An Airless Storm: Cochrane's Company: Book Two

by Peter Grant

  “Yes, we have,” Aferdita said proudly. “I took this from our overwatch position this morning.” She handed over a picture. “It’s Sub-Lieutenant Sejdiu, all right.”

  “Well done! This is a good picture, nice and clear. Yes, that’s him all right, and we’ve seen eight different dark-skinned men in the compound, all under guard. Those must be the Kedan spacers. What about other arrivals?”

  “No-one’s come to stay. The guards are changed every twenty-four hours, and they bring in rations and other supplies with them, so there are no other deliveries. The only other regular visitor is a therapist from a local private hospital. She goes there three times a week. They make her park her car outside the fence, and collect her in some sort of electric cart to drive her up to the farmhouse. When she finishes with whatever she does inside, they drive her back to her car. There are always at least two guards, one to open the gate for her, the other driving the cart.”

  “That’s interesting.” The leader picked up the plate that had been laid ready by his chair, and began eating. Through a mouthful of food, he asked, “Do you think there’s a chance we could use her arrival or departure to get in?”

  “Perhaps. Two days a week she goes during the morning, but on Monday she arrives in the late afternoon. The nights are drawing in now. Winter is coming. It’ll be darker at that time before long. If we wait until then, and take out her guards, and rush in through the open gate, we can bypass all the perimeter defenses we’ve identified and make straight for the house. The path isn’t booby-trapped, as far as we can see.”

  The leader chewed, and swallowed hard. “Urp! All right. We’ll carry on watching, and wait for the evenings to get darker. At the same time, we’ll mount surveillance over Antonia Funar. Better to think of her by that name, in case anything happens.” The other four nodded. “We’ll try to find out whether she’s been turned. If we aren’t sure, we’ll have to decide among ourselves what to do. If we are sure, we’ll have to hit her when we take out the Sub-Lieutenant. We can’t risk news of one attempt alerting our other target.”

  “And the Commodore, and his staff?”

  “Leave them to me. I’ve found the apartment building where most of them live, and we know where their offices are. If I can figure out how to get a big enough bomb into either building, or both, we can kill all their important leaders at once. That’ll have to coincide with our attacks on the other targets, of course.”

  “How will we get away afterwards?”

  “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to think about that very carefully. Remember, this mission is more important than any, or even all, of our lives. It may not be possible for us to get away; but if we accomplish all our objectives, that will make our deaths worthwhile. The Patriarch gave his life for our cause. If necessary, we can do no less.”

  23

  Planning

  CONSTANTA

  Cochrane scrolled through Frank’s latest report, reading swiftly. His eyes lit up at the news that the fourth shipment of asteroids from Mycenae since they’d restarted prospecting operations there had just been dispatched to the refinery ship at Barjah aboard HCS Orca, their armed freighter. She’d loaded thirty-five high-grade rocks, averaging over two thousand tons each, after the prospector bots had hit a particularly fruitful patch of asteroids. The richest in concentrated precious metals and rare earth minerals, at least in the Mycenae system, tended to be smaller than average, which made handling them considerably easier.

  He did some quick mental calculations. We’ve cleared over six billion Neue Helvetica francs out of each of the three shipments so far. This one should be more – probably eight to nine billion. That means we’ll have covered all our new ship and missile orders, with something to spare.

  It was good to realize that the company was once again on a sound financial footing, despite its losses at Mycenae II and all the expenses involved in recovering from that battle. He said as much to Hui over lunch.

  “It’s odd to think that the same system that cost us so much money, Mycenae, has also provided the money to recover from those costs,” she pointed out with a twinkle in her eye.

  He laughed. “You’re right. I hadn’t looked at it that way.”

  “Are you going to stop now?”

  “Not at all. This has shown me that we might run into serious losses, and have to recover from them, at any time. I’m going to build up our reserves until we’re sure we can rebuild after even the worst disaster, no matter how much it costs us.”

  “Isn’t that greedy? I mean, I don’t know any private company in the settled galaxy that can boast reserves that big.”

  “It may be greedy in the purely commercial sense, but we aren’t a purely commercial company. I founded Eufala, which became Hawkwood, to offer a way to escape the New Orkney Cluster, for the benefit of all the good people I knew there. It wasn’t just for me, or just about money. Several thousand have now taken advantage of that. I must keep faith with them, and their families, too. I want to make sure we never leave them in the lurch. Keeping the company going, no matter what, is part of that.

  “Also, we’re facing greater risks than any normal company. If the Albanians hit us again, with better ships and weapons and more of them, we might lose half our fleet in a single battle. I’m not willing to fight with one arm tied behind my back, while we raise money to afford replacements. While we’re scrabbling for funds, they may hit us again and finish us off. No, I want as much financial security as we can accumulate, literally for the sake of our survival.”

  “I see. I don’t suppose your people will complain. You’ve been generous with profit sharing.”

  “Yes. Those on our payroll are going to make a lot more from their profit share than they do from their salaries. They’ll get less, of course, once the asteroid income dries up; but while it lasts, they can make the most of it.”

  “Your original team must be millionaires many times over by now.”

