Victory Conditions (38 page)

“In a manner of speaking,” MacRobert said. “She’s very dedicated to the welfare and safety of Slotter Key, and she finally saw that her place was there, guarding the rear, as it were. I pity the pirate who tries to get past her.”

Nexus II

Penelope Dunbarger—she had taken back her maiden name for business use, and insisted that the media use it—looked perfectly at ease in the chair placed for her by a solicitous host on the main news program. Rafe could hardly believe this was happening. She had left the building not by the underground route he would have recommended, but by the front entrance, smiling and waving at the astonished police and news reporters as if she were a vid star. After disappearing into a crowd of uniforms and cameras, she had reemerged and entered the rear door of a long, sleek vehicle that looked suspiciously like his own, and he had heard nothing from her for hours. Five minutes before, Gary had walked into his office and turned on the main screen without comment.

Now here she was, about to be the first news item interview, by all appearances.

“You’ve made extraordinary accusations, Sera Dunbarger,” the host said. “You must realize that defending your brother—a known criminal—by attacking a senior government official could be interpreted as…as, well, more family loyalty than anything else.”

Penny produced what sounded like an artless gurgle of amusement. “Come now, Stan,” she said, patting the man’s arm; he looked startled. “Everyone knows that sisters know brothers’ faults. We aren’t dazzled by them; we’ve seen them with their pants down. Literally. When they were knobby-kneed little boys.”

“She’s good,” Gary said, as if he were evaluating a prospective hire.

“You’ve got people—” Rafe began.

“Of course. She’s covered. She said to get back here and make sure you saw this. She said it’s payback time.”

“Payback?”

Gary chuckled. “Rafe, I know you’re having a bad day, and I’m truly sorry about Ky Vatta. But with this one, you did something extraordinary. You may not be able to appreciate it now, but you should. You freed the genie from the bottle.”

On screen, the host was attempting an avuncular tone and only managed to sound condescending. “In other words, you’re saying you’re not blind to his faults—”

“Gracious no!” Penny shook her head. “I’d be the first to tell you that Rafe snores so loud you can hear him three doors away—”

“I do not,” Rafe muttered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Gary said. “It makes you human.” Rafe gave him a sharp look. “And you did snore in the dormitory, back at that place, about the time your voice was breaking.”

“You told her?”

“She asked for something harmless. Snoring is something innocent, like farting, only that’s low-class, and snoring happens in the best-regulated families.”

The host glanced at his notes and went on. “But when your brother was here before—”

“He was young and wild, yes,” Penny said.

“He killed two men—” the host said, looking severe.

“Saving my life,” Penny said, now leaning forward, all earnestness. “My family wanted to spare me the trauma—a lot was hushed up that should not have been, because Rafe saved my life that night. Men broke in, killed the house staff, and were going to kill or abduct us—”

“Are you sure it’s not just an excuse he made, something he told you?”

“I wasn’t a baby,” Penny said. Rafe had to admire her voice control; she placed every word and every tone for maximum effect. “I was in school, Tolver Junior Girls. I remember it very clearly indeed. The man had grabbed me out of bed, half smothered me in the duvet, and was carrying me away when Rafe shot him.”

“Playing him like a violin,” Gary murmured. “Now she has me wondering how often she’s played
me.
”

The host almost stuttered, caught himself. “But—we obtained the official records and it says Rafe—your brother—hit you—”

“When I saw the cook’s body downstairs, I started screaming; I couldn’t stop. Rafe slapped me so I would stop. I don’t mind that; he hadn’t done it before and he never did it again.”

“So it’s your contention that his killing those men was in self-defense?”

“Not contention. Fact. Completely self-defense.”

“Then why was he sent to the Gardner Facility?”

“Lew Parmina,” Penny said. Now her voice was cold, chips of winter granite, all sharp edges. “He told my parents where to send us for post-trauma therapy, and then got the therapist to say that Rafe was dangerous. I don’t think he’d ever have done those other things he did, if he hadn’t been locked up there.”

