The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [19]
“Thanks. Just got it.” Again, the hologram was not worried. When Robinson flipped it open to scan it, she saw only a few scattered padds, a small tool kit, and a private communicator. She did not see the complex array of equipment, blinking on and off as it went about its job of projecting not only the hologram of Andropov, but a smaller hologram of normalcy about itself. Unaware of what she beheld, Robinson snapped the case closed and handed it back to him.
“Come on in,” she invited, teasingly.
“Why, thank you,” he said, and stepped forward. As long as the “briefcase” was within two meters of his projection, he would not dematerialize. It was he who had suggested putting Vassily’s very real tool kit into the briefcase, along with the holographic projection of ordinary items. It gave him the perfect excuse to carry the case with him at all times as he went about his “job.” He recalled the pleasure he had felt when Baines’s eyes had lit up with approval at his shrewd thinking.
It would have taken the real Vassily a couple of hours to “repair” the problem of misaligned [55] bioscanners. The hologram would have to work for the same length of time to do what he had come here to do—adjust every bioscanner in the building to analyze a holographic signature as if it were a biological one. He was the vanguard of Baines’s troops. Once he had rendered it as easy for them to enter as if they were human, the floodgates would open.
As he passed Robinson, sitting at her desk with a padd and her sludgy coffee, he thought to himself: We’ll get you next.
Chapter 5
LIBBY ALLOWED HERSELF a few hours of sleep. Her mind chafed at the forced inactivity but her body, screaming for rest, fell asleep almost immediately. She awoke still groggy but slightly more refreshed.
She had an odd ache in her chest and it took her a while to figure out what it was. At last, she realized it was a sense of betrayal. She had liked and respected Covington. To think the woman was somehow involved ...
No, that was jumping to conclusions. Covington was clearly trying to redirect her efforts away from Blake and his Borg expertise and onto Montgomery, that much was certain. The question was—why? Libby had high levels of clearance, but not the highest. Perhaps it was just routine. Covington was, after all, the Director of Covert Ops. There were some things Libby wasn’t [57] supposed to know, and that didn’t mean they were sinister things.
Libby could understand it if Covington were simply doing her job and protecting classified information. But why put her on the trail of an innocent man? Nothing Covington had given Libby had lent credence to her hints that Montgomery was a dangerous mole.
Libby brushed her teeth, thinking hard. If Montgomery was being set up, someone out there had a reason for doing so. Who would benefit if Montgomery’s hands were suddenly shackled, if he were put in jail for being a traitor? It hadn’t taken a genius to observe that Covington and Montgomery knew and disliked each other a great deal. Could Covington be that shallow, that she would go to such efforts simply to one-up a personal enemy? Libby couldn’t imagine anyone who would waste resources on such frivolous goals getting far in SI, and Covington had gotten far indeed. No, if Covington had her reasons for getting Montgomery out of the way, they were big ones, bigger than any personal vendetta.
Which led, inevitably and chillingly, back to what Libby had been able to learn. She had only been able to decode the barest fraction of the Royal Protocol document, but that was enough to scare her to death. She needed to know more, but frankly, was afraid of what she would find.
Slightly refreshed from her nap, Libby sat back down at the computer and suppressed a groan. She hated this stuff. The hours wore on. Libby decoded a few more key words, and they did nothing to assuage her distress.
Finally, rubbing her grit-filled eyes, she decided to try to take stock of what she’d been able to uncover.
[58] One: It was clear that