Shadow of Victory

by David Weber

  He glowered down into his coffee cup, grappling with possibilities and consequences, and wondered just how the hell he was supposed to handle this one.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Brilliant sunlight poured down from a polished sky dotted with isolated, almost painfully white clouds. The temperature was a sweltering thirty-four degrees, but a brisk breeze helped, stretching the brightly colored pennants on the staffs which ringed Jankulovski Stadium into briskly popping, starched stiffness. The stadium’s high, stepped seating completely enclosed the football pitch, protecting it from the breeze’s worst effects (and cutting it off from most of the cooling effect, unfortunately), but it was still affecting play, especially the goalies’ punts. Given the heat, it wasn’t too surprising drink vendors were doing excellent business, and Chotěbořian beer had always been good. And strong. It was evident that at least a few spectators had already overindulged in it, as a matter of fact, but Sokol’s security people—many of them off-duty city police—had the situation in hand and people were actually behaving themselves quite well, under the circumstances.

  That wasn’t always the case at a heavily attended football game on Chotěboř, and despite the heat, the stadium was packed. It was standing room only—and scalpers had made respectable fortunes selling tickets, including quite a few to seats that didn’t actually exist—as the Benešov Dragons squared off against the Modřany Sabres in one of the most anticipated games of the year. Nor had the game disappointed the fans to this point. There were 38,000 seats in Jankulovski…and not one of them was unoccupied as the Dragons’ right winger faked outside, then reversed to cut inside the Sabres’ left center back. The entire audience came to its feet as he crossed the ball with a perfect pass to Petr Bednář, the highest scoring active player in the Kumang System. Bednář took the ball with his left foot, drove past the Sabres’ right center back, and then crossed his dominant right foot behind his left in a perfectly timed rabona kick that caught the Sabres’ keeper charging to his right. It was beautifully executed, and the ball sliced into the upper right corner of the net for Bednář’s five hundred and fifth career goal.

  “Yes!” Daniel Kápička surged to his feet in the president’s box, both clenched fists raised over his head. “Yes! God, that was beautiful!”

  “Yes, it was,” Adam Šiml agreed a bit more calmly. He’d risen from his own seat, if only to get a better view over the sea of heads between him and the pitch, and now he shook his own head as he settled back down again. “I remember when Petr first started playing with one of the local Sokol teams. He was only a boy—what? about twelve, I think—and he liked gutsy, flashy plays even then. Fortunately, he had the athleticism to pull them off! Did you see that bicycle kick goal he scored against the Ravens last week?”

  “I certainly did! And speaking of fortunate things, it’s fortunate Sokol gave him the opportunity to develop that athleticism. You’ve done that for an awful lot of players over the years, Adam. I don’t know where football would be without you people,” Kápička said warmly, settling back down in the comfortably upholstered seat.

  The sliding crystoplast panels at the front of the box could have been closed to produce a bubble of air-conditioned coolness, but Šiml hadn’t even contemplated suggesting it. Minister for Public Safety Kápička had been a punishing soccer player in his youth, a box-to-box midfielder who’d thrived on the position’s demand for stamina and relentless hard work. He’d played at both lower school and college levels, although he’d never quite made the cut for one of the professional teams. Not as a starter with one of the teams that was regularly in contention, anyway, and he wasn’t the sort to settle for “second-best” at anything. But he was still an avid fan. He wanted to be able to feel the crowd’s excitement physically in the waves of sound as the packed stadium cheered, whistled, and applauded, and he wore a huge smile as he listened to it now.

  The truth was, Šiml reflected as he sipped from his own beer stein, that there were quite a lot of things about Daniel Kápička he actually respected. He was ambitious, he worked hard, and he demanded the same from his subordinates. He was also scrupulous about rewarding those who met his expectations, loyal to those he considered friends, and generous on a personal level, sometimes even at the expense of the ambition which was his driving force. Unfortunately, he was also perfectly happy to cooperate with the transstellars exploiting the Kumang System. Worse, he’d made Jan Cabrnoch’s security forces even more powerful, driven by both that personal ambition and his conviction that only Public Safety stood between order and anarchy.

