Shadow of Freedom

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Sit down, Mr. Hongbo.”

Junyan Hongbo obeyed the command and settled into the chair facing the ebony-skinned woman in the black and gold uniform. He wasn’t looking forward to this interview. In fact, he wasn’t looking forward to just about anything that was likely to happen for the foreseeable future, and he found himself fervently wishing—again—that Wanderlust had managed to make it across the hyper limit in time after all.

Probably unreasonable to expect anything of the sort, he thought glumly. After all, Herschel worked with Lorcan for years. Why should I have expected her to be any more competent than he was?

He knew that thought was unfair, to Verrocchio as well as Captain Herschel, but he didn’t much care at the moment.

The woman on the other side of the desk ignored him for several moments, letting him simmer in his own juices while she considered the data on her desk display. He could see its reflection in her eyes, and he wondered if it actually had anything at all to do with him or if it was simply window dressing. Whichever it might be, he told himself, it wasn’t going to have any real effect on what he expected to be a most unpleasant interrogation. The only reason for her to be looking at it at this particular moment was to tweak his nerves a little tighter. He’d used the same technique himself more times than he could remember, and he was actually a bit surprised to discover that it was working on him just as well as it had ever worked for him.

I wonder if they’ve managed to crack my files yet?Bardasano swore no one could do it, and that if it looked like anyone was going to, the security protocols would scrub them back to the bare mollycirc. And they really were better than anything OFS had on tap. But Manty-proof? He grimaced mentally. Not likely! They’re going to get at least something out of them. The question is how much.

At least he’d never been stupid enough to record anything likely to incriminate him. There was that handful of memos from Valery Ottweiler he’d tucked away as an insurance policy, but they only demonstrated what Ottweiler had asked him to pass on to Verrocchio on an official level. They didn’t include any of Ottweiler’s unofficial requests, and every one of them made it clear he himself had exercised no decision-making authority on the requests in question. He’d made damned sure there was nothing in his files that could link him to any of the more…questionable decisions he’d helped guide Verrocchio into making.

Unfortunately, there was no way he could know what Verrocchio had been foolish enough to record. The possibility that he’d kept something that could lead back to Hongbo was unpleasantly high, although the vice commissioner could at least hope that if he had it would turn into a case of one man’s word against another’s. In the end, though, he knew the Manties were going to find at least something he’d dearly love for them not to find, and the best he could realistically hope for was that it would be one of his more minor peccadilloes.

And, of course, that they’re willing to stop looking when they find it rather than turning over enough rocks to find something that isn’t minor, he thought glumly. And what do you think the odds of that are, Junyan? You’re not exactly one of their favorite people in the entire universe.

“Well, Mr. Hongbo,” the woman behind the desk said finally, sitting back and folding her hands on the blotter in front of her, “you’ve been a rather busy fellow, haven’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?” he replied stiffly, his expression carefully outraged.

“I said you’ve been rather busy,” she repeated with a smile. “You and Commissioner Verrocchio both. All that running about discharging your little errands for people like Manpower and Technodyne.” She shook her head. “I hate to think about all the time that took up. Time you could’ve spent so much more profitably on routine Frontier Security graft, embezzlement, and extortion.”

“Admiral Gold Peak,” he said coldly, “I am a vice commissioner in the service of the Office of Frontier Security and the Solarian League, not some minor functionary of one of your ragged ‘Talbott Quadrant’ system governments.”

He straightened his spine, glaring at her, projecting his very best affronted senior bureaucrat image. There was no doubt in his mind that she was recording all of this, and eventually a copy of that recording was likely to find its way into Solarian channels. Under the circumstances, it behooved him to demonstrate the proper demeanor of a senior bureaucrat in hostile hands. That was particularly true given the search for scapegoats which would inevitably follow a disaster like this one. The last thing he needed was to provide ammunition for the people determined to make him the scapegoat by making any admissions of guilt or demonstrating any sign of weakness.

