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PERFIDITAS excerpt

‘Captain Carina Mitela?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Who is this?’

‘Custodes XI Station. An emergency token with your code has been handed in. We’re holding the presenter.’

Juno.

I dropped everything and headed for the tunnel connecting our headquarters to the police station. The duty sergeant, with a typical cop’s bland expression but trying to conceal a speculative gleam in her eyes, handed me the token without a word.

As we walked to the interview rooms, I stared at the thirty-nine millimetre diameter disc, made to resemble a casino chip, indigo blue polycarbonate shielding the tiny microprocessor. The last one I’d had in was from an informant handling incoming diplomatic baggage at the airport; her sharp eyes had spotted a very undiplomatic cargo of compact assault rifles. Sure, Roma Nova was a small country, hidden away between New Austria and Italy, but we weren’t stupid or sloppy. Working with the Intelligence section, I’d traced the weapons back to their Balkan Republic origins and led a covert service unit to destroy their warehouse.

The figure I saw today through the smartplex observation window of the public interview room was slumped over, elbows on the table, hands braced her under her chin, her long black hair looking like it hadn’t seen a brush for days. Mossia Antonia. She owned and ran one of the toughest, and most exclusive, training gyms in the country. Right now, she looked like a street vagrant.

I shucked off my uniform of beige shirt and pants and black tee, and pulled on the casuals the custodes duty sergeant had found in lost property for me, ignoring the smell of stale food and cooking fat clinging to them.

Mossia jerked her head up as I entered the room.

‘Salve, Mossia. What’s the problem?’ I plunked myself down on the other chair, crossed my arms and waited.

‘Bruna?’ She blinked and shook her head like she didn’t believe what she saw.

I opened my hand in a gesture inviting her to talk.

‘Aidan has disappeared,’ she said, looking down and rubbing the table with her index finger. Inlaid with coffee rings from careless mugs, the plastic surface reflected the impacts of hard-tipped pens and handcuff scrapes.

‘Are you sure?’

She nodded.

‘How do you know? Aidan has other clients apart from yours. Maybe he’s gone on vacation, or been called away.’

Her head came up at that. ‘His first duty is to me – I pay him a damned good retainer to look after my clients.’

‘So what makes you think he’s not coming back?’

‘This.’

She pulled out a folded piece of paper with black, sloping writing. I read it, laid it down on the table, and leaned back in my chair. Then I picked it up and read it again. I couldn’t believe it. He wrote he couldn’t bear it any longer; he’d had enough of her unfair working practices. He resigned with immediate effect and would make sure her clients knew exactly why he’d done it. I pinched the bridge of my nose to make sure I was awake.

‘He took nearly a thousand solidi from the cash drawer and my gold pen.’ Mossia jabbed the air with her finger. ‘Whatever. What really bugs me are those lies.’ Her face was rigid and her eyes blazing. ‘I could kill him for that.’ Her chair crashed backwards to the ground with the force of her jumping up. She started pacing around the room like a lion in the arena.

I wasn’t surprised at her anger. She worked her people hard, but looked after them. I knew her employment packages were first- class; as an anonymous shareholder, I’d seen her accounts.

‘You’ve reported him to the custodes as a missing person?’

‘I’m reporting it to you.’

‘Why? I’m not the custodes.’

‘Well, you’re something like that.’ Ninety-eight per cent of my colleagues in the Praetorian Guard Special Forces would take offence at that, but I let it pass.

She came to rest by the table and looked down at me.

‘What?’ I said.

‘It’s personal.’

‘Were you sleeping with him?’

Her shoulders slumped and she crossed her arms across her chest.

‘Silly sod.’

She pulled a small moue.

I stretched over and touched her forearm in sympathy. I shot a side glance at the watch on my outstretched wrist. Hades!

‘I’ll have the custodes log it,’ I said and stood up. ‘You go home now or, better, back to the gym. The custodes will let you know of any developments.’

She took a full stride toward me, so near that she was all but touching me. ‘What do you mean? Aren’t you going to do anything about it?’

‘Okay, it’s bloody annoying, it’s hurtful, whatever, but it’s hardly a case for an emergency token. Leave it with the custodes.’

I stepped away and pushed my chair under the edge of the table.

‘Come on, Mossia, time to go. Think of the money you’re not making while you’re wasting time here.’

She shot me a vicious look. The anger was rolling off her. She took a deep breath, gazed unseeing at the dirty beige walls for a minute or so.

Had I been too harsh? A stab of guilt prodded me. I’d known Mossia for years, but my schedule was crushing and I was behind already.

I knocked on the door which opened inwards revealing a blue-uniformed custos.

‘We’re finished here,’ I told him.

I looked at Mossia’s taut, silent figure. ‘The custos will see you out. I’ll stop by the gym if I hear anything.’

‘Well, screw you!’ She turned her back to me and stalked out without another word.

‘Everything all right, Captain?’ the duty sergeant asked me as I changed back into my uniform.

‘Yes, thanks,’ I said, and pinned my name badge and insignia back on. The Department of Justice custodes were both wary and polite with us. Back in Eastern America I’d grown up in, city cops had never liked feds either. Many of my PGSF colleagues sneered at the custodes and used the public’s name for them – scarab, or dung beetle. I’d been a DJ custos once.

