Ghost War mda-1

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Once I’d gotten my fill, I continued meandering. I stopped in at a file store and downloaded reading material into my noteputer. It was the usual tourist stuff: local atlas, highlights and hotspots, and other almanac-type data. To that I added an unauthorized Emblyn biography, the same for the Germaynes and a list of local charitable organizations and what they did.

  By mid-afternoon I returned to the Grand Germayne and found I had a visitor, but not in my room this time. Elle emerged from the bar and smiled at me as I waited at the lift. I nodded. “I kept your place warm last night.”

  Her smile broadened. “If only I could have slipped away.”

  “Indeed, you wouldn’t have had to wait in the bar.”

  Elle’s smile slacked a notch. “Oh, I don’t think Gypsy would have been welcome to wait with me.”

  “No, indeed.” I glanced back at the bar. “Shall we?”

  She didn’t take my arm, but did rub against me, which I did find distracting, as I am sure she intended. We crossed the lobby to the bar, which was elegantly appointed in deep mahogany and brown leather. The rest of the hotel might have aged less well than I could have hoped in the past century, but the bar had just gotten darker and imbued with an ambience that I greatly enjoyed.

  Gypsy, attired casually in a jacket and slacks of black, white shirt and black shoes, lifted a drink at the corner table in a salute. I let Elle precede me to the table and took pleasure in watching her walk in her dark green dress. The fabric had a bit of a satiny sheen to it, but was not garish. The gold-link belt matched her bracelet and earrings, and even hinted at the gold chain pattern on the heel of her shoes.

  I sat facing Gypsy, with my back to the room. Elle sat between us, to my right, with her left knee pressed against mine. When the waitress came, I looked at the bar and didn’t recognize any of the whiskies they offered, so I ordered a Diamond Negro.

  Gypsy smiled. “You learn quickly.”

  “Pays to know the battlefield.”

  He nodded, sipping his drink which, as nearly as I could tell, was some mixed thing that wasn’t fruity, but doubtless was sweet. Elle had a tall, slender glass with a lime wedge in it. It could have been nothing more than tonic water and I idly wondered if I’d taste any alcohol if I kissed her. The waitress finished pouring my beer into a frosted glass—an amenity the Egg did not offer—and retreated.

  Gypsy brought his glass forward. “To Cleansing Storm.”

  I touched my glass to his and hers then drank. The beer did taste as good as I recalled and I flicked a drop from the corner of my mouth with a finger. “Cleansing Storm? Please don’t tell me that’s what Colonel Kitten wants to call some huge op.”

  Elle smiled and Gypsy rolled his eyes. “Oh, no, Cleansing Storm will likely make the Cat apoplectic, but this concerns me very little at the moment. Cleansing Storm will be the name of our organization. I have consulted with my superiors and we will get things lit in a big way here.”

  “Good, very good.” I smiled broadly. “I have a key target in mind, but there’s something very important I need to know first.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Did you intend to use me as a stalking horse for the Cat, setting me up to be neutralized before he came after you, or is that just a happy coincidence?”

  Gypsy’s eyes widened. “It was your plan…”

  I set my glass down carefully and slowly rotated it in my fingertips. “Gypsy, let’s get one thing straight. You know I’m not stupid. LIT proves it. You’d given me command of a battalion before I offered my plan. Were you trying to get me killed?”

  His dark eyes glittered for a moment, then he smiled slyly and sat back. “I am not stupid either. I watched the Cat and Isabel creating their own little coterie within my organization. To remove one or both would delay my plans from moving ahead. By interposing you, I gave them something else to think about. LIT is yet one more thing and they are under the impression it was because of LIT that I brought you in here. I was not looking to cause you trouble, primarily because I am mindful of how well you handled yourself on Helen. I don’t see the two of them being obstacles for you.”

  “Obstacles, no, but trouble, yes.” I drank more of my beer. “And when one of them is found floating north to Contressa on the Broad River, will this cause you a problem?”

  “I would appreciate it not being a complete surprise.”

  “Noted.” I licked my lips and felt Elle’s pressure against my knee increase. “About my compensation.”

  He laughed. “I admire your restraint. The Cat has a most-favored agreement saying he makes a stone more than anyone else I’ve hired.”

  “That’s fine, but there was that consulting fee you were going to pay me, and my signing bonus.”

  “Will thirty thousand do?”

  “For starters. I like performance bonuses, too.”

  A frown began to corrugate Gypsy’s forehead. “That could get expensive.”

  “Just grant me a percentage on the amounts we extort from corporations. This will please me. You’ll have to check with your superiors, I imagine, and they will want to see the proof that the plan will work. I understand that.”

  “A reasonable man, very good.” Gypsy nodded, then sat forward again, leaning his elbows on the table. “I have been thinking of possible venues for our emergence. Communications and power seem the most efficacious.”

  I shook my head. “Save them for later. I have a key one in mind. It will work perfectly, and at minimal risk to us.”

  “Really?”

  I smiled, first at him, then at Elle. “Oh, yes. From the start of our campaign, the government will know it’s in deep shit.”

