“I am indeed. It can’t afford to be trapped in the Commonwealth, especially if the Primes do succeed in wreaking havoc. When the war is at its very worst, it will try and return to its own kind. That’s when we must strike.”
“We’ll get the rest of your equipment through, don’t worry.”
“I don’t, Adam, I have a lot of confidence in you and your team. I just wish I could convince the rest of the Commonwealth. Perhaps I went about this the wrong way right from the start. But nobody believed me back then. I felt as though my back was to the wall. What else could I do but lash out physically? It was such a ridiculously human reaction, one which betrays how insecure we all are, how short the distance we’ve traveled from the old animal. Forming the Guardians to attack the Institute was such an instinctive reaction. Maybe I should have tried the political route.”
“Speaking of which, are you absolutely sure Elaine Doi is a Starflyer agent?”
Bradley leaned forward over the table. “That wasn’t us.”
“Excuse me?”
“A very well executed fake. I have to admit, the Starflyer is becoming quite sophisticated in its campaign against us. Physically, Bruce and his kind are causing a lot of expensive damage; while disinformation like that shotgun is damaging our credibility. Just when we were starting to attract a degree of media interest, not to mention political support. Still, I blame myself, I should have anticipated such a move.”
Adam finally sipped some of the Gifford’s champagne to help wash down a scone. “You know, that might have been a dangerous move on their part.”
“In what way?”
“If anyone was to investigate that shotgun properly, they might pick up some leads. The Starflyer might have exposed some of its operation to official scrutiny.”
“Worth considering. I certainly wasn’t going to issue a disclaimer. That would make us look really stupid in the public mind. In any case, I’m abandoning the propaganda shotguns anyway. We’re too close to the end now for them to make any real difference to general opinion.”
“Unless you can produce some absolute proof.”
“True.” Bradley seemed very undecided. “I suppose the Doi shotgun could do with some further inquiries.”
“I can’t spare anyone from my team, especially now you’ve recalled Stig.”
“Sorry about that, but I needed him back on Far Away. He’s developed into a damn good leader, for which I place full credit on your training.”
“So we have no one who can dig into the shotgun, see who put it together?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
***
Wilson said practically nothing on the journey back to the High Angel. He was lost in his virtual vision, pulling files from the navy intelligence Paris office, and reviewing the tight green text as it scrolled through the air in front of him.
“It went well,” Rafael said as the direct express slid out of Newark. “I expected us to take a much bigger beating than that. They are politicians, after all.”
“Doi was surprising,” Wilson admitted, rousing himself from Hogan’s report on the killing at LA Galactic. “I didn’t expect her to be quite as forthright as that.”
“She had to be. We need someone with balls at the top. Everybody there knew that. The Dynasties and Grand Families would have engineered a recall if she didn’t come up with positive noises. So, it looks like we’ll get the ships, then.”
“Yeah.”
Rafael shrugged at the lack of communication, and settled back to work through the files in his own virtual vision.
Wilson thought the account of how the killer got away was frankly unbelievable. If that was an example of how the Paris office operated, no wonder Rafael had fired Myo.
He looked through the spectral lines and columns and graphics to see Rafael sitting opposite him. The man was ambitious, yes, but no matter how ambitious and well connected you were, to reach his level you also had to be competent. Hogan was his placement, but Inspector Myo was renown across the Commonwealth. It didn’t seem like a move based purely on petty office politics. There was no prejudice or simple maneuvering. Myo hadn’t produced results. She had to go.
Yet she’d immediately been recruited into Senate Security—a move engineered by the Burnellis. And Justine had clashed with Rafael.
Wilson recalled the one previous time he’d met the Chief Investigator, amid the ruins of assessment hall seven on Anshun after the Guardians’ attack on Second Chance. She’d seemed quietly professional, easily living up to her reputation. And she certainly hadn’t acquired her seniority in the Directorate through family connections. She was frighteningly good at her job. Every case but one solved. Even now it seemed she was still working on that one, simply from a different angle, if he was reading the pattern right.
