Mission of Honor-ARC (35 page)

"Together?" Pritchart, Honor noted, didn't sound particularly incredulous.

"Together." Honor nodded. "Which means that while Captain Zilwickiwas on Mesa, a point of which the Mesans obviously became aware, he was definitely
not
there on a Ballroom terrorist operation. Given the various . . . peculiarities where Torch is concerned, I think it's very likely the Ballroom was involved in getting them onto Mesa in the first place. And it's entirely possible that what happened in Green Pines was actually a Ballroom operation, or the result of one. The last thing Captain Zilwicki or Special Officer Cachat would have wanted would have been to compromise their own mission by becoming involved in a major terrorist strike, however, so any involvement they may have had must have been peripheral. Accidental, really."

"I can see that." Pritchart nodded slowly, and Honor reminded herself that, unlike most heads of state, the president had once been a senior commander in a clandestine resistance movement. That undoubtedly helped when it came to grasping the underlying logic of covert operations.

"I don't know for certain why Mesa's made no mention of Special Officer Cachat," Honor said. "It may be they aren't aware he was even present. More probably, the Star Empire's who they really want to damage with this at the moment. Explaining that intelligence operatives of two star nations who've been at war with one another for over twenty years just decided on a whim to join forces with the Ballroom would probably be a bit much even for the Sollies public's credulity. The best-case possibility, of course, would be that they
weren't
aware of his presence and that he actually managed, somehow, to escape."

"And Captain Zilwicki?" Prichard asked gently.

"And I very much doubt Captain Zilwicki did." Honor made no effort to hide her pain at that thought. "They wouldn't have handed this to the media—especially not with the assertion that he was killed in one of 'his own' explosions—unless they
knew
he was dead."

"I'm deeply and sincerely sorry to hear that," Pritchart said, and Honor tasted the truth of her statement in her mind glow.

"The important point, Madam President," Honor said, "is that I think you can see from what I've just told you that everything Mesa's claiming is a fabrication. There are probably nuggets of truth buried in it, but I doubt we'll ever know what they actually were. From my perspective, the immediate and critical point is to keep this from sidetracking our negotiations. I don't doubt it presents opportunities for self-interested parties to go fishing in troubled waters," she carefully did not mention any specific names, "but it would be very unfortunate if someone managed to derail these talks. In particular, if Mesa's allegations play into the situation between the Star Empire and the Solarian League in a way that heightens tensions still farther or even leads to additional military action, Queen Elizabeth's flexibility where a negotiated settlement is concerned is likely to be compromised."

She saw the understanding in Pritchart's eyes, tasted it in the president's mind glow, but she knew it had to be said out loud, as well.

"It may well be that at least part of Mesa's objective is to do just that, Madam President. Manpower certainly has as much reason to hate the Republic as it does to hate the Star Empire. I could readily believe that someone in Mendel saw this as an opportunity to force the Star Empire's hand where military operations against the Republic are concerned as well as a means to provoke an open war between us and the League.And I think"—she gazed into Pritchart's eyes again—"that it would be a tragedy if they succeeded."

"I have to agree with Duchess Harrington," Thomas Theisman said as the imagery from Sheila Thiessen's personal recorder came to an end. He tipped back in his chair, eyes pensive. "It
would
be a tragedy."

"Especially if she's telling the truth," Leslie Montreau agreed. "Of course, that's one of the major rubs, isn't it?
Is
she telling the truth?" The secretary of state shrugged. "It all hangs together, and I'm inclined to think she is, but you have to admit, Tom. It would be very convenient from her perspective if we bought into this notion that Mesa's version of Green Pines is a completely fabricated effort at disinformation."

"You're right," Pritchart acknowledged, and looked at Denis LePic. The attorney general had been sitting there with a peculiar expression while the imagery replayed, and now she crooked an eyebrow at him.

"Why is it, Denis," she asked shrewdly, "that you don't seem any more astonished than you do to hear Duchess Harrington's version of one of your senior intelligence officer's perambulations about the galaxy?"

"Because I'm not," LePic admitted in tones of profound resignation.

"Wait a minute." Theisman looked at the attorney general—who also ran the Republic's civilian intelligence services—in obvious surprise. "You're telling me you really didn't even know where Cachat was? I mean, he really did take himself off to a Manty flagship in the middle of a war without even
mentioning
the possibility he might do something like that? Forgive me, but isn't he the man in charge of all FIS operations in Erewhon
and
Congo?"

