CHAPTER 45

CONNECT THE DOTS

Jason had returned to his human form without realizing and stood staring at the screen, revolted and horrified by what he had just seen. "It's a wonder he didn't regenerate," he observed in a horrified voice. "That was…brutal."

"He needed him out of the way a long time," the Doctor replied, leaning back in his chair.

"Yes, but there was no need to be so…sadistic," the Alterran said in disgust.

The Doctor looked over at his friend, who still had his eyes fixed on the screen. Had he not learned the whole story behind the incident at Tri Global, he would have said his own shooting was equally sadistic. "Well, now we know the Cardinal's fall was no accident," he said at last.

"Yes. But we can't prove who did it," Jason pointed out.

The Doctor gave him a puzzled look. "We've just seen who did it."

"No, Doctor, we've seen an Alterran do it," Jason corrected sharply. "Just because I said it looks like Trevor doesn't mean it was. I could just as easily've done it taking on his appearance."

The Doctor fixed him in a piercing stare. "Did you do it?" he asked in a serious voice.

Jason was horrified. "No!" Then he saw an amused smirk on his friend's face and realized he was joking. He closed his eyes, but could not keep an amused smile coming to his face. "Doctor, don't do that! I'm trying to be serious."

"If you get any more serious, you'll make a bout of melancholia look like exuberance," the Time Lord observed. "Anyway, I had to ask." He threw a quick glance back at the screen. "Well, we know somebody took Wythe's place."

"Yes. Who's to say they didn't do the same with Trevor? If they're warped enough to pull something this bizarre, I wouldn't put that past them."

"You've lost me."

Jason gave his friend an apologetic look. "I'm not really free to take on any form I choose. Taking on another's imprinted form isn't encouraged. And taking on the imprinted appearance of…well, those in power like myself is illegal."

"Really?" The Doctor considered, and then drew a deep breath. "Alright, just for the sake of argument, let's say that it is an unknown third party. What do the three of you have in common?"

"I have no idea about Wythe. I didn't know anything about that temporal damper being installed on the ARGO, let alone that he oversaw the installation."

"I rather suspected that from your reaction," his friend replied mildly. "And Trevor?"

"Yes, Trevor. He and I have quite a lot in common," the Prince replied thoughtfully. "We're from the same planet, share the same Royal house, were in the diplomatic corps together—"

"Were?" the Doctor broke in.

Jason cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. "Something else in common. He, um, had a breakdown of some kind right around the time of my first Ambassadorial tour—and we both know how that ended." He gave a wry smile. "I'm afraid I don't know all the details. I was in the middle of a breakdown myself after that."

"Because of your…kidnapping…" the Doctor said softly. His eyes narrowed and he stared into space, lost in thought. Seeing this, Jason's eyes narrowed too and he cocked his head, studying his friend closely. He'd obviously thought of something. "Well…?" he prompted, bringing his friend out of his daze.

"I've just remembered something…odd," the Doctor replied in a slightly surprised voice. "It happened while you were still recovering."

The frown on the Alterran's face deepened. "What did?"

"The High Council was concerned about my involvement with the Argonauts."

Jason gave a snort of disapproval in response. "I'll bet they were."

"The Emperor straightened them out before it came to anything. But the one who contacted me about it…was Cardinal Wythe," the Doctor informed thoughtfully. "I was too annoyed to give it that much thought at the time. Now it occurs to me to wonder why it wasn't the Chancellor." He turned a questioning look in his friend's direction.

"This is great," Jason moaned, shaking his head. "Instead of answers, we're just coming up with more questions."

"We need to go over this a step at a time," the Doctor said logically turning back to his notes. He shuffled from one page to the next as Jason climbed into the chair beside him.

"Okay, let's start with the fall. That put the real Wythe out of commission." The Alterran pulled a pad and pen out of thin air and scribbled this down.

The Doctor gave him a sideways glance. "You've gotten back into the habit rather quickly," he remarked amusedly.

The Prince looked up and grinned. "Give me a break, Doctor. I haven't been able to do this for weeks." He finished writing his notation and looked up again. "What next?"

"Let's do this chronologically, starting with your meeting with the fake Wythe."

The Doctor pulled up the meeting and let it play through, asking suddenly, "What were you working on when he asked you to take this assignment?"

"Oh, that." Somehow, it didn't seem as important anymore. "I was supposed to track down the ring leader of a black market operation in the Republic," Jason replied matter of factly.

The Doctor scowled. "What kind of black market? Currency, trade goods, that sort of thing?"

"No. State secrets. Trade agreements. Military and strategic implementation plans…"

The Time Lord gave him a knowing look. "An information broker, perhaps?"

Jason caught his breath, his eyes going wide. "The Benefactor," he whispered. "My God, it was right in front of me."

"Yes," the Doctor grinned. "Obvious, wasn't it?"

The Alterran suddenly seemed to come out of his daze. "Okay, time to connect the dots," he announced. "Are we dealing with three players, or one acting as all three?"

"That is a very good question," the Doctor replied. "And here's another. How did he know about the prison ship so quickly?"

"Yes…" Jason said thoughtfully, his eyes focused in the distance. "According to Fitzhugh, the Glyateven were contacted about the ship's location by someone using my name."

"Yes. And the Benefactor told me that he was the one to do it."

"So along with our other questions, we have this one. How did the imposter know the location to send me to if the Glyateven didn't contact him?"

"Seems more likely the takeover and the destination were prearranged, doesn't it?"

"Yes. Seems like it."

"Giving our puppeteer ample opportunity to get you involved before contacting anyone with the proposal on how to retrieve the missing prisoners," the Doctor concluded.

Jason shook his head in amazement. "The planning that went into this is nothing short of phenomenal," he observed in awe. "Why? What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"I'm not sure it's so much what you did as much as what you were about to do," the Doctor remarked. "You may've been closer to finding out the source of the leak than you realized."

"How? I'd scarcely started. I didn't even have a starting point yet."

The answer came to the Doctor immediately, but he knew it wasn't what his friend wanted to hear. "Who else knew about this other than yourself?" he asked mildly.

Jason was clearly appalled and stiffened involuntarily. "Doctor, you're not suggesting that one of my own people is behind this?"

"Have you another explanation?"

"No. But I'd like to think there is one." Jason considered the implications a moment and turned back to the screen, all business. "What's next?"

"Let's just go over these extracts one at a time and see if anything jumps out at us," the Time Lord suggested.

Jason threw a concerned look over at the door. "How long do we have in here?" he asked. "This could take hours."

The Doctor gave him a broad smile. "That's one of the nice things about the Matrix room. We're outside of normal space/time."

"I hope you packed a lunch," Jason said sardonically.

The Doctor ignored him and brought up the initial contact with the Glyateven. "Nothing there I could see," he sighed when it ended, consulting his notes for the next one.

"How did he know about that?" Jason asked suddenly.

"What?"

"TWO took a shot at me, and the Benefactor reminded him about it later. How did he know about it? I never told him."

"No, but you told Wythe," the Doctor reminded. "Just after it happened, as I recall."

Jason's eyes lit up. "That's right, I did!" He turned to the screen. "You can't access that, can you? That was in the security logs."

The Doctor grinned. He had already played one of the security logs without his friend even realizing that he should not have been able to. "I took the liberty of downloading the logs into the archive before today's session."

"Well now, aren't you the clever little Time Lord," Jason remarked amusedly.