Shadow of Victory

by David Weber

  “Of course I do, and so does Albrecht. If you see a better option, I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear it.”

  “It’s going to be even messier from the get-go than our existing Houdini plans ever envisioned,” she continued, ignoring his last sentence. “I mean a lot messier, Rufino. Right off the top of my head, I’d be astonished if the collateral damage doesn’t at least double even before we start tying off those loose ends.”

  “I know,” he sighed. The difference between them, he thought, was that for Marinescu that was simply a tactical problem, not a moral one. “And because the ‘collateral damage’ is going to be so much higher, I think we’re likely to have some problems with some of our…moderates.”

  “Screw ’em,” she retorted. “I don’t say I’d do it this way as my first choice, but the truth is, it could be a useful filter, Rufino.”

  “Filter?”

  “If they’re so frigging softhearted, so gutless, they can’t recognize pragmatic necessity when it’s staring them in the face, then they’re probably not up for the long haul, anyway, whatever they may’ve thought going in. And if that’s the case, we should cull them right now. If we’re going to be setting off nukes anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to make them disappear before any cold feet get a chance to produce more Simões or Jack McBrydes!”

  “There may be some point to that,” Chernyshev said after three or four seconds. “Unfortunately, we need some of the people you’re talking about, and once they’ve had a chance to put things into perspective after the fact, most of them will probably settle down. Even if they don’t, they’ll all be in Darius, which means none of them would find himself or herself in Simões’ position. So, if it’s all the same to you, Albrecht would really prefer for us to get them there alive.”

  “He’s in charge.” Marinescu shrugged. Obviously, a few hundred lives one way or the other didn’t much matter to her. “But if you’re not going to let me cull them, how do you keep them in line when the bombs start going off?”

  “We start by getting the most essential—and most…problematic—ones off-planet right now.” Chernyshev extracted a chip from his desk drawer and flipped it across to her. “I had Psych do a quick run of the alpha and beta lists, looking for the individuals most likely to have…issues with Albrecht’s Ballroom option. They’re all on the chip, and they’re sorted both in order of how likely they are to respond poorly and their value to the Alignment. You’re authorized to start collecting the most critically important this afternoon. We’ll need cover stories for some of them—especially the ones with family who aren’t on the Houdini lists—but I want at least the top third of them out of Mesa by the end of the week.”

  “We won’t be able to send them direct to Darius on that kind of timetable,” Marinescu pointed out.

  “I know. We’ll have to go with the backup routes.” It was Chernyshev’s turn to shrug. “It wasn’t why we’ve built them in the first place, but the arrangements are in place. It’ll just take them longer to get there.”

  “And give them more opportunity to run, if they’re inclined to do that.”

  “I doubt very many of them would be, but that’s a point worth considering,” Chernyshev conceded. “So I guess that means we’ll have to give them babysitters.”

  “I won’t have very many people to spare,” she objected. “Putting this together and making it work in this kind of time frame is going to be what I think the navy calls an ‘all-hands evolution.’ I’m going to need everybody. For that matter, I may have to draft people from some other departments, and right off the top of my head, I think somewhere around eight or ten percent of the key staff earmarked for the extraction teams under the existing Houdini plans aren’t even on-planet right now! Finding ‘babysitters’ without making dangerous holes in my operational people won’t be as easy as you seem to think it is.”

  “I didn’t think it would,” Chernyshev said coolly. “On the other hand, this may be something up the Gauls’ alley.”

  “Ah?”

  Marinescu sat back in her chair, her expression thoughtful. GAUL—the Genetic Advancement and Uplift League—had been a part of the Mesan Alignment from the beginning, and its members had proven useful on more than one occasion. It had also tended over the T-centuries to become a sort of collecting basket for the most fanatical supporters of the Detweiler Plan, however, and like fanatics in general, they were perfectly comfortable with…extreme solutions. The Gauls served as the security force of last resort for the inner onion of the Alignment. There weren’t actually all that many of them, but they had a fearsome reputation within the Alignment, which made them useful out of proportion to their actual numbers when the velvet glove seemed unlikely to suffice.

