"No," he said with considerable restraint. "What I'm afraid of is that if we don't make the delivery, someone in their part of the pipeline is going to ask one question too many, stay in the wrong place just too long, or panic and start trying to contact their own leaders-something that ends up drawing the local cops' attention. And if that happens, and they get busted, and the locals roll up the delivery chain and find us at the end of it, I don't doubt for a minute that Mr. Saganami-class cruiser will very cheerfully board us or blow us out of space at their request."
"So why don't we just leave? Let them go ahead and roll up the locals! It's no skin off our ass if they do."
"Oh, yes, it is. Nordbrandt's contact for this shipment's the Jessyk agent here on Kornati. If we pull out, and Nordbrandt's people get nailed, there's no way they won't tell the authorities exactly who was supposed to deliver their weapons... and didn't. And if it's escaped your attention, our agent doesn't have diplomatic immunity. The locals will bust him in a heartbeat, and when they do, they'll hand him over to the Manties. And the one thing we can't afford is for the Manties to start wondering why the Jessyk Combine-a Mesan transstellar corporation-is shipping weapons to terrorists in the Talbott Cluster. Believe me," he looked into her eyes, "there's more going on here than just a weapons drop to a bunch of lunatics. If you and I do anything that compromises the rest of Bardasano's operation, we'll be lucky if we manage to kill ourselves before her wet work teams catch up with us."
De Chabrol had opened her mouth in fresh protest. She closed it again.
"Yeah," Duan said dryly. "What I thought myself."
"So we go ahead with the drop as planned?"
"Only the next scheduled phase. Between what we already have down and the next load, they'll have almost a third of the entire consignment. That's a hell of a lot more than they had before, and we'll explain that the arrival of this Manty cruiser means we have to haul ass. I'm pretty sure Nordbrandt will understand. And even if she doesn't, even if we wind up ratted out, Bardasano won't blame us for it. Or, she probably won't, at least. She came up through covert ops herself, and they say she's got enough experience to recognize what field ops realistically can and can't do when Murphy turns up. If we manage to make that much of our drop and get away clean, I think she'll agree it was the best we could do under the circumstances."
"I hope you're right. And I hope we do get away with it."
"So do I. But the bottom line is that Bardasano's more likely to order us popped if we screw up this operation than the Manties are, even if they grab us under the equipment clause."
"What a charming incentive," De Chabrol muttered, and Duan chuckled in sardonic agreement.
Chapter Forty-Two
"Thank you for coming, Captain Terekhov. And you, Mr. Van Dort."
In person, Helen thought as Darinka Djerdja led them into the Vice President's presence, Vuk Rajkovic projected even more sheer presence than he had over the com. He was scarcely a handsome man, but, then, neither was Helen's father, and no one had ever accused Anton Zilwicki of weakness.
The Vice President stood at the head of the long, wooden table in the palatial conference room one floor down from the Executive Office in the Presidential Mansion of Kornati. The paneled wall behind him bore the great seal of Kornati above the crossed staffs of the planetary flag and the presidential standard. The chairs around the table were old-fashioned, unpowered swivel armchairs which, despite their obsolete design, looked almost sinfully comfortable. The carpet was a deep, cobalt blue, with the planetary seal in white and gold, and old-fashioned HD screens lined one entire wall.
There were no windows. This room was located near the center of the Presidential Mansion, deep enough inside to defeat most external listening devices.
"We wish no one'd had to come, Mr. Vice President," Captain Terekhov said gravely. "But we'll be delighted to do anything we can to assist you."
"Thank you," Rajkovic repeated, and quickly introduced the other two men and one woman already present.
Secretary of Justice Mavro Kanjer, of average height, average build, and medium complexion, stood before the chair immediately to the Vice President's right. Of all the Kornatians, physically he was by far the least prepossessing. Colonel Brigita Basaricek, tall and fair-haired in the gray tunic and dark blue trousers of the Kornatian National Police, rose from the chair to Kanjer's right as their off-world guests were ushered into the conference room. General Vlacic Suka, in the dark green tunic and cherry-red trousers of the Kornatian Defense Forces, stood to the Vice President's left. Suka was almost as dark as Rajkovic, but taller, with grizzled gray hair, thinning on top, and a VanDyke beard considerably more aggressive and bushy than the Captain's. His face was lined with age, fatigue, and worry.
"Captain Terekhov," the Vice President continued, "I've met over the com, and Mr. Van Dort's familiar to all of us, of course. However-"
He looked past Van Dort and arched his eyebrows politely.
"Mr. Vice President," the Captain said, "this is Captain Kaczmarczyk, commanding officer of Hexapuma's Marine detachment. And Midshipwoman Zilwicki, who's acting as Mr. Van Dort's aide."
"I see." Rajkovic nodded to Kaczmarczyk and Helen, then waved a hand at the waiting chairs. "Please, be seated."
His visitors obeyed, and he and his subordinates settled back down in their own chairs. The Vice President looked around the faces at the table, then back at the Captain.
