Shadow of Victory - eARC (29 page)

“Just how firm was that 'suggestion,’ Luiz?” the governor asked now. “I’ve viewed your reports, but if you’ve heard something more substantial since you sent them in, I really need to know it now.”

“It’s not cast in ceramacrete yet,” Roszak admitted, “but it came directly to Jiri from Delvecchio.”

Barregos sat back, his dark eyes thoughtful. Captain Rebecca Delvecchio, Royal Manticoran Navy, was the Manticoran naval attaché in Erewhon. She was also, as everyone including—especially—the Erewhonese was perfectly well aware, the head of the Manticoran naval intelligence operation in the system. In the absence of the full ambassador who’d been recalled from Erewhon following Erewhon’s departure from the Manticoran Alliance, Delvecchio was also carrying much of the diplomatic weight. After all, even when two star nations were royally pissed with one another, there still had to be some communication interface. As the Erewhonese put it, business was business.

“I don’t think she’s talking about all up, first-line MDMs even now,” Roszak cautioned. “For that matter, I’m not sure the Defiants’ could handle all up MDMs without some significant modification. But these are all pod-layer designs, and from what she’s said, I think we may be looking at some of their older dual-drive missiles. It sounds like she’s talking about—well, hinting about—older models of their Mark 16. Apparently they’ve still got a bunch in storage and the Manties don’t consider them fully up to snuff against first-line Havenite opposition. Against Sollies, though…”

His expression was an odd mix of satisfaction, anticipation, and something almost like chagrin, Barregos thought. No Solarian flag officer, even taking advantage of his own service’s backwardness to become something else, was likely to do handsprings of delight over the conclusion that the mighty SLN had just become a third-power fleet. Things like that weren’t supposed to happen.

“That’s interesting,” the governor said slowly. “That the Manties really may be willing to hand us something like that.”

“Don’t forget that we’re basically talking outdated hardware—by Manty standards, at least,” Roszak cautioned him. “It’s better than anything we could get anywhere else, and giving us actual examples will probably let us bootstrap the tech. But they’re not giving us the keys to the Star Kingdom just yet.”

“No, but it makes me wonder what else might be going on…and how it might factor into our own plans. For example, something funny’s happening in Kondratii.”

“Kondratii?” Roszak’s eyebrows arched.

The Kondratii System was less than a hundred and twenty light-years from the Maya System itself, and its inhabitants loathed Frontier Security and their transstellar overlords with a pure and burning passion. In fact, it was one of those places an OFS governor might expect to have to send someone like Admiral Luiz Roszak and the Solarian League Marines to restore order.

Because of that, there was a page or so in Oravil Barregos’ playbook where Kondratii was concerned. When the day came for the Maya Sector to declare its independence of the Solarian League, Kondratii would make an excellent addition to the new Mayan Federation. In fact, Barregos and Roszak had drawn up a list of several star systems whose common interests would make them a natural fit as members of their new Federation, or at least its close allies and trading partners. And because that was true, Barregos had Renée Guérin, his senior civilian security advisor, and Brigadier Philip Allfrey, his senior Gendarmerie officer, keeping a close eye on the systems on that list.

Including Kondratii.

“According to Renée, something new’s been added. There’s always some lone wolf terrorist ready to squirt a little hydrogen into the fire in Kondratii, but it seems to her that some of the resistance movements are getting themselves better organized than they used to be.”

“Any organization would be an improvement on how they ‘used to be,’ Oravil!”

“I realize that. But it looks to her like whatever’s behind it is coming from outside the local system.”

“Somebody’s trying to destabilize it even further?” Roszak frowned.

“Either that or they’re trying to stabilize it…under new management.”

“Are you suggesting it could be the Manties?”

“Right off the top of my head, it seems ridiculous,” Barregos conceded. “That doesn’t mean it might strike them the same way, though.”

“For what conceivable motive?” Roszak’s expression was skeptical.

“To help make more trouble for the League.” Barregos’ expression was much more unhappy than skeptical. “Let’s face it, Luiz. I’m sure they’re genuinely grateful to us—to you—for defending Torch, and the Manties have a reputation for paying their debts. So I’m sure anything Delvecchio’s telling you stems at least partly from that. But the Star Kingdom’s also one of the best practitioners of realpolitik around. It’s had to be to survive. And while I’m sure they like us a lot,” he smiled sardonically, “somehow I doubt they’d fall all over themselves to give us better weapons if they didn’t figure it would help them as much as it’s likely to help us.”

“You’re saying they not only have a pretty damned good idea of what we have in mind but that they’d like to see us move Sometime Real Soon Now?” Roszak said slowly. “Sometime soon enough, for example, to help distract Old Chicago, OFS, and—just maybe—Battle Fleet from the Talbott Quadrant?”