  Most Gauls would have been quite willing to strap a nuclear device to their backs and walk into a crowded restaurant to execute one of the “Ballroom” attacks the revised Houdini would require, and Marinescu had already started thinking about ways she could use them. But Chernyshev had a point. It would be difficult to imagine a more…diligent babysitter—and gaoler—than a Gaul. And it would be impossible to imagine one who could be more intimidating to someone who might consider desertion in transit.

  “All right,” she said after pondering it for a moment. “That could work.”

  “In that case, I think we’re probably done—for now, anyway,” Chernyshev said. “I’d like to see a preliminary draft of your action plan before we talk to Albrecht and Collin about it, but that’s your side of the shop, not mine. For the most part, I’m perfectly content leaving it in your hands.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She climbed out of her chair, and those dark eyes flickered again—this time with something which could have been contempt. But that was fine with Chernyshev, up to a point, at least. She was one of those people who confused eagerness to kill with willingness to kill, and it couldn’t hurt to have her dismiss him as someone disinclined to dirty his own hands with what had to be done if he could avoid it. She was unlikely to go so far as to buck his authority, whatever she thought—not while she knew he had Albrecht Detweiler’s full-blooded support—but if the time ever came…

  “Samuel will see to it that anything you send him reaches me as quickly as possible,” he said.

  “Got it.” She nodded. “Until later, then.”

  Chernyshev watched her walk out of his office and frowned thoughtfully as the door closed behind her.

  * * *

  Division Chief Jules Charteris hit the play button on his uni-link when he saw the blinking light. He routinely silenced the com function during meetings of his staff—or with his superiors—in the Ministry of Economics, so it wasn’t uncommon for him to find messages waiting.

  “Hi, Jules!” his wife Lisa’s voice said in his earbug. “Sorry I missed you, but something’s come up. I just found out I won’t be home for supper tonight. Or for quite a few nights, I’m afraid. There’s some kind of hush-hush conference out on McClintock Island. I just had time to run home, pack a bag, and catch the shuttle. I don’t have all the details—and I couldn’t share them with you if I did, Honey; you know the drill—but I wouldn’t be surprised if this keeps me tied up for quite some time. Maybe even a couple of months. According to my boss, there are a lot of details that need tidying up after what happened at Green Pines. I’m sorry we didn’t have any more warning than this, but somehow the galaxy has a habit of going its own way, doesn’t it? Love you!”

  The message ended, and Charteris frowned unhappily. As a member of the Mesan Alignment, he understood the need for what Lisa liked to call “operational security.” He had to practice quite a lot of that himself, given his position in the system government. But he sometimes thought his wife should’ve gone into police or intelligence work rather than pure science. She seemed to actually enjoy playing these sorts of games, which was more than Jules could say for himself. And precisely why was anyone “tidying up” anything about Green Pines at this point, almost a full T-
year after the attacks? That was the kind of silliness of which the “spooks” were so inordinately fond!

  He didn’t like the thought of “maybe even a couple of months” parted from her, either, but it wouldn’t be the first time. She’d been sent out-system on a couple of occasions—once for the better part of a T-year—and at least this time she’d be on the same planet with him. That was something. Her superiors—at least half of whom seemed as childishly paranoid as Lisa sometimes got—might even let her give him the occasional com call!

  He sighed and headed for the lift shaft to his office. If Lisa wasn’t coming home tonight anyway, he might as well use the time to deal with some of the unending backlog on his computer.

  * * *

  “Have you heard anything from Zach, Mom?” Arianne McBryde asked from Christina McBryde’s com display.

  “You mean as in in the last few hours?”

  “I mean since this morning.” Arianne sounded more than a little anxious, Christina noticed.

