Ghost War mda-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  “Mr. Donelly, Sam, you have given much too much.”

  “My lady, this is in keeping with my agreement with Quam.”

  She fixed me with a hard-eyed stare. “Sam, this is a lot of money.”

  “I have more than enough left over you know.” I smiled. “I appreciate your concern, but I am doing well right now. And if I decide to give more, you’ll not protest, right?”

  “Ahem. I spend my days dealing with people who have unrealistic expectations and ideas about money. You’ve won what anyone would consider to be a life-changing amount of money. I just want you to be one of the success stories.”

  “Oh, I’m a survivor.”

  “Okay, I’ll take you at your word. But I won’t play cards with you.” She softened her expression. “And if there is anything I can do for you…”

  “You can answer a question.”

  A hint of fear flashed through her eyes for a moment, then she nodded. “Anything.”

  “Quam gave me his perspective on the nature of the disagreement between you and your father. Is your father’s opinion of people really that harsh?”

  Bianca’s brows furrowed. “It wasn’t always, but it has changed over the years. My uncle Ivan and my mother both used to soften his opinions, but after they died, he relied more on Bernard. You see, my grandfather was a MechWarrior who fought for Victor Steiner-Davion, and then threw in with Devlin Stone. He wanted peace so his sons would never have to pilot ’Mechs, and this was good because my father was singularly bad at it. Bernard, on the other hand, is very good. So is Teyte. Growing up in a time of peace, they’ve harkened back to the Davion warrior tradition from before The Republic—this despite Basalt being blessed with a lot of peace and prosperity over the last three centuries. We weren’t entirely without combat—what world has been—but fate has been very good to Basalt. As my father has worked with Bernard to train him to rule in his stead, Bernard’s influence has grown steadily.”

  “I skinned your brother and cousin both. Bernard is not exactly the sort of compassionate ruler I’d want over me.”

  “He wasn’t always like that, and I hope he will get back to being himself. He was a happy child. It was his idea that I start the Basalt Foundation. I like working with the Foundation because there is lots of organization to deal with, and I can make a difference. Coordinating things during a disaster is hectic, but I get things done and it feels great.” The rising tone of her voice and the light burning in those blue eyes underscored her words. “Here and there we get to ease some burdens for some people.”

  “You do it well by all accounts.”

  “You are too kind. I just want to do better and more.” She shrugged. “What is your ambition, Sam?”

  “Same as yours, I think. I like the idea of making life better for folks.”

  “And you do that by robbing them blind at poker?”

  I smiled. “Well, sometimes you have to make them look at what they value, and encourage them to take steps to preserve or abandon same. How well you react to adversity reveals the strength of your character. Some folks turn out to be stronger than they think.”

  “And the others?”

  “They’re a headstone shy of discovering they’ve got nothing.”

  I left Bianca with Quam and returned to the Grand Germayne. I placed a call to the cutout and within two hours of my return I was sitting in a nondescript bar with Gypsy. I filled him in on relevant details of the weekend, then quickly outlined a strike. We organized the operation swiftly that night and then, the next evening, we executed it flawlessly.

  The Heights district of Manville was located in the southeast quadrant. It had grown up around the Germayne palace and featured some of the finest homes in the city. Because these homes were built on the sides of hills well above the level of the rivers, water was pumped up to the tops of the hills to reservoirs, then gravity served to provide suitable water pressure to deal with the citizenry’s needs.

  Our operation consisted of three separate actions. The first involved setting fire to the wooden framing for a seventy-four-thousand-square-decimeter mansion on Beryl Road. While rain had soaked the wood, suitable application of accelerant started a merry blaze that was visible from most of the city. An alarm immediately went out and fire crews from two station houses reported to fight the blaze.

  The second stage of the operation, in which I participated directly, involved the blowing of two pumping stations that sent water up to the reservoirs. Bolt cutters got us through the lock holding the gate shut. A code-cutter used some arcane device to pull the lock code from the pump house door, then fed it back and got us inside. We rigged explosives to both the pump, since replacing it would be tough, and the pipe on the downhill side of things.

  Once we’d wired our station, the team and I pulled out and blew it. Because it was night, it was possible to see a tiny flash, but even in the news Tri-Vid of the fire coverage, the explosions of the pump houses are barely noticeable. The effect of the explosions, however, aside from requiring the replacement of two relatively expensive pumps, was to have a lot of water gushing around. The water cut through a roadway and gnawed the foundation of another mansion.

  Because we couldn’t possibly hide the damage to the pump houses, we decided to go for a trifecta and also blew up one of the two firehouses from whence the firefighters had responded. The team that took it out stole a liquefied natural gas hovertruck, drove it through the closed garage door, then detonated it after the crew had gotten clear.

  Now that explosion showed up very well on a Tri-Vid. It leveled the building and left the wreckage burning brightly. The blackened skeleton of the hovertruck, with the ribs of its skirts looking like cilia on some twisted insect, was impressive. To make the whole thing a bit more complicated, the first fire was drawing enough water out of the fire hydrants that the company fighting the firehouse blaze had a tough time getting suitable pressure.