  25

  To that high Capital, where kingly Death

  Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,

  He came.

  —Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Manville, Capital District

  Basalt

  Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

  4 February 3133

  I explained my choice of target and watched Gypsy’s expression move through shock and disgust to amusement and admiration. By the end of my discourse he looked almost giddy and the pressure of Elle’s knee on mine had grown much greater. Gypsy was even willing to let me lay a bit of a trap for the Cat—more because it served his purposes than mine, but we both would be amused.

  Though I made great protestations against it, with eye and touch and the mouthing of silent regrets, Gypsy whisked Elle away to attend to some details on my plan. She, for her part, made similar mouthings and gave me a very warm hug as we parted. The pressure from her knee transferred to other parts of her anatomy as applied against mine which, while quite thrilling, could have been preface to difficulties later.

  It took several days to put things into place, since the plan was as dependent upon atmospherics and climate as anything else. In fact, the raid part of the mission looked ready to go off very well. The facility we needed to penetrate had incredibly lax security. As a stalking horse we called in and had delivered an order of pizza to the night crew, and the hovercar sped to the door with nothing more than a cursory glance.

  Where Gypsy indulged me was at the next meeting of the staff, held in yet another location. He announced that we were going to begin with my plan, though trying to accelerate the timetable, since our master was a bit anxious about everything coming together as quickly as possible. Gypsy suggested that he would be double-tracking raids on my part with preparations for more solid military activity led by Catford. Then he invited me forward to explain my operation.

  What I told them was that food and water were the most important things to a city the size of Manville. Using a holoprojection of the area, I showed how the mountains flowed down into the rivers, and how the rivers had carved the valley in which Manville sat, and how the rivers converged to form the Broad River, which flowed north to Contressa. I told them that the rivers supplied the water for the city, noted that several water purification and trea
tment plants had been built around the city, and pointed out that any disruption in water flow would cause a major problem in the city.

  Up to this point I had made my presentation about as boring as humanly possible, which had Catford squirming. Once I saw I had him where I wanted him, all antsy and aching to do something, I shifted over into a much more enthusiastic mode of speech, and started things building.

  “This operation will be one that requires extreme precision. It will be a commando operation, no doubt about it, undertaken under adverse circumstances. No two ways about it, the operation stinks, but once this first glorious blow is struck, the howls of anger and outrage will echo throughout the city. This attack could tumble the government all by itself, as a flood of resentment courses through every household. Because of the nature of the operation, we will have to choose the best we have to carry it out. Their victory shall be our victory, and the government will be sucked down the tubes as a result.”

  I accented the military words, like “attack” and “victory.” Precision got emphasis, too. Catford, hearing that this one attack might decide it all, was inclined to scoff—based on his initial expression—but then he got to thinking. He didn’t want to be shut out. Even worse than not having a ’Mech to pilot was having one and finding out your efforts would not be required.

  He raised a hand. “You’re describing the attack as a far more military operation than your initial discussions led us to believe were going to be coming off. Is that a fair characterization?”

  I nodded. “Yes, this will require precision demolitions work. Some very good people are going to have to get their hands dirty.”

  He looked past me to Gypsy. “While I see the logic of this plan, and I agree that water is vital, I am wary of Mr. Donelly being able to carry off a military operation. I think it would be best if I were to lead the actual penetration of the facility and to oversee the tactical aspects of things. I have no fear of getting my hands dirty at all.”

  Gypsy frowned. “Are you certain, Major? This is Mr. Donelly’s operation, and you would be usurping his power.”

  “No, no, not at all. He will be in command. I will just direct the military angle of things.” He stood and looked around the room. “Siwek, Johnstone and Bridger, your companies have cross-trained personnel in them who can handle this. I would think a dozen to eighteen people would be right for what you have in mind, Mr. Donelly.”

  I nodded again, solemnly this time. “I’d thought of two dozen, but you would have a better idea about that than I would.”

  “Indeed, I would.” The subordinates he’d mentioned by name nodded or raised hands to indicate they would go along with him. Catford moved to the front of the room and joined me beside the holodisplay. “Well, we have the people we need.”

  Gypsy shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sam, but he does have the experience that would give him an edge here.”

  “I know, and I just want this to work.”

  “It will.” Catford grinned broadly and his lieutenants returned that smile with confidence. “So, which of these purification plants are we hitting?”

  “We’re not.”

  “What?” Catford looked at me angrily. “But after all you said…”

  “Oh, water is very important, Major, in two ways. It comes in to the house and it goes out. Where it goes out, is where we go in.”

  Needless to say, Catford’s face flushed—no pun intended—as the reality of what he’d volunteered for came to him. Others in the room were kind enough not to laugh, though smiles did occur when they recalled I said the job stunk. Catford, having claimed the glory of the assignment, and having avowed he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty, was stuck.

  He had to—no, I’ll resist that pun—fish or cut bait and he decided to fish. This was good, because I really did need his people to carry the whole thing off.

