"Move against Manticore, you mean." Teague frowned with a dissatisfied air. "I don't think you're wrong, Daoud, but at the same time, I don't see the point." She waved one hand. "Oh, don't get me wrong. Obviously, if we didn't even know these people were planning whatever the hell it is they're planning, it's not very likely we're going to be able to magically discern what it is they're after. What their endgame is. And I know Manticore's richer than sin, for its size, at least, and its merchant marine is all over the damned galaxy, with its nose in everybody else's business. And I don't doubt for a minute that Manpower resents the hell out of the Manties' enforcement of the Cherwell Convention. I'll grant you all of that. But why go to such lengths to crush Manticore? God only knows how long they must've spent planning and building up their resources before they could pull something like this off. So why do it? Why make that kind of investment just to attack a relatively small star nation on the far side of the damned League from them? It doesn't make any sense!"
"No, it doesn't," al-Fanudahi agreed quietly. "That's why I'm so worried by the fact that no one else even seems to care about 'Manpower's' involvement in all this. Because I agree with you, Irene. Nobody's going to go to all this trouble and the huge expense which must've been involved just because they don't like the Star Empire of Manticore. There's got to be more to it, and the very unpleasant question that's been occurring to me over the last day or so is why they got us involved in the first place. If they already had the capability to carry off something like this attack of theirs, why run the risk of trying to manipulate us into squashing Manticore? They could've done this on their own anytime they wanted to without involving the League at all. And if their intelligence on Manty capabilities was as good as it must've been for them to have planned and executed this operation, they must've had a damned good idea of just how outclassed our Navy was going to be when it went up against the Manties. So they obviously weren't counting on us to do the job for them."
"You're sure about that?" Teague's question wasn't a challenge, but her eyes were troubled. "You don't think they might have resorted to doing the job themselves only because they'd realized we weren't going to be able to after all?"
"No way." He shook his head. "Just getting their strike forces into position would have taken a long time. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, they would have had to start moving them before the first New Tuscan incident. Certainly before the second one. So that means they had both wings of their plan in motion at the same time. No. They knew we wouldn't be able to take the Manties, but they maneuvered us into a war with them, anyway. And that suggests to me that maybe it wasn't so much that they wanted the Manties at war with us as they wanted us at war with the Manties."
"Why?" Teague's frown was deeper than ever, and al-Fanudahi shrugged unhappily.
"If I knew the answer to that question, I might be able to do something about it," he said. "But what I'm very much afraid of, Irene, is that we just thought this was all about using the League to crush Manticore. I think it goes a lot deeper than that, and as preposterous as it sounds, I can only see one other target on the range at the moment."
He looked across her desk at her, his dark eyes worried.
"Us," he said very, very softly.
Chapter Thirty-Three
"Madam President, Secretary Theisman is on the com."
"Thank you, Antoine," Eloise Pritchart said, suppressing a familiar temptation to smile.
Antoine Belardinelli, her senior secretary, was probably the only member of her staff who persistently "forgot" to refer to Thomas Theisman as "Admiral Theisman." Everyone else was willing to accept that Theisman preferred his naval title (to which he was still entitled, since he was CNO, as well as Secretary of War), but Belardinelli was adamant. As far as he was concerned, one of the most important features of the restored Republic was that elected officials really were in charge again, and so he invariably used Thesiman's civilian title. If that irritated the Secretary, Belardinelli was quite prepared to live with it. In fact, he and Angelina Rousseau, the president's personal aide, had been sparring over that little omission on his part ever since the first post-coup elections. Of course, although the "Two A's," as Belardinelli and Rousseau were commonly referred to, were both highly efficient and both deeply devoted to Eloise Pritchart, they loathed one another with deep and reciprocal passion. Which might be the real reason Rousseau—never one to back away from a fight herself, especially with Bernadelli—was so adamantly on the military side. If they hadn't been squabbling over Theisman's proper title, they would have found something else to fight about, after all.
Personally, Pritchart was just as happy to have them use up at least some of their energy on something fairly harmless, and she knew Theisman found the entire situation amusing.
"You're welcome, Madam President," Belardinelli replied now, and disappeared from Pritchart's display to be replaced by Thomas Theisman.
"And how are you this fine morning, Mr. Secretary?" Pritchart inquired.
"Did it again, did he?" Theisman asked with a smile.
"Unless I miss my guess, Angelina was in the outer office when your call came in. He wasn't using his hush mike, anyway. My observation's been that when he 'forgets' to do that, it's usually on purpose."
"Have you ever considered just locking the two of them in a room with a pair of pulsers to let them settle this once and for all?"
"Often, as a matter of fact," she said gravely. "Unfortunately, Sheila won't let me play with guns anymore."
"Pity."
"Indeed. And now that we have that out of our systems, Admiral, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We've finished that study you requested," Theisman said in a much more serious tone, and Pritchart let her chair come upright.
"I see. And your conclusions were—?"
"Pretty much what I'm sure you expected." Theisman shrugged. "Frankly, Spindle doesn't make much difference as far as our own strategic situation vis-а-vis Manticore is concerned. We're still where we were—screwed, in other words, if they come after us. What we know now is that we're not alone in that predicament. In fact, it would appear the Sollies are even worse screwed than we are. Personally, I take at least a modicum of dog-in-the-manger satisfaction from that conclusion, given how the Sollies made us pay through the nose for their tech transfers right after the first war started."
Pritchart nodded. She knew Theisman would be sending her the actual report, along with a complete prйcis, but that wasn't what she wanted from him now, and as he said, his summary of the Octagon's conclusions were about what she'd expected.
"So Admiral Trenis' analysts are satisfied that the sensor data Duchess Harrington provided us with is genuine?" she asked.
"The missile performance wasn't quite as good as what we've observed against our own units," Theisman said, "but I suspect that's because their heavy cruisers' fire control isn't sophisticated enough to take full advantage of the FTL link. It certainly wasn't because anything the Sollies did knocked them back, at any rate." He grimaced. "I can admire a professional job as much as the next man, but in this instance, those poor Solly bastards were even more outclassed than we were during Operation Buttercup. Which says really depressing things about how bad Solly intelligence must be, when you think about it. We and the Manties have been throwing multidrive missiles at each other for quite a while now, but it's obvious this Crandall didn't have a clue what that was going to mean. You'd think someone would've mentioned those unimportant little details to their Office of Naval Intelligence."