Authors: John Barnes
Mother of Storms (79 page)
“But … you don’t mean they just automatically set it to … well, to go off if they couldn’t get each other on the phone?”
“Not exactly. There was a sliding scale of relative severity of action, and
at each level more dangerous policies were authorized. After Abdulkashim was knocked out, his successors didn’t bother to learn what was on the scale—they just understood it as up, up, and up. And being fairly typical of people in over their heads, whenever they didn’t know what to do, they escalated. The real mystery is this—I can’t find any evidence anyone gave the order. Something set them off, but I don’t know what it was. Diem was killed first, and the other teams were set to go if their datarodents detected Diem’s death. So that’s how Di and I died. But there’s no evidence that either the Siberians watching Diem got an order to kill him, or that they lost touch with their main base. The thing that started it all rolling is just … gone.”
at each level more dangerous policies were authorized. After Abdulkashim was knocked out, his successors didn’t bother to learn what was on the scale—they just understood it as up, up, and up. And being fairly typical of people in over their heads, whenever they didn’t know what to do, they escalated. The real mystery is this—I can’t find any evidence anyone gave the order. Something set them off, but I don’t know what it was. Diem was killed first, and the other teams were set to go if their datarodents detected Diem’s death. So that’s how Di and I died. But there’s no evidence that either the Siberians watching Diem got an order to kill him, or that they lost touch with their main base. The thing that started it all rolling is just … gone.”
Jesse walks beside her for a long time, head down, hands in pockets. The sky is getting lighter, and the clouds are farther above them; in the clear white light, his color seems washed out, and even the bright reds and deep blues of the stones he keeps kicking out of his way seem more pale and washed out.
“So, anyway, something or other happened to put it in motion, the bureaucracy just kind of crunched, and the Siberian agents came and murdered my brother?”
“That’s just about it exactly. Same reason they killed me.” Carla uses Mary Ann’s voice to sigh; Mary Ann can feel that it’s only partly sincere, and receives, for that feeling, a warning from Carla not to share that perception with Jesse. “Jesse, it was a terrible thing, and we’re going to deal with it. The whole Siberian spy system in the United States and Europe is going to be rolled up and caught, and the new revolutionary government there is going to catch and execute everyone remotely connected with this. And of course it won’t bring Di back or help Lori or your nephews get over it. Any message for them, by the way? I’ve located them at a shelter in Grand Island, Nebraska, up on high ground—they’re safe and comfortable and I should have a phone link there soon.”
“I guess you can tell them that I love them and I’ll come and see them as soon as I can,” Jesse says.
“I thought you were entitled to know. I’ll keep Mary Ann shut off for another half hour or so, but after that, as we near Monte Alban, we’ll have to plug back into the net.”
“What’s going to happen there?” Jesse asks suddenly. “And why have you taken such an interest in us? I mean, we aren’t the only people out there you could talk to, and you could just talk to everyone directly. What’s going on?”
Carla chuckles dryly. “Louie and I are new at this. Think of this as burning a bush to get your attention.”
And then Mary Ann is alone in her body. She reaches to take Jesse’s hand, and stumbles a little. Instead, her arm goes around his waist, and his
comes around her shoulders to steady her. He looks down into her eyes and sees that she’s just Mary Ann, no one else in there, and kisses her forehead as gently as she imagines him kissing his nephews.
comes around her shoulders to steady her. He looks down into her eyes and sees that she’s just Mary Ann, no one else in there, and kisses her forehead as gently as she imagines him kissing his nephews.
The warm wind blows around them, and it still smells different; she lifts her lips to kiss his mouth, and the kiss goes on for a long time. As they break apart, her eyes open to see patches of blue sky blowing in over the mountain, and a shaft of wet, runny yellow sunlight stabbing down into the white buildings and wide squares of Oaxaca below.
She also notices that the vanguard to the crowd has come around the corner and is cheering wildly. She turns and waves—not like a celebrity, she hopes, but just as if they were all her friends from high school—and when she turns to take Jesse’s hand, she’s got a big, completely un-Hollywood grin, which she can feel but is not seeing in her mind’s eye. They walk a little faster, not to lose the crowd, but because it’s getting close, and whatever it is that will happen on the mountain, they now trust in Louie and Carla enough to want it to happen.
Brittany Lynn Hardshaw has had several very productive hours, and she’s now good and tired, but whatever this thing at Monte Alban might be, she will want to know about it. They haven’t been able to raise Mary Ann Waterhouse via the net—Carla has told them that Mary Ann needs a little privacy, and then that after that Louie and Carla will need her full time.