“It’s certainly possible. And if that’s what they’re thinking, then isn’t it possible it would make sense to them to stir up places like Kondratii for the same reason? Especially if doing so encourages us to get off the centicredit?”

“That would be very devious of them,” Roszak said, with a certain admiration. “Almost as devious as we are.”

“I didn’t say I blamed them for it,” Barregos agreed. “But if that should happen to be what they have in mind, I think it behooves us to find out everything we can about just how they might plan to pull it off.” He shrugged. “And if all of this is pure paranoia on my part, it still won’t hurt to have a better window into the internal dynamics of all the systems on our little list.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The hotdog, Damien Harahap decided, was one of the best he’d enjoyed in a long time. It was made of mutton, but “mutton” on Mobius was the product of the Mobian mountain sheep, a species unique to Mobius, which he privately thought had the potential to rival Montanan beef among the galaxy’s gourmands. It had a deep, rich taste, and just a trace of onion and a somewhat larger trace of cheddar had been incorporated into this version of one of Mobius’ hallmark specialties. His contact had suggested trying this iteration, and he was looking forward to trying several more before he left for Wonder and his scheduled—or at least potentially scheduled—next meeting with Vincent Frugoni.

He took another bite, then swooped a French fry through the ketchup and popped it into his mouth, then reminded himself to avoid eating too quickly. His contact had an hour-long window in which to meet him, and he’d really prefer not to have completely cleaned his plate and be sitting here, conspicuous among the diners at the other picnic tables, and look like he was waiting for someone.

Of course, I can always order another of these, can’t I? he thought cheerfully, taking another bite of hotdog. Besides, the view’s nice enough for me play the tourist enjoying it without arousing too much suspicion.

He looked out across his picnic table at the sizable lake at the heart of Central Park in the city of Landing—Mobius edition. The table sat on a small spit of land that extended into the lake, wide open to any watching eye, and he felt a modest stir of admiration for whoever had picked the site. Not only did the hotdog stand near the picnic tables do a brisk business, which could cover any number of people’s “coincidental” meetings, but whoever had set the meet here—and for lunchtime—clearly understood that the best way to avoid bugs and directional microphones was to be so transparently open and aboveboard that no one pointed any of those objectionable devices one’s way. In fact—

“Is this place taken?” a voice asked, and he turned back from the lake to find himself facing a man of slightly more than average height with dark hair and improbably bright blue eyes. The newcomer carried a tray loaded with not one, but two hotdogs, plus French fries and a largish serving of coleslaw. When Harahap looked up at him, he twitched his head, indicating the picnic bench on the other side of the ex-gendarme’s table. “The other tables are packed,” he pointed out, with a fair degree of accuracy, then smiled. “Besides, this is my favorite table. Especially on a day like this one.”

“By all means, sit down!” Harahap invited. “And I can understand why you’d like the table. The view’s really nice, isn’t it?”

“And so is the breeze, when it gets as warm as it is today,” the other man agreed. He his tray on the table and seated himself, then cocked his head slightly. “Forgive me for mentioning it, but that doesn’t sound like a Mobian accent.”

“Because it’s not.” It was Harahap’s turn to smile. “It’s Manticoran.” Which, he reflected, it really was. Maybe not Manticoran enough to fool a real Manty, but more than adequate to fool anyone else.

“A little far from home, aren’t you?”

“When you work for the Hauptman Cartel, you get used to being ‘a little far from home,’” Harahap replied wryly. “Still, it has its compensations. Like your system’s hotdogs. A fellow I met on my last visit here suggested I try them. In fact, he specifically suggested I order Number Forty-Six from the menu.” He met the other man’s eyes levelly. “He said I’d really like it, and he was right.”

“Really?” The other man smiled back at him. “Well, I’ve always liked Forty-Six, myself, but my real favorite is Number Thirty-One.”

“I’ll remember to try that,” Harahap said as his table companion completed the recognition phrase. “On the other hand, I may not be the one making the trip next time.” Something which could have been alarm flickered in the other’s eyes, but Harahap continued unhurriedly. “Mister Hauptman has a lot of interests, and I’m probably being transferred to another area—my specialty is prospecting for new contacts, you understand—and someone else, someone with a good track record for developing contacts, will probably be assigned to service any Mobian accounts if things actually work out here.”

“I see.”

The other man took a bite of one of his own hotdogs and chewed appreciatively. Then he swallowed.

“I suppose it would be convenient for me to have a name in any reports you may pass on to your…replacement.”

