All Enemies Foreign and Domestic (Kelly Blake series) (3 page)

Kelly stood up, stretched and looked out at the building that would become the human embassy on G’Durin.
 
It was six stories tall and more than 300 meters in length and 200 meters in width.
 
It was a big building and would sit in the middle of a four-hectare compound just north of the Imperial Palace, in what had previously been a park.
 
The building was designed as a monolith with a completely glass façade.
 
The specially strengthened windows, capable of withstanding a major explosion or all hand and crew served weapons rounds, shone gold in the Antarean Sun.
 
The gold-hued window coating was also designed to stop any attempts to intercept conversations or observe inside activities.
 
It also made for a very impressive façade.
 
There was a small two-story extension off the front of the building that would serve as the protocol and security area for meetings between humans and K’Rang.
 
It would be physically and electronically separate from the main building.

      Once the building was approved, it would be partially disassembled, then loaded onto the F. R. Reynolds.
 
But first the building had to pass security review and the security people were being less than helpful.
 
It seemed several components of the embassy’s security system were taken off the approved list after the embassy’s design and build plan was approved and no one bothered to tell the contractor.
 
Security took the hard line position that the components had to be replaced before they would sign off on the building.
 
The contractor said that they had a fully and properly approved design and, if the government wanted the components replaced, it would be at the government’s cost and not count against the company’s early completion bonus.
 
The government contracting officer said there was no additional money to cover the replacement components or the labor without a special appropriation from Congress.
 
Kelly was stuck having to sort through this logjam.

      Lieutenant Colonel Bill Barrett, the construction engineer battalion commander, Oscar Vanlandingham, the senior security inspector, and Klaus Krallen, the President of Antares Pre Fab, Inc. walked in the door together and the battalion commander announced, “Gentlemen, we have a proposal from Mr. Krallen and Mr. Vanlandingham.
 
Antares PreFab proposes to install the security system as originally designed and approved.
 
Mr. Vanlandingham will approve the building if a request for exception to policy containing certain security measures is approved before it is completely assembled on G’Durin.”

      Lieutenant Colonel Barrett listed the required security measures, which mainly required some record keeping and for Marine Detachment personnel to guard or patrol key doorways and building exits until such time as the components could be replaced.
 
He also said that he had three reserve engineer light construction companies attached to his battalion that could do their reserve duty on G’Durin, changing out the components at no cost.

      Kelly suspected they might have a problem when, earlier in the presentation, he saw Mr. Strange looking daggers at Mr. Vanlandingham.
 
He looked over at the State Department Security Officer, who had a sour look on his face, and asked,
 
“Mr. Strange, can you live with this solution?”

      Strange looked down at his notes, looked up, and said in his pinched nasal voice, “I appreciate all the hard work and willingness to compromise displayed here, but there is no way that a request for exception to policy can be approved in the three months remaining in the contract to complete this building on G’Durin.”

      Kelly asked for the steps to receive an approved exception to security policy.

      Mr. Strange described a process that made a magician’s sleight of hand look amateurish.
 
“The request goes into a central State Department office, is split into its component pieces, which are distributed to other security specialty offices.
 
That will take a month based on their workload.
 
Those specialty offices, in turn, conduct a review and send the files back to the central office, except for those parts of the request not approved, which go to the variance office to see if they comply with minimum security….”

      Kelly stopped him in mid-sentence and asked, “Mr. Strange, who is the final approving authority for security exceptions to policy?”

      Mr. Strange was a little flustered and said the Secretary of State is the final approval authority.
 
Kelly asked to whom the Secretary had delegated that authority.
 
Mr. Strange swelled up to his full 1.5 meter stature, smirked slightly, and said, “Why, sir, that would be me.”

      Kelly smiled, pulled out his communicator, and hit an entry from his contacts list.
 
He waited a few seconds and spoke into the device, “Ambassador, I think we have found a way to work around the problem.
 
We need to put together a request for exception to policy for the no longer approved security components installed in the building.
 
It will require some extra guard duty until some reserve engineers can come in and replace the components.”

      Kelly listened for a while and replied, “No, sir, I don’t foresee any problems.
 
I have the man that approves requests in front of me.
 
Do you still have that breakfast with the Secretary tomorrow?
 
You might want to see if she can do anything to help Mr. Strange clear his workload to handle this priority.
 
You will, sir?
 
Good, I’ll send you some talking points for the Secretary’s breakfast in about an hour.
 
No, sir, I think we can disassemble the Embassy on Luna Day.
 
That’s in two days, sir.
 
We should be ready to transport in five days.”

      Mr. Strange turned all shades of reds and bounced in his seat.

      Kelly continued his conversation, “I see, sir.
 
You’ll convey that to the Secretary.
 
Fine, I’ll see you on G’Durin in a week then.
 
Have a good day, sir.”

      Kelly put his communicator away and Mr. Strange fairly exploded in all his bureaucratic outrage.

      “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Captain, but there is no way you will get this exception to policy through in time to get this building approved for transport in five days.”

      Kelly sat back in his chair and smiled.
 
“Perhaps you didn’t just hear me tell Lieutenant General (retired) David Taylor, the first human ambassador to the K’Rang Empire, that we were going to do exactly that.
 
