by Larry Niven
“Then … let us say that this live role-playing game everyone’s talking about has been tampered with. Say that it is filled with imagery that the Prince has created.
“Say that the guest list is classified. Say that our sources in the republic can verify that the Prince is on the move … or even that I am right, and that he is planning to make the trip. Planning to take part in this foolishness. Coming here, to the Moon. To us. Think about it.”
Thomas cocked his head to the side. Doug was laying out the bones of a situation without fully making the argument. But where was he going?
Doug leaned forward. “For years we’ve dreamed of driving the dogs from the palace, taking back our country. We could go home! The Prince was one of only three things we ever believed might pry the Bastard from his throne. My brother … if I am wrong and I am merely fantasizing, I hope you will forgive me. But if I am right…”
Thomas reared back, the implications suddenly hitting him like the full strength of the unfiltered lunar sun. Doug had hesitated to speak directly, had danced around rather than speak his mind. Now it was out of the bag. Could a thing so nearly unspeakable be possible at all? Were the logistics feasible? The funding? Theoretically, they had access to adequate resources … but talk had always been a cheap commodity. Would their Earth-bound, cocktail-party radical friends actually come through? Would they dare even try?
And they had another resource, someone right here on Luna, who owed them a debt best repaid from the shadow.
Dared they even try?
Gaming. Cowles Industries. Webzine monsters. Yes, yes, yes. The more he thought about it, the more the whole thing smelled of the Captain, the royal Bastard’s only son, another indulgent adventure to drain the republic’s coffers.
There was a problem with raising a question, one that became clearer as the night went on. Some questions, once asked, could not be ignored.
If Doug’s suspicions were true, and the twins acted boldly, and their radical friends were patriots with deep pockets, then a great deal of good might be accomplished by bold and determined men.
In truth, if the operation could actually be mounted, what in the world was there to stop them…?
2
Cocoa Angel
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
June 22, 2085
For five hundred years, the world’s finest timepieces had been designed and assembled in Geneva, Switzerland. After centuries of conservative tradition, the twenty-first century saw a flowering of mechanical engineering and micro-electronics, as well as telecommunications, information technology and artificial intelligence.
Geneva had become Europe’s Silicon Valley, with all the money, power and glamour that that implied. According to Zagat, four of the world’s top one hundred hotels were located in this one ancient city, and the very best of these was the Geneva Arms.
Tonight, the Arms swarmed with luminaries and paparazzi, the streets lined with fans hoping to glimpse the wealthy and famous at play. The street and sky were crammed with traffic. Lightly drifting snowflakes dusted the street, lending the cobblestones an almost ethereal elegance.
Scotty Griffin stood near the doorway, eyes on the crowd. “Station One, Starburst is leaving the ballroom. Do you have visual?”
From his observation position two hundred feet away, Scotty’s partner Foley Mason answered. “Affirmative, Moonman. All clear.”
Moonman. If he hadn’t been on duty, Scotty would have either laughed or winced. He could hear his father’s voice in his head: You’re there for the client, Scotty. Stay focused on the job …
“Entering limo,” he said, and cleared the way for his primary, a seventeen-year-old Belgian chocolate heiress. Her snow-white hair and pouting ruby lips had graced a thousand magazine covers, especially those adhering to the Fit/Fat standard of beauty currently in vogue. Her body had the kind of effortlessly sensual plumpness that no teenager could appreciate, and any woman—and most men—over forty would die for. Adriana “Cocoa Angel” Vokker.
The girl favored the videographers with a slow-motion wave, a practiced regal gesture. She flipped her blond hair back and thrust out one ample hip, canted that beautiful rounded jaw into an angle no tabloid could resist, and smiled. It seemed to Scotty that she spread that charm equally thick across the entire crowd … but seemed to linger on a rather severe, powerfully built blond man, who smiled and nodded in return. Scotty turned slightly toward him, the video feed on his sunglasses automatically recording the man’s image.
