Redeemed

by Steve Matthew Benner

  One interesting result of the assassination attempt was that Dran was now accompanied by at least three bodyguards at all times now, so his clandestine, romantic liaisons with Earthlings had to come to an end. He was not a happy diplomat.

  ~

  During the lull in the fighting after the Consortium’s limited attack, Paul made one of his appointments with Cherie. Paul was looking forward to seeing her since he had been under a lot of pressure lately. As the limo pulled up to the curb in front of her building, he was beginning to fantasize about what they would be doing later that night. Jack, Paul’s bodyguard, circled around the limo to open Paul’s door. As Paul exited the limo, he looked up to see Cherie smiling and waving at him from the front steps of the building. She had a short, sexy black dress on that showed all her exquisite curves. Paul smiled broadly and started to walk toward her. Suddenly, Paul felt Jack’s iron grip on his arm. Jack violently threw him back into the limo and slammed the door. Almost simultaneously with the slamming of the door, there was an ear-shattering explosion precisely where Paul had stood only a fraction of a second earlier. The limo’s side facing the explosion was caved in, and the limo was pushed sideways about five meters into the building across the street. The explosion failed to penetrate the limo’s interior because of its reinforced shielding. The car was almost impenetrable by anything less than a direct photon missile strike.

  Paul had sustained some slight cuts and bruises from his collisions with the limo’s interior, and his ears were ringing, but he wasn’t badly hurt. The doors wouldn’t open, but he managed to kick out one of the damaged windows. He crawled out of the floater and ran over to Cherie who had been blown backwards by the blast. She was also not seriously injured as most of the blast was directed away from her. But Paul found very little of Jack, just a hand and a shoe with the foot still in it. The explosion had been extremely intense and concentrated into a very small blast radius. Jack had been within that radius; most of him vaporized.

  Security Forces appeared within minutes of the blast. Paul explained to them what had happened, and they sealed off the area. When the med-floater arrived with a heavy military escort, he and Cherie were immediately loaded aboard. Paul talked to Cherie all the way to the hospital because he could tell she was close to hysterical. When they got to the emergency room, the doctors took Paul first, in spite of his protests. They treated his minor wounds and wanted to check him in for further observations, but he made it clear he was okay. He got to see Cherie before he left, but she had been sedated by then and wasn’t very coherent. Even though she didn’t have any injuries, the doctors wanted to keep her overnight because of her mental state.

  The next day a man from Security dropped by to ask him more questions and to let him know what they had found out so far. The investigation had determined that the weapon was a JART, a small, powerful missile about the size of a fountain pen, which had to be launched by an individual from close range. JARTs were Horologian technology. Paul figured that Jack must have seen the assassin and, by throwing him back in the limo, was able to save Paul. The investigators never found who had made the attempt, though the Horologii were the prime suspects. Paul knew the Horologii hated him for the treachery at the negotiations, but Paul couldn’t shake the feeling that Gibbon was behind the attempt. Maybe Gibbon had begun to suspect that Paul was behind the problems his administration was having. He had no proof, so there was little Paul could do about it.

  ~

  As the war dragged on, continuing to consume resources with little to show for the expenditure, opposition to Gibbon grew in the Assembly. Even some of his strongest supporters were beginning to have their doubts about Gibbon’s leadership. General Holts was called before the Assembly to testify as to his feelings about the war and the attack on Denebola. Robert did his best to support Gibbon, but he was basically an honest person. His testimony did not help Gibbon’s case. More of Gibbon’s staff were called to testify, and the investigation began to take on a life of its own. Paul kept feeding the opposition leads through a few trusted contacts while at the same time encouraging Gibbon to dig in his heels against the opposition in the Assembly. Somehow, Gibbon managed to stay above the fray and retain his power in the Assembly. As long as he could maintain his control of the Assembly he could retain his First Council job and all the power that that office bestowed.

  At the same time, the allies were becoming more vociferous about Earth’s leadership in general and Gibbon’s in particular and threatened to withdraw their support from the war effort if some changes were not made. Paul met with Dran frequently, advising him to encourage the allies to keep the pressure on Gibbon without having the allies actually withdraw their support until he had the Assembly in line. Paul had to weaken Gibbon’s control over the Assembly before the allies withdrew, or all his efforts would be in vain. They had made Gibbon the representative to the Council, and they would have to unmake him. The timing was crucial. Unfortunately, Paul’s only direct contact with the Assembly was through George, and George was not going to do anything against Gibbon unless it was in his best interest. Paul was trying to find George’s weak spot when his meticulously stacked house of cards fell in.

  One mid-summer morning, when Paul got to his desk, he found a note saying that Gibbon wanted to see him right away. He immediately reported to Gibbon’s office, and, as he entered, he saw Stephen and Hernst already seated in two of the office’s chairs. Gibbon was behind his desk. Paul immediately had a very bad feeling. “First Council, you wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, Paul, I do. Have a seat.” Gibbon seemed in a good mood, which made Paul even more uncomfortable. Paul sat in the only open seat, located between Hernst and Stephen, who both were smiling. Another bad sign.