  And he was one of Sokol’s enthusiastic boosters, as well. Šiml had no doubt he’d been absolutely sincere in the praise he’d just offered, and he was maintaining his own support for the organization—so far, at least—despite a certain awkwardness where Cabrnoch was concerned.

  Or, rather, where Cabrnoch’s feelings for Sokol’s executive director were concerned.

  I wonder how much longer Daniel can keep that up? I’m sure this is a political calculation he’d like to ignore, but I doubt he’ll be able to pull that off much longer. I’m sure Žďárská’s giving him an earful about me, anyway!

  Or possibly not, now that he thought about it. Zuzana Žďárská wasn’t actually stupid. In fact, she had a pretty good mind, on those occasions when she chose to exercise it. But her natural default was “blunt object” mode, and because that normally worked for the System President’s chief of staff, she’d gotten out of the habit of practice where more subtle approaches might have been indicated.

  In this case, though, she might actually have decided a modicum of caution was in order. She had to realize—and Šiml was positive Kápička had realized quite some time ago—that Karl-Heinz Sabatino had become Adam Šiml’s newest Best Friend Forever. Neither of them—nor Cabrnoch, for that matter—could possibly believe that was because Sabatino had suddenly developed a late-blooming passion for Chotěbořian athletic organizations. And it was damn sure that Kápička and Minister of the Treasury Ludmila Kovářová had a pretty good idea of how much of Sabatino’s generous support wasn’t going into new stadiums, equipment, or personnel costs.

  That must be particularly galling for Žďárská, he thought cheerfully, since Treasury had become her go-to agency for dealing with Cabrnoch’s real or perceived political rivals or enemies.

  Kovářová was a very good economic technician. Unfortunately, like everyone else in the Cabrnoch Administration, she considered graft one of the perks of her office and was perfectly prepared to screw over the citizens of Chotěboř in order to open the taps of her personal wealth. She was also prepared to adopt a “purer than the driven snow” public attitude when her often creative accountants discovered one of her political opponents had been abusing the public’s trust with shady economic deals or by evading his or her legitimate tax burden. That normally made her a perfect tool for Žďárská, but no Chotěbořan was stupid enough to go after anyone Sabatino had decided to support.

  That’s got to really frost all three of them, he reflected with profound satisfaction. And as long as they’re stymied, Daniel can go right on enjoying my invitations to share the presidential box at games like this one. If they’re crass enough to point out that I’m not exactly Cabrnoch’s favorite person, he can always point out that he’s staying close enough to keep an eye on me until they figure out what Sabatino has in mind. And as soon as he drops Sabatino’s name, they’re going to pull in their horns.

  He leaned back, nursing his beer, and smiled.

  * * *

  “Hell of a game,” Šiml said, several hours later.

  He and Zdeněk Vilušínský sat on the veranda of Vilušínský’s sprawling “farmhouse”—someone from one of the poorer parts of town might have called it a mansion, despite its antiquity—nursing chilled tumblers of vodka. The temperature had dropped nearly seven degrees out here in the country, and the night air was actually close to chill. The starscape glittered overhead, and the sound of wind i
n the trees, insects, and the lonely, haunting whistle of a výr šedý, the most proficient of Chotěboř’s nocturnal avian predators, provided a welcoming stillness after an exceedingly busy day.

  “Hell of a game,” he repeated, shaking his head. Despite Bednář’s spectacular goal, the Sabres had won 3–2 on a penalty kick with less than fifteen seconds on the clock. “Went right down to the wire.” He sipped vodka. “And Daniel was so happy about my generosity in sharing my box that he insisted on treating me to a five-course banquet at Koš Chleba to pay me back.” He raised his free hand to his lips and kissed the back of his thumb. “Magnificent! I wonder what the little people had for dinner?”

