It was two that morning before Carpenter got his chance to tell Rhodes about the conversation with Victor Farkas, after they had returned to Rhodes’ apartment from the dinner party, and after Isabelle had finally gone home, explaining that she had to be in Sacramento the next day for a professional conference and couldn’t stay over. After seeing her out Rhodes and Carpenter stood for a time in Rhodes’ living room, in the quietness of the warm humid night, looking out at the bay.
Though they had all had plenty to drink at Jolanda’s, Rhodes wanted a nightcap. He brought out a dark, odd-shaped bottle bearing a label that looked at least a hundred years old, antiquated typeface, browning paper. “Actual cognac,” Rhodes said. “From France. Very rare. I feel like celebrating a little. What about you?” He looked inquiringly at Carpenter.
“What the hell. But only one, Nick. I can’t manage another looper like last night.”
Rhodes poured carefully. Very rare stuff, yes, no doubt of that. Carpenter drank slowly, thoughtfully. It had been a curious evening. He felt as though he had moved past some strange boundary into the realm of the completely unknown.
But Rhodes had crossed a boundary too that evening, it seemed, and wanted to talk about it.
“It was sixty-forty last night, remember? And then seventy-thirty. But all this evening the numbers kept going up, and when they got to ninety-ten I knew it was clinched.”
Carpenter looked up at him wearily. “What are you talking about, Nick?”
“The Kyocera job. I’m definitely going to take it. I decided around midnight.”
“Ah. Right.”
“Tomorrow, I’m supposed to let Walnut Creek know which way I mean to go. Nakamura, the Level Three who head-hunted me, is waiting for a call. I’m going to tell him that it’s a yes.”
Carpenter lifted his brandy snifter in a formal salute.
“Congratulations. I like a man who can make up his mind.”
“Thank you. Cheers.”
“I’m going to take a new job too,” said Carpenter.
Rhodes, who had his glass to his lips, sputtered and put it down.
“What?” He looked incredulous. “Where?”
“With Farkas. Doing something illegal on a space habitat.”
“Smuggling? Don’t tell me that Kyocera runs drugs on the side!”
“Worse,” Carpenter said. “If I tell you, I’m making you an accomplice before the fact, you know. But I will anyway, and to hell with it. They’re going to knock over Valparaiso Nuevo, Nick. Some kind of joint Israeli-Kyocera venture, carried out by thugs from Los Angeles, Jolanda’s wonderful friends. Seize control of the place, run it for their own private profit. Jolanda and Enron and Farkas seem to have cooked all this up last week, when they were together on Valparaiso. And now Farkas has invited me in. I’m not sure what my exact role is going to be, but I suppose it’ll be something peripheral, like spreading disinformation and general fog and confusion while the coup action is taking place.”
“No,” Rhodes said.
“No what?”
“You aren’t. This is crazy, Paul.”
“Of course it is. But what other choices do I have? I’m not only unemployed but unemployable, on Earth. The place for me to go is space. But I can’t even afford a ticket up.”
“I could buy you a ticket.”
“And if you did, what then? How would I earn a living once I was up there? Crime, I suppose. White-collar crime of some kind. This is simpler and quicker. Anything goes, out in the habitats. You know that. There’s no such thing as interplanetary law, yet. We push over the Generalissimo and the place is ours, and nobody will say a word.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“I don’t believe I’m saying it. But I’m going to do it.”
“Listen to me. I know a little about this man Farkas, Paul. He’s completely cold-blooded, utterly unscrupulous. A monster, literally and figuratively.”
“Fine. Just what’s needed for this kind of thing.”
“No. Listen. You get mixed up with him, you’ll wind up on the scrap heap somewhere at the end of it all. He’s dangerous, amoral, full of hate. He doesn’t give a damn what he does, or who he hurts. Look what the world did to him. He’s spending his whole life paying it back. And what does he need you for, anyway? He’ll take you in for a little while and then when it’s all over he’ll throw you out.”
“Jolanda trusts him,” Carpenter said. “It was Jolanda who talked him into inviting me into this.”
