by David Weber
* * *
"You wanted to see me, Kevin?" Eloise Pritchart asked warily.
"I wouldn't put it exactly that way," Kevin Usher said almost whimsically. "I'd say I needed to see you."
"Which means you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear."
"Which means I'm about to you something you don't want to hear," Usher agreed. "Actually, Senior Inspector Abrioux is about to tell you."
"Senior Inspector?" the President turned to the petite FIA officer, and Danielle Abrioux returned her look with an unhappy expression.
"Madam President," she said, "I'm sorry, but the Director and I both feel we've hit a stone wall. We've tried everything we can think of, and we can't give you the smoking gun you need."
"Why not?" Pritchart shook her head quickly. "I'm sorry. That came out sounding almost accusatory, and I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was, why is it a stone wall?"
"Because both our original suspects are dead, and we haven't been able to identify a single additional damned accomplice," Usher replied for Abrioux. "Grosclaude still looks like a suicide, although Danny and I are both positive it was actually homicide. Giancola, damn his black soul to hell, was a genuine accident, but no one's going to believe it. And Grosclaude's so-called 'evidence' is an obvious, if fairly clever, forgery. Those, unfortunately, are the only hard facts we have. We've tried every avenue, short of opening a very public exhaustive investigation, without being able to move beyond those points. And, frankly, I don't think going public would let us turn up anything we haven't already found.
"My own theory, and I think Danny agrees with me," he glanced at Abrioux, who nodded vigorously, "is still that Giancola pulled the entire thing off basically on his own, and that he's responsible for the 'forgeries' in Grosclaude's personal files. He needed Grosclaude to make the substitutions, and I can't escape the suspicion that he had someone else helping him out at this end, as well-at least with the computer access he needed. Unfortunately, there's no clue as to who that someone may have been, assuming he actually existed at all and that he's not simply someone I desperately want to exist so I can find him and choke a confession out of him with my bare hands. But even if he existed, it was Giancola's show."
"And you're convinced he never meant it to go as far as it did?"
"I'm... not as certain of that as I was," Usher said slowly, and Pritchart straightened in her chair, looking at him intently.
"Why not? What's changed?"
"Danny pointed something out to me the other day," Usher replied. "The Manty lieutenant who tried to kill Harrington three months ago was apparently acting under some form of compulsion. From all the information available to us, he was very close to Harrington. He'd been with her for quite some time, and NavInt's dossier on her suggests that her inner circle is almost always intensely loyal and personally devoted to her. So whatever the compulsion was, it had to be powerful enough to overcome that sort of personal devotion and push him into committing what was ultimately a suicidal act. But the Manties-whose medical and forensic establishments, let's face it, are both better than our own-haven't been able to come up with any explanation for how he was compelled. Doesn't that sound like what happened to Grosclaude to you?"
"You think the same people who killed Grosclaude-or, at least, gave Arnold whatever he used to do the job-also tried to kill Harrington?""Let's just say I strongly suspect that whatever technique is being used came from the same source. Now, as the nasty and suspicious sort I am, it occurs to me that if it came from the same source, it's very possibly being used in support of some unified strategy. It's possible, I suppose, that it's simply a case of someone marketing the technology to whoever needs it and can afford it, but I'm beginning to doubt that's the case." Usher shook his head. "No, Eloise. There's a pattern here, I just haven't been able to figure out what it is yet. But what I have seen of it suggests that whoever is behind it doesn't much care for either us or the Manties."
"So now you're saying Arnold may have been actively working for someone else to provoke fresh hostilities between us and the Manties?" Pritchart wished she'd been able to sound more incredulous than she did.
"I think it's possible," Usher agreed. "But there are still way too many unanswered questions for me to suggest exactly why someone might want that. Did they have enough information on Bolthole to expect to us to roll right over the Manties for them? In that case, presumably Manticore is the primary target, and we're simply the blunt instrument. Or did they expect the Manties to roll over us, which would make us the primary target? Or do they, for some reason I can't currently envision, simply want the two of us shooting at one another again, which would make both of us the target of some third party with a completely unknown agenda of his own?"
"Jesus Christ, Kevin!" Pritchart stared at him in something very like horror. "That's so... so... so twisty just thinking about it makes my head hurt! What good could sending us back to war with Manticore do any hypothetical third party?"
"I just said I couldn't envision what their motives might be. If I could, I could make a pretty fair stab at figuring out who they were, as well. And it's entirely possible I'm totally out to lunch with the whole theory. It could be no more than my 'spook' experience making me see things because Danny and I have exhausted all of the potential domestic avenues we could see. I just don't know, Eloise. But I do know this-my instincts all tell me that so far all we've seen is the tip of an iceberg."
Chapter Forty-Five
"Good morning, everyone," Eloise Pritchart said as she walked briskly into the sunlit chamber.