The closest thing to a big story in the last few hours has been that they’ve been able to make contact with a lot of the UN agencies, here and there around the planet, and that although the central authority is gone, most of them seem to be content to keep functioning anyway; several of them are getting help and advice from Carla and Louie, and the mood in the places that can be contacted, anyway, seems upbeat. It’s not so much that they expect things to come back together or to “get back to normal,” but that there seems to be a growing sense in the world that life is going to go on, and once people are convinced of that, they have a way of seeing that it does.
There’s a ping in the intercom, and Hardshaw picks it up. It’s one of those nice White House kids that she brought along; unfortunately, the fact that they are now the White House staff for all practical purposes means that they’re already acquiring the characteristic arrogance and irreverence. She has no doubt that within a few days they’ll be offending Congress like professionals. “Ten minutes till we start getting signal from Monte Alban,” the young woman says, ticking off from a notepad. “And I’ve got something that’ll surprise you—a request for an interview and comments from Berlina Jameson, that reporter who puts together
Sniffing.
She says it doesn’t need
to take long and she knows you’re busy, but she’s got to get tape in the can soon and she’d like to have comments from you directly—the FBI and Attorney General have already given her short statements.”
Sniffing.
She says it doesn’t need
to take long and she knows you’re busy, but she’s got to get tape in the can soon and she’d like to have comments from you directly—the FBI and Attorney General have already given her short statements.”
“FBI? I didn’t even know they were still functioning. And this sounds like a criminal justice matter—which I didn’t think we’d have anyone working on right now.”
“There are eight of them, and so far they’re functioning. They probably wouldn’t be doing criminal justice, except that Carla dropped them a long roster of witnesses and evidence for investigating the assassinations. Abdulkashim’s Siberians again, by the way—Carla’s throwing about half of the gang to us and the other half to their own revolutionary government.”
Hardshaw gives a low, animal grunt of satisfaction; the part of her that has never gotten over being a prosecutor says, “Just make sure that the most guilty ones go to the revolutionary government—so far, they have no Bill of Rights over there, and they can deal with it better than we can.”
“Got it, boss.” The young woman grins back at her. “So what should I tell Ms. Jameson? She’s calling you, by the way, from her car, in the parking lot of the U of the Az, in Tucson.”
U of the Az
. Hardshaw mentally drafts a note to all staff that henceforth White House staff will distinguish itself from the rest of its generation by not pronouncing postal abbreviations, on penalty of being put in charge of liaison to the governor of the Wy for the next six years.
. Hardshaw mentally drafts a note to all staff that henceforth White House staff will distinguish itself from the rest of its generation by not pronouncing postal abbreviations, on penalty of being put in charge of liaison to the governor of the Wy for the next six years.
But time enough for that later—in fact, right now, with so much still not working and so much information about what is working not yet collected and collated, she does have time on her hands, and it never hurts to have good relations with the press, whoever they might be.
“Sure, get me Ms. Jameson—just let her know that we’ll have to stop when whatever it is that’s going to happen at Monte Alban happens.”
It’s less than a minute later when the two of them are linked up, and by that time Hardshaw knows what she has to say. “Well, obviously, we’ve had the case dropped into our lap, and we’re going to pursue justice by whatever means we can. That will mean some arrests and prosecutions in the United States, seeking extradition in some other cases, and cooperating with Siberian and other law enforcement authorities.”
“Does that include working with the United Nations?”
“If there is one. That organization’s continued existence is not yet certain, though I have no doubt many of its agencies will continue, just as several of the old League of Nations entities were passed on to the UN.”
Jameson nods, smiling at the remark; she and Hardshaw both know that if the UN proves unexpectedly resilient, it will cause no trouble, but if, as seems more likely, the UN is really gone, then it makes no commitments and expresses no regrets.
Hardshaw uses that instant to assess Jameson and decides that she likes her—according to the file she’s an Afropean, so her nationalist credentials are impeccable, and the polite but very direct questions are a pleasure to answer—if there are any traps in them, they’re obvious ones.
Then Jameson smiles, an engaging self-deprecating smile that gives Hardshaw the feeling that she’s being taken into a confidence, made a best buddy of. Hardshaw recognizes that smile—it’s the same one that one of her better investigating detectives used to use when he was working hard for a confession. For that matter it’s the same one that—back when TV news was the big news—used to show up on the faces of network political reporters. It’s a good thing, Hardshaw thinks, that she’s a generation older than Berlina, and has dealt with exactly that kind of reporter in her younger days, because nowadays about the only place that you see it is on the XV channels that feature Plucky Girl Reporters.
