"No, Sir, again with all due respect, I don't see how you could form an opinion of her judgment without ever even meeting her."
Parks right hand clenched on the conference table, and his eyes were dangerous.
"Her record clearly demonstrates that she's both hotheaded and impulsive," he said coldly. "She personally antagonized Klaus Hauptman, and I need hardly tell you how powerful the Hauptman Cartel is. Or how rocky Hauptman's relationship with the Fleet has been for years. Given the tension with the PRH, setting him at loggerheads—further at loggerheads, I should say—with Her Majesty's Navy was a stupid thing for any officer to do. Then there was her insubordination to Admiral Hemphill when she addressed the Weapons Development Board after Basilisk. What she said needed saying, granted, but it should have been said in private and with at least a modicum of proper military respect. Certainly she showed gross misjudgment by using a vital service board to publicly embarrass a flag officer in the Queens service!
"Not content with that, she assaulted a diplomatic envoy of Her Majesty's Government in Yeltsin, and then issued an ultimatum to a friendly head of state. And while no charges were ever filed, it is a matter of common knowledge that she had to be physically restrained from murdering POWs in her custody after the Battle of Blackbird! However splendid her combat record, that behavior indicates a clear pattern of instability. The woman is a loose warhead, Admiral, and I don't want her under my command!"
Parks made his hands unclench and leaned back, breathing heavily, but Sarnow refused to retreat a centimeter.
"I disagree, Sir," he said softly. "Klaus Hauptman went to Basilisk to browbeat her into abandoning her duty as a Queen's officer. She refused, and her subsequent actions—for which she received this Kingdom's second highest award for valor—are the only reason Basilisk does not now belong to the People's Republic. As for her appearance before the WDB, she addressed herself solely to the issues the Board had invited her there to discuss, and did so in a rational, respectful fashion. If the conclusions of the Board embarrassed its chairwoman, that certainly wasn't her fault.
"In Yeltsin," Sarnow went on in a voice whose calm fooled neither man, "she found herself, as Her Majesty's senior officer, in a near hopeless position. No one could have realistically blamed her for obeying Mr. Houseman's illegal order to abandon Grayson to the Masadans—and Haven. Instead, she chose to fight, despite the odds. I don't condone her physical attack on him, but I certainly understand it. And as for the 'prisoners of war' she allegedly attempted to murder, may I remind you that the POW in question was the senior officer of Blackbird Base, who had not simply permitted but ordered the murder and mass rape of Manticoran prisoners. Under the circumstances, I would have shot the bastard—unlike Captain Harrington, who allowed her allies to talk her out of it so that he could be legally tried and sentenced to death. Moreover, the judgment of Her Majesty's Government on her actions in Yeltsin is plain. May I remind you that Captain Harrington was not only knighted and admitted to the peerage as Countess Harrington but is the only non-Grayson ever to be awarded the Star of Grayson for heroism?"
"Countess!" Parks snorted. "That was no more than a political gesture to please the Graysons by acknowledging all the awards they piled on her!"
"With respect, Sir, it was much more than a 'political gesture,' though I don't deny it pleased the Graysons. Of course, if she'd been given the precedence actually due a steadholder under Grayson Law—or, for that matter, commensurate with the size of her estates on Grayson or their probable eventual income—she wouldn't have been made a countess. She'd be Duchess Harrington."
Parks glared at him but bit his lip in silence, for Sarnow was right and he knew it. The younger admiral waited a moment, then continued.
"Finally, Sir, there is no record, anywhere, of her ever acting with less than total professionalism and courtesy to any individual who had not offered nearly intolerable provocation to her. Nor is there any record of her ever having done one millimeter less than her duty.
"As for your judgment that you don't want her under your command, I can only say that I am delighted to have her under mine. And if she remains as my flag captain, then both her position and her record require that she be accorded the respect they deserve."
Silence stretched out between them, and Parks felt his anger like slow, churning lava as he recognized the ultimatum in Sarnow's eyes. The only way to get rid of Harrington was to get rid of Sarnow, and he couldn't. He'd known that from the start, given the Admiralty's decision to assign both of them here—and, for that matter, to give Harrington Nike. Worse, Sarnow was just likely to lodge an official protest if he tried to sack Harrington, and except for her obvious inability or unwillingness to restrain her temper, he had no overt justification for doing so—especially with Sarnow so obviously poised to write an outstanding fitness report on her for any board of inquiry.
He wanted to snarl at the rear admiral, to relieve him for his insubordination and send both of them packing, but he couldn't. And deep inside he knew part of it was his own temper, his own anger and frustration. Not just at having to put up with Harrington, but for having put himself in a position which allowed this arrogant sprig to lecture him on military propriety... and be right, damn him!
"All right, Admiral Sarnow," he asked after endless minutes of fulminating silence, "just what is it you want me to do?"
"All I ask, Sir, is that you accord Captain Harrington the same respect and opportunity for input into task force operations that you accord every other flag captain under your command."
"I see." Parks made his muscles unclench and regarded the rear admiral with a cold lack of liking, then inhaled. "Very well, Admiral. I'll give Captain Harrington the opportunity to prove me wrong about her. And for both your sakes, I hope she does."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Three of President Harris' bodyguards stepped out of the elevator to scan the corridor beyond, and he waited with the patience of long practice. To be born a Legislaturalist—and especially a Harris—meant one was surrounded by security people from birth. He'd never lived any other way, and the only changes when he inherited the presidency had been the intensity of the effort and who provided it, for the well-being of the People's Republics presidents was too important to entrust to the Republic's citizens.
The Presidential Security Force's personnel were mercenaries, hired from the planet of New Geneva in regimental strength. New Geneva's soldiers and security personnel were professional, highly trained, and noted for their loyalty to their employers. That loyalty was their true stock in trade, the real reason governments paid their high fees rather than rely on their own citizenries—and the fact that they were regarded as outsiders, both by themselves and by the citizens of the PRH, neatly eliminated the possibility that any countervailing source of loyalty might turn the PSF against the president they were sworn to guard with their lives.
Unfortunately, it also meant the PSF wasn't especially popular with the PRH's homegrown military who believed (correctly) that the New Genevans' presence meant they weren't quite trusted by their own government.
The head of Harris' personal detachment listened to his earbug until his point men reported the corridor secure, then nodded his charge respectfully forward, and a Marine brigadier saluted as Harris emerged from the elevator. The brigadier's expression was courteous, but Harris felt his simmering subsurface dislike for the PSF people who'd invaded his domain. And, he supposed, the brigadier had a point. The towering' black spire of The Octagon, the nerve center of the PRH's military operations, seemed an unlikely place for assassins to lurk. On the other hand, Harris could stand much worse than a single Marine officer's resentment, and, especially since the Frankel assassination, the PSF refused to leave anything to chance. Which didn't mean he needed to rub the man's nose in it; he reached out in a greeting handshake as the brigadier lowered his own hand from the salute.