Of course, that was a long-term consideration, and there were shorter-term implications to his situation, as well. Like finding a way to fend off the immediate consequences if the Manties figured out just how instrumental he’d actually been in arranging events in the Talbott Quadrant.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have much to work with. He recognized the weakness of his position as well as he was certain Gold Peak did, yet the only defense he had was to make it a matter of playing public roles against one another. He couldn’t keep her from going wherever she wanted, but as long as he played his role and blustered strongly enough, he might at least slow her down. And he could always hope she’d be worried enough about setting precedents to hesitate about resorting to more rigorous techniques. After all, eventually somebody on the Manties’ side was going to find himself in an analogous position. Hopefully Gold Peak would hesitate to give someone on the Solarian side an excuse for starting right out pulling fingernails and toenails.

Unfortunately, only a complete imbecile would think for one moment that the Solarian League was going to worry about precedents set by Manticore, and Gold Peak was no imbecile. Hongbo was glumly aware that Solarian arrogance—and especially that of Frontier Security and the Gendarmerie—was going to be sublimely confident it could do whatever it wanted without worrying about reprisals, and he never doubted the Manticoran admiral across the desk from him knew that as well as he did. Under the circumstances, he doubted somehow that someone who’d already displayed Gold Peak’s…initiative was going to be fazed by any concerns about tender Solarian sensibilities when it came to something she really wanted to know about.

“I’m not answerable to you or to your ‘Star Empire,’ even in a private capacity, and certainly not in a public one!” he continued, putting as much bite into his voice as possible. “Your high-handed actions in this star system represent a flagrant violation of interstellar law, as you’re very well aware. And your gross insult to the persons and offices of the Solarian League’s official, legal representatives—and your bareknuckle aggression against the Solarian League Navy—is totally unacceptable. Believe me, you and your entire star nation will be held to account for your actions before this is over!”

He met her eyes levelly, refusing to flinch, letting her see the unbroken rock of his defiance.

And she laughed.

“Oh, very good, Mr. Hongbo!” She shook her head. “You actually sound as if you believe a single syllable you just said. That’s amazing.”

“I beg your pardon?” he repeated as icily as he could. Which, to be honest, wasn’t particularly icy at all. Her obvious amusement did not bode well.

“Yes, I’m sure you do. Beg my pardon, I mean.” She smiled cheerfully. “Not too surprising for someone in your position. I’m pretty sure your superiors back in Old Chicago aren’t going to be very happy with you or with Commissioner Verrocchio. No matter what else happens, they’re bound to scapegoat the two of you, even for the things that weren’t your fault. Of course, at the moment I haven’t found anything that wasn’t your fault, but I’m sure if we keep looking long enough we’ll find someone else who screwed up almost as egregiously as you guys. I’m not a big fan of kicking someone when she’s down, but the truth is that you and the Commissioner have shown an absolutely incredible talent for backing the wrong horse.”

Hongbo felt himself wilt in his chair and forced his spine to stiffen. He managed to maintain eye contact, but he knew his effort to project defiance wasn’t fooling her any more than it was fooling him.

“The two of you have made one…questionable decision after another from the moment you climbed into bed with Manpower and Technodyne and encouraged President Tyler in his little adventure in Talbott,” she pointed out. “And that business with Admiral Byng and New Tuscany.” She shook her head again. “Not the most shining moment of your career in public service, I’m afraid.”

“I have no idea what you think you’re talking about, Admiral,” Hongbo retorted. “Admiral Byng, as you’re very well aware, was a Battle Fleet officer operating under the authority of his own orders, not that of the Madras Sector’s civilian officials.”

“Oh?” She seemed to glance past him, making him acutely aware of the Marine master sergeant standing respectfully against the cabin bulkhead behind him. “So you’re telling me you didn’t deliberately encourage Admiral Byng’s natural aggressiveness and arrogance in order to get him to New Tuscany?”

“I most certainly did not!” Hongbo snapped.

“And I take it you’re also telling me you weren’t being influenced by people like Valery Ottweiler or Aldona Anisimovna when you encouraged—or didn’t, as the case may be—Admiral Byng and Admiral Crandall?”

“What? How dare you suggest anything of the sort!”