"Yes," LePic sighed. "And, no, he didn't mention anything sort to me. Of course, I didn't
know
we didn't know where he was until this afternoon. Not until Eloise asked me to verify Duchess Harrington's story, at any rate. For all I know—or all I can prove, anyway—he might've been ambushed and devoured by space hamsters!" The attorney general's expression was that of a man whose patience had been profoundly tried. "And I'm fairly confident no one in Wilhelm's shop's been covering up for him, either.
No one
knew where he'd gone—not even Kevin."

Montreau had joined the secretary of war in looking at LePic in disbelief. Pritchart, on the other hand, only sat back in her chair with the air of a woman confronting the inevitable.

"And how long has this state of affairs obtained?" Theisman asked politely. "I mean, in the Navy, we like to have our station commanders and our task force commanders report in occasionally. Just so we've got some notion of what they're up to, you understand."

"Very funny," LePic said sourly. Then he looked at Pritchart. "You know Kevin's been rubbing off on Cachat from the very beginning. By now, I don't know which of them's the bigger loose warhead! If it weren't for the fact the two of them keep producing miracles, I'd fire both of them, if only to get rid of the anxiety quotient."

"I often felt that way about Kevin when we were in the Resistance," Pritchart admitted. "But, as you say, both our pet lunatics have that annoying habit of coming through in the crunch. On the other hand, I believe you were about to tell Tom how long Cachat's been incommunicado?"

"Actually, I was trying to
avoid
telling him," LePic admitted, and smiled even more sourly. "The truth is that it tracks entirely too well with what Alexander-Harrington's had to say. Our last report from him is over six T-months old."

"
What?
" Montrose sat abruptly upright. "One of your station chiefs has been missing for
six months
, and you don't have a clue where he's gone?"

"I know it sounds ridiculous," LePic said more than a little defensively. "In fact, I asked Wilhelm very much that same question this afternoon. He
says
he hadn't mentioned it to me because he couldn't have told me anything very much, since
he
didn't know very much. I'm inclined to believe that's the truth, mostly. Actually, though, I think a lot of the reason he kept his mouth shut was that he was hoping Cachat would turn back up again before anyone asked where he was." The attorney general shrugged. "In a lot of ways, I can't fault Wilhelm's thinking. After all, he's the FIS's director. Cachat reports to him, not me, and as a general rule, I don't even try to keep up with Wilhelm's operations unless they develop specific, important intelligence that's brought to my attention. And as Wilhelm pointed out, it's not as if this were the first time Cachat's just dropped off the radar, and he's always produced results when it's happened in the past."

"But if someone else has gotten their hands on him, Denis, isn't he in a position to do enormous damage?" Theisman asked very seriously.

"Yes and no," LePic replied. "First of all, I think—as Duchess Harrington's description of
her
conversation with him indicates—it would be extraordinarily difficult for sometone to take him alive to start with. Abd, second, I doubt anyone would get anything out of Victor Cachat under duress even if they did manage to capture him. I don't know if you've ever met the man, Tom, but, believe me, he's about as scary as they come. Think of Kevin Usher with less of a sense of humor, just as much principle a
lot
closer to the surface, and even more focus."

Theisman obviously found that description more than a little disturbing, and this time LePic's smile held a glimmer of amusement.

"On the other hand, no one's going to rely on even Cachat's ability to resist rigorous interrogation forever. His assistant station chief in Erewhon is Special Officer Sharon Justice. She's acting as special-officer-in-charge until Cachat gets back, and Wilhelm tells me that on Cachat's specific instructions, one of her first acts as SOIC was to change all communication protocols. Somebody might be able to get the identities of at least some of his sources out of him—I doubt it, frankly, but anything is possible—but I don't think anyone's likely to be able to compromise his entire network with Justice in charge."

"Justice. She was one of the StateSec officers involved in that business at La Martine, wasn't she?" Pritchart said thoughtfully.

"She was," LePic agreed.

"Which means she's going to feel a powerful sense of personal loyalty to Cachat," Pritchart pointed out.

