David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

He seemed to be watching the Vice President carefully out of the corner of one eye as he addressed the general. Secretary Kanjer looked as if he were in full agreement, but Rajkovic's mouth tightened.

"I don't disagree with your basic analysis, Mr. Van Dort," he said after a moment. "But, just between the people in this room, Nordbrandt couldn't have assembled the cadre of killers she has if we hadn't helped. I'm not saying her claims that we've created a veritable hell on earth on Kornati aren't wildly exaggerated. But there are abuses here, and poverty, and those create embittered people."

So Bernardus-Mr. Van Dort-got him to admit it right up front, Helen thought. Clever.

"Abuses are no justification for mass murder, Mr. Vice President," Kanjer said sharply.

Van Dort had briefed Helen on the Kornatian political system, and she knew Kanjer was one of the Cabinet officers who'd been appointed by Tonkovic before she left for Spindle. Cabinet meetings around here must be… interesting.

"Justification for murder, no," Rajkovic said in a frosty tone. "Reason, possibly yes."

He locked eyes with Kanjer, and Suka shifted uneasily at the apparent tension between the Vice President and the Justice Secretary. Basaricek, on the other hand, nodded.

"With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, the Vice President has a point," she told her own civilian superior. "The fact that so many people feel disenfranchised is another factor, of course, but the perception that the system's fundamentally unfair, in some ways, is a huge part of what made it possible for Nordbrandt to get this far."

Kanjer looked as if he wanted to say something sharp to her, but he glanced at the Vice President's expression and thought better of it.

"Would you care to expand on that, Colonel?" Van Dort inquired in a tone, Helen noticed, which gave very little indication of whether he found Rajkovic or Kanjer more persuasive.

"I think a lot of people have failed to realize," Basaricek said, turning to face Van Dort directly, "that long before the plebiscite, the core of Nordbrandt's Nationalist Redemption Party was composed of extraordinarily angry people. People who, rightly or wrongly, believed they had legitimate grievances against the system. Most of those people, in my opinion, would've done better to look a little closer to home for the causes of their failures and their problems. But if that was true for a lot of them, some of them had definite justification for feeling the government, or the courts, or the Social Support Administration had failed them. I know, because my people tend to find themselves in the middle when someone who's just plain desperate tries to take matters into her own hands."

She glanced at Kanjer, and her expression held a definite edge of challenge. Not defiance, but as though she dared the Justice Secretary to deny what she'd just said. Kanjer looked like he would have preferred to do just that, but he didn't. Helen wondered if that was because he didn't want to disagree openly with Rajkovic, or because he knew he honestly couldn't.

"Even before the NRP's more moderate members started falling away because of her opposition to the annexation," Basaricek continued, "she'd been recruiting an inner cadre from that bitter, alienated hard core of her most fervent supporters. As the moderates bailed out on her, she came to effectively rely exclusively on the hardliners. There never were very many of them as a percentage of the total population, but even a tiny percentage of a planetary population is a large absolute number. Probably only a minority of even her closest supporters were prepared to cross the line into illegal actions, but that was still enough to let her organize FAK cells in most of our major urban areas."

"May I ask how the population as a whole views her and her organization at this point?" Van Dort asked.

Basaricek glanced at Rajkovic, who nodded for her to go ahead and take the question.

"They're afraid," the KNP colonel said bluntly. "So far, we've had only scattered, isolated successes against them. They hold the advantage in terms of choosing where and when they're going to strike, and what the public primarily sees is that the terrorists consistently manage to attack vulnerable targets, while the police and military have been largely unable to stop them."

"We've managed to stop them every time we got timely intelligence, Colonel," Kanjer pointed out stiffly. "We have had our successes."

"Yes, Sir, we have. But I stand by my categorization: they've been scattered and isolated." She went on speaking to her superior, but it seemed to Helen her remarks were actually directed to Van Dort and the Captain. "You know we've managed to break no more than half a dozen cells, including the two we pretty much wiped out the night we thought we might've gotten Nordbrandt herself. We managed to identify all but one of the other cells we've managed to take down by keeping tabs on people we already knew were particularly embittered members of the NRP. I'm afraid we've pretty much exhausted the possibilities there, however. We're looking for a couple of dozen of the party faithful who disappeared at the same time Nordbrandt did, and we're keeping our eye on as many of the NRP's one-time core members as we can, but there are limits on our manpower. And the truth probably is that most of them would never dream of murdering anyone."

She turned her head, looking directly at Van Dort.

"It's hard to explain to frightened people that this is primarily a war of intelligence," she said. "That until we can identify and locate the FAK leadership, all we can do is adopt a reactive stance. Which means the terrorists are free to choose the point of attack, and they certainly aren't going to attack where we're strongest."

"I understand," Van Dort said. He leaned back in his chair and looked at Rajkovic.

"Mr. Vice President, Baroness Medusa and I have discussed the general situation in the Cluster and, specifically, here in Split. Captain Terekhov and I have further discussed it, in light of the dispatches we received from the Provisional Governor when she ordered us here from Montana. It seems to us that historical experience demonstrates that the successful suppression of this sort of movement must always include a two-pronged approach.

"On the one hand, obviously, the military threat must be contained and neutralized. That's usually fairly straightforward, if not necessarily simple. Colonel Basaricek's just finished explaining a large part of the reason why it's not simple. Nonetheless, it isn't impossible, either, and Baroness Medusa's prepared to offer assistance in the effort. She's dispatching the chartered transport Joanna from Spindle, with two full-strength companies of Royal Manticoran Marines on board. One company is drawn from the battalion assigned to her personal command on Flax. The other is drawn from rear Admiral Khumalo's flagship, the Hercules . They'll be accompanied by their integral heavy weapons platoons, two assault shuttles, and three Fleet pinnaces, and they'll take over in the purely military support role when they arrive. That, unfortunately, will probably not be for another week or two, at the soonest. They will, however, remain on assignment to you until such time as the military situation is under control."

Helen watched all four of the Kornatians sit up straighter, their eyes brighter, and Van Dort smiled. But then his smile faded just a bit.

"But in addition to neutralizing the military threat, remedial action must be taken to repair the abuses which helped create the threat in the first place. You can't eliminate resistance by simply shooting resisters, not unless you're prepared to embrace a policy of outright terror yourselves. Your tradition of vigilance where civil rights are concerned suggests to me that you probably aren't prepared to do that. Besides, it would be ultimately futile, unless you're willing to accept a permanent police state. Any time you arrest or kill someone who's perceived as striking out against genuine injustice, you simply create another martyr, which only provides recruits to the other side. It doesn't necessarily mean the terrorists are right ; it simply means you're generating a supply of people who think the terrorists are right. So to cut off their support at its base, you must make it evident you're prepared to address the issues which spawned the resistance movement in the first place. Do it from a position of strength, by all means, and don't allow yourselves to be driven into making huge, unjustified concessions. But those issues must be addressed, and some sort of consensus about them must be reached, if you're to have any hope of finally and completely eliminating the threat."