“Jolanda,” Rhodes said, scornfully. “She thinks with her tits, that one.”
“And Enron? Does he think with his tits too? He’s Farkas’s partner. He also appears to trust him.”
“Enron doesn’t trust his own big toe. Besides, even if Enron and Farkas are in bed with each other, what protection does that give you? Don’t go near them, Paul. Don’t do it.”
“May I have a little more of that cognac?” Carpenter asked.
“Sure. Sure. But promise me: stay away from this business.”
“I don’t have any other options, do I?”
“Your fatal flaw,” Rhodes said. “Always to make a bad moral position look like something unavoidable.” He refilled Carpenter’s snifter. “Here. Drink. Enjoy. You cockeyed son of a bitch, are you really going to do it?”
“I really am,” Carpenter said. He raised the snifter. “Here’s to you and me. Our dazzling new career moves. Cheers, Nick.”
26
davidov said, “we will plant one of the bombs on each spoke, seven in all, each within five hundred meters of the hub. Which is six bombs more than we really need, but redundancy is the key to the success of this enterprise. I have no doubt that the Generalissimo’s counterintelligence is capable of finding two or three of the explosive caches, but finding all seven within the time allotted would probably be beyond anybody’s capabilities. Besides, we want them to find one or two.”
“Why is that?” Carpenter asked.
“To show them that we’re serious,” Davidov said, giving him a bland sunny smile, as though Carpenter were a child.
They were in a small, unpretentious hotel room in the town of Concepci6n, on B Spoke of Valparaiso Nuevo: Davidov, Carpenter, Enron, Jolanda, Farkas. The five of them had come up in installments from Los Angeles over a period of several days, first Davidov, then Farkas in a two-hop move to Kyocera’s research satellite Cornucopia before coming here, then Enron and Jolanda. Carpenter had been the last to arrive, traveling by himself, an innocent research aide officially listed as a Kyocera employee through some hocus-pocus Farkas had arranged. It was about two hours since he had cleared customs at the hub terminal, using a courier named Nattathaniel, also arranged for by Farkas, to shepherd him through.
Enron, sitting on the far side of the room from the others, frowned into his drink It had been a mistake, he had felt from the start, for Farkas to have brought this man Carpenter into the operation, and Carpenter’s naive question now only confirmed Enron’s opinion of him. It was hard to believe that Farkas was capable of such stupidity. Not only was Carpenter a Jonah dogged by bad luck—a loser, a bird of ill omen, dangerous to be around—but he was a fool, besides.
Only a fool would have left those marooned sailors bobbing around alive in the Pacific so that some of them could survive and tell the tale of their abandonment. And only a fool would fail to understand why it would be useful for Colonel Olmo of the Valparaiso Nuevo Guardia Civil to become aware that this was no bluff—to realize that Davidov’s people really had infiltrated the space habitat with a quantity of disassembled bombs disguised as spare parts for machine tools, had assembled them successfully, and had hidden them here and there around the satellite world with the full intention of detonating one or all of them if Generalissimo Callaghan’s excessively long life was not hastened immediately to its overdue finish by his trusted aides.
Of course, Enron thought in sudden surprise, the possibility exists that this Carpenter may not be the fool he s
eems to be. In which case he may well be something else that is even more dangerous to our interests. And Farkas has drawn him right to our bosom.
Farkas, standing by the window, facing away from the starry night, indifferent to its splendor, said to Davidov, “How soon do you want me to get in touch with Olmo?”
“Tomorrow morning, first thing. You call him, you tell him the scoop, you give him until noon to act.”
“Is that enough time?”
“It’ll have to be,” Davidov said. “The midday shuttle will leave for Earth at quarter past twelve. If something has gone wrong and Olmo is unable to deliver, we’ll want to be on it. Giving Olmo a short deadline will help to focus his attention on the task.”
“It’ll be focused, all right,” Farkas said. “Olmo knows what’s best for Olmo.” He paused a moment. “He knows about this plot, by the way.”
From Enron and Davidov came simultaneous expressions of surprise.
