Fire with Fire, Second Edition

by Charles E Gannon

“Just before you returned, the Indonesians called. They are in Athens and they want an early morning confab out here.”

  “Wonderful way to start the day. One final question: the planning for Riordan’s Trojan Horse invasion defense tactic—do we keep working on it?”

  Nolan nodded. “We’ve got to—even if only to continue gathering personnel and prepositioning hidden caches of munitions and other supplies.”

  “Very well. And what case code do we assign to the operation?”

  Nolan stared then smiled. “Case Timber Pony.”

  “How droll. Goes with the theme, I suppose. Do we need codes for anyone other than Odysseus and Calypso?”

  “Yes.” He aimed a finger at Downing. “‘M’ for Mentor.”

  “‘M?’ You’re giving that label to me, a British overseer of spies? That’s either a very bad joke or you have a very poor knowledge of tawdry spy fiction.”

  “Neither: it’s just a code from The Odyssey—and it fits.”

  “Very well. Any others?”

  “Yes. Whoever—or whatever—is responsible for our closed-room mysteries will be—”

  “‘Circe’?”

  “See? You’re getting the hang of this.” Corcoran tossed back the last of his Metaxa. “And now I will walk off my daily indulgence. Could you get a security detail to cover my sunset stroll to the temple with Riordan?”

  Downing reached for the handset of the secure land line. “I’ll get you two.”

  CIRCE

  He leaned his brow against the binoculars: two dim figures moved slowly up the drive toward the fading silhouette of the Temple of Poseidon. He leaned back, checked his watch, jotted down the time on the notepad.

  He turned to face the plate that was perched on the edge of the laundry table. Dominating the center of the unadorned white porcelain dish was a barely diminished cube of feta, surrounded by a litter of olive pits and a dusting of crumbs. He reached over the spoor of his dinner, closed his fingers gently around the orange resting at the center of the table. He lifted it slowly, studying it. He bobbed his hand once, as if feeling the heft of it, then brought it closer, up to his nose. He sniffed, tentatively at first, then sniffed again. He exhaled, then breathed in deeply through his nose: as he did, he smiled. He turned the orange round in his hand, rubbing his finger over its surface, inspecting both its stem and base briefly before cradling it upright in his left hand. With the precise and focused intent of a surgeon, using the two-centimeter-long fingernail of his right middle finger, he made three quick, successive sweeps around the stem. He studied the incisions carefully: then, using a neatly trimmed right index finger, he pried away the top of the orange, which—already having been mostly sheared from the rest of the skin—came off easily. He held the fruit to his nose once more, breathed in deeply, smiled again, put it down next to his dinner plate.

  He turned and leaned toward the binoculars, rotated them to the right. The two figures were already at the end of the headland, walking across the ruin’s flat central expanse. One silhouette—lean, long-legged—seemed to be wandering a bit. The other silhouette—perhaps two centimeters taller and more thickly built—moved with unswerving surety to the center of the ocean-facing row of columns. That silhouette stepped down the stairs leading toward the overlook and came to a halt, staring out to sea; the other silhouette hopped down to join him.

  He smiled, counted the number of pillars to the right of the two silhouettes, counted the number to the left, checked his watch, wrote it down on his pad. He leaned back toward the binoculars while reaching for the orange. Both silhouettes remained motionless.

  Still watching, still smiling, he inserted his right index finger under the lacerated skin of the orange and pushed it down toward the base, as far as it would go. Then he pulled his finger slowly outward, away from the heart of the fruit.

  The skin bulged and ripped and released its life in a dense, fragrant spray.

  MENTOR

  After Downing made the security request, he replaced the handset and assessed Corcoran from the corner of his eye. Nolan seemed relaxed enough, his right index finger tracing the rim of his empty glass. This was probably as good a time as any to probe another baffling, but much more ticklish, detail of what had happened at the safe house in Alexandria. A mysterious detail which Corcoran might not be eager to talk about, much less provide an answer for. Careful now, Richard. “We got awfully lucky with Captain Patrone, don’t you think?”

