Shadow of Victory - eARC (3 page)

Chapter Three

“So the inquiry’s officially over?”

“Yes, yes it is, Tomasz. It hasn’t been announced yet, but my office’s seen a preliminary draft.” Szymon Ziomkowski sighed from the other side of the table’s snowy linen cloth and shook his head, his expression unhappy. He picked up his vodka glass and sipped, then set it back down and gazed down into it. “A sad business. Very sad,” he said.

“Yes, I’m sure it was.” Tomasz Szponder leaned back in his chair and gazed at the younger man. “And did the inquiry reach any conclusions about how it happened?”

“Just one of those unfortunate things no one could’ve seen coming,” Ziomkowski replied. “Apparently the airbus driver wasn’t paying attention to the guard frequency. He flew right into the port’s restricted airspace despite repeated warnings, and you know how sensitive the SZW’s been about security since that business last year with the lunatic air limo driver.”

“I see.”

Szponder sipped his own vodka and let his gaze sweep the enormous dining room on the top floor of the Hotel Włodzimierz Ziomkowski. He remembered when it had been the Hotel Orle Gniazdo, the Eagle’s Nest Hotel. But that was before it had been renamed for Szymon’s uncle five T-years earlier. No one called it the Orle Gniazdo anymore.

Not when anyone else might hear them, anyway.

“Has Ludwika officially signed off on the report?” he asked after a moment.

“Not really her job, is it?” Ziomkowski looked up from his vodka glass. “She’s the SZW’s commanding general, Tomasz. I’m sure someone at a lower level—probably Pawlikowski—will issue the final approval on it. Or whatever they call it in the military. In fact, I suppose there’s something official in the military chain of command about that. Not really my area, I’m afraid.”

“No, of course it isn’t.” Szponder smiled and flicked his fingers in a “not that important” gesture, then raised the same hand to signal for the waiter. “I understand the ruskie pierogi is supposed to be especially good today,” he said. “I thought we might start with that and the krupnik. What would you choose for the main course?”

* * *

“Ordering sooner than I expected,” Wincenty Małakowski observed.

“You should pay more attention to the itinerary updates.” Grzegorz Zieliński’s tone was gently chiding. “Mister Szponder is a busy man today. That speech of his at the hospital got moved up.”

“And even the Prze
wodniczący
has to accommodate his schedule to Mister Szponder?” Małakowski asked dryly.

“He doesn’t have to, Wincenty. He simply chooses to. It’s all about respect.” Zieliński shook his head. “You younger people have no respect for tradition. Mister Szponder’s known the
Przewodniczący
since he was a teenager. He’s almost another uncle.”

“I know. I know!” Małakowski waved his hand in a gesture that mingled acknowledgment and apology. “And I suppose if anyone in the Party’s got a right to a little extra consideration from the
Przewodniczący
, it’s Mister Szponder.”

“Probably some truth in that, too,” Zieliński agreed. “And if they’re ordering now, then you and I should probably get our order in, as well.”

“Good idea.” Małakowski nodded and reached out to key the menu, but his eyes were still on the two men at the table in the private alcove. “Wonder what they’re talking about?”

“None of our business,” Zieliński replied, looking at the menu display himself.

“Probably not,” Małakowski conceded.

Zieliński only made a vague sound of agreement as he paged through the menu, although both of them knew that wasn’t strictly true. As hand-picked agents of the Departament Ochrony Przewodniczącego, the Chairman Protection Department, they weren’t supposed to be blind to the political implications of any of the Chairman’s interactions with anyone. And as Małakowski understood perfectly well, their status as sworn officers of the Biuro Bezpieczeństwa i Prawdy, the Bureau of Security and Truth, meant they had responsibilities to Justyna Pokriefke, who headed that bureau. Responsibilities which sometimes—more often than Zieliński would have preferred, really—bore precious little resemblance to the official description of their duties.

He finished placing his order and looked up from the menu’s display, trained eyes circling the dining room, picking up the other DOP agents strategically stationed to cover every entry and exit. There’d been a time when that sort of security would have been considered overkill. Zieliński remembered watching Włodzimierz Ziomkowski waving back his personal bodyguards—all three or four of them—so that he could wade straight into huge, wildly enthusiastic crowds to shake hands, slap backs, kiss babies, and bend over to present a private ear to some party member with a private message or request.

