“Padma Kosar is exhibit number one that that was not the case. And not just her. There will always be concealed vipers around, waiting, plotting, scheming. As Jan Childers knew, and as I have learned to my sorrow.
“Jan Childers herself is exhibit number two. Even she could not see how to go on to that next step, how to put an end to the minor tyrannies, without putting in place a much greater one. And she truly did have vision, enough to see me coming, to see Padma Kosar coming, two hundred years ago, and set her plan in place to stop me.
“Thank you, Ms. Dawson. This has all been very humbling, that VR perhaps most of all. To be lectured by Jan Childers herself in just how wrong I was –”
Costa shook his head. He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, before continuing.
“So now what, Ms. Dawson? What would you have me do?”
Dawson hadn't been sure which way she was going to jump. It had all depended on Costa. Now, she knew.
“Stay on at Galactic mail. On my staff. Emeritus CEO. Adviser to the CEO. Whatever you want to call it. Introduce me around. Be a sounding board for me. One thing you have that my staff does not have is experience, with the people, with the institution. Don't take that out of Galactic Mail. Use it.”
Dawson waved her hand at the office around her.
“Stay here, in this house. We'll be moving the corporate headquarters to Kalnai, and the region manager and division manager will still live in the other two houses. But this house will be empty, and it's just a hop away from Kalnai. Commute a couple days a week, overnight. Or two weeks a month. Or something. Bring Vivian along rather than be apart if you want. I'll permanently assign a VIP courier ship for your use.
“Or you can move to Kalnai. Specify your own arrangements. But I want you on the executive staff, and Galactic Mail needs you.”
Costa looked at her sharply, and she nodded, once. He looked around the office, and his eyes drifted out the window, to Galactic Mail's massive base and its sprawl of buildings. Having shrunk before, he seemed to draw himself up once again.
“I'll have to talk to Vivian, see what she wants to do. We've been happy here. It's a tempting offer, Ms. Dawson. I'll seriously consider it, and let you know.”
“I can't ask for more than that.”
Dawson stood up, and Costa followed suit. They shook hands, more earnestly than they had during the ceremony, and went back outside to see to their guests.
The Extent Of The Rot
Dawson was back on Kalnai, relaxing with Morgan over a private breakfast. The kids were off with Grandma to see some local museum in Slenis, Kalnai's capital, about fifty miles away over the mountains to the north.
“Wait. You're going to keep Sylvain Costa?” Morgan asked.
“Yes,” Dawson said.
“In your inner circle?”
“I suspect so, yes.”
“In God's name, why? Wasn't he all the trouble to begin with?”
“Yes, he set the policy,” Dawson said. “But he sees now it was that very policy that attracted the snakes. Like Padma Kosar. But the depth of his contacts and experience is not something you just throw away. It was part of the advice about dealing with the upper management, in the materials for the Watchers, from Jan Childers herself. Win over whoever you can, and kill the ones you can't. Don't leave anyone to plot against you. But don't waste experience either.”
“Bloodthirsty ancestor you've got there.”
“She never killed anyone she didn't have to, and when she did, she did it quickly. But she didn't believe in half measures.”
“So what's on your schedule now that you're back?” Morgan asked.
“Check in with Micheli, check in with the forensic team, check in with research. See where everybody is at. And I need to start putting a real staff together. This is all running me ragged.”
“Assign that to Jack. Let him pull the executive staff together.”
“Good idea. I guess check in with him is first.”
“Yes, Ma'am. You called?” Turner asked
“Hi, Jack. Have a seat,” Dawson said.
Turner plopped into a chair in front of her desk.
“How're things going?” Dawson asked.
“Pretty good. The remains of the Board is all back on the planet. A bunch of them went back home until the next Board meeting. Most of the rest will be leaving soon. All of the strategic resources have been sent back to their normal stations, except for a last-ditch defensive sphere of twenty thousand drones we retain here around Kalnai until things shake out.”
“And mail and freight operations?”
“All good. The regions and divisions pretty much run themselves, and they're still doing it.”
“All right. I have an assignment for you. I probably should have given it to you a couple weeks back. I want you to head up the search committee to fill out the corporate headquarters staff. See if a few of the remaining Board members will help out, and get Micheli's chief of staff, Dev McConnell, to help as well.
“Oh, and I got a mail from Sylvain Costa this morning. He's accepted my offer to be Adviser to the CEO. So when he shows up, use him on this as well.
“Go through all of the higher-level personnel in all of the divisional and regional staff. Look for people with competent seconds who can step up. Use the computers to search personnel files. You can use the prior organization chart as your guide as to what we need.”
“Got it. What about Security?”
“Well, we still need a security function, but I think someone having been in Security here before is probably a negative. So is applying for and being seriously considered for a job in Security here. I don't know what to do about that. Come up with some ideas for me to consider.”
“Got it.”
“Speaking of security, what happened with the existing Security forces at the other regions and divisions?”
