Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  Ibrahim beckoned the other waiting man into his office. As they went, Amirah saw the looks of approval on the faces of surrounding agents, the barely restrained grins at having witnessed something cool. “We'll give you gravity, bitch,” she heard one say at the retreating White. Ibrahim, she'd overheard another agent say earlier in the day, was the only person in the FSA who could beat the shit out of someone without touching them.

  “Ms Togales,” he called over his shoulder, “with me please.” Amirah followed the two men in and closed the door behind, surprised at being invited. Usually she waited outside, as personal security would.

  The other man was Herman Cassillas, Chief of Domestic Affairs Bureau. That meant the entire Federation civil society, anything that did not include military or paramilitary forces, which were the responsibility of the Strategic Affairs Bureau. Cassillas was responsible for dealing with threats to Federation security coming from everything else, from civil uprisings to lone individuals, political crises to worrying social trends.

  Amirah took her stance by the side of Ibrahim's desk, side-on to the two men as they sat, so she could talk if Ibrahim required, while still watching the door and ready to move. Cassillas gave her a sideways look, perhaps curious.

  “Ambassador Ballan,” Cassillas announced with the air of someone resuming a previous conversation. “My best analysis is fear. The assassination attempt by Pyeongwha radicals gave him post-traumatic stress, the psych reports bear that out…tape can cover the immediate effects, but only so much. And then the political scene on Nova Esperenza changed; there are some big local disputes the public there feel the Feds screwed them on, then Pyeongwha attacks happened, the atmosphere has become quite anti-Federal, and thus pro-2389. Ballan is publically identified as the man who orchestrated Pyeongwha, he was hoping to retire home in a few years, take up a prestigious university post, public speaking, etc. All that's in jeopardy now, so when whoever's really behind this came leaning on him, he folded like a pack of cards. Possibly more than his career is being threatened, but we've no proof of it.”

  Ibrahim's mouth may have drawn down a little behind steepled fingers in disgust. “And have we yet any idea who is really behind it?”

  “Oh, the usual suspects.” With another glance at Amirah.

  “One of the many features of GIs that I find admirable,” Ibrahim said, “is their general lack of deviousness. Trainee Togales is sworn not to share sensitive information, and I am certain she will not break that oath.”

  Strange concept that an oath was to any GI, Amirah thought. Was it the very deviousness of normal people that required them to take oaths, like some kind of internal-psychological choke hold?

  Cassillas nodded slowly. “It's very high level. And it's definitely coming from the lateral connectivity, the political groupings beneath the actual representative level. I've recommended some of the best readings on this, Choi, Wellsworth, Jayapura.”

  “I read Jayapura and Wellsworth,” said Ibrahim. “And I met Ms Choi personally two years ago when she gave that lecture tour. In the context of recent events, very alarming.”

  With her degree studies, Amirah had read some of the same. They discussed the process of electing Ambassadors to the Grand Council, and the mechanisms on different worlds to do so. Ambassadors were not popularly elected for the most part, they were appointed by bipartisan political bureaucracies. The problem with bipartisan political bureaucracies was that they lacked accountability. Certain academics had lately been warning that such unaccountable bureaucracies were beginning to deal with each other in ways that created an enormously powerful network of unaccountable people, controlling appointments to the GC, deciding on the fate of the Federation. Previously they had stayed out of deciding policy, but a few had warned that this might change.

  Ideologues and media clowns crowed with delight at displays of bipartisanship, but too much bipartisanship was deadly. Autocracies were bipartisan.

  “You can layer political power in human civilisation as many times as you like,” said Cassillas. “It still functions, so long as each layer is independently accountable and interactive. But the layer that appoints the GC has become an independent entity, and you network all those independent entities together, they start to serve themselves above anyone else.”

  “Or conflate their own success with the people's success,” Ibrahim murmured. “Well, we can't deal with it now, most of them are too far away. We'll have to sweep them up later, but our response window today is too small, the amendments could be voted on in a week on the present schedule.”

