"No, I don't think Ian is dead," she said judiciously. Then, before he could ask, "The Foreign Affairs department has its sources."
"Ah… ma'am, with Mr. Arnstein in enemy hands, they'd be compromised."
"Credit us with some intelligence, Brigadier," she said crisply. "Half the network was always my responsibility, and we had all summer to alert the others-there was always a risk that this might happen."
Her lips pressed together; Hollard nodded slightly. She'd been after Ian to get out of Troy since just before the siege began. Perhaps the Councilor for Foreign Affairs had discounted his assistant's advice as prejudiced. Perhaps it was some sort of survivor guilt, a need to stay at the sharp end of things and share the risks of the people he had to send into harm's way.
Keeping Troy fighting was real important, Hollard thought. If Ian hadn't pinned down the bulk of Walker's army-not to mention his shipping capacity-there, God knows where we'd be now. Was that worth risking one of our top leadership cadre?
"Any information of that sort that Ian had is thoroughly obsolete," Doreen went on. "Some valuable data on our strategy and capacity, yes, but not anything that would shut down our programs."
Hollard looked at her appraisingly. He'd always admired her brains; nobody could work with Doreen Arnstein and doubt that she had enough raw brainpower to melt titanium, and a •hell of a lot of information to process with it. He'd never doubted that she'd show guts at a pinch, either.
But I didn't expect her to be quite this… is tough the word? he thought.
"Ma'am… it might be better if the councilor were dead. All things considered."
Doreen shook her head. "The problem with death is that it's sort of permanent," she went on. "Don't waste that chocolate, by the way."
Hollard sipped obediently.
"If Hong were…" Doreen stopped for a few seconds, face absolutely still, before continuing: "If Hong were… torturing… Ian, she'd boast about it. She'd send us parts of him, or photographs. It would be an opportunity to inflict anguish on us, and she's incapable of acting otherwise."
Ken nodded. "I agree," he said gently. "But doesn't that argue that he is dead? Major Chong's report was pretty circumstantial."
She shook her head again. "No. Because then Walker would be boasting about it. He'd have Ian's… he'd have Ian's head on display. He's incapable of acting otherwise."
"Well, that's logical," Hollard said. Not that I have an infinite faith in logic to predict how people operate. "But Ms. Arnstein, if they haven't killed him and they're not… interrogating… him, what do you think they're doing, and why?"
"I don't know exactly," Doreen said. "I won't until I get reports-you'd be surprised at some of our agents-in-place. At a guess… I'd say Walker likes to keep his options open as long as he can."
"To hedge his bets," Hollard agreed. "I've studied the Alban War. He had a fallback strategy in place before the Battle of the Downs. Trouble is, he might have won the Battle of the Downs if he'd thrown everything into it."
Doreen gestured agreement. "And he's… a solipsist," she said. "Other people aren't really emotionally real to him; they're bundles of traits to be manipulated, which is one reason he can do it so well, be so objective about it. I think that's especially true of locals; they're toys he uses in his game-that may have been what pushed him over the edge into acting out his power fantasies after the Event, that and opportunity. I think-if he thinks he can get away with it-he'd keep Ian around so he'd have someone more, mmmm, more real to crow over and boast to.
"Now," she went on briskly. "I have a report from Commodore Alston and the Fleet…"
Damn, that is one tough broad, Hollard thought as he walked out into the corridor an hour later. He was lost enough in thought that he nearly ran into the Arnsteins' son.
"Hi, David!" he said a little awkwardly.
He'd met the boy often enough; the whole native-born Islander community in the Middle East was only a few hundred people, the top leaders far fewer. But this was the first time since the fall of Troy a few days ago…
Big dark eyes like his mother's looked up at the tall blond man. "Uncle Ken," he said. "Is my dad dead?"
Oh, shit. He went down on one knee to put his face more nearly level with the eight-year-old's. "Dave, I don't know. None of us know. But your mother doesn't think he is, and she's a very smart lady and she knows a lot."
The haunted eyes looked straight into his. "Have those bad people hurt him?"
Oh, shit. I know that's repetitive, but it's the only appropriate response.
"We just don't know that either, Dave," he went on. "We think they've got reasons of their own to keep him safe, for now."
On impulse he hugged the slight form to him. The boy gripped him fiercely around the neck, then stifled a sob and stood back.
"And we'll get him back if there's any way to do it," Kenneth Hollard said solemnly. "I promise you that."
"Thank you," the boy said. "I know you will-you and Aunt Kathryn and Princess Raupasha and the King." A scowl. "And kill those bad people. All of them!"
Hollard nodded. "I intend to."
"Disssaaa!"
Marian Alston caught the boarding ax on the guard of the wazikashi in her left hand, grunting at the heavy impact. The Tartessian sailor grabbed her right hand as she tried to ram the muzzle of her Python into his body, and the shot went astray into the melee on the deck of the second Tartessian ship. Despite that shattering broadside it still carried enough men to be dangerous, and some quick-thinking officer had brought the crippled vessel around to the port side of the other Iberian craft. Reinforcements poured up out of its holds and into the crush.
Do Jesus, he's strong, she thought as they swayed in a stamping circle; this sort of straight-out wrestling with men was something she always tried to avoid, and her opponent was a wiry bundle of gristle and bone. Twenty years younger to boot. His bare chest ran with sweat and the muscle there rippled as he pushed back her arms.
She couldn't retreat; Swindapa was lying at her feet, just beginning to pull herself up, shaking her head with her left hand pressed over cheek and eye.
So cheat, she told herself and whipped up a knee between his thighs.
It impacted painfully on a boiled-leather cup, but the blow was enough to loosen his grip. She tore the wrist that held the empty pistol loose and slammed it twice into the side of his head, even as he hooked a heel behind hers and lunged forward. They fell backward over Swindapa's body and rolled, snarling; blood was pouring down the side of his face as he surged on top and pinned her legs, grabbed the right wrist again, half rose and used his weight to push the edge of the ax toward her face. Its edge was nicked and red, with shreds of flesh caught in the notched steel. The wound in her side was bleeding again, there was no way to fight without using your back and gut muscles, and the strength flowed out of her. Beyond the Tartessian's back she saw another poised with a rifle held clubbed by the muzzle, the butt rising over Swindapa's back.
Baduff!
The shotgun blast smeared the flesh off the face of the enemy sailor who'd been about to smash her partner's spine. Alston whipped her head aside in the moment's distraction, letting her left arm go limp and the curved twenty-inch blade of the wazikashi snap backward. The ax slid down it with a tooth-grating squeal of steel on steel and thumped into the decking right next to her ear, the shaft impacting painfully against her collarbone. That left the smallsword free; her wrist traversed the point twenty degrees and a heave of shoulder and back rammed it up under the Tartessian's rib cage. He reared back, mouth open in a soundless O of shock, and more blood poured down to spatter with the rest that soaked the cloth over her torso and hips. A heavy booted foot kicked him the rest of the way clear, and a massive black hand reached down to help her up.