“It’s not hard,” she said mildly. “I open my mouth and the words come out. It’s even easier when I’m pretty sure I’m being accurate. So, are you going to answer my question?”

“I was never unduly or improperly influenced by anyone—and especially not by the individuals you’ve just mentioned—in the discharge of my responsibilities!”

“Well, that’s certainly a clear enough statement,” she said. Her eyes refocused on his face, and she smiled again.

“The reason I asked those questions,” she continued, “is that we’ve found records of over a dozen private meetings between you and Mr. Ottweiler since that whole business with Monica blew up. Given the degree of tension between the Star Empire and Mesa—and Manpower and Technodyne’s demonstrated involvement with Monica—the number and frequency of those meetings inevitably leads us to wonder about the extent to which your own actions and the advice you gave Commissioner Verrocchio might have been influenced. I’m sure once we’ve cracked the encryption on your personal files—by the way, my people tell me it’s a very good security package; congratulations—we’ll have a much better picture of exactly what went on. A more fully developed one, I mean.” She gave him yet another of those smiles, this one almost whimsical. “I’m afraid Commissioner Verrocchio’s security wasn’t quite as good as yours. We’ve gotten very good access on his side, although I am looking forward to seeing how the view from your side of the hill, as it were, meshes with his.”

Hongbo kept his eyes from narrowing, but his brain raced. Was she telling him the truth when she implied they hadn’t gotten access to his files yet? He could readily believe they’d cracked Verrocchio’s already; the other man’s approach to security had been as slovenly as his approach to anything else. But if all they had was the official, open record—which would have included his appointments calendar—and Verrocchio’s private files, then Gold Peak actually knew very little, whatever she might suspect. Verrocchio certainly didn’t have anything in written or recorded form from him that would indicate he’d been anything except a conduit for Ottweiler. And Ottweiler, as an accredited diplomat, had every right to be talking to Verrocchio or Hongbo.

“I would remind you, Admiral,” he said, “that the files you’re referring to are those of official representatives of the Solarian League. Violating them is an affront and an insult to the League, and one which will have very serious repercussions in the fullness of time.”

“And Admiral Crandall’s decision to attack the sovereign territory of the Star Empire doesn’t come under the heading of the Solarian League’s very best attempt at a ‘serious repercussion,’ Mr. Hongbo?” She looked at him quizzically. “Or did you have something even more serious—and possibly even effective, this time—in mind?”

“Whatever your temporary accomplishments may be, ultimately the League is going to win, Admiral,” Hongbo replied. “You and your entire Star Empire might want to keep that in mind.”

“I assure you that a proper regard for future consequences—for everyone—figures prominently in my thinking,” Gold Peak assured him. “In the meantime, however, there are a few other minor matters I think need to be cleared up. For example, this business of you and Manpower’s influence. Are you suggesting that if there was any improper influence on Manpower’s part here in the Madras Sector, it was applied through Commissioner Verrocchio? That you yourself had nothing to do with it?”

“I have no way of knowing what someone else may or may not have said to Commissioner Verrocchio. I can assure you, however, that I never attempted to improperly influence the Commissioner on behalf of anyone, including Manpower.”

“I see.”

She picked up the stylus and made a note on the electronic pad at her elbow, then leaned back and crossed her legs.

“I’m sure you’ll understand if I take your assurance with a grain of salt, Mr. Hongbo,” she said. “After all, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if there weren’t a certain degree of tension between our mutual positions. You’re the most senior Solarian representative I’ve had the opportunity to speak to, however, and I’m interested in getting your perspective on recent events. I’m sure by now you’ve heard at least rumors about my government’s allegations against the Mesan Alignment. I’m curious. Did the Alignment ever come up in your meetings with Mr. Ottweiler?”

“No, it did not.” Hongbo shook his head in clear disbelief. “I’ve never seen any evidence that the ‘Mesan Alignment’ is anything more than a figment of someone’s overactive imagination, Admiral.”

“I see.” She made another note. “And you never met with anyone named Isabel Bardasano or Aldona Anisimovna?”