“Wouldn’t have had the contacts to get her out, if I hadn’t,” Rafe said, with a sharp look at Gary. “Not that I appreciated that at the time.”

“She’s doing a perfect job,” Gary said. “I could use someone like that in my organization.”

Rafe nearly choked. “She wants my job, Gary, not yours. Luckily for you.”

The interview went on, the interviewer doing his best to present Penny as the besotted little sister of a dastard, but Penny neither wavered nor lost her amiable composure. Finally, with the perfect timing that was impressing Rafe more every moment, she took control.

“What you have to understand,” she said, “is that I’m the one, not Rafe, who’s been looking into the financial details of deals cut between individuals in ISC and the Nexus government. Rafe gave me a temporary job to keep me busy while I mourned my husband’s death; he thought I would just sit there doing data entry, but instead—” She pulled out a data cube. “—I found myself fascinated with the number of people who had their noses in the same money stream. The late Secretary Isaacs, for instance, had been taking in tens of thousands of credits a year—money I can trace to Ser Parmina by way of the former enforcement chief at ISC. Money allocated by ISC’s Board of Directors for maintenance of ISC’s fleet—which as you know is a major component of the System Defense—was going everywhere
but
the fleet.”

The data cube glittered in the light as she rolled it in her fingers and the camera zoomed in. The news anchor stared at it avidly. “That’s—do you have proof? Is that it?”

Penny smiled at him, the fond smile of an indulgent mother for a rather backward child. “Of course I have proof.
I’m
not in the habit of making false accusations. This is your copy—” She handed it over. “And there are many more, of course. I had not had time to tell Rafe about all I found. He’s had one crisis after another to deal with.”

“Now, you’ve made comments about Secretary Isaacs—”

“That he was involved in cheating the government, yes. And that he had reason to think someone might be on to his misdeeds, and thus might well have considered a suicide that implicated my brother and ISC as a way out.”

“But your brother was there—”

“Of course he was. It helps to get the person you wish to frame at the right place at the right time, doesn’t it?” She smiled at him, nodded as if he’d agreed, and went on. “Isaacs’ secretary ushered my brother in, and laid a packet of data cubes—just like that one—on his desk. Then he started fiddling with one of the cubes, the way you’re doing—” The man dropped the cube as if it were hot suddenly. “—and collapsed,” Penny said. “It would have been easy to put contact poison on the data cubes and have them—or one of them—ready in case of need.”

“Do you know if the cubes have been tested?”

“No,” Penny said. “I did suggest that to the police, of course. They weren’t aware that the cubes hadn’t been there all along, that they had been brought in just when Rafe was meeting the Secretary.”

“It could mean that Secretary Isaacs was murdered by someone else—even if the cubes are found, and are contaminated, that doesn’t mean he committed suicide.” The host was doing his best to regain control, and before Penny could answer he went on with another quick glance at his notes. “Now—there have been suggestions that the incident in which your husband was killed and you and your parents were abducted was in fact organized by your brother, in league with Lew Parmina, to disable your father and then, by apparently rescuing you, be enabled to take over ISC. Lew Parmina, the only person who might incriminate your brother, is conveniently dead at his hand, without trial for his alleged crimes—” The host finally had to pause for breath.

“In a word, no,” Penny said. She was smiling, but now it was a cold smile. “It was Lew Parmina who told my parents what therapist to send Rafe and me to after the home invasion. It was Lew Parmina who ingratiated himself with our father, became his right-hand man, and—to prevent being displaced by my brother Rafe—engineered his commitment to the Gardner Facility. It was Lew Parmina who doled out his allowance, introduced him to prostitutes, encouraged his vices—”

“Do you have any proof?”

“Yes, but that proof is not with me today. I was at work, as you know, and had available only those matters pertaining to ISC–government relations.” Penny’s smile warmed again. “I will of course be glad to provide it—”

The host glanced, with some desperation, to the side.

