by Scott McKay
But Dees was not a party animal, and therefore he couldn’t justify the expense of an Elkstrand lair on a public servant’s salary. He instead had invested in a brownstone in the Green Tail neighborhood northeast of the capitol area, an unpretentious neighborhood jutting out into the confluence between the Shelton and Morgan Rivers. Dees’ place wasn’t much to look at, which was fine with him; he was seldom there. He had no time for home life or much of anything else away from work and hadn’t for quite a long stretch since he was a young man.
The demands of his career had led to the collapse of Dees’ marriage to his wife Karen, to whom he’d been hitched at a young age. Both were military brats, though the similarities between the two ended there. While Dees was continuing in his family’s martial tradition, Karen had little interest in Army life and insisted on setting up a homestead in the capital area. She made Abraham purchase a far-too-expensive house across the Morgan in high-end Haddenton, and his Army salary only barely covered the mortgage. That meant Karen Dees was her own breadwinner, and with Abraham stationed down near the border, she was essentially single. Her father had been in the Army’s procurement office, and he had swung Karen a job with Williams General Weaponry, a defense firm specializing in ammunition for artillery. Before long she was making considerably more than her husband, and with his absence they barely knew each other.
As that was a bad foundation for a marriage, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Abraham received a letter a few years after the two had been married letting him know that Karen had found someone who suited her more than he did, and that she was engaged to be wedded to him. Under Ardenian law all that was necessary to dissolve a marriage in such circumstances was for Karen to file for Replacement; as they had no children, she had no impediment to dumping her husband for a new one.
He at least profited three thousand decirans from the sale of that too-expensive house in Haddenton, while Karen and Simon Mayburn, the insurance executive she unloaded him for, set up house in the Airing neighborhood, just upriver from Principia’s central business district, in a sizable mansion. From what Abraham heard, Karen’s second marriage was little more joyous than the first.
That was neither here nor there to Abraham, whose own nearly nonexistent personal life was tied closely to his work. But just shy of his fifty-first birthday, he knew that it was unseemly not to have someone in charge of his home front.
And as the head of the Army-Navy Office of Special Warfare, Dees had both the salary and the prestige to be quite the catch. He was constantly invited to high-profile social events and made as many of them as he could with a series of female friends on his arm. Dees hadn’t had the time or attention to pursue any of those relationships into serious romances, and there was the lingering memory of Karen. Not that he longed for her; he didn’t. But the lesson he learned from that relationship was that as an absent husband, which he expected he would be until he retired, he had no chance to make a relationship work. Consequently, he kept things simple and politely played off questions about his personal situation by saying he was too busy.
However, Dees did have one semi-romantic prospect percolating at a low level. There was a reporter for the Peace Party news broadsheet The Conciliator who had been working to cultivate him as a source, and the two were building an association with green shoots of a personal relationship.
Heather Blake had a rather interesting story to tell. She had grown up in the hyper-wealthy Morgan Valley town of Hearthome, the daughter of a butler at one of the great estates surrounding the town. And Heather had fallen for Thomas Wicklow, the son of her father’s employer two years older than she, a doomed relationship which became disastrous when at age fifteen she became pregnant with Thomas’ child.
While the standard result of such a circumstance would be a marriage, even given the difference in class between the two young adults, Thomas’ father wouldn’t have it. He had already arranged a marriage for Thomas with the daughter of a very wealthy Belgarden banker whose liquidity made the union a matter of considerable, urgent necessity. Therefore, Heather was dispatched with a cash settlement to provide for her education and the raising of her daughter Sophia. She was sent to the women’s career college at Greencastle while her parents kept Sophie, and Heather developed a talent there for the written word. Then, at eighteen, she landed her first job in journalism, covering the city council for the Greencastle Inquisitor. She was a success in that position even as a harried single mother, but a series of hard-hitting exposes hammering local politicians made her position tenuous with the city’s ruling crowd. At twenty-two, she was relocating.
From Greencastle, she moved on to Belgarden and a job covering provincial politics for the brand-new Peace Party organ the Belgarden Sentinel. Heather quickly became a star in her profession, and over the next nine years she built a name as one of the most insightful and fearless journalists in the country. It was just a matter of time before she’d be nationally prominent, and the previous year she’d landed a job with The Conciliator, the Peace Party’s publication based in Principia, covering national security issues.
Heather immediately sought out Dees as a source, noting that he appeared to be the hottest name of the top military brass types on her beat. She cornered him at the Societam following a presentation he’d given on the Udar fifth column to a committee of Parliamentary delegates, and asked if he’d be available for an hour-long interview.
“I don’t know if I can make the time,” he said, “unless it’s over dinner when I’m free.”
Her eyes lit up in a flirty manner, and she responded with “Oh, if that’s what’s available…” as she fidgeted with her blonde curls. Dees realized he’d just made a pass without even trying.
“Oh, my,” he chuckled. “That did sound forward, didn’t it?”
“No,” she said, regaining her composure. “I understand you’re very busy and I appreciate you trying to find the time.”
