Loyalty to the Cause (TCOTU, Book 4) (This Corner of the Universe) (10 page)

“SIT…
down,” Brewer commanded.  “Garrett’s analysis is accurate.  My skillful
manipulation has, temporarily, stayed this maniac’s hand.  The fact that
Garrett has dangled possible cooperation with his scheme is the only reason
that you, Mr. Jennings, still have the tiniest bit of slack in the noose around
your neck.  But Garrett is right; this man is growing suspicious and he will
soon tire of playing games in favor of a more direct approach.”  Brewer regarded
Heskan and asked, “What
kind
of approach is the question.”

Heskan
took his eyes from the clenching muscles in Jennings’ jaw and gazed at the
elder statesman.  “Mr. Secretary, it’s obvious that Truesworth intends to
strike a blow not only to the Hollarans but the Republic itself.”  Heskan’s raffish
smile bespoke great confidence.  “I know this man.  He lacks finesse.  Look at
the prisoners’ escape from Kite.  It was simple and straightforward.  In fact,
if Agent Jennings had not pulled his agents from Kite, this all would have been
prevented.”

“We
needed those agents to collect the Hollarans after Phoenix self-destructed,”
Jennings objected.

Heskan
ignored the man.  “Jack Truesworth will move forward in the simplest way
possible.  If his targets are both the Hollarans and our government, and I’m
quite certain that they are, then his most likely field of battle is right
here.”  Heskan pointed straight down at the desktop for added emphasis.

“The
orbital,” Brewer confirmed.  “I agree.  How else could he take revenge on the
Hollarans?  But what of his hatred for our Republic?  The Anthe Council is on
the surface…”

Heskan
tamped down the brilliance of his smile as he delivered his next line with a
heady concern.  “But there is someone who is far more important to the Republic
than the Council, Mr. Secretary.  A new council could be appointed in a matter
of hours but Truesworth could not strike a more devastating blow to the
Republic if this single man were assassinated.”

Brewer’s
eyes widened.  “Of course.”  He reached for the controls on his desktop and said,
“Joseph, double the guard to my office immediately and recall Secretary Neal
from Pallene.”  After severing the connection, Brewer gazed at Jennings.  “You
will augment the security detail tasked with screening passengers onto Envoy-Three,
immediately.”

“Yes,
sir.”  Jennings popped up from his chair, shot a lethal look at Heskan and
exited the office.

After
the door closed, Brewer rocked back in his chair and praised, “You’re gifted
with a tactician’s eye, Garrett.  You have the special ability to look at
several pieces of a puzzle and see how they fit together.”

Heskan
dipped a shoulder humbly.  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.  I don’t know about
gifted but I have watched you and maybe learned a couple things.”

Brewer
smiled, possibly genuinely, and replied, “Garrett, you were made for this line
of work.  Now, we must ensure that this band of renegades is stopped before
they reach the orbital.”

“Agreed,
sir.”  Heskan furrowed his eyebrows with deep concern.  “But I believe we need
to think bigger.  To date, Truesworth has frustrated us at every turn.  I’m
worried that if we underestimate him again, he’ll turn up inside the Hollaran
cells somehow and execute them before we know it.  The man certainly has had no
trouble eluding Jennings for the last two and a half weeks.”  Heskan lowered
his voice to a whisper.  “What if we
moved
the Hollarans to a secret
location?”

Brewer
wiped his brow with a silken handkerchief before shaking his head.  “That’s impossible,
for now.  The transport ship is not scheduled to arrive for another four days
and neither the orbital nor Envoy-Three has the capacity to securely hold that
many prisoners outside of the orbital’s confinement facility.  Even then, we’ve
packed the Hollies in like freight.”

“I
am not thinking permanently, sir.  Only if we discover that Truesworth is
moving against us,” Heskan offered.  “If we get some notice that Truesworth is
implementing his plan, wouldn’t moving his targets to a secret location make it
impossible for him to succeed?”

Heskan
resisted the urge to shiver as Brewer’s reptilian eyes coldly regarded him.  “Where
would we hold them?” Brewer asked.  “What do you have in mind?”