  Because news organizations were putting out reports as fast as they could field rumors, and because the fires could be seen from elsewhere in the city, the media went into high gear. Pundits claimed everything from it being an accident to the work of subversive Clan agents bent on completing the conquest of the Inner Sphere. Newscasters started by being very grave about the goings on, but when the majority of damage was limited to buildings that put no one out of their homes, they grew calmer.

  The citizenry had a variety of reactions, all captured and broadcast live over multiple channels. What played very well was Tri-Vid of rich Heights residents who had low water pressure using buckets to harvest water from their pools. Their panic over not being able to water their flowers, or having to shut off their interior waterfall features pointed up how out of touch they were. While some newsies did note that the lack of fresh water could become a health concern, even they cracked a smile when watching Tri-Vid of a doyen in a sequined gown kneeling at the edge of a pool and drinking alongside her two lapping hounds.

  The people in the street felt some vindication as barely a week before they’d been unhomed by a catastrophe that had left the rich untouched and decidedly unsympathetic. Some people did fill up jugs of water and run them up to the Heights in neighborly gestures, but a lot of others just sneered. As one man pointed out, “They’re worrying about water on a world where, in another fifteen minutes, it’ll be pouring so hard you can’t see three meters in front of your face. It’s not a desert.”

  The Germayne government fared very badly, since the Count and many of his Ministers happened to be ensconced at the Emblyn Palace when the disaster struck. Ring immediately jetted back and did what he could to help out. He arrived two hours before the Count, and rumors had it that Hector had waited until someone could hunt Bernard and Teyte down in a Capellan brothel in Contressa and sober them up. One news-wag noted that Bernard had “diddled while his home burned,” and everyone who caught the allusion to Nero agreed it was on point.

  Bernard just found the word “diddled” entertaining.

/>   The government did point out that the three events were related and clearly were acts of terrorism. Linkage was made with the whole sewer system problem, again citing the blown gates there. The forensics folks did aptly point out that the same explosive was used, and that the placement pointed to professionals, but government critics turned around and suggested that the government was behind the second set of attacks, to bolster the claims they had made about the first, and to elicit sympathy for the rich. The fact that so many of the well-to-do in the government were at the Emblyn Palace did make the idea of a government conspiracy sound good.

  And, as one commoner put it, “How come we had to clean up stuff, and they’re just reduced to drinking their bottled water and their wine? Where’s the justice in that?”

  Bianca and Emblyn came off as the big winners in the whole aftermath. Emblyn had his own crews come and help make repairs to the pumping stations. He even brought in a pump that was supposed to be used at the Emblyn Palace to make a fountain. Since the Palace’s reception had been part of the shake-out month and the place had another six weeks before opening, the sacrifice was not that huge, but the symbol endeared him to many folks.

  Bianca won because of the news angle of one of the rich doing things for her beleaguered brethren, especially when they were the ones normally giving to charity. Many were the rich who, upon receipt of a case of bottled water, waxed eloquent on the nature of The Republic, and how charity was so appropriate for the citizenry. They said they would give more and do more, and many even volunteered to help the Foundation do the sweaty work of delivering things to others less fortunate than they—by which they meant those living lower down.

  Throughout it all, Bianca was gracious and positive. She credited the hard work of the volunteers and some very generous donations she’d gotten that weekend as the reasons things were going so smoothly. Newsies had a hard time keeping up with her, and she really did appear to be in her element, which brought a smile to my face.

  LIT was working better than I expected, primarily because we picked the right targets and had the benefit of timing. Resentment over Bernard’s actions and the Count’s policies toward the poor had already started things simmering. This just brought it out into the open. The next strike would have to be against an economic target, like JPG. At least, that was the plan.

  The problem was that LIT had not counted on having someone like Bernard in the mix on the other side, with a whole cadre of warriors ready to go. It struck me that he was likely to act out in some way. That could heat things up and he was unpredictable enough that I didn’t want to leave him alone. If he was an agent of chaos, I wanted to focus him.

  There was only one way I could do that.

  I headed for the Egg.

  29

  No man can serve two masters.

  —Matthew 6:24

  Manville, Capital District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  12 February 3133

  One aspect of my training as a Ghost Knight had to do with observation. That makes sense, of course, since most of the time I was gathering information. That’s best done with your mouth shut, just watching folks and listening to the differences between what they tell you, and what they actually do. When you find a disconnect between the two, you know where to start pushing.

  More important than all that, though, is self-observation. There are great little tricks to it. For example, you take a normal breath and hold it until your lungs begin to burn for oxygen. The object isn’t to see how long you can hold your breath, but just to know how much time passes until you feel that fire. Twenty seconds, thirty, it doesn’t matter except as a measure of time.

  When I walked into the Egg I stopped where I had before and just stopped breathing. I wanted to see how long it would take before I was noticed and Alba was sent for. I didn’t want to appear concerned or anxious, so I wasn’t going to look at my watch. I just held my breath and waited for the burn.

