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# Chapter Twenty-Four

"I don't like it." Thomas Theisman's voice was mild as he leaned back in his comfortable chair in President Pritchart's office. His expression was another matter, and he frowned fiercely as he considered what he'd just said. "In fact, I don't like it one bit," he amended.

"And you think I do?" Eloise Pritchart demanded. Her voice was harsh, although Theisman knew her anger wasn't directed against him. "On the other hand, Kevin's report doesn't seem to leave us a whole lot of options, does it?"

"You can always fire the son-of-a-bitch," Theisman suggested.

"I thought about that. Hard," Pritchart admitted. "Unfortunately, according to certain other sources, he's prepared to challenge any demand for his resignation as unconstitutional."

"Unconstitutional?" Theisman stared at her in disbelief, and she smiled bitterly.

"Well, illegal, at least. It seems that according to arguably competent legal opinion, the resolution readopting the Constitution gave Congress the right to approve or disapprove my Cabinet appointments . . . and any changes to them."

"That's ridiculous!"

"My own opinion exactly. Which doesn't mean Arnold won't take the matter to the courts anyway if I try to fire him."

"Have you asked Denis about this?"

"I have," the President confirmed. "He's of the same opinion you are. Unfortunately, the same source which told me Arnold might try something like this pointed out his longstanding friendship with Chief Justice Tullingham."

"Oh shit," Theisman muttered with intense disgust.

"Precisely," Pritchart agreed. "I doubt very much that he could win in the long run, but he could certainly tie things up in legal arguments for weeks—probably months. And that would be just as bad, in the long run. Which means there really isn't anything I can do to punish him."

"It leaves us at least one other one possibility," Theisman growled. Pritchart cocked her head at him, and he smiled thinly. "If you can't fire him, then have Denis indict the scheming bastard, instead."

"Indict the Secretary of State?" Pritchart stared at him.

"Damned straight," Theisman shot back. "At the very least, he's already spilled classified information, and there's no way he did it 'accidentally'! Not to the bunch Kevin tells us he's been talking to about it."

"He's also a cabinet secretary," Pritchart pointed out. "And while I personally agree a hundred percent with you, the people to whom he's 'spilled' the information all hold Top Secret clearances of their own."

"And not one of them, aside from his lying brother, was cleared for this information, or has any demonstrated need to know it," Theisman shot back. "And you know perfectly well that if he's told them, it's only a matter of time before the information gets made public. Which brings us back to exactly the national security concerns I've been raising from the day we decided to proceed with Bolthole."

"I agree." Pritchart pushed back in her own chair and pinched the bridge of her nose wearily. "The problem is, Tom, that he's got us between a rock and a hard place on the information side. The same logic that puts too high a political price on firing him holds just as true for what you're suggesting, and you know it. If we have him indicted and tried, then the very information we're trying to keep secret will come out in open court. Unless you're prepared to suggest holding a secret trial of a cabinet-level minister of the government whose legitimacy we're still trying to sell to its own legislators?"

"I—" Theisman started to reply angrily, then stopped and drew a very deep breath. He sat completely still for several heartbeats, then shook himself.

"You're right." He shook his head. "And the worst of it is that I don't doubt for a moment that he planned it that way from the beginning to protect himself if we found out what he was up to."

"That's just the problem, Tom. We still don't know what he's up to. The information he's sharing with his political allies is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Oh, I've got some pretty firm suspicions of what his ultimate goals are in a general sense, but right this minute, we don't know exactly what immediate goal he's headed for."

"Kevin doesn't have any idea at all?" Theisman sounded the next best thing to incredulous, and Pritchart's lips quirked in a wry smile.

"Kevin Usher has the instincts of a paranoid cat and the heart of a lion. He also has an incredibly soft and gooey center, which he takes great pains to hide. But one thing he doesn't have is telepathy or clairvoyance. We're lucky he's picked up this much. And," she admitted, "we're also lucky that he decided to report it directly to me."

"And who else should he have reported it to?"

"The point," Pritchart explained patiently, "is that we chose Kevin for the FIA specifically because he's seen entirely too much of the downside of using domestic security information for political advantage. Arguably, anything Arnold's done so far could be put down to a case of bad judgment and loose lips. Even though what he's done is illegal, it could be nothing more than inadvertent garrulousness on his part, and Kevin is probably better aware than anyone else in this city of just how much tension there is between Arnold and me. So I will guarantee you that he thought twice, or even three times, before he handed me information I could use to hammer Arnold if that was what I decided to do with it. The fact that he knows me as well as he does is probably the only reason he passed his findings along to me."

"Are you saying that with another president he might have suppressed the information?" Theisman frowned. "Somehow, that doesn't jibe with my impression of him. Or, I guess what I mean is that if it had ever occurred to me that he might do something like that, I'd've been very, very unhappy when you chose him for his job."