“Begging for the producer to signal a break,” Gary said. “But they’re all too interested…”

Penny wasted no airtime. “There’s a far more serious problem,” she said. “You recall I said that Parmina had squandered on bribes money meant to keep ISC’s fleets in repair—well, there’s imminent threat, and Rafe needs to talk to the Premier, but the Premier won’t talk to him because he believes what he was told, that Rafe killed Secretary Isaacs.”

“Wha—er—that’s not—” The host jerked his head around to gape at Penny.

“So I wanted to make this public appeal,” Penny said. “Rafe didn’t kill the Secretary, but he might be able to help save us all if he gets to talk to the Premier and they work together. If he’s under arrest or the Premier won’t listen to him, he can’t. He has a pretty good record of pulling off rescues—as I should know—” Penny chuckled here; she did have, as Rafe knew, an infectious smile. “And we need to give him a chance to do his best for all of us.” She turned back to the host. “Thank you so much, Stan, for having me on your show—”

“Er—uh—you’re welcome, Sera Dunbarger, and—I guess that’s all our time—”

“I give it less than a minute,” Gary said.

“A minute to what?”

“The phone call from the Premier’s office, suggesting that you should come over there. Don’t. Invite him here. Tell him there’s data you can only access here, which is partly true at least.”

“I don’t think—” Rafe heard the buzz from Emil’s desk just outside. Gary grinned and spread his hands.

“I should have asked you to bet on it,” he said.

“And you’d have won. If that’s the Premier.”

“Premier on the line,” Emil said, as if on cue.

“She’s going to make a great CEO,” Gary said, “if she doesn’t decide to go into politics.”

“Huh?” Emil looked confused.

“Penny,” Rafe said. “I’ll take the call in here, Emil.” Gary followed Emil out; Rafe made sure the recorder was running before he picked up the headset. For this one he wanted a reliable record.

“Did you put her up to that?” the Premier said as soon as Rafe switched the headset on.

“No,” Rafe said. “This was all her idea.”

“She’s younger than you—”

“She’s a grown woman who’s already told me she wants my job,” Rafe said. “I thought I was giving her busywork to take her mind off her losses, and she was burrowing into the archives learning the business.”

“She…she what?”

“You’re not more surprised by this than I am,” Rafe said. “She walked out of here this morning without asking my permission, having told me to stay in my office and keep out of it, and the next thing I knew she was on that news show.”

“She flabbergasted Stan. I’ve interviewed with him; he’s not easy to shake. Are you sure this is the same Penny I remember swimming with my younger children? Sweet little Penny?”

“This is sweet little Penny grown up,” Rafe said. “The kind of trauma she’s been through crumbles some people, but apparently not her.”

“She’s on her way over to meet with me. If I’m convinced by her that she’s really behind this, I’ll get you out of your pickle and we’ll talk.”

“Bring her back over with you,” Rafe said. “I have data, ISC data, you need to see.”

“Concerning—”

“Concerning the mess we’re in, militarily and financially.”

There was a moment during which Rafe listened to the Premier’s breaths, four of them, and then the Premier grunted. “Well. You know I’ll have to bring my own security.”

“Of course.”

“They tell me your sister’s car is almost here. Do you suppose her driver would know how to disappear the way you did this morning?”

“I have no idea,” Rafe said. “But it would be best for everyone if—should Penny satisfy you—you either came with her to the main entrance or came in your own car the same way. There’s been far too much secrecy. We need to be seen to be honest men.” Whether or not they were. Rafe waited through another pause.

“All right then,” the Premier said. “If I come, that’s what we’ll do. Open and aboveboard.” He said that last almost like a curse. “And I’ve already instructed the investigators to look for those data cubes and examine the entire executive floor over there. If it was murder, we need to find out who did it and why. Suicide—well, I’m sorry for the family.”