The Cabinet Room was on the eastern side of the President's official residence, and the tide of morning light which flooded in through the extensive windows on the room's outer wall gleamed on the expensive, polished conference table, inlaid with half a dozen exotic species of wood. The thick, natural fiber carpet was like a deep pool of cobalt water, with the Presidential Seal floating on it like a golden reflection. All of the chairs, except for Pritchart's own, were upholstered in black; hers was the same blue as the carpet, with the seal of her office emblazoned on its back. Glasses and expensive crystal carafes of ice water sat at each place, and optical pickups on the roof of the building fed the chamber's interior smart walls, which were configured to give a panoramic view of the city of Nouveau Paris and its morning traffic.
"Good morning, Madam President," Thomas Theisman, as her Cabinet's acknowledged senior member, replied for all of them.
According to the presidential succession established by the Constitution, Leslie Montreau, Arnold Giancola's successor as Secretary of State, was technically senior to Theisman, but no one in this room was under any misapprehensions. Theisman's devotion to the Constitution, and his personal determination to avoid the office of President, had been accepted by even the most cynical cabinet secretaries. In a way, however, that only enhanced his powerbase. They knew he had absolutely no personal ambitions and that he stood squarely behind Elizabeth Pritchart, the Republic's first elected president in three centuries.
And that the Republic's military stood squarely behind him.
Pritchart crossed to her chair, drew it out from the table, sat, and waited a moment while it adjusted to her body. Then she leaned forward very slightly and swept the members of her Cabinet with her eyes.
"I know you're all wondering what this unscheduled meeting is about," she began. "You're about to find out. You're also about to discover some things which only a few people in this room already knew. Those things are going to be shocking, and probably more than a little upsetting, to most of you. Despite that, I believe you'll understand why the details have been kept confidential, but I have a policy initiative in mind that's going to require the full-and fully informed-cooperation of every senior member of this Administration. I hope you'll give me that cooperation."
She had their full attention, she observed, and smiled almost whimsically.
"Denis," she looked at her Attorney General, "would you ask Ke
vin and Wilhelm to join us?"
"Of course, Madam President."
Denis LePic pressed a key on his terminal. A moment later, a door opened in the western wall, like a gap ripped from the heart of the living, breathing image of Nouveau Paris. Pritchart always found that particular image rather disturbing, and today it seemed more ominous than usual.
She nodded in greeting to them, then indicated the empty chairs provided to either side of LePic. They settled into them, and she returned her attention to her Cabinet, several of whose members were clearly perplexed... and not a little apprehensive.
"Kevin and Wilhelm are here to help explain things," she said. "In particular, Kevin is going to be briefing you on something which he brought to my attention almost six T-months ago. The short version of it, Ladies and Gentlemen, is that the High Ridge Government did not falsify our diplomatic correspondence."
The handful of people who'd already known that, like Rachel Hanriot, took it fairly calmly. The rest only stared at her, as if their minds simply weren't up to understanding what she'd said, for the first several seconds. After that, it was hard to say whether consternation, disbelief, or anger was the most predominant emotion. Whatever the emotional mix might have been, however, what it produced was something very like pandemonium.
She let them sputter and wave their hands for fifteen or twenty seconds, then rapped sharply on the table top. The crisp sound penetrated the upheaval, and people sank back in their chairs once again, still stunned looking, but also more than a little embarrassed by their initial reactions.
"I don't blame you for being surprised," the President said into the renewed silence with generous understatement. "My own reaction when Kevin brought me his hypothesis was very similar. I'm going to ask him to brief you on a black investigation which I authorized. It was off the books, and, frankly, probably not particularly constitutional. Under the circumstances, however, I felt I had no choice but to green-light his efforts, just as I now have no choice but to bring all of you into it."
She looked at Usher.
"Kevin, if you would," she invited.
* * *
"So that's about the size of it," Pritchart said thirty minutes later.
Usher's actual briefing had taken less than ten minutes; the rest of the time had been occupied in answering questions-some incredulous, some hostile, most angry, and all worried-from the rest of the Cabinet.
"But it's all still just speculation," Tony Nesbitt, the Secretary of Commerce, objected. As one of Arnold Giancola's strongest allies in the Cabinet, he still seemed much inclined towards incredulity. "I mean, Director Usher just told us there's no proof."
"No, he didn't, Tony," Rachel Hanriot said.
Nesbitt looked at her, and she returned his gaze with one that was almost compassionate, although they'd generally found themselves on opposite sides of the power struggle between Pritchart and Giancola.
"What he said," she continued, "is that there's no way to prove who on our side did it, although given Arnold's position at State, it's impossible for me to believe he wasn't the prime mover. But even if the Grosclaude documents are forgeries, they're very convincing proof that somebody in the Republic's government falsified the correspondence. At any rate, they seem to me to clearly demonstrate that the Manties have been telling the exact, literal truth about their correspondence. Which strongly suggests they're also telling the truth about the correspondence they say they received from us. Which, again, points the finger squarely at Arnold."