  “Yes. They’ve kept their initial payout invested in the company, where it’s making even more for them, and periodic profit distributions have increased it even further.”

  She grinned. “I’m feeling left out! I’m the only one of your senior advisers not on your payroll! That’s not a hint, by the way – just teasing. I’m content with my Qianjin salary.”

  He smiled. “You don’t have to hint. When you became my Chief of Staff, I put you on full Captain’s salary with us, too, with profit share to match. It’s accumulating in a bank account on Neue Helvetica, in hard currency. With the asteroid profit share, I won’t be surprised if it’ll reach seven figures soon.”

  “Andrew! You shouldn’t have! I can’t accept it!”

  “Why not? It’s not as if you’re being disloyal to Qianjin by accepting it – and you’re certainly earning every franc, by your hard work for us.”

  “But – but what if Admiral Kang objects?”

  “If you like, we’ll formally ask his permission to pay you at least a profit share. I bet he’ll allow that. Besides, if you marry me and we set up our home somewhere else, you’ll need a nest egg of your own.” His eyes laughed at her.

  She blushed. “I… Andrew, I’ve thought long and hard about that since you gave me a year to make up my mind. That’s almost over now, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is, but I’ve been trying very hard not to nag you about it.”

  “You still want to marry me?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And you’re willing to find a new home with me where we can both be happy?”

  “Yes, I am. Constanta’s just our temporary base. We can afford to live anywhere in the settled galaxy. I want to finish our fight with the Albanians. After that, if you really want, we can make a new start somewhere else. By then, Dave and the others will be able to run Hawkwood without me, so I can leave the company in good conscience.”

  “Oh, I won’t ask you to do that! I like the company, and the people you’ve gathered around you. I hope you can base it somewh
ere nicer, though, a place where it’s more fun to live.”

  “As our client base grows, I’m sure we’ll need to do that as a matter of simple business sense.”

  She sighed. “All right. I suppose I had to wake up to the fact that it’s not a matter of whether you can live with someone. It’s whether you can live without them. I’ve got an Andrew-shaped hole in me now, one that only you can fill. I can’t change that even if I want to. I’ll marry you, darling – but will you mind if we make regular trips to see the rest of my family on Qianjin?”

  He beamed, a huge smile lighting up his face. “Of course not. We’ll have to build a house with a guest wing, so they can visit us, too.”

  Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Build a wing for the children, too.”

  “A wing? Do you have plans I should know about?”

  “Oh, you’ll definitely be involved in them! With today’s medicine, I’ll be fertile for another thirty years or more. I reckon I can make up for lost time in having a family, and you’re far too nice a man not to make more of you.”

  “Oh, well. Practice makes pregnant, they do say!” He ducked as she threw her dinner roll at him. “When should we set the date?”

  “Would you mind if we married on Qianjin, so all my family can be there?”

  “Not at all – but let’s do it soon. I’ve waited long enough!” He hesitated. “What about your career in Qianjin’s Fleet?”

  “I’ve chosen you, darling. You’re more important to me than that. I’m not abandoning my career, of course; I’ll simply continue it in Hawkwood, instead of at Qianjin. Being your Chief of Staff has proved to me I can be happy here, too.”

  He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Thank you, dearest. You’ve made me very happy. May I kidnap you from the office this afternoon, and take you home, and show you just how happy?”

  “Pay the bill and let’s go. I want dessert, and you’re it!”

  They met next morning with Dave Cousins, Tom Argyll and Caitlyn Ross, who’d just returned from Bintulu. She opened proceedings by reporting on what had happened there.

  “It looks promising,” she concluded. “We won’t be involved in whatever they plan to do on Patos, but they’ll probably leave the space-based fight to us, hopefully contributing to that effort. I get the impression they don’t want to take overt action, because all of them deliberately maintain low profiles in the public arena. They’ll act as discreetly as possible.”

  “That squares with the official attitude of the Qianjin Fleet,” Hui confirmed. “The Tong and Qianjin’s Government are very firmly kept apart. I’ve never been involved in any joint project with the Tong at all, except for Hawkwood, where I was asked to assist as a Fleet professional, reporting to the Fleet. I’ve never been asked, and I’d refuse, to do anything criminal as part of that.”

  “Well, if we’re able to deal with it, I’m willing to,” Cochrane declared firmly. “We’ll have to know a lot more about what we’re facing, though. Let me tell you what Frank just figured out.” He described the evidence provided by the most recent Kedan captives, and how Jean Bart’s navigation officer had figured out the region of space in which the Albanian base was likely to be found. “There are seventeen stars in a two-hundred-kilometer sphere. Any of them might contain what we’re looking for. If they don’t, there are another fifteen to twenty stars within close range of that sphere. We’re going to have to check all of them until we pin them down.”

  Captain Cousins made a moue of distaste. “That’ll be a very big search job, sir. It’ll take several ships, and several months, to do it properly. I’m not sure we can spare that many vessels right now.”

