by David Weber
“Well,” he said, “we’ve linked her to two of the other people on our list. If there’s anything to the Outcasts’ suggestion that she’s also linked to Laughton, we need to nail that down. For more than one reason.”
Tarkovsky had straightened in his chair at the sound of Bolton’s name. Now he stood and walked around to join al-Fanudahi, and his expression was unhappy.
“I don’t disagree with you,” he said. “I wish I could, but I don’t.”
Al-Fanudahi rested one hand lightly on the Marine’s shoulder, but Okiku only shook her head. Probably because she was a cop at heart, the captain thought. She drew a sharp line between good guys and bad guys, and anyone who found himself on the wrong side of that line was a target to be taken down as expeditiously and completely as possible. The way she saw it, if someone she’d thought was a friend turned out to be a bad guy, then he’d never been quite as much a friend as the colonel had thought he was.
Intellectually, al-Fanudahi agreed with her, and he knew Tarkovsky did, too, but Colonel Timothy Laughton had been Bryce Tarkovsky’s colleague and personal friend for over fifteen T-years. In fact, he’d been on Tarkovsky’s short list of potential recruits to the cause…until the Outcasts turned up his connection—his possible connection—to Shafiqa Bolton. There was no doubt that Laughton was “in a relationship” with Bolton, although the precise nature of that relationship had yet to be defined. It appeared to be purely social and not terribly close, but the number of peripheral and “coincidental” contacts between them was…statistically improbable.
And the Outcasts’ algorithms insisted that Shafiqa Bolton was definitely linked to two other individuals—a Navy captain and a diplomat—they were almost certain were working for the Other Guys.
“I have to say she’s got the classic earmarks of a handler,” Okiku said after a moment as she scrolled through the database. “I might be less suspicious if her contacts with both Nye and Salazar hadn’t spiked the way they have. There’s no social or business reason for her to be ‘running into’ the two of them as much as she has, and the frequency of contacts is still trending upward.”
“That’s a little thin, Natsuko.” Tarkovsky wasn’t arguing so much as playing devil’s advocate, al-Fanudahi thought.
“That’s how these things work, Bryce,” she said. “You pick at it until you find a thread you can unravel, and it’s usually something small that starts the process. But look at this.” She highlighted a section of the data. “Over the last two T-years, the frequency of her contacts with Nye’s gone up almost eighteen percent, and most of that increase’s occurred since Byng got himself blown away at New Tuscany last October. In fact, over half of it’s occurred in the last six months. But his transactions are actually down seven percent over that same time period.”
Tarkovsky nodded. Bolton, one of the senior partners of Nuñez, Poldak, Bolton, and Hwang, was a financial advisor, and a very good one, judging by her client list and their success rates. Stephanos Nye, a senior policy analyst in Innokentiy Kolokoltsov’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was one of those clients, but he’d never been a heavy investor. He had lucrative arrangements with several well-heeled lobbyists, and his bank balance was more than comfortable, but he’d always tended to splash around in the shallows of the waters Bolton routinely navigated. Statistically, she spent a disproportionate amount of her time with such a relatively modest player. She always had, actually, although the disproportion had been far smaller up until about the time Haven resumed hostilities with Manticore. If there’d been some sort of personal relationship between them, the uptick probably wouldn’t have been noticeable at all, but outside their meetings to discuss possible financial opportunities, they had no relationship the Outcasts could discover.
Only the closest scrutiny could have picked that discrepancy out of the hundreds of clients with whom Bolton met on a regular or semiregular basis, but it was definitely there. Whether it was truly significant was another matter, but the fact that Nye’s policy positions had steadily hardened against Manticore almost in tandem with Rajmund Nyhus’s reports to Ukhtomskoy suggested that it was.
