Nobody stopped him on the way down to the ground floor; the stairs there opened into a side passage invisible from the main entrance, and one of his own team was there to meet him. “Elevator stopped on four—Security let Curran go when you weren’t in it; he’ll meet us outside.”
“Idiots,” Rafe said. “Did you retag?”
“Not yet.”
“Do it now,” Rafe said. Even Gary, always suspicious, had thought providing the entire security detail with fake telltags was unnecessary. Rafe had agreed, but insisted on having them anyway.
With his escort retagged, Rafe led the way toward one of the utility entrances. Guests were not normally allowed in this area, but the few employees who saw them were obviously more interested in the break room they passed than in strangers in the corridor.
No live guard at the entrance, even. There was a full suite of electronic surveillance, but the loop for storage was brief and the equipment was old, not working properly even before Rafe contributed a little more damage. They had come out into a small paved space; Rafe’s other escort stepped out from behind a trash bin.
“Best this way,” he said, and led them along a paved lane just wide enough for a trash truck, between windowless walls, to a larger parking area. A sidewalk led off to the left, around the corner of the building and probably, Rafe thought, to the front, but his escort nodded instead to the car park itself. Just beyond, his car waited.
“The parking attendant hadn’t heard?” Rafe asked.
“Small alterations,” his escort said. “And this car park has a separate exit.”
Moments later he was in the car, reporting to Gary what had happened. “Malendy’s going to claim I killed the Secretary,” he said.
“I’ll alert your legal team from here,” Gary said. “You’d better get back here—they’ll expect that, but—”
“They think I’m headed for the Premier’s office,” Rafe said. “I’m supposed to meet him—”
“Don’t,” Gary said. “They’ll be ready for you.”
“I know that,” Rafe said. “But I still need to talk to him. Isaacs hadn’t told him about Boxtop; the Premier still thought ISC’s fleet would be able to protect this system.”
“Isaacs was in on it—”
“Must have been.” Rafe sighed. “I knew he was taking bribes, but I thought he was greedy, not a traitor. Just when I think it can’t get worse, it does. Dammit, I can’t save the world all by myself. Somebody else has to be honest and competent—”
Gary laughed. “Come on, boyo. You know this is more fun than sitting in your fancy office looking at spreadsheets.”
“It was fun when it didn’t mean a billion people could die if I screwed up,” Rafe said.
Gary snorted. “I still can’t get used to you being all sober and responsible. I’ve seen you at it for three seasons now, and I keep expecting you to break loose and do something crazy.”
“I’m reverting to my boring corporate roots,” Rafe said.
“From what I see of these guys, they’re as crooked as you ever were. That’s not boring…”
“No, right now it’s terrifying. Our fleet’s worth zilch, except for that one special unit; Nexus Defense has nothing that can stop Turek, and I have no doubt he’s coming. We’re the helpless virgin as the barbarian comes in the gates—”
“Don’t go literary on me,” Gary said. “What about Admiral Vatta? You could ask her.”
“I could, if she weren’t dead,” Rafe said.
“What!”
“Last night. Heard it last night. Fleet action at Moray System—twenty-day FTL jump from us. She drove off the enemy attacking their naval yard, but in the process her ship blew up.”
“Rafe—I’m sorry.”
“I knew it was likely,” Rafe said. “I told myself, Just think that she’s died, don’t think about her…we’re not supposed to be…aren’t…anything to each other.”
“Are you sure she’s dead?”
“As sure as the Moray officer who told me,” Rafe said. “Her ship blew up; she was in it.” He struggled to keep his voice steady. “Of course, our brilliant government refused to ally with Moscoe and Slotter Key, so even if she were alive, she might not come.”
“You think the alliance wants Nexus to fall?”
“No, but I think they won’t come without being asked by the government, and if the government is convinced I killed—or attempted to kill—the Secretary of Defense, then they are less likely to yell for help.”