“Oh, I think we’ll just call you…Mister Brown. John Brown. How does that suit you?”

“I think it should work just fine, Mister…Dabilenaren, was it?”

“Yes, Ardagai. Ardagai Dabilenaren,” Harahap extended his hand and “Mister Brown” shook it firmly.

“Well, Mister Dabilenaren,” he said, “the same friend who recommended this hotdog stand to you spoke very favorably about his previous meeting with you. I hope you understood, though, that he wasn’t in a position to enter into any binding agreements with your cartel?”

“Oh, of course! As I say, I’m a prospector. I’m used to situations like that. May I assume, however, that you’ve been authorized to make that sort of an agreement?”

“Let’s say I have the authority to enter into a tentative agreement, assuming it does turn out we can…do business with one another.” Brown took another bite of hotdog and chewed slowly while he let Harahap digest that, then swallowed. “Mind you, what your friend said to my friends sounded very promising. I think it could be a very profitable relationship for both of us, judging by what your friend said your own objectives were. But it isn’t the sort of final decision I’ve been authorized to make.”

“So exactly what sort of ‘tentative’ agreement do your friends have in mind?” Harahap asked, sitting back with his beer stein.

“Pretty much the one you discussed the last time you were here,” Brown said. “We’re definitely interested in establishing the sort of communication channels you proposed. That sort of market support could make or break our own marketing efforts here in Mobius. And we’re also interested in arranging to see some samples—hopefully a fair number of them—of the items you offered as a loss-leader to edge into the market. But I’m sure you’ll understand that we have to be a little leery of binding commitments until we’ve actually taken delivery of them and established both that your cartel can supply them and that there won’t be any…unpleasant surprises in the delivery chain. For either of us.”

His eyes met Harahap across the table, and Harahap nodded.

“Oh, I can certainly see that. So, having said that, let’s look at some nuts and bolts here. First, about those communication channels. The best way to—”

* * *

“—so I don’t think you’ll have any problems, assuming the weapons drop goes smoothly,” Harahap said into the microphone, dictating the final paragraphs of his report as
Факел
departed Mobius orbit, headed for the system hyper limit and Wonder. That report would be dropped off in a public mailbox for the next Alignment contact to pick up when he arrived in-system. “Landrum’s position with Somerton should make the actual drop fairly straightforward, unless these people’s security is a lot more porous than I think it is. I’ve only promised them small arms and a few crew-served antiarmor weapons in the first drop, so bulk shouldn’t be an enormous problem. I’d really like to get something heavier into their hands, but I think starting out fairly small will be more convincing—or reassuring, at least—to the locals.”

He sipped whiskey for a moment, thinking about that, then nodded to himself and resumed.

“This visit’s strengthened my impression that these people are a lot better organized than three-quarters of the would-be ‘revolutionaries’ out this way. I suspect ‘Mister Brown’ is considerably higher in their hierarchy than he wanted to admit, but he’s also very smooth. I’d say he has strong nerves, and if he’s as senior in their organization as I think he is, they strike me as very serious players.

“I’ve given him the ‘contact codes’ to request naval support from the ‘Manties,’ and we may need to be ready for things to pop here in Mobius sooner than we’d anticipated. Lombroso’s decision to hold ‘open elections’ seems to’ve struck a much deeper nerve than he or his advisors thought it would. There’s enough frustration that genuine political debate’s beginning to creep into Mobians’ day-to-day conversations, now that they’re going to be allowed to actually vote, and that’s never a good sign for a regime like his. I’d say the odds are at least seventy-thirty that he’ll try to ratchet it back down once he realizes what he’s started, and that’s when the shit will really hit the fan. So our window to get these people primed may be narrower than we’d thought. Bearing that in mind, I recommend—”

* * *

“Mister Nyhus is here for his thirteen-hundred, Sir,” Marianne Haavikko announced over Adão Ukhtomskoy’s com.

“Oh, wonderful,” Ukhtomskoy replied. Marianne had been with him for almost two and a half T-decades; there wasn’t much point in trying to hide his opinion of Rajmund Nyhus from her. She was also the complete mistress of her expression, and no one else—like Rajmund Nyhus—was going to hear him over her earbug.

“Well, I suppose there’s no escape. Send him in.”

“Of course, Sir,” Haavikko said pleasantly, and Ukhtomskoy sat back in his chair.

The office door opened a moment later to admit a well-tailored man with very fair hair, a dark complexion, and blue eyes. He was rather shorter than Ukhtomskoy’s hundred and eighty centimeters, but he had the look of someone who spent a lot of time working out.

“Rajmund!” Ukhtomskoy said, standing and holding out his hand with a very fair counterfeit of enthusiasm.