  Nolan nodded. “She certainly seems to have the right skills.”

  “Yes, but I was thinking about how, in Alexandria, it was quite fortunate that she was in the wrong place at the right time.”

  “What do you mean?” If Nolan was in any way perturbed by this line of inquiry, he gave no sign of it.

  “Well,” Downing continued with feigned diffidence, “I gave orders for all the original sleepers to be moved out of Alexandria, and replaced with the convicts. So what was she—one of the original sleepers—still doing at the Alexandria facility? And why was her cryocell already connected to the fluid re-exchange system, and already in the slow-revive mode?”

  Nolan smiled—and because that amiable expression appeared a little too quickly, was a little too broad, Downing knew what it meant. He’s going to lie to me.

  Nolan leaned back. “Ironically, Captain Patrone is alive because of a clerical error. Apparently, the orderly who generated the initial paperwork for her transfer two months ago checked the wrong box. Opal was ‘retained’ when she should have been ‘sent’ with the rest of the original sleepers.”

  “I see. But then how was it that Captain Patrone was already in the early stages of revival? That wasn’t a part of my transfer order.”

  Nolan shook his head. “No, that was my doing. I gave the revival-prep order a few days before we first chatted about her. But the order wasn’t sent specifically to Alexandria; it was simply issued against her cryocell’s inventory code number. So, regardless of which facility had her cryocell, the local attendants were going to receive a computer-routed order to prep her for revival. And because those instructions didn’t specify any particular facility, the attendants wouldn’t have any reason to also check if she still belonged at Alexandria.”

  Downing nodded and thought, So very smooth, Nolan—and such a pack of lies. As if you didn’t personally follow up on her status, see how she was coming along. But if, after twenty years, you feel the need to keep a secret from me, I guess that’s your prerogative. Either way, you’ve got your alibi and I can’t push any further without starting a feud. “Well, it was a damned good piece of luck that she got out of there alive.”

  “Yes, but I think it’s pretty clear that the OpFor didn’t achieve their key objectives in Alexandria.”

  Downing nodded. “You mean because when our VTOLs got there, the intruders were still fighting to control the airspace?”

  Nolan’s nod answered Richard’s. “If their entry team had completed the job they had come to do, the overwatch on the roof would have cut and run like any good spec ops team. They weren’t there to slug it out and inflict casualties; they were trying to conduct a surgically precise operation. Problem is, it became more like an amputation performed with a chainsaw, so they were still fighting to buy more time when we shut them down.”

  A knock on the door brought Corcoran to his feet. “My chaperones. Want to join us?”

  Richard shook his head. “Not this time. Enjoy your moonlit stroll.”

  Chapter Twenty

  ODYSSEUS

  Sounion National Park’s meeting facility was hardly what Caine pictured as the setting for a rendezvous with global destiny. Collages of photographs sent by appreciative visitors took the place of the somber busts of statesmen. Simple prefab construction did not deliver the sense of dignity that would have been imparted by well-varnished wood paneling and brass fixtures. No, to judge from the surroundings, the fate of the world was going to be determined in a trailer-park meeting hall.

  But first,
the facility would host a brief session with disgruntled representatives from Indonesia. Nolan, who had told Caine about the meeting the night before, had openly resolved not to let it spoil their walk up to the Temple of Poseidon. He had been successful: as they stood in the twilight calm and watched the stars come out, he had not uttered one word.

  The Indonesian delegation had already arrived, dominated by a squat, late-middle-aged man. As they approached the central table, another, ethnically mixed contingent emerged from the alcove that housed the automated coffee dispensers.

  “Bloody hell,” Downing whispered.

  —which was fortuitously—or was that carefully?—drowned out by Nolan’s loud and expressive, “Vassily! You’re early today—and you brought company.”

  Vassily Sukhinin—Nolan’s Russian equivalent, and old comrade from the Highground War, if Caine remembered his reading—frowned apologetically. “I bring this company like a sheep brings wolves.” He jerked his head vaguely to the rear. “I apologize, Nolan, but I did not bring them. I forced them to bring me.”

