found, but I can assure you all my products are perfectly safe.”
“As singular compounds,” Raine nodded in seeming agreement. “Combine them together into trinary compounds however and they can become gaseous mixtures that are deadly to most known humanoid species.”
Bashir had even identified a half dozen that would have had varying degrees of effectiveness on her, which was honestly kind of impressive given how outside the norm her Trellium heavy biochemistry was.
Retaya gasped. “Really? I had no idea.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Raine agreed drolly. “Luckily we haven’t been able to trace any deaths back to your lackluster product knowledge. However I would highly suggest you hand over all examples of those products to the station for disposal.”
“And if I don’t?” Retaya inquired cautiously.
Raine offered him an overly friendly smile. “You will be taken into custody and charged with reckless endangerment under Bajoran statute 532.41 which covers the knowing commercial sale of hazardous biochemical compounds.”
Glancing over at his product case, Retaya grimaced before focusing back on Raine and giving a reluctant nod of acquiescence. “I suppose I have no choice then.”
Taking a moment to use her padd to send out a quick order assigning a pair of security officers to meet Retaya at the docking ring to take possession of his deadly products, Raine grinned at the Flaxian. “Excellent, then as soon as we take possession of those you’ll be cleared to go.”
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“You should have tried to track him,” Odo grumbled as Raine finished filling him in on her interview.
“Tracked him where?” She asked, just barely holding herself back from rolling her eyes.
For all of Odo's general competence, it was often easy for the Asari to forget that the Changeling was basically a self taught expert. Suggestions like he had just given however could be a stark reminder of the odd holes in his knowledge.
“Paid killers of Retaya's level never meet their clients in person. Best case scenario, he talks to them directly through a dark com network. Worst case scenario, the same thing except there are a dozen different intermediaries between him and whoever actually hired him. Either way though, the only way we're getting anything from that direction is if Starfleet Intelligence happens to intercept something. And I already had Commander Sisko send out a request for any information they might have connected to the case.”
Odo gave it a second and then raised an eyebrow at her. “And?”
Raine shrugged. “They haven’t gotten back to us yet. Knowing what I do about how they operate they’re probably combing through records or running things up the chain of command to see what they can actually send us.”
Of course, there was also the possibility they knew what the Obsidian Order was planning so were keeping quiet in hopes they’d either succeed or wipe themselves out. But if that was the case their response wouldn’t be any different from the station’s perspective then them just slowrolling the information request.
She raised an eye-ridge in challenge at the Changeling. “What about you? Manage to get anything out of Garak?”
“Only that Quark managed to get his hand on some Tholian silk.” Odo grumbled. “For a tailor,” he rolled his eyes to show how much weight he gave to that label. “Garak is remarkably good at dissembling.”
“Well,” Raine began, pretending to consider the question for several seconds. “If I were to guess based on the information we have. I would say either the assassination was an open bounty type for Garak’s death, in which case the bomb and Retaya were only connected in the sense of two different assassins trying their luck on the same target. Or Garak got word someone was being sent to kill him and faked an attempt on his own life so we would intercept the actual assassin.”
“If this is connected to the Obsidian Order it wouldn’t be the first,” Odo shook his head. “They don’t like messy, and an assassination like that would be the very definition of the word.” Pursing his lips in thought, he finally nodded to himself. “But blowing himself up, that feels like a very–”
He was cut off before he could finish by Raine’s combadge going off, and Odo raised an eyebrow before giving a go ahead nod.
“Brook’s here,” Raine said as she tapped her combadge.
“Commander,” Kira’s voice echoed out with a tone that made it clear the Bajoran woman was more than a little annoyed. “That Flaxian ship you had us keeping an eye on? It just exploded as it was about to go into warp.”
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Setting down the report he had been reading on the ongoing analysis on the Flaxian ships wreckage, Benjamin Sisko waited a moment for the doors of his office to close behind the entering Romulan before gesturing to the empty chair in front of his desk.
“No thank you,” Subcommander T’Rul said.
Leaning forward slightly in his chair and clasping his hands together on his desk, Benjamin offered the woman a businesslike nod. “Very well then, I assume you know why I wanted to speak with you?”
T’Rul gave a slight incline of her head to indicate she at least suspected she did. “There are several possibilities given current circumstances on the station, but if I were to guess, I would assume it has something to do with the destruction of Retaya Nos’s ship?”
“Then you’re admitting responsibility?” Benjamin asked, able to read between the lines but wanting to hear the woman directly say it.
“Of course,” T’Rul confessed with a small nod. “Not any of us on the station personally of course, but I was informed of Retaya’s execution for crimes against the Romulan Empire shortly after it occurred, and I can assure you, it was perfectly legal.”
Benjamin raised an eyebrow at that. “The Bajoran’s certainly don’t seem to think so.”
“Which is why my people waited to conduct the execution until Retaya Nos was past the system's warp exclusion zone.” T’Rul returned simply. “If the Bajoran government wishes to lodge a complaint about that, they are welcome to do so.”
“I expect they will.” Benjamin told her, though they both knew that complaint would likely be no more than perfunctory in nature given the long list of murders that had been circumstantially linked back to the man. “But I would be interested in hearing about just what crimes he committed against the Romulan Empire that warranted execution in such a manner.”
“I am sure you would be, Commander.” T’Rul acknowledged. “But I’m unfortunately in as much of the dark as you on that particular front.”
“So it was a Tal Shiar operation then,” Benjamin murmured, once more reading between the lines of what the Subcommander was saying. “In which case I assume you don’t know why someone would want to kill Mister Garak either?"
An amused look settled across T’Rul’s face. “I’m aware of many reasons people might wish Mister Garak dead. However if I were to pick one in particular it would likely be that someone new has come to power in the Cardassian government and is cleaning up various loose ends of the prior order like Mister Garak.”
With the Cardassian dissident movement gaining political strength steadily for the past year that had actually been Benjamin’s own theory for what was going on until they’d uncovered the Romulan connection. But the timing of Retaya’s death was too suspicious for him to just write it off as an unfortunate coincidence.
T’Rul studied Benjamin's face for a moment before narrowing her eyes slightly. “You still believe it’s us, don’t you?”
“I believe the timing of Retaya’s death is suspicious.” Benjamin honestly admitted.
“Somtimes Commander a coincidence is just that.” T’Rul huffed. “But if it will assuage your suspicion, know that the Tal Shiar makes it a specific point not to go after other governments disgraced former intelligence agents.”
From a purely logical perspective that made a certain amount of sense, after all, who knows what trouble someone like that could cause their old government in the long run. However something about the thought didn’t sit right with Benjamin's gut, though he couldn’t quite place just what that something was.
“I suppose it does.” He returned his baseball to his stand before rising to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Subcommander.”
“Commander,” T’Rul returned with a curt nod before turning in place and walking out of his office.
Waiting several seconds for the doors to close behind her, Benjamin tapped his combadge. “Sisko to Brooks.”
“Brooks here,” The woman’s voice returned after a moment.
“The Romulan’s had an explanation for destroying the Flaxian’s ship, but something about it doesn’t add up, so I want you to keep an eye on them the next couple days just in case.”
“...A secret eye or a they know that I’m watching them type of eye?”
“Use your best judgement,” Benjamin said, really hoping he wasn’t making a mistake with that choice. “Sisko out.”
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Author’s Notes: A bit of a setup chapter this week, but with an investigation heavy episode there’s not a lot I can skip over without ending up with things not making a lot of sense.