by N Lee Wood
“Don’t threaten my people,” he said to Laidcliff, no emphasis in his voice. “Ever.” Arlando could be really scary when he wanted.
There was a very long, chilled silence. Then Laidcliff languidly shrugged. Score: zip to zip.
Allow me to pause from our regularly scheduled programming to explain something here: See, it’s every government’s job, even ours—especially ours—to make news and then try to hide it. It’s the media’s job to catch them at it, then report as much of it as they can. The Fourth Estate has always manipulated the Commons, and the Second has always controlled the top of the political pyramid.
The entire history of media and government has been one of painful coexistence, which rose to an ugly carbuncle during Vietnam. The Government learned, much to their horror,the power that television had to win over the hearts and minds of the American people. The new battleground became the manipulation of public opinion polls. By the time of the Gulf War, they’d trained their own slick PR folks, nice joes all, friendly, witty and totally useless. Lots of neat Hollywood special-effect pictures of things blowing up to keep the drooling pack happy. Someone even got hip and started dubbing in the sound effects.
At first, the only real news was what they wouldn’t tell you, but the media agreed that during a conflict restrictions were necessary for the safety of Our Boys and Girls in Uniform. It chafed, but was respected… until a couple of those nice, friendly Pentagon briefers got caught lying. That sparked the first grumble of rebellion, the media no longer willing to settle for sanitized scraps. The military threw bigger bones, and the reporters showed larger teeth. Compound this with far less sophisticated censorship and misinformation by countries the Americans were supposedly allied with, and newspeople were most unhappy.
Less than fifty of the more than a thousand reporters in the area were ever allowed out of the hotel rooms where they were confined. Reporters started pushing the edges of the official press pool, like a school of hungry piranhas, with wars under the wars under the war. The more the military squeezed the pools, the more reporters struggled to wriggle through their fingers. Some were caught by the enemy, some by their own people. Some even quarreled with other newsdogs over access to what little information they could find, but most ended up without film or stories. The few who did made their careers.
By the time the Americans yelled “cut” and rolled their credits, two entire countries were in ruins, cities destroyed while jackals in assorted uniforms roamed through the carnage and quarreled over the spoils. Scapegoats were tried in kangaroo courts while burning oil wells blackened the skies. One U.S. President was still getting in a few last licks while the moving men were trotting his furniture out the back door of the White House.
But the Gulf War was the media’s first major victory since Vietnam, and no time was lost regaining territory. Not only were our “smart” bombs not terribly smart, but our dumb bombs not nearly as effective as the military would have liked us all to believe. Instead of cheering as victorious troops rolled into Baghdad, Mr. and Mrs. Couch Potato in Peoria watched an endless flood of refugees on prime-time news, babies dying of cold and cholera, desperate people struggling for food and medicine beaten by “allied” troops at their borders. The media reminded people Back Home that winning battles doesn’t win a war. A lot of information was literally buried in the desert forever, thanks to those patriotic military types perceptive enough to carry out damage control, arms and legs sticking out of the sand where bulldozer tanks had quickly buried enemy soldiers. But it had all begun to grate against the American ideal of The Good Clean War. Public opinion once again slowly began to swing.
The Government pasted together a series of Middle East peace conferences, anxious for what once had been sure-fire foreign policy coups while avoiding futile domestic concerns. Instead of public opinion polls reflecting the news, the media turned the polls into the news itself, making and breaking anyone who got in their way. “Polls Prove President’s Popularity Plunges! Throw the bum out…”
Meanwhile, the Middle East went back to business as usual. While the West continued in its blind, fumbling arrogance to bring Truth, Justice and the American Way of Doing Business to the Middle East, the Saudis and Kuwaitis went back to their traditional feudal repression, and the Israelis and Palestinians bickered endlessly over land and what color the wallpaper should be for the next peace conference. The Jordanians sneaked in badly needed oil from the unrepentant Iraqis, the Iranians continued their call for the murder of American civilians for the greater glory of Allah, Egyptians started shooting tourists and the Algerians started shooting each other. The Syrians ganged up on the Lebanese, and the two together ganged up on the Libyans, while Qaddafi’s wardrobe simply got more bizarre.
