Shadow of Freedom

Chapter Twenty-Five

“What the hell was Kazuyoshi thinking?” Kayleigh Blanchard demanded.

Almost a week had passed since the apocalyptic conclusion of Kazuyoshi Brewster’s attack, and she and Michael Breitbach sat at a picnic table in Landing’s Central Park. A checkered cloth covered the table between them, and their plates were piled with potato salad, baked beans, and hot dogs. Sitting out in the open was enough to make Blanchard nervous, but she knew Breitbach was right. Security forces paid less attention to people eating picnic lunches out in the sunlight where everyone could see them than they did to people who seemed concerned with hiding in the shadows. Their current table was on a little point of land, pushing out into the lake. Directional microphones could undoubtedly hear every word they said, if anyone were suspicious enough to point one of them in their direction, but there weren’t going to be any other diners near enough to overhear casual conversation.

Breitbach took another bite of his hot dog, chewed with every evidence of enjoyment, swallowed, and took a swig of beer. Then he shrugged.

“We’ll never know, for sure,” he said. “Personally, though, I think it was just as straightforward as it looks.” He shook his head. “Kaz and his entire cell just plain lost too many people they cared about. He didn’t kick an authorization request up the ladder because he knew damned well he wouldn’t get it, and he didn’t care.”

“But—” Blanchard began.

“Eat your hot dog,” Breitbach interrupted, and waited until she’d obediently taken another bite.

“I don’t say it doesn’t piss me off, because it does,” he said then, putting ketchup on his own hot dog as he spoke. “And it’s going to play hell with all our plans. At the same time, I can’t be too mad at him. I knew his family, you know. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. So, yeah, I understand exactly what was pushing him. I didn’t know the others, but from what we’ve seen, they were cut from the same cloth. And don’t forget—four members of his cell walked away clean. We haven’t tried to contact them yet, and they’re keeping their heads down just the way they ought to, but it looks to me like they’re probably the ones who didn’t lose family in the May Riots. They helped Kaz and the others get in, set up the van bombs, then got the hell out of the way.”

He put down the ketchup and bit into the hot dog again.

“You’re probably right,” Blanchard said after a moment. “And I’m like you; I can’t really blame them either, however much I wish they hadn’t done it. But what do we do now? Whether we like it or not, they were effective—and visible—as hell. Now that they’ve hammered Yardley’s bastards so hard, some of the other cells are going to want to hit back, too. For that matter, I’m thinking a lot of this ‘freelance’ stuff we’re seeing is probably our people.”

“Probably,” Breitbach agreed. “And it’s going to get even harder to hold them now that Yardley’s started arresting ‘dangerous dissidents.’” He grimaced. “Once people in general figure out how many people she and Lombroso are ‘disappearing’ it’s going to get really ugly. And once the Gendarmes get here, it’s going to get even worse.”

He seemed remarkably calm about the prospect he’d just described, Blanchard thought.

“So you’re sure now that Verrochio’s going to send them?” she asked, and he snorted.

“After Kazuyoshi’s operation?” He shook his head. “I think they were probably going to send them in the first place; after Kaz and his people took out a whole fucking regiment of the Guard—and a Solly operations manager—our Ms. Xydis for damned sure started screaming for everything she could get! If they weren’t already in the pipeline, I guarantee Verrocchio’s going to cough them up now, damn it. That’s why I sent off another message to the Manties three days ago.”

“You did?” She blinked at him in surprise, and he shrugged.

“Yardley’d already begun her crackdown, Kayleigh,” he pointed out. “It was obvious things were only going to get worse, and I had to make a quick call. There was a fast Trifecta freighter heading for Montana to follow up on the contract our first contact was sent to negotiate. Of course, that whole deal was one of Guernicke’s brainstorms, so it’s possible Frolov will scrub it now that she’s so fortuitously retired. But in the meantime, the first freighter was off to pick up whatever their agents had been able to purchase, and we had another ‘secret friend’ in her crew.” He shrugged again. “The opportunity wasn’t likely to present itself again anytime soon, so I decided to take it.”

“I see.” She regarded him steadily for several seconds. “Do you think the Manties are actually going to respond?”

“I wish I were as confident that they’re going to as I am that Verrocchio’s going to,” Breitbach admitted. “Having said that, though, I do think it’s more likely they will than that they won’t.” He shrugged slightly. “They committed themselves to, and they have to figure that if we go down, Yardley and Lombroso are almost certain to find evidence of that in the wreckage. Having the rest of the galaxy find out they encouraged us and promised us support and then pulled the plug on us when we needed them most would hurt them badly with the independents out here in the Verge. And not coming through for us wouldn’t do them any good with the Sollies, either. The League’s going to be almost equally pissed off even if we do go down, especially because they’ll blame the Manties for encouraging us in the first place.”

