Shadow of Freedom

Michelle had gazed attentively at—and past—him while he was speaking. She’d watched Alfredo the entire time, and the treecat had sat upright on his perch, his full attention focused on Montview. Now he looked away from the prime minister, directly at Michelle, and nodded slowly.

“In that case, Mr. Prime Minister,” Michelle said, “I think it would be a good thing if you could arrange a direct meeting between me and the King, don’t you?”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I think we should have another little chat with Vice Commissioner Hongbo, Ma’am,” Cynthia Lecter said.

“Not exactly the most enjoyable thing I could imagine doing,” Michelle Henke replied dryly.

She reached out a long arm for the coffee carafe and replenished her cup. Then she sat back on her own side of the breakfast table, nursing the cup in both hands, and regarded her chief of staff through the wisp of steam rising from the black liquid. They’d been in the Meyers System for over two T-weeks now, and things had been going smoothly enough to make her nervous. In her experience, the calmer and more orderly things seemed, the more likely it was thatsomething was lurking just beneath the surface to leap out and bite one on the posterior. And since Lecter was still wearing the intelligence officer’s hat as well as the chief of staff’s hat, she was the one responsible for digging under that surface and finding the lurker before it struck.

“I presume you have a specific reason for that suggestion?” Michelle asked after a moment, and Lecter nodded.

“We’re turning up some things I’d like to try on him.” The chief of staff was a fidgeter, and she picked up her grapefruit spoon, twirling it between the thumb and first two fingers of her right hand while she spoke. “I think he could tell us a few things we’d really like to know.”

“I’m sure he could be a fount of information on any number of subjects.” Michelle shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “He was second in command of an entire protectorate sector. Somebody like that’s bound to know where a lotof bodies are buried.”

“I know.” Lecter thumped the bowl of the spoon on the white breakfast tablecloth, drumming gently. “The thing is, we’re picking up some suggestions that he might have what you could call a friendly relationship with Manpower and Mesa in general.”

“And?” Michelle’s eyes narrowed.

“I know that’s hardly surprising.” Lecter grimaced. “I sometimes think the majority of Frontier Security officials have ‘friendly relationships’ with Manpower. Hell, Ma’am, they’ve got ‘friendly relationships’ with every dirty transstellar! After all, it’s the illegal transstellars—like Manpower and the rest of that bunch in Mesa—that pay the best when they manage to put somebody in their pocket.”

“Exactly. So what is it about Hongbo that suggests we should pay special attention to him?”

“Well, with Kowalski helping to point the way, our friends here in Pine Mountain have managed to break into a lot of people’s financial records. Specifically, they’re well on their way to opening up virtually all of Hongbo’s, Verrocchio’s, Palgani’s, and Kasomoulis’ private little books, and there’s some interesting reading in there.”

“No! Really?” Michelle said dryly, and Lecter chuckled.

Saverio Palgani was—or had been, at any rate, prior to Tenth Fleet’s arrival—the Meyers System manager for Brindle Star, Ltd., of Hirochi. His position in the sector capital meant he’d actually been in charge of all of Brindle Star’s operations in the entire Madras Sector, which had made him a very big fish, indeed.

Theophilia Kasomoulis had fulfilled the same role for Newman & Sons, headquartered in the Core System of Eris, and Brindle Star and Newman & Sons had divided most of the Madras Sector between themselves as their private possession. Brindle Star controlled effectively the entire sector’s interstellar shipping and financial transactions, while Newman & Sons controlled resource extraction and consumer manufacturing and distribution. Palgani and Kasomoulis were undoubtedly the two wealthiest individuals in the entire Meyers System, but Michelle had to admit they seemed to have been less rapacious than their counterparts in many another protectorate star system. Apparently they’d at least been enlightened enough to realize that while the sort of slash-and-burn exploitation practiced in other portions of the Verge might return a higher short-term profit, long-term profitability required at least a modicum of local prosperity.

Not that that made them any great paragons of virtue, she reminded herself.