It was a long time before an exhaustion hailed as peace settled over the desert. By then, most of the reporters had packed up and left, and the unlucky stragglers had to sift through the picked-over remains. The American appetite was, and is, distinctly selective: The number of 50mm tank-piercing uranium-depleted bullets littering the deserts scaled into billions, but somehow that never made it to film at eleven. The soaring number of miscarriages in Bedouin women, and the incidence of two-headed sheep, were as far off and easily ignored as the low-level radiation pulsing in the shifting sands. Once in a while, maybe, a nice air strike against the fanatical desert ragheads was good for a few extra points in the President’s popularity polls, regardless of which President it was, but eventually that too got old.
Americans have always cherished our do-gooder Lone Ranger image while increasingly loath to take on anything bigger than an anthill. It was fun to kick a little Muslim ass, beat our chests a bit, get even for all the hostages murdered, airplanes bombed, avenge all the insults and injuries, real and imagined. Iraq was a spineless pussy. Somalia was just a bunch of fifteen-year-old schvugs. We dood the voodoo in Haiti, but while Bosnia was at least white, they were Muslim and didn’t have any oil. Besides, that was Europe’s problem. We got dragged into Khuruchabja against our will, Brer Rabbit.
There will always be a new crisis to feed the audience’s insatiable appetite; another world leader assassinated, another crash on Wall Street, another earthquake, another nation declaring bloody independence, another Presidential campaign and another President, another economic rival to bash, another juicy movie star murder scandal, another civil war, on and on and on. That’s news. Le plus c’est change. The fickle Public Eye turned elsewhere.
But the traditional way of covering news was destroyed, never to return. The media had matured, the Fourth Estate becoming a power in itself to be reckoned with, forged in the fire of discontent. The evolving democracy of electronic information fed a world hungry for news, faster and harder. Dusty Bedouin tents sprouted illegal satellite dishes wired to tent poles, avidly sucking up the same airwaves being pumped into Kansas City living rooms. The media stormed the beaches of Mogadishu with Klieg lights and cameras before the Marines even got their boots wet. Photographers in Sarajevo and Bihac could boldly tread where armed UN troops feared to go. Reporters reached rebel Chechen lines before Russian troops even knew where they were. When the war in Khuruchabja began, journalists had already booked up every available hotel room.
Nationalities mean less than journalistic affiliations, our news “borders” jealously guarded. We have our own weapons and ways of protecting our people while we keep various governments relatively in line by the constant threat of exposure of their nefarious activities. They keep us from getting too cocky and overconfident with the usual lies, subversion and oppressive autocracy.
But as I sat listening to Laidcliff, it didn’t appear to be our turn at bat.
“You’re a bona fide journalist,” Laidcliff continued. “John’ll be going to Khuruchabja with you as a GBN photographer. It’s about as unconnected from our offices as you could get, a perfect cover.”
“And what’s going to keep me from blowing the lid off it the second I get back?” Of course I knew what.
I wanted this cretin to spell it out. “You gonna give me the ‘we know where you live,’ or ‘you’ll never work in this universe again’ routine?” He could threaten me, but whatever deal he’d worked out with Arlando robbed his intimidations of teeth. The Feds can be very nasty. So can we.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” Then he looked at Arlando. “Is it?”
The boss looked like he’d eaten a very large turd. Hmm.
“I’m not going back to Khuruchabja,” I heard myself saying calmly. Where I almost didn’t come back from the first time, I didn’t add. That didn’t faze Laidcliff. “It’s not my job to plant spies in foreign governments, that’s your forte. My job is catching you spook assholes at it, which you’re making painfully easy.”
“John’s not a spy, he’s merely an advisor,” Laidcliff said, as innocent as a two-year-old with chocolate on his mouth.
I laughed harshly. “Please. And what were all those infrafusion bombs with your fingerprints all over them, then? Oh, right, I remember: ‘industrial farm equipment.’”
