David Weber - Path of the Fury

He let his chair swing back upright and shook his head with a sigh. No, precipitous action against Gomez was out of the question. Pressure was building in the Senate and the Ministry as the "pirates" danced around her and laughed at her attempts to deal with them. It could only be a matter of time before she was relieved for her failures. Brinkman would be properly distressed at relieving so old and dear a friend under such circumstances- and send McIlheny packing as part of his "new broom" housekeeping. That had been the plan for getting rid of Gomez from the beginning; it was only McIlheny's stubborn probing that had him thinking about other approaches.

Still, the time might come when McIlheny got too close and they had to take him out, suspicious or no. It wouldn't be a best case scenario, but if it was a choice between that and having him figure out what was really going on, the decision would make itself. And his death would produce at least short-term confusion, especially if it wasn't an obvious assassination. If they were lucky, the confusion might even last long enough to carry clear through Gomez's relief.

Brinkman nodded to himself and stubbed out his cigar. Yes, it might become necessary, in which case it would be a good idea to put the assets in place now, and the admiral thought he might just know the way to go about it. McIlheny had started out as a shuttle pilot, after all. That was where he'd won his spurs and first made his name, and he still had a weakness for hot shuttles and hotter skimmers. Better yet, he insisted on piloting himself whenever possible. Under normal circumstances, no one would be too surprised if he finally lost it in a midair one day, and a little help in the maintenance shop could … assist the good colonel right out of the sky.

He smiled a slow, thoughtful smile and tried to remember the name of that "skimmer tech" Rachel Shu had used to eliminate Admiral Whitworth. It was time for a little judicious personnel reassignment.

"Good evening, Captain Mainwaring. My name is Yerensky. I understand you're seeking a cargo for your vessel?"

Alicia looked up from her wineglass and saw a tall, cadaverous man. He was well-dressed, despite his half-starved appearance, and his polished tones were well-suited to the background hum of the expensive restaurant. She eyed him for a moment, then sat back slightly and made a tiny gesture at the empty chair across from her. Yerensky slid into it, smiling politely. A waiter materialized at his elbow, and Alicia sipped her own wine, using the brief, low-voiced exchange between waiter and patron to evaluate her visitor.

"Smooth as pond scum, isn't he?" she commented, and felt Tisiphone's silent agreement. Not that they were surprised. They'd learned a great deal about Yerensky during the two weeks they'd spent angling for this meeting.

It had been far harder than Alicia had expected to find the precise shipper she sought. Not because there hadn't been offers in plenty, but because, to her intense chagrin, virtually all of them had been legitimate. She'd underestimated the pirates' effect on insurance rates, and under the circumstances, Star Runner's high speed more than outweighed her limited cargo capacity. If she'd been a real free trader, Alicia could have increased her transport fees by a quarter of the amount by which her ship's speed lowered the insurance premiums and still tripled her normal profit margin.

Unfortunately, she wasn't looking for an honest cargo, and she'd been forced to concoct an extraordinary range of excuses to avoid accepting one. More than once, she'd been reduced to letting the Fury enter a legitimate shipper's mind and get him to suggest a reason to decline his offer.

It had been maddening, especially after one of Megarea's and Tisiphone's forays through MaGuire's classified data base revealed that the Empire had provided the Jung Association with Alicia's retinal and genetic prints. They hadn't anticipated that when they concocted Captain Mainwaring, so they'd used her real patterns, and she'd almost fainted when she found out the authorities had both sets. If they happened to run a check against all new arrivals… .

That threat, at least, had been alleviated, if not nullified, by the simple expedient of sending Tisiphone back into the net to alter the prints for Star Runner's skipper. It wasn't a perfect solution, since any document-like a freight contract-Alicia signed as Captain Mainwaring would include her real retinal prints, which no longer matched the ones on file, yet it was the best they could do. Tisiphone had suggested doctoring the Fleet download instead of Mainwaring's, but Alicia and Megarea had vetoed that idea, since they couldn't touch the files on Soissons. It was tempting to "legitimize" Mainwaring's prints, but it was unlikely anyone would check the prints on a document when he knew they were the right person's. At least Alicia hoped they wouldn't, and that possibility worried her less than what might happen if ONI should check back and notice that Alicia DeVries' records on MaGuire no longer matched those on Soissons. At the very least, it would be proof she'd been to MaGuire, since no one but she would have any reason to change them. Worse, a simple cross-check would soon reveal that "Captain Mainwaring's" prints did match.

None of that had been calculated to soothe her nerves, but at least it looked as if they'd be able to clear out shortly. The Fury's careful mental probes had, at last, plucked one Anton Yerensky's name and face from the thoughts of a more honest merchant, and Mister Yerensky, it seemed, needed a cargo delivered to Ching-Hai in the Thierdahl System. Barely civilized and sparsely settled, Ching-Hai had very little to recommend it … except that it was only ten light-years from Dewent, and Dewent was barely six light-years from Wyvern. Better yet, what passed for the planetary authorities on Ching-Hai had a very cozy relationship with both Dewent and Wyvern.

Once Yerensky had been identified, it hadn't been hard to arrange casual contacts with two or three of his associates. With Tisiphone to plant a favorable impression of Captain Mainwaring in their minds, one of them was bound to mention her to him eventually, and for the first time, the skewed shipping conditions had worked in their favor. With so many fast ships being snapped up for legitimate cargoes, the supply of smugglers was running thin.

"You seem to be well-informed, Mister Yerensky," she said as the waiter departed with his order. "I am looking for a cargo-a small one, I'm afraid, but I assume you've already checked my capacity with the port master."

"Your vessel's capacity would suit me quite well, Captain, assuming we can come to terms."

"I see." Alicia refilled her wineglass and held it up to the light. "Exactly what sort of cubage are we talking about here, Mister Yerensky?"

"Oh, no more than a hundred cubic meters. A bit less, actually."

"I see," Alicia repeated. That really was a small shipment, less than half the available volume in Megarea's hold, which was already well-stocked with spares and replacement parts. "And where would you like it delivered?"

"Ah, that's a bit delicate, Captain," Yerensky said slowly, watching her from under lowered lids. "You see, I need it delivered to Ching-Hai." He paused for a moment, as if to let that sink in, before continuing. "I understand you have a Fleet-type cargo shuttle with rough field capability?"

Alicia lowered her wine and let her lips curl in a tiny smile.

"I do, indeed. May I assume your receiver will be … unable to collect his cargo at the regular port?"

"Precisely," Yerensky said politely, and his smile was just as small. "I see you have a fine appreciation for these matters, Captain."

"One tries, Mister Yerensky." Alicia sipped more wine as the waiter returned with Yerensky's order and began sliding plates onto the table. There were a lot of them, and she wondered what sort of metabolism could handle that kind of intake and still look starved.