Patriarch's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 6) Page 3

  But to keep authorities from fishing in the recesses of a prisoner’s mind, the law was quite clear. There had to be independent evidence of guilt before P and D could be ordered.

  I sighed. “Sorry. Confine Booker to barracks until we sort this out. And call in the middy, would you?”

  Together, we grilled the hapless Anselm until he was drenched with perspiration, and his lip beginning to tremble. At last, I relented. The boy was telling the truth: he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary before the cadets went down, and had no reason to suspect Gregori or anyone else.

  “Pardon me, sir?” He addressed his Commandant.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you tell me what this is about?”

  Hazen and I exchanged astonished glances. Middies, questioning their commanding officers? What was the Navy coming to? Reddening, the Commandant took breath, but I intervened. There was no reason the boy shouldn’t know. “The cadets didn’t die by accident. It was murder.”

  “Oh, no!” The boy’s anguished cry was from the heart.

  “Nerve gas.”

  “But, why?”

  “We don’t know.” Abruptly I added, “Any ideas?”

  “Lord God, it’s impossible. Jimmy Ford? Santini? Who’d want to kill them?” His eyes were wet. “Yesterday was Ronny Eiken’s birthday.”

  “You’re to tell no one,” I said. “It’s quite important the news not get out.” Not until we learned what had befallen us. “Aye aye, sir.”

  I glanced at the Commandant. “Special duties?” The boy could be isolated from the other middies, to remove all temptation to gossip.

  To his credit, Hazen shook his head. “Mr. Anselm is an officer, and his word is sufficient.”

  Coloring, I accepted the unstated rebuke, knowing it was warranted. A Naval officer’s word was his bond. The entire Service was based on trust. Had I not been so distraught by the bloodstained children lying in the grass, I’d have remembered I was dealing with my cherished U.N.N.S., not a pack of amoral politicians.

  Hazen took pity. “Dismissed, Mr. Anselm.”

  The boy fled.

  I cleared my throat. “Question the sergeants.”

  “Gregori already told us his story.”

  “Then we’ll hear it again.” And so we did. During his recitation Sergeant Gregori eyed me with downright hostility. I could hardly blame him.

  “As I said, sir, I have no idea what went wrong. The canister was in place, everything looked as it should.”

  “Did your cadets quarrel among themselves, or with other barracks?”

  He balled his fists, checked himself. “Commandant, permission to speak freely?”

  Hazen nodded.

  “No one hated my cadets, in Krane or any other barracks. Even if he’s SecGen, how do you stand such nonsense?”

  “Sergeant!” The Commandant was scandalized.

  “I’ve had enough! Court-martial me if you don’t like it!” Gregori subsided, breathing heavily.

  Hazen blinked. “I understand your feelings, but SecGen Seafort and I have to know—”

  A knock on the door. A breathless middy saluted and came to attention. “Midshipman Andrew Payson reporting, sir. Sergeant Booker isn’t at Valdez Barracks. His cadet corporal hasn’t seen him since lunch.”

  I snarled to Hazen, “The gate!”

  He punched the code into his caller. When he was through, he rose slowly from his seat. “Booker signed out early this afternoon. That God damned son of—”

  I snapped, “Don’t blaspheme!”

  “—a bitch! The fucking whoreson! That—”

  “All right!” I slapped the table hard enough so my hand stung. “Sarge, we owe you an apology.”

  “Bloody right you do!” Gregori looked ready to launch himself across the table. I had to admire his courage. Either the Commandant or I could break him.

  The middy glanced between us as if we were all demented.

  The caller chimed. Muttering an epithet, the Commandant answered. After a few words he handed it to me.

  “Sir? Branstead here. Have you heard of an Eco Action League?”

  “I’m busy, Jerence. Can this wait?” Even as I spoke, I knew better. My chief of staff wouldn’t interrupt unless the matter was urgent.

  “We’ve had a communiqué. They claim they’ve killed half a dozen Academy cadets.”

  My knuckles were white on the caller. “Go on.”

  “As long as you continue wasting funds on colossal boondoggles like Galactic—their phrase—while tides continue to rise, they’ll strike. It goes on for pages in the same vein.”