“You can’t pin that one on us,” Laidcliff said, his eyes narrowing. “That was before the State Department merged…”
“Calm down, both of you,” Arlando said quietly. Like outraged schoolchildren, we stopped bickering while glaring daggers at one another. Halton still sat erect in the corner, eyes brightly alert like a well-trained police dog interested in the peculiar antics of his masters without understanding any of it.
“I couldn’t even get a decent story out of it, so there’s absolutely no incentive for me,” I said to Arlando, and then to Laidcliff: “And I’ve never responded well to threats, so go fuck yourself.” I smiled sweetly.
“I never said there wouldn’t be any incentive.” Laidcliff pretended to be amused. “You only asked what would prevent you from disclosing this story.”
I thought about that for a moment, then eyed Arlando again, speculatively. He merely raised an eyebrow, which said volumes. I wondered if he’d been bribed or blackmailed, but either way I knew I was going to be dragged back to Khuruchabja whether I wanted to or not. I decided I’d better make the best of a rotten deal.
“You want something leaked, it comes to me first. Exclusive. And it’d damn well better be good and plenty.” It wasn’t much, but it would at least be something. Leaks are about the only real means of semi-honest communications between the media and government. Competition in the news biz is cutthroat fierce, and GBN was struggling to hold on to second place. We’re number two, we gotta try harder just to stay afloat.
Laidcliff grinned, sharklike. “Just call me Son of Deep Throat.” Triumphant, he could afford to be facetious. We ran over the scheduling details; then everybody except me stood up. “See you tomorrow,” Laidcliff said to me, and then to Arlando, “Pleasure.” He slapped Halton lightly on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Johnny.”
Halton turned to the boss. “Goodbye, sir,” he said, polite beyond belief.
For a moment Arlando hesitated, then held out his hand. “Good luck,” he said. I admired Arlando for that. Real class. Halton shook his hand as Laidcliff snickered. Halton glanced at me and didn’t even make the attempt. I had no desire to touch him. Again.
“See ya ’round,” I said with a mock salute. Halton nodded and followed the clown out.
Arlando allowed me to sit in his office without saying anything for a few minutes, letting me think while I adjusted to the ton of shit that had fallen straight down on my wee widdow head. Arlando was one of the very few who knew what I’d gone through in Khuruchabja and why I didn’t want to return. Finally, he said, “You could still back out, Munadi. I can’t force you to do it.”
I snorted. It was pro forma, we both knew it. “Gee, thanks, boss.”
“Look, just run the errand and get back here, okay? It’s not an assignment, there’s no story. Don’t get involved.”
Whatever shit they had on Arlando, it had to be nasty.
“Fine with me,” I said sourly. “But you’re gonna owe me a big one.”
He grinned and nodded. “So how do you want to play this?”
I sighed. Damn. I fingered a lock of shoulder-length hair. I’d just had it done real nice, too.
“Same as last time.”
Arlando called Documents while I went for a haircut.
TWO
* * *
Good afternoon, and thank you for flying American Orbital,” the woman behind the privacy desk said, all professional smile. “May I help you, sir?”
I set my one suitcase down next to a shiny new PortaNet and handed her my tickets. It’s a bad habit for journalists, but as I watched her thumb through the papers quickly, her perfectly manicured long nails (mine had looked just as good the day before) rasping against the infosensitive surface, I had her categorized. Not pretty enough to be a bubblehead, but smart enough to roll with the punches. “Passport, please?” She looked up.
Laidcliff had supplied First-Class tickets on the Orbital, not as a courtesy, but because the check-in at the Admiralty Lounge provided more privacy. He and Hal ton stood behind me as I handed the woman my passport card.
I have two, both valid and legal… more or less. My private passport gives my name as Kahlili and my sex as female. Then I have my special passport with my journalist visas for certain kinds of field work, one I hadn’t used in years, which was identical to the other. Except that my first name was initialized to and my sex masculine.
