by David Gullen
‘Thumb print.’
Wilson pressed his hand to the pad.
Johnson snapped the pad away into his jacket. ‘Okay, you’re in. Welcome back, agent.’
Wilson poured himself another coffee. This time he omitted the booze. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Gould’s men lost a cash box headed for laundry in the Vegas casinos. It seems Novik lifted the car, spree-shopped an entire mall, bounced off the Mexican border and is now headed back north. Gould is so pissed he’s sent his top man out of the Southern Littoral. We want that man.’
‘How do you know where the package is?’
‘The car’s smart, so is some of the money. They’ve been talking.’
‘I’m going to need more than that if I’m out there on my own.’
‘Dream on, Rambo,’ Masters said. ‘You’ve got me.’
After all the bullshit Wilson couldn’t help himself. ‘Sugar, that’s the best offer I’ve had this week.’
She went up on the balls of her feet. ‘Do not ever try and–’
‘Come on to you?’
Johnson slapped his thigh. ‘It’s good to see a new team bond.’
Masters went to fetch her bag from their car. After a moment Johnson followed her.
‘You okay with him?’ he said.
‘I’m good. Any issues I’ll cut him loose and he’s just another deluded loser gone rogue.’
‘We don’t need any issues.’
Masters swung the holdall onto her shoulder, one foot on the kerb. ‘No insurmountable opportunities?’
‘Something like that. Don’t underestimate Wilson. He brought Meineck in from the levees. He’s still a player.’
‘He’s an old man too scared to use a gun,’ Masters said. ‘Somewhere inside, there’s a death wish.’
Johnson frowned, ‘Cop suicide? It’s just guns. Wilson still hurts people good.’
‘That’s the anger.’
Johnson looked back at Wilson’s shabby little tract house. ‘What do you think it’s like, to shoot your own wife in the back of the head?’
‘By accident,’ Masters said.
‘Yeah, sure. That’s what I meant. By accident.’
- 13 -
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Novik parked in the front bays of a Cheese-a-Swede Rootisserie. He couldn’t get some things out of his head. He shut his eyes, and the images of the bodies, the tanks, and the Dawkins Dogs were still there.
‘It was…’ Novik wanted to say something, but he wanted to use words big enough, worthy enough of what he had seen, and his feelings about it.
‘It was murder,’ Josie said softly.
Benny hung his head, ‘I wish I could have done something, I really do.’
‘What could any of us do?’ Novik said grimly.
The eatery was heaving, the parking lot snarled with haulage trucks, farm wagons, automobiles, campers and pickups as they pulled back from the border, tangling with southbound traffic that had yet to hear the news.
‘Mr Car, please drive us away. Go north, the west coast, anywhere,’ Josie said.
The Cadillac slowly eased its way through the mass of vehicles.
Novik stamped his foot on the brake, ‘No, I’m driving. We’re going back into the malls, the biggest! We’re carrying on.’
‘We don’t have to right now, babe,’ Josie said. ‘Things are going to get crazy, the border states will go into lockdown. We should lay low and think things through.’
Novik thumped the wheel, ‘I can’t do nothing, this is the only thing I can do.’ He pushed the Cadillac towards a gap, a compact utility heading for the same space blocked him. The compact’s horn blared, Novik held down the Cadillac’s own horn with his thumb, ‘Move it.’
‘Allow me,’ the Cadillac said.
A teeth-grating sonic pulse stripped the dust from compact and shoved the now gleaming vehicle a foot backwards. Novik gave a grin of fierce appreciation, pushed into the enlarged gap, swung round a gridlocked truck and out onto the highway.
‘I agree with Novik,’ Benny said. ‘You’re running out of time. Let’s go put some consumer commodities beyond use.’
Josie was scared. She wanted to get out of the car, just park up, quit, leave the money and walk away. She didn’t want to go back to where those three sick, ugly men from the diner could find them. ‘We only just got away… I don’t want to do this, I want to go home.’
