David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

Something flickered in Bannister's eyes. Surprise, Terekhov thought. Or possibly approval. Maybe even a combination of the two.

"I'll tell him," the Chief Marshal said. "I imagine I can get the message to him sometime this evening. Would tomorrow afternoon be too early for you?"

"The sooner the better, Chief Marshal."

"Flight Ops, this is Hawk-Papa-One. Request departure clearance for Brewster Spaceport."

"Hawk- Papa-One, Flight Ops. Wait one."

Helen sat in the pinnace's comfortable seat, listening through the open flight deck hatch, as Ragnhild talked to Flight Ops. She'd decided it would be an ignoble emotion, unworthy of one such as herself, to feel base envy for all the extra time her friend was getting on the flight deck. She suspected from some of Ragnhild's comments and one or two of Lieutenant Hearns' remarks that Ragnhild might be seriously considering putting in for duty with the LAC squadrons after their snotty cruise. It would certainly be an appropriate choice for someone with her knack for tactics and amply demonstrated flying ability.

The conversation between Ragnhild and Flight Ops was cut off as the hatch slid shut, and Helen looked back out her viewport, watching the brightly lit boat bay begin to move as Ragnhild lifted the pinnace clear of the docking arms and applied thrust.

She didn't know everything the Captain and Mr. Van Dort wanted to tell Westman, but she had a pretty shrewd suspicion of the main thrust of their message.

It would be interesting to see how he responded.

Stephen Westman watched the air car settle once again beside the tent he'd… appropriated from the Manticoran survey party. They were certainly prompt. And from the sound of Trevor's message, they genuinely believed they had some sort of new information for him. Although he was unable to imagine what they might have discovered in Split that would have any bearing on the situation here in Montana.

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 Bannister climbed out of the air car and extended his hand to Westman.

"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 Bannister had told his off-world allies Westman was famous among his friends for his inability to bluff across a poker table. Now Terekhov saw a quick, brief flare of recognition in the Montanan's blue eyes. It vanished as quickly as it had come, but not quickly enough to hide itself.

"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 manner of speaking far less noticeable than usual. "I've never personally met, corresponded with, or communicated in any way with Agnes Nordbrandt, and I despise her methods."

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."