  “The sons of—” I marshaled my whirling thoughts. “Keep it quiet as long as you can. Get me out of here, before the media hear of my visit and make a circus of Academy.”

  “Sorry, sir. I got a copy of the communiqué from Holoworld. They want a comment, and verification that you’re at Devon. The Action League says they struck during your visit to show that no one was safe from the wrath of the people. You have twenty-four hours to announce a change in policy, or they’ll strike again, and disregard the cost in lives.”

  I cursed long and fluently.

  When I wound down, Branstead said, “I’ll send your heli.”

  “No, I’ll see this through.” I swallowed bile; my visit had caused the deaths of unwitting children. I cared not a fig for my reputation. By leaving I’d hoped only to spare Academy, and the Navy. If the news was out, my presence didn’t matter.

  “I’m sending in the heli; I want Tilnitz at your side. Security has nothing on an Eco Action League. Whoever they are, if they can strike at Academy, you’re not safe.”

  “No. We’ve been through that.”

  For a moment I thought he would argue, but to my relief he didn’t press the point. Instead, he said, “I rang up Winstead at the Enviro Council, and they’re mystified as well.”

  “No doubt.” My sarcasm was evident; the Council’s hands were always clean, no matter what vileness their cohorts perpetrated. “Find the Eco League. Pull out all the stops.”

  “I’ll notify Naval Intelligence, Academy’s their bailiwick. By the way, I’ll have to set up a news conference. As soon as you get back.”

  “Have Carlotti handle it.” Let my portly press secretary appease the vultures of the media.

  “Sorry, it’s too big a story. They’ll expect you.”

  I sighed. “Delay as long as you can.” I rang off.

  “Well, now.” I glared at Gregori. “Are you an enviro, Sarge?”

  “No.” His gaze held contempt.

  “I thought not.”

  The caller chimed again. I suppressed an urge to smash it. Hazen listened a moment, rang off. “That was sickbay. Autopsies confirm the lab report.”

  I grunted.

  “Go home to your cadets, Sarge. Commandant, call up the file on Booker, flank. Send a copy to Branstead. Midshipman, you’re dismissed.”

  Sergeant Gregori favored me with a frosty glare as he stalked off. Well, I wasn’t surprised, despite my apology. I’d as much as accused him of murder.

  2

  THE BREEZE WAS chill, but the sun bore down with bracing warmth. In T-shirt, faded work pants, and my usual scuffed boots, I loped steadily up the hill, my breath deep, my heart thumping, my whole body alive with the glory of a Welsh spring morning. It wasn’t often Father let me spend the night at Jason’s, and I ought not annoy him by returning late for chores.

  I’d been running for a quarter hour, from Jason’s home to ours. At last I rounded the rise of the knoll. There, below me, was our cottage, morning mist rising like a ghost from the stony farmyard. Beyond our fence lay the twisting Bridgend road to Cardiff.

  I stopped for a few breaths, hands on my knees. The lee of the hillside was thick with thistles, but the eastern side was mostly grass, grazed short by our neighbor’s sheep.

  Father would have tea boiling. In a few moments he’d be glancing at the clock, lips pursed in disapproval.

  I lo
ped down the hill. Gravity and youth sped my steps. My lope became a trot, the trot a joyous gallop. My hair caressed the wind of my passage. My breath came easy. I was young, and happy in myself, and could do anything.

  I cried out in delight, and woke myself.

  I was in Devon, in the guest suite of Naval Academy.

  Fifty irredeemable years separated me from the boy who raced down the hill.

  I clutched my pillow like a life vest, washed by a wave of regret so sharp it threatened to carry me to a place of no return.

  When finally it passed, I was drenched with sweat. I climbed out of bed, leaned heavily on my cane, hobbled to the bathroom. I stood a long while under the hot soothing shower, mourning the eager young joeykid I’d once been.

  It was early afternoon, just past lunch. Sergeant Booker was nowhere to be found. Swarms of mediamen were camped outside Academy’s gates.

  I sipped at coffee, irritable from my interrupted sleep. “You had an enviro maniac on staff and didn’t know?”

  “It’s not illegal to favor—”

  I slammed the table, splattering coffee on Sergeant Booker’s file. “Eleven years an enviro, and you didn’t know?”

