David Weber - At All Costs

"Yes, he is," Usher agreed. "On the other hand, much as I like Denis, and as much as I respect him, he's very much a connect-all-the-dots, follow procedure kind of guy."

"Which is why he's Attorney General, and why the wild cowboy, seat-of-the-pants kind of guy works for him. Correct?"

"Granted. In this case, however, I think you need to know about this before we decide exactly how to bring him into it officially. His principles are just as cast-in-battle-steel as Tom Theisman's. And in this particular instance, his own dislikes and distrust might push him into a more... confrontational stance than we can afford at this particular moment."

"Kevin," Pritchart said, with very little humor, "you're starting to really worry me. What the hell is all this about?"

The woman with him-Abrioux, Pritchart reminded herself-looked decidedly nervous as the President glared at the FIA Director. Usher, however, only settled deeper into his chair, herculean shoulders tensing as if under a massive weight.

"It's about the diplomatic correspondence the Manties altered," he said.

"What about it?"

"Actually, what I ought to have said," Usher replied, "is that it's about the diplomatic correspondence the Manties are alleged to have altered."

For an instant, Pritchart felt only puzzled by his choice of words. Then an icy dagger seemed to run down her spine.

"What do you mean 'alleged'?" she demanded harshly. "I saw the originals. I know they were altered."

"Oh, they certainly were," Usher agreed grimly. "Unfortunately, I've begun to have some serious questions about just who did the altering."

"My God." Pritchart knew her face had gone white. "Please, Kevin. Please don't tell me what it sounds like you're about to tell me."

"I'm sorry, Eloise," he said gently. "At first, I thought it was just because of how much I disliked Giancola. It seemed preposterous, even for him. And, for that matter, it seemed outright impossible. But I couldn't shake the suspicion. I kept picking at it. And a few weeks ago, I put Danny here on it, very, very quietly. It's not only possible, I'm pretty damn sure it happened."

"Sweet Jesus." Pritchart stared at him, more flattened-more horrified-then she'd been even by the knowledge that Oscar Saint-Just fully intended to have Javier Giscard shot. In which case, he would inevitably have discovered just how she had been covering for Javier for so long.

"How could he possibly have done such a thing?" she asked finally. "Not why did he do it-if he did-but how?"

"Assuming the right accomplice in the right position, and assuming the sheer big brass balls to try it in the first place, it really wouldn't have been all that technically difficult to make the substitutions," Usher said. "I'd pretty much worked out how he could have done it before I ever brought Danny into it, and she's pretty much confirmed that it could have been-and almost certainly was-done that way. She can give you the technical details, if you want them. Basically, though, he could send out whatever version of your agreed-upon diplomatic notes he wanted to. After all, he's Secretary of State. And as long as the fellow playing mailman for him didn't blow the whistle on them, there'd be no way for anyone at this end to know he'd departed from the planned script. And we've also figured out how he could have had access to the Manties' Foreign Office validation key, which would have let him change the incoming correspondence, as well."

"That-" Pritchart paused and drew a deep breath. "That doesn't sound good, Kevin. Especially given how black you wanted this meeting. If you've figured all that out, and you're not ready to seek an indictment or make open accusations, then there's got to be a boot in the works somewhere. Right?"

"Right," he said grimly, and waved one hand at Abrioux. "Danny?" he invited.

"Madam President," Abrioux said, her expression more than a little nervous, "I wasn't too sure Kevin-the Director, I mean-hadn't stripped a gear when he sprang all of this on me. I've known him a long time, though, and he is my boss, so I had to take the possibility seriously. And the more I looked into it, the more I realized it really could have been done exactly the way he'd hypothesized. But the key element, as he and I both recognized from the beginning, was that Giancola couldn't have acted alone, couldn't have done it all by simply manipulating the electronic message traffic. He had to have at least one flesh-and-blood accomplice. Someone who could cover for him at the other end and conceal the true content of our actual outgoing correspondence and the Manties' incoming traffic from anyone else in the Republic.

"And as soon as we'd come to that conclusion, it was obvious who his accomplice-if he'd had one-had to have been: Yves Grosclaude."

"Our 'Special Representative,'" Pritchart said, nodding her head grimly.

"Exactly." Abrioux nodded back. "The fact that he had an accomplice was, frankly, the one real chink I could see in his armor. I'm sure there has to be other physical evidence, but we're up against the need to show probable cause before we can go looking for it. If I could pull Grosclaude in and sweat him a little, put a little pressure on him, he might give Giancola up. Or, he might at least provide me with something concrete to lend at least some credence to the rather preposterous scenario the Director had come up with. On the other hand, I needed to approach him a bit cautiously, hopefully without Giancola figuring out I was interested in him at all.

"Unfortunately, either I wasn't cautious enough, or else Giancola's had his own plans for Grosclaude all along."

"Meaning what?" Pritchart demanded when she paused with a chagrined expression.

"Meaning Mr. Grosclaude was killed in a single-air car accident four nights ago," Usher said flatly.

"Oh, shit," Pritchart said with soft yet deadly feeling. "An air car accident?"

"I know. I know!" Usher shook his head. "It's like some sort of bad joke, isn't it? After all the inconvenient people StateSec disappeared in mysterious one-air car accidents, this is going to be just peachy keen when we have to go public, isn't it?"

"Unless we can prove it wasn't one," Pritchart said, eyes slitted in intense thought. "Before, it was always the state claiming it had been an accident. If we claim it wasn't an accident-and if we can prove it-we might actually turn that around and use it in our favor."

"If there is any way to turn this 'in our favor' you may have a point," Usher said. "Honestly, though, the more I've looked at this thing, the less sure I've become there is such a way. And even if there is, I'm afraid that so far it doesn't look as if we're going to be able to prove any such thing."

"Why not?"

"I've tapped very quietly into the investigation of his death, Madam President," Abrioux replied for Usher. "I've kept my interest in it entirely black, which has required calling in quite a few old markers. But the crash investigation team has been through the wreckage of his air car-which, by the way, was reduced to very small pieces-very, very carefully without finding any indication of any sort of mechanical or electronic sabotage. The black boxes came through more or less intact, and they all agree that for some unknown reason, Grosclaude suddenly disengaged his autopilot, put the throttle right through the gate, and flew straight into a near vertical cliff. He impacted at a speed somewhere around Mach one."

"He did what?" Pritchart sat up straight and frowned at the senior inspector.

"There's no question, Madam President. And there's also no explanation. That's one reason the Director and I didn't come to you sooner; we kept hoping we'd find something significantly bogus. But the weather was clear, visibility was good, and there was no other traffic on or near his flight path at the time; the crash team's pulled the air traffic satellite records to confirm that. There's no sign anyone tampered with his vehicle in any way, and there's absolutely no indication of any external factor which could have inspired him to do what he did. At the moment, to be perfectly honest, the crash team is leaning towards the theory that it was a suicide."