“Not personally, no,” he replied. “I know a woman named Anisimovna was present here on Meyers at one time. In fact, now that I think about it, I may actually have encountered her, since she spent quite a bit of time with Mr. Ottweiler. As I understand it, she was a commercial representative for some private-sector interests in Mesa, and given Mr. Ottweiler’s position as a member of the Mesan trade mission to the Madras Sector, I’m sure she had all sorts of legitimate reasons for meeting with him.”

She made yet another note.

“So you had no involvement with Anisimovna or Bardasano in arranging President Tyler’s involvement with Manpower and Technodyne?”

“I’ve already told you that. No, I did not.”

“Or with Admiral Byng or Admiral Crandall’s movements here in the Madras Sector and in the Talbott Quadrant?”

“No.”

“Never had any reason to believe Ms. Anisimovna was anything except—what was it you called her?—a commercial representative for private-sector interests?”

“Since I never directly discussed her activities here, I’m scarcely in a position to offer an opinion on that. Of course I had no reason to believe she was anything other than she and Mr. Ottweiler claimed she was.”

“And you and Commissioner Verrocchio had no prior knowledge of Admiral Crandall’s deployment to your sector?”

“Admiral Crandall was a Battle Fleet officer,” Hongbo pointed out coldly. “She was deployed on a Battle Fleet training maneuver. Commissioner Verrocchio and I had no control over or influence upon the decision to send her to Madras.”

“And you had no idea she was here prior to Admiral Byng’s arrival?”

“None,” he said firmly, allowing himself a faint stir of hopefulness. It wasn’t really optimism, but from the sound of things, Gold Peak was on a fishing expedition. Was it possible she wasn’t really after him at all, but rather looking for some evidence the ‘Mesan Alignment’ not only actually existed but had been actively involved in events in the region? He could see where the Manties would be eager for any outside evidence they could produce to support their allegations, and he wondered if he should allow himself to suggest that there might, just possibly, be some substance to them. He wouldn’t have to say there was, wouldn’t have to go out on any limbs, but suppose he allowed just a trace of genuine sounding doubt into his responses? It might well deflect her into chasing down that possibility. It might even (although the possibility was probably remote) convince her to cultivate him as a corroborating source rather than hammer him for his suspected involvement with Manpower.

Either way, at least they hadn’t brought out the bright lights, the truncheons, and the fingernail-pullers. For the moment, Junyan Hongbo was willing to settle for that.

* * *

“So what do you make of it?” Michelle Henke asked several hours later.

She and her staff sat around the briefing room table, where they’d just finished reviewing her notes and Alfredo’s comments on the veracity and emotions of Vice Commissioner Hongbo during her conversation with him.

“I can’t say there were a lot of surprises, Ma’am,” Cynthia Lecter replied after a moment, and shrugged. “He lied every time you even implied he’d had anything to do with arranging events out here. No great surprise there. And we already knew he’d met with Anisimovna and Bardasano, courtesy of Brigadier Yucel.”

“I’m inclined to agree, Ma’am,” Dominica Adenauer said. “At the same time, though, we did get pretty positive confirmation that he knows Byng and Crandall were maneuvered into the region. And I know we’re basically arguing from the fact that we know he lied about things, but it’s pretty clear hewas busy maneuvering Verrocchio into doing exactly what Anisimovna—or Ottweiler, at least—wanted Verrocchio to do. And, for that matter, he clearly figured Ottweiler was taking very specific marching orders from Anisimovna, and probably Bardasano. Now, I realize everybody’s always regarded the Mesan government as basically a shill and a front for the transstellars in the Mesa System. But his responses to your questions about their relationship with Ottweiler certainly seem to indicate that Hongbo at least suspected this was more than a business-as-usual corrupt business deal.”

“Granted,” Lecter said. “But let’s face it, Dominica, even if the Alignment never existed at all, the Mesa System would probably be plenty nervous about our frontiers getting this much closer to it. It’s entirely possible Ottweiler really was acting for his government in this case, rather than for any clandestine organization.”