  “Sir…” Cassillas winced, as though anticipating Ibrahim's response. “A public revelation, by you…”

  “Now is not the time,” Ibrahim said firmly. “I understand the temptation, but the OID currently control the Grand Council, every opponent of 2389 is too afraid to speak or conveniently will not speak without authorisation from their homeworld. The GC is a soft institution, but this current power wearing the cloak of 2389 is a hard power, a wolf among sheep. They have constructed a web of deceit, and we must position ourselves first to weaken it before moving.”

  “Yes, sir, but it seems to me that their power increases…”

  “Herman, I cannot unilaterally declare war against the Federation's ruling authority in the knowledge that one orbital artillery round could make a large smoking crater here just as easily as it did on the GI camp down south.” And to that Cassillas said nothing. “Besides which, truth revealed too early runs the very real risk of civil war, as different worlds line up on different sides of the equation, backed by different Fleet captains of different warships. We act when we're certain we can win, not before.”

  He looked up at Amirah. “Ms Togales, I know how competent GIs are at multi-tasking. In addition to your duties as my bodyguard, do you think you could give me an analysis of possible options for a rescue and acquisition mission?”

  “Yes, sir.” He was right, she could review schematics and make plans while performing security duties with no loss of concentration. “Who is the target?”

  “The Supreme Court Justices. All nine of them.”

  Just as well she was new here, Amirah thought. Probably if she'd been a Federation citizen for longer, the sheer gravity of that proposal would have knocked her sideways. If a GI of her designation could get knocked sideways.

  “Sir, FSA have current jurisdiction over the Supreme Court Justices, yes?”

  “And OID are likely to try and take it away. In which case, there are several scenarios that I'm sure you can envisage, in which we will need plans to get the Justices from there, to here, under hostile conditions. The Supreme Court remains the last institutional barrier between the OID and passage of those amendments, thus they become the next center of battle.”

  “Yes, sir. Why me and not a higher rank?”

  “Commanders Kresnov and Rice have assessed your planning ability and judged it superior to all currently serving GIs save Kresnov herself. She's not here, and fortune has delivered you.”

  “Planning, yes,” Amirah warned. “Combat, no. I'm capable, but there are a dozen better than me, at least.”

  Ibrahim smiled. “Kresnov's assessment also. You are a thinker, Ms Togales. Right now I need thinkers.”

  “You did better than okay in HDM tower,” Cassillas added.

  “I got shot full of holes,” said Amirah, repressing a shudder. “Kresnov, Jin, Pinto, Chu, Bujan, Poole, Halloran, all would probably have had barely a scratch.”

  Ibrahim had put the display screen on while they were talking. Now Amirah looked and saw the lean face of Justice Rosa, the writer who'd been writing Kresnov's biography…or limited biography, as Kresnov called it. He sat in a studio, looking serious, opposite an equally serious interviewer. Ibrahim turned the sound up.

  “…honestly, knowing Commander Kresnov as I do,” Rosa was saying, “I think it's bullshit.”

  “What is?” asked the interviewer.

  “The coup plot. I am a very goo
d judge of character, Deepak, and I'd stake my professional reputation on this—Cassandra Kresnov is no plotter of coups. There is only one coup plot at work in Tanusha today, and that is the one currently being perpetrated by the Office of Intelligence Directorate in the Grand Council, against the government of the entire Federation.”

  All three in the Director's office stared at the screen.

  “Well,” said Cassillas.

  “Well indeed,” Ibrahim murmured.

  They watched in silence for several more minutes as the interviewer harangued Rosa on his accusation, and Rosa replied that his position was not ideological because he was in fact a pacifist and disliked the Federal intervention on Pyeongwha no matter what short-term good it did, but that neither did he like the imposition of draconian emergency powers on evidence that could easily be faked with today's technology. And furthermore, if anyone else felt the same, he'd be leading protests in Russell Square, London District, where other like-minded thinkers would be joining him to advocate civil disobedience against Operation Shield and its backers, which currently included President Singh and the government of Callay.