He missed those days.

“Status check,” he murmured, and nodded ever so slightly in approval as the responses came back over his earbug.

He didn’t really think there were any active plots to assassinate
Przewodniczący
Ziomkowski, but he was nowhere as certain of that as he’d like to be, and that incident with the airbus might have some nasty repercussions down the road. A tour airbus loaded with school students wasn’t supposed to be shot down in a midair explosion by a military sting ship. Over eighty dead—that was the final death toll, but whatever the official ’faxes might have to say, and whatever open chatter there might be on the electronic channels, he knew there were rumors the government was actually understating the casualties. He didn’t think they were; surely no one could’ve gotten more than eighty or ninety, max, onto an airbus. But the truth was that he wasn’t certain the official number was accurate, and those rumors were taking on an ugly tone. One that was actually directed at Ziomkowski himself for a change.

So, yes, it was possible that this time all the elaborate security might find itself necessary.

He watched the Chairman and his guest’s appetizers arrive, then glanced up as another server reached across his shoulder to set his own plate in front of him. He murmured his thanks and reached for his napkin-wrapped silverware.

“Better dig in,” he advised Małakowski. “If Mister Szponder makes his schedule and the
Przewodniczący
decides to walk him out to the garage again, you don’t have long.”

“I know.”

Małakowski reached for his own fork, and Zieliński’s eyes drifted back to the brown-haired, square-faced man sitting across the table from Ziomkowski.

Tomasz Szponder was a good twelve or thirteen centimeters shorter than the Chairman, but then again, Ziomkowski was a very tall man. Szponder was also over thirty T-years older than the Chairman, and he’d been one of Włodzimierz Ziomkowski’s graduate students ten years before Szymon Ziomkowski was ever born. He was also a member in good standing of the Oligarchia, the group of incredibly wealthy families who totally dominated the Włocławek System’s economy. There’d been a time when Tomasz Szponder had been something close to a personal friend of Grzegorz Zieliński, as well, but that, too, had been a long time ago. Back in the heady early days of the Agitacja, when they’d both been enthusiastic members of the newly organized Ruch Odnowy Narodowej. Back before the National Redemption Movement had succeeded in its goal of winning the political power to implement its reforms through the ballot box.

These days, Szponder had settled back into the familiar comfort of his role as an oligarcha and Grzegorz Zieliński had settled back into his familiar role as someone who protected the Oligarchia. There were times, in the privacy of his mind, when he allowed himself to be disappointed in Szponder, but at least he wasn’t one of the
łowcy trufli
, the “truffle hunters.” It was a nickname bestowed—not approvingly—on Włocławek’s oligarchs as an allusion to the Old Earth swine which had been imported to Włocławek T-centuries ago by the original colonists. The Włocławek trufla was a native fungus with a musky, fruity and yet simultaneously astringent flavor that was almost addictive, not the transplant of the same name, but Old Earth hogs were just as good at rooting it out with their snouts.

Of course, Szponder didn’t really need to go hunting for money. Not that he turned up his nose when it came his way—and it came his way a lot, given his Party connections—but he came from old money, as well, one of the founding families of the Oligarchia. That was one of the things which had made him so useful to the RON, and he’d contributed a great deal to the Party’s coffers in the early days. Hadn’t demanded it back later, either. Then again, demanding anything back from the Party was a bad idea, whoever you were. And he could probably afford to write it off as a good investment, anyway, given how many opportunities came the way of the Trzystu, the Three Hundred. There were actually quite a few less than three hundred of them these days, but they were the remaining members of the RON’s original central committee. Instead of the gorgeous holographic badges issued to newer members with higher Party numbers, the survivors of that committee still wore the battered, enameled lapel pins which had been all it could afford those days. Which made it even sadder that so many of them had—

Zieliński gave himself an internal shake. Yes, Szponder had dived back into his role as one of Włocławek’s elite like a ryby grzmot into water. And, yes, he was richer—a lot richer—than ever as a result. But he also continued to contribute generously to charities, like his work with the Siostry Ubogich, the Sisters of the Poor, who’d founded and continued to staff the Szpital Marii Urbańskiej in downtown Lądowisko. The hospital’s campuses were located in the poorest sections of the capital city, and the Szponder family had been associated with it for over two hundred T-years.

