Someone gasped aloud, and Pierre nodded again.
"That's right, they're finally going to do it—after letting the Manties get stronger and stronger, dig in deeper and deeper. This isn't going to be like any of our other 'wars.' The Manties are too tough for that, and frankly, our own admirals are too gutless and incompetent." Pain wrenched at his expression, but he smoothed it back out and leaned over the table.
"The idiots in the Octagon have put together a "campaign' and sold it to the cabinet. I don't have all the details, but even if it were the best plan ever written, I wouldn't trust our Navy to execute it. Not against someone as good as the Manties. And I do know that they've already had several disasters in the early phases—disasters they're concealing even from the Quorum."
He gazed grimly at his audience, and his voice was more than harsh when he resumed. It was ugly with hate, and his eyes blazed.
"Among those disasters was one that concerned me personally. My son and half his squadron were destroyed—annihilated—carrying out one of their 'minor provocations.' They were thrown away, wasted for no return at all, and the bastards refuse even to acknowledge that anything happened to them! If I didn't have my own sources in the military—"
He chopped himself off and glared down at the fists clenched on the table before him, and the room was deathly silent.
"So there you have my motive, ladies and gentlemen," he said finally, the depths of his voice cold and still.
"The last thing needed to push me from planning and thinking into action. But however personal my reasons may be, they've neither invalidated anything I've said nor pushed me into a wild, reckless adventure. I want the bastards who killed my son for nothing to pay, and for that to happen, I have to succeed. Which means you all have to succeed with me. Are you interested?"
He raised his eyes to his listeners, watching their expressions as his challenge hit them. He saw their fear and anxiety—and their temptation—and knew he had them.
"Very well," he said softly, pushing the pain out of his voice. "Between us, and coupled with my other contacts, including those I've mentioned in the military, we have the ability to bring it off. Not immediately. We need the proper conditions, the right sequence of events, but they're coming. I can feel them coming. And when they do, we have an ace in the hole."
"An ace in the hole?" someone said, and Pierre snorted a laugh.
"Several of them, actually, but I had one particular ace in mind." He nodded to Canning, still standing at his shoulder. "Those of you who didn't know Mr. Canning before tonight have all met him now. What you don't know about him—and what he's agreed to let me tell you—is that he works for Constance Palmer-Levy as a spy for Internal Security."
A dozen people exploded to their feet in a sudden, babbling tumult of shock. Two people actually bolted for the exit, but Pierre's voice cracked across the confusion like a whip.
"Sit back down!" His sheer, cold authority stunned them back into stillness, and he glowered at them in the sudden hush.
"Do you think Wallace would've agreed to let me tell you if he meant to betray us? For that matter, do you think InSec wouldn't have been waiting when we arrived? For God's sake, he made all the arrangements for tonight!"
He held them with his glare, radiating contempt for their doubts, without mentioning that letting Canning make the arrangements had been his own final test of the ex-Legislaturalist's reliability.
The people who'd risen resumed their seats, and the two who'd bolted returned sheepishly to the others. Pierre waited until they were all seated once more, then nodded.
"Better. Of course he was inserted into the CRP as a mole. Can you blame him for agreeing to be? They took everything away from him, disgraced and humiliated him, then offered him a way to get it all back, and why should he have felt any loyalty to you? You were the enemy, weren't you? Traitors and troublemakers out to destroy the world he was raised in!
"But they hadn't counted on what might happen once he was in place." He looked up at Canning, seeing his tension and the hard set of his jaw. "He knew exactly how he was being manipulated, and they hadn't left him any reason to be loyal to them, either.
"So he listened and reported like a good little spy, but even while he did, he thought about what he was reporting—and who he was reporting it to. Not one of the people whose help he'd had a right to expect had lifted a finger for him. How do you think that made him feel about the system?"
Everyone was staring at Canning, and the ex-diplomat raised his chin, returning their gaze with fiery eyes.
"And then, one night, he saw me meet with two CRU cell leaders, and he didn't report it. I know he didn't report it, because I saw what he did report." He smiled thinly as one or two people looked at him in surprise. "Oh, yes. Wallace isn't my only InSec contact. So when he decided to tell me who—and what—he was, I knew he was telling the truth, at least about his relationship with InSec.
"That was over three T-years ago, ladies and gentlemen. In all that time, I've never caught him in a lie or a deception. Of course he knew he was being tested. No doubt if he had been a plant, he would have gone to great lengths to maintain his cover from me, but he couldn't have done it this long. Not with the prizes I've offered over the years to tempt him into betraying me. Like all of us, he has his own motives, but I have complete faith in him, and he's a large part of what can make this work."
"How?" someone asked, and Pierre shrugged.
"He's gotten deeper and closer to me and my contacts with the CRP than any other spy Palmer-Levy ever planted on me. As of last month, he's actually become one of my staff aides. They know he has the inside track on my actions, and we've been very careful to see to it that anything he reports to them is accurate. Of course," the thin smile flashed again, "they don't realize quite how much he doesn't report."
Someone laughed in sudden understanding, and Pierre nodded.
"Precisely. They have so much faith in him that they've made him their primary information source on me, and he's telling them precisely what I want them to hear. Not everyone who works for InSec is an idiot, and maintaining our own security will be as important as ever, but we have an invaluable resource here—and one with intimate personal knowledge of our 'governments' internal workings, as well. Now do you see why I called him an ace in the hole?"
A soft murmur of assent answered him. He let it fade, then leaned over the table once more, and his voice was soft.
"All right, it's time to commit ourselves. War with Manticore is coming. There's no way we could stop it even if we wanted to, but if the Navy continues to screw up, it's going to turn into a disaster. And disasters, ladies and gentlemen, are a revolution's opportunities. But if we're going to take advantage of them, we have to mobilize and plan now. Among you, and with the addition of my military and security contacts, you represent all the elements we need for success—if you all commit yourself to work with me from this moment on and mean it."
He reached into his jacket and extracted a sheet of paper. He unfolded it and looked at them with cold, challenging eyes.
"This is an oath to do just that, ladies and gentlemen." He held it up, letting them see the few neatly printed lines—and the two signatures beneath them—and bared his teeth.