The drink materialized in front of Esperanza with a quiet hum. “All right, get together with Ashanté and fix this.”
That seemed to confuse Dogayn. “Huh?”
“Fix this,” Esperanza repeated as she went back to her desk and grabbed the padd Ross had given her.
“I thought the president—”
“This never gets on the president’s sensors.” As she spoke, she entered some commands that downloaded the padd’s data to her workstation. “Right now I’ve got to go upstairs and tell her we’re gonna have to tap-dance on a supernova in order to keep the Klingons from invading Romulus, and that on top of risking a repeat of the biggest diplomatic disaster of her presidency tomorrow with the Trinni/ek. The last thing I want is her being distracted by this.”
“Distracted? Esperanza, it’s—”
“Very important to her, yes. That’s why I want you and Ashanté to fix it before it even becomes a problem. Talk to whoever you need to talk to, but find out where the problem is and do what you can to fix it. If we can give some concessions, go for it—it took months to get the president and the council friendly, I don’t want to reverse it over this.”
Dogayn nodded and got up. “All right.”
The two of them exited her office together. Dogayn moved toward the center of the floor, while Esperanza headed to the turbolift, saying, “I’m heading up there, Zachary.”
“Right.”
When Esperanza arrived on the fifteenth floor moments later, her thoughts turning to entertaining and painful ways of torturing Bera chim Gleer, Sivak gave her an odd look. “The president is busy.”
And Sivak is just what I need this morning. “Zachary told me she was free at noon.”
“It will not be 1200 for three more minutes. And even then, she only has ten minutes before—”
The door then slid open to reveal the secretaries of technology and transportation, as well as their assistants. The former, a short Androsian woman named Forzrat, was saying, “…and that’s not even taking power consumption into account. We just don’t know if it’s feasible.”
Following them out the door, the president asked, “Isn’t that kinda the point of a study, to give us the opportunity to stop living in ignorance about this sort of thing?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, there you go. Take a look at it, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Thank you, Madam President.”
Esperanza nodded to the four of them as they passed her and headed toward the turbolifts. The transportation secretary, a tall Berellian named Iliop, said to her, “We need to talk about Rigel later.”
“Set it up with Zachary.”
Looking inquisitively at Esperanza, President Bacco asked, “You need me?”
“I just finished with Ross about Klorgat.”
Her face fell. “Great. C’mon in.”
As the pair entered, Sivak said, “Madam President, you have only ten minutes before—”
“I beat you bloody with a large blunt object?”
“You are, of course, welcome to use Ms. Piñiero to hit me, ma’am, but that does not change the fact that you have the exterior secretary in ten minutes.”
Smiling, the president said, “Fine.” Looking at Esperanza, she said, “Can you believe what Diaz did?”
Esperanza knew that Taisha Diaz was the manager of the Pioneers, and she knew the Pioneers had played a game yesterday against the Salavar Stars, with whom they were in a dogfight for first place. Beyond that, of course, she knew nothing, but she had faith in the president’s capacity for filling her in, so she played along. “I can’t believe it, no.”
“It’s a tie game, you’ve got the heart of the order coming up, why the hell don’t you put Sookdeo in?”
“It’s a mystery to me, ma’am.”
The president shook her head as she went to sit in one of the guest chairs. “I mean, really, what’s to be gained by saving Sookdeo for the eighth or ninth? And even if you are, why bring in Gordimer? The Stars’ve been handing him his head all year, and sure enough, he gives up six runs before Diaz brings in Sookdeo to stop the bleeding, but by then it’s too late. Now we’re two games out instead of tied. Drives me nuts. What did Ross have to say?”
Taking this as a signal that the president was done with her daily harangue on the subject of the Pioneers’ inability to hold onto first place this season, Esperanza handed her the padd, then took the seat opposite hers. “The S.C.E. is now definitively saying that it was Admiral Mendak.”
Accepting the padd without looking at it, the president’s eyes went wide. “It was the Romulans?”
“No, ma’am—it was Admiral Mendak.”