‘Thanks for sending the alert through – I hope it hasn’t been too disruptive.’ I smiled at her as she escorted me back to the tunnel door. ‘I’m not so sure myself what that was about.’

‘No problem, ma’am.’

As the tunnel doors swished open, I felt my irritation at Mossia unwrap itself and flood back. What in Hades was she playing at? By the time I arrived at our end, I was annoyed for not being able to figure out whether she’d told me something significant or not.

——–

PERFIDITAS is available as an ebook and paperback in many, many ways – find your favourite store and links here.

Updated 2024: Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.

Download ‘Welcome to Alison Morton’s Thriller Worlds’, a FREE eBook, as a thank you gift when you sign up to Alison’s monthly email update. You’ll also be among the first to know about news and book progress before everybody else, and take part in giveaways.

A way out for Carina. Or is it? - An excerpt

Carina Mitela is a young Praetorian officer in Roma Nova and she’s messed up big time. The problem is that she’s married to her boss, Conrad – awkward, to say the least. Now he’s offering her a chance to redeem herself. Will she take it?

Outside Conrad’s door I dithered, summoning up the courage to knock on the polished dark wood. I took a good breath and did it.

‘Come.’

He looked up and stared at me for a full minute. The natural daylight was sinking fast and the low sunlight reflected in his hazel eyes, making them look like agates. I didn’t have a clue what he was thinking.

‘Sit down,’ he said in a terse voice. He picked the file on the top of his in tray and flipped it open. He looked up at me. ‘Has the adjutant given you any details?’

‘No, he just mentioned it was overseas.’

He touched his screen, swivelled it round so I could read it. His hand brushed mine. We both looked down, but the moment passed too quickly.

‘Conrad, I’m so sorry,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Not for the climb,’ I added in a firmer tone. ‘But I didn’t think there would be any effect on the unit.’

‘No, you didn’t think.’

‘I can only repeat that I’m sorry.’

He didn’t say anything, but looked at me, his eyes more liquid and face less tense.

‘I wasn’t angry just for the unit and you know that.’

‘Yes.’ What else could I say?

‘I can’t run a unit efficiently when two of the most promising juniors can’t exercise some self-control. I think it would be calming for us if you were away for a bit. Then we can review your future here.’

Oh, Juno, he really was thinking of throwing me out. My stomach spasmed. Maybe he would say more when we got home. I loved this man and I knew he loved me. He was able to split work and the personal sides of his life. I found it near impossible.

‘Have you read the mission parameters?’ He tapped the edge of the screen. I scanned the ten lines, not really taking them in. I looked over at him.

‘République Québecoise?’ I said. What in Hades was going on in Quebec? Pleasant, old fashioned and full of polite French speakers.

‘Country in the Americas, east of Canada, north of the Eastern United States.’

‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ I retorted.

He raised an eyebrow.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. This was the trouble working with your spouse who outranked you professionally by several steps. Outside in civilian life, it was the other way around.

‘Read this.’ He pushed the file across his desk.

The file cover was marked with a diagonal red stripe with ‘CELATA’ across the top. Not a red ultra file which I’d never seen and wasn’t cleared to see, but the next category down. I took it gingerly and opened it with respect. I read it through, then reread the major points. It was a simple recovery of a criminal so she could go on trial.

‘What’s the timescale on this?’

‘Active now.’

I glanced at him.

‘There’s no possibility I have to cross the border into the EUS?’ I tried not to sound as nervous as I felt.

‘No, not unless the subject does a runner. But she thinks she’s safe. However, Flavius will go with you and he can take over if she, and it, goes south.’

I rubbed the margin of the file sheet between my thumb and index finger.

‘I presume you’ve been north? As a child?’ Conrad said.

‘We went to Toronto in Canada once to go to Niagara Falls. Dad said it was better from that side. But apart from that we mostly went to Quebec for holidays.’ I half closed my eyes. ‘I remember the old stone houses and the wooden clapperboard cottages. Sometimes we went to Montreal and I remember swimming in the Lac Saint-Pierre.’

‘Bit cold, wasn’t it?’

‘Freezing, but good.’

‘Did you go as an adult while you were living in New York?’

‘Are you kidding? I had no spare money to travel.’

The best I’d been able to manage was a vacation rental with four friends one year in Montana. My dad had died when I was twelve and I’d been uprooted from our house in New Hampshire to the open plains of Nebraska to live on an isolated farm with my joyless cousins. The day after graduating high school, I took the bus to New York and worked in various offices for peanuts until, at just shy of my twenty-fifth birthday, I’d fled to Roma Nova where my mother had been born. That was over four years ago.

I pointed at the file. ‘So what’s this Vibiana done that’s so bad?’

‘Need to know, and you don’t. Just bring her back.’