  Arianne was the youngest of her four—three, now, she reminded herself with a familiar spasm of pain—children, with the ferociously sharp intellect the entire family seemed to share. She was an outstanding chemist and a scientific advisor to Brandon Ward, the Mesa System’s CEO, with a career of which any woman could have been proud. But she was still Christina’s baby girl, and hearing that anxiety in her voice was like a dull knife in Christina’s heart.

  “I had a voicemail from him in my message queue this morning,” she said. “He sounded just fine, Honey.”

  “I think I probably got the same one,” Arianne said. “Was it about that conference he’s been called away to?”

  “The one on McClintock Island, yes.” Christina nodded. “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…” Arianne shook her head. “He just sounded…worried, I guess.”

  “Oh, Sweetheart! He didn’t sound ‘worried’ to me! Preoccupied, I thought—I’ll give you that—and God knows we’ve all had plenty to feel preoccupied about lately.” She cocked her head, smiling sadly at her daughter. “Are you sure it’s not the date that’s making you worry about him, Ari?” she asked very gently.

  Arianne’s face stiffened. She said nothing at all for at least ten seconds, then her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply.

  “Maybe it is,” she admitted. “It’s just that…just that…”

  “Just that you miss Jack, Sweetheart. We all do. But it’s been a year now, and just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when those horrible people set off those bombs doesn’t mean anything terrible is going to happen to Zach, too. You know that, don’t you? I mean, up here.” Christina tapped her temple with an index finger. “Not here.” She pressed the palm of the same hand to her chest, over her heart. “It’s going to take all of us a while yet to really accept what happened, I think. I know I still wake up missing him, and so does your Dad. And JoAnne, too.”

  Arianna’s blue eyes gleamed with unshed tears and she nodded mutely. She’d always been close to her big brother, and the fact that he was one of the hundreds of people whose bodies hadn’t even been found after the Green Pines terrorist attacks was hard for her. Christina knew that, because it was hard for her, too. But she still had three children, she reminded herself, and it didn’t matter that Arianne was fifty T-years old, either. It was still a mother’s job to be strong for her children.

  And if being strong for your kids helps carry you through the darkest bits, so much the better, she thought.

  “Tell you what,” she said more briskly. “Why don’t you and George come over to supper tonight? Your dad’s got the evening off, and I’m pretty sure I can pry JoAnne loose for the evening, too. It’s about time the two of you got off the decicredit and actually set a date for the wedding. In fact, if you don’t think it would sound too morbid, I think you might consider setting it for the anniversary of the day we lost Jack.”

  “Oh, Mom! I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, yes you could.” Christina felt her own eyes burn, but she smiled at her daughter. “I know you wanted Jack to be there, and I know he planned on being there. Well, it’s not his fault that he won’t be. But picking that date would be a way to celebrate his life, Ari, and you know as well as I do that what he’d want most in all the universe would be for you to get on with your life. I’m not saying it’s a great idea. I’m saying that I think you should consider it. And that you should definitely plan on supper at home tonight. I’ve still got time to throw together a carrot cake, and you know how much Jack loved those!”

  * * *

  Zachariah McBryde stood beside Lisa Charteris watching the display as the blue and green jewel of Mesa dwindled into the immensity of space. He didn’t know the name of the ship they were on, although he supposed it was at least possible someone would let that obviously cosmically important information slip before they reached the first transfer point. He was damned if he could see any reason to keep it secret, anyway. Although the fact that he couldn’t see a reason didn’t mean their keepers couldn’t.

  He carefully avoided looking over his shoulder at S. Arpino, the keeper under whose eye they currently were. He wasn’t sure where Zhilov, the second Gaul assigned to their small party, was at the moment. Probably someplace where he could keep his eye on the other…evacuees. For the life of him, Zach couldn’t see the need for such continual—and overt—surveillance. Sure, some of the evacuees slated for removal under Operation Houdini might have second thoughts when the time came. Like Lisa, for example, whose husband wasn’t on the list. Jules didn’t have a clue about the inner ring of the onion any more than Zach’s family did, and that—unfortunately—made it especially important to leave him behind.