He will bring that up in conversation with the Secretary in the morning and I know you won’t want to make a liar out of the ambassador and have to explain to the Secretary why the ambassador was misinformed.
 
Why, preparing the briefings, getting it through your boss and his changes and his boss and his changes and his boss and more changes and scheduling time on the secretary’s calendar and getting rescheduled and rescheduled could eat up all your time for the next four weeks or longer.
 
You don’t want to have to go through that hassle, now do you?”

      Kelly turned to the contractor and said, “Mr. Krallen, I believe we have taken enough of your time.
 
I will confer with you in the morning on our timeline for moving the embassy.
 
You and your company have done an outstanding job and I wish to convey those as the ambassador’s sentiments also.
 
I’m sure his comments won’t hurt your chances at winning the Angaerry embassy contract, too.”

      As Mr. Krallen left, Kelly turned to the four remaining individuals and said, “Gentlemen, we have forty-eight hours to put together a request for exception to policy that will pass review by every office and be granted immediate approval, is that not right, Mr. Strange?”

      Mr. Strange smiled and in a smarmy tone said, “I hate to spoil your little party Captain, but I have a transport to Gagarin to catch in two hours.”

      Kelly smiled again and told the bureaucrat, “I’m afraid the severe weather will cause your flight to be cancelled.”

      Strange jumped up and paced over to the window, looking out at a clear western sky and snorted, “It won’t wash, Captain, you can’t pull the old, ‘all flights are grounded’ trick on me.”

      No sooner had Mr. Strange completed his sentence than there was a brilliant flash of light, followed by a deafening thunderclap.
 
Mr. Strange was so startled he turned to jump away from the window, got tangled in his own feet, and went down like a sack of potatoes.

      Kelly looked over at the battalion commander and asked, “George, do you have a conference room we can use for a couple of days?
 

      Lieutenant Colonel Barrett laughed and said, “Sure, sir, if you’ll tell me how you arranged for that thunderbolt at just the right moment.”

* * * * *

      Candy Blake was boiling mad.
 
The container with their linens, her law books, and the new baby furniture had not made the shipment with the remainder of their shipped goods.
 
The baby things were not needed for another six months, but the linens would have been nice, as would the law books that were to outfit her office in the new embassy.
 
No matter the advances in electronic publishing and data retrieval, lawyers still needed their books.
 
She would deal with it.
 
She checked the diplomatic pouch schedule and saw the next delivery was in three days.
 
She sent a message to the diplomatic shipping office to ensure her container was sent with that shipment.
 
Thank God for Kelly’s parents’ invention of the transport gates or it would have been months before they arrived.

      Candy got up from her desk and walked down to the Chargé d’Affaires’ office.
 
Maurice LeGrand was the Chargé d’Affaires and acting Ambassador while the embassy staff was selected and trained.
 
It had been decades since the State Department established an embassy on the Moosilian home world, so the diplomatic office was undermanned and unable to ramp up for two new embassies at once.
 

      The former pirate world Barataria was admitted into the Republic before the ink dried on the treaty, so no embassy had been required there.
 
With only one small embassy on the Moose home world and a small consulate on the closest Moose world to the frontier, the diplomatic office had become a backwater and dumping ground for problem employees and low performers.
 
Realizing this limitation, the Secretary decided to establish the K’Rang embassy first, the Angaerry embassy second, and then sort out the Diplomatic Office, which reduced much of the pressure on the Diplomatic Office, but not all.
 
Some things, such as Candy’s linens and baby items, still fell through the cracks.
 
All in all, she mused, it could be worse.

      All the way down the hallway bustled deliverymen and grav-carts, scurrying junior diplomats, and stoic Marine Guards.
 
Even though it had been swept by the finest security specialists in the Republic, throughout this K’Rang-provided building were signs saying, “The walls have eyes and ears.
 
Watch what you say.
 
Watch what you do.”
 
Candy would be so glad when the new Embassy arrived in two days.
 
She would be even happier when it was up and occupied.

      It was an ambitious plan to prefabricate the six-story building on Antares Base and transport it here in modules to be assembled on site.
 
It was the way her mountain home had been built, but on a vastly larger scale.
 
It would be interesting to watch.

      She walked into Mo’s outer office and asked his secretary, Minnie Jenkins, if he was available.
 
The rather husky brunette checked her small video monitor’s view into his office and said he was.
 
Candy thanked her and entered the Chargé d’Affaires’ office.

      “Mo, how are things going?”

      Mo, a tall slender man, was a thirty-year veteran of the Diplomatic Corps, with a tendency towards grey wool suits, poetry by eighteenth century English authors, and half glasses perpetually hanging off his nose.
 
He had made his career out of postings to the few independent worlds still in GR space.
 
Ever the diplomat, he jumped up to offer Candy a seat before he even knew why she was there.

      “What can I do for you, Ms. Blake?”

      Candy replied, “Mo, first thing is you can call me Candy when not in a formal diplomatic setting.
 
Secondly, what is the current status on the embassy?”

      Mo laughed, “Okay, Candy, the embassy delivery is delayed another day.
 
It was some problem with the final inspection they needed to work out, but they only lost one day.
 
The contractor will be sending their CEO through our mini-ring tomorrow to talk with his on-site supervisor and make sure all is ready for the delivery.
 
Oh, by the way, your husband will be accompanying him.
 
I thought you’d like to know.”