The day had indeed gotten worse. Wesley-Smythe was leaning back in Pascal’s office chair, his back to the desk, staring tiredly out the office window as the lengthening shadows swept across the yard. Dusk already and he’d wasted the entirety of the day.
He’d personally interviewed nearly fifty militiamen without finding a single one who’d admit to having been so much as inside the blasted walls during the alleged firefight against the pirates. Two names had come up repeatedly, however, and those names lay sour upon his tongue. Palanna and Tall Pines.
He scrubbed a hand across his face, trying to work some of the tension from between his eyes. Was he to believe that Palanna and one other man had accomplished the entirety of the counterattack? No, while he was certain that the... rancher... was far more than the man would seem to want made known, there was little chance that he and one other had managed to take down an entire privateer crew alone. The sort to accomplish that variety of engagement were rare birds indeed, and he thought that he could name most of them present on New Victoria from memory.
No, there was more to this than he was seeing. There were more players than he’d been made aware of. How many soldiers had they on this bloody rock? There couldn’t be all that many. Would he have to drag each and every citizen of this miserable backwater before him by turn?
Meanwhile, sometime during the afternoon, the reports of the graves crew had arrived. Three dead by the saber, and only the single boy to acknowledge the carrying of one. Three! And one of those Heinemann.
More evidence to support the boy’s story, one might imagine. And yet, if there was a single thing clear in Wesley-Smythe’s mind at this point in this fiasco, it was that the boy was lying to him in some way. And it bothered him no end that he couldn’t put his finger exactly on the lie.
The remainder of the attackers had expired from a variety of novel munitions, including the local hunter’s ridiculous roc gun and what must have been the guns of one of Kestrel’s Mk VIII Herons.
The whole of the scene he’d been delivered unto had the stench of deception wreathing it like corruption from a cesspit. From the ruins of the ranch yard to those strange, bloodless chest wounds on some several of the—
“You wanted to see me?” the voice sent chills down his spine, chopping his introspection short. A long, slow sigh escaped him. He knew that voice.
Fleet Commodore David James Linden Wesley-Smythe, the Third, turned slowly, deliberately, sliding his chair beneath the desk and laying his elbows on the blotter, steepling his fingers before his chin. He knew that voice!
The desk lamp was facing the chair across the desk from him, aimed so as to focus its full glare upon the face of whichever unfortunate had taken it to face him. Consequently, its pool of light ended below the shoulders of the tall figure leaning against the door jamb, wreathing his face in darkness.
“Corporal?” Wesley-Smythe inquired.
“Here, Sah!” came the corporal’s voice from immediately behind the strange figure. “He bloody well stopped short in the doorway, Sah! See here now—!” the corporal started to address the figure.
“That’ll be all for now, Corporal,” Wesley-Smythe ordered, a feeling of deja vu trying to take hold of him.
“And you would be?” he asked the figure calmly, hoping against hope that he might not himself be recognized.
The question was a formality in any case. There was little doubt that this would be the mysterious Mr. Tall Pines he’d been hearing about all the day long. He could hardly be anyone else.
“Here’s a funny thing,” the voice replied, ignoring the question. “Last time we met, your name was Baggett.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“And the uniform wasn’t white,” Tall Pines sauntered into the room, moving the cone of the desk lamp aside as he took the seat across from the Commodore. “Brown tweed, I recollect. Royal Army Intelligence, wasn’t it? You was a captain back then, too, but I guess promotions come with the service change, right?”
Bloody hell! Well, that certainly explained a lot, didn’t it? Right, then.
“Yes,” he responded, voice tight. “Formosa, wasn’t it? Fall of ‘34, yes? Or was it ‘35? No, definitely ’34. Final push of the Leong Tau campaign.
“And as for names... as I recall, although your uniform seems not to have changed, you had no name or rank whatsoever. No rank, no service... no identity at all, in fact, what? I looked.
“And yet, I was nonetheless ordered to afford you every courtesy.”
Tall Pines chuckled. “Rubs you right raw, don’t it, when they do that?”
“Quite,” Wesley-Smythe replied dully. “This lot would be your mess, then?”
“You could say I sorta stumbled into it, yeah,” Tall Pines allowed.
“Well, that would explain your stealing a march on RN here, I suppose,” Smythe said. “Of course, were I to call headquarters...?
“Still don’t exist,” he admitted.
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“I see. And I suppose my orders would still be to afford you every courtesy?”
Tall Pines only shrugged.
“This Palanna chap,” Wesley-Smythe lowered his chin, his voice tight. “Does he exist?”
The man’s guileless smile told it all.
A thought struck, and Wesley-Smythe straightened. Suddenly the boy’s tale made considerably more sense. “Of course!” he said. “You’re the grandfather.”
Tall Pines bowed slightly. “Guilty as charged.”
“What the bloody hell is going on here?” Wesley-Smythe demanded then. “And don’t give me any of that eyes only or need to know bollocks! This isn’t Formosa, old chap. This isn’t even Earth. It’s New bloody Victoria and my operation. You’ve no business getting into the middle of it.”
“You got the notice of claim from Admiralty yet?” Tall Pines asked lightly.
Wesley-Smythe went white at the lips. “See here, now!”
“What’ll they say when I ask about you?” Tall Pines countered out of the blue.
Wesley-Smythe sat bolt upright, shocked to his core. “What?”
“Who are you working for these days, Captain Baggett?” Tall Pines pressed. “How’d you know that ship was comin’ before its own crew did? What’s your angle?”
“What manner of preposterous—?”
