House of the Sun s-17

by Nigel D Findley

  "While you're at it," I suggested, "why don't you tell me what the frag's going on here? Okay, so the word's out King Kam's talking to the megacorps. So what?"

  Barnard sighed again, and shook his head. "Haven't you been paying any attention whatsoever to the political situation in the islands?"

  "Like I told you before, I've had other things on my mind recently," I said dryly.

  He didn't dignify that with a response. "Gordon Ho's position depends on a kind of balancing act, you might call it," he went on as if I hadn't even spoken. "The megacorporations on one hand, certain factions within his own government on the other."

  "Na Kama'aina," I put in, just to show I wasn't totally brain-fried.

  "Na Kama'aina, yes. If the Na Kama'aina faction can prove to the populace that their king is toadying to the megacorporations, the people will remove him from power. If, on the other hand, the corporations are dissatisfied with Ho's efforts to maintain a stable business climate, they will remove him from power."

  I nodded: pineapple plutocrats all over again, neh? "So what's going on?"

  "The former, of course," Barnard said flatiy. "Events have obviously been manipulated to stir up anticorporate sentiments-among the people as a whole, but more important among various militant groups…"

  "ALOHA."

  "Of course," he acknowledged. "You know, of course, that the assassination of Tokudaiji-san has been positioned as a corporate maneuver.

  "And there have been other… provocative actions… as well."

  I blinked at that. I hadn't heard of anything else, but then, as I'd told Barnard, I'd had other things on my mind of late, like dragons and high-velocity ordnance.

  Barnard continued, "And now, your revelation that…"

  "It wasn't me, frag it all!"

  "It hardly matters," he pointed out coldly. "The revelation that the Ali'i has been enjoying private meetings with representatives of the megacorporations is damaging enough, regardless of its source."

  "But hell, he's got to meet with megacorp reps sometimes," I pointed out.

  "Of course. But it's the secrecy surrounding your actions that makes them appear so damaging. If Gordon Ho were truly acting in the best interest of his people-and not feathering his own nest through private concessions to the megacorporations-why would such secrecy be necessary?

  "Consider the situation," Barnard went on. "How would you interpret a clandestine meeting between the head of your government and the personal representative of a senior megacorporate executive, hmm?"

  Okay, frag it, I got the point. Sure enough, my paranoia would kick in, and I'd conclude the government muckamuck was cutting a private deal, and had his tongue firmly up the corp-rep's hoop. "So what kind of drek's coming down?"

  "Just what you'd expect," Barnard said grimly. "Na Kama'aina spokespeople in the legislature are putting pressure on the Ali'i. Others are stirring up the populace against him."

  "Any violence?"

  "Not yet." There was a nasty tone of inevitability in his voice.

  "What about ALOHA?"

  "Policlub members are involved in the agitprop, as one would expect," Barnard explained. "So far, though, they seem to be keeping a low profile."

  "But you don't expect that to last."

  "No."

  "And then what?"

  Barnard shrugged, suddenly looking even older than he had the last time I'd seen him. He might as well have been withering away from some ugly wasting disease. (Frag, I found myself wondering, why do people go to the trouble of climbing the corporate ladder if it's going to harsh them out like this"!) "It depends, I suppose," he said quietly.

  "On what?"

  "On ALOHA's actions. On Gordon Ho's replacement, if his throne is actually usurped. The megacorporations don't take kindly to threats against their operations."

  'They'll take over Hawai'i?"

  Barnard nodded. "If forced to do so, yes, they will."

  "So it all might come apart?" I leaned toward the screen. "Then get me the frag out of here, Barnard. This isn't my country. It's not my fight, and it's none of my fragging business, okay?"

  "Unacceptable," he snapped instantly. "I need someone on-site to keep me informed on developments."

  I pounded the table; the telecom jumped. "Frag you, Barnard!" I yelled. "You don't need me. You've got Christ knows how many spooks and stoolies and squeals and yaps and informants!"

  He nodded. "And every one will lie to me if it's in his best interest to do so."

  "And I won't lie to you, if it's in my best interest? Get actual!"

