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  The Director snorted.

  “Your parents were the heirs to the Mantruso and Riggio crime families,” he told Brad. “They married to solidify a peace agreement…then killed their own parents to secure their power base. Jack Mantruso was born as part of the peace agreement, the designated heir to take over the largest crime family in the Solar System.

  “So far as I can tell, you came along after they actually fell in love. It’s a sickeningly sweet story, but it adds up. We already knew that Conrad Mantruso was running a freighter through the Belt run as a cover. We didn’t know which one…and a kid aboard the freighter definitely would have made us look for a different one.”

  Harmon sighed.

  “I can tell you how you have a brother,” he said. “I can tell you your parents died when Black Skull was destroyed by the Mercenary Guild invoking an overriding contract.

  “I can’t tell you why you never met your brother. I’m surprised, knowing what I know now, that Armand Riggio didn’t show up and whisk you away.”

  “Because my other uncle got there first,” Brad said with a sigh of his own. Boris Mantruso had basically adopted him after his parents died. He realized, now, just how much his uncle had protected him from. “I can put the pieces together now, Director, but I still don’t see how that makes me a threat.”

  “You’re not a threat, Brad. You’re a risk. A risk we can’t afford as the entire Solar System prepares to break apart and trigger a war we cannot stop.”

  “So, what happens to me, then?” Brad demanded.

  “You stay here,” Harmon told him. “For at least a few more months, until we have a better handle on what’s going on with the OWA. I want to trust you, Brad. Your record justifies it…but I can’t help but wonder if this is just a long game on you and your brother’s part.”

  “Then ask bloody Falcone. She knows me.”

  Agent Kate Falcone had been Brad’s Agency contact before he’d joined the organization himself, and had served as his sometime control, sometime partner after that.

  “She does,” the Director agreed. “And, to your credit, I think she’d have broken you out of here if I hadn’t sent her away already. There’s a lot going on and we may need you before this is done…but right now, the President is dead. The Senate is in metaphorical flames, and your brother just threw down a gauntlet at the feet of the entire Commonwealth.

  “I need to control what risks I can, and letting Jack Mantruso’s brother wander free would be a long way from that. Understand?”

  “No,” Brad told him. “I’m not even sure how you think this mess is going to get me to help you later, either.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll play along for now, Director, but we both know I can be out of here in under an hour if I choose to. I’m just not willing to burn bridges and leave a trail of bodies just yet.”

  The Director put his face in his hands to cover another sigh.

  “Do me a favor, Madrid? Don’t say shit like that. I have enough migraines as it is.”

  Chapter Three

  “It’s about as bad as it can get, my love,” Michelle Hunt’s image said on the screen. She was only allowed down to the planet to visit Brad every so often, but she was at least allowed to send him video mail.

  He just wasn’t allowed to reply.

  “OWA has everything outside of the orbit of Saturn,” she told him. “Neptune, Uranus, the Kuiper Belt, the various Trojan clusters…everything. And we finally got word from the Guild on their position.”

  Brad leaned forward in interest.

  “Officially, the Mercenary Guild has recognized the Outer Worlds Alliance as the legitimate government of the outer system. As a legitimate government, they are a recognized contractee and can file contracts with the Guild and hire mercenaries.”

  He could hear the but before she said it.

  “Unofficially, the Guild has informed all senior officers that anyone who takes contracts against either the Commonwealth or the OWA will be stripped of their rating,” Michelle said quietly. “They are going full neutral. Guild mercs like us are allowed to take contracts from either side to deal with pirates or other problems, but we are not allowed to get involved in the war everyone thinks is coming.”

  The Vikings were one of the few Platinum-rated mercenary companies the Guild had. The rating system had more to do with success rates and professionalism than actual firepower—a few of the Gold-rated companies actually fielded more ships than the Vikings, for example—but it also defined hiring rates.

  Losing their Guild rating would destroy most Guild mercenary companies. There were other sources of contracts, but without the legal coverage of the Guild, well…you were a few steps away from thug and pirate at best.

  “Neutrality seems to be the word of the day elsewhere, too,” Michelle concluded. “Officially, Jupiter is part of the Commonwealth, but the rumors Kawa is sending my way suggest the governors are leaning towards keeping out of this.

  “I don’t know if the OWA will let Jupiter sit this one out, but I think the governors are going to try. I can’t blame them, really.” She shook her head. “Fifty million citizens in the Jupiter System alone, and they provide food and water for another twenty million across the Trojans, Saturn and the Belt.

  “In their place, I’d look to my constituents first, too, but it leaves the Commonwealth in the lurch.” The brunette spaceship captain shook her head. “For now, the Vikings are keeping their heads down. We took a lot of damage at Ceres and the two new destroyers are almost online. Sooner or later, we get our Commodore back and then we can decide what we do.”

  She blew a kiss at the camera.

  “I love you,” she told him. “I miss you. I’m still looking for strings I can pull to get you out of there, but I don’t know how effective they are yet. I’ll see you soon.”

  The message ended and Brad sighed, leaning against the table.

