Earl North Hollow’s Residence
City of Landing
Planet of Manticore
Manticore Binary System
February 28, 1906 PD
“so we anticipate that the special funding resolution will be introduced in Thursday’s session, Milord,” Benton Toscarelli, Baron Montreau and Parliamentary Secretary for the Conservative Association, said. “I’ve already discussed this with Baron High Ridge, and he strongly believes you should join him in speaking for its support. Given how pivotal your address was in breaking the logjam on the declaration, I feel confident the entire caucus would agree with him.”
“That’s very kind of you and the Baron, Benton,” Earl North Hollow replied. “I appreciate it very much. But the truth is that I’m still far too new to the House. For what it’s worth, I’m of the opinion that the opportunity should be reserved for one of our more senior peers. In fact, I think you’d be an excellent choice.”
“That’s flattering, Milord, but—”
“Forgive me for interrupting, but I didn’t make the suggestion to be flattering. Or, appropriate as it might have been, in appreciation for the kindness of the offer. I made it because it’s a smart move from a political perspective.”
Montreau closed his mouth. His eyebrows rose, and North Hollow looked around the half dozen men and women gathered in his townhouse’s library.
Pavel Young’s father had been an avid reader. Pavel had not, and he’d seldom graced that library with his presence when he was younger. But he’d become a more frequent visitor since the tenth earl’s death. Its gracefully furnished spaciousness made a much more appropriate backdrop for the meetings of a sober, serious-minded statesman than his much smaller—and much more efficient—office did. Which didn’t even consider the sense of continuity it provided.
Dimitri Young had spent less time in the public eye than many of his fellow peers, but he’d scarcely been a complete stranger to the limelight. No politician could operate at his level without cultivating the proper media contacts and playing them skillfully at need, and Dimitri—who’d been almost as adept at that as he was at blackmail—had conducted the vast majority of his HD interviews from this very library. It had been one of his hallmarks, and his son Pavel, following his example, had already discovered what an elegant, quietly aristocratic backdrop it provided for the cameras. Not to mention the way his own use of it emphasized his position as his father’s heir.
Yet that continuity for the public was the least of the library’s attractions, in many ways, because it was also the sanctum to which his father had invited his political allies—although “summoned” might actually have been a more appropriate verb—when scheming was afoot. That meant it also underscored a rather different continuity for the political operatives with whom Pavel met here. This library was a reminder to them of everything else he’d inherited from his father, including Dimitri’s well-honed political organization.
And, of course, his files.
“Let’s be honest here, among ourselves,” he continued now, leaning back in the armchair whose back just happened to be eight centimeters or so taller than any of the library’s other chairs. “I understand why the Association took its original stance as a matter of principle.” One or two eyelids flickered, but no one was impolite enough to snort out loud. “And I actually understand why the Liberals fought the declaration tooth and nail, right up to the final vote. But there’s no point pretending we—the Opposition as a whole, I mean—didn’t take damage in terms of public opinion along the way. God knows expecting the ‘man in the street’ to understand the finer nuances of diplomacy—or anything else, really—is an exercise in futility. Unfortunately, the electorate’s beliefs and demands, however ill-informed and however changeable, are also inescapable factors in the Star Kingdom’s political calculus.”
He shook his head, his expression a careful mix of sober thoughtfulness and exasperation with the common herd’s ignorant, unsophisticated, emotion-driven mood swings. Montreau and two or three others grimaced in agreement, and he shrugged.
“The House is supposed to be above the passions of the moment. The Constitution designed the peerage specifically to serve as a balance wheel against the tyranny of fleeting, changeable majorities in the Commons. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore public opinion, especially when we stand in Opposition to the current government. In fact, if you’ll forgive my frankness, the fact that the Association has no representation in the Commons, makes us even more vulnerable to marginalization in the hoi polloi’s eyes because of how much easier it makes it to paint us as solely the party of self-interest and aristocratic privilege.”
