“So tell me how this changes our situation,” he commanded. “You first, Olivia.”
“Well, after examining Brewster’s equipment, it’s obvious someone’s managed to stockpile even more off-world weapons than we thought. Given all of the deep cover informants we’ve got out there, that says more than I want to hear about how good the MLF’s security is. I know Friedemann’s just pointed out that we haven’t managed to get anyone inside the MLF itself, but we damned well ought to have enough surveillance system and human intelligence sources out there to at least be able to spot modern weapons moving in quantities like this.” She shrugged. “We didn’t.”
Lombroso suppressed a desire to throttle her. Strong as the temptation was, he knew it wouldn’t do any good. Besides, what she’d just said was self-evidently true, and at least she’d had the nerve to say it.
“Friedemann?” he said, looking at Mátyás.
“Olivia’s right. We’ve always known they were better than anyone else who’s come along, but I’m beginning to think we’ve underestimated them for some time, anyway.”
Lombroso jaw muscles clenched as he glared at the two of them. They were his senior security officers. It wasn’t a case of “we’ve underestimated” the MLF; it was a case ofthe two of them underestimatingthe terrorist bastards, and he considered pointing that out. Unfortunately, it would have accomplished exactly nothing.
“All right,” he said once he was certain he had his voice under control. “So you’ve underestimated them.” He emphasized the personal pronoun only very slightly, but Yardley’s hazel eyes glinted with anger anyway. Mátyás had better control than that, probably because he wasn’t the one in the primary line of fire at the moment. “Obviously, it’s time you stopped doing that. So how bad does the situation look now?”
Yardley’s eyes didn’t soften. For a moment, she seemed to hover on the brink of something rash, but apparently she realized no one was genuinely irreplaceable when it came down to it.
“I’m not really certain,” she admitted levelly. “Things are clearly escalating since the riots last month. My best estimate is that the MLF leadership doesn’t want to escalate, though.”
“What?” Lombroso interrupted. He stared at her in disbelief. “They just fucking wrecked Trifecta Tower and killed Guernicke! Nobody’s ever done that kind of damage to use before!”
“Brewster and his team did,” Yardley acknowledged. “But there was no MLF statement about the attack until it was all over. And even then, their ‘Commandant Alpha,’ whoever the hell he is, didn’t claim direct credit for it.” She shook her head. “I think Brewster and the others put this together on their own. They were obviously MLF, because nobody else’s that good, and as far as we know, nobody else has the kind of off-world weapons support they seem to have. But I don’t think Commandant Alpha or the rest of his cadre knew anything about it before we did. And I don’t think they’d have okayed Brewster’s plan if he’d asked them to authorize it, either.”
Lombroso shook his head.
“I’d think those bastards would be getting behind and pushing for all they’re worth!” he said. “What the hell makes you think they aren’t?”
“Because they’re not ready,” Yardley said flatly. “That’s what Friedemann and I have been talking about. They’ve got some modern weapons on-planet, yes, but not anywhere near as many as they want. We’ve confiscated around a hundred pulsers—total—so far. Most of them aren’t new, but they’re all in first-class condition; it looks like they’ve been refurbished as needed by some very competent armorers. But we’ve been picking them up in ones and twos. Frankly, most of them got grabbed because someone just pretty much stumbled over them, and Brewster’s team is the first one we’ve seen armed entirely with military-grade pulse rifles. I think they’ve got more of them than we thought they had, but we’re still picking up substantially greater quantities of old-fashioned chemical-powered firearms. So they’ve made an off-world connection somewhere, but they still don’t have enough modern weapons to go around. And without more modern firepower, they’re going to be at a significant tactical disadvantage in any confrontation with us, much less any Solly intervention battalions. They know that.” She shrugged again. “That being the case, my analysts say the leadership cadre can’t be in favor of opening the dance this early.”
“Then what the fuck is going on?” Lombroso demanded. “We’ve got transit bombings, ambushes of isolated security forces, and more acts of minor sabotage and cyber attacks than I even want to think about. All in addition to what happened to Guernicke, of course!”
“I think Olivia’s right, Mister President,” Mátyás said unexpectedly, and Lombroso looked at him sharply. “I think what we’re seeing here is primarily a more or less spontaneous reaction to the May Riots, not a planned campaign by the MLF,” the secret policeman continued. “It certainly was in Brewster’s case, and I don’t see any reason to assume it’s not for the rest of these people, either. And it would explain why we’re seeing this now, when all indications are that the MLF is still in the building stage.”
“The short version is that they feel provoked,” Yardley said in a flat voice, meeting Lombroso’s eyes levelly. She’d recommended relying solely on infantry for crowd control during the protests, but the president, irked by the challenge coming at him from some of the senior ranks of his own political party, had wanted a more visible and more intimidating deterrent. Well, he’d gotten that, hadn’t he?
He looked back at her for several seconds, then he grimaced angrily and strode across his office to look out the window at downtown Landing.
All right, he admitted to himself. So maybe the Guard overreacted when it started taking fire. Hell, no ‘maybe’ about it, Svein, and you damned well know it! They got out of hand, but it’s hard to blame them for wanting to make an example out of the bastards who’d opened fire on them. Not the kind of behavior you want to encourage, is it?
Maybe not, yet the better part of three thousand casualties, two thirds of them fatal, hadn’t gone down well with the régime’s opponents. And the Trifecta Tower attack had obviously enheartened the people already furious over the “May Day Massacre.” It might be unlikely that there were any more Brewsters out there, prepared to make what amounted to suicide runs against high visibility targets, but that wasn’t keeping a hell of a lot of other people from striking back in less spectacular fashion wherever and whenever they could, and their efforts were gaining momentum.
He glowered down from the window at the boulevard where the Scorpions had gone on their May rampage. Physical damage from that little episode was still easy enough to see, and the rebuilding efforts were one of the favored targets for the saboteurs who seemed to increase in numbers every day. He’d been hearing about that from his transstellar sponsors, too. They wanted their buildings back up and running, and they weren’t especially shy about pointing out how much the May Riots had cost them in damages and lost profits.
He thought about leaning closer to the window, looking up Trifecta Boulevard towards the emergency vehicles and construction equipment clustered around the ruins of the parking garage where an entire regiment of his elite troopers had been entombed. He didn’t think about it very hard, though.
“So you saying this is mostly freelance?” he asked, never turning away from the window. “That it isn’t the MLF, just some of its members who’re too pissed off for the leadership to control?”