  Nolan turned toward the leader of the new and apparently unexpected group: a spare, immaculately tailored man of youthful middle age, flanked by two nondescript aides. The man wore a tie sporting what looked like a modernized heraldic pattern. Nolan’s tone was interrogative: “Mister—?”

  “Robin Astor-Smath. It’s rather pleasant not being known on sight.”

  Astor-Smath. Robin Astor-Smath. CoDevCo. From the news in the car just yesterday.

  Nolan gestured toward a seat at the table. “To what do we owe the honor of this unexpected visit?”

  “That is a gracious question—particularly since I must assume you had a hand in ensuring that corporate entities were excluded from the proceedings.”

  “The proceedings, Mr. Astor-Smath, were initiated on behalf of the citizens of the world’s nations. And it is solely on that basis—the lawful and sovereign representation of citizens—that the leaders of the five blocs are meeting to discuss matters of state. Mr. Astor-Smath, I believe you represent shareholders, not citizens.”

  “All of those shareholders are citizens with equal rights.”

  “True, but not all of the world’s citizens are equally privileged shareholders—and that is the crucial difference. You represent the interests of a very privileged few, far less than one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.”

  “Well, Admiral, we’ll see if that distinction holds up after you hear what my friends from Indonesia have to say this morning. I imagine you may have met Indonesia’s Minister of Finance, Mr. Ruap.”

  The squat, late-middle-aged man nodded.

  Nolan returned the nod. “I haven’t had the honor until now. And while I am unsure how Mr. Sukhinin—Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs—learned of our unofficial meeting, I am most grateful that he came along. Vassily, where is all your security?”

  “If one would move quickly, one must carry few bags.”

  “Moscow is not going to be happy, my friend.”

  “Shto? I care? There was no time to send a message—and it would have attracted too much attention.”

  “It’s your career, Vassily.”

  “Yes, and it would be a kindness to be asked to retire.”

  Nolan smiled—Caine saw a flash of the same gentleness that he had seen yesterday—and then Admiral Corcoran was on stage again: “I’m sorry to rush things along, but we don’t have much time. Mr. Ruap, what can I do for you?”

  The Indonesian Finance Minister folded his hands. “I am here to serve notice to the five blocs that, if the Parthenon Dialogs are to be truly global in nature, then the blocs need to provide a place for the many nations that are inadequately represented by them. Therefore, on behalf of these nations, Indonesia is demanding that these underrepresented nations be included as the World General Assembly bloc, which wishes to ensure that any global confederation will remain secondary and subordinate to the legal authority and primacy of the United Nations.”

  Nolan leaned forward. “Mr. Ruap, as the Dialogs’ mediator, I am charged with assessing whether your World General Assembly is genuinely a sixth bloc. And here’s what I’ve learned: as of this morning, almost all the nations you claim to represent remain committed to one or another of the five blocs. Similarly, the General Assembly has not charged nor endorsed any sixth bloc to become a watchdog over our proceedings here.

  “So I can only think, Mr. Ruap, that you are here on what we Americans call ‘a fishing expedition.’ You don’t have a committed bloc behind you: rather, you’re a purchasing agent for a collection of nations that want to do some comparison shopping. You are free to do so—but not here. This is a meeting for duly constituted blocs. You do not have one yet, and therefore, we cannot accommodate you with a seat at the table.”

  Ruap spread his hands. “It is hard to see how Indonesia can continue to work with its American partners on the Mass Driver Project, then. It is a great shame, given all the joint work and expenses that have been incurred to date. However, our friends in CoDevCo will help us bring the project to swift and successful completion.”

  Sukhinin’s shoulders came forward sharply: “I can no longer sit here and watch this charade. This is not about UN preeminence, or a sixth bloc, or even your mass driver: this is an attempt to scare us into helping you improve Indonesia’s standing in the TOCIO bloc.”