“You were halfway here when those apes took on Kestrel and that packet,” the man leaned in, voice hard. “With a gottdamned carrier group! Don’t give me no backwash about answering any distress calls. You shouldn’t be within a week of here at your best speed.”
Wesley-Smythe leaned back in his chair, although he did not relax. Did the man actually suspect him of collusion with the pirates? Come to that, how much did Tall Pines know of current conditions?
The last time they’d met, the man had been rather more informed even than Army Intelligence had been. He’d appeared from nowhere one dark night, demanded and received Eyes Only intelligence documents which shouldn’t ever have left the Building, and had vanished into the mist like a ghost.
Nor had any amount of investigation winkled a single crumb of information concerning either him or his mysterious organization. No, the only prize that the investigation had netted had been the near destruction of Wesley-Smythe’s career. The man had had some very powerful and influential patrons.
Of course, that had been then, and this was now. Wesley-Smythe was no longer a junior officer, although he’d yet to reach the top echelons where the true power lay. He knew more now than he had then. In point of fact, he thought he might even know the identity of this—
“There were rumors,” he said evenly as he leaned forward, his fingers steepling again. “Legends, really. Tales of an ultra secret, multi-national force, financed from black budgets in both my country and yours, among others.”
Tall Pines smiled carelessly. “Yeah, I heard ‘em. Matinee heroes in unmarked planes and airships, swooping down here and there to rescue damsels in distress and clobber pirates and bandits where they found them.
Wesley-Smythe’s eyes narrowed, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his lip. “Group, wasn’t it?” he asked casually.
“Group what?” Tall Pines’ voice was guileless.
“Just Group.”
The American shrugged. “Not like the pencil pushers to give anything a name that simple, is it?” he ruminated. “Should be some extry numbers or letters tacked on to make it sound more important, dontcha think? All mysterious like? Group X, X Group, or some hogwash like that.”
Wesley-Smythe’s smile grew slightly. The answers were artful and completely without stress, but he’d managed to work the man off topic, and that in itself spoke volumes.
“You tryin’ to tell me that you work for this here Group?” Tall Pines asked, disbelief in his voice.
“Not at all, Old Man,” Wesley-Smythe shook his head, smiling. “Not at all. Do you?”
Tall Pines laughed out loud. “Pardner,” he wheezed between gusts, rubbing his nose with a sleeve, “I hate to break it to ya, but there ain’t no such thing as Group. I can tell you that for an absolute fact. They’s all just campfire stories.”
Convincing. But Wesley-Smythe had made his living in part by reading people and ferreting out the massaging of truths. The old man’s laughter had been spontaneous and real. It had also held the tinge of brittleness to it. What did that mean?
Still... Men he’d trusted had told him to trust this ghost. Of course, people did change. Some of the men he’d once thought most loyal had—
“You knew that krauthead captain,” Tall Pines broke into his introspection.
“Hmm?” he looked up, taken by surprise. “What's that?”
“You recognized that krauthead captain out in the field,” Tall Pines repeated. “And you recognized the ship. How?”
“And what business—?”
“Every courtesy,” Tall Pines pressed, eyes glinting. “And make it good — I don’t really trust you much.”
Wesley-Smythe hesitated. He had, he admitted to himself, lost control of the situation. It was an uncomfortable realization, and one he wasn’t accustomed to at all. He was used to being the one ten steps ahead of the crowd, not the one wandering about wondering what had happened.
On the surface, of course, he possessed all the cards. The ships, the authority, the mandate. The surface, however, seldom presented the entire picture.
Damn and blast! It had all begun to unravel with the radio communiqué concerning Kestrel and the ore shipment that hadn’t supposed to have gone out until next week. He was supposed to have intercepted—
He drew in a deep, calming breath. Nothing for it. It was done. Someone had bumped the ship dates forward, and so he’d been late. At the same time, the raiders hadn’t been. Someone —possibly the same someone who’d juggled the shipping orders— had led them right to the thing.
And then the island. Seemingly no more than just another unremarkable, wandering rock, in no way different from hundreds of others, and yet, so far from unremarkable in the event. Mayors who weren’t simple mayors, ranchers who weren’t simple—
The old ghost was playing a game, it would seem — he and his confounding friends. Wait! That was it!
Wesley-Smythe relaxed into his chair, eyes going contemplative. The old ghost hadn’t beaten RN here at all! He’d been here all along. The old bastard bloody well lived here, didn’t he? It would explain his grandson and daughter being here, wouldn’t it? Yes, and all the others. Roc hunter indeed!
He stifled a chuckle at the absurdity of the whole thing. Of all the places in the wide world for the raiders to have sought shelter, they’d stumbled directly into a secret military base in the middle of nowhere, populated by clandestine warriors who were all but legend.
“As to who I answer to, Old Chap,” he smiled into the old man’s glare, “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say. My position is somewhat... murky. Bit grey and all that, what? Certainly you should understand, what?
“Suffice to say that, ultimately, I answer to the highest authority, and that I have the best interests of the Crown in mind. Yes, and of your lot as well, I suppose. Allies and all that, what?”
Av couldn’t decide whether to trust the man or not. Two days ago, it would have been a foregone conclusion. A lot had changed in the last thirty hours or so. Nor were the fake commodore’s answers particularly consoling. Not that he was in any position to cast stones, of course.
The trouble was, he was out of the loop. So far out that there wasn’t even any loop left. He was playing this by ear, and his ear hadn’t been to the ground in a good many years. And he was running low on bluff. Was the commodore legit, he’d make a valuable ally. Was he part of the rot that went who knew how deep, well... Then he had it.