Engaging the Enemy Read Online Free PDF

over, there’s the cleanup period, then I get ten days before the new class arrives.”
    â€œWhat sport?” Grace said.
    â€œSport?”
    She let her irritation hiss out on her breath. “Pick a sport,” she said. “Something you do anyway.”
    â€œOh. Er…fishing. Up in the Samplin hills; I usually rent a cottage on one of the streams near Tera Lake.”
    â€œFine,” Grace said. “Just do that. I prefer dry flies.”
    â€œI’m a wet-fly man myself,” he said.
    â€œWell, then. Until.” She closed the connection.
    On her visual, the President got up, went to the bathroom, came back with a glass of water, fumbled in a drawer, and unpeeled an orange pill. “Now that’s a mistake,” Grace murmured to herself. “You’re going to be drowsy in the morning…” He had left the chip under his pillow. Another mistake. If the drug made him forget it, and his house staff found it…she grinned, imagining the furor when Security got hold of it. She watched until he was clearly asleep, snoring, then played with the room’s surveillance equipment, inserting a shadowy figure that moved to and from the President’s bed from a closet. They’d find that on the daily review, and whoever was supposed to be monitoring the night shift would be in deep trouble.
    Then she reviewed the rental records of holiday cottages on likely fishing streams near Tera Lake, and found that MacRobert had booked through Murrian Holiday Rentals for the past twelve years. In their records, his first preference was Greyfalls, second was Over-brook, and the third was Greentop. All were on Middle Run. He had a current reservation for Greyfalls; the other two were also reserved already. The nearest available property was Brookings Manor, “a working farm with sizable residence suitable for bed-and-breakfast accommodations. Includes fishing rights on Middle Run within walking distance. Available for seasonal or long-term lease, or purchase.” It wasn’t a bad location at all, and it might serve displaced Vatta family members as an interim residence-headquarters.
    After some haggling with the Larger Properties section of Murrian Real Estate, Grace arranged a year’s lease in the name of Stavros’ widow, who had—understandably—gone back to using her maiden name. A widow and her relatives retiring to a remote country estate would raise no eyebrows. Helen was presently living in one of the Stamarkos homes; that couldn’t go on for too long anyway.
    It was so satisfying when one action solved more than one problem. Grace stretched and let herself drop into sleep for a short nap. The one good thing about being old was that she didn’t mind not sleeping through the night.

    Ky Vatta looked around the bridge of
Fair Kaleen
shortly before they were due to drop back into normal space in the Garth-Lindheimer System. Her crew had removed all the evidence of the pirates’ occupation except what had been locked away in case evidence was needed. The weeks in FTL flight had given them plenty of time to inventory cargo, purge and reinitialize the computers, and make her a healthy ship for decent crew to ship on. With a new paint job,
Fair Kaleen
could be the flagship of a new Vatta fleet, proof that Vatta Transport, Ltd., was still a going concern.
    Or she could be a privateer, proof that Vatta Transport, Ltd., was a going concern with teeth.
    When they emerged into the Garth-Lindheimer System, her ship’s excellent scan showed nothing suspicious in the system except that the system ansibles were not functioning. Without ansible function, they had no real-time communication with Garth-Lindheimer Traffic Control, so Ky entered their ship’s information in response to the automated beacon’s request. The convoy, as expected, had emerged ahead of her ship, with the Mackensee escorts positioned to guard either flank. She saw less