Heads nodded soberly, although none of them mentioned that the painting task was also made easier by the fact that the Conservative Association pretty much was solely the party of self-interest and aristocratic privilege.
“I also happen to know, from my sources,” North Hollow let his eyes flick ever so briefly to the elegantly groomed red-haired woman seated to one side, “that several of New Kiev’s senior supporters intend to speak against the funding resolution.”
“Indeed, Milord?” Charlotte Mantooth, Baroness New Flushing, frowned, and her gray eyes narrowed slightly. “The Countess hasn’t said anything to that effect.”
“I’m sure that, as a loyal fellow member of the Opposition, Lady Marisa will get around to alerting us before Thursday.” From North Hollow’s tone one might have concluded that he expected nothing of the sort. “But I’m confident of my information.”
Several of the others were frowning now. There was very little love lost between the Conservative Association and the Liberal Party, despite their current partnership in Opposition to the Cromarty Government. And much as the Association hated acknowledging it, New Kiev’s Liberals were substantially the more powerful of the two. While the Association claimed roughly the same number of seats in the House of Lords, it had zero representation in the House of Commons. The Liberals, on the other hand, controlled the second-largest bloc of votes in the Commons. True, even they were considerably outstripped by the Centrists, who held a sixty-vote outright majority, but they still formed the closest thing Cromarty faced to an actual Opposition in the lower house. It also gave them a far broader support base than the Association could claim, and while they might be the Association’s bitter ideological enemies, there were two points upon which they saw eye-to-eye: their equally bitter opposition to the Centrists and their peers’ defense of the House of Lords’ political dominance.
And, of course, of their own positions within that dominant house.
Those two points of agreement explained the alliance they’d forged to oppose the formal declaration of war against the People’s Republic of Haven. But while both of them had supported their opposition with virtually identical sober, moral arguments, the truth was that they’d opposed it for rather different reasons. It would never have done for the Association to admit that its opposition stemmed far more from the need to protect one of its leaders’ son from an outraged Royal Navy than from anything that remotely resembled an actual principle. The Liberal peers had always understood that aspect of their alliance, but the Association’s decision to support the declaration once its true objective was accomplished had almost certainly been the death knell of a partnership both sides had always known could be only temporary.
The Liberals had yet to announce any decision to formally withdraw from that partnership, but they’d also refused to concede defeat on the declaration, and their impassioned, last-ditch opposition after North Hollow’s maiden speech had drawn the battle out for yet another six T-weeks. They’d failed in the end, of course. Worse, from a political perspective, their losing battle had burned a lot more of that public support North Hollow had mentioned. The Liberal MPs who, unlike their aristocratic fellow Liberals in the Lords, were required to stand for election, had to be feeling the heat. Indeed, quite a few of those MPs had broken with the aristocratic wing of their party and crossed the aisle to side with the Government. That wasn’t quite unprecedented in the Star Kingdom’s political history, but it had happened no more than a handful of times over the T-centuries, and it said volumes about the bitterness of the Liberals’ internal divide. Further resistance to the war could only make that worse, which undoubtedly explained New Flushing’s skeptical surprise at the notion that any Liberal peer could be stupid enough to oppose the funding measure, the earl thought.
He looked back at the red-haired woman and raised a hand.
“Would you care to expand on that for Lady Charlotte, Georgia?” he invited.
“Of course, Milord,” she replied, and everyone turned to look in her direction.
If the attention disconcerted her in any way, she showed no sign of it.
“As I’m sure all of you are aware, My Lords and Ladies,” she said, “one of my responsibilities is to stay tapped into the undercurrents of both the Lords and the Commons on the Earl’s behalf. And over the years, I’ve cultivated sources in quite a few unlikely places. According to several of those sources, including two senior Liberal peers, Lady Marisa is still trying to prevent any formal opposition to the funding resolution, but she won’t succeed. I’m sure all of you are even better aware than I of how angry quite a few of the Liberal peers were when the Association chose to support the declaration. In fact, despite her public commitment to remaining in Opposition with the Association, Lady Marisa was pretty vocal about that ‘betrayal’ herself, at the time. I’m sure she still feels much the same way.