Then there was Captain Mardyola Salazar, one of Fleet Admiral Evangeline Bernard’s staffers in the Office of Strategy and Planning. She had no business relationship with Bolton at all and her work schedule at S&P had become steeply more demanding as the confrontation with Manticore progressed from simply adversarial to disastrous. Despite the way that cut into her personal free time, however, she and Bolton kept “running into” one another in social settings. The uptick there was almost twenty-three percent in just the past two months, and al-Fanudahi’s sources indicated Salazar had been one of the lead planners for Operation Buccaneer. Of course, he wasn’t supposed to know Buccaneer even existed, far less who’d been tasked with putting it together, but he was in intelligence, and recent events had pretty thoroughly validated warnings he’d issued over the years about events in the Haven Sector. As a result, the people at Strategy and Planning were actually talking to him these days. How much attention they paid him was debatable, but at least they were asking questions. The nature of those questions had enabled him to piece together a depressingly good picture of the thinking—such as it was—behind Buccaneer, and it was evident Salazar’s contributions had strongly shaped the operations plan. In fact, she’d been an early—if not simply the earliest—proponent of the Parthian Option.
And then there was Timothy Laughton, the question mark of the moment.
Like Bryce Tarkovsky, he worked for Brigadier Meindert Osterhaut, the CO of Marine Intelligence under Admiral Karl-Heinz Thimár’s nominal command as part of the Office of Naval Intelligence. He’d spent twelve T-years seconded to Frontier Security, during which he’d acquired a deep familiarity with the complexities of the Protectorates and the Fringe in general, and Osterhaut had come to rely on that familiarity. He was smart, hard-working, and insightful. He also played one hell of a poker game, as Tarkovsky had learned the hard way. Aside from an occasional—and profitable—foray at the poker table, however, he’d always been a bit…standoffish. He and Tarkovsky liked one another and had considered each other friends for a long time, but they’d never built the sort of close relationship Tarkovsky and al-Fanudahi enjoyed.
Which might turn out to have been fortunate, under the circumstances. Because, like Salazar, Laughton had been “bumping into” Bolton quite a bit recently. And unlike Salazar, he’d had no contact at all with her prior to about ten T-months ago…which was about the time his analysis of events in the Fringe—not simply in the Talbott Quadrant but much more broadly—had begun suggesting an increasingly militant and expansionist attitude on Manticore’s part.
Under the circumstances, inviting him to become another Ghost Hunter might have had negative consequences for all concerned.
“The Outcasts can’t get a lot closer to Bolton, Daud,” Okiku said now. “They’re still digging into her financials, and they’re bird dogging all of her electronic communications to us. Anybody as smart as these people isn’t going to do a lot electronically, though. If she’s what we think she is, that’s the reason she’s meeting with people personally. So unless we want to go hands-on, we’re not likely to get beyond the suggestive stage. Mind you, Simeon and I would both be confident enough to ask for warrants on the basis of what we’ve already got, except that we can’t ask for warrants without going public with what we suspect.”
“What do you mean by ‘hands-on’?” Al-Fanudahi asked.
“One possibility’s to feed at least one of these people something we figure the Other Guys are going to want or that they think they could use. Then we see if they go running to Bolton. If they do, and if the Other Guys act on whatever we gave them, then I think we’ve proved there’s a direct link.”
“If we’re talking about some kind of vast interstellar conspiracy, that’d take a lot of time we may not have,” al-Fanudahi pointed out. “Our suspect would have to get the information to Bolton, and then
Bolton would have to get it to her superiors—through whatever chain of communications they use—and her superiors would have to act on it and then send their new orders back down the same chain. I don’t think we’ve got that kind of time. And even if we did, God only knows how many more people would get killed while we waited!”
“Okiku said that was ‘one possibility,’ Daud,” Tarkovsky pointed out. “I’m not sure it’s the one she actually had in mind, though.”
Something about his tone made al-Fanudahi look at him sharply, and the Marine gave him a crooked smile. Then he looked down as Okiku looked up over her shoulder.
“You were thinking about something a little more…proactive, weren’t you?” he asked.