“And if I may, Ms. President, as long as I have you here, do you have any idea what is going on at Monte Alban, or why it has suddenly become so important? So far all I can get from anyone who works for you is that they are watching the situation closely, and that’s not exactly news since everyone is watching it closely, given that we’re all experiencing through Synthi Venture.”
“She wants to be known by her real name, Mary Ann Waterhouse,” Hardshaw says. “Very pleasant and intelligent person, by the way.” It’s a classic evasion step; let’s see if Jameson really can do this big-deal network reporter shtick.
“So can we say that you’ve had some private contact with her?” Jameson says. “Can I quote that—and may I ask if you were able to find out what’s going to happen?”
Yessir, Hardshaw thinks, Jameson can do it. She scrawls a tiny note to herself—put Jameson on the special list of reporters the President talks to unofficially; here’s a good person to leak to when she needs one.
“Those are several different questions. Yes, I’ve talked with Mary Ann Waterhouse—she and her companion, Jesse Callare, are just fine. And they don’t know what’s planned, either. Louie and Carla are doing their own thing with it. Mary Ann happens to be useful because through her Passionet link she’s a way for Carla and Louie to send us whatever it is that they want to send us. But Jesse and Mary Ann aren’t in charge of it—they’re more passengers than anything else.”
Jameson bites her lip. “I know I’m doing my first Presidential interview, because I just thought of a question I’m a little afraid to ask.”
Hardshaw grins at her, a big, toothy beaming grin that looks superficially friendly and that Hardshaw has cultivated for a long time—because it can also look as if she’s baring her teeth and getting ready to spring.
Hardshaw remembers what her first supervisor at the County Prosecutor’s office told her: “When you’re in politics, reporters should be your spaniels, so you pet them on the head, and you throw things out for them to chase, and you tell them what good doggies they are—but you’ve got to hit them with the newspaper every now and then, or they’ll pee on your carpet.” It’s about time to make sure this reporter feels a bit threatened. “Well, if I don’t like the question, I can always kill the interview.”
Hardshaw remembers what her first supervisor at the County Prosecutor’s office told her: “When you’re in politics, reporters should be your spaniels, so you pet them on the head, and you throw things out for them to chase, and you tell them what good doggies they are—but you’ve got to hit them with the newspaper every now and then, or they’ll pee on your carpet.” It’s about time to make sure this reporter feels a bit threatened. “Well, if I don’t like the question, I can always kill the interview.”
“God knows, I’m aware of that, Ms. President, but if I don’t try I’ll kick myself tomorrow.” Jameson’s grin back is just as predatory. My, yes, there is going to be a third-term campaign, and here is someone Hardshaw is going to talk to. Jameson lets it hang just long enough, and then says, “You said Jesse and Mary Ann are more passengers than anything else? But isn’t that—well, what all of us are, and most especially you?”
It’s a great question. Now all Hardshaw needs is a great answer. She does the usual stall—sits back, takes a deep breath, looks as thoughtful as she can. Finally she resorts to the oldest tactic of all, telling the truth. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. And it’s been getting to be that way for a long time. In some way that we don’t really understand, for decades the old system where ‘I say to a man go, and he goeth’ has been collapsing, so that nowadays we all talk and act, talk and act, in ceaseless communication, with nobody at the top of the ladder, and what gets done is what gets done. And now we’ve got a whole new world to build—not quite starting from scratch, but near enough—and there are half a dozen things we’ve never had before, starting with Louie and Carla themselves, out there to be gotten used to. I guess what we do, all of us, most especially including me, is stay loose and do what seems right wherever our reach extends—and recognize that that is not very far.”
There’s a ping and a small inset screen appears in the larger screen where she’s been talking to Jameson. It’s the same young woman. “Boss, Mary Ann Waterhouse is back online and they’re in the final approach up the hill to Monte Alban. Things should be starting, whatever ‘things’ are, in a few minutes.”
An inspiration hits Hardshaw. “Is there a way for me to maintain this phone link to Ms. Jameson while she and I both experience it on XV?”
“Er, I’m sure there is—” she looks sideways, listens intently, nods a couple of times—“Yes there is, for sure. Instead of normal XV goggles we’ll have you wear stereovisors. We’ll blank most of the screen so you get the same effect as the goggles, but we’ll give each of you an inset screen of the other in one corner of your vision.”
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