Sunto’s large hands closed into fists and the veins on his forearms stood out. “I’ll see you in court, you smug asshole. I’m going to make sure the Anorco corporation and the Espenian government use every tool in the book to bring you and the No Peak clan down.” The CEO of GSI turned on his heel and stalked toward the door. “There are unavoidable casualties in war, but this isn’t a war between our countries, as much as you want to make it seem that way. This is your own personal grudge.”
“Why can’t those two things be the same?” Hilo opened the cardboard box and took out a videocassette. He slid it into the player attached to the room’s television, then hit the button on the remote control to unmute the set. Sunto reached the door of the hotel room, but stopped as the voice on the videocassette began speaking.
“GSI’s company people didn’t say the name ‘Operation Firebreak,’ but we knew that was what it was. It’s what the senior guys all called it. We were ordered not to discuss any of our assignments. The ROE wasn’t officially supposed to be in any of those places. Eighty percent of the contractors were ex-Espenian military, though. The Kekonese recruits, we got spread around because we had more jade and were better at certain things, like Deflection and Perception.”
Sunto turned around. The person speaking on the recording was backlit and darkened so his face was not visible, and his voice had been electronically altered, but Hilo knew it was Teije Inno. He wondered with idle curiosity if Sunto could recognize the man, whether he knew his soldiers personally the way a good Horn would know his Fists and Fingers, whether beneath the corporate pragmatism he felt any sense of personal betrayal.
On the screen, Teije continued to speak. “In Udain, our objective was to suppress the Deliverantist rebellion. We trained the Udaini government’s soldiers and secret police, and we helped them to track down and round up suspected rebel leaders. The rebels were mostly farmers, townspeople . . .” Teije’s voice trailed off. When he spoke again, it was more slowly and with a thickness in his voice that could be heard even through the electronic distortion. “This one time, we were sent to ambush a rebel scouting party, but the intelligence turned out to be wrong. The people we shot weren’t soldiers. Two of them were children. And to make it all worse, we were wearing jade and should’ve Perceived they weren’t a threat. It all happened too quickly.” A long pause on the tape. “I heard about another incident where—”
Sunto strode over to the television and jabbed the power button, turning off the video playback. He spun toward Hilo and Lott with naked disgust. “Is that your own son, on the video? Did you write a script and force him to recite it into a camera?”
Hilo’s face changed with frightening suddenness. “I ought to kill you where you stand,” he whispered. “No, that’s not Niko.”
“So you’ve found a former GSI employee, a Kekonese man you could threaten or bribe to slander the company without providing any context,” Sunto inferred. “Without Operation Firebreak, pro-Ygutanian forces would’ve spread Deliverantism around the world. Yes, there were occasionally civilian casualties, but they were isolated incidents, a necessary cost in the fight for Truth.” Sunto reflexively touched the triangular pendant around his neck, then seemed to remember he was around unTruthful nonbelievers and turned the gesture into a dismissive wave at the television. “Do you think this trash journalism-style tell-all is going to give you some sort of leverage over me? That it’ll be newsworthy anywhere outside of Kekon?”
“Not by itself, no,” Hilo admitted, as Lott reached back into the box and pulled out more videocassettes, audiotapes, sheafs of paper, and photographs in file folders, all of which he stacked on the coffee table in an impressive pile. “All of it taken together, though? It’ll be interesting to some journalists and politicians in Espenia, I would think.”
Sunto stared at the accumulating damning evidence. “How did you—”
“You arrogant fuck,” Hilo said quietly. “You were so certain the clans were headed to the trash pile of history, as if we haven’t been fighting wars ourselves this whole time, on every level and around the world. When I said I’d bring you down, you only ever assumed I’d have you killed.”
Sunto’s face did not betray him, but his aura did. It bulged and churned.
“It’s an election year in your country, isn’t it?” Hilo asked. “Operation Firebreak was a trillion-thalir, decade-long initiative that the Espenian government hid inside the War Department budget while supposedly pulling ROE troops out of foreign proxy wars. I’m sure your superiors must have political enemies who would be happy to turn this information into a major scandal.” Hilo smiled, not in amusement, but in appreciation of Shae’s unfailingly detailed and persistent briefings. “When that happens, someone will have to take the fall. You’ve worn an Espenian uniform, and you pray to their God and Seer, but your face and blood are Kekonese. They’ll turn on you, Sunto.”