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The smart ones didn’t try to use anybody smarter than they were. Let him figure in the next few hours that that was what he had just met. She could support him…if Klaus Awei was smart enough to figure who’d just settled the mantle of legitimacy about hisshoulders in front of the media, and whose support could make his survival in his bid just a little more likely than any other claimant. She read people pretty damned well–and Klaus Awei, for all his larger‑than‑life presence, already knew he was taking a chance. He’d known exactly where media exposure and significant images could be had, and if he was telling the truth, he had control of the Novgorod vid apparatus, which meant word would get out much wider than it had been.

He hadn’t established himself in Novgorod and tempted Councilinto coming back to the capital and appealing to him for rescue, which argued good manners–or suggested his base might be small and fragile down there, if it existed at all. Or it could argue he wasn’t going to go for political process at alclass="underline" he was a military man, commanding an organization that moved fast: forces already in Svetlansk, he’d said, while he was here, taking the publicly political option.

He had a real chance, if Council backed him‑‑and if media simultaneously got the word out.

“What’s this about Jordan Warrick?” a reporter yelled then, and Ari turned, slowly, solemnly, with the cameras all going, and all other questions silent. “What about Jordan Warrick?” the reporter repeated, exactly the side issue she’d wanted.

“A covert operation wanted my predecessor dead,” she said. “Now the same people would like to see medead…along with a lot of other people that stand in their way. The general has come here, I gather, driven by conscience–and if it’s not proper for Reseune to say how Defense should manage its internal business, I can at least say I’m in favor of protecting the independence of the Bureaus, with respect for other Bureaus’ territory andproperty, and the right of allUnion citizens, to elect a candidate in their Bureau and see that candidate liveto take office.”

That created three and four more questions, about on the level of: Are you talking about Spurlin, young sera? Then, more important, a question she wanted: Have you had any word from the Councillor for Science?

“I hopefor it,” she shot back and, seeing the good general was not accustomed to the shouted‑questions kind of news conference, which was absolutely her element, she made a gesture of invitation toward the terminal. “The Councillors are on their way down, or they’ll be in touch fairly soon. Wait and we’ll give you a news conference.” And to Awei alone, “General, there’s a private conference room, and I imagine you and your companion would appreciate a cup of coffee, at the least.”

“Coffee,” Awei said. It had become a steady march toward the terminal doors. Florian and Catlin’s presence meant questioners didn’t get that close, or press up against them: the reporters that had covered Reseune for years had long since understood that about ReseuneSec and azi bodyguards. They knew the distance, knew it to an exactitude and kept it, shoving each other rather than infringing on that imaginary line that triggered armed reaction from security.

At the doors, she called back to them almost cheerfully, and with real affection, she knew no few of them, had known them for years, “Give me about an hour. I’ll talk to you. I promise!”

It took half an hour for Council to get down to the airport–deFranco and Chavez were the first to arrive, in no more than ten minutes, if that. Ludmilla deFranco met them in the conference room, quite forth rightly shook Awei’s hand, and asked about conditions in Novgorod; Chavez started to pour himself a cup of coffee and didn’t get to carry it back to the table himself. Airport hospitality staff arrived in the room with a far more elaborate and finer coffee service than what the machine provided. They swept recyclable cups aside, poured coffee into fine china, and saw the general and the Councillors seated at the conference table with a full choice of cream, sweetener, sugar, spice, and wafers; the same for her, who sat at the far end of the table, and the same for the general’s aide, who stayed standing, but who did take a cup of coffee.

“We have order in Novgorod,” Awei had said, in answer to the former question…which might be an hour by hour situation, Ari thought, knowing the conditions that had kept Yanni and Amy pinned down; and she didn’t know where they were. They could have gotten loose, could be somewhere in military hands…of either side.

Asking Awei, however, was asking a large predator for help, opened bidding for that help, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that at this point.

“What is your position, General,” deFranco asked, briskly stirring spice into her coffee, “since, as Councillor Corain said in his report, nothing at this point will induce the Council to seat Admiral Khalid?”

“That’s not a concern,” Awei said.

Encouraging, Ari thought, but letting the hearer fill in the blanks. She didn’t let her eyes dart, didn’t give visual cues what she thought, any more than she could help. She signaled to Catlin and said, very quietly, as Catlin moved close, “Report on the general,” and then listened to Awei and deFranco exchange several more questions.

“What is the situation at Novgorod,” deFranco asked, then, “besides orderly?”

“We’re trying to get citizens back to work, which means safety down on the docks and safety for transport moving through the city–in some neighborhoods, that’s a problem. We’re getting a little resistence from Fleet MP’s assigned to the docks and elsewhere; we’re negotiating that at higher levels. A Council directive would go a long way toward improving that situation. Which brings us to the specifics: I have a short list of resolutions that we’d like to see passed.”

We. Always the undefined “we.” Ari wished deFranco would eventually ask who “we” was. She didn’t want to do it.

Councillor Harogo and Councillor Tien showed up at the door at that point, with four ReseuneSec agents for an escort, three men and a woman who likewise took up station with Florian and Catlin. Ari stood up. The others did. There were more handshakes, more exchanges, politeness with very little substance in the questions. Lastly Harad came in, State, looking cautious, but willing to welcome the general.

Coffee, all around, except Harad: tea for him, with cream and sweetener. Awei’s aide, who was listening to something, much as Florian and Catlin were doing, moved close to Awei and said something Ari was sure ReseuneSec would manage to pick up; she couldn’t hear it. It might just be an advisement to the general that someone was monitoring. It could be business going on elsewhere in the world.

“We have a quorum for ordinary business at this point,” Harad said. “Shall I chair?”

“Seconded,” deFranco murmured; it wasn’t strict protocols, in Ari’s estimation, but nobody objected. Harad asked, “Who’s recording?”

“I’m sure Reseune is,” Tien said wryly, “and probably the good general, but I’ll keep notes, for the record.”

“Those present,” Harad said, and they proceeded to an informal roll call–leaving out Information, a fact which Ari noted, and didn’t take in the least as a slight. Where Council’s quorum stood, the five for ordinary business, and the eight for special business–that was something Harad didn’t give away for free. They mustered the basic five without her, and she didn’t say a thing, just sat with her chin on her hand, and trusted records were being kept.