  “Interesting,” said Cassillas and got to his feet. “Must get back.”

  Ibrahim nodded, and Cassillas left. Ibrahim glanced up at Amirah once more.

  “I do expect you to ace your political exams now,” he told her. “Given this unmatched experience in political function.” A joke. Good lord. Amirah suspected that most people who were very good at something enjoyed it on some level, even if they didn't like to admit it. Like Kresnov with killing people.

  “Actually, sir, since you brought it up,” she said with an offhanded smile, “I've been a little concerned my career track here might lead me straight into combat roles, given that I'm a combat GI. Lately I've been thinking I might enjoy a more administrative track.”

  Ibrahim raised eyebrows. “The two are not mutually exclusive. And in the Federation, GI or not, you have the perfect right to pursue any career track you prove yourself capable of.”

  “Yes, sir. Let's just survive the next few days first.”

  “The next few hours, indeed,” Ibrahim agreed, rubbing his face. “As if I did not have enough on my plate, now I find my bodyguard covets my job.”

  Amirah laughed. “Maybe. Give me forty years.” Ibrahim, to her delight, smiled quite broadly.

  Chief Shin entered, calm as ever. Shut the door behind him, barely a thread or a hair out of place. “Director. You wished to see me?”

  “Latest word from the Pantala negotiations,” said Ibrahim without preamble. He did that, Amirah was learning. Launched straight into people, giving them no time to brace. “They're extremely thin. Your explanation?”

  “Our sources are tenuous.” Shin approached the chair opposing Ibrahim's desk but did not take it. Ibrahim did not offer it to him. Shin tugged a cuff, clasped hands. “OID run a tight ship, the negotiations are mostly theirs and Fleet's. FSA is an extra-governmental agency, and a non-military one, so neither avenue affords us much return.”

  “Interesting,” said Ibrahim. “My days in the CSA give me much direct access to Callayan intelligence sources normally denied to a Federal security operative. As such, I've been talking to some sources very close to Fleet Intelligence.”

  Shin did not flinch. Amirah did not think the two men unfriendly. Between such men, on such matters, personal relations were not relevant. Yet she could smell the tension.

  “Local sources are often best at finding informal routes of contact, as you'll know,” Ibrahim continued. “And Fleet Intel will talk to less important local operatives more willingly than the Federal kind. The consensus amongst Fleet Intelligence is that whatever this whole episode is really about, it's about Pantala and lines that the League will go to any lengths to keep us from crossing.”

  “I had heard similar theories,” Shin admitted.

  “Yet did not report them.”

  A pause. Only five words, yet a dagger at Shin's heart. Amirah marvelled at the efficiency.

  “There are many theories, Director,” said Shin, unruffled. “Were I to report them all, you would have no time to read anything else.”

  Ibrahim gazed at him for a long moment. Then, “I have a theory of my own. I wanted to run it past you, see if it struck the Federation's chief spy as at least plausible.”

  Shin nodded. “Director.”

  “Commander Kresnov reports to us, quite plausibly, that League did not create synthetic neurology as they've always claimed. GIs are in fact a Talee invention, borrowed by the League, as the Talee carelessly left it lying. This, of course, is an enormous can of worms.

  “Point one, the League lied about the defining technological breakthrough of their existence. Hugely, and destructively embarrassing, for League's reputation and founding ideology, and thus constitutional stability.

  “Point two, League misused this technology in the creation of their own civilian uplink tech, which now threatens mass destabilisation on the psychological and social level, to the point of potential League disintegration.

  “Point three, the Talee are known to be quite upset about this, to the point of siding with FSA operatives, against League forces, in military engagements on and around Pantala.

  “Point four, a League cruiser tried to destroy Droze with a nuclear weapon and kill a million citizens, rather than let any of this become known.

  “Now it doesn't take a great strategic mind to guess what the primary conditions are for the League's acquiescence to any Federation demands for involvement in managing this new crisis. League will want this kept quiet, to the greatest degree possible. Likely they'll demand the neutralisation of those 200 GI refugees from Pantala. And now we see that their Federation interlocutors have achieved just that.

