Shadow of Freedom-eARC (62 page)

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 he
was 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.”