“Except that in that case I would have anticipated the messengers between Ottweiler and the home system also being representatives of his government, Ma’am,” Commander Edwards pointed out. Lecter looked at him, and he shrugged. “Why send people like Anisimovna and Bardasano, with no official connection to the Mesa System government at all? Unless those people had connections to something besides the Mesa System government that was really calling the shots? And if they weren’t here representing a ‘business-as-usual corrupt business deal,’ then who were they representing?”

“That was one of the points that struck me most strongly, too,” Michelle said with a nod. “And according to Alfredo, Hongbo registered a lot of uncertainty himself when it came to whether or not the Alignment existed. And here.” She tapped one of her own notes on the display in front of her. “When I asked him about Levakonic and what Hongbo thought Technodyne was doing out here. Alfredo says that uncertainty quotient of his peaked really high when I suggested the Alignment might have seen this situation in Monica as an opportunity to get a closer look at our military hardware. I think our Mr. Hongbo’s wondering whether or not he’s been taking orders from the Alignment without realizing it for quite some time.”

“Agreed, Ma’am,” Lecter said. “And there’s no question that we’ve clearly established that both Hongbo and Verrocchio have been squarely—and knowingly—in somebody’s pocket from the very beginning. I think we’ve also established that Hongbo was really the primary contact point between Mesa and everything else going on in the Madras Sector. That was worthwhile in its own right, and it’s going to help steer the investigators to the evidence they need. And I’ll concede that Hongbo, at least, is coming to the conclusion the Alignment actually exists. But he wasn’t able to give us a smoking gun. There’s nothing in any of his responses, whether they were truthful or lies, that demonstrates any actual knowledge on his part that the Alignment is a reality and not just a figment of our imaginations.”

“No, there isn’t,” Michelle acknowledged. “There is clear confirmation, though, that somebody in Mesa was pulling the strings out here. That everything we’ve been saying about outside involvement was justified, and that it was coming out of Mesa. Whether it was the Alignment or not is really beside the point, in that regard. Personally, I’m pretty damn sure it was the Alignment. But whether I’m right about that or not, I don’t see any reason to think the string-pullers in Mesa are going to suddenly stop acting against our interests. And it’s occurred to me that there’s one place in the galaxy where we can probably find proof whether or not the Alignment exists.”

Lecter’s eyes widened with what might have been a touch of alarm, and Michelle smiled thinly.

“In my opinion, what we’ve already established from the files we’ve cracked, completely exclusive of anything Hongbo may have said to me or Alfredo may have picked up from his mind-glow is that some group in the Mesa System was directly behind the actions leading to the deaths of our personnel in New Tuscany. Moreover, Ottweiler’s involvement means the Mesan government was involved. There’s a phrase that describes an official government action hostile to the interests of and to the safety of the citizens of another government, people. It’s called ‘an act of war,’ and that’s precisely what the Mesa System has perpetrated against the Star Empire of Manticore.”

Silence hovered for a moment. Then Lecter cleared her throat.

“I can’t disagree with anything you just said, Ma’am,” she said very carefully. “Can I ask where you’re going with it, though?”

“Instead of just asking me whether or not I’ve lost my mind, you mean?” Michelle inquired with a smile which looked oddly impish.

“Far be it from me to put it in those terms, Ma’am.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Michelle chuckled, but then her expression sobered.

“This isn’t some impulsive decision on my part, Cindy.” She let her gaze circle the table, meeting each of her staffers’ eyes in turn. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since the Yawata Strike, and especially since Cachat and Zilwicki got home from Mesa. The Solarian League and the Star Empire are at war, and we got there because of someone else’s machinations. And while those idiots in Old Terra appear unwilling or unable to admit the possibility, whoever’s behind all this obviously doesn’t have the League’s best interests at heart any more than she’s looking out for ours. We’ve done our best to suggest that possibility to the Mandarins, but they’ve been too busy spinning the confrontation to consider our suggestions seriously. Of course, that’s the best-case explanation for their actions. The worst-case explanation is that the bureaucrats calling the shots in Old Chicago know exactly what’s going on and they’re in the Alignment’s pocket. I’m not quite paranoid enough to buy into that theory, though. If for no other reason because if they already controlled Kolokoltsov and his buddies that thoroughly, they’d have no need to set the League on a collision course with the Star Empire and the Republic.”