  Two days later, after a day and a half of torrential rains, we put the operation into effect. When Manville’s downtown district had been created, the Broad River was channeled rather tightly within levees hidden by parks and walkways. Buried deep in the earth, paralleling the river, were massive storm sewers that handled all the runoff. According to the guidefiles I’d gotten at the store, and the wonderful tour of the storm sewers offered by Manville Public Service, during the storm season the sewers would actually carry more water than the river, and all of it had to flow to the water treatment plants before it could be allowed to run back into the river itself.

  The water treatment plants had several holding basins to deal with this excess water. Massive pipes would channel it into these effluent lakes, where it would wait until it could be processed through the plants. Our operation demanded that the sluice gates that would pour the water back into the plant be blown open, and that the anti-reflux valves in the plant itself likewise be jammed open.

  Catford and his commandos, working by the light of lightning, accomplished these goals at 2A .M. on the sixth. What this resulted in was an incredible pressure wave where millions of metric tons of water flowed back into the city’s sewer system. When you have ten-meter diameter pipes flowing at capacity, and their load is transferred to pipes running into homes—with their pipes being thirty centimeters in diameter—the result is rather spectacular.

  Lucky homeowners on the west side of the city had old pipes that burst somewhere in their yards. Water boiled and bubbled, churning turf and mud into a stinking swamp that, a year later, would actually result in a pretty good lawn. Apartment dwellers were similarly fortunate if the pipes burst in their building’s basement.

  But the unfortunate—and there were many of them according to news stories—were those people who had good pipes and, for whatever reason, happened to be enjoying a bath or a moment of solitude when the wave hit. Raw sewage geysered into homes, staining ceilings in cases where the flow was unimpeded. It filled tubs to overflowing, backed into dishwashers, dripped from sinks into kitchens, basements and vanities.

  In a couple of places the larger street pipes burst, creating instant sinkholes that sucked down parked hovercars and left fetid lakes slowly creeping along the streets. In some places a drenched and irate citizenry raised the alarm immediately, while others were left to awaken to peculiar smells and woefully soggy carpeting.

  And the toll on businesses, especially in the lowest areas of the city, was equally devastating. Schools were closed on the west side and Count Germayne appeared on Tri-Vid to ask that anyone who did not need to leave their homes just stay there while the city cleaned up. While his reasoning was sound, no one wanted to linger in a cesspit of a house, especially when anything that went into one sink just bubbled back up into a tub or the basement. The citizens started burning from the start, especially when the richer folks located in the hills were reported to have escaped disaster.

  Aldrington Emblyn swung into action immediately, which was great. One of his subsidiary firms was a housecleaning concern that had grown out of the staff he had for his hotels. The company, NextToGodliness LLC, offered an immediate Good Neighbor discount of ninety percent, and hired people to expand the workforce. He also brought folks who had been flooded out of their homes into empty rooms in his hotels, which likewise endeared him to the populace.

  The Germayne government countered by opening a variety of municipal garages and hangars where folks could camp out in donated blankets, sleeping bags and cots. Emblyn raised that bid by donating more blankets, pillows and spare beds. The Germaynes suffered an additional setback when vehicles they parked on the street to open a garage got swallowed up in a sewage swamp.

  The local Tri-Vid media compounded our victory with their profiles that showed Germayne officials being inept. At first the disaster was explained away as a catastrophic failure of the restraining dikes. The rush of water just tore the blown gates away and erased all signs of our blasting. It wasn’t until two days after the event that they found the doors and then started to claim it was a deliberate act of sabotage. Once they made that claim
, all manner of hoots and tweets floated to the surface declaring that there had been a cover-up and that evidence had been faked, which covered our trail better than I could have hoped.

  On the domestic front, Catford was left in a quandary. Everyone congratulated him for pulling the job off, and I gave him the lion’s share of the credit. He knew he couldn’t trust me, but I was quite sincere, so that confused him and, I’m sure, made him even more determined to get rid of me. He’d have to wait, though, until one of my plans failed.

  Putting myself in Catford’s shoes—soggy as they were—I figured out that if one of my plans did not fail on its own, he’d make sure to tank one. This meant I had to make sure he had enough to do that pleased him, that he stayed his hand. I also realized he’d now be trying to come up with operations that would continue doing what I was doing, so I’d have to be fighting him on that front. I was pretty sure I could stay out in front of him per se, but he had a brain trust to be bouncing things off and I didn’t. Could be one of them would come up with a good idea and I’d have to scramble.

  The success of the attack did win a lot of converts to LIT. Some were thoughtful in their analysis and insights, clearly cadging for future work, whereas others simply said, “That was good.” Catford’s attempts to paint me as someone stupid simply failed. I still didn’t have the full confidence of those I had to work with, but they’d be willing to listen in the future, which was important. If I could offer them plans that would let them get paid without getting killed, they’d go along and I could minimize collateral damage.

  Gypsy had been very generous in his praise for the effort, but on the seventh he surprised me by handing me a three-thousand-stone bonus in its C-bill equivalent. “Our master was pleased with your effort. He sent this money to you to express his pleasure.”