  He could see the logic in neutrality on the part of the Mercenary Guild and the Jovian governors. From his own encounters with the Phoenix and the Cadre, he doubted it was going to end well for anyone, but he could see the logic in the decision.

  There might be a new name and a new official existence to his enemy, but he had no illusions. It now looked like the Cadre had been a caterpillar and the Independence Militia the chrysalis…but the Outer Worlds Alliance was definitely the same beast his enemy always had been.

  The name was shinier and the ideals better spoken, but it was a “nation” built to allow a bunch of slavers and pirates to rule over people who couldn’t escape them.

  Sooner or later, Brad was going to find a way to stop them.

  Brad wasn’t certain how many other houses were on the island—or even where the island was other than “near Mexico.” He presumed there was somewhere his Mexican Army security detail lived, but he didn’t ask.

  He was being cooperative so far, but after almost six weeks, he was starting to get angry. He was watching enough news to know that the Senate was almost paralyzed, still tied up in the aftermath of the President and his party being involved in a conspiracy that had seen thousands of Commonwealth citizens dead.

  From the tone of the media, somebody in the new OWA had spread a lot of money around Earth before they’d officially taken shape. There was a lot of “cautious optimism” and “wait and see” being bandied around Earth’s news.

  To be fair, Brad supposed, the news didn’t know that Jack Mantruso was the Phoenix. That revelation alone would probably have shut most of the pandering up. So far, the OWA and their Lord Protector had played things close to their chest as well.

  If there were purges going on as the new government solidified their power, the Earth media didn’t know about them.

  The absence of the Council of Speakers when the Lord Protector had announced his new position was a bad-enough sign to Brad. He knew that collection of politicians, and they gave most politicians a bad name. They were exactly the kind of self-aggrandizing blowhar
ds who would have wanted to be in that video, if only to attach themselves to Jack Mantruso’s coattails.

  If they weren’t there, they had at best been rendered no longer relevant and at worst rendered no longer breathing.

  “The marathon session of the Senate called three days ago to discuss the impeachment of Acting President Leigh Olson has now closed off the gallery,” the news chattered behind him. “Media has only had limited access to the ongoing debate, as many of the details of President Mills conspiracy remain under a surprising level of secrecy.

  “President Olson, who served as vice president under Mills for the last three years, insists she knew nothing of the conspiracy now alleged to have taken place under Mills’s authority. At best, however, her critics say she should have known.

  “And many say that there is no way the president would have come as close to success in his schemes to overthrow our democracy as he did if his vice president had been unaware. The truth to this, however, lies in the evidence that we have not yet been permitted to see.”

  Brad was tempted to turn the screen off…but he needed to know what was going on with the Commonwealth. An old friend of his, Senator William Barnes from Jupiter, had been made Speaker of the Senate after Mills shot the previous Speaker.

  Barnes’s first task had been to decide if the Senate would attempt to impeach President Mills’s right-hand woman and successor. Right up until the moment the Senate had been called into the mammoth session the news was now reporting on, every sign had been that he wouldn’t.

  Brad wished he had the connections to know just what in Everdark had changed. Even if he had them, it wasn’t like he could call out.

  The world was changing around him, and all he had was the news and a twice-weekly video mail from his wife.

  Something was going to have to give.

  With a sigh, he turned the news off. The world might change before he woke up…but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it.

  Chapter Four

  Brad’s muscles might still complain about Earth’s gravity, but his senses had never been impaired by anything on the homeworld. He woke up the moment he heard the steps up to the second floor creak and realized he wasn’t alone in the beach house.

  He waited a few seconds, remaining still as he assessed the situation. There was at least one more person in the house…no, three. One on the stairs, two in the kitchen.

  The house was old enough that the floorboards were not quiet, and the strangers were wearing combat boots. No powered heavy armor or anything like that, but it definitely sounded like armed men.

  Or women. Those could be even deadlier in his experience…and while Brad had been permitted many amenities, the Agency hadn’t allowed him a weapon. Or a nano-vat, for that matter, given that he was still more than up to using the portable fabricators to make a gun.

  He suspected that the house was normally used for therapeutic rest and relaxation for agents who’d seen too much, though, which meant it had a closet full of sports supplies. Including a baseball bat that Brad had relocated to under the bedside table.

  The footsteps were getting closer and he silently cursed whoever was in control of the house’s alarm system. At some point in reprogramming it to keep him in, they’d clearly accidentally disabled the parts supposed to keep people out.

  He slid out of bed. The baseball bat wasn’t a weapon he was used to, but he wasn’t a very good unarmed fighter by his people’s standards. Give him a monofilament blade, a pistol or a rifle, he was as deadly as any trooper in his company.

  Leave him unarmed? At least a tenth of his non-troopers could beat him up.

  “House is clear,” he heard someone murmur in the hallway. “One thermal signature in the bedroom.”

  There was a long pause, and then the stranger rapped on the door.

  “Commodore Madrid?” a young male voice called through the door. “I know you’re not supposed to have any weapons, but your posture suggests otherwise. May I suggest that we not come to blows? My boss would be pissed.”

  “Who in Everdark are you?” Brad demanded.