“Well,” he’d said, “awkwardness aside I’m a man of my word. The Gardner on Courtlyn Avenue at seven tomorrow?”
“Why, of course,” she said.
They hit it off, and an hour-long journalistic interview turned into a three-hour friendly conversation. Heather then produced an excellent article outlining the Office of Special Warfare’s efforts to fight the enemy’s spies and organized crime operatives. Dees sent her a note thanking her for her work, and that led to another sit-down, and another, and before long Heather had become one of Dees’ regular plus-ones at the capital city’s social events.
In the four months they’d been accompanying each other to these outings, though, it hadn’t progressed a whole lot beyond that. A couple of weeks earlier, they’d had a conversation about what Dees could give Heather and what she could give him. Dees got the impression Heather would be comfortable with a lot more; her daughter was sixteen years old and ready to start her own life. Heather had enrolled Sophia in Principia’s fashionable Elmdale finishing school for girls, and Sophia, who was intelligent, precocious and strikingly beautiful, was at the top of her class. That meant at the young age of thirty-one Heather was staring at the prospect of an empty nest and, being very attractive and fashionable in her own right, was quite an eligible bachelorette.
Dees was fond of Heather, but he worried he’d be taking advantage of her if he let the relationship progress beyond a friendship and journalistic alliance. If they became an item, everyone would assume that she was simply his mouthpiece. That assumption would trash her credibility, and he’d destroy her career only to end up neglecting her as he had his first wife.
He told her as much, and she thanked him for being so honest and that she valued his friendship. Which on the surface sounded fine. He noticed the body language behind the statement didn’t quite match up, though. And two weeks went by without the two getting together, which left Dees feeling a bit distracted.
He’d left word for her before leaving the capital for his trip south that he’d like to get together again upon his
return. There was a major charity ball that evening, and he needed a date for it. He was looking forward to Heather giving him a yes.
But now that he knew so many secrets of the people in Principia’s high society, Dees was finding those social events harder and harder to stomach. The country’s elite, or too many of them, were corrupt. Ardenia needed a hard reset.
The more he thought about his meeting with Louis Roth the previous day, the more Dees was warming to the idea of being an interim president.
And as he listened to Curtis’ briefing about the hideous Udar Club scandal, of which nobody outside of OSW knew the full extent, Dees realized how monumental the task of righting the Good Ship Ardenia really would be.
For in that ledger containing the Udar Club’s member list Dees saw the absolute end of the Peace Party. Its most prominent leadership was shot through with hedonistic degenerates more than likely compromised by an enemy nation.
That he had the goods on these people meant they were compromised by him as well.
As Curtis finished his briefing and just before the car turned into the garage under the Taylor Building, Dees turned to Mason.
“Landon, at seven get a message to Victor Phelps at the Admiralty. I think it’s time for a non-negotiable one-on-one meeting with his boss Trenton Graves this morning, don’t you?”
“I would say that is indeed the case, sir,” Mason said. “I’ll make it happen. We’ll aim for nine o’clock.”
Dees had several messages waiting for him when he made his way through the near-empty Taylor Building’s bottom floor and caught an elevator to the twentieth floor, where the OSW’s headquarters were. There, activity was very much in evidence, despite the obscene hour.
Upon seating himself at his desk in the corner office with a view of the sunrise over the port of Principia, he took out his letter opener and hustled through his communications, making piles for items to be delegated, for items he’d file and for items he would burn.
He found one from Heather which, as it turned out, was far more interesting than even those communications with national security implications.
“Dear Abraham,” it read…
I would love to join you at the Apostles of Comfort Annual Gala, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on a conversation about the future of our relationship an hour in advance. Let’s meet at the Oleander Club on Selwyn Street at six and have a talk.
This was unusually direct, and Dees took it as having some rather special import he’d better pay attention to.
Of course, at noon he was to address the High Military Commission with a momentous agenda encompassing the future not just of his career but of the country as well, and now he had a deadline with which to wrap that meeting up. Dees left a message on the desk of his private secretary Ada Carson to have his Army dress uniform pressed and hanging in his office closet so he could stop off and change into it on his way to the Oleander Club.
This kind of thing is why I don’t invest in a social life, he thought to himself. Too damned complicated and not enough time.
Dees spent the next three hours plowing through paperwork and completing the preparations for the High Military Commission’s meeting, all the while wondering what the hell Heather wanted to talk to him about.
And then the head of the Admiralty, Trenton Graves, and his chief of staff Victor Phelps, arrived at Dees’ office at nine o’clock. Ada sat at her desk outside of the office, and she could hear Graves bellowing in rage for most of the meeting.
But after an hour, Phelps and Graves exited, all smiles. And Dees followed them out, with handshakes and backslaps for all. He winked at Ada, who could only shake her head at the ubiquitous maneuverings of her boss.
By that point it was time to be off to the Presidential Palace for the HiMiCom meeting.