Scotty remembered the blond man: The big fellow had danced with Adriana twice during the evening’s ball, and there had been much merry whispering between them.
Might be nothing at all. At seventeen, she was of legal age in either Belgium or Switzerland, and technically able to make her own decisions, but her father—who was paying the bills—seemed to have a tight grip.
The limo door closed, and it lifted from the ground and into traffic.
Adriana Vokker sighed massively and tossed her head. “That was … boring,” she said, in deeply accented English.
Scotty smiled without laughing. He rarely laughed in front of clients. “Boring? You never sat out a dance, miss. I wouldn’t have thought you were bored.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against the seat. The night skyline glittered outside the car as they melded into the traffic flow, heading back to the hotel. “Scotty,” she said, as if speaking to a child. “It’s all image. Sparkle, sparkle, sparkle. Believe me, it wearies.” English was her third language, but while thickly accented, her speech was skilled. Some emotional undercurrent in her voice caught his attention, then vanished before he could decipher it. Ah well. It wasn’t really his job to read the little minx’s mind, just to keep her safe.
“I’m turning in early tonight,” she said, face still turned away.
“Your call, Miss Vokker.” He clicked his tongue against his back teeth, switching on his necklace mike. “Station One, Starburst is returning to roost. Let’s make it an early night.”
At the moment, there was nothing more to say. Their human chauffeur was for window-dressing and emergencies: All aircars rode the city grid. Still, the man went about his job’s minimal obligations soberly, scanning the instrument panel as if he might have to take control at any moment. Good man.
Well, so far nothing out of the ordinary. So, then … the day after tomorrow Adriana would return home, and Scotty’s assignment would be over.
The snow-sprinkled streets sped by beneath him, and as long as Scotty refused to look up at the naked stars overhead, he was just fine.
* * *
Some things change with dizzying rapidity, but certain aspects of the security trade had not changed in centuries. Clients often rested in high-end public hotels, but the average guests never saw celebrity guests coming or going. For men in Griffin’s peculiar profession there would always be staff to vet and guests to watch. There were always back doors, side entrances, underground garages and guest rooms to sweep.
The man meeting them at the private roof pad was Foley Mason, a former Dream Park employee who had worked with Scotty’s dad, Alex, before the old man retired, and now took gigs primarily to keep the rust off. He had served with distinction in the Second Canadian war, and was twenty years older than Scotty.
Foley had grown a little soft around the middle, but still had the eyes, the ears, the instinct for the work. He preferred to stay back from the action, coordinating and integrating.
“Everything tight?”
“Airtight,” Foley said. “Pretty much a milk run.”
Adriana seemed a bit distant. Scotty was curious about the little chatterbox’s uncharacteristic silence, but kept his questions to himself. It was none of his business what the girl was thinking. Men? Fashions? Money? Traveling home? He knew little and cared less.
They rode the tube down, and Scotty remained in the hall as Foley swept the suite. When he returned, nodding, Adriana sashayed in, damned near curtsyed to them, a
nd closed the door.
Scotty shrugged. He glanced at his wristwatch. Swiss, of course. It read 1:15 A.M. “That’s it, I guess. She’ll call if there’s anything.”
“Slipped a tracer in her hair,” Foley said casually. “Nape of the neck.”
Scotty raised an eyebrow. Adriana had refused to carry one. When had Foley pulled off this minor miracle?
As if reading Scotty’s mind, Foley said, “In the tube. Listen, youngster: You’re ultimately responsible to your calling. Not to the father. Not even the daughter. You have to do what works, not necessarily what’s popular.”
“No wonder Dad fired you.”
“The Griffin canned me so we could ferret out the son of a bitch selling the Liquid Walls formula, and you damned well know it.”
They chuckled, shook hands, and headed to their own rooms: one on either side of Adriana’s. Silk sheets and gold-plated toilets. The very definition of a good gig.
