"I can think of only two reasons." If Terekhov's voice was less harsh, it was much colder. "First, we've been wrong about Westman from the start. Maybe he's just smarter than Nordbrandt, not less bloodthirsty. He could simply've decided to start out more slowly, so he'd be able to make a stronger case to the Montanan public for having been forced to it by the reactionary forces of a corrupt regime when he unleashes his own bloodbath.

"Second— and, to be honest, the one I would infinitely -prefer-this 'Firebrand' is simply that rogue arms dealer I mentioned to you once before. Somebody peddling arms wherever he can find a buyer, who's managed to contact both Westman and Nordbrandt. In that case, Westman really may be as different from Nordbrandt as we always thought he was."

"But how could a single arms dealer make contact in such a relatively short period with two such totally different people? Neither of whom were on some directory of would-be freedom fighters or terrorists before they went underground, and that wasn't all that long ago. So how did he find both of them so promptly?" Van Dort objected. "Especially when the two people in question live on planets over a light-century apart?"

"That, Bernardus, may be the one ray of sunlight in this entire thing," Terekhov said grimly. "I've been worried-for that matter, the Office of Naval Intelligence and Gregor O'Shaughnessy have been worried-that certain... outside interests might be interested in destabilizing the Cluster to prevent the annexation from succeeding. It might just be that this 'Firebrand' is the front man for somebody trying to do just that."

"By feeding weapons to local terrorists, or possible terrorists," Van Dort said.

"Absolutely. And, if that's the case, and if your estimate of Mr. Westman is accurate, we may finally have caught a break."

Van Dort looked up at him, trying to understand how the probable confirmation that the Solarian League was actively -working against the annexation effort could possibly be construed as "a break," and Terekhov smiled slowly. It wasn't an excessively pleasant smile.

"We're going back to Montana, Bernardus. I'll leave one platoon of Marines, with battle armor, one pinnace, and orbital sensor arrays, to support the Kornatians until Baroness Medusa's reinforcements get here. But you and I, and the Kitty , are returning immediately to Montana. Where we're going to confront Mr. Westman with the media coverage, and the government reports, and our own records, of what Agnes Nordbrandt's been doing here in Split. We're going to ask him if he really wants to be associated with a murderous bitch like her, and then, when he denies he ever could be, we're going to hit him squarely between the eyes with the fact that he's been buying guns from the same supplier she has and see how he likes that."