"She does." LePic nodded. "On the other hand, everything Cachat's accomplished out there's been done on the basis of personal relationships." The attorney general shrugged. "I won't pretend I don't wish the man could operate at least a
little
more by The Book, but no one can argue with his results. Or the fact that he's probably got more penetration—at secondhand, perhaps, but still penetration—into the Manties than anyone else we've got, given his relationship with Ruth Winton and Anton Zilwicki. Not to mention the fact that he's damned near personally responsible for the
existence
of Torch."

"I know. That's why I took him away from Kevin and gave him to Wilhelm," Pritchart said. "On the other hand, it does sound like what little we
do
know corroborates Duchess Harrington's version of events."

"I think so," LePic agreed with the air of a man who didn't really want to admit any such thing. "At any rate, Cachat's last report did say he'd concluded that since
we
weren't involved in the attempt on Queen Berry, it had to have been someone else, and that the someone else in question had motives which were obviously inimical to the Republic. He'd reached that conclusion, I might add, even before we'd learned here in Nouveau Paris that the attempt had been made. By the time his report reached Wilhelm, he'd already pulled the plug, handed over to Justice, and disappeared."

"As in disappeared aboard a Manticoran flagship at Trevor's Star with a suicide device in his pocket just in case, you mean? That sort of 'disappeared'?"

"Yes, Madam President," LePic said a bit more formally than was his wont.

Pritchart gazed at him for several seconds, swinging her chair gently from side to side. Then she snorted.

"My, my, my," she murmured with a crooked smile. "Only Victor Cachat. Now that Kevin's out of the field, anyway."

"You're telling us," Montreau said, speaking with the careful precision of someone determined to make certain they really had heard correctly, "that one of FIS's
station chiefs
really went, with a known Manticoran intelligence operative, to a star system the Manties have declared a closed military reservation, for a personal conversation with the
commanding officer
of their Eighth Fleet
before
the Battle of Lovat? And then went off on a completely unauthorized operation to Mesa? Which apparently ran right into the middle of whatever really happened at Green Pines?"

LePic only nodded, and Montreau sat back in her chair with an expression of utter disbelief.

"Actually, it makes sense, you know," Theisman said thoughtfully after a moment.

"Makes
sense?
" Montreau repeated incredulously.

"From what I know of Cachat—although I hasten to admit it's all second or thirdhand, since I've never met him personally—he spends a lot of time operating by intuition. In fact, any way you look at it, a huge part of those successes Denis was just talking about have resulted from a combination of that intuitition with the personal contacts and relationships he's established And you've met Alexander-Harrington now, Leslie. If you were going to reach out to a highly placed member of an enemy star nation's political and military establishment because you were convinced someone was trying to sabotage peace talks between us and them, could
you
think of a better person to risk contacting?"

Montreau started to reply, then stopped, visibly thought for a moment or two, and shook her head, almost against her will.

"I'm willing to bet that was pretty much Cachat's analysis," LePic agreed with a nod. "And, if it was, it obviously worked, given Duchess Harrington's evident attitude towards the negotiations. Not only that, but it set up the situation in which she brought us her version of what really happened on Mesa."

His three listeners looked at one another with suddenly thoughtful expressions.

"You know, Denis," Theisman said in a gentler tone, "if he's been out of contact this long, the most likely reason is that he and Zilwicki were both killed on Mesa."

"I do know," LePic admitted. "On the other hand, this is Victor Cachat we're talking about. And he and Zilwick are both—or at least
were
both—very competent operators. They almost certainly built firebreaks into and between their covers, whatever they were, on Mesa, not to mention multiple escape strategies. So it really is possible Zilwicki could have gone down without Mesa's ever realizing Cachat was there. And if the two of them were deep enough under, especially somewhere as far away as the Mesa System, three or four months—or even longer—isn't all that long a lag in communications. Not from a covert viewpoint, at least. I don't know about Manticore or the Ballroom, but
we
don't have any established conduits between here and Mesa, so his communications would have been circuitous at the very least, and probably a lot less than secure. And don't forget—it's been less than four months since Green Pines. If he did avoid capture, he might have been forced to lie low on the planet for quite a while before he could work out a way to get back out again. And if that's the case, he damned well wouldn't have trusted any conduit he could jury-rig to get reports back to us just so we wouldn't worry about him! For all I know, he's on his way home right this minute!"