He was also the owner of the Lądowisko Gazety i Kurier, the capital city’s most widely followed newsfax. He’d bought the ’fax for the Party back in the early days and built it into the most influential news channel on the planet, but he was far less active in terms of setting editorial policy than he’d been back in those heady days. These days it was wiser to let the Party’s control things like that, although Szponder did like to keep his hand in with his street reporters. Zieliński didn’t like to think about how often those newsies picked up on something important even more quickly than the BBP or BDK, and Szponder made a habit of passing those tidbits along to Pokriefke and Teofil Strenk whenever they came his way.

And then there was Wydawnictwo Zielone Wzgórza. No one knew why Szponder had named his publishing house that—there were no “green hills” anywhere near its inner-city location—and he only smiled at some private joke when anyone asked him about it. But “Green Hills Publishing” distributed thousands of copies of old-fashioned hardcopy books, as well as electronic ones, to the kids of working-class families all over the star system, especially in the Projects here in the capital. That kept him in better odor than the rest of the Oligarchia with the less fortunate citizenry.

Which wasn’t saying one hell of a lot.

Be fair, Grzegorz, he told himself. It’s not what you wanted. It’s probably not what he wanted, come to that. And you’re just as bad as he is, in your own way. “Going along to get along,” that’s what it’s called. And it’s not like it should really be such a big surprise. It’s the way things always work in the end, isn’t it? It’s just that you hoped for so much more once upon a time. But “happily ever after” is something that only happens in fairytales.

* * *

“I’m telling you that Teofil isn’t going to be happy with Pawlikowski’s report.” Justyna Pokriefke’s tone was as sour as her expression. “And neither are the troublemakers. Especially not after that bastard hacked the ATC. If we’re not careful about this, Agnieszka, we could be looking at an…unfortunate turn of events, let’s say.”

“You worry too much,” Agnieszka Krzywicka said, sitting back behind the hectare and a half or so of polished desk in her enormous office. “And Teofil can be as unhappy as he wants. He knows which side of the bread his butter’s on, and if we have to remind him of that, I’m sure we can find an appropriate technique.”

Pokriefke didn’t quite glare at her, but then, no one glared at Krzywicka if they knew what was good for them. Not even the
Minister Bezpieczeństwa i Prawdy
. The BBP was the most feared institution on Włocławek, and Pokriefke had headed it for the last fifteen T-years. That made her a very dangerous person. Despite which, Krzywicka, whose title was simply Pierwszy Sekretarz Partii—Party First Secretary—and who had no official position in government at all, was far more dangerous. Szymon Ziomkowski might get to claim the title of
Przewodniczący Partii
and play with all the pretty toys of office, but Krzywicka had very quietly become the true power behind the throne even before Szymon’s uncle’s death. Behind her back, she had another title—Pierwszy Aparatczyk, First Apparatchik—the most powerful of the innumerable bureaucrats who administered the Party, and through it the government. The Izba Deputowanych, the nominal republic’s nominal representative assembly met regularly in its magnificent chamber where it nominally transacted the Republic’s business. But no one was eligible for election as a deputy unless he or she was a member in good standing of the Party, and Krzywicka was the keeper of the Party’s portals. No one in the entire Republika Włocławek went anywhere, worked anywhere, dreamed anywhere without the approval of the Sekretariat Partii. The diminutive Krzywicka (she wasn’t quite a hundred and forty-seven centimeters tall) effectively controlled that secretariat, and the political graveyards of Włocławek—not to mention a few real graveyards—were littered with people who’d challenged—or seemed to challenge—her authority.

None of which meant she was made of armorplast, although there were times she seemed unaware of that fact.

“I’m not saying Teofil will cross us or officially question the inquiry’s findings,” the commander of Włocławek’s secret police told her now. “I’m saying he won’t be happy with it, and there’s a difference between not questioning the findings and supporting them with a straight face.”

“Are you suggesting there’s anything questionable about them?” Krzywicka smiled archly, and Pokriefke snorted.