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I like to think this is the understatement of the year.
“What do you know about this attack?” he asks her.
“Security is sweeping the scene,” Alixandra informs him. “If revolutionaries managed to get in, I’d guess they have someone on the inside.”
“I’ll have to deactivate the personnel we used this evening.”
“Sir?” Alixandra visibly pales at his threat.
“Not you,” he roars. “I want you to check the reinforcements we installed there and double-check the Coventry—”
“I can assure you that the Coventry can’t be breached from the inside or the outside,” Alixandra interrupts him.
“Check again.” His tone is impatient.
Cormac gestures for me to take a seat and Alixandra leaves the room to make her calls. He hasn’t stopped pacing since I spotted him through the window. His bow tie hangs loose and he’s lost his jacket. It’s the most disheveled I’ve ever seen him. I have to admit he’s been through a lot this evening.
“We need to assume that was an assassination attempt,” Cormac tells me.
Yeah, I figured.
“But we don’t
know their target,” he continues.
I stare at him. “I have a pretty good idea.”
“I’m not interested in jokes right now. This is serious,” he says.
“Pardon my delivery, then, but I am dead serious. You can’t possibly think they were after anyone but you.”
“They could have been after you,” Cormac says. “You’re a high-profile target now and your death would cause major upset among the population.”
I think back to the man in the gas mask. He was definitely lowering his gun. “They weren’t after me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“If I were you I’d stay focused on how they got into the ballroom.” There was security everywhere. Cormac can no longer trust his own men.
“Alixandra and I will deal with those issues,” Cormac says. “It’s time to take decisive action.”
“The last time you took decisive action it cost Arras an entire sector,” I seethe.
“This time my action will be about unity,” he says, “not destruction.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
“I’m moving our wedding up,” Cormac says.
“Okay. Why?” I ask. It’s honestly the last thing I expected to hear, and the last thing I think we should be worried about.
“To send a clear message to Arras that these are joyful times.”
“Oh, definitely,” I say in a flat voice. “Why not just alter everyone?”
“It’s not merely a message to our citizens.”
“It’s a warning to the terrorists, too?” I guess.