ISC’s headquarters loomed ahead. Farther ahead, something with flashing lights sped toward them. Too close. “Use the tunnel,” Rafe said to the driver. The car turned aside, drove a short distance between nondescript buildings, and went down a ramp to an underground loading dock, then made a sharp turn into what was actually an underground parking garage. At the bottom level of that, a blank wall slid aside, revealing a narrow tunnel. The car eased in; the wall slid closed behind them. The tunnel ran down, curving slightly to the right, then emerged into a cavernous dark space; the headlights picked out something shiny in the distance. “At one time,” Rafe said to his escorts and driver, “I would have thought this high adventure. Now it’s a nuisance.”
Shiny was a grate, which slid up at their approach, letting them into a car-sized lift. To one side was a smaller lift for personnel and a hardwire comport. Rafe stepped out of the car and plugged into the comport.
“Gary?”
“Here. Front gate’s crawling with cops. No sign any of them spotted your car. You did button up the tunnel—”
“Yes, Gary. Both ends. Can’t do anything about the thermal into the garage, though. I’m in sublevel C. Best route?”
“I’ll send a truck in to start foxing the thermal. Your best route—leave the car down. Take the lift up to sub A, turn right, take the second corridor to the left, second staircase, right again, there’s a lift to the eighth floor. Go into Archives, and at the back left there’s another lift. I’ll meet you there.”
Rafe followed this complicated path without incident, except for dodging someone in a Technical Services tunic pushing a wheeled cart with a big gray metal box on it down the corridor. The man quickly pulled the cart to one side and Rafe strode past, nodding thanks. The door dragon at Archives, where he’d been before, simply smiled and said, “Good day, Ser Dunbarger. Can I help you find anything?”
“No thanks, Sera Vozan. I’m just taking the shortcut today.”
“It’s all right for you, Ser Dunbarger, but I will not have those infants from Survey coming in here, pretending to look for charts, and then sneaking down the back lift to lunch an hour early…”
“And quite right,” Rafe said. “I trust you make them look at charts until noon?”
“I certainly do,” she said. “Or send them right back to their section.”
The lift was waiting when he reached it, with Gary inside. As it moved Gary shook his head. “You kicked a very large anthill, boyo. The Secretary is indeed dead, and they’re saying it looks like poison. They want your hide stretched on a hoop.”
“I didn’t poison him,” Rafe said. “Is Emil all right? And Penny—where’s Penny?”
“Both here, both doing their jobs. You know, your sister’s really come a long way. Quite a young woman.”
Rafe looked sharply at Gary, but the man seemed sincere, no edge to his voice.
“Emil did say to tell you the Premier’s office called; he wants to talk to you at your earliest convenience.”
“I’ll bet he does,” Rafe said. The lift stopped. Gary exited first, then waved Rafe out.
“That other one—Malendy?—says you pulled a weapon on him, and threatened him, and he’s saying he should never have let you in to see the Secretary.”
“I should have just killed that little bastard last night when he interrupted Penny’s birthday dinner, and called it an affair of honor,” Rafe said. “What I threatened him with was exposure of his incompetent little financial fiddles.” He came i
n sight of his offices; Emil was out beside the receptionist’s desk. He waved at both of them.
“Ser—”
“I know,” Rafe said. “One of those interesting days I wished for when I was a bored little boy.” He smiled at his receptionist. “I would love to give you the rest of the day off, but I’m afraid that would result in your spending some hours being grilled by officials. Instead, could I offer you the comfort of one of the guest suites?”
“The children—” she said.
“Right. They’re nine and thirteen, aren’t they? In school, then an after-school program? Here’s what we’ll do, if you agree. We’ll avoid all the media and official attention and move them and you somewhere out of reach. It’s near the end of term.”
“I—well—yes, that would be nice.”
“We’ll need your authorization to have one of our people pick them up from school. We should do that before anyone makes the connection and tries to intercept them when school’s over.”
“I’ll make the travel arrangements,” Gary said. “Quiet house, suitable for children that age, a couple of security, just in case.”