President Bacco snorted. “So we’re buying Tal’Aura’s assurances now?”
“Not necessarily, but as that report indicates, we know that it’s definitely Mendak himself, not anyone else.”
After looking at the padd for half a second and frowning, the president then looked up at Esperanza with a slightly irritated expression. “Let’s assume, just for the hell of it, that I know as much about engineering as you do about baseball.”
Esperanza smiled. “What it boils down to is that Mendak’s fleet put in for repairs during the Dominion War at Starbase 375. The engineers who worked on the ships noticed something different about the Rhliailu, which is Mendak’s flagship: Its disruptors were tuned differently to get maximum power out of them.”
“Why only Mendak’s ship? I mean, if they could be retuned to be more powerful, especially in a war—”
“The engineer asked the same question. Turns out there was a design flaw in the Rhliailu when it came off the yard. The disruptor couplings are misaligned, to the point where they have to keep the temperature in the disruptor chamber down around a hundred degrees Kelvin because it overheats so badly. They tried it on a few other ships, and they all either had a complete power blowout or the whole system just shut down automatically. For whatever reason, they couldn’t reproduce it. It was great for Mendak, though—it’s why he was able to win at Brasîto—but it also means that the Rhliailu’s disruptors leave a distinct signature. That is to say, if you know where to look.”
“And the S.C.E. knew where to look?”
Esperanza nodded. “If it had been a regular Romulan ship that did it, the evidence wouldn’t have been conclusive, since regular Romulan disruptors leave a resonance pattern that’s pretty similar to what you’d get with tectonic stresses. I’m willing to bet that the original plan counted on that.”
The president leaned back in her chair. “Great. Well, this technobabble all sounds great, but you know what this means?”
“It means you need to talk to Tal’Aura right away—before you talk to the Klingons.”
“No.”
“Ma’am—”
“I’ll talk to the Romulans, but I’m not going behind the Klingons’ back with this. Set up a meeting for tomorrow after the council session with both K’mtok and the new Romulan ambassador. What’s his name?”
“Kalavak.”
“Right. This way the Klingons can’t say we cut them out.” She gave a half-smile, then she added, “And they’ll be too busy yelling at each other to yell at me and I’m done talking about it in half the time.” She sighed. “This is the last thing I need, with the Trinni/ek ready to attack me in my sleep.”
Esperanza couldn’t help but smile, though she was now even more grateful that she’d kept the Cardassia problem on fourteen. “They’re not gonna attack you in your sleep, ma’am. You have bodyguards, remember?”
“That just reassures the crap out of me. You and your boyfriend are sure they’ll be fine?”
Sighing, Esperanza said, “Ambassador Morrow is not my boyfriend, ma’am, and I talked to him this morning. He said they seemed a little tired, but eager to make up for their bad first impression.”
“After this is all over, you should ask him out. You’d make a cute couple.”
“Ma’am—”
; “I know about these things, you know. Who do you think got Fred and Ashanté to finally tie the knot?”
“Yes, ma’am, when you’re no longer president, you can spend your retirement years as a very successful yenta.”
The president laughed. “All right, I’ve got to talk to Safranski. I’ll fill him in on this disaster, too. Mind if I keep this?” She held up the padd.
Esperanza nodded. “I’ve got a copy. Safranski did good on ICL.”
“I missed it. How was T’Vrea?”
“She wasn’t—her first officer was on instead.”
Again, the president frowned. “That’s odd. It’s not like T’Vrea’s camera-shy.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, ma’am. Something could have called the captain away, and she sent her XO.”
“Yeah, I guess. All right, let me know when you set things up with Kalavak.”
“Of course. Thank you, Madam President.”
Chapter Twenty
YOU KNOW, Ozla Graniv thought, if I hadn’t bothered interviewing Tawna, I’d be back in Paris by now, listening to Kant be snide, filing stories, and generally being happy.
Instead, she was sitting naked on a crate, in a dank underground room on Deneva that smelled like avro dung, with two very large Balduks standing in front of her, aiming disruptor pistols at her head.