Scotty stripped down, doffing shirt and pants, examining his naked body in the full-length mirror. He had broad shoulders, a compact waist and thick upper arms, and while “fit” he didn’t feel animal. He’d need to hit the Flow class when he got back to L.A. Nothing like twisting and torquing, tensing and relaxing your body to neural feedback–generated music cues.
Had he changed much since coming back from Luna? Emotionally, perhaps. After his near-fatal accident the once-pleasurable lunar experience had become clammy and claustrophobic. He suffered weeks of night sweats, waking up unable to breathe or move until his eyes focused. Kendra might have been the love of his life, but living like that was no life at all. There was no question of her leaving, no chance of him staying.
It wasn’t until coasting home on that long, long loop to Earth that he fully understood what he had done to himself.
But Mom and Dad had been great. Without missing a beat, Alex Griffin had networked a dozen old security contacts and found Scotty work. As soon as Scotty had rested and rehabbed, gotten his leg and core strength up to snuff and managed to survive a decent judo randori (about four months of sweaty work), he was ready for duty.
He brushed his teeth, trying to focus his mind. Something niggled at him, and he couldn’t find it. And that something still chewed away like a muskrat in a trap as he slipped into bed, and wound his weary way toward dream.
* * *
An alphanumeric 1:58 A.M. flickered on the ceiling as Scotty rolled over and opened his eyes. The security alarm had beeped, and within two seconds of opening his eyes, he was sitting up, the fretful dreams evaporating like frost on a spring morning.
The motion detector bleeped plaintively. “What the hell…?” he muttered, and rolled out of bed. Before his feet hit the ground, the beeping stopped.
And that worried him most of all.
Scotty was half dressed and at the connecting door in five seconds. He pressed his ear against the cool wood paneling. Nothing, no sound. If anyone was moving, it was on little cat feet.
Stunner in hand he tapped on the door. Nothing. He clucked, activating the throat link. “Exeter hotel, main switchboard. Suite 1108, please.”
A brief pause, followed by a ringing tone. He heard nothing, but that was hardly surprising: Adriana probably had the com switched to light or vibration. Of course, that was his more optimistic self speaking. The grim truth was that he heard nothing at all.
Heart hammering, he punched the override on the keypad. The biopad read the nine-digit sequence, his fingerprints and capillary patterns. The door opened.
Scotty slid in, stunner at the ready.
The suite was old luxury, fading colors and softly rounded furniture, more her daddy’s style than Adriana’s.
The bedroom and bathroom were empty. No one in the spacious dining or living rooms. The drapes opened onto a panoramic view of nighttime Geneva’s spiraled skyline.
The Cocoa Angel was gone.
He raised his cuff link. “Wakey wakey. We have a shit-storm.”
“Here, Scotty,” Mason said.
“Adriana’s gone.”
“What the hell?”
“My very thought. Get the manager. We have to sweep the hotel…”
He spotted something on the glass table in front of the window: A black speck the size of a pinhead. Had it fallen onto the rug, he might never have seen it at all.
A knock at the door, and then Mason was across the threshold, tucking in his shirt and sealing his pants. “How could she…?” He saw what Scotty was holding up to the light. “Is that…?”
He nodded. “Apparently, she took it off, and crushed it. That implies that she was pissed. Wanted us to know we couldn’t stop her. Probably a nasty little message to Daddy.”
So Adriana had spaced her tracer, and disappeared from her suite. Scotty remembered the blond man in the crowd, and the secretive look he and Adriana had exchanged. An assignation? That fit the little twerp, and goddamn him for not being more suspicious of her early-to-bed nonsense.
* * *
Security had swept the Exeter hotel door to door, awakening enraged clients, a few of whom were almost as influential as Adriana’s father. Thermal body counts suggested that she was no longer in the building. Suite 1108 was belly-to-butt with managers and bellhops and, just now, arriving police.
Scotty saw the Federal Security men in the corner of his eye, and postponed an inevitable and unpleasant conversation for a few more moments. “She what?” he asked the aging bellhop.