“Well, I've been looking at the preliminary findings coming out of the forensic accounting team, and it looks like the rot was spreading out from Doma. Kalnai was the biggest freight operation of all four regions, including Doma, and Kosar concentrated here and on the other two regions, Odla and Pulau, though they were a bit smaller than Kalnai and Doma. Kwan replaced Security commanders in the eight smaller regions as well, and they were starting to have an effect on the divisions, but that was still filtering down, and it was hit or miss.
“So we haven't had any problems with divisions. Some of the regions have been dicey, and I'm still worried about Odla and Pulau. The demise of Padma Kosar and your peaceful transition with Sylvain Costa quieted down Pulau, but Odla is another matter.”
“The divisions, then, may be where you have to look for untainted security people to staff a true security department once again. As for Odla, do we need to go there?”
“I don't think it would hurt. I can't put my finger on it, but it sounds to me like Mauro Ikeda is in trouble.”
“Like his communications are being filtered?”
“Or like he knows they're being monitored. Yeah. And the Security chief there is one of Kwan's hand-picked hardliners.”
Dawson called up the layout of the base on Odla in VR. The Security Building was off to one side of the complex, but not all the way across the field as on Kalnai or Doma.
“All right. Let me think about it. More meetings first. Get started on staffing.”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
Dawson visited Micheli in her office. The redecorating required by Kian Sitko's spectacular demise had been completed for over a week, but a faint odor of fresh paint hung in the air.
“Come in, come in, Ms. Dawson.”
The secretary left and pulled the door shut behind her as Dawson walked across the office to where Micheli waved her to the seating arrangement off to one side of the desk.
“Hi, Kali. How're things going?” Dawson asked.
“Good, actually, Pat. At first we had a little trouble with Security in a couple of divisions. Your orders relieving all the chiefs of
Security of their commands in the Kalnai region had spotty results. But when first Myron Kwan and then Padma Kosar were removed, either people stepped down voluntarily or their juniors helped them along. So we got back full control over our own regions and districts. We're now reviewing the performance of the district commanders to see if some of them can be reinstated or take over in the regions. The regional Security commanders were all tainted. So say the accounting folks, anyway.”
“What about your friends in the Pulau and Odla regions? Turner said there might be some problems in Odla.”
“I worry about that, too,” Micheli said. “The mails from Ikeda don't sound right. They're all text-only, which is a change in itself, but they are also just a little off. Like –”
“Like he's trying to let you know something's wrong without coming right out and saying it and getting in trouble.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“All right,” Dawson said. “I see George and I are going to have to pay a little visit to Odla. But everything in Kalnai region is good?”
“Yeah, we're doing fine. No need to worry about us.”
“OK. Off to see the forensic accounting team. Thanks, Kali.”
“Well, we have several topics to talk about. Which would you like to hear about first,” Hwan Cooper asked.
Cooper was the head of the team, and had brought several other people to the meeting.
“Don't care. Up to you. But let's keep it to executive summaries for now. I'll read your detailed reports later,” Dawson said.
“OK. Let's start with the funding of the warships. Sean, you're up.”
Sean Pema arranged his notes, then activated the display through the VR.
“The first thing to notice is that, while there is a large amount of money involved, it is not enough to build sixty warships from the keel out. I conclude therefore that these warships already existed, and were perhaps refitted for use by Security. Based on the pricing we regularly see on ships in this size range, this would be more than enough money to completely refit sixty existing ships,” Pema said.
“So somebody took a bunch of ships out of mothballs and worked them up,” Dawson said.
“That is correct,” Pema said. “So one question right off is, Where did the ships come from? We found no separate payment for the ships themselves, so we conclude they either came from the location that worked the ships up, or they were Galactic Mail ships in the first place.”
“Let me guess. They were Galactic Mail's own ships.”
“Again, correct. They were removed from a fleet of ships that were mothballed nearly a century ago. They had been in storage, one might say, in distant orbit around Doma's sun.”
“Which means Doma refitted the ships, because without refitting they weren't spaceworthy enough to get them to anywhere else, and you can't tow them.”
“You're very good at this game. That was our conclusion as well, so we looked for where the payments went. It's pretty easy to track down the flow of a large amount of money, and this wasn't really that hidden. It was listed as ship repairs, but there was no commensurate addition to the normal flow of ships in the operational inventory that were undergoing refitting or repairs on Doma during the time period, and the ordering and payments were not handled through purchasing and accounts payable as they normally should be.”
“Do we know who was involved in the project?”
“On our side, it would have had to include at least the corporate controller or the head of accounting or, more likely, both.”
“OK. Well, they're both dead, so we can't ask them. How about on the Doma side? Was the government involved in this?”
“Oh, yes. The Secretary of Trade appears to have been the main conduit. The orders were issued to vendors by his company, rather than by Galactic Mail purchasing, and the payments were made directly to his company from a blind account outside of the accounts payable process. The Prime Minister was likely also involved. Large contributions were made to her election funds from the same blind account, which she used for her own election campaigns and the election campaigns of other members of her political party.”