“Emil, come fill me in.” Rafe led the way into his inner office.
The light blinking on his desk was the direct connection from the Palace to ISC—but he could not answer that until he knew how close to the cliff edge he stood.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Moray System
Ky Vatta’s message to her Aunt Grace was as terse as Grace’s had been, and even more cryptic. “Fruitcake contains one K, no filler. Only one fruitcake, positively no S in fruitcake. S does not belong in fruitcake.” From the generations-back family code stored in her father’s implant—surely Grace would know that one—she added “Tik harvest less than projected by fifteen percent, propagation of seedlings strongly discouraged.” Translated: “Do not propagate this message.” How could she tell Grace that Pitt was suspect. That maybe MacRobert was suspect? “Tik pitts—” A simple misspelling that she hoped would pass for a mistake to anyone else. “—may be infested with fungal disease from the source. Isolate any storage bins used by suspected lots. Source may be unreliable.” Did she really think MacRobert was unreliable? He had sent her the letter of marque and set up the delivery of those mines disguised as cleaning materials. If he had been the traitor who opened Slotter Key to the enemy, would he have done that? Would he be Grace’s—whatever he was to her? She could not believe it. She did not want to believe it, rather, any more than she wanted to believe Pitt was a traitor.
What she wanted to ask Grace was where Grace had heard of the battle and her supposed death. What she wanted to tell Grace was that Turek probably still had an agent or two on Slotter Key. But Grace would not thank her for that information. Grace would give her that Aunt Grace look, and would understand being kept out of the loop.
Pettygrew called in. “Pitt told the truth,” he said. “She requested use of the ansible right after you came aboard. My comtech assumed that it was a message you had asked her to send, so he let her have the board. It was another hour before you ordered the shutdown. You asked me if anyone had communicated outsystem, and I asked my comtech, but she didn’t tell me about Pitt, because she thought you already knew. A stupid mistake on my part; I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault,” Ky said. “I’m relieved that Pitt wasn’t lying about that; it would cast doubt on Mackensee’s agenda.” Now what could she do about Pitt? The transmission might have been innocent in intent. The log showed that the only transmission had been to Slotter Key. But why hadn’t Grace told Ky that MacRobert and Pitt were communicating—if she knew.
Argelos reported that Stella had accepted his and Ransome’s financial data without asking for a direct contact with Ky. “She said she supposed you were busy, and she was sorry to bother you but the auditors were coming.”
Auditors. Of course the survival of Vatta Transport was important, but why couldn’t Stella understand that Ky had more important things on her mind?
Slotter Key
Grace Vatta looked at the printout she’d been given. Straight data, no voice, no visual. It had come from a shipboard ansible, one of two mounted on Ky’s ship, but had it come from Ky? Could the enemy have figured out how to intercept such messages and then use the originating code on a different unit? And “fruitcake.” Too many people knew about the fruitcakes now. As long as she’d been seen as the dotty old lady who handed out inedible fruitcakes, fruitcakes as code were safe, but now some people—some of Ky’s crew, for instance—knew that the fruitcakes might have more than fruit and nuts in them.
Fruitcake contains one K. That might be Ky. Or something else. No S. Not Stella. But if the message was from Ky, why would she say Stella wasn’t with her? Of course Stella wasn’t with her. Ky knew that Grace knew Stella was on Cascadia. And the last part, the old outdated Vatta code for “deep secret, do not share.”
“What’s that?” MacRobert asked as he appeared with her afternoon tea.
“Either confirmation from Ky that she’s alive, or a clever fake,” Grace said. “It’s almost—I can imagine her doing something like this, but—does she think communication through her onboard ansible is compromised? And what else is she trying to tell me?”
MacRobert looked at the printout. “Ah. Don’t tell Stella. Definitely from Ky, and—oh, my.”
Grace looked up at him. “What? You understand this nonsense about tik seeds?”
