Shadow of Victory - eARC (45 page)

Chapter Forty

“So,” Brigadier Simeon Gaddis said sourly, cupping his hands in front of his mouth and blowing on them as he stepped out onto the observation platform and the cold wind off Lake Michigan whistled around his ears. He glanced back and forth between Lupe Blanton and Weng Zhing-hwan with an edge of suspicion…or perhaps the proper noun was apprehension. “What brings us all together on this fine, brisk March morning?”

“It is brisk, isn’t it?” Lieutenant Colonel Weng acknowledged cheerfully, watching that same wind shred the steam rising from her hot cup of tea.

“Actually, it’s cold enough to freeze off certain important portions of my anatomy,” he replied tartly. “Couldn’t we have found someplace out of the wind for this clandestine discussion?”

Gaddis was from the southern hemisphere of Shakin in the Bootstrap System, and Shakin’s average temperature was well above Old Earth’s. Old Chicago in March, especially anywhere near the lakefront, was like a foretaste of hell as far as he was concerned.

“It’s not a ‘clandestine discussion,’ Sir,” Weng admonished him. “It’s just three professional colleagues out to enjoy the morning sunshine.”

“And if you think anyone is going to believe that, you need to find another line of work, Colonel,” the very tall, muscular brigadier—he was forty centimeters taller than Blanton and almost thirty centimeters taller even than Weng—replied. “Although,” he continued grudgingly, “I will concede that it’s nice to see at least some sunshine after the last couple of weeks.”

The brigadier had a point, Weng conceded. The temperature in Old Chicago in March seldom dropped below about minus seven degrees, and the average low was somewhere around freezing. For the last week or so, however, it had plunged well below that average, and the bright morning sunlight reflected dazzlingly off the white snow bordering the Solarian capital’s heated walkways and roadways.

And he also had a point that no one who noticed the three of them chatting was likely to think they’d just happened to run into one another. On the other hand, the observation deck off Smith Tower, and Smith Tower happened to house JISDCC, otherwise known as the Joint Intelligence Sharing and Distribution Command Center. As such, all three of them had every right to be there, although they seldom were. In theory, JISDCC was supposed to keep all the Solarian League’s myriad intelligence agencies on the same page. In fact, the “sharing” and “distribution” bits of the Center’s charter got very short shrift. Still, there were appearances to maintain, especially given the currently worsening situation vis-à-vis the Star Empire of Manticore, so it wasn’t exactly preposterous for them to have dropped by. In fact, they’d each casually mentioned to various colleagues that they were off for a visit to show how seriously they took that situation, even though everyone knew the visit wouldn’t actually accomplish anything…except to rack up bureaucratic brownie points against future need. And each of them had carefully—and “coincidentally”—engineered the time of his or her visit to ensure that they would, in fact, wander through Smith Tower on their flag-showing expeditions at roughly the same time.

And with all three of us in the same place at the same time, it would look suspicious if we didn’t get together for a brief huddle, she reflected. Not that anyone would actually expect us to tell each other anything substantive. It’s all just part of the coup-counting part of the job.

“This shouldn’t take all that long, Sir,” she said out loud. “Lupe and I just need a little advice.”

“And you couldn’t just screen me about it?” Gaddis demanded even more sourly. “I have a perfectly nice, warm office, you know.”

“And there are probably quite a few people keeping track of the conversations you have from it,” Blanton put in. Gaddis looked at her with arched eyebrows and she shrugged. “I’m sure you take the same kind of precautions Zhing-hwan and I take, Sir. But I also know all your official calls are logged, and I’d just as soon not have anything point people at this particular conversation.”

“I hope you know how paranoid that sounds,” Gaddis observed, and both women smiled with very little humor.

“And are you going to tell us paranoia isn’t a survival tool in our business?” Weng asked him.

“No.” He shook his head. “No, probably not. To be honest, though, I have to wonder why ‘spooks’ want to talk to a straight cop like me. Or, for that matter, why you couldn’t have simply sent me an interoffice memo about it, Colonel,” he said, looking at Weng rather pointedly. “Unlike Lupe here, we’re in the same chain of command, after all.”