“Cynical…but probably accurate,” Blanchard conceded after a moment, taking another bite of her own hot dog.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Breitbach replied. “I don’t think it was all cynical calculation on the Manties’ part in the first place. I think they really do hate the Solarian League and OFS, and I think they find people like Lombroso and Yardley almost as morally reprehensible as we do. But let’s be realistic, Kayleigh. All the moral revulsion in the universe isn’t going to bring somebody into conflict with something the size of the Solarian League unless there are good, solid and pragmatic reasons to go with it. From everything I’ve seen, it looks like Manticore realizes it’s fighting for its life, and if it’s going to win, it’s going to have to fight smart. That means not throwing away its claim to the moral high ground by encouraging people to revolt against régimes like Lombroso’s and then just walking away. And to be honest, I don’t care whether or not they’re saints as long as it’s in their own best interests to help us take down him and that butcher Yardley.”

“I can get behind that,” Blanchard agreed feelingly.

“I figured you probably could.” Breitbach smiled at her, but the smile faded, and he shook his head.

“I figured you probably could,” he repeated, “but that doesn’t make me any happier about this mess. Yardley is going on the offensive, and I think she’s doing it deliberately, trying to force our hand.”

“Push the entire Resistance out into the open where she can get at it?” Blanchard looked unhappy at her own suggestion, and Breitbach nodded.

“That or pull it out into the open,” he agreed. “I’m not sure she realizes just how well organized we actually are, but even if she does, she probably figures that if she hits us hard enough—especially after Kazuyoshi hit them as hard as he did—she can goad our people into coming out where she can get at them. She’s got to be pretty damn confident she’s still got a lot more heavy weapons than we do, not to mention the Guard’s air assets, satellites, surveillance systems, and spies. I’m pretty sure her thinking’s going to be that if she can only get us out in the open she’ll be able to smash us once and for all, or at least prune us back pretty damned drastically.”

“And if she’s wrong about that little calculation?” Blanchard asked with an unpleasant smile.

“And if she’s wrong, she figures she’s got Yucel coming in right behind her,” Breitbach said, and Blanchard’s smile disappeared.

“So what do we do?” she said after a moment.

“For right now, we go ahead and try to keep a lid on things.” Breitbach finished his hot dog and picked up his beer in both hands, propping his elbows on the picnic table so he could nurse the stein properly. “I’d say the odds are at least sixty-forty against our being able to do that, but we’ve still got to try. We just plain aren’t ready yet, Kayleigh.”

“And if it turns out we can’t keep a lid on?” Blanchard’s eyes were troubled, and she shook her head. “I’ve got to tell you, Michael—I don’t think we are going to be able to.”

“To be honest, neither do I,” he said heavily. He sipped beer, his own eyes hooded, then shrugged.

“Neither do I, and the hell of it is that I don’t really want to. I wouldn’t have approved Kaz’s operation if he’d asked me to, but I would have wanted to. There’s nothing I want more than to see Lombroso and Yardley hanging at the ends of ropes the way they damned well deserve. So the whole time I’m standing there waving my hands and screaming ‘Stop! We’re not ready yet!’ what I really want to be shouting is ‘Kill the bastards!’”

He managed to keep his picnicker’s expression in place, yet his voice was harsh and ugly and his hands tightened convulsively on the stein.

“But my brain knows better than that,” he continued in a voice which sounded more like his own. “So before we do anything else, I’m going to do my damnedest to sit on the other hotheads—the hotheads just like me—until I hear something back from the Manties. Which doesn’t change the fact that I agree with you that I’m not going to be able to in the end.”

He swallowed a little more beer, then set the stein down very neatly and precisely in front of him.

“If we’re both right and it looks like we’re going to lose control, I really only see one thing we can do. What we can’t do is allow everything we’ve managed to build to just come apart, and that’s what’s going to happen if more of our cells start doing what Kazuyoshi did. So however unready I may think we are, we’ll just have to go for it. Now.”

“‘Go for it’?” Blanchard repeated carefully, and he gave her a thin smile.

“The only reason we’ve gotten as far as we already have—further than anyone else’s ever gotten against Lombroso—is that we’ve been organized and disciplined, Kayleigh. If we lose that, Yardley breaks us even without the Gendarmerie’s support. And one of the most important principles of successful command I came across in all my research is that you don’t give an order you know won’t be obeyed. If we’re going to maintain our discipline, we’ll have to get out in front of our people’s anger. We’ll have to demonstrate to all those other Kazuyoshis that we’re committed to move and that we are moving. If we do that, and do it effectively, they’ll get behind us and push instead of dragging us all out into Yardley’s sights behind them. And whether I think we’re ready or not, we’re a hell of a lot closer to ready than anyone else’s ever been. I think we’ve got a shot—probably a pretty good one, and sure as hell a better one than Yardley thinks we do—against the Guard and Lombroso. Which really leaves only three things to worry about.”

“Only three?” Blanchard looked at him with what might have been an engine of incredulity, and he smiled.

“Sure. First, whether or not I’m right that we do have a shot at winning. Second, whether or not we can pull it off before the first intervention battalions get here. And, third, whether or not Verrocchio and Yucel will back off and throw in their hand if we do pull it off before the gendarmes get here.”

“And just what do you think the odds of that are?” she demanded, and his smile grew thinner than a razor.

“Just about zero,” he said softly. “Which is why I really, really hope the Manties get here before the Sollies do.”