Read Spinneret for Free Online Page B

against Dunlop’s? No, thanks—my breath’s too valuable to waste just now.”
    Meredith pursed his lips. “If you tell the truth—”
    â€œLook, Colonel, I was in the Army a couple of years,” Perez interrupted. “I know how military people stick together. You just go ahead and figure out my sentence and we can skip the show of impartiality.”
    â€œPerez—” Dunlop began.
    â€œNo, it’s all right, Major,” Meredith cut his subordinate off, mentally berating his own carelessness. His deliberately tactless choice of words had forced a reaction out of Perez, all right, but driving the other into silence was a result he hadn’t counted on. A strategic withdrawal was in order. “Perez, whenever you’re ready to talk, just let me know.” He opened the door and left, Dunlop and Carmen behind him.
    â€œI told you he wasn’t very cooperative,” Dunlop commented as the three of them stopped a few meters down the hall.
    â€œUh-huh. What sort of charges have you filed against him?”
    â€œIncitement, congregation with felony intent—a couple other minor charges. Object lesson stuff, mostly.”
    â€œI want them dropped. Miss Olivero—”
    â€œAll of them?” Dunlop looked nonplussed.
    â€œThat’s right. What’s the problem?—If my investigation indicates he’s guilty of something, we can always charge him later. It isn’t like he can skip town or something. Miss Olivero, I want you to go back in there and talk to Perez.”
    Carmen turned wide eyes on him. “Me, Colonel? But I don’t know anything about interrogation methods.”
    â€œI don’t want you to interrogate him, just to talk with him awhile,” Meredith explained patiently. “Find out what exactly his complaints are, for starters. Let him know we’re not out to scapegoat him or anyone else. You’re a civilian; maybe he’ll be more open with you.”
    Carmen’s lip twitched, but she nodded. “All right. I’ll … try.” Stepping back to the guards, she took a deep breath, tapped once on the door, and went in.
    â€œKeep an ear out for trouble,” Dunlop advised the soldiers quietly.
    â€œThere won’t be any,” Meredith told him. “Let’s go, Major—we have a lot to talk about.”
    Perez’s first surprise was that someone was coming in so soon after the colonel’s party had left; his second surprise was that the visitor bothered to knock. Prying his eyelids up against his fatigue, he watched the woman close the door behind her and stand with her back to it. For a moment there was silence as they eyed each other. “How do you feel?” she said at last.
    â€œTired, mainly,” he answered, wondering idly about her background. From looks alone she could be fresh from Guadalajara, but her speech was definitely middle-class American. Second generation, perhaps, whose parents had become respectable before the flood of illegal refugees from the 2011 Mexican collapse had made “Hispanic” a curse-word again? “Most of the pain’s gone.”
    She nodded. “Good. Uh—my name’s Carmen Olivero.”
    â€œHonored. Meredith send you in to wring a confession from me?”
    Some of her nervousness seemed to vanish, to be replaced by coolness. “Hardly. The colonel has gone with Major Dunlop to get the charges against you dropped. He asked me to find out what your complaints are—assuming you want them addressed, that is, and aren’t just using them as an excuse to riot.”
    â€œWe weren’t rioting!” he snapped, the outburst intensifying the pain behind his eyeballs. “We wanted to complain about the lousy conditions in Ceres and the damn soldiers fired on us.” He stopped abruptly as she took a half step backward, her hand reaching for the doorknob. Good job, Perez, he berated himself