Weng nodded, although it wasn’t quite as simple as the brigadier had just implied. Gaddis was the equivalent of her own immediate superior, Brigadier Väinöla, but in the Gendarmerie’s Criminal Investigation Division rather than Intelligence. That meant he was an actual working cop, with very little involvement in the Gendarmes’ support for OFS out in the Verge. He was also remarkably apolitical for someone who’d risen to his position, and he’d gotten there largely because he knew were too many bodies were buried. A lot of people would have preferred to see someone a bit more…amenable to the political realities of the Solarian League’s upper echelons in his job, but they’d had to be very careful about trying to break the bureaucratic kneecaps of someone with that much ammunition. And everyone knew he was a cop’s cop, determined to do his job and prepared to exhume any of those bodies he needed to if someone got in his way. As such, he tended to be regarded as some sort of rogue elephant and given a wide, wide berth by the majority of the intelligence and law enforcement community’s senior members, many of whom had good reason to worry about any exhumations he might undertake.

And that, of course, was the reason she wasn’t about to send him any direct memos. As he’d just implied, he had very little interest in the sorts of intelligence Weng Zhing-hwan and Lupe Blanton were supposed to develop. That meant there was little official pretext for them to route reports to him, and everyone in the intelligence community knew it. In turn, that meant any official contact would be likely to draw attention…and if there was any truth to the suspicions they’d begun to nurture, the last thing they needed was to be caught sharing information with what was probably the one man in the Solarian League’s senior law enforcement who’d earned a reputation for going wherever the evidence led him and damn the political consequences.

“We’re both Gendarmes, Sir,” she said now. “We aren’t really in the same chain of command, though, are we?”

“No. But is there a reason you’re talking to me instead of Noritoshi Väinöla?” Gaddis’ tone had turned stern, and his eyes were hard. “He and I do exchange information from time to time, you know. And we have those meetings—you know, the ones where we get together with General Mabley once every couple of weeks?—where we talk about all sorts of things. More to the point, I’ve known him for a long time. If you’re about to tell me he’s involved in something I need to be taking official cognizance of, you and I may have a problem, Colonel.”

“Sir, Brigadier Väinöla knows about most of what we wanted to talk to you about. I haven’t told him quite everything we’ve picked up because, frankly, if I did, he’d be legally obligated to report my conclusions to General Mabley. And I don’t want to put him in that position any more than Lupe wants to put Adão Ukhtomskoy into the same position over at Frontier Security.”

“Why not?” Gaddis sounded rather more wary, and Weng smiled crookedly.

“We’re not violating any laws, Brigadier. For that matter, were not even violating any regulations. What we are doing would probably come under the heading of…deliberately withholding raw data from our superiors to protect our sources.”

“Why does that word ‘probably’ make me nervous, Colonel?”

“Because you’ve been around Old Chicago a long time, Sir,” Blanton put in. She turned her back to the lake, her hands shoved deep into her pockets, and looked up at the towering brigadier. “The problem is that Zhing-hwan and I—and I’m pretty sure Brigadier Väinöla—are coming to the conclusion that there’s some truth to the Manticorans’ claims that the League’s being manipulated. Which leads us to the conclusion that anyone doing the manipulating must be plugged in at what I think we could agree would be called a very high level.”

“The sort of level where they might hear about it if the two of you started sounding any alarms through official channels?”

“Exactly,” Weng said. She sipped tea from her insulated cup, treasuring the hot tea’s warmth in the cold, windy morning…and wishing her stomach didn't feel quite so cold for an entirely different reason. “At the moment, neither Lupe nor I are concerned about our physical safety,” she continued after a moment, not completely truthfully. “But if the Manties are right, these people don’t give much of a damn how many other people get killed. I’d imagine that what you’ve seen from the Technodyne investigation could be considered evidence pointing in that direction.”

Gaddis looked at her for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“We haven’t been able to prove Technodyne was directly involved in supplying those terrorists in Talbott,” he said. “Partly, Ms. Blanton, I’m afraid that’s because quite a few of your Frontier Security people out in the Verge have been…less than forthcoming, let’s say. But there’s no doubt in my people’s minds that even if Technodyne wasn’t directly shipping the weapons, they knew all about that part of the operation. We don’t have the same kind of access into—or leverage against, for that matter—Manpower or any of the other Mesan players, but the mere fact that they’re involved, assuming the Manties aren’t completely out to lunch, would certainly indicate no one’s worrying very much about body counts.”

“And judging by what happened to Admiral Crandall, they’re getting body counts,” Weng said flatly.