"I can understand why you'd want Captain Kaczmarczyk present, Captain. I'm sure he, Colonel Basaricek, and General Suka have a great deal to discuss. I understand," he smiled thinly, "that the Captain's Marines have already made quite an impression on our citizens."
"I hope not a bad impression, Sir."
"Oh, I suspect it made a very bad impression on a certain segment of our population, Captain," Colonel Basaricek said with what Helen thought was an evil smile. "I can't begin to tell you how bad an impression I hope you made on them."
"That was one of the objects of the exercise, Colonel," the Captain acknowledged, and smiled back at her.
Ragnhild Pavletic and her pinnace were parked prominently on one of the central pads of the Karlovac spaceport. The dorsal turret's heavy pulse cannon were manned, and the entire pad was ringed by two full squads of battle-armored Marines, complete with heavy weapons. And as an additional touch, two full-spectrum battlefield sensor drones floated overhead on their counter-grav. One was high enough to be immune to virtually any man-portable weapon Kornati might possess; the second was much lower, deliberately exposed to possible hostile fire in order to make sure everyone could see it and know it was there.
A third squad of armored Marines had added themselves to the security perimeter of the Presidential Mansion, and a third sensor drone was deployed above the mansion's grounds.
"The other object, Colonel," Captain Kaczmarczyk said, "was to land a sufficient reaction force on the off-chance that we might be able to entice Nordbrandt's people into going after Captain Terekhov and Mr. Van Dort. Unfortunately, they seem to've declined the bait."
"They may not decline it indefinitely, Captain," Secretary Kanjer said sourly in what would otherwise have been a pleasant tenor. "Although they have shown a pronounced distaste for taking on targets that can shoot back."
"I'm not sure that's fair, Mavro." General Suka's voice was deeper than Kanjer's, though less deep-and considerably rougher-than Rajkovic's, and he shook his head at the Justice Secretary. "Oh, I'll admit they've shown more discipline than I'd like when it comes to avoiding attacks on targets that are prepared to shoot back. And I'll also admit it's tempting to call them a pack of murdering cowards. But I'm afraid it's not so much that they're afraid, as that they recognize that going directly up against the armed forces or Colonel Basaricek's special weapons teams would be a losing proposition."
"With all due respect, General," Van Dort said, "while they may not be cowards in the physical sense, they certainly are cowards in a moral sense. They've adopted the cow
ard's strategy of striking at the helpless and the vulnerable, using them as pawns against an opponent-their own legally elected government-they can't challenge directly."
He seemed to be watching the Vice President carefully out of the corner of one eye as he addressed the general. Secretary Kanjer looked as if he were in full agreement, but Rajkovic's mouth tightened.
"I don't disagree with your basic analysis, Mr. Van Dort," he said after a moment. "But, just between the people in this room, Nordbrandt couldn't have assembled the cadre of killers she has if we hadn't helped. I'm not saying her claims that we've created a veritable hell on earth on Kornati aren't wildly exaggerated. But there are abuses here, and poverty, and those create embittered people."
So Bernardus-Mr. Van Dort-got him to admit it right up front, Helen thought. Clever.
"Abuses are no justification for mass murder, Mr. Vice President," Kanjer said sharply.
Van Dort had briefed Helen on the Kornatian political system, and she knew Kanjer was one of the Cabinet officers who'd been appointed by Tonkovic before she left for Spindle. Cabinet meetings around here must be... interesting.
"Justification for murder, no," Rajkovic said in a frosty tone. "Reason, possibly yes."
He locked eyes with Kanjer, and Suka shifted uneasily at the apparent tension between the Vice President and the Justice Secretary. Basaricek, on the other hand, nodded.
"With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, the Vice President has a point," she told her own civilian superior. "The fact that so many people feel disenfranchised is another factor, of course, but the perception that the system's fundamentally unfair, in some ways, is a huge part of what made it possible for Nordbrandt to get this far."
Kanjer looked as if he wanted to say something sharp to her, but he glanced at the Vice President's expression and thought better of it.
"Would you care to expand on that, Colonel?" Van Dort inquired in a tone, Helen noticed, which gave very little indication of whether he found Rajkovic or Kanjer more persuasive.
"I think a lot of people have failed to realize," Basaricek said, turning to face Van Dort directly, "that long before the plebiscite, the core of Nordbrandt's Nationalist Redemption Party was composed of extraordinarily angry people. People who, rightly or wrongly, believed they had legitimate grievances against the system. Most of those people, in my opinion, would've done better to look a little closer to home for the causes of their failures and their problems. But if that was true for a lot of them, some of them had definite justification for feeling the government, or the courts, or the Social Support Administration had failed them. I know, because my people tend to find themselves in the middle when someone who's just plain desperate tries to take matters into her own hands."
She glanced at Kanjer, and her expression held a definite edge of challenge. Not defiance, but as though she dared the Justice Secretary to deny what she'd just said. Kanjer looked like he would have preferred to do just that, but he didn't. Helen wondered if that was because he didn't want to disagree openly with Rajkovic, or because he knew he honestly couldn't.