Heskan
leaned away from the secretary and centered himself on his seat.  He inhaled
slowly as if considering the question and finally answered, “I don’t know, Mr.
Secretary.”  Heskan paused briefly and then allowed his eyes to widen in
enlightenment.  “Like freight!  Sir, you’re a genius!  Why not move them down
to the commercial deck and stow them in a cargo container?  They’d be completely
confined, we would only need a couple guards…”

Brewer
laughed aloud.  The sound came out halfway between a bark and a cough. 
“Garrett, that is brilliant.”  Heskan watched as Brewer’s mind played over
different scenarios.  Finally, the secretary said, “Word of this failsafe
cannot go beyond this room.  If this plan were leaked and Truesworth were to
get wind of it, our prizes would be in great jeopardy.”  Brewer nodded to
himself as if validating his internal debate.  “You will arrange this
personally, Garrett, and we will only implement this if we have sufficient
warning.  Our priority remains eliminating the traitors before they even step
foot on the orbital.”

“Indeed,
sir,” Heskan agreed.  He pursed his lips and looked pensively aside.

“What
now?” Brewer asked.

Heskan
shook his head and smiled dismissively.  “Nothing, sir.  Just a bad thought… 
What if Truesworth attacked the orbital from outside?”

Those
dark, evil eyes squinted at Heskan again.  “You need to be more clear,
Garrett.”

“Just,
sir,” Heskan fidgeted, “what if he tried to commandeer a ship with weapons and
started firing on the orbital.”

“Sixteen
men cannot take over a military vessel, Garrett, and how would they even board
one?”  Brewer snorted and added, “These are not your Parasites.  You’re
beginning to overthink this.”

Heskan
knew he had pushed enough and relented.  “Of course you’re right, sir.  I’m just
trying my hardest to think of all the angles.”

Brewer eyed Heskan
with a slight askance and warned, “I’ve given you a great deal of latitude,
Garrett, but don’t mistake that as license to espouse half-baked opinions.”

*  *  *

Heskan
exited the docking tube connecting
Envoy-3
to the orbital.  He noted
that twice as many sentries were stationed in the docking bay as there were
when he had entered.  Once around the corner from the white armor-clad guards,
he shuddered with relief and headed directly for the orbital hotel room he had
been occupying for the last ten days.

It
had been an excruciating couple of weeks and the tension seemed to increase by
an order of magnitude with each passing hour.  Heskan had been immensely
disappointed, and worried, when he received no word from Vernay the night
before.  Even though last evening was the earliest she could have possibly arrived
back in Anthe, the lack of contact was unnerving.  When combined with the unsettling
encounters with Brewer and the nonstop scrutiny by Agent Jennings, Heskan’s
health had taken a serious hit.  He was taking nearly twice the recommended dosage
of a medication designed to relieve intestinal distress and once again was considering
increasing the tablets he consumed almost constantly. 
“It’s in your blood,”
Heskan thought, recalling Brewer’s statement. 
Like hell it is.  I wouldn’t
survive six months of this cloak and dagger stuff.
  His thoughts turned darkly
toward Jennings
.  I never should have pushed him so hard in the meeting. 
Brewer isn’t the only one who can make a person disappear, you know.

Heskan
absentmindedly exited the lift he had been riding and entered the lobby of his hotel. 
He walked quickly to a second lift and used the voice activation in lieu of the
manual controls to send it to his floor.  The drone of the machinery was
soothing. 
Where can Stacy be?  What if they got caught, or worse?
  His
stomach growled ominously. 
Relax, Garrett.  Stacy is fine.  Brewer doesn’t
know.  Everything is going according to the plan.

Indeed,
Heskan’s portion of the plan had gone almost too smoothly to date.  Ensuring
that Truesworth was not caught on Pallene when he was not there had taken care
of itself and crafting “Truesworth’s” two e-mails in response to Brewer’s initial
reply had been simple.  However, fostering Brewer’s trust required dancing on a
knife’s edge.  Heskan believed he was succeeding.  For reasons he could not
fathom, Brewer had not seen through his pretense.  It seemed Brewer almost
wanted or even needed to trust him, or perhaps, it was simply the secretary
underestimating him.  Whatever the apparent cause, it had aided Heskan
enormously when the time came to suggest the most audacious part of his plan:
moving the Hollarans to a cargo bay.  Heskan had two other contingency plans if
Brewer did not accept the proposal, but they were inferior to simply placing
the Hollarans inside a cargo container capable of transporting live animals and
loading it directly onto the freighter Vernay would bring back from Erriapius.