Novik took Josie’s hand, ‘Don’t worry, babe, I’ll take care of you.’
If he was going to look after her, who was going to watch out for him? He was going to get them all arrested, he’d be locked up again; the way things were, the police wouldn’t be in a mood to ask questions. An awful certainty grew inside Josie, with cold dread she knew Novik was going to get himself killed. Somewhere, somehow, he’d go down in a hail of bullets in some soulless place, outside a drug store, a garage, a 24/7.
Novik wasn’t going to stop now, they’d made their promises and he was going to keep his. God help her, that was the deal and she’d have to go with it. Josie held his hand tight. It wasn’t enough, for now it would have to do.
Wherever they drove Union flags were flying, from garden flagpoles, windows, vehicles, shop verandas. Convoys of olive-green military trucks, tank transporters and personnel carriers headed south on every road.
- 14 -
The coarse white sand of the narrow coral beach burned under Bianca Hutzenreiter’s bare feet. Along the beach, Tekirei waved to her from his place in the shade. She wore the same kind of brightly coloured loincloth he did, a wide-brimmed sun hat the only concession to her fairer skin.
Bianca’s fingers did not quite touch Tekirei’s brown, sinewy shoulder.
‘It is hot.’ She sat beside him.
‘I noticed that myself.’ Tekirei’s voice was deep and mellow.
‘Most likely it is the sun.’
Tekirei smiled. ‘I believe you are right.’
Together they looked across the calm lagoon waters towards the half-submerged black walls and structures of ancient Nan Madol, the horizontally stacked basalt columns like so many stone logs.
Tekirei extended his arm towards the nearest of the manmade islets. ‘High tide is not for an hour.’
‘What do you want me to do, Tekirei?’ Bianca said.
Tekirei Matang knew what Bianca meant. In his secret heart he heard another answer.
‘I would like you to tell the sea to go back down, like your English king, Cnut.’
Bianca leaned back on her elbows. ‘I’m not English, and he was a Dane. He only said that to prove that he could not.’
‘A sensible man.’
‘The sea will go back down here too, Tekirei. When your daughter’s children are as old as we are now. Meanwhile, I will do all I can. You know that.’
He wanted to touch her then, take her hand, but he held back. As ever. ‘Or their children,’ he said, and sighed.
‘I can’t build a wall round Nan Madol,’ Bianca said.
‘I think you could.’
Bianca shook her head. ‘We should move her, like the Egyptians did with the temples at Philae when they built High Aswan. It would crea
te work for many people. Then, when the sea goes down again, in fifty or a hundred years, Nan Madol can be moved back.’
Tekirei hugged his knees. ‘I do not think so. People would grow used to the idea. The old city would stay in the wrong place and the ghosts of the Saudeleur would wander, forever lost.’
‘I promise it would be done.
‘It must be nice to be so wealthy.’
There it was. Always this thing between them. One of the differences. Tekirei was a businessman, a leader, respected as much for his age as his achievements. And Bianca, if she wanted, she could buy him from her allowance. She could buy the island, half the country.
‘Tekirei.’ Bianca bit her lip, unable to decide how to begin. She looked down at her bare breasts, her tanned legs under the orange and blue loincloth and wondered what kind of a fake the islanders thought she was.
‘Tekirei, I’ve been to many places, I’ve stayed with many people. I’ve tried to help them adapt their ways of life so they don’t have to give them up.’
Tekirei looked out across the sea to the low line of surf marking the reef. ‘I know. You are kind.’
Bianca clawed up a handful of sand and watched it trickle between her fingers. ‘All my life I’ve felt as if I were just passing through, that home was a place for other people.’
‘This is why you try to be a mother to the world?’
Gods, he wasn’t making this easy for her.
‘No. Maybe. Tekirei, I’m trying to say I’m happy here. Of all the places I’ve visited, everywhere I’ve been, Pohnpei is the place I’d like to stay.’ She splayed her fingers, unable to form a shape. With you, she wanted to say. With you.