  The rapid change in topic disoriented Caine, but Ruap’s reaction told him that the Indonesian Finance Minister certainly felt the relevance of Sukhinin’s words. Ruap sat very erect, face impassive: “Mr. Sukhinin, your implications are an insult to my gov—”

  Sukhinin waved his hand in the air as if he were brushing away a fly. “Gospodin Ruap, it is your government which insults us—by wasting our time and recruiting this vulture”—he jerked his head at Astor-Smath—“to help you in your petty bid for more power within the Trans-Oceanic Commercial and Industrial Organization. Let us speak plainly: Indonesia was disappointed when Japan acknowledged Brazil and India as its two most important partners in the TOCIO bloc. So here you are today, trying to prove them wrong by showing how much trouble you can make: leading your own bloc, getting access to CoDevCo’s big bank account and finishing the mass driver with their money. But tell me, if Tokyo called and said, ‘Oh, do not leave us: we were wrong not to recognize you as equal to Brazil and India,’ would you still be so eager to argue for a sixth bloc? It is all a farce, and the audience for whom you have staged it isn’t even here. They are sipping sake and, I hope, laughing at you. Bah.”

  Ruap was still: his face had grown very dark. “Mr. Sukhinin, my nation shall remember your nation’s slander.”

  Astor-Smath leaned into the space between them. “Gentlemen, please. These harsh words are unproductive and unbecoming. Let’s get back on track. Clearly, Admiral Corcoran and Mr. Sukhinin are not willing to recognize Indonesia’s leadership, or even the existence, of a sixth bloc. However, that doesn’t alter the fact that we have agreed to fund the completion of the Equatorial Mass Driver.”

  Downing shrugged. “Mr. Astor-Smath, you might want to examine the history of the Mass Driver Project before you become overly sanguine about its completion. After talking about it for twenty years, Indonesia finally persuaded China to help with construction and funding. When Beijing withdrew from the project, America got involved. That was fourteen years ago, and it has now cost the Commonwealth’s governments and industrial investors about one hundred twelve billion c-dollars. I hope CoDevCo is prepared to take on that kind of job—and debt.”

  “We are ready to do so—because we believe it is not only a good investment, but is an important step towards global economic and social equity. The mass driver will give Indonesia and its bloc a monopoly on low-cost, high-capacity launches to low Earth orbit.”

  Caine watched Astor-Smath’s chin rise into his topic, recalled the bio: born in Wichita, then enrolled in private schools—from daycare onward—in Madrid, Rio, Hong Kong, Johannesburg. A
thoroughly heterogeneous background: Anglo-American, Chinese, Indian, Afrikaans, Polish, Bantu. Astor-Smath was a man for all seasons—and a mercenary for all occasions.

  “With the political leverage provided by the mass driver,” he was saying, “the Developing World can not only begin to compete in space commerce, but can pressure the Developed Nations to redress the imbalance of wealth throughout the globe.”

  A different voice jumped into the pause in Astor-Smath’s speech: “I’m curious: at what point in the last twenty-four hours did you have a transforming moral epiphany?” Caine was somewhat surprised to find that the voice was his own.

  “I beg your pardon?” Astor-Smath was not able to thoroughly mask his surprise. Nor was Nolan, who turned to look at Caine: his left eyebrow was raised, as well as the left corner of his mouth.

  “Well, you see, just yesterday, I was listening to your apologetics for CoDevCo’s mistreatment of workers from the Developing and Undeveloped Nations. So I can’t help but wonder at what point in the last twenty-four hours you decided to become a crusader for those very same downtrodden peoples?”

  “That is a separate matter. Those are isolated complaints—”

  “Really? That doesn’t match up with what I’ve read recently. Your ghastly working conditions on gray worlds and asteroids are experienced almost solely by laborers from the Undeveloped World, whose contracts resemble letters of indentured servitude. You talk about the wonderful revenues they send back to their families, but thousands of those families have filed class-action suits complaining that the payments are already five years in arrears, and are reduced to pennies on the dollar after you subtract the life-support charges that were in the small—or would that be invisible?—print of the worker’s contract. So, since you don’t appear to have the money to pay your workers, I’m curious; how do you plan to finance the Mass Driver Project?”