Hostile Takeover

by David Bruns

  The calls with Washington had been brutal. The Joint Chiefs looked at him with something akin to scornful pity as he explained how the refugees had taken the command center and he had no idea what was going on inside their own building. His request to enter the compound alone was denied outright, but he kept at it until his bosses relented.

  And here he was, walking into the lion’s den all by his lonesome to see a woman who had screwed him over on the world stage. But for some reason he still trusted her.

  Go figure.

  He kept his hands in plain sight as he walked—as if he’d be dumb enough to draw down on an entire building—and sweated into the body armor they insisted he wear. Graves knew they weren’t really worried about his safety, just the appearance of not looking weak in front of all the cameras.

  He chuckled bitterly to himself. That ship had sailed, as far as he was concerned.

  Somewhere above him, Adriana Rabh was watching this drama, undoubtedly from the comfort of an obscenely expensive aircar. H told him she was “in the area,” watching to see how he managed to defuse this very tense situation. Her attitude toward Adriana was scornful.

  Another data point: Graves had been placed in his new job because of Adriana Rabh. He’d suspected as much and H’s attitude confirmed it.

  Layers within layers, schemes within schemes. That seemed to be the way these people worked. Maybe it would be better for all if someone just shot him now.

  The automatic doors opened when he reached the building and he walked through, hands still out. The inside of the foyer was dark, and his eyes had not yet adjusted. Whispers, breathing noises, and shoe scuffs told him there were at least three people close by.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  “Walk forward,” said a woman’s voice. “Get on your knees, hands on your head.”

  “I’m unarmed,” Graves replied.

  “Do it,” said another voice. This one male, but just as young.

  “No,” Graves said. “I’m not getting on my knees. I’m unarmed and I’m here to see the Corazon.”

  Frantic whispering in the dark. Graves’s eyes were adjusting to the gloom and he saw there were four of them. Two looking outside, two talking back and forth.

  “I’m waiting,” he said. The whispers stopped.

  “Walk forward,” said the man. “Slowly. And take the second right.”

  “I know where the ops center is,” Graves said.

  “How do you know that’s where the Corazon is?”

  “Because that’s where I’d be.”

  Graves had never been in the ops center without the room buzzing with energy. He scanned the rows of empty, dead workstations and the blank wallscreens. “Where is she?” he asked.

  His escort was a thin young man with a wispy goatee and shaggy dark hair. He pointed the muzzle of his gun toward the base commander’s office, the glass front of which overlooked the watch floor from the mezzanine level.

  Graves climbed the steps and stood in front of the glass. On a previous tour of duty, this had been Graves’s office, and it hadn’t changed at all. He took in the wide, government-issued desk with the interactive glass top that occasionally stopped working for no reason and the cozy chairs, couch, and coffee table that comprised the meeting area. Cora, her lean frame curled into a ball, occupied one end of the couch.

  Graves knocked on the window and she opened her eyes. He pushed the door open and stepped inside as Cora dismissed the guard with a quick jerk of her chin.

  “You came,” she said simply.

  Graves sat in one of the chairs. “Didn’t leave me much choice in the matter.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Although her plan had worked perfectly as far as Graves could tell, she seemed sad. “They tried to arrest me, you know.”

  “I know.” He tried to take stock of his feelings. The anger and self-righteousness he knew he should be feeling were just not there. Like her, he was sad that it had all come to this.

  “How many?” he asked.

  She looked away, and he could tell she knew he was talking about casualties. “Ten dead,” she said finally. There was a break in her voice. “Three of yours, seven of mine. A few more injured, nothing too serious.”

  “I hope it was worth it.”

  “It was necessary.”

  Graves felt the missing anger creep up on him. “What is it you want exactly?”

  “I can’t serve the Child from a refugee camp. I need to be there for the birth.” Cora’s speech hesitated, but her eyes met his without reservation. “I—I’ve seen it in a vision.”

  Graves gaped at her. “A vision? You attacked an army base because of a vision? Was that the same vision that told the Neo crazies on the Moon to take over LUNa City?”

  Cora lifted her chin. “They are not Neos, not real ones anyway.”

  Graves narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that? Is there a secret Neo network or something?”

  “Every organization has people who use the group for their own ends. Even the army.”

  Graves decided silence was the best answer. He resisted the urge to touch the Saint Christopher medal around his neck. She was right. Why would the New Earth Order be any different from any other large organization?

  “So a vision told you to take over an army base?”

  “A vision told me to find you, General, and you would create the conditions necessary for me to serve the Child.”

  Graves let the reflexive flash of anger show. “I don’t suppose your vision says what I’m supposed to do next, does it? Or what I’m supposed to say to the parents of the soldiers who are dead because of you?”

  “That’s not how visions work, William,” she said. “They tell me what I’m supposed to do. The rest takes care of itself. The vision said I was to trust you implicitly.”

  “Why do you believe?” he asked.

  Cora leaned across the open space between them and took his hand. Her grip was warm and strong, with a confidence that felt out of place with the turmoil in his own chest. His anger eased and he looked into her eyes. Deep brown, soft, caring. It had been a long time since he’d been this close to a woman, especially a strong, vibrant woman like Cora. Graves swallowed when she smiled at him. He noticed the right side of her smile hitched a few millimeters higher than the left side.