“Well,” she replied, “you’re right about how badly time constraints would work against the planted information approach, Daud. If the Navy’s really going ahead with Buccaneer, it’s the kind of escalation that’s likely to provoke a painful response from the Manties. The kind of response that gets a lot of people killed. And even if that weren’t the case, just think about how much damage Buccaneer’s going to do—physical damage, I mean, much less the way it’s likely to poison public opinion in the Verge and Fringe against the League for decades to come.
“If we’re going to accomplish anything inside that time loop, it may be time for some of that proactiveness Bryce is talking about.”
“How?”
“One possibility is to take his original suggestion, grab one of these people—like Bolton, maybe—and sweat them. It has the drawback that without a warrant, it’s strictly illegal and morally questionable. And if it turns out we’re wrong about whoever we grab, we end up facing what you might call a quandary. Do we assume we’re wrong about everything and turn her loose with apologies, or do we assume we were wrong about her—not about the Other Guys in general—in which case we can’t turn her loose. Which means we have to do…something else with her.”
Al-Fanudahi’s jaw tightened, but he had to respect her willingness to face the implications, and he nodded in unhappy understanding.
“And another possibility is for us to present a threat they have to honor. Something to make them react in a short timeframe. Something we can see and track.”
Al-Fanudahi’s nostrils flared.
“You mean present them with someone they’d see as a threat,” he said, his tone flat.
“That may be our only option, Daud,” Tarkovsky said. “There’s only so far we can go without either directly questioning a suspect or trying to manipulate one of them into giving himself away. If you can think of another way to do that, I’m all ears. But if you can’t…”
His voice trailed off and he shrugged.
Harrington House
City of Landing
Planet of Manticore
Manticore Binary System System
“Honor!”
Doctor Allison Harrington’s smile was huge as Duchess and Steadholder Harrington entered the Harrington House foyer with Spencer Hawke and Clifford McGraw at her heels. Corporal Anastasia Yanakov, Allison’s personal armswoman, nodded respectfully to Major Hawke and then smiled as she watched Allison throw her arms about her daughter. Honor Alexander-Harrington hugged her back, fighting the reflex urge to bend at the knees so she didn’t tower over her diminutive mother quite so badly. She’d managed to break that habit about the time she turned sixteen, but the reflex still asserted itself from time to time.
Especially when her mother was pregnant.
“Mother,” she replied a bit more sedately, then stood back with her hands on Allison’s shoulders. “There have been some changes I see,” she added, looking down at her mother’s abdomen. “You could have mentioned something about this, oh, a month or so ago.”
“I suppose I could have.” Allison smiled up at her. “On the other hand, dear, while I wouldn’t want to call you unobservant, or anything of the sort, it did seem to me that giving you the opportunity to…improve the acuity with which you view the universe might not be out of order.”
“I see.” Honor shook her head as Corporal Yanakov smiled and Major Hawke and Sargent McGraw found somewhere else to look. “We do seem to have these little moments without proper warning, though, don’t we?”
“At least in my case I knew I could get pregnant,” Allison observed with a devilish smile, watching Hawke and McGraw from the corner of one eye. Then her expression sobered. “Although, to be honest, I had to think long and hard about deactivating my implant.” Her lips trembled ever so slightly. “It was hard for your father. For me, too, I guess. But losing that many people we loved…” She shook her head, the eyes which matched Honor’s dark. “It was almost like we couldn’t decide whether we were reaffirming that life went on, creating the additional child we’d discovered we wanted—especially after Faith and James were born—or trying to replace the ones we loved. It was that last bit that made it hard. It felt almost disloyal somehow. In the end, though, we just said the hell with any philosophical questions.”
“And I’m glad you did.” Honor hugged her close again. “To be honest, if I had the time, I think Hamish, Emily, and I would be doing exactly the same thing. For all the reasons you just listed, really. And why shouldn’t we?” Her embrace tightened for a moment. “Life does go on, we do want more kids, and we are creating more people to put into the holes in our hearts. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see an uptick in births all across the system, but especially on Sphinx.” She released her mother and smiled sadly. “It’s one of the things that happen in wars.”
