Aubry nodded uneasily.
“Versa, the NipTech virtual rom, had duplicated all of the mainframe protocols. It sat in there for months, absorbing information, then sending it out of the building.”
Aubry felt genuinely confused. “It did all that just in the software?”
“No. But the main computer has its own nanotech repair bots. Versa, ah …” Gagnon was searching for words. “Subverted them. Under the command of Versa, modifications were made to the physical structure of the machine.”
Aubry fought to remember something that Leslie had taught him. “Aren’t your computers sealed from the outside? No lines in or out?”
“Yep. But every time we moved information out to another machine, it beat us. Say we moved data in physical storage, on a bubble chip. Versa created dual formatting on that chip, increased the storage, created an invisible island of instructions and information. When the chip reached a machine that did have communication with the exterior world, it executed its instructions, and conveyed its data to the outside world. Brilliant, simple, damn near unbeatable.
“It was in the telecommunications, it was in data storage. It may have been there for as long as ten years.”
“Still, how does that tell you that Swarna was involved?”
Gagnon looked at Koskotas. He raised his hand, quieting her, and spoke for the first time. “To tell you the truth, some of our sources are classified, and some is conjecture. We froze one of the virtual ROMs before it could self-destruct. We got into it, and took a look at the code. Brilliant. Linguistic idiosyncrasies will suggest the nationality of a writer or speaker. In the same manner, you can determine the cultural origin of a programmer. The interesting thing was that there were two major influences: Japanese and Ugandan. The only reasonable conclusion is PanAfrica.”
Aubry nodded. “All right. What’s next?”
“The first thing,” Koskotas said, “is to study the target.”
The map disappeared, and in its place was the image of a man of perhaps fifty years. He was very worn, thin, the flesh stretched tight across his face. His face was covered partially by a burnoose, with all visible skin etched by tribal scars.
“This is Phillipe Swarna. Before he emerged into public light, he was incarcerated in a South African prison. This was before the Revolt, maybe as far back as ’90. He had been starved and beaten. We believe that his parents died in the AIDS compounds that eventually bred Thai-Six. He blamed South Africa and the Central Intelligence Agency for the introduction of the retrovirus. Psy-op proposes this grudge to be the origin of his loathing for European culture.
“Some time around ’95, he was involved in the Revolt, and was personally responsible for the death of at least seventeen Allied personnel.”
Aubry leaned forward to examine the picture more carefully. “Seventeen? At what range?”
“At torture range,” Gagnon said distastefully. “Information extraction by some obscene ritual of his people, the Ibandi.”
“All right,” Koskotas continued. “Much of what follows is conjecture, but some of it has been documented. In the late nineties, through means still not entirely understood, he united Uganda, Tanzania, and Zaire. By terror and political maneuvering, he constructed the nation now known as the PanAfrican Union. Or New Nippon. But usually just called PanAfrica. What do you know about it?”
“Just the popular-press stuff. Swarna wanted Black Africa to be able to compete with Europe and Asia.”
“Yes. Swarna believed that if Africa continued on her present path, it would never catch up with Europe. He blamed it on colonial manipulation of tribal lines.”
Aubry felt a very slight stinging sensation. At first he considered it physical in origin, but then recognized it as annoyance. “And what do you think?”
“Well …” Koskotas said. He hawed for a moment, and then said, “I’m not a sociologist, or a cultural anthropologist, or a geneticist. We can just accept the truth that Africans were still in the Stone Age when Europeans were building cathedrals, and leave the answers to the academicians. If we can proceed?”
Aubry said nothing, but felt a burning sensation behind his eyes. A headache, perhaps.
Koskotas manipulated a console, and a holographic image of Swarna appeared. He was giving a speech before a throng of well over a hundred thousand cheering black Africans who were hanging on to his words like shipwrecked sailors clinging to life preservers. He pounded the flats of his palms on the podium for emphasis, and gestured sharply. He spoke in English. Loudspeakers simultaneously translated into French, Swahili, and Tradetongue. “Will we allow white men to destroy us, through conquest and rape?”
A resounding “No!,” swelled from a hundred thousand throats. “Or will we take control of our own fate? Meet our future with pride, with our heads held high?!”
Koskotas froze on that last syllable. Swarna’s face was distorted, eyes glazed with ecstatic fervor, one thin, muscular finger pointed off to some far horizon.
“He’s big on the ‘head held high’ routine,” Koskotas said dryly. “He took a lot of risks. It worked.”
He dropped his voice. “In fact, frankly, it worked better than anyone anticipated. The PanAfrican experiment served two needs simultaneously. Swarna gave land-starved Japan the growth space it needed, and in the process created a cultural implant which combined the best of Europe and Asia. Japan’s direct-induction educational technology is the best in the world. We can’t get our hands on it. He brainwashed an entire generation of African children. Thirty years ago the PanAfrican Union was a backward laughingstock with nothing to offer the world market but raw materials. Now it is the world’s fourth-strongest financial power, with a GNP only sixteen billion dollars smaller than that of the United States. The downside is that it is the most repressive regime in the world. By Western standards, PanAfricans have no rights at all.