She paused for a moment, as if allowing that to settle in, then shrugged.

“There’s an old, old story about Alexander the Great back on old Earth, when he was a young man. When he was confronted by the Gordian knot that no one could untie, he solved the problem with a sword. I’m coming to the conclusion that what we have here isn’t the Gordian knot, but a Mesan knot. And Tenth Fleet makes a pretty good sword when you think about it.”

* * *

Michelle Henke sat in her quarters once again, facing her com pickup. It was very quiet, quiet enough that Dicey’s purring came clearly from under her desk where the enormous cat lay curled across her feet. She thought about moving the feet in question, but not very hard, and she smiled ruefully. The damned cat was finally establishing his ownership over her, as well as Billingsley, she realized.

She shook her head. Then the smile faded, and she considered the last couple of days.

From Commodore Thurgood’s records, she knew that none of the Madras Sector’s other star systems were even picketed. They were wide open, and she’d been considering the Gendarmerie’s reports on the populations of those star systems. It was unlikely any of the other systems would be able to assume the functions of self-government as smoothly and effectively as Meyers had, yet even in the case of McIntosh there was clearly at least a hub around which a government could coalesce. That was actually one of the few points she’d been able to come up with in Lorcan Verrocchio’s favor. He’d been venal, corrupt, and entirely too susceptible to being maneuvered by people like the Mesan Alignment. But he hadn’t been willing to unleash Francisca Yucel on planetary populations if he’d had other options, and he’d permitted a degree of self-government—or self-administration, at least—that was rare in the Protectorates.

Dispatches from Baroness Medusa and Admiral Khumalo had arrived, authorizing her capture of Meyers. Of course, she’d already done it by the time authorization arrived, but it was good to know that so far at least her actions stood approved. And although her message requesting ground forces to bolster her Marine strength hadn’t arrived when their dispatches were sent, they’d informed her they would be forwarding the first locally raised and equipped Guard battalions within the next T-month or so.

Bearing all of that in mind, she was confident she could sweep up the rest of the Madras Sector with no more than destroyers and possibly a few cruisers. And that, of course, left her battlecruisers, her CLACs, and her superdreadnoughts for something else.

She intended to use them.

Her orders and operations plan had been drafted. Within the next ten hours ships would be departing from Meyers for every other system in the Madras Sector, and two hours after that, everything except a minimal security force of three LAC squadrons would depart Meyers itself. She’d already written the official dispatches to Spindle and to Manticore itself explaining her actions and intentions. Now there was one final message left to record, and she keyed the pickup.

“By the time you view this, Beth, I’m sure at least some of my professional colleagues are going to have cast a certain degree of doubt upon my alleged mental processes. In this instance, they may even have a point. But I think this is important—well, obviously I think that, or I wouldn’t be doing it.” She shook her head with a slight smile. “Trust me, I’m aware of the risks involved. I’m also aware that when you’ve already got a shooting war with the League on your hands, having someone dash off on her own and open yet another front may not be incredibly high on the list of your priorities. On the other hand, we are already at war with the League. Somehow I don’t see my going calling on Mesa making that situation a lot worse. And the potential return, the chance to actually find proof of the Alignment’s existence—not to mention the possibility of throwing a king-sized spanner into its works—strikes me as well worthwhile.

“The reason this is coming to you as a private message, in addition to and unattached to my official dispatches, is that I want you to understand that I’m doing this on my own authority for a reason. I made it as clear as I could in the official record that I’m acting on my own. The reason for this message is to tell you that I did it that way deliberately to give you the option of disavowing my actions if that turns out to be necessary. Maybe I’ve been hanging around Honor too long, but this is something that needs doing, and if the price for my doing it is that you’ll be forced to recall me or even court-martial me, it’s worth it.

“Our family has a responsibility here, over and above my responsibility as an officer in your Navy. I intend to meet that responsibility.

“God bless, Beth. I love you.”