“Were those payments out of the range of historical amounts?”
“Yes, and they were contemporaneous with the ship refitting project.”
“Are the current officeholders the same people who were bribed?”
“Yes. The government hasn't turned over since these activities.”
“Got it. Sounds like I need to have a little talk with some people on Doma. Among other things, it sounds like it's more than time for the government to change. What's next?”
“Mariana Petrov has the internal skimming project,” Cooper said.
Petrov switched the screen, and a list of names and amounts showed up on screen.
“Padma Kosar was making regular additional payments to her high-ranking subordinates. Here we see the amounts paid over the last fifteen years to each of them, as well as the percentage of their regular Galactic Mail salaries that were being paid as additional side payments during the period each person received these payments.”
“Wait. You're telling me she was paying these people two to five times again their legitimate salaries?”
“In direct payments. That's correct.”
“That's a lot of money.”
“Not in absolute terms. The number of people getting these side payments was small, but they were strategically selected. She could command absolute obedience from these people, both because of how much she was paying them on the side and because they knew she had records of the payments made.”
“So she could destroy anyone who stepped out of line.”
“Correct. And without implicating herself. She took pains to obscure where the payments were coming from inside the company, but not to whom they were going.”
“And what about Padma Kosar herself, and Sylvain Costa?”
“That's a separate effort,” Cooper said. “Gene, your turn.”
Eugene Rudaski switched the screen to a tabulation of his results. Dawson spoke first.
“Wait. That can't be right.”
“Oh, it's correct,” Rudaski said. “It's surprising, perhaps, but it's correct.”
“Padma Kosar took no inappropriate funds out of Galactic Mail? At all?”
“Not that we can find. And we went over her books and accounts with a fine-toothed comb. Including her bank records, for which she kept the password on her computer account at work. She's clean as the driven snow.”
“Power was its own reward.”
“Apparently so. Not so for Sylvain Costa, but there's an anomaly there. He was being paid by Kosar, in some pretty large amounts, but he didn't take any inappropriate funds himself. Further, he kept the funds Kosar shifted to him sequestered from his own finances, and never touched them.”
“He took the money to humor her. She wanted a lever on him.”
“That could be. He never used them. Any additional funds Kosar shifted to him he put in a separate account, and never touched any of it. One more thing. He donated the total amount in those accounts to the families of those killed in the destruction of the Administrative and Security Buildings on Doma.”
“I'll be damned. An honorable man. In the middle of a snake pit, to be sure, and terribly wrong on policy, but not a cheat, not a thief. And he gave it all back before we even did the audit.”
“That's correct. He currently holds no expropriated funds from Galactic Mail. At all. None. And he never spent any of it. Not even the interest it accrued. It was all given back. And his personal accounts, which he sent to us on his own, by the way, are clean, clean, clean.”
Dawson turned to Cooper.
“Thank you very much. That's all I need for now. And thank you, everybody. I'm looking forward to reading your detailed reports. And don't dumb them down for me. I'm an accountant myself.”
And with that, Dawson was off to her next meeting.
New Capabilities
Dawson
met with Austin Misra in her conference room in the wing of the Administrative Building she was borrowing from Micheli. He brought two other members of his team with him. One carried something covered with a black cloth and set it on the table.
“As you'll recall, Ms. Dawson, during our very first meeting we discussed the smaller munitions we had developed, and you asked us when we might have some of our less potent explosives deployable – the concept being that a ten-megaton warhead was a bit of overkill for most real-world situations.”
“Exactly. Well stated,” Dawson said.
“Thank you. We believe we are ready to go with the first of your requests, a device to implode a building while minimizing damage to nearby structures.”
“I could have used a couple of those a couple of weeks back.”
“So I understand. Unfortunately, these things take time. However, we are ready to go with one, and we have a couple of samples.”
“How does it work?”
“The concept is simple enough. It's basically a very tiny nuclear shaped-charge demolition, deployed four to a warhead for a small missile. Sort of a nuclear claymore, if you will. Drop one in the center of each side of the building, aimed toward the center, and they bring the building down.”
“How tiny is tiny? We are talking a nuke here.”
“It's a variable yield device. From one-half ton to five tons of TNT equivalent, as opposed to multiple kilotons or megatons. You set it for the yield you want.”
“And four of these tiny nukes come down on the building?”
“Not exactly. The issue with that is the building may be five or ten stories high. To bring the building down, you really want to cut off its legs and let its own weight bring it down. The best place for the munition then is in the basement, but penetrating multiple stories of the building is a problem for a small projectile. What we do instead is bring the weapons down in the ground very near the side of the building. Depending on how deep the basements are, we can detonate it at different depths. The deeper the better. It holds the explosive against the building. Then we blow in the basement wall. High-velocity debris from that takes out the interior supports.”
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