  Vilušínský chuckled, but he also shook his own head rather more seriously.

  “I’m glad you had a good time. And you can damned well take me to Koš Chleba, next time I’m in the capital! But don’t get too carried away. He’s a long way from stupid, and if he figures out what you really have in mind, he probably won’t bother taking it to Cabrnoch or Žďárská. He’ll go straight to Sabatino.”

  “I know.” Šiml tipped back his chair, stretching out his legs and resting his heels on the veranda’s railing while the fitful breeze stirred his hair. “And I also know Jan and Zuzana have to be getting nervous by now. It doesn’t matter to them that I’ve been careful to avoid any overtly political moves, either. Sabatino’s doing that for me, whether I want him to or not.”

  “Do you think he really sees you as an alternative to Cabrnoch?” Vilušínský seemed torn between hope and cynicism.

  “Frankly, I’m not sure he knows whether or not he does.” Šiml sipped more vodka. “I suspect he started the entire thing as more of an insurance policy than anything else. He could’ve been thinking about simply setting me up as a sort of façade opposition—a popular face for a ‘legitimate political process’ that might divert some of the growing unhappiness. If he figures he’s turned me into a suitably pliable sock puppet, though, he really may decide to go ahead and pull the plug on Jan. Honestly, that would be the best possible outcome from our perspective, wouldn’t it?”

  “It could be. It could also get you killed, Adam.” Vilušínský’s tone was very serious now. “It could get you killed by Cabrnoch—or your good friend Kápička, or even Siminetti—if they thought there was a way to fob off Sabatino with some sort of plausible deniability. For that matter, they might go ahead even without deniability, on the theory that Sabatino couldn’t afford to replace them if he no longer had someone—like you—waiting in the wings.”

  Šiml nodded soberly, but Vilušínský wasn’t finished.

  “And even assuming that didn’t happen, assuming Sabatino went ahead and supported a regime change that put you into the presidency, what happens if—or when—he figures out what you really have in mind? Or Verner does?”

  “Probably something unpleasantly permanent,” Šiml conceded. “And Karl-Heinz and OFS have their hooks deep enough into Public Safety they could certainly engineer a tragic assassination or even a ‘spontaneous coup.’ Unless, of course, there was another armed, organized group that could spark—you should pardon the verb—a counter-coup in favor of the legitimately elected president.”

  “That’s a pretty significant ‘unless,’” Vilušínský pointed out. “And that assumes Kápička doesn’t figure out what we’re doing or Cabrnoch doesn’t decide to swat you first. Or, for that matter, that Sabatino doesn’t realize how you’re really spending all those funds you’re transferring out-system! Somehow, I don’t think pulse rifles are the sort of ‘retirement account’ he wants you investing in.”

  “Probably not, but it’s not very damned likely he’ll find out about that part, especially with Pastera handling my investment portfolio and Martin keeping an eye on things from the shipping end. It was very generous of him to suggest I avail myself of Michal’s services, don’t you think?”

  This time, Vilušínský laughed out loud. Too many Chotěbořans found themselves working for their transstellar landlords or those landlords’ cronies, since that was really the only game in town. In Michal Pastera’s case, he’d sought employment in Kovářová’s Treasury Department right out of college, and—like any good, ambitious servant of the people—jumped ship to the private sector at the earliest possible moment. Over the past several T-years, he’d worked his way up to a senior position in Frogmore-Wellington’s caretaking operation in Kumang. Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara’s investment in Kumang might be tiny by transstellar standards; in absolute terms, an enormous amount of money went in and out, and someone had to handle the equivalent of the giant corporations’ interstellar petty cash purchases.

  That was what Michal Pastera did for Karl-Heinz Sabatino…who had no idea he’d gone to work for Kovářová in the first place on the orders of his Jiskra cell leader.