“But as Earl North Hollow just pointed out, the Liberals do have to worry about their representation in the Commons, and their MPs have made Lady Marisa fully aware of how strongly public opinion has turned in favor of the war. They’ve also made it extremely clear they don’t want any of their peers continuing to oppose it because of the probable consequences at the ballot box. Nor are they the only ones aware of how this has damaged their support with their constituents. According to certain of my other contacts, there’s actually been some discussion within the Cabinet about the desirability of calling a snap general election while support for Cromarty’s war policy is so strong.” Sakristos shrugged. “It’s unlikely Cromarty would do that at the moment, since he’s got an outright majority in the Commons already, but it’s always possible he might, because if he did, the polling data all suggests the Liberals would lose ground, probably badly. Even if that doesn’t happen, however, it’s past time the Liberals started mending some fences with their voters.
“Lady Marisa is fully aware of that, and she’s leaning on the holdouts just as hard as she can. Unfortunately, at least three of her peers don’t see that as one of their priorities. Earl Dabney, Countess Winstainley, and Baron Silver Stone have all informed her they intend to speak against the resolution. She’s still arguing with them, but you know those three as well as anyone, My Lords and Ladies. They have their heels firmly dug in. Do you really think she’ll be able to change their minds between now and the vote?”
“No,” New Flushing said, after a moment. “No, I don’t, Ms. Sakristos. Not where those three are concerned. After all, before she could change their minds, someone would have to be able to find them, wouldn’t they?”
Several people chuckled at that, and Georgia Sakristos allowed herself a small answering smile.
“We’ve all counted noses well enough to know the resolution will pass comfortably, whatever those three say about it,” North Hollow said, recapturing his guests’ attention. “And we also know that even though the Countess will gas on and on about how the members of her party must be allowed to ‘vote their consciences’ even when it’s not the popular position, this will hurt the Liberals, at least in the short term.”
Heads nodded, and he shrugged.
“Well, the other thing it’s going to do is give us in the Association the opportunity to underscore our support for the war, now that we’ve been convinced as a matter of principle that it’s our duty to do just that. Obviously, like the Liberals, we need to remain in formal opposition, if only to maintain our bargaining power for the future, but it’s clearly our patriotic duty to cross the aisle on this one issue. In fact, I believe that’s exactly how we ought to shape our speeches in the House. Of course”—he smiled thinly—“I see no need to mention that it will also give us considerably more leverage in future negotiations.”
His guests returned his smile, and he shrugged.
“That’s why I think you should be one of those who speak for us in this matter, Benton, since you were so eloquent in setting forth the basis for our initial opposition to the war.” North Hollow smiled more gravely at Montreau. “I’m sure it would be extremely valuable to hear you speak with equal eloquence about the reasons our position has shifted and . . . matured as additional information about events in the People’s Republic, the growing tempo of confrontations, and the courageous sacrifices of our military men and women has become available.”
Montreau nodded, and so did his fellows. After all, the baron truly was an unusually eloquent speaker. He was also a very facile one, with a well-developed ability to find deep and meaningful principle even in the most self-interested and calculating of positions.
“As for me,” North Hollow continued, “I’ve already publicly stated my own reasons for supporting the declaration and, by extension, the special funding request. Obviously, the Navy’s further expansion and wartime expenditures will require a more comprehensive, sustainable funding mechanism, and I’m sure we’ll have the usual dogfights before we get the details for that settled. But this special measure should at least bridge some of the gap and repair much of the rundown in maintenance funds the Service incurred before the declaration was finally voted out.