  “I believe because it is all I have left,” she said. “I believe because when my life was at its lowest point, She was there for me, and now I must be there for Her. When Cassandra tells me to trust a man I have no reason to trust, I listen to Her.”

  Graves realized she was pressing an object into his hand. He turned it over and saw it was a remote detonator. “The explosives?” he said.

  Cora nodded. “I’m turning myself in to you and only you.”

  Graves sat back in his chair. “Under what conditions?”

  “None. I trust you.”

  Graves got to his feet. “I need you to drop the jamming screen you’ve got over the facility.”

  Cora stood and walked to the door. “Alberto,” she called. A young man dozing next to the cabinet that housed the main computer core startled awake at her call.

  “Yes, Corazon.”

  “Turn off the jamming field.”

  He stood now, looking puzzled. He saw Graves behind Cora and his eyes widened.

  “Alberto.” Cora’s voice was soft, but strong, with the tone of a mother speaking to a child. “Turn off the jamming field.”

  The young man nodded. A moment later, Grave saw the temple of his data glasses light up, showing a signal. He slipped them on and pinged Maxwell.

  The colonel’s square face filled his screen. “General Graves,” Maxwell said. “I’m glad I got you, sir. The situation out here has changed. This whole thing has turned into a three-ring circus.”

  Through the transparent glasses, he saw Cora’s eyebrows raise in query.

  “Changed how?” Graves said.

  “He’s landing in about three minutes, sir, and this place i
s a zoo. I really need you out here. We are not prepared for this kind of visit.”

  Teller. That was Graves’s immediate thought. Somehow he was going to twist this thing into a win for the White House, probably at Graves’s expense.

  “Who’s coming, Max?”

  “Anthony Taulke, sir. The council is coming here.”

  Chapter 14

  Anthony Taulke • Above Texas

  Apparently, size did matter.

  Anthony fretted as the captain of his space yacht Ambition negotiated with the ground commander for a suitable spot to land his ship. He stood at the window as they circled Fort Hood again and again. The lights of the city looked pretty from this altitude, all smeary and twinkling from the humidity in the air.

  In the room behind him, President Teller cleared his throat for the second time.

  “What is it, Mr. President?” he said without turning around.

  He had some grudging admiration for Teller. Since Anthony hadn’t made his departure from Mars public, the man had an impressive intel network to be able to intercept the Ambition in orbit. If he was being honest with himself, he loved the fact that Teller was tracking him. With the president came more news coverage, and for this announcement he wanted all the coverage he could get.

  Teller’s reflection appeared in the darkened window next to his own. He began to open his mouth when a call came in from the captain. “Mr. Taulke, we have Ms. Rabh coming alongside in a shuttle. She’s requesting permission to board, sir.”

  Adriana, better late than never. Since Teller had arrived first, he wondered if he should take that as a sign that his ambassador was slipping.

  “Permission granted, Captain. Show her to the observation lounge as soon as she’s onboard.”

  The captain signed off with a snappy “Aye-aye, sir,” leaving Anthony with that glow that came from having a first-rate crew at his disposal. He peered out the window again. If he had a hundred men with a can-do attitude like his captain, maybe he could begin to tackle this fiasco of a planet for real.

  Teller’s reflection watched Anthony for a sign that he was again paying attention. “You haven’t mentioned why you’ve come all this way, Mr. Taulke.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Anthony agreed. He smiled to himself as Teller’s lips twitched in annoyance. He let him twist on the line for another moment. “I wanted to see how my investment was doing.”

  “Your investment?”

  “The renewal project? The Twenty-First Century Marshall Plan, you call it?”

  Teller’s face cleared. “It’s still early days yet. These things take time.”

  Anthony went back to gazing out the window. “Do they?”

  If Xi Qinlao was able to finish manufacturing the last pieces of his satellite network to take over the Lazarus nanites, he would be able to solve this weather problem by dinnertime. Then he’d have the satisfaction of wiping that smug, pious look off of Elise Kisaan’s face. He would be untangled from Cassandra’s web of deceit, and he could deal with Elise Kisaan and the Neos without having the fate of the world hanging over his head.

  The thought of the Qinlao family brought Ming to mind. The news of her death came as a hammer blow to Anthony’s conscience. Apart from Viktor, Ming was the only one on the council he felt he could really trust. They had been through some rough times together, he reflected, but they’d made up in the end and she had forgiven him. When he recalled her resignation and helplessness at their last meeting, it nearly broke his heart. At least they’d parted as friends, he consoled himself.

  For all her youth, Ming was twice the CEO of her aunt. The older woman seemed to only care about wealth, diversifying the company into all sorts of unrelated financial instruments. Xi had no vision. Money was the old metric of success. A true member of the Council of Corporations measured their wealth in terms of the number of people who depended on them. Sort of a modern-day feudal system.

  Ming understood that. She knew how to build things. If she were in charge, the reinvention of the Lazarus network would have already been completed. Instead, Xi had announced just yesterday another delay.