  “But most importantly, the faceless powers behind the appointments to the Grand Council get wind of all this and fear another war. Perhaps they are directly contacted by League operatives, a two-track approach by the League to play hardball negotiations at Pantala while intimidating the powers that control the GC on the other. And now, this sudden rush to referendums that will not prevent a League social meltdown but will rather prevent the Federation from intervening in it, curling us into a ball in the vain hope that this shall somehow pass us by if we don't provoke it. Plausible so far, do you think?”

  “Quite plausible,” Shin agreed. “It appears to fit with most of what we know. But the appearance of a fit is not the same as an actual fit.”

  “True. And there is one very important piece missing in this theory. How could such a series of machinations be achieved without the Federation's premier security agency finding out? Especially now that it is being headed by a man who is, let us say, known to be disagreeable on matters such as the subverting of democratic process by self-interested and violent parties?

  “Well, the FSA has an Achilles heel—it relies overly much upon Federal Intelligence for much of its information, particularly that from infiltration-resistant parties like Fleet, OID, and the like. But if the plotters had a powerful ally onside, say, the Chief of FedInt himself? Most likely that information would never reach the FSA at all.”

  Shin nodded approvingly. “An excellent theory, Director. It would explain certain things. All too conveniently, in fact.”

  Ibrahim smiled, conceding that riposte. “Such a theory, were it proven true, would indicate a possible path of advancement. Intelligence blockages are as damaging as intelligence leaks, perhaps more so. Blockages must be unblocked. Eliminated if necessary. I'm sure you agree.”

  “Completely, Director.”

  “Excellent,” said Ibrahim. “It so happens that in such an eventuality, I am in possession of the superior tools for that job.” He glanced calmly to Amirah. And back. “Both in this headquarters and currently unaccounted for on the outside. Very many of those, I understand.”

  Shin smiled. “It is good to know that the FSA is in possession of such excellent assets. But I urge you not to abandon al
ternative possibilities quite so early in the piece.”

  “Never,” Ibrahim agreed. “There are always alternatives. Often even less pleasant than the original. That will be all, Chief Shin.”

  “Director.” A faint bow, and he turned for the door. Closed it behind him, leaving the Director and his synthetic bodyguard alone in the office.

  “Now do you understand why I wanted you in for this meeting?” Ibrahim asked.

  “Yes, sir. I'll have him watched.” As Ibrahim's personal bodyguard, she was now in a position to share information and even to suggest new tactics to other combatants, especially GIs. This time, she understood, it would not be so much a suggestion as an instruction, straight from the Director.

  Ibrahim nodded, satisfied that she understood. “Do not underestimate them. FedInt assets are not combatants as such, but against GIs the stealthy operative is probably the more effective option.”

  “Agreed. We'll be ready.”

  Justice Tado dove into the wide blue pool and swam. Twenty meters, then turn and swim back. Pity it wasn't a twenty-five meter pool; as a regular swimmer Tado knew just how many strokes that took, and how her form was, and if she needed to lift her workrate. It was petty, to complain about the missing five meters; most people didn't have any pool at their workplace. But it was enough that she typically preferred to swim near her home, and not in the Supreme Court block in Montoya. Exceptions she made for days like today, when the stress levels climbed too high, with coups and talk of high-ranking people trying to kill other high-ranking people, and rumours that FSA and OID were squabbling over the Supreme Court's security arrangements.

  Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen strokes…her hand touched. It took eighteen. That was seventeen. Her concentration was slipping, somehow she'd lost count…

  She caught the edge and looked about. And nearly died of astonishment. This wasn't the pool she'd jumped into. There were old stone columns, overgrown in places with creepers, stone floors, and a blue sky above. Men and women in robes, a woman carrying a tall urn, pouring wine for several others sitting poolside. They talked and laughed, in what sounded like…Latin. Ancient Rome.