"I'm not saying he would have suppressed anything. What I'm telling you is that this information didn't come to him through any of his official pipelines, and it wasn't part of any ongoing investigation. He wouldn't have had to actually 'suppress' it, because passing what started out as little more than unsubstantiated rumors along to me was a pure judgment call on his part. He was very careful to make sure that there was substance to those rumors first—which he did without opening any official investigation—but there was absolutely no reason why he had to go out of his way to pursue those rumors on his own discretion in order to be able to tell me about something I hadn't even asked about. He made that decision entirely on his own, and he did it because he judged that I wouldn't abuse the information, the system, or his trust in me. And, I think, because he agrees with me that Arnold Giancola and the people who agree with him are the single greatest danger we face at this moment."

"Internally," Theisman agreed. "Externally?" He shook his head once more. "I still think the Manties, and particularly that jackass Janacek, are more immediate and much more dangerous threats."

"Tom, Tom." Pritchart sighed and rubbed both eyes with the palms of her hands, then grimaced at him. "I don't question your estimate of the degree of stupidity Janacek, High Ridge, or any of the rest of them are capable of. The problem is that we can't control what they do, however hard we try. The only situation we can even hope to control is our domestic one. The interstellar one is just going to have to take care of itself this time. And if Janacek and his boss do decide to do something stupid, then it's going to be up to you and the Navy to protect us from its consequences."

Theisman gazed at her for several unspeaking seconds, and she could almost feel the intensity of the thoughts flickering through the brain behind his eyes.

"You're absolutely certain this is the way you want to handle it?" he asked finally.

"It's not the way I 'want' to do anything," she half-snapped. "It's only the least bad of the half-dozen or so miserable options I see. Kevin may not know specifically what immediate objective Arnold thinks he's going to accomplish, but I'll guarantee you that I know at least two of the directions he's headed in. One is to force my hand—and yours, I suppose—where our negotiating stance with the Manties is concerned. And the second is to position himself to make his own run for President at the next election. If he waits that long."

"What do you mean, 'if he waits that long'?" Theisman sat up very straight. "Do you actually think he's contemplating something along those lines?"

"No. No, I don't." He regarded her out of narrowed eyes, and she sighed again. "All right, maybe I do," she conceded, manifestly unwillingly. "And I wish to Hell that I hadn't let the possibility slip in front of you, Tom Theisman! Because all I have for certain at this particular moment is the fact that I don't trust him, I don't like him, and I know he's ambitious, opinionated, and pigheaded. None of which is grounds for any sort of 'direct action.' "

"Appearances notwithstanding, Eloise," he said in a deceptively mild tone, "I'm not really in the habit of staging coups. Not without a lot more provocation than this, at least."

"I know," she said contritely. "I guess I just get a little crazy where Arnold is concerned. Mind you, I don't think for a moment that he'd hesitate if the opportunity for some old-style maneuvers came his way. At the moment, though, Denis and Kevin between them have pretty much taken that possibility off the board for anyone. Which is why he's coming at it from another direction. And it's also why we can't afford to let him control the information flow. He's using the existence of Bolthole as a wedge, Tom. Dribbling the facts out helps to establish his credentials as an insider, someone with access to the levers of power and the information that goes with it. And when he sits down to recruit someone who's already unhappy or concerned by the way the Manties have been stalling any meaningful negotiations, he can use the new ships to make my policy look even weaker. After all, if we've managed to make progress in equalizing our military capabilities, and we're still not prepared to press the Manties, then obviously we're too timid to ever press the issue."

"And if we'd pressed the issue when he wanted us to begin pressing it, then we'd never have had time to do any equalizing!" Theisman shot back.

"Of course not, but do you think he's going to mention that minor point?" Pritchart chuckled with very little humor. "And even if we were in a position to somehow bring it up without going public ourselves, it wouldn't do much good. Nobody's going to be interested in what the situation was three or four years ago. They're going to be looking at what the situation is now. And what the situation is now, according to Arnold, is that we have the military muscle to stand up to the Manties if we only had the strength of will to use it."

"So you're going to do what he wants you to do." Theisman's sentence could have come out as an accusation, but it didn't. It was clear that he still disagreed with her proposed policy, but it was also clear that he understood what was driving her hand. And that he realized she was right. There wasn't a "good" policy; only a choice between bad ones.

"I don't see any option but it to try to co-opt his own maneuvers," Pritchart replied. "If we announce the existence of the new ships ourselves and simultaneously began pushing the Manties at the negotiating table, we'll blunt a lot of his efforts. I hope."

"Just so long as we don't push the Manties too hard, too quickly," Theisman cautioned. "Even if they take this a lot more calmly than I expect them to, there's going to be a lag between the moment we admit Bolthole exists and the time they actually readjust their perceptions and strategic thinking. There's no telling how they'll react if we ratchet the pressure up too high before they make that readjustment."

"I realize that. But I think that situation is more controllable than letting Arnold ricochet around Nouveau Paris like an out of control null-grav bowling ball. At the very least, it's going to take the better part of a month for word of the press releases on Bolthole to reach Manticore. We'll time the diplomatic note announcing our new, firmer position to arrive a few days after it gets there, and we'll be careful to couch it in nonconfrontational terms."