When I had arrived in a white shirt, its crisp silk tie tucked neatly into a suit, and my hair cropped into a crew cut, Laidcliff looked like he’d have a hernia stifling his laughter. Halton didn’t even blink. I hadn’t expected him to.
Opaque shadows flickered across the privacy screens on either side of the receptionist’s desk, other passengers checking in. The only audible conversation was our own.
“Will you be traveling alone today?” She glanced at my entourage.
“We’re together.” I jerked my thumb in Halton’s direction without looking at him.
“Window or aisle seat?”
“Aisle.”
The woman asked the usual questions, adjusting the orbital tickets. My lone suitcase chugged away down the belt, while she security-scanned the PortaNet I’d take as carry-on with me. Then she slid my passport into the reader, and pushed the handpad a fraction of an inch toward me. I placed my right palm down on its white surface and her holoscreen popped up the appropriate image, albeit a little thinner and younger. It beeped and spit out my card. She handed it back to me, her professional smile intact.
“Thank you, sir.” She turned her attention to Halton. Her smile for Tall, Dark and Handsome was definitely brighter than it had been for me. “Passport, please?”
“He hasn’t got one,” Laidcliff said, obviously enjoying himself. She looked surprised, then even more surprised as he flipped open his Government ID. My assessment of her, however, was right. Laidcliff unfolded Halton’s paperwork, and she read through it quickly and competently. This time when she looked up at the fabricant, her eyes were impassive.
“I’ll have to have this authorized by my supervisor,” she said. “Would you please wait here for one moment?”
“Nailed in place just for you, sweetheart,” Laidcliff said, leering.
Her professional smile twitched a millimeter, her only hint of distaste. She returned shortly, accompanied by an older version of herself, cool and efficient. Silently, the supervisor checked through the documents, then handed them to me.
“You’re willing to affirm you’re the owner of record, Mr. Sulaiman?” she asked me politely.
“Pro tem,” I muttered as I folded the documents and shoved them into a side pocket of my PortaNet.
“Excuse me?”
“Yes,” I said clearly, straightening up. “I’m declaring Mr. Halton is indeed my personal bodyguard.”
Since that’s what the paperwork said. It’s rare, but not unheard of, for the obscenely rich to own fabricant bo
dyguards like Halton, or for the Government to assign them as perks to high-level bureaucrats, who’re generally members of the obscenely rich in the first place. The obscenely rich, of course, don’t usually fly commercial, so the orbital personnel’s experience would have been limited.
Journalists, who mainly fly Economy, naturally don’t have salaries large enough to afford luxuries such as their very own fabricant, but the Government goon busy sniggering into his shirt tie behind me brushed aside any peculiarities about the situation.
“Everything seems in order,” the supervisor said, handing Halton his ticket. “If you and”—she hesitated—“Mr. Halton would like to wait in our refreshments lounge, we’ll call you before boarding.”
I slung my PortaNet over my shoulder and headed for the lounge without bothering to see if the Dynamic Duo were following. I hated the whole thing, just wanting it to be over.
A skinny kid in a formal waiter’s suit took our orders, and if the gossip had spread, he didn’t give any indication. Halton wasn’t drinking, and Laidcliff, predictably, had a Gordon’s gin and Nouvelle Perrier. I ordered a straight Scotch. No ice.
“A real man’s drink,” Laidcliff quipped.
“Fuck you,” I said quietly, and sipped it as he chuckled. I waited for him to make some kind of stupid comment about my sexual preferences as well, but he spared me that. I think I would have decked him right there if he had, proven my “manhood,” as it were. For someone who wanted me to ferry goods into hostile territory as a favor for an organization I wasn’t fond of anyway, Laidcliff wasn’t being very appreciative. But I’d dealt with his kind before and knew that rudeness was a congenital defect. An enlightened and charitable person shouldn’t hold it against him. Too bad I’m not an enlightened, charitable person.
After an interminable wait of ten minutes or so, a blue-uniformed Orbital hostess appeared. “First Class is now boarding at Gate Seven,” she said and the lounge rustled with closing briefcases, pocket PC’s snapping shut and tickets doublechecked.