“At the same time, however”—he allowed a carefully metered bitterness into his expression and voice—“there’s no point pretending my relationship with the Navy, and especially the current Admiralty, is anything one might call remotely cordial. I believe my position on the declaration has improved the general public’s view of me, but I could speak in favor of the funding resolution till I turned blue, and it would buy me, personally, very little in terms of improved relations with Admiralty House or the current Government. So rather than waste this opportunity on the newest member of the Association, especially when it wouldn’t contribute anything to his own powerbase, we should use it to draw the sharpest possible contrast between our own, evolving position and the intractable, stubborn, dogmatic opposition of certain other members of the House. And for that we need an eloquent speaker with sufficient stature for the entire Star Kingdom to recognize him as an official spokesman for the entire Association. Don’t you agree?”
“I don’t know about Benton, but I certainly do!” New Flushing said with a smile. “And I’m sure I speak for all of us, Milord, when I say I deeply appreciate your willingness to stand aside in the interests of the Association—and of the Star Kingdom, of course—especially after the brutal way in which you’ve been treated by the Navy. And that I’m gratified by the insight your explanation demonstrates. It’s the sort of analysis I might have anticipated out of your father, if you’ll permit me to say so.”
“Of course I’ll ‘permit you to say so’!” North Hollow’s smile combined sadness and humor. “How could I not be pleased by a comparison to Father? He was one of the smartest, politically shrewdest men I ever knew. I only hope that, in time, I can contribute as much to the Association—and the Star Kingdom—as he did.”
“I’m sure you will,” New Flushing said. “In fact, I foresee a leading position for you in the very near future.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” North Hollow waved a graceful hand. “I’m still that newest member of the House, after all. Of course I hope to grow in both seniority and stature within the Association, but all things in their time! For now, I think my efforts and contributions will be most effective behind the scenes, in meetings like this. If only”—he allowed another of those carefully metered flashes of bitterness—“until the echoes of my court-martial have been allowed to die back down, at least.”
“Of course,” New Flushing murmured, and Montreau nodded soberly.
North Hollow nodded back, satisfied his true message had been passed. And that it would reach its intended recipient, as soon as Montreau could report back to Baron High Ridge.
No, Pavel Young didn’t want the official position and authority within the Association which had been his father’s. Not yet, at any rate. And everything he’d said about the considerations against giving him that stature tomorrow or the next day was true. But he fully intended to take a leading role “in meetings like this.” Dimitri Young had been the Conservative Association’s most powerful kingmaker, and that post Pavel intended to reclaim in the very near future. Indeed, he intended in the fullness of time—and rather sooner than Baron High Ridge might suspect—to aspire to an even higher position, once its current holder could be eased aside.
The true purpose of today’s meeting had been to underscore his kingmaker status for the Association’s senior leadership. And that was also why Georgia Sakristos had been present. Although almost every Manticoran politician knew about the “North Hollow Files,” the true movers and shakers within the Conservative Association were aware that Sakristos had been Dimitri Young’s senior intelligence operative, the woman who’d helped gather and update those files. And one of this meeting’s points had been for her personal report to underscore that both of those lethal political weapons rested now in Pavel’s hand.
Of course, he thought, not even the “inner circle” knows everything Georgia did for Father, now do they?
“Well, on that note,” he said now, rising from his armchair, “I think we’ve probably covered everything we needed to discuss today. And, if you’ll forgive me, there are a few other matters that require my attention.”
“Of course!” Montreau said. The baron stood, joined by his fellows, and North Hollow ushered them personally and graciously to the townhouse’s front door.
He smiled as he watched them climb into their vehicles and depart, although the smile disappeared as quickly as they did. Then he turned and walked back to the library.
Sakristos looked up from her handheld, her expression coolly attentive, as he reentered the spacious room.
He smiled and crossed to her. Then he cupped the side of her face in one palm, leaned forward, and put the tip of his tongue into her ear.
She sat very still, then reached up and covered the back of his hand with her own palm, leaning into it, and he smiled against her ear. Not because he thought she truly welcomed his caress, but because he knew she didn’t. There was always an added spice to . . . convincing someone like Georgia, he thought.