“Needless to say, in the process Swarna made many enemies. As a result, he is estimated to have the most complex security screen of any ruler on Earth. He rarely sets foot outside the Menagerie.”
The map shifted. In the air now was a detailed representation of about six square kilometers of land. An outer ring of forest (“the Menagerie”), an inner ring (“the Garden”), and, protected behind a moat and electronic fences, Swarna’s transplanted Welsh castle, Caernarvon.
“At any given time there are probably twenty different plots against his life.”
Aubry scanned the map, recalling the face of his enemy. “It’s hard to believe that one man could accomplish so much in such a short period of time.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Hard not to admire him,” he murmured.
“Don’t like the bastard too much. During the upheaval following the creation of PanAfrica, over seven million people died. Relocation camps the size of New England. Disease and famine sprouting like toadstools in April. Millions of children had their names, their language, their culture stripped away. You cannot begin to comprehend the misery this man created.”
“But it worked.”
There was an uncomfortable pause, a gelid void into which all sound plunged. Then: “True—it worked. But at what cost? The truth is that many other approaches might have worked. Democracy was coming to Uganda, and had existed in Tanzania for decades. If you factor in the human misery, Phillipe Swarna probably put Africa back a hundred years.”
“Other approaches might have worked.”
“Yes.”
“But nobody tried them.” Aubry listened into the silence that followed, finding only the sound of the ventilation system shushing quietly through its hourly cycles. He stared at Swarna’s image. Neither of them moved. Then, finally, he said: “All right. What exactly do you have planned?”
“Intelligence is sketchy. We expect a break within the next two months—perhaps as soon as three weeks. We have to stay fluid, and be open to changing conditions. If you’re in the loop, here’s our best bet: in five weeks, PanAfrica celebrates its fortieth anniver
sary. Despite lack of official confirmation, sources suggest that Swarna will make a public appearance at one of three locations. We can place you near the prime possibility. As you will learn, there is one way in which you are uniquely qualified to penetrate the security screen, and actually come into physical contact with Swarna.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not at all. With the equipment and assistance we can offer—”
“Assistance?”
“Yes. When Swarna falls, needless to say there will be a power vacuum. We have … people in place who will be ready to take advantage of this situation. Rest assured that they will be ready and willing to help you.”
“A rebel element?”
“We prefer to consider them the true voice of the people. Despite his messiah complex, Swarna is just another power-hungry dictator who grabbed what he could when he could, with no concern for anything other than his own bank accounts.”
“I see. And if this attempt fails?”
“It is absolutely crucial that it doesn’t. Only the confusion following a successful strike will give you any chance of escape.”
Aubry tapped his finger on the table for a few beats, watching them. “Let’s put it another way. Are you suggesting that if I don’t succeed, the rebel forces might not want to help me escape?”
There was silence. Kramer muffled a cough with the back of his hand. “The people helping us are human beings, Mr. Knight. They have hopes and dreams just as you do. Just communicating with us is a horrible risk for them. If you were to fail, well … wouldn’t it be natural that they be irritated?”
Aubry smiled. “I might even be considered an embarrassment, mightn’t I?”
Silence, as dark and cold as the lining of a corpse’s stomach.
“All right,” Aubry said. “How long will it take to set me in place?”
“Two weeks, give or take, depending on the insertion route.”
“Which gives me between three and seven weeks for training.”
“Yes, exactly. We need to be sure that you are familiar with weapons, strategies, and tactics. We’ll only get one chance.” The room grew bright again. Koskotas’s expression was grim. “We may not even get that.”
7
“Lie down,” Gagnon said, “and wait.”
The office was spare and narrow, with no windows. There was only a cot, and a small desk. Bare walls that hummed.
For almost three minutes nothing happened, and then the door opened, and then a small, pale, plump man shuffled in.
Only five and a half feet tall, of no discernible physical conditioning. Clothes neat, hair rumpled. Face unlined. No facial hair—not even eyebrows. A slight suggestion of glaze to his skin, a hint of reconstructive surgery.
“Good afternoon,” Guerrero said.
Aubry’s mouth hung open. “But …”
“You saw me die. Yes, so I heard.” The figure crossed to the desk, with that gliding shuffle-step Aubry remembered so well. It had been … almost seventeen years? When he first joined the Ortegas …
“I died in ’11,” Guerrero said, conversationally. Aubry’s shock was receding. He finally realized that the sound of Guerrero’s voice wasn’t quite coming from his lips. “You remember. It was the São Paulo raid.”
Aubry’s mind blurred for an instant, and his memory reached back to the year 2011.
Recent Supreme Court rulings had thrown the narcotics game wide open. Personal use of cocaine and heroin was no longer a felony offense, though trafficking still earned the death penalty. But power, as always, was accompanied by privilege. The Ortegas, with influence throughout the Western hemisphere, were as firmly connected as it was possible to get.
They provided funds for covert ops. They provided death squads for Central Intelligence. They kidnapped foreign nationals untouchable by extradition treaty, and delivered them to the Justice Department, gift-wrapped. They provided safe houses for American agents in Latin America. In return, they received a monopoly on the American drug trade. Quid pro quo.