  So, sure, Lisa might have wanted to change her mind. For that matter, Zach might have felt the same way, especially after the cloud of suspicion which had gathered over Jack in the wake of the Green Pines Atrocity. He still didn’t know what it was that they’d thought Jack might have done, but he was honest enough to admit—to himself, at least, and very quietly—that the way they’d pressed him during their investigation had really, really pissed him off. Pissed him off to the point of having a few second thoughts himself about the Alignment’s true objectives and the entire Detweiler Plan. But he’d never seriously considered not reporting in when the Houdini activation code was passed. Not really.

  Of course you didn’t, he thought sardonically. And the fact that Marinescu personally came to collect you and handed you straight over to Frick and Frack to go directly to the spaceport didn’t have a thing to do with how cheerfully you accepted your movement orders!

  He smiled mirthlessly at the thought, because the one thing Jack had truly gotten through his skull over their years inside the onion was the need for operational security. And, as Jack had pointed out, there was no way to really know how someone would respond to conflicting imperatives before the moment actually came. Somebody, somewhere was going to try to avoid being extracted because of a wife, a lover, a child. It was going to happen, and the lack of warning, the hastiness with which Houdini had actually been mounted, could only make that worse. That was why Marinescu had turned up with the Gauls in tow to…discourage any second thoughts.

  Yeah, I don’t like it, but I understand it. But that still doesn’t mean they have to keep watch over us every instant. We’re aboard a frigging starship, for God’s sake! We can’t run, we can’t hide, and we can’t even talk to anybody else. So why the hell can’t they at least back off just a little? They’ll have plenty of warning to turn the wick back up before we reach the first transfer station.

  “Did you get a chance to actually talk to your family?” Lisa asked him quietly.

  Her head twitched ever so slightly, as if she’d started to turn and look over her shoulder before she stopped it, and Zach turned his own head to look at her. Apparently she’d decided Mr. S. Arpino could go to hell if he didn’t approve of her chosen topic.

  “Not directly, no,” he replied after a
moment. “I got to record messages for all of them, but what’s his name—Haas, Marinescu’s XO—vetted them before they got dropped into their message queues. You talk to Jules?”

  “Not directly.” She sighed. “I left him and the kids voicemails, and I understand why I couldn’t tell them where I’m really going, but I do wish I’d at least been able to talk to them face-to-face one last time.”

  “I know. But, you know, thinking about it, it may actually be easier this way. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have preferred actually talking to my mom and dad one last time, but it would’ve been hard to keep from tearing up while I did. And if I did that, they want to know why. So maybe the Powers That Be know what they’re doing, after all.”

  “It just feels so…dishonest,” Lisa said. “I don’t mean the disappearance itself or anything like that. That’s necessary, and I understand that. But I hadn’t realized I’d feel so guilty over just disappearing out of their lives—especially Jules’, if I’m going to be honest. The girls are all grown, they have their own lives and families, and I’ll miss all three of them like crazy. I hadn’t really thought about how much I’d miss the grandkids, either. Maybe I just…didn’t want to think about it, you know? But Jules and I have been married for over forty years, Zach. I hate the thought of his thinking I cared so little about him that I just…vanished.”

  Zach nodded sympathetically, and his sympathy was genuine. On the other hand, this was exactly why neither he nor Jack had ever married, ever started families of their own. They’d known—as Lisa had surely known—that the Alignment was entering the endgame stage of its long, shadowy existence. Oh, no one had expected Houdini to come this abruptly, no one had anticipated the way the Star Kingdom of Manticore—and now the Republic of Haven—would so completely overturn all the careful timetables, but they’d known it couldn’t possibly have been more than another half-century or so. For people with prolong, and especially for alpha and beta-liners with prolong, a half-century was actually a fairly brief interval. Lisa had to have known she was likely to run into exactly this sort of situation when she married Jules in the first place, so it wasn’t as if she hadn’t realized she was offering up hostages to fortune.