  Hazen and LeBow exchanged glances. “He wasn’t that outspoken, Mr. SecGen. In fact, other than a few pamphlets in his cabin there’s no evidence he was—”

  “Bah.” I waved it away. “Screen these people out! It says Booker’s sister suffered kidney failure after the Glastonbury spill. His mother died two years later, same cause. If that doesn’t qualify him as an enviro fanatic ...”

  Hazen’s tone was hot. “My brother is fighting melanoma, and we think it’s from the California Daze.” Incompetent techs had misread Los Angeles ozone depletion stats six days in a row, and thousands had unwittingly been exposed to high gamma counts. “Am I a terrorist? Do you want my resignation?”

  “Of course not.” I drummed the table, willing reason into my tone. “Sorry. I suppose we can’t call every loonie enviro a security risk, but ...” But they were, I knew. Even my own son had betrayed me. He—I bit off the thought.

  LeBow took up his Commandant’s defense. “Sir, they’ve become a potent force. Over thirty enviro supporters elected to the Assembly, and Lord God knows how many Supras or Territorials would vote enviro if they had a chance. Yes, a few are glitched, but on the whole, Winstead’s crowd is respectable. There’s no cause to suspect—”

  “Don’t lecture me,” I growled. I’d been wading in the political sewer too long, and knew all its denizens.

  “Still.” Hazen sounded morose. “Even if Booker was unhinged by his family’s loss, how could he kill his cadets?”

  “Not his. Gregori’s.”

  “It’s the same.” Drill sergeants would die to protect their charges. Over the years, many had.

  On that sour note our meeting ended. The Commandant, three lieutenants, and a handful of middies accompanied me to the pad. I waited irritably for the heli blades to slow. Four grim-faced security joeys jumped out, weapons ready to guard me from peril. Mark Tilnitz himself headed today’s detail. Of all the security agents I’d had to endure in years of political life, he was the most tolerable.

  I adjusted my tie, oddly reluctant to board.

  Hazen said, “We’ll redouble base security, sir. There’ll be no more incidents.”

  “You can’t guard against everything.”

  “I can damn well try.” The Commandant’s language left me uneasy; in my middy days more than one officer had been beached for blasphemy. Of course, these days strict adherence to Church policy was on the wane, though I wished it weren’t so.

  Our state religion was an amalgam of Protestant and Catholic ritual, sprung from the Great Yahwehist Reunification. Religious union wouldn’t have been possible, had not the Final War devastated Africa and Asia. But Christian resurgence in a revitalized Europe as well as America led eventually to the miraculous conclave that established Mother Church, guided by her holy Council of Patriarchs. After the Armies of Lord God repressed the Pentecostal heresy, the Church was adopted by and became the underpinning of our United Nations Government.

  The Council of Patriarchs wielded less power today than in days past, but they still represented the reunified Church. I’d been summoned to meet with them two days hence, in New York, and they hadn’t disclosed our agenda.

  Overhead, outside the gates, a heli droned daringly close to Academy’s no-fly zone. It bore the Newsworld insignia.

  “You’d better go, sir. They probably have a lens on us.”

  “Yes.” But my foot lingered on the step. “Those cadets from Krane. Go easy on them.”

  “I will.”

  “They’ve been through ...” I sighed, recalling my foolish promise to Arlene. I beckoned Tilnitz. “Wait here. I’ll be back shortly.”

  I refused to let the Commandant and his officers follow me to barracks, but Hazen insisted on sending the middy Anselm as an aide. It was easier to allow it than object.

  Moments later, I stood outside Krane Barracks, breathing heavily from my hike. The dorm was as I remembered: long, low, wooden, four steps above ground level. I’d spent two years in—

  “Oh, it’s you.” Glowering, Sergeant Gregori faced me at the door. Clearly, I wasn’t forgiven.

  “May I come in?”

  “If you must.” With obvious reluctance he stood aside.

  “What have you told them?”

  “That we’re investigating.”

  A young voice rang out. “Attention!” Twenty-five gray-clad cadets dropped what they were doing, and hastily formed a line.