—————
Is Carina’s mission successful Is it the end of the case? To find out, buy the book from Amazon Kobo Apple B&N NOOK Paperback
—————

A complete story in a long novella and the second in the Carina Mitela Roma Nova adventures

Alison Morton is the author of Roma Nova thrillers – INCEPTIO, CARINA (novella), PERFIDITAS, SUCCESSIO, AURELIA, NEXUS (novella), INSURRECTIO and RETALIO, and ROMA NOVA EXTRA, a collection of short stories. Audiobooks are available for four of the series. Double Identity, a contemporary conspiracy, starts a new series of thrillers. JULIA PRIMA, Roma Nova story set in the late 4th century, starts the Foundation stories. The sequel, EXSILIUM, is now out.

A taster of INCEPTIO: A revelation for our heroine

[Conradus Mitelus, Roma Nova ‘government employee’ speaks to Karen/Carina]

‘There’s something I must ask you,’ Conrad said, his expression serious now. ‘It’s why I was in Washington. What do you know about your family? I mean, your mother’s family.’

‘What’s that to you? Do you know them?’

‘Bear with me. It’s important.’

‘No, you explain first.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to know.’

I looked at him, searching for clues in his face, but his expression was bland and, despite the eye colours seeming to shift, his gaze was steady but not cold. I shrugged. ‘Mom came from Roma Nova, like you. My father told me they met when he was in Europe, in Roma Nova, on business. She came here to the EUS, they married, she had me and then drove herself off a cliff when I was three.’ I heard the bitterness in my voice. ‘I never knew what made her leave like that, and Dad never discussed it.’

He pressed my hand as if to comfort me. After a few moments, he said, ‘I can’t answer that, but I can fill in some other gaps for you. Do you have any family documents or old photos?’

‘Why?’

‘Do you always challenge everything?’

‘Yes, especially when I’m not told the reason.’

‘I will tell you, but can you get the papers first?’

Why would I? He was a stranger. An exciting, beautiful one that I found deeply attractive. But he was a foreigner who looked like he was under surveillance. Maybe I needed to check with the cops or the FBI first. I hesitated. I could imagine how stupid it would sound to them – I’d file a complaint and he’d turn out to be an old family friend. Would they take any notice of me anyway? I was already on their security watch list.

The hell with it.

I decided to show him the photographs to start with. In my bedroom, I pulled out the box stashed on the top shelf of my closet: my parents’ wedding; them with me as a toddler; my father alone; my foster parents, the Browns; high school friends. In the end, it was easier to hand him the whole box. He picked out the ones of my mother looking like any other American housewife and mom and discarded the rest. I had to dig around in my file box for the certificates and passports. I kept them bundled on my lap, but showed him her old Roma Nova passport, the corner clipped off.

‘Have you ever been in contact with any of your mother’s relations?’

‘I had a letter now and again from my mother’s mother, but nothing since I came to New York. When he was alive, my father insisted that I wrote back. I remember going to see her once when I was a kid. After my father died, I went to live in Nebraska with his cousins. This grandmother kept inviting me for a visit, but they wouldn’t let me go. It was too expensive, they said, and Uncle Brown didn’t like foreigners.’

‘What? There was plenty of money for that sort of expense. Were they that narrow-minded?’

‘Hey! They gave me a home when my father passed on.’ I defended them, instinctively, out of duty. I always had sufficient to eat and was adequately clothed. I hadn’t been Cinderella, but I was firmly outside the core family circle. Maybe, despite all his efforts, they’d never forgiven my father his Englishness. Although the withdrawal by the British in the 1860s had been amicable on the surface, resentment endured, especially in the rural areas where they’d been big landowners, and still were.

I came back to the present with a jolt.

‘What do you mean – “plenty of money”?’

‘Your mother left you her personal portfolio, and your father’s electronics business will be yours when you’re twenty-five. You’ve got income from both held in trust.’

‘You have to be kidding.’

‘Haven’t you had any of it?’ His eyes widened in surprise. ‘At all?’

‘Since I’ve been in New York, Brown Industries has sent me three thousand dollars every quarter from New Hampshire. I try to save most of it, but I have to use some of it for my rent.’

‘Your grandmother, Aurelia Mitela, set up a portfolio for her daughter when she went to live in America. Naturally, it came to you on her death. Your father and your grandmother formed a trust for you so you could be comfortable, go to college, do whatever you wanted.’

I heard the words. I saw his lips forming them. I ran them through my head again. I sat completely still, numbed. The only sound in the apartment was the refrigerator humming in the kitchen.

Uncle and Aunt Brown must have known about the money. I’d wept angry tears of frustration when Uncle Brown forbade to me have any thoughts of going to college. I knew Ivy League had been way out of my reach, but the state university should have been possible. How could they have done that to me?

‘And just how do you know all this?’ I had recovered speech but couldn’t keep the steel out of my voice.

‘From your grandmother. Your father wanted you to grow up like any other American girl, but left instructions in his testament that you should be told everything at eighteen. That obviously didn’t happen.’ Conrad handed the photographs and passport back to me, his face grave. ‘He probably never imagined these cousins would keep it from you.’

Find out more… https://www.alison-morton.com/books-2/inceptio/

Buy INCEPTIO here: Amazon Apple B&N Nook Kobo Audiobook Paperback
10th Anniversary special edition hardback (with additional revelations)