Rich Man's War (5 page)

“As I said, any duty in the service would’ve been open. No one was going to break any rules for you. It wouldn’t have looked good. But if you’d needed to fulfill some prerequisite or qualification, plenty of people would’ve made that happen. I think you knew that when you requested this assignment over all the other options.

“You’re hiding out, Tanner. You’re hoping to go unnoticed.”

“I like this assignment, ma’am.”

“Oh? Tell me why.”

The answers came to him with agonizing sluggishness. “I’ve got a regular schedule here, ma’am. The capital’s a great city. I can take—I have taken classes here. I get weekends off. I get along with my roommates in th
e barracks. And I’ve learned a lot just by being here, about how the government actually works, about things most people only read about in news articles, and...”

His voice faltered under her skeptical gaze. She ran her finger across her holocom to activate its display, projected a small file and turned it toward him. Tanner saw a record of his military
passcard use. Every visit to a military or affiliated facility spread out before him. “Two visits a week to the tactical shooting range at Fort Bentley,” Yeoh noted. “Twelve hours every week at the gym at the Joint Capital Security Services complex, including their hand-to-hand classes and their urban obstacle course. You completed the two-week wilderness survival course at Camp Horizon and a refresher course in advanced first aid. The only remotely academic course you’ve taken is Introductory Arabic.”

“…you’ve been c
hecking up on me that closely?”

“I’m the head of the military, Tanner. Your training records are only under the lowest privacy classifications. I looked them up while waiting for you to join me.” She tilted her head. “And
while the honor guard looks pretty and performs ceremonies, I know the training this post involves. You aren’t here just for show. But to add all of that extracurricular activity on top of the day job? That’s an awful lot of active training for someone who’s happy to spend the rest of his enlistment on a safe and stable groundside billet.”

Tanner wasn’t sure what to say. He felt himself being backed into a corner. This conversation felt more and more like a chess match that he was bound to lose. “I had a long talk with my psychiatrist about whether or not this was paranoid behavior, ma’am.”

“And what did your psychiatrist say?”

“He said it was fine if it left me feeling more empowered and less vulnerable
. And as long as I was ready to question myself on it, I shouldn’t worry too much.” Tanner paused. “I’m not sure he’s such a good psychiatrist, to be honest.”

“Is that why you’re going to all this effort?” she asked, indicating the training record. “Paranoid behavior?
Empowerment?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then why?”

He couldn’t meet her eyes at first. Tanner looked around at the people in fine, formal business wear in the ornate but comfortable
dining room. The setting felt peaceful. Everyone seemed to be at ease, or at least perfectly accustomed to a high-pace, high-stress lifestyle. Tanner could name more than a few of them off the top of his head, and identify what made them important enough to be at Ascension Hall.

He read the guest book every day. He knew who was here, and he could easily guess why.

“They’re coming for us, aren’t they, ma’am?”

“Who?”

“NorthStar. Lai Wa. CDC. Maybe with friends.” His eyes came back to hers. “We’re not trying for any reconciliation. I’ve seen the president’s speeches. He’s not dialing anything back. The Navy is at its maximum fleet size—beyond it, depending on how you count—but we’re still recruiting like it’s going out of style. The incentives keep getting better.

“We’re moving further and further away from the corporations while they’re preoccupied with the mess in Hashem, but when that’s over, they’re gonna come after us. It’s not going to stop at punitive trade sanctions and a lot of passive-aggressive rhetoric… is it,
Admiral?”

Yeoh looked at him soberly. Her voice had never risen during the conversation, but she lowered it a notch as she said, “If it weren’t for the mess in Hashem, they’d probably be using the Hashemites as proxies against us already.”

Tanner nodded toward the screen showing his passcard record. “That’s your answer, ma’am.”

Her holocom beeped.
She checked the holographic display and quickly closed it up again. Unlike many people Tanner had seen at the capital, Yeoh knew how to focus on her living, breathing company rather than her communications gadgets. Had it not been some sort of priority message, she probably wouldn’t have checked it at all.

“I need smart, capable people in the field, Tanner. I need people who are good in a crisis. You may think you don’t belong in the military, but we both know your record says otherwise. No one who didn’t belong in
the Navy could’ve pulled off the things you’ve done.”

“I’m really important enough for all this, ma’am?” Tanner asked. “I’m worth the head of the Archangel Navy coming down to talk to me personally?”

“Unlike a lot of officers, I know which people actually make things happen in the military. I keep tabs on quite a number of enlisted people. You may be a lowly crewman… but you’re also Tanner Malone. Not too many people are walking around wearing the Archangel Star. And nobody else ever managed to win one in what is allegedly a time of peace. So, yes, you are worth a two-minute records check and a cup of coffee when I happen to be in the same building.”

Tanner winced. He knew that was coming before he’d
spoken. Tanner scratched at his left ear, his fingertips bumping the small gold bead in his earlobe. He’d won that in peacetime, too, on exactly the same day. “Allegedly?”

“Yes,” she said, idly turning her wrist to indicate her holocom. “If that weren’t the case, it might be lunch instead of just coffee. But I’ve got to get back to the office. Thank you for your time, Tanner. It’s always a pleasure.”

* * *

Her office was well out of his way back to his post. The public affairs department wasn’t high-security territory; anyone who could access the “business” portions of
Ascension Hall had all the clearance they needed to enter. Tanner didn’t make a habit of visiting—to the contrary, he generally stayed away—but no one gave him a second glance when he passed through. His friendship with the press secretary was public knowledge.

Speculation as to whether or not he might be more than just a friend only occurred in discreet conversations.