“Sir, the lady asked me not to see her, and tipped well for the blindness. I couldn’t, I mean really couldn’t go against a guest’s direct request, unless, well…”
Scotty steadied his breathing in an attempt to keep himself from ramming the man’s head through the nearest wall. “All right,” he said, and turned toward the approaching Swiss security man.
The short, rounded man extended a broad flat hand, but the shake lacked warmth or enthusiasm. “Inspector Gemmon, Federal Office of Police.”
“We spoke on the issue of concealed weaponry,” Scotty said.
The Inspector ignored the attempted pleasantry. “Ordinarily,” he said, “the FOP is responsible for the safety and security of visiting dignitaries. And, if I might say, if we had been in charge from the beginning, the young lady would in all likelihood still be asleep in her room.”
Scotty ignored the heat building beneath his collar. The Inspector’s carefully worded rebuke would not be the worst thing he heard today. All that mattered now was Adriana’s safe recovery.
A harried-looking Germanic blonde entered the room. The Exeter hotel’s night manager. “Sir!” she said. “We have this!” She held up a slip of paper. For a moment she seemed uncertain whom to hand it to, then decided upon the Inspector.
There it was. Just that swiftly, Scotty and Mason had become nonpersons. Even worse, they were embarrassments.
The Inspector read it to himself. With childish satisfaction, Scotty noted that his lips were moving. “It is a note…,” the Inspector said. “Where did you find it?”
“It was delivered to the front desk just minutes ago by courier.”
The Inspector read aloud: “‘We have the girl. Do not try to find her, or heaven gains another Angel. We will communicate our demands within ten hours.’”
The Inspector turned to Scotty, radiating contempt. “Have you anything to add?”
“That’s a stall,” he said. “They don’t need ten hours to communicate their demands. They need that time to move the girl to a more secure location.”
Inspector Gemmon regarded him pleasantly, rather as if he were a myna bird that might, if prompted, say something quotable but ultimately mindless.
“There was a man,” Scotty continued. “Long blond hair, athletic. Flat hard face. Adriana seemed to be sharing secrets with him. It’s possible that there was an assignation that turned into a kidnap. I have images of this man.”
The Inspector nodded, unimpressed. “We will take those images. After debriefing,” he said, “I believe y
our services will no longer be required.”
Without another word, Gemmon turned to his men, speaking in rapid-fire Italian. Then he left, leaving behind two men who immediately began scanning the room.
“So,” Scotty said quietly to Mason. “What was he saying?”
Mason laughed bitterly. “All employees to be debriefed, and concentrate efforts on air traffic around the hotel. And that the two Americans no longer have authority of any kind.”
Lovely.
* * *
Debriefing had taken a half hour, at the hands of a junior inspector who seemed focused and intelligent, if abrupt and somewhat condescending. By the time the clock read 3:30 A.M., they were back in Scotty’s room. Mason poured himself a bourbon. Scotty would have joined him, but knew his limitations. Mason could stop at the one drink, regardless of the stress. And right now, if Scotty started drinking, he was afraid he’d drown.
Scotty lowered his head into his hands, thinking hard, trying to sink past the shock and personal insult, to the place that was calm enough to crunch data.
Mason laid a sympathetic hand on Scotty’s shoulder, perhaps mistaking his younger friend’s posture for one of depression. “Scott … everyone makes mistakes. The trick is bouncing back from them. Your dad would expect you to bounce high.”
Scotty looked up at him, eyes clear, even if his heart was thumping too loud. “So … what is it that we’re thinking right now? Some golden-haired playboy flirts with her, and lures the silly twit into a kidnap? The ten-hour stall is to make time to slip her out of Switzerland to someplace without an extradition treaty.”
“Let’s say that’s right.”
“Everything’s happening too quickly,” Scotty whispered. “We have a diplomatic snarl … confusion of jurisdictions. You’d better believe the Belgian ambassador’s linked in, and Daddy is having a coronary. Shit.” He shook his head. Behind his words lurked a wellspring of bitter self-recrimination. If the baby climbs out the window, it isn’t the baby’s fault.
