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Face it, boy, he thought. A part of you damned well hopes they did find something. This resistance movement thing is no job for a man who's started to have more questions than answers.
Stephen Westman, Helen thought, really was a remarkably handsome man. She'd been concentrating more on what he had to say than what he looked like during their first meeting, but his sheer physical charisma had been evident even then. Today, in what was probably his best Stetson, and wearing one of the peculiar neck ornaments the Montanans called "bolos" with a jeweled slide in the form of a rearing black stallion that glittered in the sunlight, the tall, broad-shouldered man presented a truly imposing appearance.
Yet even as she acknowledged that, she sensed something different about him. Not any absence of assurance, but... something almost like that.
No, she thought slowly. That's not quite right. He looks like... like someone who's self-confident enough to admit to himself that he's no longer positive about something he thought he knew all about.
The instant the thought crossed her mind, she scolded herself for it. Wishful thinking wasn't what anyone needed just now, even from a lowly midshipwoman/"aide." She hoped the Captain and Mr. Van Dort were more resistant than she was to the temptation to read what she knew all of them wanted to see into the MIM founder's attitude.
"Captain Terekhov," the Montanan said, extending his hand in greeting. "Mr. Van Dort."
That really was different, Helen realized. He didn't seem particularly happy to see the Rembrandter, and there was still unconcealed dislike in his eyes, even if he did manage to keep it out of his expression. But the crackling undertone of hostility which had been so noticeable at their first meeting was far less pronounced this time.
"Mr. Westman," the Captain greeted him, then stood aside as Trevor Ba
"Trevor."
"Steve."
The two men nodded to one another, and Westman waved at the familiar tent.
"If y'all would care to step into my office?" he invited with just a trace of a mischievous smile.
"So," Westman said, laying his Stetson on a corner of the camp table and looking across it at his guests. "Trevor tells me you gentlemen believe you've discovered something I ought to know?" He smiled thinly. "I trust you'll both bear in mind that I'm going to be inclined to be just a mite suspicious about the altruism that brings you here."
"I'd be disappointed if you weren't," Aivars Terekhov said with an answering smile.
"Then I'd suggest you just fire away."
"Very well," Terekhov said without so much as a glance at Van Dort. It was Terekhov's Marines who'd turned up the evidence, after all. And there was no point in adding the additional barrier of Westman's personal antipathy for the Rembrandter to the equation.
"We know you've said-and, so far, at least, demonstrated by your actions-that you don't see yourself as the sort of outright terrorist Agnes Nordbrandt's decided to become."
Westman's lips tightened ever so slightly at the words "so far, at least," but he simply sat, waiting courteously, for Terekhov to continue.
"While we were in Split," the captain continued, watching the Montanan's face carefully, "we located one of Nordbrandt's base camps. One platoon of my Marines raided it. The FAK suffered very close to one hundred percent casualties, over a hundred of them fatal, in an operation which lasted about twenty minutes."
Westman's eyes narrowed, as if he realized Terekhov had deliberately underscored the speed and totality with which a single platoon of Captain Kaczmarczyk's Marines had demolished the Freedom Alliance base.
"Afterward, we discovered just over a thousand tons of modern, off-world weapons." Terekhov watched Westman's expression even more closely than before. "All of them were of Solarian manufacture, and in first-rate condition. Information from one of the captured terrorists indicated that they'd been supplied-very recently-to Nordbrandt through the offices of someone called 'Firebrand.'"
Trevor Ba
"When we were in Montana previously, Mr. Westman," Terekhov said quietly, "the name 'Firebrand' also came up here." Westman's eyes flickered again, although his expression itself might have been carved out of pleasantly attentive stone. "That suggests to me, Sir, that there's a closer association between you and your organization, on the one hand, and Agnes Nordbrandt and her organization, on the other, than you've previously implied."
Oh, he didn't like that one! Helen thought.
The expression which had given away so little turned -obsidian-hard, but even that was less flinty than his eyes. His nostrils flared as he inhaled a sharp, angry breath, but then he made himself stop, clearly reaching for self-control before he opened his mouth.
"There is no association between the Independence Movement and the FAK," he said then, icily, his casual Montanan ma
That's an interesting statement, Helen thought as her father's training kicked in. Mad as he is, he picked his words pretty carefully, I think. Especially that word "personally."
"One need not approve of someone's methods or tactics to work with them," the Captain pointed out. "In the end, though, the methods of those one is prepared to associate with, even if only indirectly, are likely to color one's own achievements." He held the Montanan's eyes levelly across the table. "And it might be well for you to consider who else might see an advantage in supporting the... aspirations of two people as different from one another as you and Agnes Nordbrandt."
"I could say the same of you, Captain," Westman replied, letting his eyes shift to Mr. Van Dort's face. "The fact that your Star Kingdom's seen fit to associate its policies with someone like the Trade Union strikes me as sufficient reason to question its ultimate objectives."
"I understand that." The Captain actually chuckled with what seemed genuine humor. "You made that clear enough the first time we met, Mr. Westman. I've done my best, as has Mr. Van Dort, for that matter, to answer your concerns on that head. But I strongly suggest you consider the scale of our find. We captured or destroyed a thousand tons of weapons, Mr. Westman-in one base. Whether we got all of them or not, I honestly can't say at this point, although I suspect it was probably the majority of those landed for her so far . But we know you invested in at least some weapons yourself before you went underground, so obviously, you've had to make your own contacts and come up with the cash to pay for them. Based on that experience, how likely do you think it is that the FAK managed to pay for that much modern hardware out of its own resources? And if it didn't, if someone's prepared to subsidize someone like Nordbrandt on the scale those weapons represent, what might his objectives be?"
Westman felt his shoulders tighten as the Manticoran's level-voiced questions recalled his own doubts about "Firebrand's" honesty.
You were never stupid enough to believe all he was spouting about how much of what he and his "Central Liberation Committee" were doing was based on "altruism," Stevie, he reminded himself. And it's not like you were signing up to follow him wherever he led. But still...
He made himself sit back in his chair, looking across the table at Terekhov, and inhaled deeply.
"And just who do you think might be prepared to -subsidize... someone like Nordbrandt?" he asked.
Not a muscle in Terekhov's face so much as twitched, but a fierce bolt of exultation ripped through him as Westman asked the question he'd prayed for.
"I'd start," he said calmly, "by considering who-aside from patriots such as yourself, of course-might think the Star Kingdom's presence in the Cluster was a bad thing. And I'd also ask myself who they might prefer to see here instead of the Star Kingdom. If whoever supplied Nordbrandt is also prepared to supply weapons to... someone else, on a similar scale, then the supplier must have both extensive resources and extensive contacts with those weapons' source."
He gazed into Westman's eyes, pausing, waiting with the same precision he would have used to time a missile salvo. Then-
"And I'd reflect on the fact that every one of those weapons, every round of ammunition, every bit of equipment, came from somewhere in the Solarian League."
I really, really never want to play cards against the Captain, Helen reflected as Hawk-Papa-One sliced across the boundary between Montana's indigo atmosphere and the still blackness of space.
She didn't know where or how it was all going to end, but the Captain had obviously gotten to Westman. Whether the Montanan would be able to step far enough back from his own commitment to Montanan independence to really consider what the Captain had suggested remained to be seen, but she suspected the odds were good.
Whether or not Westman would be prepared to give up his vendetta against the a