  Five of the bunks were stripped, the belongings piled neatly on the mattresses. Sometime this day, each close friend of the casualties would choose an item for remembrance. Then the remaining gear would be shipped home to grieving parents. It was the Navy way.

  “As you were.” I waited for the joeykids to relax. “I’ve come about yesterday’s tragedy. You cadets have to understand ...”

  They would never understand. Death was something that happened to others. Not to their own kind. Through a haze of years I recalled the sense of immortality that had buoyed me, until the horrid day I lost my first and closest friend. Jason lay buried in Cardiff. Decades had passed, since last I’d visited.

  “You, lad.” I spoke to the cadet corporal. “What’s your name?”

  “Danil Bevin, sir.” Why did the name sound familiar? I tried to concentrate, gave it up. He was no more than fourteen. Did he recognize me? No, cadets called everyone “sir.” Anything that moved.

  “I’m Secretary-General Seafort.” His jaw dropped, with dawning recognition. “Did you know them well?” Of course he did, you idiot, they were bunkies. “I mean, particularly well?”

  The boy’s eyes glistened. “Jimmy—I mean, Cadet Ford, sir. He and I ...”

  “Who else?” I looked about.

  “Santini tutored me in nav.” A shy girl.

  “Ronny Eiken came from my school.”

  Slowly, as if ashamed, the youngsters acknowledged their friendships.

  I said, “There’s nothing I can do, nothing the Navy can do, to make up your loss. I’m sorry.” It sounded inadequate. “We failed to protect you. I apologize, on behalf of Academy.”

  Sarge gaped. My words approached heresy. Cadets were the lowest of the low. One never apologized to them.

  “Sir?” It was the cadet corporal, daringly. Sarge frowned. Cadets spoke only when spoken to.

  “Yes, Bevin?”

  “What happened to them? Was it pollution?”

  “We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise you. And when we do, we’ll explain, as best we can.” It seemed inadequate. No, more than inadequate: an outright lie. We knew what had been done. Heavily, I sank to the gray blanket of a perfectly made bunk. “Gather round, would you please?” I waited.

  “Ford and Santini and the others were murdered. Enviros put nerve gas in the suit chamber. Your bunkies were selected as symbols, you see.” It w
asn’t easy to face their inquisitive eyes, and I gave my frustration free rein. “Enviro fanatics used them to teach me a lesson. It’s what comes of letting dissidents preach their poison.”

  “That’s goofjuice!”

  With one bound Gregori crossed the room, seized Bevin by the nape, cuffed him hard. “Respect your betters, you insolent young—”

  “Let him speak.” My tone was low, but it sliced like a knife.

  Sarge thrust the cadet corporal toward me. The boy stumbled, caught himself by clutching my knees. I winced. “Well?”

  Bevin took a deep breath, plunged ahead. “They’re not enviros, they’re terrorists. Can’t you see the difference?”

  “Are you enviro?”

  “Yes! And so’s my father. Are you making it illegal?”

  “Bloody whale huggers,” I muttered. “There’s no talking to you.”

  “The Enviro Council elected representatives to the General Assembly. People are for them. We—”

  “A few.”

  “—don’t need bombs, or nerve gas!” Our eyes locked.

  The barracks was silent. Gray-clad boys and girls and their sergeant stood transfixed, watching a cadet beard the administrator of the world government.

  I cleared my throat. “Five of you died. If it weren’t for the enviros ...”

  “Terrorists, sir!”

  “Don’t you see, joey? It’s the politicals who smooth the way for the killers, with their oily speeches, their bills submitted more for the approval of gullible masses than because they’d do any good.” I knotted my fists, recalling the endless aggravations of the Senate, the clamoring hotbloods in the General Assembly.

  Repairing the ravages of the fish war took time as well as endless expense. We had obligations to our colonies as well as our own people. And there was nothing we could do to reverse centuries of environmental neglect; land and weather were in Lord God’s hands. Enviros disrupted government, caused endless expense, divided families ... Why couldn’t they understand?

  “Is that really what you think, sir?” The boy’s face showed disapproval. More than that: betrayal.

  My truculence collapsed. “I don’t know what I think. I’m tired, and I’ve been SecGen too long.” I leaned on my cane, hoisted myself to my feet. “I’m going home.”