And the São Paulo raid was one of Uncle Sam’s little gestures of appreciation.
The Conquistadores were a tightly connected European combine, moving in on Ortega territory. They were highly protected by the Brazilian government. Intelligence was almost impossible to obtain. Where were they? Who were they?
All that was known for certain was that they struck from darkness, with brutal efficiency. Farms raided. Virtsex facilities invaded, lines overloaded. Needleheads flipped into raving insanity by sudden surges of direct-induction hyperpain and death imagery. Ugly.
The Conquistadores were paramilitary. Thus far, the usual Ortega methods proved ineffectual. So …
The American government, grateful for past favors, decided to lend a hand. Manitou Springs Federal Training Facility would be made available. One time. For a very special black operation involving an Ortega hit team.
Twenty men and women: tested, brutal, efficient, nerveless. Twenty cold-eyed killers.
One of them was a seventeen-year-old kid named Aubry Knight.
8
FEBRUARY 7, 2011. MANITOU SPRINGS.
The sun had almost set as the first of the helicopters touched down to the landing pad.
Aubry Knight felt cold, although the air was warm. He was a big, rawboned kid, a little thin for his height, with emotionless eyes and a remarkable fluidity to his movement, an understated lethality that marked him as different, even in this group of rough, hard men and women. There were twenty of them, the toughest and the best from the Ortega family.
Family. Aubry rolled that word around in his mouth, liking the sound of it. He was a part of something big, something important.
He bent, pulled his rucksack from the cargo chopper, threw it over his shoulder, and hauled it to the edge of the tarmac. The chopper’s blades still rotated slowly, whipping up the wind, and Aubry narrowed his eyes against it. The ride in had been wild, fierce, a harsh wind whipping through the mountain passes. The choppers had come in from the north, avoiding civilian radar. This operation wasn’t just covert—as soon as they were gone, the whole damned base would catch a quick case of amnesia. Who? Never heard of ’em. Where? Never been there. What? Wouldn’t do that.
The American military might well agree to train a civilian hit squad for operation in foreign territory, against foreign nationals, but they sure as hell didn’t want details of it in the Political section of the Times.
Aubry grinned. Shit. This was going to be fun.
There was a simple clarity to the boy’s thoughts. When you hurt, you did something to stop the pain. If someone hurt you, you killed them. If someone had something you wanted, something that would stop the pain, you took it from them.
Simple.
He barely remembered the night in the alley, the night when an eight-year-old boy had watched his father die, for nothing. Trying to help someone.
A lesson had been burned into his mind. If you stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, it’ll get sliced off.
Not the lesson that Father would have wanted, but Father was dead. And all he had left Aubry was the exercises, the Rubber Band, which had strengthened his body, and had helped him to survive, and stay sane in the long years of deprivation following that night.
Aubry pulled his thoughts back to the moment, and sat on his rucksack, waiting. Some of the other guys were smoking cigarettes—Aubry never smoked. Never drank. Never used drugs. Didn’t much care what other people did with their pain. As long as they left him alone.
The others were all big, eyes bright with animal intelligence. Some had done time. Others had been too sly, or had the right protection. For the last nine years of his life, Aubry had struggled to belong to something big enough to watch his back. It wasn’t the life straight fucks went for, but then he laughed at citizens anyway. Their lives, their dreams, their hopes meant nothing. They were like birds trapped in a cage of cats.
The politicians, the multinationals, the union heads, the Ort
egas—they were in charge of this world. Everybody cut the deck to get the best deal. The people who made the laws broke the laws. The people who enforced the laws broke the laws. There was no fucking law. There was only power.
Chan, the big Chink bitch with the flat, callused hands and the dead eyes, offered Aubry a cold smile. “You made the cut, Knight. Good. You’re good action.” Her hair was cut short, almost a shaved scalp. The hard, flat breasts beneath the saffron jumpsuit never needed a bra: pectoral development provided all the support she needed.
Maybe she was a ’Morphadite. Aubry didn’t relish an opportunity to find out. All he cared about was that she ruled this roost with her cunning, and her terrible skills.
Most karate stuff that Aubry had seen was bullshit. Any good streetfighter could blow through it, and Aubry was the best he’d ever seen.
But Chan … she was something else. She kept control in the squad through rough justice and blind terror. Once he had seen her take out two men, so fast it was like popping balloons. Bam-BAM. Over. Aubry’s mind was fast enough to reconstruct Chan’s moves. His eyes could almost distinguish them. And someday he wanted to learn exactly what it was she did.
But for now he was content that Chan, the queenpin of the Ortega hit squad, ex-merc and flint-hearted killer, liked him.
Yeah. Life didn’t get much better than this.
Aubry wanted to fit in in this group, more desperately than he could ever let anyone know. God knew, he had to fit in somewhere. He had to sound … straight on. “We’ll get this handled.” He nodded sagely.
Chan watched him as she took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket, and shook a butt two inches out, wrapped her pale lips around it, and finished the extraction. She offered one to Aubry, and seemed amused when Aubry refused. “What’re you saving it for, kid?” She laughed. “Like you’ll live long enough for nicotine to make a difference.”
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