Bernard’s impatience deepened the frown. “I’ve still not heard what I want to hear.”

Alba made a gentle gesture to calm me, and I nodded. “Second step: you have to hit him hard, in a place that will embarrass him. You can’t kill innocents, since that pattern has already been established. You want to nail a big target that will cost him a lot of time, money, heartache and prestige.”

The man’s eyes lit up. “I know the place. Perfect.”

“Great, whatever. I’ll assume you have the resources to do the job. It’s going to be important for you to make sure your little liberation front or whatever you call it takes credit for your action, and comes up with a consistent reason why they hit Emblyn. It will take the shine off him from recent activities and will drive him nuts, since he knows your people didn’t do the first attacks, but he can’t stand up and say anything about it because his only proof is that he was behind the original attacks.”

The idea of Emblyn being hoist on his own petard clearly thrilled Bernard. “Yes, this will work. Dolehide…”

“I’ll make it work.”

“Give me the details. I want to be driving one of the ’Mechs.”

I shook my head adamantly. “No you don’t.”

“Oh, I do.”

I sighed. “If you do that, you completely destroy every possible advantage you could gain here. You have to be held above and apart. Think, you hit a target hard, what will Emblyn do?”

“Hit back.”

“Right, just as hard, or harder. And who is going to be the person stepping in to resolve the matter by force of arms? You will, with your handpicked cadre of warriors whom you have brought here at your own expense to guarantee the peace and tranquility of your nation. If you go on this raid and something happens to reveal your presence, you lose everything. You need to be somewhere else, rather conspicuous.”

“I need an alibi.” He got a feral grin on his face. “Obvious and visible.”

“Exactly.” I stood. “I’m leaving you two to this. There’s a back way out, right, the same way they came in so Neime-yer’s people across the street don’t have a holo of him?”

Alba nodded, then got up and came around the desk. She stepped over Teyte. “I’ll be right back, my lord.”

“Fine, I’ll be here thinking.”

We left him to that arduous task. She guided me down two flights and out through a hole that had been knocked through the basement wall into the storage for a restaurant next door. “Up the stairs, out through the kitchen, and you’re clear.”

“Good, thanks.” I shook her hand. “I hope you can make this work with little interference from him.”

“I will.” Her hand tightened on mine instead of releasing it. “When Teyte wakes up he’s going to want you very dead. He’ll hold off because Bernard will see you as useful. Teyte will work against that and when he succeeds—however he succeeds—you will be killed.”

“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

Alba gave me a curious smile. “But they run the planet, and they will rat you out to Emblyn. His reach is longer than theirs, and he’ll be even more vindictive.”

“It’s a chance I’ll take. It’s not easy playing both ends against the middle, but it can be profitable.” I nodded a salute. “And, as you know, anyone who fights for anything other than money is a fool.”

Emblyn Palace Resort, Garnet Coast

Basalt

Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

15 February 3133

It should come as no surprise that Bernard chose the Palace resort as the target for his strike. I’m fairly certain Alba pointed out that it was also patently obvious, but there were few other places that would create such a splash with so clear a chance of minimizing casualties. Because the resort was not yet open, very few people would be on site at night. With a bit of warning, the building would be empty before a ’Mech assault could bring it down.

What impressed me was how quickly and easily the Germaynes created the Basalt Socialist Union and started it claiming responsibility for some attacks. They claimed the sewers and the fire, and tossed in a couple of other things that the government had taken heat for in the past. I found that very clever in that it cleared the government’s plate and gave the BSU a longer history, which made it that much more menacing.

Gypsy was immediately thrown into an uproar, since part of our plan had been to claim credit and shape public opinion. I carefully pointed out that we’d still be able to do that, and rather easily. “Look, we both know the Germaynes have issued these statements to bolster their claims and to take the heat off the government. We know we can destroy their claims because we can provide the Constabulary with technical details about the explosives used and a dozen other things that only we would know. We can take back credit and expose this as a government effort, if we so choose. Moreover, the government is clearly trying to lay claim to these events so they can use the BSU as a cover to take a poke at Emblyn and get away with it.”

Gypsy and I then went through a version of my talk with Bernard and Alba. I let him figure out Bernard’s most logical target and we agreed that it had to be the Palace Resort. Because there was a constant stream of transports and the occasional DropShip making short hops into and out of the resort’s landing area—bringing in construction material and other bulk items—delivering a light company to the site was relatively easy. We figured that a pair of BattleMechs and ten vehicles commanded by Catford would do the job. Emblyn Holdings Limited had a license for a lance of ’Mechs for weapons evaluation purposes, since one of his small companies did produce munitions. They’d been painted up in gray, with an Emblyn Eagle in black splayed over the chest or flanks. A platoon of infantry came in disguised as workers.

I got frozen out of the whole military operation, and that was okay with me because I had a very fine line I had to walk. I worked mostly on setting up the JPG strikes and helping Elle create the “real” guerrilla movement on Basalt. We chose “Freedom from Want” as our title, and used FfW as a logo. With that name we could justify anything, decry anything as evil, and we’d be set.

We knew that exposing the BSU would be tricky and would have to take place in two steps. Catford, as Emblyn Security, would stop the BSU attack on the resort. An investigation would be launched, likely by Colonel Niemeyer or his northern compatriots. Right after that we’d hit JPG, claim responsibility, and release to the investigators details that proved we were responsible for everything else. We would then be able to disavow the earlier attacks that the BSU had claimed, pointing anyone with two brain cells to rub together that the BSU was a smokescreen to take pressure off the corrupt Germayne regime.

Elle impressed me with how hard she worked. Not only had she collected a bunch of rumors and scandalous stories about the current government, but she’d done the same for Emblyn. The latter we analyzed so we could prepare counters to them, whereas the former pointed out the vices we could expose to embarrass the Germaynes. She was not only thorough in her research, but rather insightful about how to employ what she had discovered.

I left the disinformation campaign to her and prepped to travel north to the resort to witness the battle. How did I know when the raid was going to take place? Well, Bernard had gotten it into his head that he needed an alibi and he was very inspired. He agreed to go on a live, late-night Tri-Vid show hosted by a comedian who had scored a lot of points off Bernard gags even in the short time I’d been on Basalt. Reading between the lines of reports about this appearance, I gathered the host had been a long-time thorn in Bernard’s side, so everyone was salivating to watch the encounter.