"But... but my cousin Jean-Claude is-was-Arnold's security chief," Nesbitt protested. "I can't believe Arnold could've managed something like this without Jean-Claude at least suspecting." He looked at Montreau. "Leslie? Have you found anything at State to support all these allegations?"
Montreau looked acutely uncomfortable. Despite her position in the official hierarchy, she was the newest member of the Cabinet, and she cleared her throat a bit nervously.
"No, I haven't," she said. "On the other hand, Tony, it never would have occurred to me to look for any evidence of such... incredible criminal activities. I will say this, however," she added reluctantly. "The security measures in place at State may still be a bit too much like the ones the Legislaturalists and the Committee had in place."
"What do you mean?" Nesbitt asked.
"I mean too much control passes directly through the Secretary's hands," Montreau said bluntly. "I was frankly astonished when I found out how much access to and control of the Department's security processes goes directly through my office. It would never have occurred to me that Secretary Giancola might have done any such thing, but looking at the access I have, and assuming-as Director Usher does-that he had access to the Manties' Foreign Office validation codes, as well, he really could have done it. And I'm afraid that so far, at least, I can't think of anyone else who could have."
Nesbitt sat back in his chair, clearly dismayed. Pritchart regarded him thoughtfully, but as far as she could tell, he was at least as astonished as anyone else in the room. More to the point, he seemed horrified.
"Obviously," she said, after a moment, "I've had to proceed very cautiously where this entire incredible bucket of snakes is concerned. As Kevin and Denis have just explained in answer to your questions, we don't have-and probably never will have-the sort of smoking gun we'd need to convince Congress and the public that what we believe happened actually did. Without that sort of proof, going public would still be a highly risky decision, I believe."
"It may be the only option available to us, Madam President," Nesbitt said after a moment. Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged unhappily. "Don't think I like saying that. God knows if there's anyone in this room Arnold completely fooled, it's me, and I'm going to look like an utter idiot when the newsies finally get hold of this! But if you're right about what happened, then we're fighting a war we were maneuvered into by a member of our own administration." He shook his head. "We can't possibly justify not telling the truth."
"But the President's right," Henrietta Barloi, the Secretary of Technology, objected. "No one's going to believe us, and given what happened to Arnold, everyone is going to think we had him eliminated."
"But why would we have done that?" Nesbitt demanded.
"I'm afraid I can come up with several scenarios, Mr. Secretary," Kevin Usher said.
Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged.
"If I were a conspiracy theorist, or just someone with personal political ambitions or a desire to restore the old r‚gime, my interpretation of what happened might well be that Secretary Giancola figured out what that arch traitor President Pritchart had done to justify seeking a declaration of war. When he learned the truth, she-and, by extension, all of you-ordered his execution. Now, however, we're afraid the truth is going to leak out, and so we're attempting to fasten the blame on the man who's safely dead because we murdered him. All of which demonstrates that our highflown principles and devotion to 'the rule of law' are so much crap. Which means this entire government-not just the administration-is a corrupt edifice built upon a Constitution which is nothing but yet another huge swindle perpetrated on the longsuffering people."
"That's insane," Nesbitt protested.
"Of course it is!" Usher snorted. "The best conspiracy theories usually are! How do you think Cordelia Ransom managed to stay in front of the Mob as long as she did? But if you don't like that one, here's another. Someone else, someone in the security area-probably me or Wilhelm, here-did all of this. Giancola found out, we killed him, and now through a sinister cabal, for reasons of our own, we're trying to bring the war to a less than fully successful conclusion and we've spun this whole theory of Giancola's responsibility as a way to do that. Or, if you don't like that one, it's all an attempt by someone-probably an alliance of some of the Cabinet secretaries and Wilhelm and me-to sabotage the President's fully justified and so far successful war against the evil Manties. Unfortunately, we've managed to pull the wool over her eyes, and she actually believe
s our preposterous tale about Giancola's doctoring the correspondence. Really, the Manties did it all along, and we murdered him because he was the one man who could have proved they had. Or-"
Nesbitt was looking more than a little cross-eyed by then, and Pritchart raised her hand at Usher.
"That's enough, Kevin," she said. Then she turned her attention fully to Nesbitt. "Kevin can't quite forget he used to be a spook, Tony. He's used to thinking in this kind of twisted, convoluted way. But the point he's making-that God only knows how this entire thing can be spun by power seekers or people simply hostile to the Constitution-is unfortunately valid. And don't any of you believe for a moment that there aren't people out there who fall into those categories. They're not just all ex-SS goons who've gone to earth, hoping for a change in the political climate more favorable to their objectives, either. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Arnold himself was one of the people who see themselves as players under the old Legislaturalist rules and would love to see the Constitution overturned, or at least gelded, so they can get on with it. There are more of them out there, and this situation could play directly into their hands."