“Are you seriously suggesting this ‘manipulation’ goes deep enough to move seventy or eighty ships-of-the-wall around like tiddlywinks?” Gaddis demanded.

“Yes, Sir.” Her voice was so quiet he could barely hear it over the wind, but she met his eyes very levelly. “That’s exactly what we’re afraid of.”

The brigadier looked back and forth between both women, and they looked back at him, no longer trying to conceal the anxiety in their eyes. Only the wind spoke for several seconds. Then he inhaled deeply, turned away, and rested both hands on the observation deck’s railing as he gazed out into the cutting wind.

“That’s a very scary proposition,” he told that wind. “It’s also pretty far out. I hesitate to use any adjectives like ‘hysterical’ or that ‘paranoid’ one again, but I’m sure you understand how our esteemed superiors would regard the notion.”

“That’s why we need you, Sir,” Blanton said. “Unlike either of us, you’re a department head, and you’re right—we’re both ‘spooks,’ but you’re a cop. We understand intelligence gathering and analysis, but neither one of us has a clue about how to launch an investigation. For that matter, neither Brigadier Väinöla nor Adão have the…facilities or expertise—or the jurisdiction!—to launch any investigations. But one thing we’re pretty sure of is that if there's any basis for our suspicions and they kick those suspicions upstairs through our own chains of command, whoever the manipulators are, they’re going to pull out all the stops to quash any investigation you might otherwise be requested to undertake.”

She did not, Gaddis noted, mention the distinct possibility that they would also take steps to “quash” the troublesome analysts who’d disturbed their comfortable bottom-feeding muck.

“And what exactly do you want me to investigate?” he asked.

“We’ve written up everything we’ve turned up so far, Sir,” Weng said.

She set her teacup on the railing next to his right hand and reached into her coat pockets for a pair of gloves. She pulled them on and reclaimed her cup. When she did, there was a data chip on the railing. He glanced down at it out of the corner of one eye but made no immediate move to pick it up.

“You wouldn’t have discussed this with anyone over in Admiral Thimár’s shop, I suppose?”

“Sir, I don’t know anyone in ONI well enough to approach them with something this…tenuous, especially when it has so many sharp edges,” the colonel told him.

“I know a couple of people in Section Four,” Blanton said. Section Four was the Office of Naval Intelligence’s counterintelligence command. “Frankly, I’d be really worried about the security of anything over there, though. And, well, there’s always Admiral Yau.”

“Tell me about it,” Gaddis muttered.

Yau Kwang-tung, Section Four’s CO, had towering family connections…which happened to be his sole qualification for his position. The fact that he had it anyway probably said a great deal about how anyone could hope to manipulate something as gargantuan as the Solarian League, the brigadier reflected now. Obviously, no one could possibly pose a genuine threat to the League or to the Solarian League Navy! That being the case, there was no need to put someone competent in charge of their counterintelligence duties.

“There’s a reason I asked,” he said, turning to face them and leaning back against the rail. In the process, his right hand just happened to sweep up Colonel Weng’s chip. “Do either of you know Captain al-Fanudahi?”

“Daud al-Fanudahi?” Weng asked. Blanton only looked blank, and Gaddis nodded to the colonel. “I know the name, Sir, and I know he’s on just about every senior Navy officer’s shit list. That’s about it.”

“Captain al-Fanudahi is a very interesting fellow,” the brigadier said slowly. “It happens that the main reason he’s on the Navy’s ‘shit list’ is that he’s been telling people for years that the Manties have pulled way ahead of us in terms of weapons development. I’ll let you imagine how someone like Fleet Admiral Rajampet or Admiral Polydorou over at Systems Development reacted to that.”

“Not well,” Blanton said with a wince, and Gaddis nodded.

“That sums it up pretty well, actually,” he said. “These days, after what happened to Crandall at Spindle, they’re at least calling him in for the occasional briefing, but he’s still very much a voice in the wilderness.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, but I don’t see where you’re going with this,” Weng said. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. “If Captain al-Fanudahi's already marginalized, how much ability to help push something like this along would he have? For that matter, if I remember correctly, he’s in Operational Analysis. That would be Admiral Cheng’s department, and with all due respect, Cheng’s not a lot sharper stylus than Admiral Yau. And, again with all due respect, I’d be almost as worried about OpAn’s ability—assuming it had the willingness in the first place—to maintain security about this.”