He took his time making that point—for now, at least—before he straightened and walked back to his armchair again.
“I thought that went well,” he said with a certain double-edged smirk as he seated himself once more.
“I think your message—all of your messages—got across, at any rate,” she acknowledged with what was probably a double edge of her own.
“Good,” he said. But then he leaned back in the chair and his smile faded.
“And that other matter?” he asked in a very different, far colder and harder, voice.
“If you’re positive you really want to do this, I think I’ve found the next best thing to the perfect operative,” she replied. “Are you positive?”
“And what could possibly make you think I’m not?” His voice had taken on an ugly edge and his eyes narrowed.
“It’s one of my jobs to advise you,” she said. “Not just figure out how to do what you need done, but to point out potential consequences of the things you decide need doing. And one of those consequences, frankly, is that if something happens—if anything happens—to Harrington at this point, attention will focus on you because of your history with her. I can probably—no, almost certainly—insulate you from the legal consequences of that attention, but the political consequences may be something else entirely.”
“In the short term, maybe,” he acknowledged. “In the long term, ‘public opinion’ will forget all about it as soon as some new, utterly absorbing event grabs the ‘man in the street’s’ teeny-tiny attention span by its single-digit IQ. Even if that weren’t true, I’m not some MP from Outer Backasswardborough who has to worry about elections, so fuck public opinion. And for anything I do need to worry about on the political front, I still have Father’s files, don’t I? Not to mention you?”
“That’s probably true,” she conceded.
After all, they both knew how potent a weapon the late earl’s files truly were. Just as they both knew that the fact that she was an entry in them was what guaranteed Pavel would have her for as long as he wanted, as well.
In more ways than one.
“I just want to be sure you understand the possible ramifications before we move forward,” she continued. “Yes, I can give you plausible deniability. No, I can’t promise anyone will actually believe that.”
“What makes you think I want anyone to disbelieve I had something to do with it?” he asked, and smiled as he saw what might be genuine surprise in her eyes. “Oh,” he waved a hand, “I’d just as soon keep speculation about it off the boards, but we both know that’s not going to happen. As you say, if anything happens to the bitch, a lot of people will automatically blame me for it. But the truth, Georgia? The truth is it won’t break my heart at all if people like that bastard White Haven figure out who was really behind it. In fact, it won’t break my heart if all the bastards who lined up behind him to stomp all over my career know exactly what happened. And the fact that they’ll never be able to prove it—never be able to do one single, solitary damn thing about it—will only make that better!”
“All right,” she said after a moment. “Understood. Doing it that way will make it a bit trickier, but it also means the operative I have in mind is probably even more suitable than I’d thought.”
“Good! Then I’ll leave it in your hands to arrange.”
“I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple,” she said, and his eyes narrowed once again.
“Why not?”
“Because he’ll insist on a face-to-face meeting.”
“What?”
“Because he’ll insist on a personal meeting to discuss exactly what you want done. It’s the way he operates.”
“I don’t think so!” North Hollow half-snapped.
“Not meeting him isn’t an option.”
“Then you meet with him!”
“Oh, I will, Pavel,” she replied. “I’ll have to, if I’m going to set this up for you, so don’t think there won’t be plenty of my own skin in the game if it goes south. But there’s no way I could convince him I’m the prime mover, and he’ll insist on a face-to-face meeting with my principal, as well. And, to be honest, I’m sure he already knows who that is. No, not because I told him—yet,” she continued calmly as North Hollow stiffened angrily. “I haven’t even directly contacted him yet. But I won’t have to tell him. One of the things that make him the right man for this job is how well tapped-in—and how smart—he is. People like Montreau and New Flushing aren’t the only ones who know what I did for your father and, by extension, what I’m still doing for you. You might as well accept right now that the other people out there who do what I do know their fellow players—including me—and who most of us work for. And even if he didn’t already know who I work for, as soon as I told him what you want and how you want it done, he’d realize there was only one person I could be representing. With all due respect, that’s the flip side of the fact that you want her boosters to know who orchestrated what happens to her.”