They’d been sitting there for about half an hour, ever since the two Balduks had shown up unannounced at her hotel room while she’d been showering. Showing no consideration for—or interest in—her nudity, they’d grabbed her and hauled her to a building on the outskirts of Down-river. Tellingly, no one had batted an eyelash at them.
But then, Ozla had done an exposé on the Orion Syndicate, so she knew that Ihazs, Deneva’s local Syndicate boss, controlled dozens of interests on Deneva, and that everyone knew not to mess with his two Balduk bodyguards, even if—especially if—they were carrying a naked Trill reporter through a hotel lobby.
I guess I should be grateful that these two are just threatening me. They were content to stand facing her, brandishing their weapons, but never speaking. They didn’t sit, either, though there were plenty of crates in the room besides the one she occupied. The room’s illumination was dim, provided only by a weak overhead light, so her exact count of the number of crates was approximate at best, though she did try to count all of them by way of distracting herself.
Ozla’s estimate of the passage of time was also approximate, but she was pretty sure they had gotten close to forty-five minutes by the time a door opened to reveal a slim Takaran. “Well, well, well,” Ihazs said. “If it isn’t the infamous Ozla Graniv. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh.”
The Balduks laughed at the bad pun.
“And very nice flesh it is—for a Trill, my dear, you are very attractive. If not for those spots and your unfortunate skin tone, you’d make a delectable Takaran. I take it my guards have treated you well?”
“Depends on whether you define grabbing me from the shower as ‘well.’ ”
“Yes, I do apologize for that,” Ihazs said with an expansive gesture. “You needn’t worry, though. These two have been genetically modified to have no sex drive. It’s handy when they’re asked to guard Orion women.”
Ozla smiled. “I’d point out that it’s illegal to perform genetic modifications on Federation citizens—but then, it’s also illegal to kidnap people.”
“Very true.” Ihazs took a seat on another crate. “You’ve been quite busy since you arrived on Deneva five weeks ago. Asking all sorts of questions. The last time you were asking questions about the Syndicate, of course, the end result was that lovely series of articles of yours. By the way, I wanted to thank you for those.”
That took Ozla aback. “Thank me?”
“Yes. It provided a road map to several hull breaches on our ship, as it were.” Ihazs waved his arms back and forth across his chest. “We were able to tighten up the organization and get rid of some people who were no longer of use to us—all the while providing the forces of law and order with some handy scapegoats whom we didn’t want around anymore anyhow. There was a short-term falloff, of course, but that’s to be expected. The price of doing business, and all that.” He indicated her with his hand. “And besides all that, it was a most excellent piece of reporting.”
Ozla said nothing, though she did contemplate whether or not Ihazs would be able to talk if someone tied his hands.
“And now you’re looking into some merchandise that we moved to Tezwa.”
“What makes you think that?” Ozla asked with a smile.
Ihazs’s polite smile fell. “Do not play stupid with me, Ms. Graniv. It makes me angry, and when I get angry, my guards shoot things. You spoke with Yntral, you spoke with Fiske, you spoke with Tanaa—and brava for being able to hold your breath while being in the same room with him, by the way—you spoke with T’l’u’r’w’w’q’a, and you spoke with Argenziano.”
Ozla had expected that one or two of her conversations would get back to Ihazs. She was distressed at the fact that all but one of them had.
Spreading his arms, Ihazs said, “I don’t know what they told you, and frankly, I don’t care, because I’m about to give you something.”
Blinking, Ozla said, “I beg your pardon?”
“Your presence on Deneva, Ms. Graniv, can only result in one of three things. One is that you continue your questioning, giving you the opportunity to expose more about the Syndicate. We’ve been dealt several severe blows of late, and I do not wish to add to them.”
Ozla had heard rumors that the death of a boss named Malic four years earlier had resulted in some problems for the Syndicate, but nothing that she had been able to verify. She wondered if that was what Ihazs was referring to.
