Wired Kingdom

by Rick Chesler

  “Should we follow them?” asked a twenty-something man with a blonde crew cut. Unlike most of the Ocean Liberation Front crew, he sported no tattoos or piercings. The only name Stein or any of them had ever known him by was Pineapple, but they did know that he had a long rap sheet to counterbalance his squeaky-clean image.

  OLF had once bailed Pineapple out of jail to the tune of $78,000 for “unauthorized swimming near a sea-based rocket system.” Exactly what Pineapple’s intentions had been that night was never made clear, even to Stein, but he’d been caught diving near the rocket’s floating platform in Long Beach Harbor with underwater pipe-cutting equipment. He pled no contest in exchange for a suspended sentence of ten years in prison with five years probation. The judge was sure he’d see Pineapple again, and when he did, he warned, his sentence would be waiting.

  In the days prior to Pineapple’s arrest, OLF had staged public protests against the privately held rocket company. Founded by dot-com multi-millionaires, the outfit towed hydrazine-powered rockets on a barge from Long Beach, California, to a remote South Pacific atoll. There, it launched commercial satellite payloads into space. OLF, backed by a handful of reputable environmental lawyers, argued that the practice posed an “unacceptable risk” to the environment due to potential contamination by rocket fuel as well as the possibility of coral reef damage resulting from explosions or crashes.

  Only later did it come out that this same rocket-launching operation was contracted to put two satellites into orbit in support of Wired Kingdom’s whale-cam. Within OLF, this only raised the status of Pineapple, who merely said that he’d suspected something wasn’t right about the rocket company.

  Stein scratched the stubble on his chin and looked around at the open ocean before answering. “Why follow them? They’re probably just going back to edit the so-called rescue footage they shot out here. Let’s hang out for a while. Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and run into the whale.”

  Stein hit the PLAY button on an iPod, and Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle” wafted across the schooner’s deck. He watched the green blip of the Scarab slide off his radar screen, pleased with the empty circle it left behind. Sails hung loose as they drifted in a calm, uncluttered sea.

  A barefoot woman in shorts and a bikini top, hair in corn rows, emerged from the cabin with a lit joint. Beers were produced from an ice chest, and the party was underway.

  “Hey, who’s on watch?” Stein called out, passing the joint. “Keep an eye out for the whale.”

  “And if we see it?” the corn-rows girl asked.

  “We go for the tag,” Pineapple interjected matter-of-factly. He refused the marijuana, as usual, but sipped an ever-present can of Tecate beer.

  “What would we do with the tag if we did get it?” asked a skinny crewman who was climbing the mast for a better vantage point from which to observe the sea. Stein couldn’t remember the guy’s name; he was new to OLF and had landed his position by sheer persistence. Stein’s office manager—one of the few people in the organization with an actual degree in environmental science—told him the man had literally slept in front of their headquarters until they’d given him a position going door-to-door in affluent neighborhoods, seeking donations. When he returned four days later with three thousand dollars worth of personal checks made out to OLF, he was hired. Stein didn’t know he would even be here today; he’d just shown up at the docks.

  “Let’s just say we couldn’t buy that kind of media coverage,” Stein said, smiling.

  “I’ll drink to that,” somebody said, and the members of Ocean Liberation Front toasted the possibilities.

  After a couple of beers Stein began a patrol of the boat. Like a captain of an eighteenth-century warship, he knew that if he looked hard enough he’d find a few stowaways—women, in this case. That the crew had managed to keep them hidden while they approached the whale-trap pleased him, and so he didn’t look as hard as he could have. Most of his crew worked for little or no pay above room and board, and so he needed to keep them happy. He made it quite clear, though, that despite the casual atmosphere his operation was a serious affair, and not the place for slackers or boat bums.

  Stein had a temper. He kept it in check most of the time, but OLF veterans had all seen him blow up on one occasion or another, usually after he’d been drinking, and always out of the public eye.

