“That,” Horus agreed, “is putting it mildly.”
“Well, in that case you’d better stay there and keep an eye on her. God knows no one else on this planet has the seniority—or the balls!—to tell her no if she orders them out of her way. Besides, it’s going to be a madhouse down here when refugees start coming through. I’ll feel better with both of you tucked away someplace nice and safe, where whoever’s behind this can’t get at you in the confusion.”
“I—” Horus started to reply, then stopped himself and nodded unwillingly. “You may be being paranoid, but you may also be right. I can’t see why anyone would want me dead if they can’t get ’Tanni and—please the Maker—Colin, but whoever’s behind this has to be a lunatic.”
“Exactly.” Jefferson gave him a grim smile. “And if he’s a lunatic, who knows what he may do if he thinks the wheels are coming off?”
Chapter Forty-Three
Lawrence Jefferson stared at the blank com screen. How? How had they found it? Had he come this far, worked this hard, to fail at the last minute?!
A fisted hand pounded his knee under cover of his borrowed desk, and a chill stabbed him as something else Horus had said struck home. If they’d been hunting the bomb “for months,” they knew far more than he’d imagined. Ninhursag! It had to be Ninhursag, and that gave ONI’s increased activities on Earth a suddenly sinister cast. Obviously they hadn’t ID’ed him, but if they’d deduced the bomb’s existence, what else had they picked up along the way?
He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. All right. They knew the bomb was there and active, but if they’d known more, Horus would have said so. Which meant they didn’t know it would detonate twelve hours after the Mark Ninety activated. Would they assume the fact that it hadn’t instantly detonated meant it wouldn’t unless they triggered it somehow?
He bit his lip. The bomb had originally been timed to detonate during the next meeting of the Assembly of Nobles, when Horus would be on Birhat with Colin, Jiltanith, and both the Imperium’s senior military commanders. That would have gotten all five of them at once, but now they were spread out in two different star systems and they knew someone was after them, which meant the chance of recreating that opportunity was unlikely ever to come again. Yet Horus said Colin was going to “hang in” to the last possible minute, and Hatcher and Tsien must be up to their necks in the evacuation operation. Even if they guessed time was short, their efforts to save Birhat’s population were almost certain to keep the two officers within the danger zone until too late. But by the same token, both of them would be doing everything they could to convince Colin to leave, and if he gave in, he’d evacuate to Dahak. Any other ship would be unthinkable, and if Colin MacIntyre got away from Birhat aboard Dahak, very few things in the universe—and certainly nothing Lawrence Jefferson had—could get to him.
The Lieutenant Governor hesitated in an atypical agony of indecision. There was still a chance Colin would die with his senior military commanders. If that happened, and if Jefferson could insure Horus and Jiltanith died as well, his original plan would still work. But if Horus and Jiltanith died and Colin didn’t, he’d move in with Battle Fleet and the Imperial Marines. He’d take Earth apart stone by stone, and the hell with due process, to find the man who’d destroyed Birhat and murdered his wife, unborn children, and father-in-law, and when he did—
Jefferson shuddered, and the panicked part of his brain gibbered to give it up. They didn’t know who he was yet. If he folded his hand and faded away, they might never know. In time, if they continued to trust him, he might actually have the chance to try again. But he couldn’t count on eluding their net, not when he didn’t know how much they’d already learned, and the gambler in his soul shouted to go banco. It was all on the table, everything he had, all he’d hoped and dreamed and worked for. Success or failure, absolute power or death: all of it hinged on whether or not Colin MacIntyre agreed to leave Birhat within the next twelve hours, and Jefferson wanted to scream. He was a chess master who calculated with painstaking precision. How was he supposed to calculate this? All he could do was guess, and if he guessed wrong, he died.
He pounded his knee one more time, and then his shoulders relaxed. If he stopped now and they found him out, the crimes he’d already committed would demand his execution, and that meant it was really no choice at all, didn’t it?
“—so Adrienne’s parasites are embarking their first loads now, and my Marines have taken over at the mat-trans,” Hector MacMahan reported. “So far, there seems to be more shock than panic, but I don’t expect that to last.”
“Do you have enough men to control a panic if it starts?” Hatcher asked. “I can reinforce with Fleet personnel if you need them.”
“I’ll take you up on that,” MacMahan said gratefully.
“Done. And now,” Hatcher’s holo-image turned to Colin, “will you please get aboard a ship and move out beyond the threat zone?”
“No.”
“For Maker’s sake, Colin!” Ninhursag exploded. “Do you want this thing to kill you?”
“No, but if it hasn’t gone off yet, maybe it won’t unless we set it off.”
“And maybe the goddamned thing is ticking down right now!” MacMahan snapped. “Colin, if you don’t get out of here willingly, then I’ll have a battalion of Marines drag your ass off this planet!”
“No, you won’t!”
“I’m responsible for your safety, and—”
“And I am your goddamned Emperor! I never wanted the fucking job, but I’ve got it, and I will by God do it!”
“Good. Fine! Shoot me at dawn—if we’re both still alive!” MacMahan snarled. “Now get your butt in gear, Sir, because I’m sending in the troops!”
“Call him off, Gerald,” Colin said in a quiet, deadly voice, but Hatcher’s holo-image shook its head.
“I can’t do that. He’s right.”
“Call him off, or I’ll have Mother do it for you!”
“You can try,” Hatcher said grimly, “but only the hardware listens to her. Or are you saying that if Hector drags you aboard a ship with a million civilian evacuees you’ll have Mother order its comp cent not to leave orbit?”
Colin’s furious eyes locked with those of Hatcher’s image, but the admiral refused to look away. A moment of terrible tension hovered in the conference room, and then Colin’s shoulders slumped.
“All right,” he grated, and his voice was thick with hatred. Hatred that was all the worse because he knew his friends were right. “All right, goddamn it! But I’ll go aboard Dahak, not another ship.”
“Good!” MacMahan snapped, then sighed and looked away. “Colin, I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. But I can’t let you stay. I just can’t.”
“I know, Hector.” It was Colin’s turn to turn away, and his voice was heavy and old, no longer hot. “I know,” he repeated quietly.
Brigadier Alex Jourdain sealed his Security tunic and looked around his comfortable apartment. He’d lived well for the last ten years; now the orders he’d just received were likely to take it all away, and more, yet he was in far too deep to back out, and if they pulled it off after all—
He drew a deep breath, checked his grav gun, and headed for the transit shaft.