A thoughtful, painful smile grew on Tekirei’s face, ‘I am very happy for you. Your husband is a generous man.’
She still wondered why she and Palfinger had never divorced. Why, when so many marriages were fixed-term contracts, or arrangements based around the well-being of children. Their separation had been so painless, so amicable it was almost as if it never happened. Perhaps there should have been screaming and tears, lawyers, bitterness and therapy. Over time Palfinger had changed, but so had she, it had been inevitable. In the end that wasn’t it. She had given birth to a child they both wanted. Then she discovered she hadn’t wanted that particular child.
So it goes.
‘When there is no love between a man and his wife the elders unbind them,’ Tekirei said.
‘It’s not that–’ Bianca began then shut her mouth. This was exactly what Tekirei was telling her, she winced at her own foolishness. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tekirei return to his contemplation of the ocean.
While they talked the tide had reached high water, narrowing the beach to a thin strip and completely covering the lower platforms of Nan Madol. The basalt columns gleamed wet, like hexagonal black tree trunks. Invading Saudeleur who had ruled there centuries ago had no fresh water in their city of artificial islands. Everything they needed was brought to them by their subject peoples.
Bianca looked around. The air was so clear the sky appeared to be a flawless blue surface, the intense green of the coconut palms and their fibrous dark trunks vivid contrasts. The sea inside the reef was calm, the white coral sand a brilliant strip between land and sea. The sun had moved and their shade was gone. She moved, and after a moment Tekirei followed her.
‘Look at us,’ Bianca said. ‘This world is so beautiful and here we are wrapped in our own thoughts.’
‘Plants grow, fish swim, people worry,’ Tekirei said.
Bianca was grateful he had made the effort. ‘Do you really think so? What about Tanoata? She always seems so happy.’
‘My daughter is young enough to have few cares.’ Tekirei smiled at the thought of her. ‘She still misses her mother, however. What about Ellen?’
Bianca shifted uncomfortably. It had been a mistake to mention children, of course Tekirei would ask about Ellen. Poor giant, enormous Ellen: very ill now, according to Palfinger’s latest mails. Bianca found it so hard to talk to her, so hard to see her moved around by that clever, intricate, and hideously expensive machine that penetrated her bones and organs.
That’s not my daughter, a part of Bianca insisted. That’s not the child I bore. Not that monster.
‘She seems to stay cheerful,’ Bianca said. ‘I think she’s happy. We don’t talk much.’
– BREAKING NEWS – BREAKING NEWS – BREAKING NEWS –
Carnage in Boston
Two bombs devastated South Station today in a co-ordinated attack by alleged Canadian terrorists. In a further tragedy a suspected Quebecois suicide bomber blew herself up in the Tufts Medical Centre, packed with injured commuters.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Grande Armé d’Arcadia has claimed responsibility. The anonymous spokesperson said more attacks would follow.
In a widely praised speech President Snarlow promised ‘All possible Federal assistance. Immediately.’
‘America will stand tall against attack wherever its origin. Countries need to remember the consequences of committing violent acts against the USA,’ President Snarlow stated.
The government has rejected offers of assistance from Ottawa. A White House statement said official condolences from Canada were ‘premature and inappropriate’.
Federal sources downplayed allegations the GAA has sympathisers inside the Canadian legislature at Parliament Hill.
Amateur drone footage of the riots at Ciudad Acuna has been widely condemned by federal agencies as unsophisticated digital fakes. ‘I don’t think there’s anything malicious to it,’ quotes one source. ‘They’re just trolls and griefers. Probably kids.’
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
- 15 -
The low-ceilinged White House briefing room was lit by wall sconces, backlit TouchDesks and the datawall at the end of the room. It was way past midnight and President Snarlow was starting to lose her temper.
‘Oscar, I never said it was going to be easy.’