  As he left the partiers behind and went below decks, something gnawed at him. So far, his organization had failed to have any real impact on the juggernaut that was Wired Kingdom. In fact, Stein reflected as he ducked a bulkhead and entered the schooner’s galley, that damned TV show was getting more attention than ever while the Blue remained tethered to its electronic leash. It irked him to no end. That bitch . . .

  For a fleeting moment he wondered what his life would be like now if not for their college breakup. Would he have been able to sway Anastasia’s opinions, get her to join OLF, harness her brainpower in support of his cause? He doubted it, which was why he hadn’t committed himself to her. She was always so strong-willed. Whatever might have been was no more. Things were so vastly different now, he thought. He was no longer sure that he had the upper hand, as he had felt during their college years. His boat had been late to the trapped whale and she had laughed in his face. Her media exposure now dwarfed his own.

  By the time he reached the bathroom, he had worked himself into a pre-rage state that was only a couple of drinks away from loss of control. The head was occupied. He was about to kick the door when it flew open. A long-haired, tattooed guy who looked like he belonged in a heavy metal band came out with a bottle of tequila in his hand and a smirk on his face. Stein had no idea who the guy was, which irritated him, but when he gave him the bottle Stein let it pass . . . until he went inside the tiny bathroom and found his girlfriend putting her shirt back on, hair a mess, cheeks flushed. Stein had been with her about a year, but they hadn’t yet gotten serious about long-term plans. Still, the idea had never entered his mind that she could be seeing someone else.

  But the thought made it past the booze now, and it occurred to Stein that Anastasia had been the woman most on his mind lately, even if in a negative way. Had his girlfriend picked up on this? There had been the time a few weeks ago when she’d had to repeat what she was saying, because he didn’t respond. He had been staring at the muted television while Anastasia introduced another episode of Wired Kingdom.

  “What the hell is up?” Stein demanded. “You okay?” If the guy had been forcing himself on her, he was dead. He took another slug from the bottle. If they both wanted it, he was still dead. The girl started to cry and pulled the door shut. Stein took a longer pull from the tequila, then he slammed the bottle on the doorknob, breaking it, spraying himself with glass and Cuervo 1800. “Open the door!”

  “Leave me alone!”

  He gave the door a violent kick with his bare foot and went back up on deck, where the party was in full-swing. He saw the guy who’d been in the bathroom with his girlfriend passing a joint back to a skinhead who’d done two years in prison for setting fire to a Monsanto plant. Stein trusted the skinhead, but this new guy? He’d never even seen him before. How did he know his girlfriend . . . or did they just meet today?

  “Who the hell is Mr. Heavy Metal?” Stein asked no one in particular, but everyone stopped what they were doing. One of Stein’s hands dripped blood from the broken bottle as he singled the guy out.

  “Dude, take it easy,” the guy said and then stopped as he put things together. “Hey . . . was that your girl? Look man, I had no idea—she didn’t say—oh shit.”

  Stein snaked his hand into a recessed compartment and removed a flare gun. He aimed it at the long-haired guy, but someone grabbed his arm from behind and yanked it upward. The intended victim retreated to the safety of the stern deck, his face betraying bewildered shock, while Stein struggled to break free from his friends holding him back.

  “Get him. . . . Get the flare. . . . Eric, chill. . . .” Ten people
yelled at once as a struggle ensued. Stein had just elbowed one of his crewmen in the gut and dropped the flare gun to the deck, when they heard a voice calling from above.

  “People!”

  They looked up to see the lookout on the mast frantically waving his arms. The wind carried away most of what he said from that height, but when the melee died amid a chorus of shushes his words rained on their ears. He pointed to the two o’clock position off the bow.

  “Two people in the water!”

  CHAPTER 25

  OFF THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST

  “I see a boat,” Juan told Fernando. After drifting for almost two hours and being in the water for three, any kind of man-made object was a welcome sight. They had surfaced with empty tanks following a strenuous underwater swim. They were pleased to see no Coast Guard vessels or crowds of onlookers, but were alarmed at being adrift fifty miles offshore with nothing but their buoyancy vests. “Who are they?”