…
“So, Abraham,” Heather said as he arrived, full of apologies and ten minutes late to their scheduled six o’clock meeting at the Oleander Club. When he shuffled into the booth she’d arranged, she continued. “What was the outcome of your presentation?”
“You are looking at the newest member of the High Military Commission,” he said as he sat, the waiter bringing a pair of whisky naturals just then, “and the head of the fourth branch of the Ardenian military. I am officially a very big deal.”
“Well, that is very impressive,” she said, almost sarcastically.
He looked her over, and noticed she was radiant in a red off-the-shoulder silk dress which showed off a ruby necklace he hadn’t seen her wearing before.
“That thing around your neck is what’s impressive,” he said. “This feels like a special occasion of some sort, because you look like something out of a dream.”
“I do, do I?” she said.
“Yes. We’ve done a dozen of these events and this is a different level of gorgeous for you.”
“Well, since it’s the last one I figured I’d make it memorable.”
He gave her a crestfallen look. She returned it with a poker face.
“You’ve met someone,” he said after an uncomfortable moment. “That really is wonderful, Heather. You deserve to have some love in your life, and I really couldn’t be happier for you.”
As he was talking, he noticed that her expression began melting, and not in a good way.
“You haven’t met someone.”
“No, you idiot,” she said.
“What am I missing here?” he asked. “And what am I doing wrong?”
‘For somebody who’s so good at making professional moves you are a total incompetent in real life,” she said. “Do you know that?”
“I didn’t, but I imagine I’m finding it out.”
She glared at him.
“Come on, Heather. Out with it. I’m blind here.”
“I don’t want to keep doing this with you,” she said. “I’m eye candy so you don’t come off like the loner you are. That, or you secretly like men.”
“By the Saints, woman!” he protested.
“No, I don’t think so. Four months I’ve been your standby, and I’ve given you every possible signal, and all you do is make excuses.”
“We talked about this, though,” he said.
“No, you talked about this. What I did was put up with it.”
“I did get the impression you were disappointed in that conversation. But Heather, you know that I’m a lost cause when it comes to romance with my work.”
“You aren’t the best, that’s true,” she said. “But selling yourself short over and over again because you think you’re not worthy of love…I don’t accept it, and neither should you.”
“This is an ultimatum, then.”
“Take it however you want,” Heather said. “But if you want me on your arm at these soirees you need a date for, then you’re going to have to make an investment.”
“But what about your career? If people know we’re an item, they’re going to think you just write what I’m telling you to.”
“Oh, please,” she said. “Do you really think I’m that delicate or that my career hangs by so thin a thread? There are journalists who are even married to important people, you know. And if worst comes to worst, I’ll just have them give me a different beat where my relationship to The Great General Dees isn’t material to my work.”
“Well, all right then,” he said. And he smiled at her.
“All right what?” she asked him, playing with the curls of her hair.
“I understand your position, I mean,” he said. “Drink up. We’re going to be late.”
She stared at him, shaking her head slowly, then downed her cocktail in a sizable gulp.
Off they went to the gala, with Dees catching congratulations from Principia’s highest society over the day’s developments and giving superficial assessments of the war coming to Ardenia’s doorstep to the company of swells in attendance.
FIFTEEN
Strongstead, Tenthmonth Fifteenth, 1843rd Year Supernal
Adel
aide steamed through Leopold Bay on the way to the Strongstead pier, flanked by two smaller frigates, Belvedere and Sevarine. The three ships possessed enough collective firepower to greatly reduce the fortress if need be, and to a man the sailors and Marines aboard the three vessels would have been happy to pulverize every stone of its walls rather than allow the enemy one more day occupying the facility.
But that was not the mission today. Today was meant for a prisoner exchange.
At the frigate’s helm, Navy Commander Patrick Baker was getting reports on the condition of Ago’an, the savage Udar headman stewing in the ship’s brig. The intention was to deliver him to the enemy in what would appear to be good health, and so far, that was his condition. If Ago’an was beginning to feel under the weather as a result of the viral cocktail applied to the cut along his chest, he hadn’t let on yet; he’d spent the last two days bellowing threats and insults at his captors with the usual aplomb, and while the disease’s normal schedule indicated he ought to be highly contagious, so far he hadn’t stopped eating. The Blue Pox, as Baker understood it, first began manifesting itself with a loss of appetite, and then came the telltale blueberry-sized pustules indicating the patient was on a fast train to the afterworld.
That unnerved Baker a little, even though so far things were going according to plan. To him perhaps the worst possible outcome would be a straight prisoner exchange without the extra element of Ago’an as a carrier of the dread disease into the enemy’s camp, for while he was earnest in his desire to see the seven Strongstead prisoners repatriated, it couldn’t really be justified if the cost was a member of the Udar inner circle put back into action with a war on.
But that decision was made considerably up the chain of command, he knew. All he had to do was facilitate the exchange and get back to Dunnansport to receive orders for another mission.
Hopefully I’ll be back in a fortnight to land Marines here and retake this place from an army of ghosts, he thought. Hopefully.