  “I asked you here because I have heard some disturbing things about you. I understand that you have been fomenting trouble in the allied ranks, mainly through Dran. And you have been passing information to the opposition. Luckily for me, one of your contacts is my man. He has been kind enough to let me read your communications. We have managed to locate all your other contacts and will be making sure they are no longer a problem to us.” Paul did not know what that meant exactly, but it sounded ominous. He wondered which surrogate had turned on him.

  “Regrettably, I can’t do much to Dran. He’s too heavily guarded and his home world doesn’t seem to have a high opinion of me, to put it lightly. But I have asked General Holts to redeploy the army units guarding the Lalande System to more important areas. I also made sure that the Lalandian government knew this and why. Of course, they will protest, and I’m sure the Council will give it due consideration, if not necessarily fast consideration.”

  “You’d put billions of people at risk, your own allies, just to get one man removed?” Paul interrupted.

  “I’m thinking of what is best for the Consortium. It just so happens it corresponds nicely with what’s best for me. Now please don’t interrupt. I’m building momentum here. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Once Dran’s off the Council, you won’t have any influence with the allies. They don’t trust you, which seems to be a common theme. See, I don’t either. I was hoping the Horologii would boil you in oil when we hit the Denebolan system, but you lucked out. I guess you had to be ‘diplomatic.’ I didn’t want to cut you loose because I needed to know whom you would turn to for support and maybe to use against me. I guess I’ve found out.”

  Stephen spoke up, “I told you we’d be watching you. I knew you would screw up. Now we’ve got you by the balls, and you know it. I bet we could bring you up on charges of treason and have it stick. You’d be disgraced and dead in a month.” He laughed loudly.

  Paul was stunned and momentarily speechless. Not because Gibbon didn’t trust him--he’d known that. But how did Gibbon know so much about what Paul had been doing? Only Dran knew this much about his activities. But the leak couldn’t be Dran; Gibbon had just said he wanted Dran out.
Paul’s mind whirred. He knew Stephen was right that they could trump up some charges about his being a traitor and make it stick, especially with respect to his advice to the allies. Even though he was considered something of a hero, his credibility with the public was paper-thin. He knew he was screwed.

  Gibbon resumed, “In spite of the fact that we have been tracking you carefully, as I’m sure you are aware, you have still managed to do some damage. It was pretty smart the way you let the opposition know that General Holts was against the attack on Denebola. Now I’m having to justify all my actions to the Assembly, and that’s a pain in the butt. I couldn’t get Robert to lie for me. If he wasn’t so good, I’d have dumped him a long time ago. Where’s the loyalty?”

  “Yeah, how dare he tell the truth?” Paul sarcastically quipped, having recovered his composure. Now that the gig was up, he didn’t have to hold anything back. “I guess now’s not the time to ask for a raise?”

  “Shut up, Paul! Now what am I going to do with you? Ironically, I would like for you to stay on my staff.” Paul saw Stephen almost choke and Hernst’s ever-present smile slightly diminish.

  “Thanks, First Council, but I have other plans.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll like my offer. You stay with my staff, and you only talk to people that I have approved, and you do it with your new assistant, Jeff Holworth. Oh yeah, and lose the scrambler. This way it looks like you’re still supporting my policies, and I get to keep a hero on my staff. In exchange, we don’t have you executed as a traitor, and, especially, you get to keep your precious reputation. Whadaya say to that?”

  “Do I keep my health benefits?” Paul knew Jeff as a sycophant of Gibbon and not someone that Paul could manipulate. He would be totally isolated if he stayed.

  “Don’t be a wise ass. I assume you accept?”

  “I accept.” Paul knew he had little choice for now, but the game was not over. “Can I go now?”

  “Feel free to leave.” Gibbon chortled.

  Paul rose from the chair, and, no matter how high he held his head as he left the room, he knew his tail was between his legs. He had thought he had been so clever, and here Gibbon had tracked his every move.

  After what seemed like a very long walk, Paul entered his outer office and saw Jeff sitting on the couch waiting for him. He looked over at Lee who was seated at her desk with a large frown on her face. Lee said in a monotone, “Mr. Holworth has been waiting to see you.”

  Jeff stood up and stuck out his hand, “Nice to meet you again Mr. McKenzie.”

  Paul shook his hand, “Likewise. Looks like we will be working together. Lee, please find an office for Mr. Holworth close to mine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s an honor to work with you,” Jeff volunteered smiling.

  Paul thought, At least it is for one of us.

  Jeff became his shadow from that day forward. He was always in the room, somewhere, when he met with anyone. Jeff was just another layer of irritation. Paul knew that all his communications were being bugged and his actions watched by the IEI, but there was a leak in his inner circle that was allowing his actions to be negated. He would have to find a more secure method of communicating that could not be compromised. He had to plug the flow of information about his activities to Gibbon. He knew there could only be a very few people that would be privy to the information that Gibbon was getting, especially if Dran was not the source of the leak. He contacted a close friend of his that was very good at investigating this type of situation without others knowing he was investigating them. He did it by passing a hand-written message clandestinely to Dran during one of their meetings, which he then passed to Paul’s friend. Paul would have to settle up with his friend when things were back to normal.

