So the Emperor wanted Venloe to go back to the days of his youth and show his talents as an iceman once more. So be it. Venloe added an extra E-hour to his day's normal physical conditioning while he pondered where he would actually station himself on the day.
He was too wise to ignore the Emperor's orders. Most likely the Emperor's mention of "other agents" in the Altaic Cluster was bluff—but why take the chance?
One—or a dozen—more corpses didn't matter to Venloe. After some thought he had figured out his back door. It was a simple and clean Break Contact and Exit, which meant it would work. Occam's razor also cut in wet work.
Once away from the butcher's floor, all Venloe had to do was get off Jochi and out of the cluster. Fine. He had had a private yacht secreted on an auxiliary field outside Rurik within two weeks of his arrival on-planet with Iskra.
Venloe, someone had once said, didn't even use a latrine without making sure there was a way out—even if it meant jumping directly into the drakh below. Venloe had chosen to take the statement as a compliment.
Having figured his egress, he also knew what weapon he would carry. He would have preferred an Imperial-made weapon for its quality, but since he planned to abandon the tool at the site, he thought it better to procure one of local manufacture. Since Venloe prided himself on his taste, he preferred even his murder weapon to not be an off-the-shelf item. He ended up with the perfect device: an obsolete sporting arm that had been custom-built a century before, to slaughter a wild animal that was now extinct. He had found a bullet mold and cast new bullets and then hand-loaded propellant into shell casings for the weapon.
Now, for his assassin.
Assassins, since the Emperor wanted the biggest bang for his buck.
That, too, was simple.
He started with Dr. Iskra's Special Duty units. Every dictator, public or corporate, that Venloe had ever worked for or heard of had his own private thuggery, with its own label—from the Fida'is to the Einsatzgruppen to CREEP to Mantis to the Emperor's newly formed Internal Security to this unit of Iskra.
Venloe didn't think much of them. He referred to them publicly as "beards," or "bearded ones," and refused to explain why.
Actually, Venloe was making a private reference to one of the least-competent murder organizations of all time, far back on ancient Earth.
The first and—so Iskra had thought it—preeminent cell of these Special Duty units, this one a deep-cover team, had been vanished from its supposedly secure safe house in a mansion outside Rurik. There had never been any rumors, nor had any of Jochi's other private hit teams claimed credit for the deed. Venloe had wondered idly, since that cell had been assigned to harassing the Imperial Guard battalion and had almost certainly been responsible for the barracks bombing, if Sten hadn't given himself a little private pleasure and obliterated them.
Regardless, the effect was immediate—and chilling. Several entire "units" of Special Duty people requested reassignment to active duty status on other worlds, perhaps to fulfill duties against the Bogazi, Suzdal, or Torks. Still other cell members went inactive. That ended when beings still loyal to Iskra hunted them down and dealt with the traitors.
In any event, the Special Duty units were, to Venloe, a joke. But that didn't mean he could not use them. He had enquired of their "Supreme Intelligence Leader" what beings, now serving in the Jochi armed forces, were considered potentially traitorous and capable of armed resistance that the Special Duty teams hadn't gotten around to dealing with yet.
That got him one list.
He got a second list from the army's own Counter Subversion Department. A list that was a little less hysterical.
Any name that was on both lists Venloe put on his own roster of possibly dangerous service types. He could not believe how big this short list was—hell, Iskra wasn't even all that good at purges.
Which gave him the direction for his final cut—anyone who had been friendly with or assigned to the same unit as any of the beings Iskra had purged when he arrived on Jochi, beings Iskra still swore were imprisoned in Gatchin Fortress. Venloe knew better, but had not bothered to find out where Iskra had disappeared the bodies to, so long as no trace could ever be found.
This final list he was quite pleased with. He was still more pleased when he found that some of these beings, all of whom had excellent reason to hate Iskra, had been carefully applying for assignment to certain units.
Venloe positively beamed, and permitted himself a single glass of Vegan vintage wine that night. The only thing more perfect than creating a false conspiracy was finding one already extant that could be used for his own purposes. Then he sent two of his most trusted free-lance aides into the field, to find out who was running this conspiracy a-birthing.
The answer was four young officers. None of them appeared to have any idea on what specific mission their conspiracy would take-but it would be used, and used soon, to destroy Iskra. They weren't particularly clever or Machiavellian. If Venloe hadn't found themselves, they would undoubtedly have been picked up by Counter Subversion or the Special Duty teams and body-bagged.
There were thirty of them he could use, he finally decided. Very good. The murder technique that would be used on the day, Venloe kept mentally filed as Crimson Ratpack. He collected, using Iskra's never-to-be-questioned authority, their dossiers from the counter-intelligence unit, and burned their files. They now owed him greatly. He had saved their lives. The least they could do now was sacrifice themselves, but this time to fulfill their dreams instead of ending as futile cinders at the Killing Wall.
His two aides approached the four officers, without saying that Iskra's behind-the-scenes adviser was planning to cut his boss's throat. Venloe had been right-they were more than happy to volunteer for the sacrifice.
Venloe had half of his players. Now all he needed was the other half-the victims.
And a theater.
That, too, was simple.
"I do not see," Dr. Iskra said, having scowled his way through Venloe's memorandum, "what purpose this farce would have. What will I-which means the government of the Altaic Cluster-gain?"
"Solidarity," Venloe said.
"In what way?"
"First, peasants love a dumb show, as you said in your essay, 'The Revolution's Need to Understand the Soul of the People.' "
"Correct."
"Secondly, there have been some stories about certain offworld events involving both the military and the Special Duty Corps."
"Idle talk should be punished."
"It is," Venloe said. "Your Special Duty units are especially effective in that area. But we now have the opportunity to provide a positive image. How could anyone seeing the noble soldiery of Jochi parade past imagine them culpable in what these rumors hint."
"Ah."
"Plus such a parade is a magnificent opportunity for you to show that your government is solidly supported by everyone, including the Torks, when livie viewers see the Torks' leader near you on the reviewing stand."
"Menynder will not attend."
"Yes, he will," Venloe disagreed. "Because the alternatives that will be presented to him won't be to his liking."
Iskra considered. "Yes. Yes, Venloe, I see your thinking. And it has been too long since I showed myself to my people. As I pointed out, as part of my analysis of the Kha—that forgotten monster's tyranny, how he was planting the seeds to his downfall in many ways, not the least of which was hiding, invisible, in this palace. It was in the second volume."
"I am sorry," Venloe said. "I have been too busy for any off-duty reading. One other thing," he went on. "The Imperial ambassador should be invited."