“Adão.” Nyhus gripped the extended hand firmly. “Thanks for working me in on such short notice.”

“You’re the head of Section Two,” Ukhtomskoy pointed out. “I’m in the habit of ‘working in’ my section heads when they say they need to see me.” He smiled thinly, waving Nyhus into one of the chairs facing his desk before he sat back down himself. “Which isn’t to say,” he continued, “that I don’t find myself wondering what’s come up so suddenly.”

“I know.” Nyhus shrugged. “I hadn’t seen the reports before our regular first-of-the-week meeting, though. Once I did, and once I had a chance to think about the analysis, I decided it probably shouldn’t wait until Thursday, though.”

“What sort of reports?” Ukhtomskoy frowned.

“There’s something going on in the Verge—something new, I mean,” Nyhus amplified. “There’s a lot of unrest kicking up in our administered systems. And in some systems where we’re only present in a support capacity, as well.”

“Pardon me, but don’t we always have a lot of ‘unrest’ in those systems?” Ukhtomskoy asked a bit tartly.

“I probably should’ve said additional unrest,” Nyhus replied. “It’s getting more organized, and we’ve got indications someone on the outside may be fanning the flames.”

“Fanning them exactly how?”

“So far it’s still largely straws in the wind,” Nyhus admitted, “but there are rumors in some of our pipelines about promises of weapons—substantial numbers of weapons. And there are even some suggestions that someone’s promising outside naval support.”

Ukhtomskoy’s eyes narrowed. This was the first he’d heard about anything like that from any OFS source, but there was that memo Noritoshi Väinöla had kicked over to him from the Gendarmerie a month or so ago. He’d written it off at the time as alarmism, some analyst with too much time on his hands seeing a pattern in what was actually chaos. But if Section Two was picking up some sort of confirming evidence, maybe this meeting with Nyhus wasn’t going to be the usual complete waste of time.

“What kind of ‘rumors’ are we talking about here, Rajmund?” he asked a bit sharply, and Nyhus raised his right hand, palm up.

“You know how it is, Adão. We’ve got confidential informants scattered from here to hell and back, and every one of them wants to find something to convince us we ought to be paying him more. So I was a little…skeptical, let’s say, when the first reports came in.

“Obviously, no one’s going to be able to document anything like this, and I think some of my senior system agents are redacting the names of their informants.” His mouth twisted briefly. “We’ve had too many of them burned because of sloppy information security along the chain to the home office, so it’s not too hard to understand why they’re reluctant to scatter names around. I’ve sent clarification requests back down the line, but it’s going to take quite a while for them to get back to me.”

Ukhtomskoy nodded impatiently. The lengthy delays in transmitting data over interstellar distances were any intelligence service’s worst bottleneck.

“What concerns me is how broad a front these rumors and hints are coming in across,” Nyhus continued. “It stretches—assuming there’s anything to it—all the way from the Talbott Quadrant to the Maya Sector. In fact, it seems to extend even beyond Maya. And the other thing that concerns me is the name that seems to be associated with the promises of support.”

He paused, and Ukhtomskoy scowled. One of the many things he disliked about Nyhus was his childish tendency to draw out revelations. Ukhtomskoy hadn’t played “I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you’ll-show-me-yours” since high school.

Willingly, at any rate.

“And what name would that be?” he asked irritably.

“Manticore,” Nyhus replied.

* * *

“I think the hook’s set,” Rajmund Nyhus said later that evening.

He sat in a restaurant privacy booth, looking across the table at a very attractive platinum-haired woman who was dressed just a bit too cheaply and gaudily for her present surroundings. As part of his persona as a corruptible bureaucrat deeply in bed with every transstellar in the galaxy, he’d cultivated a public taste for cheap prostitutes willing to put up with fairly…stringent requirements. The fact that he actually enjoyed their services was an added cherry on top, but the real reason was to add texture to his corrupt, none-to-bright, rather seedy cover. Well, that and specifically to cover his meetings with his current “date.”

Like him, Claire McGrath was a beta-line of the Mesan Alignment.

Technically, Claire was his “handler,” but the truth was that Rajmund Nyhus was a lot smarter than most of his Frontier Security colleagues would have believed. He was also too valuable and too highly placed for anything but the most secure communication avenues, however, and Claire was exactly that. Among the other traits built into her line’s genotype were photographic memory and the ability to almost perfectly mimic the exact tone and emphasis of anything one of “her” agents said to her. Nothing went out electronically or in hard copy; she carried every bit of it in her head, and the recipients of her reports could be confident she’d delivered them with every nuance of the agents who’d given them to her in the first place.