Dead Reckoning - Prologue

"Captain Vanderjagt is dead."

Admiral Conrad Cosina slapped a data folder down on the mahogany desk to punctuate the momentous statement. The tall, broad-shouldered admiral continued past the desk to stand before the floor-to-ceiling windows. He clasped his hands behind his back and stared out at the sharp points of light visible only from space. Stars on Earth are fuzzy, Cosina thought incongruously.
Of the four Families which claimed ownership of all extraterrestrial properties, only the Warner Family had made the move to locate their head offices away from the planet surface. The other three, along with the thirteen Families that owned nothing beyond Earth, worked from a position far below them.

The man behind the desk looked up sharply at the intrusion, but did not respond immediately. Gerald Warner headed the fourth largest corporate government on Earth, or off it, as the case was. He presided over more than seven billion citizens, negotiated trade agreements in the trillions on a weekly basis, and had organized the expansion of humanity to fifteen other worlds. It was his habit not to speak without thinking, and so he remained silent. His weathered hands opened the folio and he began absorbing the information within.

"Was it an accident?" he finally asked, his eyes never leaving the report.

"I don't know for certain yet," came the heated response, "but I doubt it. If I can find evidence it wasn't, someone is going to wish they had never been born."

"If it wasn't an accident, then we have bigger problems than avenging a murdered friend." The words were cold, but the look he gave the admiral when he turned was anything but. There was pain written in the CEO's face, pain and loss both. They could not overpower who and what he was, though. He was a Warner, and the Family came first, always.

"There's only one reason Chris would have become a target. If someone did arrange his accident, then the secret has gotten out somehow."

"I realize that, Gerry, but there's more." Cosina strode across the plush carpeting to the desk and lowered himself into one of the carved wooden chairs that sat facing it. "Chris and his security officer, Lt. Sepulveda, were coming to have a face-to-face meeting with me over a recent security issue. He wouldn't be more specific in his message. I think that someone on the project is feeding information to one of the other Families. That's the most likely conclusion given what has happened, anyway. If the leak figured out that someone was onto him, he could have gotten word out to his contact and arranged the 'accident'. Chris' shuttle was on final approach when there was a problem. The shuttle lost altitude too quickly, and crashed on the landing strip."

Warner took his eyes off the report finally and transferred them to his head of military research and development. "Vanderjagt's team has been sealed since the beginning, correct?"

"Yes. We have quietly shut down all requests to transfer out, and no one knew of Project Argo to ask to be transferred in. The information couldn't have gotten out that way. Outgoing communications from the team are all monitored. There's no traffic in the Minoa system. We've been careful, but obviously not careful enough."

Anger and self-recrimination filled Cosina for a moment. He quickly rejected the latter as illogical and unhelpful, while harnessing the former to drive him forward.

Cosina was a military officer, and he had seen more than his share of deaths. That this death hit very close to him personally did not keep him from being focused on his duty, and the objectives he was ordered to seek. This was not the first time that someone under his command had died, and he had learned that mourning could be postponed until immediate threats had been handled.

"What do you want me to do, Gerry?"

"I'll have Thom and his team investigate these deaths. I want you to let him work without looking over his shoulder. Agreed?"

"Yes, sir." he agreed with a casualness that implied to Gerry that he was still going to monitor the investigation, just not allow himself to be caught at it. That was enough for Warner, so he did not comment on what he knew he couldn't change. If the admiral was circumspect, he wouldn't be interfering, now would he?

"As for Project Argo, what would be the most logical response?"

"Turn the project over to Commander Teach, Chris' XO," he ticked items off on his fingers, obviously having outlined a proposal ahead of time. "Turn security over to Sgt. Aichele and add to his team. Shut Argo down until the leak can be found. Move operations to the back-up location."

"Conrad, this is your project and you can run it any way you want. I will not tell you what to do, but I will tell you that I don't want you to do any of those four things."

Cosina stiffened in his chair. "Why not, if I might ask?"

"Don't get your feathers ruffled, Conrad. I am not telling you that this was poor thinking on your part, because it wasn't. You are absolutely right, that is the most reasonable response to our current situation. That's why I want you to find a different response.

"There are several reasons that Chris might have been killed, if the secret is out. Because of his earlier message, covering up someone's identity or activities is the most likely. Still, it might have been done to try to set up a situation desirable to whoever is responsible. Our best response is going to be the one the other side didn't anticipate."

Cosina frowned, shuffling ideas around, testing their potential effectiveness in his mind. "All right," he finally said. "I'll have a new proposal for you tomorrow morning."

He rose and left quickly, his mind already forging a new list of things to do. He barely noticed Warner calling Thom Marshall to arrange a meeting.