  “Who cares?” Fernando looked around at the empty sea and sky. “If we do not get on that boat, we will die out here.”

  “What will we tell them?”

  “Say we were part of a dive group in the islands and were left behind by our boat. It happens often enough.”

  “I think we should say as little as possible—like we are unable to speak much after our ordeal at sea.”

  The black schooner slid down a rolling swell before another hid it from view again. For a moment they heard music, and then it stopped. When the schooner reappeared a shirtless man on deck was tossing a life ring.

  It landed within arm’s reach of Fernando. He grabbed it. Juan could think of no arguments. He too grabbed the life ring, and the two divers feigned complete exhaustion, allowing themselves to be towed to the old yacht’s side.

  “They do not look like authorities,” Fernando observed as they were hauled toward the small crowd gathering on the schooner’s port rail.

  “We could say we do not speak English.”

  “They might call Immigration.”

  “Maybe. What if the boss comes back to look for us in the plane?”

  “What if he does not?” Fernando said through clenched teeth.

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Fernando pondered this as a man with dreadlocks pulled them in. The man said nothing, but he nodded toward the stern as he began to walk the line toward the swim platform there.

  Fernando lowered his voice to a near-whisper as they were dragged along the hull. “Why wouldn’t he? Maybe he crashed. Maybe he was escorted to the mainland. The last thing he said was something about the Coast Guard coming.”

  “Or maybe he is halfway to Cabo San Lucas right now because he decided things have become too risky.”

  SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

  Anthony Silveras rode shotgun in his Mercedes SLK, talking on the phone while an assistant drove. He knew better than to field so many phone calls while trying to drive at the same time, especially from George Reed, Anthony’s boss and owner of Wired Kingdom.

  Anthony explained that Trevor had left an outgoing message indicating he was working on restoring the web site. But, like his daughter when she was upset, Mr. Reed was not easily placated.

  “I’m on top of it, George,” Anthony said as they turned off Ventura Boulevard. “I’m on my way over there right now.”

  The assistant cringed as Anthony held the phone away from his ear. Even from the driver’s side, the derision in Mr. Reed’s voice could be heard as loud and clear as his words: “Remember that it was your idea to bail him out! The whole purpose of getting him out was to make sure the damn web site stays up.”

  “Right, and I’m sure he’s dealing with it, George, but just in case he needs help, we’re—”

  “Listen to me, Anthony, and take this to heart. I don’t want to hear your voice again until that site is up and making money. Just get it working. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Anthony flipped his phone shut and let his head fall into the headrest as the car accelerated. The driver, a production assistant who was hoping to work his way into a cameraman position, shook his head. “Anthony, let me tell ya something, man. I sure as hell hope you’re getting paid a lot, because there ain’t no way I’d take that kinda crap from nobody for less than fifty grand a year. No way.”

  Anthony smiled. “So you’re saying for fifty grand you could deal with it? You put a price on how much crap you can take, is that it?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess that’s what everybody does, isn’t? Even you—”

  “Make a left here. . . . George is under a lot of stress. It’s not personal.”

  The driver slowed as he turned onto a side street. A few cars were parked along both sides. Warehouses and storage lots dominated the area.

  “Is this it?”

  “This is the street—keep going.”

  “I thought a big show like Wired Kingdom would have fancier digs.”

  “George is smart. He doesn’t spend money where he doesn’t have to. Nobody sees the technical headquarters. It doesn’t have to look pretty or be located on the west side, it just has to run well.”

  “Yeah, well so much for that. Maybe ol’ Georgie cut a few too many corners this time and now he’s blaming you. Ever think about that?”

  Anthony gave the driver a sidelong glance. “Sometimes I think you’re smarter than you look, buddy. Okay, pull up here. It’s the brick entrance, there.”

