He grimaced and reached inside his shirt, removing the padding, and tossed it into the back seat of his air car. A quick squirt from a small aerosol can, and the padding dissipated into a wispy fog.
He adjusted his clothing slightly, then unlocked the grimy vehicle beside the air car in which he had arrived. He settled himself at the controls, brought up the counter-grav, and flew calmly away. He inserted the vehicle into one of the capital city's outbound traffic lanes, switched in the autopilot, and leaned back in his seat, wondering idly whether or not the vehicle he'd abandoned had been picked up and stripped yet.
If it hadn't, it would be very shortly, of that he was confident.
Sir James Bowie Webster smiled pleasantly, despite the fact that his teeth badly wanted to grit themselves, as he stepped out of his official diplomatic limousine in front of the Greater New Chicago Opera House. He'd never liked opera, even at the best of times, and the fact that the Sollies prided themselves that they did this-like everything else-better than anyone else in the known universe irritated him even more.
If pressed, Webster was prepared to admit that the citizens of planets like Old Earth and Beowulf at least meant well. The fact that they had little more clue than a medieval peasant about things that went on outside their own pleasant little star systems was unfortunate, but it didn't result from any inherent malevolence. Or even stupidity, really. They were simply too busy with the things that mattered to them to think much about problems outside their own mental event horizon. But the fact that they complacently believed that the Solarian League, with its huge, corrupt bureaucracies and self-serving, manipulative elites, was still God's gift to the galaxy made it difficult, sometimes, to remember that most of their sins were sins of omission, not commission.
At least he and Carmichael were making some progress dealing with the bloody events in Talbott. Accounts of the Battle of Monica were really only just beginning to trickle in to Old Earth, and from everything he'd seen so far, the revelations were going to get worse, before they got better. The good news, he supposed, was that it was remotely possible even the Solarian public might get exercised over such flagrant-
Webster never saw the pulser in the hand of the Havenite ambassador's chauffeur.
"What? What did you say?" William Alexander, Baron Grantville, demanded incredulously.
"I said Jim Webster's been shot," Sir Anthony Langtry said, his face ashen, his voice that of a man who couldn't-or didn't want to-believe what he heard himself saying.
"He's dead?"
"Yes. He and his bodyguard were killed almost instantly, right outside the Opera House, of all goddamned places!"
"Jesus." Grantville closed his eyes on a stab of pain. He'd known James Webster most of his life. They'd been personal friends, but not nearly so close as Webster and Hamish had been. This was going to hit his brother hard, and the entire Star Kingdom was going to be stunned-and enraged-by the highly popular admiral's death.
"What happened?" he asked after a moment.
"That's the really bad part," Langtry said grimly. The Foreign Secretary had come to Grantville's office in person with the news, and something about his tone sent a chill down Grantville's spine.
"Just the fact that he's dead is bad enough for me, Tony," the Prime Minister said a bit more tartly than he'd really intended to, and Langtry raised a hand, acknowledging the point.
"I know that, Willie. And I'm sorry if it sounded like I didn't. I didn't know him as well as you and Hamish, but what I did know about him, I liked a lot. Unfortunately, in this instance, the way he was killed really is worse."
The Foreign Secretary drew a deep breath.
"He and one of his bodyguards were shot and killed by the Peep ambassador's personal driver."
"What?!"
Despite all his years of political training and a basic personality which remained calm in the face of disaster, Grantville erupted to his feet behind his desk, leaning forward over it to brace both hands on its top. Eyes of Alexander blue blazed with consternation-and rage-and for just a moment it looked as if he intended to vault physically across the desk.
Langtry didn't reply. He simply sat, waiting for the Prime Minister to work through his shock the same way he had when the news first hit his office. It took several seconds, and then, slowly, Grantville settled back into his chair, still staring at Langtry.
"That's what happened," Langtry said finally, after the Prime Minister had seated himself once more. "In fact, it's pretty damned open and shut. The driver's dead, of course-Webster's second security man nailed him, and three Solly cops at the Opera as additional security saw the whole thing. In fact, one of them got his sidearm out in time to put at least one dart of his own into the driver, and one of the others got the entire thing on his shoulder cam. It's all on chip, and they sent the visual record out with the dispatch."
"My God," Grantville said, almost prayerfully.
"Wait, it gets better," Langtry said grimly. "The driver wasn't a Havenite national. He was a Solly, provided by the limo service with the transportation contract for the Peeps New Chicago embassy."
"A Solly," Grantville repeated carefully.
"A Solly," Langtry confirmed, "who's received the equivalent of just over seventy-five thousand Manticoran dollars in unrecorded, unreported credit transfers from a Havenite diplomatic account."
Grantville stared at him, far beyond consternation and into the realm of pure shock.
"What could they have been thinking?" He shook his head. "Surely they didn't think they could get away with this?"
"I've asked myself both those questions. But, to be frank, there's another one that's far more pressing at the moment."
Grantville looked at the Foreign Secretary, who shrugged.
"Why?" he asked simply. "Why should they do this?"
"God damn them!" Elizabeth Winton snarled as she stormed back and forth like a caged tigress, pacing the carpet behind the chair in which she should have been sitting.
Her fury was a living, breathing thing in the conference room, and Ariel crouched on the back of her chair, ears glued flat to his skull, scimitar claws shredding its upholstery like kneading scalpels. Samantha was in little better condition, her eyes half-closed as she crouched on the back of Hamish Alexander-Harrington's chair and fought to resist the other 'cat's blazing rage.
"Don't these fuckers ever learn a goddamned thing?" Elizabeth hissed. "What the hell did they-"
"Just a minute, Elizabeth."
The Queen whirled back towards the table, her face still suffused with rage, as White Haven spoke.
"What?" she snapped.
"Just... calm down for a second," he said, his own expression that of a man who'd taken a physical wound. "Think. Jim Webster was my friend for over seventy T-years. You can't possibly be more furious about his murder than I am. But you just asked a very important question."
"What question?" she demanded.
"Don't they ever learn," he said. She glared at him, and he looked back steadily. "Don't misunderstand me. And don't think for an instant, if it turns out the Peeps did this, that I won't want them just as dead as you do. For God's sake, Elizabeth-they already tried to kill my wife!"
"And your point is?" she asked in a slightly more moderate tone.
"And my point is that this whole thing is stupid. Assume the Peeps have access to whatever they used to make Timothy Mears try to kill Honor. In that case, why in hell would they choose their own ambassador's driver as their assassin? They could have picked someone with absolutely no connection to them, so they used his driver. Does that make any sense to you at all?"