"Let me get this straight," Theisman said in a dangerously calm voice. "You found this file four days ago, and this is the very first I'm hearing about it?"

"First," Pritchart said crisply, "you're the Secretary of War, Tom Theisman. You are not the Attorney General, you aren't a judge or magistrate, and you had no pressing 'need to know' until we'd been able to confirm things one way or the other."

Steely topaz eyes met angry eyes of brown, and it was the brown ones which looked away.

"Second," the President said slightly more mildly, "as I've already mentioned, your thespian abilities leave something to be desired in a politician operating at your level.

"Third, despite the fact that I very unofficially authorized Kevin's investigation, it's been totally black and, to be perfectly honest, operating outside the law. You wouldn't have been very happy to hear about that. And even if you'd been prepared to sing joyous hosannas, there was the minor problem that the only evidence we had was illegally obtained.

"And, fourth-" She gestured at Usher.

"And, fourth," Usher took over, "the evidence in the files was clearly fabricated."

"Fabricated?"

Any number of people would have been prepared to testify that Thomas Theisman was a tough-minded individual, but he was beginning to sound undeniably shellshocked.

"There are at least three significant internal inconsistencies," Usher said. "They aren't at all obvious on a first read-through, but they become quite apparent when you analyze the entire file carefully."

"So Giancola didn't do it?"

"On the basis of the documentary evidence we currently possess, no," Usher said. "In fact, on the basis of the evidence, it looks very much as if Grosclaude did it and intended to frame Giancola if and when his actions were discovered."

"Why do I seem to hear a 'but' hovering in the background?"

"Because I'm pretty sure that somehow or other it was actually Giancola who fabricated the files we found and then planted them on Grosclaude. After having him murdered."

"In an 'air car accident,'" Theisman said.

"There seem to be a lot of those going around," Usher agreed with mordant humor.

"So you see our problem, Tom? And you, Rachel?" Pritchart said. "The only 'evidence' we've actually been able to turn up-illegally-is demonstrably falsified. Apparently, it was intended to implicate Giancola, which would undoubtedly be construed by a lot of people, especially his allies and supporters, as proof he was actually innocent. However, we have the fact that the person who supposedly falsified it was killed in what Kevin and I both consider to be a highly suspicious 'accident.' And now, unfortunately, our only other suspect has just been killed in yet another air car accident. Bearing in mind just how fond of similar 'accidents' both the Legislaturalists and StateSec were, how do you suppose public opinion-or Congress-is going to react if we lay this whole-What did you call it, Kevin? Oh, yes. If we lay this whole 'shit sandwich' out on the public information boards?"

"But if he did do it, then our entire justification for going back to war disappears." Theisman shook his head, his expression haunted.

"Yes, it does," Pritchart said unflinchingly. "I could argue-convincingly, I think-that what the High Ridge Government actually did do would have justified our threatening to use force, or actually using it, to compel the Manties to negotiate in good faith. Unfortunately, that isn't what we did. We used force because we appeared to have evidence they were negotiating in bad faith, and we published the diplomatic correspondence they'd falsified to prove our point.

"And that, however much we may regret it, and however we got there, is the point we have to begin from now. We're in a war. A popular war, with powerful political support. And all we have is a theory, evidence we can't use (and which was probably manufactured), and two dead governmental officials, who we'll never be able to convince the public died in genuine accidents. And on top of that, we've got the news of these raids by Harrington."

She shook her head.

"How bad were the raids?" Hanriot asked. Theisman looked at her, and the Treasury Secretary grimaced. "Look, part of this is probably a case of my looking for anything to distract me from this little vest pocket nuke Eloise and Kevin have just dropped on us. On the other hand, I really do need to know-both as the head of the Treasury Department and if I'm going to be able to offer any opinion on how news of them would combine with all the rest of this."

"Um." Theisman frowned, then shrugged. "All right, I see your point, Rachel."

He tipped his chair back again, clearly marshaling his thoughts.

"To put it bluntly," he said, after a moment, "Harrington just gave us an object lesson in how rear area raids ought to be conducted. She hit Gaston, Tambourin, Squalus, Hera, and Hallman, and there's not a damned bit of orbital industry left in any of them."

"You're joking." Hanriot sounded shocked.

"No," Theisman said in a tone of massive self-restraint, "I'm not. They took out everything. And, in the process, they also destroyed our defensive forces in all five systems."

"How much did you lose?" Pritchart asked.

"Two battleships, seven battlecruisers, four old cruisers, three destroyers, and over a thousand LACs," Theisman said flatly. "And before anyone says anything else," he continued, "as depressing as those numbers are, remember the pickets were spread across five separate star systems. None of the system commanders had anything like the forces he would've required to stand off an attack planned this carefully and executed in such force. And all of that is a direct consequence of the deployment patterns I authorized."

"But if they took out everything," Hanriot said, "then the economic consequences are-"

"The economic damage is going to be bad," Theisman said. "But in the final analysis, all five of the systems were effectively non-contributors to the war effort. And, for that matter, to the economy as a whole."

Hanriot started to bristle, but Theisman shook his head.

"Rachel, that's based on your own department's analysis. Remember the one you and Tony Nesbitt put together before Thunderbolt?"

Hanriot settled back in her chair and nodded slowly. After two T-years of hard, unremitting labor, her analysts, in conjunction with Nesbitt's Commerce Department, had completed the first really honest, comprehensive survey of the Republic's economic status in better than a century barely six months before the shooting had started back up.

"All these systems were listed in the 'break even' category," the Secretary of War continued. "At best, they were second-tier systems, and Gaston and Hallman, in particular, had been money-losing propositions under the Legislaturalists. That was turning around, but they were still barely contributing to our positive cash flow. The destruction in the star systems is going to have a net negative effect, I'm sure-your analysts will be able to evaluate that better than I'm in any position to do-because the damage to the local civilian infrastructure means we'll be forced to commit federal relief funds and resources on an emergency basis. But none of them were particularly critical. Which is, frankly, the reason they weren't more heavily defended. We can't be strong everywhere, and the systems we've left most weakly covered are the ones we can most readily survive losing."

"Granted," Pritchart said after a moment. "But what we can afford in cold-blooded economic and industrial terms and what we can afford in terms of public opinion may not be exactly the same thing."

"They almost certainly aren't the same thing, and the Manties clearly understand that," Theisman replied. "Whoever selected their targets did a damned good job. Harrington was able to use relatively limited forces and still attain crushing local superiority. She took virtually no losses of her own, cost us sixteen hyper-capable units in addition to all those LACs, and scored the Manty's first clear-cut offensive victory of the war. And, to be perfectly honest, the fact that they did it under Honor Harrington's command is also going to have an impact. She's something of our own personal bogeyman, after all.