Gesticulating as much as ever, Ihazs continued. “The second is that I have you killed. That causes more problems for me, however, as you are a prominent reporter who has already written one exposé of the Syndicate, and who went on from there to being a reporter at the Palais de la Concorde on Earth. You’re high-profile, and high-profile deaths tend to bring out law enforcement. Whatever we gain by your death we lose by the subsequent legal scrutiny.” Pointing at her again, he said, “Which brings us to option number three. I will tell you what you want to know—or, perhaps, verify what you’ve already discovered—and then you go on your merry way. Yes, the Syndicate provided the nadion-pulse cannons to Tezwa.”
“That much has been public record.”
“Yes,” Ihazs said with a smile, “but not where we got those cannons. You see, Ms. Graniv, the person who commissioned me to have those cannons delivered some eight years ago was a gentleman named Nelino Quafina, who, at the time the deal was consummated, had just been appointed the secretary of military intelligence by newly elected President Min Zife.”
Ozla said nothing, refused to betray any emotion. Shortly after talking to Tawna, she had gone to Olorun Meboras’s widow, Yalno. She had already known about her husband’s infidelity but had said nothing, in part because she’d wanted to get on with her life, in part because of the good work Tawna was doing with the orphans of Alkam-Zar, who had enough problems without scandal falling down on their benefactor’s head. However, Yalno had been more than happy to let Ozla read her husband’s diaries, which verified his “pillow talk” with Tawna: As far as the major knew, the Federation had provided weaponry that would allow Tezwa to defend itself against exterior aggression, whether it be the Dominion or the Klingons.
From there, the trail had led her back to Deneva, mostly thanks to the information in Meboras’s diaries, which Yalno had let her keep, combined with Ozla’s own knowledge of the Orion Syndicate. Most of the sources of her exposé hadn’t been mentioned in her articles, and Ihazs’s earlier words confirmed that they hadn’t found all her sources, since the people who’d been arrested had not been the ones who had given up information to Ozla.
“Now then, here is what I want in exchange for providing you with t
his information.” Ihazs started counting off items on his thin fingers. “One, I will let you go free on the condition that you are off Deneva as fast as you can get dressed, pack, and secure a flight off-planet. Two, you do not reveal this particular piece of information unless you can confirm it from another source.” Now his tone changed from one of false politeness to very real menace. “If you do so, I will have you killed, and damn the consequences.”
Ozla swallowed, then cursed herself for betraying that kind of weakness. “Anything else?”
“Remember those setbacks I mentioned? One of them was the resignation of President Zife. While I never dealt with the esteemed leader himself, of course, I did quite a bit of business with Secretary Quafina. He was one of my best clients, in fact. With Zife out of power—and, I might add, before I was able to receive the final payment for our last shipment to Tezwa—I no longer have that client. When that happened, I took steps to discover who, precisely, was responsible for the removal of President Zife from power.”
“Nobody removed him, he resigned.” Ozla was starting to see why Zife had taken so radical a step, if he had been involved with this….
Now Ihazs laughed, which prompted the two bodyguards to do likewise. “No no no, my dear Ms. Graniv, it’s not that simple. You see, there was no reason for the truth of our little arrangement to become public. If anyone in Zife’s office talked, it would mean war between the Federation and the Klingons, plus a scandal on Zife’s head, since he knew about the cannons and didn’t tell Starfleet or the Klingon Defense Force. If anyone in my organization talked—well, I believe I already outlined the consequences of free talk inside the Syndicate.”
Ozla tried not to shiver, which was hard while sitting naked in a dank room while two thugs aimed energy weapons at her. “So who did find out?”
“The only other party involved who had no hidden agenda: Starfleet. One of their admirals, a human named William Ross, forced Zife to resign at phaserpoint.”
Now Ozla’s head was spinning. “That’s ridiculous.”
Ihazs laughed. “Of course it’s ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as the president of the Federation secretly arming an independent world with powerful weapons and sending his own troops, as well as troops from an allied nation, to that world without telling them that those weapons were in place and covering it up afterward.” Opening his arms wide, he repeated, “Ridiculous.”
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