Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 70
“It was a fair trade, I think. An old table for the truth. What little truth he knew.”
“Do you think they made up Odin’s Wolves for him, too?” Idina asked. “It sounds exactly like the kind of romantic martial tale you’d spin to rope in young idealists like him.”
“There is someone out there behind all of this,” Dahl said. “We know they are very organized. They operate in cells. They have money, and access to military equipment. They know how to set sophisticated bombs and execute infantry ambushes. Whether they call themselves ‘Odin’s Wolves’ or not, we have to call them something.”
They walked in silence for a few moments.
“Whatever you do once I’m gone, you need to take your steps with care,” Idina said. “This is no longer police business, if it ever was. This is well beyond the JSP. It’s a full-blown military insurgency. These people know how we operate. And right now they are a step and a half ahead of us everywhere we turn.”
“Five years after the war,” Dahl said. “Why now? And to what end? They cannot hope to defeat the Alliance on the ground. Not if you gave all the Gretian combat veterans a gun and sent them off to fight in the streets.”
“I don’t think it’s about winning a war. I think it’s about starting one. Whoever is behind this wants to turn the clock back about nine years. For whatever insane reason.”
They stepped out into the atrium and walked toward the reflecting pool. Outside, the summer was giving one last valiant effort, offering up blue skies and sunshine on a twenty-five-degree day. The third of Gretia’s planetary seasons was about to take over and bring with it cool nights and the first frosts.
This place is teetering on the edge of a kukri right now, Idina thought. If it topples the wrong way, the whole system is going to catch fire again, from Hades all the way out to Pallas. And I have to leave at the worst possible time.
“Odin’s Wolves,” Dahl said next to her in a tired voice. “Gods and predators. At what point in all our histories has anything good happened whenever some fool put those on a single banner to march under?”
CHAPTER 18
SOLVEIG
Halfway through the first morning meeting with Hanzo, Solveig decided that her four years of Acheroni language and culture instruction had been mostly a waste of her time.
The Hanzo building made Ragnar Tower look like a drab spaceport warehouse. Hanzo owned an entire block of Coriolis City’s most expensive commercial ward, and almost all of that block was taken up by the corporate headquarters, a beautiful structure made of glass and composite latticework that stood a mere three stories tall. It was as delicate as a bird nest and as light and airy as a clearing in a forest. It was also a display of wealth and status, a ludicrously underutilized space in a city where every square meter was precious. All over Coriolis City, Solveig had noticed the predominance of supertall, slender towers that reached into the sky underneath the dome like needles, obviously designed to minimize their footprint on the ground. Hanzo’s headquarters showed everyone that the company did not have to concern itself with that sort of sensible efficiency. From what Solveig had learned about Acheron, using space in a wasteful manner was considered uncouth and offensive, but it seemed that she hadn’t even begun to understand the dynamics of this culture despite her extended schooling on the subject.
“We do not share the view that the contract between our companies extends to pricing privileges beyond the annual Alon quantities we originally agreed to supply,” she said to her counterpart across the table in Gretian.
The Hanzo executive listened to the translation on his earbud and nodded thoughtfully, as if he had heard the statement for the first time just now even though she had told him the same thing in five different ways over the last half hour. Acheroni seemed to have a deep aversion to definitive statements. Solveig had started the negotiations in Acheroni, without the use of translator buds. But she had quickly realized that her limited mastery of the language was a welcome loophole for the Hanzo people to willfully misinterpret her statements in small but important ways, so she had switched to Gretian, irritated that her hosts would try to turn her attempt at courtesy into a negotiation advantage.
“It seems unwise to agree to something that would see us penalized for purchasing more of your production,” the Hanzo executive said.
After the initial greeting and introduction by the company president, Hanzo had cycled four different executives through the seat at the head of the table. This one—his predecessor had introduced him as Arata—was a handsome man who looked to be in his sixties, and whose full head of graying hair reminded Solveig of her father’s.
“I wouldn’t consider it a penalty,” Solveig replied. Next to her, Gisbert pretended to listen intently, but he had given up trying to add anything to the conversation a while ago. “Your rate for the out-of-contract quantities you’re requesting is better than what we charge anyone else. You still get a favored discount. A very favored discount.”
“Just not as favored as before,” Arata said with a little smile.
“Exactly as favored as before,” she said. “For the same order volume. Which we agreed upon when our production capacity was much lower.”
“And your willing buyers were much fewer in number,” Arata said, still with that little smile on his face. “Hanzo has been a loyal business partner since before the late . . . unpleasantness. Unlike most of the companies that are now bidding for your increased capacity.”
Solveig inclined her head in acknowledgment with an inward sigh.
“We are grateful for your continued partnership. And for the loyalty you have shown Ragnar over the years. Especially through the unpleasantness. You are and always have been our biggest and