“Well, on that topic,” Allison said in a brighter tone, “I happen to think it’s time you provided me with additional grandchildren. Not that Raoul and Katherine aren’t perfectly satisfactory, you understand. There’s a certain security in numbers, though. And while I realize you’re busy at the moment, Emily’s available.”
“Mother, you’re incorrigible!” Honor laughed and shook her head. “And, to be honest, I think Emily may be thinking in that direction, too.” Her smile turned warm. “Hamish and I will never be able to thank you enough for getting her past that particular block.”
“Even if I was pushy, insufferable, and meddlesome?”
“No! Were you really?” Honor gazed at her in astonishment. “I didn’t realize. I thought you were just being your normal self.” She paused a beat. “Oh! That’s what you meant, wasn’t it?”
“It’s really a pity I never believed in corporal punishment,” Allison observed, then grinned as her daughter giggled.
“Mother, I wouldn’t change you even if I could,” Honor said then. “Which, thank God, nobody in the universe would be capable of, in the first place.”
Nimitz bleeked in amusement and nodded his head in emphatic agreement with that statement.
“Well, I certainly hope not,” Allison said serenely, tucking her daughter’s hand into her elbow and leading the way towards the private family section of Harrington House. Their bodyguards fell in astern, like escorting destroyers.
“And thank you for letting us use the house tonight,” Allison continued as they started up the magnificent winding staircase. “We really appreciate it.”
“Mother, this is your and Dad’s house now, a lot more than it’s mine. I believe I’ve told you that no more than, oh, five or six thousand times. It’s got more rooms than most hotels, and as long as Hamish, Emily, and I have a modest little six or seven-room suite in which to hang our berets, I think we can consider our housing needs adequately met whenever two or three of us happen to be in Landing at the same time. Which, unfortunately, isn’t happening all that often just now.”
“I understand that. No, really—I do!” Allison waved her free hand as Honor bent a skeptical eye upon her. “But it’s also Steadholder Harrington’s official residence and Harrington Steading’s embassy in the Star Empire. Under the circumstances, I don’t think we should be throwing any drunken orgies without clearing it with you first.”
“Your very own drunken
orgy? How exciting! Are Hamish and I invited?”
Something very like a smothered chuckle escaped one of the Graysons behind her.
“No, dear.” Allison patted her hand. “The drunken orgy is private, after the party. I was only using it as an example.”
“Darn. And I was so looking forward to it.”
“I see Hamish and Emily have been good for the Beowulf side of you,” Allison said, and Nimitz laughed again, then raised his right hand—fingers closed to spell the letter “S”—and nodded it up and down in agreement.
“I’ll admit they’ve helped me face my inner Beowulf,” Honor acknowledged. “It’s even possible the rest of the universe will forgive them for that…someday.”
* * *
Music drifted from the quintet of live musicians in the corner of the ballroom. The night was warm and clear, so the crystoplast wall had been retracted, extending the ballroom out across the terrace and increasing its normal six hundred square meters of floor space by a third. For the present, that additional floorspace was unavailable for dancing, however. Instead, spotless white table cloths fluttered on the land breeze blowing outward across Jason Bay while the Harrington House staff, augmented for the evening, prepared to serve supper.
Nor was anyone dancing in the ballroom itself, despite its size, the splendor of its brilliantly polished marble floor, and the invitation of the music. Possibly because the music in question was a bit odd by Manticoran standards. Allison and Alfred Harrington had fallen in love with classical Grayson music during their time on Grayson, but the planet’s ancient dancing traditions, which centered on something called the “square dance,” weren’t familiar to most Manticorans. The lack of dancers was subject to change, however, and Honor suspected that it would after dinner.
At the moment, she stood between Hamish and Emily Alexander-Harrington’s life support chair, gazing out across the bay.
“Honor, I’d like you to meet someone,” a voice said, and she turned as her father—one of the few people present who was actually taller than she was—walked up behind her.