  ~

  It took Paul about two weeks to figure out how to get messages out to his contacts without Gibbon finding out. The key was Cherie. Her building was in a block that was surrounded by a scrambler network that the IEI would find hard to break, probably because some of the IEI employees who frequented the block had installed it. Service providers of every sex, Earthling and alien, resided in the buildings of that block. Because a number of customers were members of governments, the precaution of the network was very important.

  Paul talked to Cherie about passing messages to Dran through his meetings with her. She had had visits from Dran in the past, which Paul did not like very much, but he would have to get over his jealousy to make this work. Now she would have to meet with Dran, as well as Paul, on a regular basis. Since Dran was always accompanied by heavy security, Cherie arranged to have it appear that Dran was visiting a Lalandian girl on his visits to her apartment. Regular visits to Cherie had become pretty much the case for Paul anyway since his job did not take him out the city the way it used to do. The only thing that really bothered Paul was that, if Cherie was working for Gibbon, he would be dead, not just careerwise but literally. He would have his investigative friend check her out as well just to make sure she was really on his side.

  The main thing that Paul wanted to pass on to Dran was what he believed to be the best move for the allies at this point. The festering wound in the Denebolan system had drained a considerable amount of Earth’s forces from the main army. The military contributions of the allies had become the major component in the maintenance of the Consortium’s military forces. Dran and the other allies were not aware of how much Earth’s power had been weakened by the continuous guerrilla warfare and the hit-and-run tactics of the Horologii. Gibbon and the military leaders had managed to keep that information from the allies. Paul let them know that they now had a very good card to play to force Earth to end the war. Paul suggested that the allies prepare to withdraw from the Consortium and, if necessary, go it alone with the Lalandian System taking the lead. Paul knew that the allies could not stand up to the Horologii alone indefinitely, but, if they restricted their forces to protecting their home systems and a few valuable assets, they could hold out for a considerable period of time. Earth, on the other hand, had expanded into dozens of systems and would be stretched to the breaking point if forced to defend all of its territory alone. Of course, Earth could give up its territories and use its forces to defend only its home system, but that would mean the end of Earth’s power and prosperity. It would be political suicide for Gibbon. Paul knew that Gibbon would be forced into a corner.

  It took a month and several visits to Cherie’s place to work out all the details. As the position of the allies became clearer, it became very important for Paul to talk to Assemblyman George alone. He needed to bring the Assembly into the equation before the allies made their move. Paul arranged an appointment with George in his Assembly office. It was essential that the meeting happen there.

  It was becoming obvious to Paul that Gibbon’s own staff was beginning to turn against him, or at least become more neutral, as things got worse. More of Gibbon’s staff were called to testify before the Assembly, and the investigation began to take on a witch-hunt aspect, as Gibbon’s supporters ducked for cover. General Holts and Girk remained on the staff but were beginning to have the look of deers caught in floater lights. Paul would commiserate with them whenever he could, but he couldn’t really let them know of his behind-the-scenes activities. In fact, they seemed to feel just as sorry for Paul; they knew Gibbon had him on a very short leash.

  ~

  Before he could meet with George, Paul’s outside investigator came back with his report. Seated at his desk, Paul read the report. As he did so, the space between his eyebrows slowly narrowed and his jaw dropped. The report detailed how Paul’s secretary Lee was passing information to Gibbon. Paul was stunned and saddened by the news, and, since Lee had been with him for almost ten years, he was initially reluctant to believe the report, but it was clear that it was true. Apparently, Gibbon had blackmailed Lee by threatening to have her brother, who was a sergeant in the military, sent to a hot area i
n the Denebolan system. Paul was sure that Gibbon would have been hard pressed to carry out his threat, but Lee wouldn’t have known that. Paul was disappointed that she had not come to him for help, but, considering Paul’s declining influence, maybe she thought he no longer had the power to do much. Regardless, Paul had her reassigned to a different department without explanation and hand-picked a new secretary from a pool of new hires. There was no guarantee she was trustworthy either, but Paul doubted Gibbon would have had time to influence all the new hires so quickly. Anyway, Paul would be much more careful about what information went through his new secretary. The fact that Rosanne was very attractive was a nice compensation for his lack of trust in her.

  ~

  When Paul entered George’s office the following day, he was accompanied by Jeff. The office was very tastefully done with early twenty-first century furniture. Paul liked the style and actually felt at home in the lair of this close ally of Gibbon. George came out from behind his desk to shake hands and show them to two chairs around a small table in the corner. George sat directly across from Paul.

  “So, what can I do for you, Paul?”

  “I needed to talk to you about some issues that have come up with respect to the war, but this is very hush-hush.” Paul turned and looked directly at Jeff as he said this and then turned his gaze back to George.

  George turned to Jeff, “Jeff, could please excuse us?”

  Jeff sputtered, “I believe I should stay here. You know I have Gibbon’s authority.”

  “I do know that, but I have the authority of the Assembly, and, in that capacity, I can have a private conversation with anyone I so desire. Should I call Security?”