"Yes, they would," Grantville agreed. "And I suppose there'd be ample time for us to make additional security arrangements."
"And," Elizabeth pointed out, "it would be an opportunity to draw Erewhon into the process. I know we've all been pissed off with the Erewhonese for the technology they transferred to the Peeps, but let's be honest. High Ridge did everything humanly possible to push them into doing it. If we ask them to dispatch units of their fleet to provide a neutral security umbrella in Congo for both sides, without either of us bringing in our own battle squadrons, it would be a demonstration that this Government-and the House of Winton-both trusts them and desires to patch up our differences."
Grantville looked at her with a slightly surprised expression, and she chuckled almost naturally.
"I may still have my reservations about this entire idea, Willie. But if we're going to do it anyway, we might as well accomplish as many objectives at once as we can."
Chapter Forty-Seven
Aldona Anisimovna tried to remind herself that she was one of the most successful organizers and executives Manpower Incorporated had ever produced. That she had a very nearly unrivaled record of successes. That she was a wealthy and powerful individual, who represented one of Mesa's star bloodlines.
None of it helped particularly.
She and Isabel Bardasano followed the "butler" down the splendidly furnished hallway, past light sculptures, bronzes, paintings and handloomed textile wall hangings. The designer had deliberately eschewed smart walls or other modern visual technology, aside from the light sculptures, but soothing, unheard sonic vibrations seemed to caress her skin.
It was all very gracious and welcoming, but she drew a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves unobtrusively and hoping the invisible surveillance systems weren't noting her heightened pulse rate, as their guide opened the old-fashioned door at the end of the corridor.
"Ms. Anisimovna and Ms. Bardasano, Sir," he said.
"Thank you, Heinrich," a familiar voice said, and the "butler" who was actually a rather deadly bodyguard, when he wasn't being an assassin, bowed and stepped aside.
Anisimovna walked past him without even acknowledging his presence, but she was grateful when he closed the door behind her and Bardasano from the other side. Not that she'd really expected his... services to be required, she told herself firmly.
"Well, ladies," Albrecht Detweiler said from behind the desk workstation, without inviting either of them to be seated, "things don't appear to have gone very well in Talbott, after all."
"No, they haven't," Anisimovna agreed, her voice as level as possible. Detweiler regarded her thoughtfully, as if waiting for her to add something more to that bare agreement, but she knew better than to offer any hint of an excuse. Especially not when he'd kept the two of them waiting, and stewing in their own juice, for almost three standard days since their return from the Republic of Monica.
"Why not?" he asked after a moment.
"Because of a chain of circumstances we were unable to predict," Isabel Bardasano said, her voice as level as Anisimovna's had been.
"I was under the impression that proper planning allowed for all contingencies," Detweiler observed.
"Good planning allows for all the contingencies the planner can think of," Bardasano corrected in an amazingly calm tone. "This particular set of contingencies was impossible to anticipate, since no one can allow for freak circumstances which are inherently impossible to predict."
"That sounds remarkably like an excuse, Isabel."
"I prefer to think of it as an explanation, Albrecht," Bardasano said, while Anisimovna tried to focus her attention on one of Detweiler's pre-space oil paintings. "Under certain circumstances, explanations are also excuses, of course. You asked us why things didn't work out as planned, however. That's why."
Detweiler gazed at her, his lips very slightly pursed, his eyes narrowed, and she looked back squarely. One thing about her, Anisimovna thought; she didn't lack nerve. Whether her lack of fear was completely sane or not was another matter.
"Very well, Isabel," Detweiler said finally. "'Explain' what happened."
"We don't know yet, not fully," she admitted. "We won't know for some time. The only hard fact we have at this time is that somehow a Manty cruiser captain named Terekhov and Bernardus Van Dort figured out what was happening. Terekhov put together what I strongly suspect was a completely unauthorized attack on Monica. And as Aldona and I told you at our last meeting, the program to refit the battlecruisers we-or, rather, Technodyne-were providing had fallen behind schedule."
"You also informed me that there was ample cushion in your timetable," Detweiler interrupted in a deceptively pleasant voice.
If he'd intended to put Bardasano off her pace, he failed. She simply looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes, we did. And it was an accurate statement. In fact, Izrok Levakonic and the Monicans had managed to get three of the battlecruisers completely refitted and manned before Terekhov showed up, and the biggest unit he had was a heavy cruiser. Had he delayed his arrival for another week, four more Indefatigables would have been ready for action, as well. Under normal circumstances, however, I believe most people would have felt three Solarian League battlecruisers, with up-to-date electronics and weapons fits, ought to have been able to deal with five cruisers and four destroyers."
"Apparently, they would have been wrong," Detweiler said. "And, I might point out to you, if I were inclined to pick nits, that one of the objectives of the operation was to obtain specimens of Manty hardware specifically because we knew it was better than Solly equipment."
"Granted," Bardasano replied. "I would submit, however, that its degree of superiority was greater than anyone had anticipated, including Technodyne."
"I'm much less well versed in technical matters than Isabel, Albrecht," Aldona said, speaking up in support of her colleague, "but we did discuss this with Levakonic. He felt confident of maintaining Monica's security with the combination of missile pods he'd deployed and the battlecruisers already in commission. That part of the operation was his responsibility, and we relied on his expert opinion."
Detweiler switched his gaze to her, and she made herself look back calmly. He appeared to consider her words for several seconds, then gave a tiny shrug.
"I suppose that was reasonable enough, under the circumstances," he said. "However," he continued before Anisimovna's nerves could begin to unknot themselves, "even granting that, the fact that the Manties and this Van Dort somehow tumbled to what was going on speaks poorly of your operational security."
"At this point," Bardasano said, "we don't know how our security was penetrated. I see two possibilities. One is that the penetration took place on the Monican side. President Tyler and his closest advisers had to be brought fully into the picture, at least as far as their part of the operation was concerned. Their security arrangements were beyond our control, and we don't know how or where they might have been breached.
"The second possibility," she continued unflinchingly, "is that the penetration was on our side of the operation. In that case, the most likely scenario is that this Terekhov literally stumbled over the Marianne."
"Marianne?" Detweiler repeated.
"The special ops ship we were using to deliver weapons to our proxies," Bardasano explained. "We'd used her and her crew dozens of times before. They're reliable and experienced in this sort of covert operation, and using our own ship and our own people let us maintain a far lower profile and avoid an entire additional layer of potential leaks."