  Teller shifted next to him, clearly wanting to continue their conversation, but Anthony ignored him.

  In hindsight, the timing of his decision to leave Mars for Earth was prescient. The Neo takeover of LUNa City was an unexpected and unwelcome surprise. Until the council’s other He-3 mining operations were operational, the Moon was a single point of failure in their supply chain. And now this Neo uprising at Fort Hood.

  To Anthony’s mind, these setbacks were all symptoms of the same root cause: a lack of leadership. Specifically, a lack of his brand of leadership. The kind of hands-on involvement that got things done. After all, the world wasn’t going to save itself.

  The door to the observation lounge opened and Adriana Rabh strolled in. Anthony studied her reflection in the window, not bothering to turn around. From all normal appearances, his ambassador to Earth looked calm and collected. Her raven hair was held back by a platinum clasp and her chin angled upwards just enough to give one the impression that she was taller than she actually was. There was a time not that long ago when Anthony would have rushed across the room to greet her, mindful of her money and her connections to his success.

  But that time was past. He allowed an inward chuckle at the tiny flare of her eyes at the slight. He noticed Teller took his cue from him as well, another confirmation of the new power dynamic.

  He half-turned from the window. “Ambassador.”

  Adriana’s reflection joined them as the Ambition made another sweeping turn in their racetrack loop over Texas. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon, Anthony.” She made no attempt to thaw the ice in her voice.

  “I didn’t expect to need to make the trip, Ambassador.”

  Adriana’s posture stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “LUNa City, the Neos. My plans cannot sustain a delay in He-3 production.”

  “You mean the council’s plans.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Teller sought to break the tension. “The Neo situation on LUNa is being dealt with through diplomatic channels—”

  “It never should have happened in the first place,” Adriana snapped at Teller. “You are supposed to prevent these things from happening.”

  “And you,” Anthony said to Adriana, “are supposed to see them coming. Where were your spies when all this was being planned? For Christ’s sake, Adriana, our He-3 supply? It’s like the Neos were inside the council room.”

  “Maybe they are,” Adriana said.

  Anthony said nothing for a long time. “You suspect Elise.” He didn’t make it a question.

  “You don’t?’ Adriana turned away from the window and strode back into the room. She threw her long frame into an overstuffed chair.

  Anthony followed, considering if he should excuse Teller from the rest of the conversation. He decided against it. Watch his reaction. Take his counsel. See how he worked with Adriana. Maybe they would need a new ambassador at some point.

  “We’ve monitored every possible emanation from Elise since she’s been on Mars,” Anthony said. “There is no possible way she’s communicating to anyone off-planet.”

  “Someone is coordinating these events.” Adriana was all but pouting now. “My money—and I have a lot of money, Anthony—is on her.”

  “Well, why don’t you ask her?” Anthony said. “I can have her brought down, if you like.”

  Teller and Adriana gaped at him. “You brought her with you?”

  “I subscribe to the keep-your-friends-close-and-your-enemies-closer school of management.” He felt the ship losing altitude. Over the intercom, the captain said: “Mr. Taulke, we’ve got clearance to land.”

  “Very well, Captain.” Anthony stood. A quick session with his cosmeticist before he greeted the newsfeeds was in order.

  Teller’s gaze had defocused as he received an incoming message. “It looks like our man Gr
aves has handled the Neo uprising.” He ignored the sneer from Adriana at the use of our man. Teller had fought tooth and nail against putting Graves in charge. “He’s asking to meet you, sir, when you land.”

  Anthony rubbed his hands together. This was shaping up very nicely. Another problem solved just by him showing up… “Good, perfect. Tell him to bring the Neo top banana with him—what’s her name again?”

  “Corazon Santos,” Adriana supplied. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Anthony?”

  “I think it’s an excellent idea, Ambassador.”

  Chapter 15

  Anthony Taulke • Fort Hood, Texas

  Anthony could literally feel his complexion glowing. He pinched at the skin under his neck and titled his head in the mirrored reflection. The new facial treatment from his cosmeticist was truly amazing. No needles, no recovery time, just a personalized mask that covered his face for three minutes and shazam—what a confidence booster!

  “Two minutes to ramp time, Mr. Taulke,” his press secretary said, catching his eye in the mirror. Anthony flashed her a smile in response. “We’ve got bots diverting all traffic to this site. You should be hitting an eighty percent worldwide coverage level by broadcast time.”

  Anthony felt a shiver at the thought of billions of eyeballs focused on him. They would tell their children about this moment. Anthony Taulke vowing to save the world would go down in history as more important than JFK vowing to go to the Moon.

  “You’ve seen the stage, right? It’s per my design?”

  The press secretary smoothed the lapels of his jacket and picked an invisible piece of lint from his sleeve. “Nancy selected the furniture herself, sir. How do you feel?”

  Nancy Watson was a fixture of the YourVoice generation. While other reporters flitted on and off the network, the Watson Report had lasted nearly a generation. Nancy styled herself as the voice of YourVoice, the one reporter who had seen it all in an age of microscopic attention spans.