  Martin Holeček, on the other hand, was a core-worlder who’d come to Kumang as a freight supervisor for Iwahara Interstellar. But he’d lived in Kumang for over ten T-years, and he’d married a local girl.

  Taťána Holečková had suffered a certain degree of harassment over her decision to marry him. In fact, some of her longtime friends had turned their backs on her for of it. She’d found that painful, but it had also helped her with Public Safety and Iwahara’s local security staff. She was one of the collaborators who’d cast their lots with the Cabrnoch Administration and the transstellars, and her occasional clash with estranged friends bolstered that impression.

  In fact, however, appearances could be deceiving. Táňa loved her husband deeply, despite his employer, but the komáři had claimed over half of her family. She was fiercely protective of its surviving members, and two of her younger cousins had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when anti-government/anti-transstellar leaflets were being handed out. Neither of the boys had been involved; they’d simply been there when the Chotěboř Public Safety Force decided a message needed to be sent. Both of them had survived, but one of them had suffered traumatic brain injury…which, of course, the CPSF blamed on those vicious, antisocial, anarchist leaflet-printers, who’d provoked the violence by wantonly attacking the champions of justice and public order.

  Martin—who’d known both boys and never believed a word of the official story—had been so furious he’d decided to resign from Iwahara, but Táňa had convinced him to stay. He hadn’t really understood why, at the time; but he’d understood perfectly a year later when she recruited him into her Jiskra cell.

  And his position with Iwahara put him in a perfect position to pass certain cargoes of farm equipment whose contents didn’t quite match their official manifests to destinations on the planetary surface.

  “I’m sure my good friend Karl-Heinz feels nothing but reassured by the thought of having Michal ride herd on me,” Šiml continued. “And in the meantime, I know he’s aware Jan is feeling progressively less fond of me. In fact, he’s told me not to trouble my head over it, since he has the situation under control. He wasn’t quite so crass as to say things will stay that way exactly as long as I go on playing ball with him, but the implication was pretty clear. In fact, it was clear enough I’m inclined to think he is seriously considering supporting regime change if the general level of unhappiness keeps climbing.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. There’s not much point setting up a way to cover your bets if you’re not willing to use it when it looks like everything’s falling into the crapper. Or when it looks like the ungrateful recipients of your corporation’s largess might actually be thinking about seeking membership in something like the Star Empire of Manticore, anyway. On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t hurt to…improve my position with him, and I think there may be a way to do just that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Well, at least it’s a more pleasant venue than the last one,” Damien Harahap observed dryly as the tall, fair-haired man who went by the name of Topór dropped into the chair on the far side of the table.

  “It seemed
like a good idea to avoid any deserted parks,” Topór replied. “Nasty things can happen in parks. Never know who you’ll meet there. And besides being more comfortable, I doubt you’re going to be frying any of my electronics this time around.” He showed his teeth in a thin smile. “Not unless that directional pulse of yours is a hell of a lot more directional—and short-ranged—than I figure it is.”

  He had a point, Harahap reflected.

  An ice cream parlor might not strike someone as an enterprise likely to thrive in winter, especially on a planet whose climate hovered on the cool side of the ones humans preferred, but while it would never do to call the place packed, it was doing remarkably brisk business. That probably had something to do with the indoor ice-skating rink which it faced. At the moment, he and Topór sat under a gaily striped canopy just outside the waist-high boundary wall around the rink. The music blaring from overpowered speakers as the crowd of skaters whirled around the ice provided a nice security touch, too. He had trouble hearing Topór even when the other man raised his voice; the possibility of someone else happening to overhear them was slight, to say the least.

  And Topór had taken the seat that put him between Harahap and the open-air control room for the fellow managing the ice rink’s sound system and lights. Clearly he calculated that any EMP pulse powerful enough to take out yet another recorder would probably fry the control room’s electronics, as well.

  Which, Harahap conceded, might be just a tad difficult for even a fearless interstellar secret agent such as myself to explain away when the authorities express mild curiosity about how that peculiar event might have come about.