  The assistant parked alongside the curb.

  Anthony dialed his cellular as they stepped out of the car.

  “Still no answer?”

  “No. Just the message.”

  They walked toward the office entrance.

  “What if nobody’s in there?”

  “You know anything about configuring high output schedulers with fiber optic uplinks and sever-side scripting?”

  The assistant chuckled. “Nope.”

  “Me neither. I can get some IT guys out here from the main office, but this is definitely not your routine network admin—” Anthony cut himself off as he saw the black Celica parked at the curb. “Hey, all right, that’s Trevor’s car. He’s probably got this almost licked by now.”

  They passed a dumpster and then made their final approach to the office entrance. The door was set back in a small alcove with two steps leading up to it. They came to the alcove, turned left, and Anthony tripped over something.

  “What the—” the assistant started, staring at the body, which lay face down in a heap across the steps. “Is that . . . is that—”

  “Trevor,” Anthony said, kneeling down next to the inert form. “Call 911.”

  The assistant hesitated, unable to tear his eyes from the body, blood puddled beneath the head.

  “Now, damn it!”

  Anthony called out Trevor’s name and shook Trevor’s body while the assistant produced a cell phone. No reaction. He flipped the body over and then flinched as dread mingled with revulsion.

  “There’s a man here, he’s—”

  “Trevor Lane. His name’s Trevor Lane,” Anthony said.

  “He’s unconscious and bleeding,” the assistant told the emergency operator. “His name is Trevor Lane. . . . Um, the address is . . .”

  “2119 Wilmot.”

  “2119 Wilmot. . . . No. He’s— ”

  “He’s been shot,” Anthony said. The only apparent trauma was a single bullet wound high on his temple. A rivulet of dried blood ran down one side of his face and trickled down the steps where it pooled on the sidewalk. He put two fingers on Trevor’s carotid artery, feeling for a pulse. Shook his head.

  The assistant’s voice cracked as he relayed the information to the operator. “He’s been shot and he has no pulse.”

  Anthony took a look around. He saw no one. He could hear nothing out of the ordinary. The smell of congealing blood offended his nostrils. It appeared as though whoever had killed Trevor had come and gone. He looked at the door to the office and reached out to try the knob
.

  “Are you crazy? Don’t go in there! What if someone is in there now?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. No good reason to leave my prints at a murder scene, now that I think about it.”

  BAJA CALIFORNIA COAST

  Halfway down the Pacific coast of Baja Mexico, a blue seaplane emerged from a thick fog bank. It passed over an enormous, jutting finger of land, a remote and rugged area known as the “junkyard of the Pacific” because of the way currents washed ashore all manner of ocean debris.

  The stinging criticism of Héctor's client assaulted him through the radio, preventing him from appreciating the majestic view. “So let me get this straight: after failing to meet your objective once again, you proceeded to leave the two remaining divers behind to be picked up? Or to die of exposure and have their bodies wash ashore so they could be identified?”

  The seaplane pilot took a deep breath before he replied. “Jefe, what choice did I have? One man perished in the trap meant for the whale.”

  “Do not use that word!”

  Héctor cursed himself, not wanting to do anything that would jeopardize the income that would mean so much for his little girl. But “whale” was not a word one was used to censoring in conversation. “Yes, I am sorry, jefe. The purpose of the dive could not be met. Why should I wait around to be detained by the Coast Guard, or be filmed by the television crew?”

  “You are not upholding your end of our agreement. Should I put a stop on the wire transfer?”

  “No! I am not—”

  “Listen to me. I only need to know one thing. Will you be able to complete the job, or do I seek someone else’s services?”

  The job had grown much more difficult than Héctor had anticipated. The thought of quitting had some appeal, but then he flashed to his daughter, bedridden in a hospital which could no longer help her. The potential rewards were too great to walk, or fly, away from.

  “Of course I will complete it.”

  “I thought so. What are you doing now?”