MacRobert looked amused. “Yes. At least, I think I do. Ky’s found out that I’ve been in contact with the Mackensee liaison, Master Sergeant Pitt. And she’s trying to warn you. She’s wondering if I’m reliable.”
“You!” Grace shook her head. “Of course you’re reliable; what was she thinking?”
“Girl’s learning,” MacRobert said. The corner of his mouth twitched. “What would you think if I hadn’t told you about Pitt?”
Grace shrugged. “All right. I see what you mean. But she knows you—”
“She knew me years ago, when she was younger and naïve,” MacRobert said. “She’s been through a lot. She’s not the same Ky, Grace.”
“I know that,” Grace said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to her on Cascadia.”
“You’re still miffed about that, aren’t you?” MacRobert rubbed her shoulders. “You know, if you’d been Ky, you wouldn’t have waited, either. She had to go; she heard trouble coming…”
“But—”
“She’s a good—I can’t call her a kid anymore—commander, I’d have to say now. Remarkable, in fact.”
Grace glowered at him. “You’re glowing.”
“I’m not. Well…maybe. Look at it like this: I’m the closest thing she has now to a father.”
“If my arm weren’t the size of a child’s I’d hit you with it.”
“All right. I won’t push it. But I am proud of her. It was obvious from the first term that she’d be right at the top—and she was, and not just academically. She had the right kind of mind. We get brilliant cadets who don’t, and we try to shunt them into positions where their brilliance can be used without destroying them or their mates. I had high hopes for her as a commander…and she’s fulfilled those hopes, though not in our Spaceforce.”
“You kicked her out of your Spaceforce,” Grace said.
“Not me. I had nothing to do with that decision and you know it. And anyway, it’s your Spaceforce now. You know the political pressures on it.”
“Fewer,” Grace said. “But yes.”
“And if she hadn’t resigned, if she’d been the most junior officer in a cruiser in our home fleet…which is where the good ones are assigned…she wouldn’t have been available to do what she’s done. Which may very well be to save us all.”
“It doesn’t hurt that she doesn’t fully trust you now?”
“Hurt? No. It would bother me if you didn’t.”
“Very well then. I will inform the President that she is alive, and ready to take command of Slotter K
ey forces when they arrive.”
“We still have to figure out where the rumor came from,” MacRobert said.
“Tonight?”
“No…I suppose it can wait until morning.”
“Good…because my therapists are annoyed with me about the arm…horizontal exercises, they prescribe. They insist I must do them.”
“Horizontal exercises…I think we can manage that.”
Moray System, Aboard Vanguard II
Ky called Pitt into her office. As always, Pitt looked perfectly professional as she came to attention in front of Ky’s desk.
“Ma’am.”
“The log bears out your story, Master Sergeant. But I can’t say I’m happy about the fact that you were in contact with Slotter Key behind my back for…years, it must be.”
“Yes, ma’am. I understand that. If the admiral will permit—”
“Go ahead,” Ky said. She was well aware that Pitt was using formality to maneuver her.
“Until Major Douglas died, the admiral will understand that there was no conflict of interest: I was, as I am, a member of Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation, and my loyalty belonged to that organization.” Pitt paused, head slightly tilted, and Ky nodded her understanding. “So,” Pitt went on, “it would have been inappropriate for me to discuss with you any of my contacts, anywhere.”
Ky thought that over. She had never been drawn to the shady side of military work; intel was something she wanted, but did not want to obtain herself. “I see,” she said, her tone neutral.
“If the admiral thought the contact was inappropriate, it was a matter between the Slotter Key government and my high command.”
“But I didn’t know,” Ky said.
“No, ma’am. I understand that, but…” Pitt sighed. “Ma’am, it’s been a very odd situation between you and me from the start, like I’ve said before. We’re not in the same chain of command. We’re not enemies. We’re allies of a sort, but normally you would interact only with officers of your own and related ranks. Yet—” The faintest color came to her cheeks. “You could, in age, be one of my children.”
Victory Conditions Page 27