He
approached his suite and sensors reacting to Heskan’s datapad unlocked and opened
the door.  Heskan strode into the finely furnished room and made a beeline for the
bathroom.  After several minutes of retching, he walked past his latest acquisition
and out of the small lavatory.  Heskan kicked off his shoes and moved close to
the colossal wall screen in his bedroom.  The screen displayed the view of a
room thirty floors above a beautiful, oceanside cliff.  In the distance, two
sailboats were cruising with reefed, white sails under a stiff wind.  The
orange-red sun, synchronized to the orbital’s current time, was reaching for
the azure horizon.

Abandoning the
intoxicating sight, Heskan sat on his bed and sorted his options for a suitable
cargo container on the orbital’s commerce and trade pages.  After settling on a
container type, he composed an e-mail to
Kite’s
newest acting captain,
Lieutenant, junior grade, Daniel Welch.  Before he was finished, the simulated
sun on the wall screen had vanished and the crimson sky had tinted black.  Heskan
arched his back to stretch and thought about what lay ahead. 
A lot of
moving parts… so much that can go wrong.
  
Damn,
Heskan thought as
he checked the time.
  It’s been nearly twenty-four hours and still no word
from Stacy.
  Still on the bed, he simply fell backward and let exhaustion
take him.

*  *  *

His datapad’s
chirp jolted Heskan from a restless slumber.  Anxiety spiked his blood pressure
as he reached toward the end table. 
It’s going to be Brewer; he’s figured
it out.
  Unwilling to face reality, Heskan tapped “Accept” but remained on
his bed with a pillow covering his face.  “Yes?” he mumbled through the soft padding.

A
female’s voice carried through the datapad speakers.  “Sorry to wake you,
Commander, but this is the front desk.  You asked to be alerted immediately if
you received any messages.”

“Live
or recorded?”

“It’s
just a text message, sir, titled ‘Request for interview.’  We received it three
minutes ago.  Shall I send it to your datapad?”

Heskan
bolted upright and nearly shouted, “No, I’ll read it from my room’s console.” 
He shot out of the bed, uttered a “thank you” before closing his connection and
raced to the desk in his suite’s office.  Once seated, he opened the generic
account’s e-mail file.  It was the only message in the folder.

The message simply
said, “How about a drink at 3?”  That was all it needed to say.  Heskan’s eyes
darted to the time located on the wall screen; a storm had blown in and waves
were crashing against the rocky coast.  The time was 01:57.  He left the hotel
room at 02:01.

*  *  *

Social
life inside the Anthe orbital never knew rest.  Heskan walked briskly through
the crowd on the commercial deck, weaving through the throngs of inebriated
tourists, freighter crewmembers, and military personnel on leave.  The noise
along the congested promenade rivaled the volume typically encountered during
the day.

As
Heskan approached
The Ruddy Kingfisher
, he showed credentials from his
datapad to the door attendants to skip the queue.  Groans mixed with cries of
protest emanated from the outraged crowd but fell upon the deaf ears of the
hulking bouncers.  Inside, people and music filled the bar to capacity.  The
throbbing pulse of the beat threatened to burst his eardrums.  
Well, we
picked this spot because it always seemed crowded.
 Heskan wended his way
between groups crowded around tables or huddled in any available free space. 
He surveyed the crowd starting on the far left and searched the faces of each
group, moving methodically to his right.  A hand grasped his arm, startling
him.

“Captain,
I’m sorry!” Vernay let go of Heskan to raise her hands up.  Her giggle was lost
to the pounding music but was followed by a shout.  “I didn’t mean to scare
you, Captain.  Over here.”

“What?”
Heskan yelled back.

Vernay
pointed to a corner in the back of the bar.  Heskan nodded and the lithe woman
turned to take the lead.  As Heskan’s eyes followed his former first officer, he
noted the fit of her civilian shirt boldly emphasized her femininity.  When his
eyes subconsciously dropped lower, he quickly chastised himself. 
Dammit, Garrett,
stop that!
  He looked up and saw two strangers jealously guarding a tiny,
high table with two stools. 
It’s easy to forget she’s a woman when I’m so
accustomed to seeing her as just a lieutenant
.  As they approached the table,
he saw Vernay mouth a “thank you” to the couple standing near the sanctuary. 
The man gave Vernay the thumbs up and screamed back, “Thanks for the free round!”
as he toasted in Vernay’s direction with a full mug of beer.