War Of Honor

"Um." High Ridge frowned. He considered her argument, then nodded slowly, but his frown remained.

"I see your logic. But it's going to be hard to convince Marisa of it."

"Marisa!" Descroix snorted contemptuously.

"Yes, Marisa. Whatever you may think, we still need the Liberals, and when Marisa sees this—" he indicated the text of the note again "—it's going to be very difficult to convince her that we can't make at least some concessions. You and I may understand the necessity of not giving in, but she has to consider the more . . . unruly members of her party. Especially now that Montaigne is making so many waves in the Commons."

"In that case, don't show it to her," Descroix shot back. "She's so good at closing her eyes to things it would be inconvenient for her to see. Why not take advantage of that with this?"

"Don't think I wouldn't like to do exactly that. But everyone in the Star Kingdom knows by now that Pritchart's sent us a fresh note. And if we don't make its contents public, in at least general terms, you can be certain that someone—Grosclaude himself, most probably—will see to it that a copy of the original gets leaked to the Opposition. And the 'faxes. But before we make anything public, we're going to have to share the original with the entire Cabinet. Which means Marisa."

"Let me think about that for a little while," Descroix said after a moment. "You're probably right. I don't much like the thought of listening to her piss and moan about her precious 'principles' and the potential danger of Theisman's new fleet. God knows she's been willing enough to share the advantages of stalling the talks! I just think it would be nice if she were willing to shoulder a little of the responsibility, maybe even risk getting her own lily-white hands just a tiny bit soiled doing the dirty work someone has to do. But that doesn't make you wrong about what would happen if we didn't brief her in on this."

The Foreign Secretary gazed off into the distance for several seconds, staring at something only she could see, then snorted softly.

"You know," she mused, "you and I are the only members of the Cabinet who have actually seen this thing."

"That's exactly what we've just been talking about, isn't it?" High Ridge's brow furrowed in confusion, and she chuckled.

"Of course it is. But it's just occurred to me that there's no reason I couldn't do a little judicious scissors work on Pritchart's more . . . objectionable turns of phrase before I handed it to someone like Marisa."

High Ridge looked at her in shock. She gazed back at him, then grimaced.

"Let's not start getting holier than thou, Michael!"

"But—I mean, falsifying diplomatic notes—"

"No one's talking about falsifying anything," she interrupted. "I wouldn't insert a single word. For that matter, I wouldn't even change any of them. I'd just . . . prune out a few passages completely."

"And if Pritchart publishes the text herself?"

"I vote we cross that bridge when we come to it. If we release a paraphrase that conveys the same basic information but without using her hardline language, she'll probably let it go. My sense is that she'd cut us some face-saving slack in that regard. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong." She shrugged. "Be honest, Michael. Do you really think we'd have a lot more trouble holding Marisa if Pritchart published the entire text later than if we showed it to her ourselves right now?"

"Probably not," he conceded finally. "But I don't like this, Elaine. Not a bit."

"I don't like it very much myself; I just like the alternatives less."

"Even if it works, it's only a temporary fix," he pointed out fretfully.

"As I see it, those poll trend lines you were just talking about suggest that if we can string Pritchart along for a few more months, long enough to actually push the Lynx a

"There's a lot of 'if's' in that," the Prime Minister observed.

"Of course there are. We're in a hell of a mess right now. There's no point pretending we're not. From where I sit, this gives us our best chance of getting out of it. So either we take it, or else we go ahead and resign the game. And when you come right down to it, whether we show Marisa the complete note now—and risk her withdrawal from the Coalition—or hold off on it until Pritchart sends us another, even nastier one a few months from now, the consequences are pretty much the same, aren't they? We win, or we lose . . . and I'm not all that interested in losing. So let's go for the whole nine meters."

Chapter Thirty Nine

"It's good to see you, Arnold," Eloise Pritchart lied as a member of the Presidential Security Detachment escorted Secretary of State Giancola into her office.

"Thank you, Madame President. It's always good to see you, too," Giancola replied equally smoothly for the benefit of the bodyguard. Not that anyone Kevin Usher had handpicked to protect the President of the Republic was going to be fooled by the surface exchange of pleasantries. Still, there were appearances to maintain.

The Secretary of State seated himself in the same chair Thomas Theisman preferred for his visits to Pritchart's office, and the PSD man withdrew.

"Would you care for some refreshments?" Pritchart inquired.

"No, thank you." Giancola grimaced. "I'm going straight from here to a di

Pritchart laughed, and somewhat to her own surprise, her amusement was genuine. It was a real pity she couldn't trust Giancola as far as she could spit. Much as she disliked the man, and distrusted him, she wasn't unaware of the charm and magnetism he could exude whenever it suited his purposes.

"Well, in that case, I suppose we should get down to business," she said after a moment, and there was no more temptation to humor in her voice.

"Yes, I suppose we should," he agreed, and cocked his head at her. "May I assume you've already read my report?"

"I have." Pritchart frowned. "And I can't say I much cared for it, either."

"I don't much care for my conclusions myself," he told her, only partly truthfully.

"From the tone of Descroix's note, it sounds as if their position's actually hardening." Pritchart regarded him intently. "Is that your conclusion, as well?"

"It is," he replied. "Of course," he added in a voice which carried just a hint of satisfaction, "I may be a bit predisposed in that direction, given my earlier analysis of the Manties' foreign policy priorities."

"It's always good to be aware of the way expectations can sometimes lead us astray," Pritchart observed pleasantly.

Their eyes locked for just a moment. The challenge hovered there in the air between them, and the office seemed to hum with tension. But the moment was brief. Neither of them maintained any illusions about their relationship, but neither was quite ready for an open declaration of war, either.