  "Of course you'll lie if forced to it, Mr. Montgomery," Barnard agreed with a smile. "But your needs are different from my normal contacts, and your… er, bias… will be different from theirs. The truth will, presumably, lie somewhere between your description and theirs."

  "Oh, just peachy fragging keen. 'Let's hang Dirk Montgomery's hoop out in the wind so we can contrast his lies with the lies from some other yaps.' Thanks tons, Mr. fragging Barnard."

  My anger left him totally untouched. Well, hell, why not? All my bitching was about as meaningful in his worldview as the mewling of a fragging kitten. "Perhaps it will never come to that extreme," he pointed out quietly. "Who knows, Mr. Montgomery? Perhaps cooler heads will prevail in all of this." He was trying to convince me, but was a long fragging way from sounding terribly convinced himself.

  The explosion woke me from troubled dreams at about oh-four-hundred.

  I didn't know it was an explosion at first. In fact, I didn't know what it was that had roused me. For a few seconds I just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. But then a second concussion hit the transpex picture window, sounding a dull thud. I was on my feet in an instant, dashing over to the window.

  The second fireball was still roiling into the sky, a dirty red fire-flower blooming from the dark ground. It was far to the right as I looked out the window-that made it to the west. What was in that direction? The airport, for one thing, but I didn't think the explosion was that far away. (Hell, if it was, it must have been one fragger of a blast…) I wracked my brains.

  Yeah, that's right… I remembered part of Scott's quickie tour of Greater Honolulu. There was an island off the shoreline of Honolulu-Sand Island, or something equally uninspired-that was a kind of Special Enterprise Zone for corporate activities. From what I remembered of the geography, Sand Island was about the right distance away. ALOHA had been busy.

  Think about it-what else would the story be? Two explosions? Despite what you see on the trideo or in the sims, drek doesn't just blow up on its own-not very often, at least. Almost invariably, when something goes boom, it's because some slag arranged for it to go boom.

  The distant fire-flower faded, and I turned my back on it, crossing the room to slump back onto the bed. I'd hit the sack at about nineteen-hundred the night before, after spending the whole day just keeping a low profile around the hotel room. That meant I'd already gotten nine hours of sleep- more than I normally enjoy. So how come I still felt like a wet bag of drek? Aftereffects of the narcodart, obviously, or so it pleased me to tell myself. The other alternatives- "getting old," "slowing down," "burning out," "too drek-kicked to cut it any more"-were a lot less conducive to good self-esteem.

  I snagged me remote from the bed table and keyed on the trideo. Quickly, I flipped through the channels: late-late-late show, early movie, Zelda Does Zurich-Orbital, a twenty-four-hour sports channel (What do they run at oh-four-hundred? It looked like Albanian-rules badminton or some drek.), two talking heads arguing economics, a brain-dead charcom, two more talking heads arguing but in Japanese this time, and on and on. I settled on one channel-Zelda got the nod, surprise surprise-and waited it out.

  Maybe I am getting old. I nodded off before Zelda had boffed her way through half of the (remarkably well-equipped) "corporate executives" in the low-budget pornovid. Brassy music jolted me out of a doze, and I struggled to focus eyes and mind on an animated News Bulletin banner dancing across m
e trid screen.

  Well, I'll condense what I saw. Like so many on-the-spot news reports, this one comprised a frag of a lot of "Well, Marcia. we don't really know squat about what's going on here, but at least we're the first network to tell you that live…" By flipping between channels, I managed to piece together most of the story, however.

  I'd been right about me location: The two blasts had taken place in the corp zone on Sand Island. Apparently-this was the official story, at least, confirmed by a Na Maka'i spokescop-terrorists had penetrated the corp zone's security and planted three jury-rigged "devices" in various locations. Intrepid security guards had found one of the bombs on Mitsuhama turf and managed to disarm it before it went bang. Unfortunately, two other "devices" had detonated, doing minimal damage to the property of Renraku and Monobe. There were no casualties, damage was extremely limited, and the Na Maka'i spokescop was confident that the guilty parties would be apprehended within hours.