"You're going to demand that they stop wasting our time in a 'nonconfrontational' way?" Theisman cocked a quizzical eyebrow, and she snorted.

"I didn't say they were going to like hearing about it. But we can be firm and make our point without sounding like some bunch of reckless lunatics who're just itching to try out their new military toys!"

"As the person whose toybox those toys are in, I can certainly approve of that," Theisman agreed fervently. Then he scratched his chin and frowned thoughtfully. "Still, I'd feel happier if Giancola weren't the Secretary of State. There's too much opportunity for him to put his own twist on anything we say to the Manties to make me happy."

"The same thought had occurred to me," Pritchart confessed. "Unfortunately, if we can't fire him and we can't indict him, then we're stuck with him. There are times I wish our system was a bit more like the Manties. Mind you, I think the stability of ours has its own major advantages—such as avoiding sudden, unanticipated shifts in government policy like what happened to them when Cromarty died. But since our cabinet officers require Congressional confirmation for specific posts, we can't just shuffle portfolios whenever it's convenient like they can. And as long as he's Secretary of State, we can't cut him out of the diplomatic channel.

"But by the same token, he already knows he's scarcely on my Christmas card list, however cordial our relationships have to appear in public. So I'm not going to lose any sleep over the possibility of hurting his tender feelings when I insist on reviewing any notes we send the Manties before they're dispatched." She snorted again, and this time there was an edge of true humor in her fleeting smile. "Who knows? Maybe he'll get offended enough to do us all a favor and resign!"

"Don't hold your breath waiting for that," Theisman advised. "Anoxia is a fairly miserable way to go."

"A woman can always hope," she shot back.

"I suppose." he thought for a few more moments. "So how exactly do you want to handle the initial disclosure about Bolthole? Should it come out of your office, or out of mine?"

"Yours," Pritchart said promptly. "I'm sure I'll be asked all sorts of questions about it at my next press conference, but the initial announcement should be a Navy affair."

"And if someone asks me how it happens that Bolthole never appeared in any of our official budgets?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm sort of hoping someone will ask you exactly that," Pritchart admitted. "If they do, I want you to point out to whoever asks that in the absence of a formal treaty with the Star Kingdom of Manticore, the Republic is still in a state of war. And that publicizing the naval budget would clearly be of enormous help to any potential adversary. Don't go out of your way to link Manticore and 'any potential adversary,' but don't back away from it if someone else suggests the linkage. It won't hurt to jar the Manties' thinking a little before we start sending them any formal diplomatic notes. And getting that argument out early should help to undercut anyone—like our own esteemed Secretary of State and his political allies—if they try to argue that we've been overly timid. I doubt that anyone's completely forgotten what the Manty Navy was in the process of doing to us a few years back, but it won't hurt to remind them of it."

"I see what you've got in mind. And if we have to walk up to a sleeping attack dog and kick it on the nose, we might as well do it in the most effective way we can." He shook his head. "You know, when Dennis and I decided Saint-Just had to go, I never expected that a republican government, freely and openly elected by its citizens, would have to go to such lengths to protect itself against one of its own cabinet secretaries."

"And that's why you prefer the military to politics," Pritchart told him half-sadly. "Not that I blame you, sometimes. But a lot of it's timing, Tom. Give us another fifteen or twenty T-years for the Republic to get its feet back under it and the electorate to get truly accustomed to the idea of the rule of law, and we wouldn't have to spend so much time worrying about one overly ambitious, unscrupulous politico. I could just insist on his resignation and feel confident that the Constitution could weather any repercussions. Unfortunately, we're not that far along yet."

"I know. And I'm looking forward to the time when we will be . . . assuming that Giancola's lunacy doesn't get us back into a shooting war with the Manties again first."

"I think that's a worst-case scenario," Pritchart said seriously. "High Ridge is even more unscrupulous and ambitious than Arnold, if Wilhelm and his analysts are reading him correctly. But he's also basically a coward. I don't discount the possibility that backing him into a corner might provoke him into doing something rash, but there's no way that he wants to go back to war with us, either. Especially not if it looks to him like Bolthole might genuinely have evened the odds. So as long as we're very, very careful not to crowd him too hard, he's not going to pull the trigger on a war with us. And I certainly don't have any intention of starting one!"

"I'd feel a lot better if I didn't know how many wars had started when neither side really wanted them to," Theisman said dryly.

"Granted. But I can't allow worrying about the possibility to paralyze us, either. It's an imperfect universe, Tom, and all we can do is the best we can."

"I wish I could disagree. But I can't. So I suppose I should get back over to my own office. If we're going to announce the existence of Shannon's little project, then I'd better sit down with Arnaud Marquette and light a fire under my planning staff. Whatever we may want or expect, it's my job to have a war plan ready if the wheels come off anyway."

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