  “Lieutenant Edward Jenkins,” the speaker responded. “Black Spade Charlie Actual.”

  Black Spade…the man outside his door was Secret Service. Brad shifted his grip on the baseball bat. The Secret Service had been Mills’s hatchet people and his go-betweens with the Cadre as he’d set up his plan.

  He heard Jenkins sigh through the door.

  “Look, I need to clear the house as safe,” the Secret Service officer told him. “Just you in there?”

  “Yeah,” Brad conceded.

  “And I’m guessing that’s not an explosive, a firearm or a mono-blade you’re holding, is it?”

  “No,” Brad allowed.

  “Then I’m going to call the house clear and tell my boss he can come in. How about you put on some clothes and meet us in the kitchen in five minutes?”

  “…I can do that,” Brad said after a moment.

  “Okay. Just do me one favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tell me where the hell the coffee machine is in that over-smart monstrosity?”

  By the time he was dressed and slowly heading toward the main floor, Brad’s curiosity had overcome his fear. The presence of Black Spade agents was strange enough. Once he’d fully woken up, he remembered that Black Spade was the callsign for the President’s personal security detail.

  He couldn’t think of any reason that President Olson would be there, especially since she’d been facing impeachment when he’d gone to sleep, but he wasn’t the President of the Commonwealth.

  There had to be a reason.

  Part of the answer was provided when he reached the stairs and was waved past a pair of Secret Service agents. There were two people sitting at the kitchen table and neither was Leigh Olson.

  He didn’t recognize the woman but she was a tall and white-haired Admiral of the Commonwealth Fleet. That narrowed it down, since there were only four full Admirals in the Fleet—and meant that she was Admiral Violet Orcho.

  Brad did know the man. He was a tall man with deep mahogany skin and short-cropped steel-gray hair. And when Brad had gone to sleep, he had been the Speaker of the Senate, not the President of the Commonwealth.

  “Mr. President,” he greeted William Barnes with a small bow. “I’m not familiar with Commonwealth succession rules, but I’m guessing that President Olson was successfully impeached?”

  “She was,” he confirmed. “A number of Secret Service agents decided to come in from the cold a few days ago. Their testimony and evidence are helping us put a lot of people behind bars…starting with Olson.

  “And since I was the Speaker and no new Vice President had been appointed since Mills death, that made me President.” Barnes shook his head. “Technically, it’s two years until the election. I’ll probably accelerate that, but we can’t afford questions of chain of command while we’re at war.”

  “We are at war, then?” Brad asked quietly.

  “There’s no question,” Admiral Orcho noted, her voice crisp. “We don’t know when the OWN will make their first move, and public sentiment is such that we can’t initiate the first offensive.”

  “Director Harmon is digging into the flow of money to see if he can find out just why our media is being so wonderfully friendly to your brother’s new empire,” Barnes added. “I suspect some interesting tidbits are going to fall out of that.”

  Brad winced.

  “Can we not call that asshole my brother?” he asked. “That relationship is causing me enough problems without being reminded of it.”

  “That’s fair,” Barnes allowed. “We’re here to short-circuit at least some of those problems, though.”

  “Can I go?” Brad asked bluntly.

  “It’s more complicated than that, but basically, yes,” the President told him.

  “How complicated can it be?” Brad asked. “At some point this becomes illegal detention, after all.”


  “Protective custody,” Orcho told him. “I didn’t like it, but I understand where Harmon came from. The President, however, knows you better than either of us—and I’ll be damned if I’m starting my relationship with my new boss by arguing with him.”

  “The Admiral has her own reason for being here,” Barnes said. “Your detention is lifted, but I have a favor to ask, one that means you don’t get to go to your ship right away.”

  “I’ve seen my wife twice in almost six weeks. I haven’t seen my crew or my people at all. I have an entire company of mercenaries who I need to make sure haven’t burned a planet down in my absence,” Brad replied. “What favor do you think outweighs that?”

  “You’re also a reserve Fleet officer,” Orcho noted. “A legal fig leaf to cover your use of nuclear weapons in the past, but we now find ourselves desperately short of flag officers we can trust…and almost entirely lacking in flag officers that anyone outside the orbit of Mars will trust.”

  Brad stared at them in silence.

  “This war is going to pivot on Jupiter and Saturn,” Barnes said quietly. “I was one senator, Brad. One Senator for an entire planetary system and millions of people. The Jovian governors had quietly informed the Senate that they will not permit the Fleet to refuel or anchor in Jupiter space for the duration of the conflict.

  “They don’t trust us. Very shortly, however, they’re going to need us—and if we’re to meet them halfway, we need to have officers they can trust.”

  “Your reserve status has been activated, Commodore,” Orcho concluded, sliding a box across the table. “There’s a suitcase with a uniform that should fit you in the front hall, and these are your insignia.”

  Brad opened the box. As a mercenary Commodore, he hadn’t gone in for much insignia—everybody knew who the Commodore of the Vikings was.

  The box contained matching sets of a single gold circle, designed to be magnetically attached to the collar of either a dress uniform or a combat vac-suit.