Tanner knew how busy Andrea could get at the drop of a hat. No matter how organized or skilled the presidential press secretary might be, the job could go into crisis mode without warning and stay that way for days. Even without a crisis, Tanner expected to find her door shut, or to see staffers or journalists meeting with her, but he made the trip anyway.

As it happened that morning, he found nothing of the sort. Tanner caught the eye of Andrea’s assistant at her desk in the office next door. She threw him a quick nod and waved him on through. With that, Tanner took a deep breath and knocked on the side of Andrea’s door with his free hand.

She looked up from the holo screens spread out in front of her desk and offered a soft smile. “Hey,” she said. “How’re you?”

“Little thrown off of my routine today,” he admitted. “I had some unexpected time in the
south dining room and figured I’d bring you something.” Tanner came inside and placed the tall mug on her desk, careful not to reach through any of the holo screens lest he accidentally input a command.

“Couldn’t ever say you aren’t thoughtful.” Andrea knew
without looking that the mug of coffee would be exactly the way she liked it. “How did you know I wasn’t busy?”

“I thought I’d just come
check,” he shrugged. “I’d make some observation about how things look on this end of the building, but I don’t want to jinx you.”

“Thank you for that.”

He didn’t sit down. In truth, the dress uniform seemed designed to keep a man standing, anyway.

Andrea rose from her desk, stepping around it to walk to her door and close it by hand. Tanner looked her up and down as she moved, appreciating her slender figure and the way her curly black hair was pinned up to leave the nape of her neck exposed. Andrea never dressed provocatively at the office, but she always looked good. It was part of her public image.

He’d been lucky enough to see the rest of her. Tanner had developed his crush on the press secretary when she’d only been a far-off media personality. Up-close exposure turned that crush into something he couldn’t properly label. Not a serious relationship. Not a romance. She liked having someone on her arm at state dinners and social functions, and liked taking him home for the rest of the weekend too much for him to think that he was just a photo op and a convenient date for appearance’s sake.

Yet there was always a distance there, too. Always a sense of trepidation.
Things conspicuously left unsaid.

“It’s been a few days,” she observed.
Andrea stood close enough to reach out and touch, but she didn’t step closer. Neither did Tanner. “I wondered if you were mad.”

“I figured leaving you alone for at least a few days was what you wanted. I didn’t know whether or not to make it more.
I’m frustrated,” he admitted, “but not mad.”

“That’s fair,” nodded Andrea. “Fairer than I’ve been to you. It’s not like I told you a time frame.”

“I didn’t think ‘We need to back off’ would have a schedule. It’s fine.”

Silence hung between them, each unsure how much to say. He decided to go for it. “Is there something I did wrong?” he asked evenly. “I tried to follow your lead. I know you have more concerns than I do.”

“No. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He heard affection in her voice. “Hell, you did more things right than I could’ve ever reasonably expected. Thirty years ago, I couldn’t have said that without blushing,” she added. “It’s not anything you did or didn’t do, Tanner. It’s the thirty years. We could ignore the other ten and it’d be fine, but the rest… Tanner, I had a Senate seat before you were in school. This isn’t something that’ll go away.”

She didn’t look even ten years older than Tanner. Physically, she looked to have only
a handful of years on him. “I never felt like we ran away from that.”

“We didn’t,” she conceded, “but I kept telling myself it was all jus
t for fun, and all ‘just this once more,’ but it kept on going. And if all I had to think about was you, me and my inevitably disapproving family, we might get by. Like I said, you never did anything wrong, I just… I’m already taken, Tanner. I’m married to my career.”

“I figured that out the moment I met you. Well, okay. The second time, anyway. I didn’t have much of a chance to think the first time.”

Andrea laughed in spite of herself. It was a good memory. Still, her mirth quickly faded. “Tanner, I’ve been selfish all along. The first weekend together was selfish, but I told myself it’d do you some good, too.”

“It did. You don’t even know.”

“I think I do, Tanner… which was why I convinced myself it was okay to go beyond that. And then to the next weekend, and the next. And I didn’t care about the gossip stories because they seemed harmless enough and you sure as hell didn’t care, but I’m starting to get subtle hints from my bosses. The ones who have to care what everyone says, you know? And frankly, it’s my job to care what people say. It’s one thing for private citizens to throw convention out the window and not care about age differences and all that shit, but I’ve got to get this president reelected. I put my own political career on hold to make all this happen. We need conservative votes. Every little thing his staff does matters. This matters.”

She’d thought all of this through before saying it, of course. She hadn’t expected Tanner to grin in the middle of h
er let-down talk. “What?”

“You don’t normally swear.”

Again, Andrea laughed. “Great. I can’t imagine where I picked that up.” She gave him a long, thoughtful look. “You’re trying to make this easy on me. And I don’t know why I should be surprised.”

“We were a longshot to begin with. If you’ve thought of all this to say, I can’t imagine I’m going to debate you into changing your mind.” He paused
. “But it hurts.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, looking down at the floor. “Yes, it does. Probably more for you than me. I saw this coming all along. That’s what I’m saying. Look, Tanner, I don’t want you to just go away. It’s not like I’ve been faking anything. I just… I
can’t
, you know?”

“Well, I might be going away, anyway. I’ve had some pretty blatant hints dropped on me,” he explained as Andrea’s expression grew quizzical. “People above my level don’t want to see my career stagnate. I think I’m gonna be transferred out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she frowned. “I know how you’ve felt. Ship duty?”

“Probably. I don’t know. It’s still just hints. But I figured I should talk to you now rather than waiting too long. Next thing I know there might be some crisis in here and I’d have to send you a letter.”

“I can understand that.” Her hand reached up to his chest. “I’m sorry, Tanner. About the transfer, too, but… well. Everything.”