At All Costs

"But... but my cousin Jean-Claude is-was-Arnold's security chief," Nesbitt protested. "I can't believe Arnold could've managed something like this without Jean-Claude at least suspecting." He looked at Montreau. "Leslie? Have you found anything at State to support all these allegations?"

Montreau looked acutely uncomfortable. Despite her position in the official hierarchy, she was the newest member of the Cabinet, and she cleared her throat a bit nervously.

"No, I haven't," she said. "On the other hand, Tony, it never would have occurred to me to look for any evidence of such... incredible criminal activities. I will say this, however," she added reluctantly. "The security measures in place at State may still be a bit too much like the ones the Legislaturalists and the Committee had in place."

"What do you mean?" Nesbitt asked.

"I mean too much control passes directly through the Secretary's hands," Montreau said bluntly. "I was frankly astonished when I found out how much access to and control of the Department's security processes goes directly through my office. It would never have occurred to me that Secretary Giancola might have done any such thing, but looking at the access I have, and assuming-as Director Usher does-that he had access to the Manties' Foreign Office validation codes, as well, he really could have done it. And I'm afraid that so far, at least, I can't think of anyone else who could have."

Nesbitt sat back in his chair, clearly dismayed. Pritchart regarded him thoughtfully, but as far as she could tell, he was at least as astonished as anyone else in the room. More to the point, he seemed horrified.

"Obviously," she said, after a moment, "I've had to proceed very cautiously where this entire incredible bucket of snakes is concerned. As Kevin and Denis have just explained in answer to your questions, we don't have-and probably never will have-the sort of smoking gun we'd need to convince Congress and the public that what we believe happened actually did. Without that sort of proof, going public would still be a highly risky decision, I believe."

"It may be the only option available to us, Madam President," Nesbitt said after a moment. Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged unhappily. "Don't think I like saying that. God knows if there's anyone in this room Arnold completely fooled, it's me, and I'm going to look like an utter idiot when the newsies finally get hold of this! But if you're right about what happened, then we're fighting a war we were maneuvered into by a member of our own administration." He shook his head. "We can't possibly justify not telling the truth."

"But the President's right," Henrietta Barloi, the Secretary of Technology, objected. "No one's going to believe us, and given what happened to Arnold, everyone is going to think we had him eliminated."

"But why would we have done that?" Nesbitt demanded.

"I'm afraid I can come up with several scenarios, Mr. Secretary," Kevin Usher said.

Everyone looked at him, and he shrugged.

"If I were a conspiracy theorist, or just someone with personal political ambitions or a desire to restore the old r‚gime, my interpretation of what happened might well be that Secretary Giancola figured out what that arch traitor President Pritchart had done to justify seeking a declaration of war. When he learned the truth, she-and, by extension, all of you-ordered his execution. Now, however, we're afraid the truth is going to leak out, and so we're attempting to fasten the blame on the man who's safely dead because we murdered him. All of which demonstrates that our highflown principles and devotion to 'the rule of law' are so much crap. Which means this entire government-not just the administration-is a corrupt edifice built upon a Constitution which is nothing but yet another huge swindle perpetrated on the longsuffering people."

"That's insane," Nesbitt protested.

"Of course it is!" Usher snorted. "The best conspiracy theories usually are! How do you think Cordelia Ransom managed to stay in front of the Mob as long as she did? But if you don't like that one, here's another. Someone else, someone in the security area-probably me or Wilhelm, here-did all of this. Giancola found out, we killed him, and now through a sinister cabal, for reasons of our own, we're trying to bring the war to a less than fully successful conclusion and we've spun this whole theory of Giancola's responsibility as a way to do that. Or, if you don't like that one, it's all an attempt by someone-probably an alliance of some of the Cabinet secretaries and Wilhelm and me-to sabotage the President's fully justified and so far successful war against the evil Manties. Unfortunately, we've managed to pull the wool over her eyes, and she actually believes our preposterous tale about Giancola's doctoring the correspondence. Really, the Manties did it all along, and we murdered him because he was the one man who could have proved they had. Or-"

Nesbitt was looking more than a little cross-eyed by then, and Pritchart raised her hand at Usher.

"That's enough, Kevin," she said. Then she turned her attention fully to Nesbitt. "Kevin can't quite forget he used to be a spook, Tony. He's used to thinking in this kind of twisted, convoluted way. But the point he's making-that God only knows how this entire thing can be spun by power seekers or people simply hostile to the Constitution-is unfortunately valid. And don't any of you believe for a moment that there aren't people out there who fall into those categories. They're not just all ex-SS goons who've gone to earth, hoping for a change in the political climate more favorable to their objectives, either. Unless I'm very much mistaken, Arnold himself was one of the people who see themselves as players under the old Legislaturalist rules and would love to see the Constitution overturned, or at least gelded, so they can get on with it. There are more of them out there, and this situation could play directly into their hands."

"But if we can't go public, what can we do?" Nesbitt asked almost plaintively.

"And," Walter Sanderson, Secretary of the Interior, asked, his eyes narrow, "why tell us about it now? Some of us-like Tony and I-were very close to Arnold. You can't be certain none of us were involved in whatever he was up to. You also can't be certain we're not going to leave this room and immediately spill what you've just told us to the newsies."

"You're right." Pritchart nodded. "In fact, any or all of you could make an excellent case for having a constitutional responsibility to go public with it, whatever I ask you to do. There's no official investigation into it, yet, but I'm pretty sure a case could be made for my decisions to date amounting to an attempt to obstruct justice."

"So why tell us?" Sanderson pressed.

"Because we may have a window of opportunity to negotiate an end to the war," Pritchart told them all.

"What sort of window, Madam President?" Stan Gregory, the Secretary of Urban Affairs, asked, and several other people sat more upright, looking almost hopeful.

"According to Wilhelm and NavInt," Pritchart said, nodding towards Trajan, "the Manties are having serious problems in the Talbott Cluster. We don't have anything like complete information, you understand, but what we do have suggests they're looking at at least the possibility of a shooting confrontation with the League."

Someone inhaled audibly, and Pritchart gave a very thin smile.

The Solarian League was the galaxy's eight kiloton-gorilla. Although she strongly suspected that the League Navy had no idea what sort of vibro blade it would be reaching its fingers into if and when it tangled with the Royal Manticoran Navy, the possibility of the Star Kingdom's successfully standing up against such a towering monolith in the long term was remote, to say the least. No one wanted to take on the Sollies.