  Yeah, right. I was playing "spot the lie," and I caught three of them. First, there was nothing "jury-rigged" about the devices-not judging by the fireball I saw, at least Unless the bombers had wheeled it into place inside a fragging moving truck, that was an efficient, high-yield bomb.

  Second-again judging by the fireball-there's no fragging way the damage done was "minimal." A blast powerful enough to rattle double-glazed transpex at three klicks? Cut me loose, here.

  Third-no casualties? Give me a break, boys and girls of the media. In one of those herky-jerky on-the-spot tridcasts, I saw at least two body bags getting loaded into a meat-wagon. If you're going to lie, at least make sure your own trideo footage doesn't contradict you too blatantly.

  As it turned out, I was treated to a little more than the official story. While scanning the channels, I came across something that had to be a local pirate tridcaster. The production values chewed, and the announcer seemed to be halfway out of his head on some choice mind-bender, but at least he had an innovative take on the whole thing.

  According to the pirate, the whole fragging thing was the corps' faults. Peaceful demonstrators had been protesting outside the corp zone on Sand Island, and at about oh-four-hundred, the zone's corp sec-guards had-without provocation-opened fire. It was only then, with scores of their comrades injured or dying, that some of the protesters did something-the pirate announcer wasn't precisely clear on what-that caused the explosions as "fair and just retribution" for the corp instigated carnage.

  Yeah, right. "Peaceful demonstrators" packing satchel-charges of CI2 "just in case?" Pull the other one.

  Still, I thought as I lay back on the bed, Barnard had raised an interesting point earlier, one that could also apply here. When you've got two contradictory reports, coming from two sources with vested interests, assume that both are tissues of lies. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe some relative innocents were cacked… either before or after the blasts. (Frag, if I were a corp sec-guard and the site I was supposed to protect just went kaboom, I'd probably be a little less stringent than normal about identifying targets before shooting…)

  So, predictably, the Powers That Be were trying to downplay the story, while the hotheads were trying to blow it out of all proportion. I could see already how it was going to polarize. Gordon Ho and his supporters would champion the official line-no casualties, minimal damage. Na Kama'aina and ALOHA would be hard-selling the pirate's take on the whole thing.

  I climbed back into bed with a sigh. It didn't much look as though cooler heads were going to prevail after all.

  19

  The situation had gotten even worse, I discovered as I watched the trid over my room-service breakfast. Monobe security forces had tracked the bombers-or some convenient "suspects," at any rate-and gotten into a high-speed pursuit through the streets of Aiea. All the suspects had been shot while trying to resist arrest (tell me another one). What was worse, all in all, was the total casualty count: four suspects killed, two innocent bystanders geeked when a Monobe MPUV "Hummer" T-boned their car, another non-combatant winged by stray gunfire and not expected to make it, plus four more civilians messed up to one degree or another. Frag it all, if the corps had decided to go out of their way to stir up popular sentiment against themselves, I couldn't think of many more efficient ways of going about it.

  The news crews also showed several pretty nasty demonstrations against the Ali'i-one right outside the Iolani Palace. The protesters must have had a shaman or mage among their number because the statue of King Kamehameha the Great had been magically altered to include bugged-out eyes, a bleeding tongue, and a noose around its neck. Nice.

  I know a little about demonstrations from my time with Lone Star. No matter how nasty they may look, their real significance depends on who's involved. Average slobs-on-the-street, who really believe in what's going down? Troubling, chummer. Professional agents provocateur-"rent-a-mob?" Much less troubling… although it's still something you don't want to turn your back on. Which was it in this case? I had no way of knowing.

  The tridcam focused again on the magically altered face of Kamehameha the Great, prompting a new thought. Did Gordon Ho know what was going down? I don't mean the bombings and the protests and that drek-of course he'd know about that. But maybe he didn't know that someone- probably Harlech-had blown my connection with the Ali'i. I'd promised to tell him anything that Barnard passed on to me about the situation, hadn't I?

  And besides, I had the gross and chilling conviction that things were starting to come apart around me, which was giving me the strong urge to talk with somebody- anybody-about it. Ho just happened to be the closest and most convenient. I pulled out the mylar card the Ali'i had given to me, crossed to the telecom, and punched in the number.