  “Perhaps we can’t, but we still need to do it, and soon. In a year or two, we’ll have enough warships with experienced crews that we may be able to do something permanent about the Albanians, unless they turn out to be more heavily armed than we expect. If they are, we’ll just have to get reinforcements from somewhere.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Remember, sir, it’s not just their ships,” Caitlin warned. “It’s their tribal nature. They’ve got a solid core of true believers. They won’t be deterred if they lose their ships; they’ll just start rebuilding all over again. Our name will be number one on their list of enemies when they’re once again able to take revenge. We’ll just be postponing the inevitable, unless we can deal with all of them at once.”

  “I agree, Caitlin. That’s your hot potato. I want you to start thinking about how to deal with their ‘true believer’ core. We can’t solve that problem in a military manner. Frankly, if the Big Three don’t take care of it, I don’t know how we can – but one way or another, it must be solved. That’s your baby – or, rather, one of your babies.”

  “Gee, thanks, sir!” They all laughed at her hard-done-by expression and tone.

  Cochrane looked at Tom. “What do you have for us?”

  “Some interesting stuff, sir. Those five agents appear to be operating in two teams. Two people, sometimes helped by a third who seems to be the overall leader, are keeping watch over the prisoner compound. Two more, again helped by the leader, are watching ‘Antonia Funar’. That concerns me, sir. They seem obsessed with following her wherever she goes, and they take note of anyone she meets. It’s almost as if they suspect her of something, and they’re looking for proof.”

  “Disloyalty, perhaps? What would they regard as evidence of that?” Cousins asked.

  “I’m not sure, sir. As an example, if I saw my agent meeting a known enemy agent or officer without a good reason I knew about in advance, that would seem suspicious to me.”

  “Then why not arrange something like that, and see what they do?”

  “What if they try to kill her?” Cochrane asked. “We can’t endanger whoever she meets from our side.”

  “I don’t think they’d do it right then and there, sir,” Tom assured him. “If they’re planning to do something about the prisoners, too, they’ll have to coordinate their attacks. I reckon we should be able to stop them.”

  “What if they plan to attack Hawkwood, too?” Hui asked. “I mean, if they’re going to make two separate attacks already, why not a third?”

  “We’ve already considered that, ma’am, and we’re watching everything they do. They’ve bought four vans, two fairly new, and two older, cheaper models. They’re parked in an old warehouse they’ve rented down in the industrial area. They’ve taken the seats out of the older vans, and installed boxes of some sort. We think they may have converted them into bombs.”

  “So, if I can arrange to be seen in public with this Antonia Funar, they might take that as evidence that she’d been turned?”

  “I would, in their shoes, ma’am.”

  “In that case, I’ll wander over to the shipyard’s offices tomorrow, invite Mr. Grigorescu to lunch, and persuade him to bring her along. I’m sure I can think of a suitable excuse. That’ll give them plenty of time to see us together.”

  “I’ll have a team covering you, ma’am.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  Flamar weaved as quickly and unobtrusively as he could through the lunchtime pedestrian traffic. His eyes scanned his surroundings constantly, trying to detect followers, or people watching him, or anything out of the ordinary. He found nothing.

  At last he spotted Gentian, seated at a table in the outdoor area of an upmarket café. His team member noticed him and waved enthusiastically, as if spotting a friend, then gestured to the chair next to him. Flamar walked over and sat down. A hovering waiter instantly appeared, so he ordered a coffee he didn’t want.

  As soon as the waiter had left, he said in a low voice, “I got your call. What is it?”

  “Look over there, to the right, at the outdoor seating area of the restaurant across the walkway.”

  The leader did as he was bid, and felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. ‘Antonia Fumar’ was sitting at a table, with her boss and the Qianjin captain who served a
s Hawkwood’s Chief of Staff.

  He sat silent for a couple of minutes, thoughts racing through his brain. Gentian did not interrupt him. He knew the signs by now. At last his boss said quietly, “You did well to call me. We’ve been looking for evidence like this ever since we got here, and never found any. I wonder what made them break cover at last?”

  “Perhaps they’ve heard something we haven’t. Something may have happened that they know about, but we don’t yet.”

  “That’s probably it. All right, keep watch as normal for the rest of your shift, then come back to the apartment. We’ll all meet tonight. It’s time to end this.”

  24

  Attack

  CONSTANTA

  The therapist parked her car outside the gate, and picked up her comm unit to let the guards inside know she was there; then she collected her shoulder bag full of equipment, and locked her vehicle. As she walked to the gate, she could see the utility cart heading down the drive toward her.

  From the hide on the mountainside above, a man watched as she got into the cart, while another guard locked the gate behind her. The vehicle drove back to the farmhouse, and the three disappeared inside.

  The man picked up his comm unit and made a call. “They’re inside. She’ll be busy for at least an hour.”

  He heard Flamar’s voice. “Very well. We’ll move in and stand by outside the gate. You have overwatch. The moment she comes out, weapons free. Time it to give the rest of us the best possible chance.”

  “Understand weapons free when she comes out. Good luck.”

  “And to you.”

  The man ended the call, then reached for the bulky, heavy rucksacks that had been brought up the mountain over the past three days by himself and his comrades. He set to work assembling three tubes, and tripod mounts for them.