  Of course, an added benefit of this method of timing was that I didn’t have to breathe in there. I thought at first that the whole sewer backup thing might have been the source of the problem, then I recalled that it was only the west side that was affected. A shortage of washing-up water could have explained some of it, too, but we were nowhere near the Heights.

  I can’t say the tension was palpable, but the nervous stink was. The pilots there were irritated. Worse yet, they were bored. A chance comment could have started a brawl that would have wrecked the place. It wouldn’t improve the decor, and I doubted it would do much for the stench.

  After a minute and a half Alba arrived from a back room and smiled at me. “I was wondering when you’d be back.”

  “I was asking about, as you suggested. I’ve seen the opposition.”

  She nodded. “Follow me.”

  I did and she led me through a side door and up some stairs. Down a hallway and to the left we entered a small office that had been supplied with Clan War surplus and likely hadn’t been painted since before the Blakist uprising. In fact, the newest item in the place sat on her desk.

  It was a small holoprojector and hovering eighteen centimeters high was an image of yours truly, slowly rotating. She followed my gaze, then looked up and smiled. “It was given to me by someone who wants you very dead.”

  “What’s the price?”

  “Fifty K.”

  “I’ll beat it.”

  Alba shook her head, then sat, and waved me to the chair opposite her desk. “Don’t bother. I’m a warrior, not a hit man.”

  I sat. “Has to be Bernie. Teyte would do the job himself.”

  She smiled carefully. “You’re insightful. I can’t tell if you know or you’re bluffing, but I’ll confirm neither.”

  “But we’ll find out soon enough since someone downstairs let the contract issuer know I was here. Actually, you made the call, otherwise I’d just be a body waiting for delivery.” I stretched. “I wonder how we could pass the time until they get here.”

  “Profitably, but not the way I might prefer. We have twenty minutes.”

  “Not enough time, I agree, so why don’t I tell you why I came here.”

  “Please.”

  “Since this comes from a security Tri-Vid from the Palace, you know I’ve met Emblyn. He’s taken credit for something I did and, therefore, he is a jerk and has earned my ire. He must pay, and I know exactly how that can be accomplished.”

  I proceeded to tell Alba all about LIT. I stressed the focus on targets that are a serious capital loss to the owner. Unlike the Cat, the former Lament grasped the philosophy immediately and saw the possibilities behind it. She nodded sagely as I showed how a government couldn’t fight it.

  Her eyes narrowed. “The one vulnerability here is an ancient one. Hannibal used it against the Romans. He fought on their territory. The only way to make someone like Emblyn stop is to make victory too costly for him. The government has obvious targets to hit, but he does as well—and he has no established constituency. If he were to be hit he might get some initial sympathy, but people will be reminded how rich he is, and that is seldom an endearing trait unless his money is being spent on you.”

  Her gaze flicked to the doorway, giving me a moment’s warning. Even as Bernard surged through the door with hands outstretched and fingers clawed, I was up and out of my metal-frame chair. With a snap of my wrist I spun it into his path. He barked his shins on it, stumbled and went down hard.

  I whirled and my right leg snapped out in a kick that caught Teyte on the left side of his head. The laces cut his cheek and tore at his earlobe. The kick snapped his head around. He smacked hard into the door jamb, then staggered back. He tripped over Bernard’s legs and crashed down. He struck his head on the floor and sprawled there, unconscious and bleeding.

  I grabbed Bernie by the collar and dragged him into a chair. “Sit. Stay, or you and your cousin will be comparing kicks to the head.” I righted my chair and pulled it bac
k where I could watch all three of them.

  Bernard snarled at Alba. “You bitch, you ambushed us.”

  Her nostrils flared dismissively. “It was self-defense. You picked a fight with someone who has already kicked your tail, and you just got it kicked again. It’s a good thing he did it, too, because if he hadn’t, I would have been forced to.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

  “Very well, thank you. And you’re talking to the person you’ve hired to make certain you will inherit your father’s throne. Mr. Donelly has just given us the means to fight against your enemy and, curiously enough, to deal with others who might come along. He’s told me everything the other side is doing and we have a way to fight it. Judiciously managed, the whole crisis might also prompt your father to step down in your favor, far sooner than you ever expected.”

  Bernie looked from her to me and back again. “Him? But he’s working for Emblyn.”

  “Which would somehow make me immune to the fact that he’s a conceited jerk?” I snorted at him. “Of course, I think the same of you, but you were born to it. He’s no better than me, but has airs and that just doesn’t go down well. Besides, what I skinned from you is more than he’ll ever pay me, and he’s probably scheming to get it back from me now.”

  “That’s true. There isn’t a credit that’s passed through his hands that doesn’t have his thumbprint etched on Stone’s cheek.” Bernard rubbed at his shins. “How is it that we get to Emblyn?”

  I held my hands up. “First thing you do is tell me how much you’re paying me.”

  “I’ve already given you a lot of money.”

  “And I earned every pebble of it. We’re talking more. I’ll earn it, too.”

  “You’ll get paid.” Bernard’s sneer returned. “Once I’m running Basalt, you’ll get yours.”

  I glanced at Alba. “You working on promises?”