“Oh, yes,” Farkas said. “Rumors of it reached him quite some time ago, I suppose through normal intelligence channels here. Long before I was ever involved in it, he approached me to see if I could help him locate the plotters. That is his job, you know, to protect the government of Don Eduardo Callaghan. But I see no problem. Don’t you think he would jump at the chance to join in the conspiracy, once he realizes that its success is inevitable?”
Jolanda said, “What happens to Olmo after the coup? Do we continue to trust him? Does he really become the new generalissimo?”
“Of course,” said Farkas. “He has had an understanding with Kyocera for a long time now that he would be the successor. Even though this is not entirely a Kyocera project, and we are accelerating by direct interference the end of the Callaghan reign, we think that Olmo is the best choice for the succession. We are not interested in destabilizing Valparaiso Nuevo, naturally, but simply in taking advantage of the resources that are available here. Olmo is one of those resources.”
“You described him earlier as the Number Three official,” Enron said. “Who’s Number Two?”
“A retired bullfighter named Francisco Santiago, Callaghan’s best friend from the old days in Chile. Technically he holds the office of President of the Council of State. Forget about him. He’s ninety years old and senile, and has no real power whatever. Olmo will take care of him.”
“Can we rely on this Olmo to take care of the Generalissimo, though?” Carpenter asked. “Olmo sounds pretty slippery to me. What if he decides to sell us to Callaghan in return for a guarantee of the succession? He could easily be playing both sides here. He stands to inherit the place either way. And that way he doesn’t have to mess around with a coup.”
“Well?” Davidov said to Farkas. “Olmo is your man. Can we trust him?”
“We will be giving Olmo the choice of betraying Don Eduardo and becoming the Supreme Ruler of Valparaiso Nuevo himself by the middle of tomorrow afternoon, or of dying with the Generalissimo and everybody else when we blow the place up. Which option do you think he’ll go for?”
“And if he decides, after it’s all over, that he’d just as soon not continue to do business with a bunch of ruthless criminals and ruffians from Los Angeles, and with the sinister megacorp and the imperialist Jewish state that are behind the criminals and ruffians?” Carpenter asked.
Enron put his hand to his forehead in despair.
Something must be done about this, he thought.
“Don’t you comprehend,” Enron said icily, “that the purpose of bringing Kyocera and the state of Israel into the project was to protect against precisely that? This Olmo is Kyocera’s creature. He knows better than to turn against those who have placed him in power. I suspect he has no desire for trouble with the state of Israel, either.”
“No doubt,” Carpenter said.
“All right,” said Davidov. “So be it. The bombs are being put together right now, and they’ll be installed tonight. Tomorrow at 0700 hours, Farkas, you will be in touch with Olmo. By noon sharp, we are to have confirmation of the death of the Generalissimo from him, code signal IDES OF MARCH, very subtle. We will be waiting at the terminal. Our departure clearances will be ready. If the signal doesn’t come by the deadline, we put ourselves on board the twelve-fifteen shuttle out and leave. Carpenter, your job is to get down to the terminal sometime during the morning and wait for us to show up. The shuttle is not to take off without us, do you understand? That is your responsibility. You will if necessary entangle yourself in some kind of dumb, noisy passport hassle with the authorities there, any kind of distraction that you see fit to create, for the purpose of delaying the departure until we arrive, or until you receive the IDES OF MARCH signal on your flex.”
“What happens with the bombs if Olmo doesn’t come through?” Jolanda asked. “Do they go off?”
“They’ll be set to explode at half past one. That gives us a little leeway for dealing with things if Olmo runs into last-minute problems.”
“And if he does run into problems? Do we just leave, then, and the whole place is destroyed?” she asked.
“All or nothing, yes,” said Davidov easily.
“I don’t like that, Mike. Aside from the moral issue, which is a pretty significant one, because there are thousands of innocent people here: but what profit is there in that for anybody, if we just blow the place up?”
“Olmo won’t disappoint us,” Davidov said. “This is his big opportunity as well as ours.” He stood up. “Meeting adjourned,” he said. “You know where to find me if you need me.”