  I waited out the usual delays and ghost-clicks; by now I was getting used to cold relays. Finally, the Ringing symbol flashed on the screen. A few seconds later, one last click indicated the circuit was complete.

  "Ia wai?" The screen stayed blank.

  I hesitated. The voice didn't sound like Gordon Ho's… or was I just being paranoid? "I want to speak to the Ali'i," I said.

  "Ka?" the voice asked. Now I was sure-it wasn't King Kamehameha V. "Who is this?"

  I struggled to keep my face expressionless, silently cursing myself for placing this call with my own video pickup online. "The fact that I know this number means I don't have to tell you that," I said coldly, playing my corp hard-man act to the hilt. "Put the Ali'i on. Now."

  "I'm afraid that's impossible," the voice said, matching my tone chill for chill. "The Ali'i is indisposed at the moment. Leave your name and contact information, and I'll pass it on."

  I was already reaching out to slap the Disconnect key. With a sigh I leaned back in the chair.

  Frag it to hell. Something was seriously wrong here. Ho had stressed to me that the number on the mylar card would reach his personal line, no matter where he was. If he couldn't answer for whatever reason-if he was "indisposed," for example-no one else would pick up the line. Obviously, the ground rules had changed. Maybe "indisposed" was just a polite circumlocution for "deposed." Was Gordon Ho still Ali'i of the Kingdom of Hawai'i?

  I turned and stared out the window. Almost since this thing had started, I'd felt like a rat in a trap. Now the trap seemed to be shrinking. Options and alternatives were slowly being stripped away. For a while, I'd fooled myself into thinking I had a powerful patron in the Ali'i. No more, chummer. For all I knew, maybe Gordon Ho was swinging at me end of a rope, eyes bugged and tongue bleeding like the magically altered statue. Even if he wasn't, it was a pretty good bet he had more important things on his mind than the travails of one Dirk Montgomery.

  And Barnard? Frag, I'd already given him my best pitch, and he'd decided to leave me "in-country" to reality-check his other informants. How could I convince him to pull me out? Snivel and whimper?

  Maybe ALOHA was hiring. I wondered what the going rate for burned-out haole street ops was these days…

  The tele
com buzzed, and I almost went over backward in the chair. I glared balefully at the incoming Call symbol on the bottom of the screen.

  Who had this LTG number? Monot, obviously, and anybody else she'd happened to tell at Telestrian Industries Corporation. And that was about it… wasn't it?

  A little apprehensively, I tapped the key to accept the call, but only after turning off the telecom's video pickup. "Yeah?"

  The screen filled with an image of Gordon Ho's strong features. "Mr. Montgomery?"

  I hurriedly keyed my vid pickup back on. "It's me," I told him unnecessarily. "Where the frag are you?" And then an ugly thought hit. "And how the frag did you get this number?"

  The Ali'i of Hawai'i gave me a tired smile. For the first time I noticed the bags under his eyes, the lines of strain in his face. "As to your second question, Mr. Montgomery, I think I told you once before that some members of my military intelligence community were still loyal to me personally. Fortunately, that still seems to be the case. As to your first question, I'd rather not discuss that, for reasons that should be obvious."

  "What the frag's going down, e ku'u lani?" I asked.

  His tired smile grew sad. 'That form of address isn't appropriate anymore, Mr. Montgomery."

  I nodded. "A palace coup?"

  "More or less. The throne has been taken-I prefer the term 'usurped,' of course," he added with a wry grin-"by a distant cousin of mine who apparently has been groomed for the position by certain factions within the legislature."

  "A mouthpiece for Na Kama'aina" I translated.

  "Of course."

  "And you?" I asked him.

  "Accused of high treason, what else? How else could Na Kama'aina have played it?" He shrugged his muscular shoulders. "I left the palace one step ahead of a warrant for my arrest."

  I shook my head. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold, and all that drek. "You've got some people with you?"

  "Some," he acknowledged. "Trusted friends."

  "And a safe place to hang?"