"Even before the NRP's more moderate members started falling away because of her opposition to the annexation," Basaricek continued, "she'd been recruiting an inner cadre from that bitter, alienated hard core of her most fervent supporters. As the moderates bailed out on her, she came to effectively rely exclusively on the hardliners. There never were very many of them as a percentage of the total population, but even a tiny percentage of a planetary population is a large absolute number. Probably only a minority of even her closest supporters were prepared to cross the line into illegal actions, but that was still enough to let her organize FAK cells in most of our major urban areas."
"May I ask how the population as a whole views her and her organization at this point?" Van Dort asked.
Basaricek glanced at Rajkovic, who nodded for her to go ahead and take the question.
"They're afraid," the KNP colonel said bluntly. "So far, we've had only scattered, isolated successes against them. They hold the advantage in terms of choosing where and when they're going to strike, and what the public primarily sees is that the terrorists consistently manage to attack vulnerable targets, while the police and military have been largely unable to stop them."
"We've managed to stop them every time we got timely intelligence, Colonel," Kanjer pointed out stiffly. "We have had our successes."
"Yes, Sir, we have. But I stand by my categorization: they've been scattered and isolated." She went on speaking to her superior, but it seemed to Helen her remarks were actually directed to Van Dort and the Captain. "You know we've managed to break no more than half a dozen cells, including the two we pretty much wiped out the night we thought we might've gotten Nordbrandt herself. We managed to identify all but one of the other cells we've managed to take down by keeping tabs on people we already knew were particularly embittered members of the NRP. I'm afraid we've pretty much exhausted the possibilities there, however. We're looking for a couple of dozen of the party faithful who disappeared at the same time Nordbrandt did, and we're keeping our eye on as many of the NRP's one-time core members as we can, but there are limits on our manpower. And the truth probably is that most of them would never dream of murdering anyone."
She turned her head, looking directly at Van Dort.
"It's hard to explain to frightened people that this is primarily a war of intelligence," she said. "That until we can identify and locate the FAK leadership, all we can do is adopt a reactive stance. Which means the terrorists are free to choose the point of attack, and they certainly aren't going to attack where we're strongest."
"I understand," Van Dort said. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Rajkovic.
"Mr. Vice President, Baroness Medusa and I have discussed the general situation in the Cluster and, specifically, here in Split. Captain Terekhov and I have further discussed it, in light of the dispatches we received from the Provisional Governor when she ordered us here from Montana. It seems to us that historical experience demonstrates that the successful suppression of this sort of movement must always include a two-pronged approach.
"On the one hand, obviously, the military threat must be contained and neutralized. That's usually fairly straightforward, if not necessarily simple. Colonel Basaricek's just finished explaining a large part of the reason why it's not simple. Nonetheless, it isn't impossible, either, and Baroness Medusa's prepared to offer assistance in the effort. She's dispatching the chartered transport Joanna from Spindle, with two full-strength companies of Royal Manticoran Marines on board. One company is drawn from the battalion assigned to her personal command on Flax. The other is drawn from rear Admiral Khumalo's flagship, the Hercules. They'll be accompanied by their integral heavy weapons platoons, two assault shuttles, and three Fleet pinnaces, and they'll take over in the purely military support role when they arrive. That, unfortunately, will probably not be for another week or two, at the soonest. They will, however, remain on assignment to you until such time as the military situation is under control."
Helen watched all four of the Kornatians sit up straighter, their eyes brighter, and Van Dort smiled. But then his smile faded just a bit.
"But in addition to neutralizing the military threat, remedial action must be taken to repair the abuses which helped create the threat in the first place. You can't eliminate resistance by simply shooting resisters, not unless you're prepared to embrace a policy of outright terror yourselves. Your tradition of vigilance where civil rights are concerned suggests to me that you probably aren't prepared to do that. Besides, it would be ultimately futile, unless you're willing to accept a permanent police state. Any time you arrest or kill someone who's perceived as striking out against genuine injustice, you simply create another martyr, which only provides recruits to the other side. It doesn't necessarily mean the terrorists are right; it simply means you're generating a supply of people who think the terrorists are right. So to cut off their support at its base
, you must make it evident you're prepared to address the issues which spawned the resistance movement in the first place. Do it from a position of strength, by all means, and don't allow yourselves to be driven into making huge, unjustified concessions. But those issues must be addressed, and some sort of consensus about them must be reached, if you're to have any hope of finally and completely eliminating the threat."
The Kornatians looked at one another. Basaricek had no expression at all. Kanjer looked frankly mutinous, and General Suka looked as if he'd just bitten into something spoiled. Vice President Rajkovic looked thoughtful, and he leaned back, resting his right forearm on the conference table, and gazed at Van Dort speculatively.
"I hope you'll pardon me for saying this, Mr. Van Dort, but given the Trade Union's reputation, this talk of reform sounds just a bit odd from you."
David Weber - Honor17 - Shadow of Saganami Page 65