“Based on this report,” Orichos continued as though oblivious of the capering Freedom Party officials, “I have applied for and been granted a warrant by the Chief Justice of the High Court to search the premises of the Freedom Party in order to corroborate our information. Due to the delicacy of the situation, I’m informing the Assembly before taking action.”
Grayle’s older colleague was a rougher sort than the handsome blond on her other side. She extended an arm to keep him from climbing over his desk to reach the floor. Grayle’s blue eyes never left Orichos and the Speaker on the podium.
She sat down again, gesturing her colleagues with her. Her face was red, but she stared at Orichos with sneering contempt, not anger. She touched a button in her desk; a spiral of coherent orange light appeared above her head.
Orichos nodded meaningfully to the Speaker. Nestilrode leaned forward, touched the muting switch, and said, “The chair recognizes the member from Bulstrode.”
Still seated, Grayle said, “That’s not just a lie but a bloody lie. As Captain Orichos knows well, my party is funded entirely by the contributions of the Moss rangers on whom the nation’s economy is based. There are no documents in our party headquarters or anywhere else to support these lies!”
Grayle turned so that her gaze swept the hostile assemblymen to her left and behind her. Some met her eyes; most did not. “I will not have the machinery of the law perverted to allow lying bureaucrats to plant false documents in our party offices. The so-called search has no other purpose. If that’s what you intend, Captain, you’ll have to shoot your way in—or use the mercenaries you’ve hired at a true cost equal to the national budget for three full years!”
Her eyes locked Huber’s with almost physical force. The blond man to her left was cringing back in his chair, looking at an empty corner of the chamber with an anguished expression.
Captain Orichos gestured the Speaker aside again. “We have no desire to plant anything in the Freedom Party files,” she said, “nor would we even need to disturb the normal office routine. Will the member from Bulstrode permit me and one aide to search her files in her presence, with the entire exercise being broadcast live to the citizens of the Point?”
The older man snarled something toward Grayle. She shushed him with a gesture, though the chamber’s electronics had swallowed the words.
Grayle stood. She pointed her index finger at Orichos. “You’ll be showing this live over the regular governmental channel?” she said. “And you’ll search in the presence of me and my fellow party members?”
“Yes,” said Orichos, nodding without expression. “The only concern I and my department have is that the truth come out. If our sources in Solace have misled us, then I will be the first to apologize to you and your colleagues.”
Grayle slammed her fist down on her desk. “By the Lord’s bleeding wounds!” she said. “That’s just what you’ll do.”
She stepped sideways toward the aisle leading out. “Come on, then,” she added. “We’ll take care of that now—and then we’ll discuss the cost of these alien murderers you’ve saddled the Point with!”
“You’ll come with me into the Freedom Party headquarters, Lieutenant,” Orichos murmured as they watched Melinda Grayle and her henchmen stride out of the chamber. Their bodyguards were trampling down the stairs from the gallery to join them. The remaining assemblymen were either rigid in their seats or whispering in small cliques.
“All right,” said Huber. “Sierra, this is Fox Three-six. I’ll be accompanying the liaison officer into the red buildings across the way. If anything pops, you’ll know where to come and get me.
Three-six out.”
“Roger that, Three-six,” growled Captain Sangrela. “Six out.”
Huber looked at the Gendarmery captain. “Why me?” he said.
“Let’s go,” Orichos said, nodding to the doorway. “A recording team from the Speaker’s staff is joining us outside.”
They went out. The ushers were backed against the walls, watching Huber and Orichos with silent concern.
“I want you rather than someone from the Point …” Orichos said, showing that she wasn’t ignoring Huber’s question after all. “Because Grayle knows that her Volunteers outnumber the Gendarmery by several times. Your regiment’s an unknown quantity, so she’ll be less inclined to resort to violence.”
Huber noticed that she said “ …the Gendarmery …” rather than “ …from my organization….” Orichos was a member of the police force only as a matter of administrative convenience. In their own self-image, intelligence personnel are a breed apart—and generally a law unto themselves as well.
Two black-haired young women waited on the porch with lens wands and satchels of recording equipment. One technician was plumpish with a broad mouth, the other razor-thin with three vertical blue lines on her right cheek. Huber couldn’t tell whether the marks were tattoos or makeup.
Grayle and her entourage were walking back across the Axis to their compound. The older male was speaking into a hand communicator as he gestured forcefully with the other arm. The compound gates were open; the squad waiting there wore red headbands and carried carbines openly.
“Come along,” Orichos said to the recording technicians as she strode past and started down the steps. They fell in behind obediently, looking excited but not frightened. They obviously didn’t have any conception of what they were about to get into.
Trooper Learoyd waved from Fencing Master; Huber nodded in response. He was operating on trained reflex now. His intellect had dug itself a hole from which it viewed its surroundings in puling terror, but the part of him that was a soldier remained fully functional.
If things broke wrong, Task Force Sangrela couldn’t get Huber out of the Freedom Party headquarters. The whole Regiment in line couldn’t do that, though it could pulverize the buildings and everybody in them easily enough.
That wouldn’t help Huber while he was inside. He wasn’t going to fight his way out through the hundreds—at least—of armed Volunteers inside with him, either. Well, it’d be what it’d be….
On the lowest of the three terrace landings, Orichos turned her head and said, “This is of course dangerous, Lieutenant; but I don’t want you to imagine that it’s a suicide mission.”
Huber shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. “It’s my job.”
Oddly enough, the words brought him a degree of comfort. They reminded him that he was here by choice, however dangerous “here” turned out to be. And by the Lord—Arne Huber couldn’t clear out the compound alone, but if push came to shove the Volunteers who took him down’d know they’d been in a fight.
The road surface was more irregular than it’d seemed while Huber was riding over it in a combat car; repeatedly his foot slipped in a rut or scuffed a ridge he hadn’t noticed because his attention was where it belonged, on the armed guards waiting for him in the gateway. He imagined taking this same route while mounted on Fencing Master. The thought made him grin, and maybe because of that expression the solid phalanx of Volunteers parted to let Huber and his companions through without jostling.
Orichos looked over her shoulder and said, “Begin recording now,” to the technicians.
The thin one sniffed and replied tartly, “We’ve been recording since you came out of the building, ma’am. We have orders from our supervisor.”
Orichos nodded without evident emotion. Huber wondered if she were nervous or if like him she was following by rote the path she’d planned while there was time for cool reflection.
They entered the compound. Melinda Grayle stood with the older male assemblyman in the doorway of the building ten meters ahead of them. Grayle was still in the white and red outfit she’d come from the Assembly with, but her companion had changed into black battledress set off by a red headband; he carried a carbine and wore a powergun in a belt holster.