‘You never said it was going to start today, either.’ Gordano was exhausted and sweaty. His collar felt gritty, his armpits tacky. ‘Have you listened to what they are saying?’
News streamed onto the datawall from four thousand channels, a muted babble of hot young newscasters, some of whom were topless, at least one totally nude. GovSec and MilInt streamed top and bottom, global metaview cascades expanded and shrank according to source weight and audience.
Across the table sat the short, childlike figure of Cheswold Lobotnov. Under hooded lids he watched the multicolour stacks of talking heads, trend analyses, polls, blogs, schematics, tweets, blips, chirrups, protests, sponsor messages, military data on armour movements and troop deployments, government statements, SIG lobbyists, ordnance supply chain, support groups, conspiracy theorisers and debunkers: the entire meta-melded opinions and facts from around the world. He tried to find something that presented a consistent overview, anything that made sense.
‘Opinion?’ Snarlow asked him.
Lobotnov steepled his fingers. ‘It’s overwhelming, Ginnie. Far more than one person can absorb. We have to tunnel down, precis the outlines of the summaries of the overviews.
‘Look at it,’ Gordano wiped his hands on a towel. ‘Warmonger 56%, Invasion 73%, Murderer 61%. Unjustified 76%. You know the UN Security Council is in emergency session? They want to issue a censure, they’ll pass a resolution to freeze assets. They’ll put an embargo on our ass.’
Guinevere Snarlow watched the chaotic display of the datawall and felt nothing but pride. ‘This time we really kicked over the wasps’ nest. Forget the Security Council, we’re permanent members, we’ll use veto and they know it. The USA is back in business, setting the agenda and leading from the front.’
‘Then what? They’ll vote us off and still do it.’
‘They can’t,’ Lobotnov said. ‘Relax.’
Gordano’s fears gave Guinevere pause. Not about whether he was right, but if he himself
was actually capable of hanging with the plan and overcoming the inevitable obstacles.
Andriewiscz had leapt at the idea, direct action, ‘pre-emptive assertation’, always his preferred option. The general was a true reactionary, but in that one sense he had been waiting for the others to catch up. And Lobotnov, sitting quietly in the shadows on the other side of the room with his briefcase and archaic fountain pens and printed papers, all Lobotnov seemed to care about was how to pay for it all.
Snarlow folded her arms, ‘Oscar, I hope this is your moment of doubt, I really do. Whatever the reason, you need to get over it fast. You’re the Vice President and you’re supposed to be inside my tent and pissing out.’
Gordano’s eyes slid back to the screen as if it were the fox and he the rabbit. Some Meta-value weighting tipped and the news streams dropped behind the data: a map of Mexico overlaid with extrapolated logistics of the ever-expanding deployment. Green semi-circles visibly expanded south into Chihuahua and Coahuila states, contact arcs flickered red at points along the bottom edges.
Snarlow realised Gordano didn’t get it, he didn’t see the trends all pointing towards a new, golden dawn. He was stressed, exhausted and scared. In that state his imagination was a liability instead of an asset.
She felt an uncharacteristic flicker of empathy. ‘Oscar, go get some rest in one of the bunk rooms. When your feet aren’t so cold, come back in. We need you, but not like this.’
Gordano took a deep breath and rubbed his face. ‘I’ll be fine, Guinevere. I just need to take five. Maybe some Pharma?’
‘Good idea.’ Guinevere tapped her finger on the TouchDesk. ‘Bring in some Quick C, Briefstacy. Short uppers, that sort of thing.’ She lifted her finger. ‘Listen, Oscar, it doesn’t matter what some silly old Security Council thinks, they’re irrelevant. A few days from now they won’t even exist.’
A young male intern – tall, blond and square-jawed – brought in the Pharma on a glass tray. Gordano inspected the selection of pills powders and resins, poked the razor, tweezers, spoon and other paraphernalia with a critical eye, and swiftly prepped two lines of Quick C on the mirror. He rolled a twenty from his wallet and snorted up one line.