He glared at her for several seconds, then inhaled deeply.
“In that case, it sounds like he’s not the ideal operative,” he observed in an acid tone. “That whole ‘plausible deniability’ of yours goes straight out the window if he knows who hired him!”
“No, it doesn’t. Not necessarily, at least.”
“The instant somebody in authority squeezes him, he’ll roll over,” North Hollow shot back. “Of course the bitch’s friends will know I set it all in motion! And do you honestly think for an instant that a Crown prosecutor wouldn’t offer him the mother of all deals if it let Cromarty, White Haven, and their bastard buddies take me down?”
“First,” she said in that same calm tone, “one of the reasons he’s the perfect choice is that his preferred methodology doesn’t give a prosecutor a leg to stand on.” She smiled nastily. “The only illegal aspect of the entire operation will be the fact that he accepted payment for it. Absent evidence of that, no one will ever be able to touch him, which means—by extension—that they can never touch you, either. Admittedly, if the Crown could ever prove he was paid for it, then he could be prosecuted, but he’s been handling assignments like this for a long time, and nobody’s ever been able to prove anything of the sort. And, again with all due respect, I’ve been paying people like him for your father for a long time without leaving any fingerprints in inconvenient places.
“Second, though, the fact that he insists on knowing who’s hired him is actually a pretty potent form of additional protection for you.”
“How does letting him know who hired him ‘protect’ me?” he demanded skeptically.
“Because,” she replied, “he operates that way with all of his clients, and every single one of them knows it. And that means that if there’s ever even a hint he’s about to turn the Crown’s evidence on anyone, there’ll be dozens of people—at least one or two of them pretty highly placed in the Outfit—lining up to make sure he’s dead before he can add them to the list. So even if he wanted to tell the authorities who hired him and why—which, admittedly, he might, assuming they ever did manage to find evidence someone did—he’d be signing his own death warrant because of how many of his past clients have too much to lose if he ever started singing like a bird. After all, the Crown would hold out for every single thing they could squeeze out of him, and his client list couldn’t let that happen.”
North Hollow had opened his mouth to interrupt her. Now he closed it again, sitting back in his chair, his expression more thoughtful, and Sakristos smiled mentally behind her calmly attentive expression. She’d thought he’d like that. But—
“All right,” he said. “I can understand the logic. I’m not sure I share it, though. And”—his eyes sharpened—“I’m confident someone with your expertise could find me someone else to do the job. Maybe someone less ‘ideal,’ but someone who understands the importance of anonymity.”
“Yes, I can, if you insist. What I can’t do is find someone else who checks off all the boxes on your to-do list the way this guy does.”
“Meaning what?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Meaning,” she said as she got out of her own chair, walked across, and settled into his lap, “that there’s not a single person in the Star Kingdom better than this guy, especially”—she put her arms around his neck—“if you want to kick Cromarty and Alexander and White Haven and all the rest of them right in the teeth. If we let him do his job the way he always has, the blowback will spatter all over that sanctimonious bastard Cromarty. And the best part of all”—she nestled closer, leaning to nip gently at his earlobe—“is that there won’t be a damn thing Cromarty or anyone else can do about it.”
“And just why would that be?” North Hollow wrapped one arm around her while his other hand slid slowly up her thigh and under her skirt. “Not that I don’t appreciate your efforts to entice me into agreeing,” he added with a smirk, “but you have to admit that’s a little hard to accept without a certain degree of reservation.”
“Oh, I know that.”
She leaned back to smile into his eyes as his hand crept still higher, and the fact that he knew just how . . . constrained that smile was only pleased him more. She knew that, and she hated it, but she made herself smile more deeply, then leaned forward again with a slow, lingering kiss. It lasted a long time, that kiss, before she pulled back again, at last.
“I know that,” she murmured in his ear then. “But that’s only because I haven’t told you his last name yet.”