“Anybody interested in a drink?” Jolanda asked. “There’s a bar downstairs.”
“Let’s go,” Carpenter said.
As they left the room, Enron came up beside Farkas in the corridor.
“May I speak with you a moment?” he said.
Farkas had disliked Enron from the first; and the relationship had grown no warmer as their partnership had developed. He could forgive Enron his arrogance, his stubbornly self-serving persistence toward ends regardless of means, even his barely concealed contempt for anyone who did not happen to be Meshoram Enron. Farkas could understand such attitudes.
But Enron was irritating. He was like a huge bluebottle fly who perpetually droned and buzzed in your face. He never let up; and that was very tiresome. Still and all, they were partners. Farkas valued Enron’s quick and mercurial intelligence, if not his character or his personality or his table manners. So Farkas listened carefully to what Enron had to say, there in the drab little corridor of the unpretentious hotel in the town of Concepci6n on Spoke B of Valparaiso Nuevo.
What Enron had to say was annoying and offensive: for the Israeli’s whole point was that Farkas had casually and negligently introduced a spy for Samurai Industries into this extremely delicate cooperative project. It was an accusation that struck directly at the heart of Farkas’s sense of his own competence and judgment.
The really maddening thing was that Farkas was more than half-convinced that Enron might be right.
“Look at it this way,” Enron said. “We have here a man who committed a very serious error of judgment when he was caught in difficult and complicated circumstances, and got terminated for it, primarily as a public-relations move by Samurai because he stupidly left a bunch of marooned Kyocera people alive to tell the tale, and now has absolutely no future in the megacorp system. So he has turned to a life of crime, right? Right. But when did you ever hear of a Level Eleven salaryman being terminated, cause or no cause, and simply accepting it without appeal? Nobody gets fired from Level Eleven. Nobody.”
“As you have said, what Carpenter did was a very serious error of judgment”
“Was it? He had a skinny little iceberg ship with no room for extra passengers, and here were God knows how many Kyocera people looking to come aboard. What would you have done?”
“I would not have become involved to that degree in the first place,” Farkas said.
“Right. But suppose you had, anyway?”
�
�Why are we talking about this event now?”
“Because I think Carpenter, having completely and utterly destroyed his career in the corporate world but still feeling that he belongs to that world, may very well be planning to redeem himself with Samurai by selling Don Eduardo your ass and mine.”
“It sounds farfetched.”
“Not to me,” Enron said. “Consider. Who is Carpenter’s best friend since boyhood? The Samurai gene scientist Nick Rhodes. He goes running to Rhodes when he gets into trouble, and Rhodes, who is, let me tell you, a confused, cowardly, insipid man who luckily for him happens to be a genius, says to Carpenter, let us suppose, that his only way to put his life back together is to go into corporate espionage. Two wrongs will make a right Catch Kyocera or Toshiba or someone like that doing something despicable, and bring word of it to the high-level slant-eyes of Samurai so that they can slap the villains publicly across the wrist, and you will be rewarded by restoration to the Company’s good graces, Rhodes says. For example, Rhodes tells him, our dear Jolanda is having a certain Kyocera swashbuckler named Victor Farkas as a dinner guest tomorrow night. You come along, and suck up to Farkas, and maybe you can get a clue to something ugly that Farkas is involved in on Kyocera’s behalf, because the odds are about ten to one that Farkas is involved in something ugly, and—”
“You are building something very great out of nothing at all,” Farkas said.
“Let me finish, will you? Carpenter shows up at the party and eventually you and he are talking, as was intended all along. Carpenter is waiting for an opportunity to seize on something useful. And suddenly you are inspired to take him into our project, this total stranger, this refugee from a wrecked Samurai career. Why do you do this? God only knows. But you do. And for Carpenter it is a miracle. He will expose Kyocera’s role in something truly evil, that makes his own abandonment of a few squid catchers at sea look like a child’s tea party. We will be apprehended by Don Eduardo’s Guardia, and this Carpenter will be a hero. He is given a fresh slate and a promotion of two grades.”
Hot Sky at Midnight Page 35
