Shadow of Freedom-eARC (61 page)

“I can see that,” Michelle conceded. “Of course, there’s a part of me that’s inclined to just drag the bastard in and sweat it out of him. Somehow I’m not feeling all warm and gooey about Frontier Security at the moment. I think I can probably deal quite well with a few little human rights violations where these two scumbags are concerned.”

“Never any of Duchess Harrington’s Ballroom friends around when you need one, is there, Ma’am?” Lecter said wryly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michelle said. “Besides, if we really needed someone to whistle up a Ballroom fanatic to loom threateningly in the background, we could probably ask Ensign Zilwicki to come up with one. Assuming we hadn’t sent her off to Mobius with Aivars, that is.”

“We could always bring in a
fake
fanatic,” Lecter pointed out. “I’ve done a personnel search, and we’ve got better than thirty ex-genetic slaves, complete with tongue barcodes, assigned to the units we’ve got right here in Meyers. I’m sure any one of them—hell,
all
of them!—would be prepared to impersonate a Ballroom representative, show our OFS friends their tongues, and suggest it would be a good idea to tell us whatever we want to hear. In the most friendly possible way, of course.”

“Tempting, Cindy.
Very
tempting,” Michelle admitted. “In fact, that might be something to keep in reserve. Right now, though, I think we might try subtle first.”

“
Subtle
, Ma’am?” Lecter repeated, regarding her admiral with a doubtful expression.

“I
have
been known to do subtle upon occasion,” Michelle told her in quelling tones. “Not very often, I’ll admit. And it’s not my favorite way of getting things done. This isn’t really a case that’s suitable for shooting them all and letting God sort them out later, though, so I
think
I can restrain my homicidal inclinations as long as it’s in a good cause.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Never doubted it, Ma’am.”

“I think you’d better let this one go before you get into
real
trouble, Captain,” Michelle said repressively.

Lecter grinned at her, and Michelle shook her head. Then she continued.

“I’ve gotten pretty accustomed to working with Alfredo and Master Sergeant Cognasso,” she pointed out. “And it’s entirely possible that neither Hongbo nor Verrocchio have heard the reports about furry lie detectors yet. So if you happened to be able to prime me with the data you’ve pulled out of these hacked files of yours, and if I happened to invite those two estimable gentlemen in for a private chat—just me and my furry little pet, Alfredo, and possibly a Marine or two for security, like Cognasso—we could probably learn a lot.”

“You mean by not confronting him directly? By just asking leading questions and letting Alfredo monitor his responses?”

“Maybe, but probably not.” Michelle shook her head. “It’s not like Alfredo can tell us what he’s actually
thinking
; he can only tell us when he knows a two-leg is lying or telling the truth. I could probably nibble around the edges asking indirect questions, but if I’m really going to get confirmation, I’m going to have to go more directly to the heart of things. What I
can
do, though, is to let him think he’s getting away with lying to me when he’s not. I can probably pull a lot out of him that way—a lot more than we’d get voluntarily if he knew we were closing in on him.”

“That’s probably true, Ma’am,” Lecter said. “On the other hand, and with all due respect, you’re not really a trained interrogator.”

“No, I’m not. And your point is—?”

“Do you think it might be better to let someone who
is
a trained interrogator ask the questions and work with Alfredo? Someone who might pick up on some of the body cues you might miss and use what she picks up to guide her follow-on questions?”

Michelle considered thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged.

“You may have a point. In fact, you
do
have one. But I’m the one who’s worked with Alfredo so far, and I’m not sure we’ve got anyone else in Tenth Fleet who can actually read treecat sign. Aside from me and Cognasso, at any rate, and I doubt he’s a trained interrogator, either.”

“No, that’s true enough,” Lecter acknowledged.

“I still think it’s a good idea, though,” Michelle said. “In fact, I think it’s an excellent one. And workable, too.”

“How, Ma’am?”

“Simple.” Michelle shrugged again, this time with an evil smile. “We bug my cabin. We put in an audiovisual pickup without mentioning it to our guests. We park a trained interrogator in front of the monitors, and we give me a miniature earbug. The interrogator watches their expressions and body language, and if she sees anything, she passes it on to me over the earbug. Meanwhile, I ask the questions, and Alfredo sits on his perch behind my current victim and signs anything he picks up to me. What do you think?”

Lecter considered her reply. Michelle’s suggestion did seem to cover most of the bases. And, possibly more to the point, Lecter knew her admiral. Michelle Henke was going to do this herself. That was already settled, cast in stone, as far as the Countess of Gold Peak was concerned. So—

“I’m not certain it’s the absolutely best way to go about it, Ma’am, but I think it should work. In fact, it should work one hell of a lot better than any conventional interrogation technique I can come up with. And I’d really, really like to be able to find some additional confirmation of this Alignment’s existence. A
Solly
confirmation, not just something manufactured out of our Manticoran paranoia.”

“Oh, don’t forget the part that’s manufactured out of our Machiavellian Manticoran
imperialism
, either,” Michelle said sourly. “Still, I take your point. And I agree.”

“And best of all,” Lecter’s smile was every bit as evil as Michelle’s had been, “if we do it right?” She chuckled. “The bastards won’t even realize we’re onto them until we hand them over for trial. I can hardly
wait
to see their expressions then.”

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
un
official 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.”