Accord of Mars (Accord Series Book 2) (5 page)

M
y driver was already out
of the car, and he was sensibly holding his hands above his head trying not to be shot. I hadn’t exited the car yet, so I still had a few options. I didn’t have a side arm with me. Taking a weapon into the United Nations building wasn’t an option, so I’d left it behind at the base. Could I jump into the driver’s seat and take off before they shot the car full of holes? I gauged the distance carefully. It didn’t seem like a good plan. The soldiers outside looked well trained, and a little trigger-happy to my admittedly biased eye.

I decided the best bet would be to try to bullshit my way through the situation.

I press the button to open the air car door. Then I stepped out, hands carefully at my sides where they could see them but very definitely not raised over my head. This move earned me the attention of five muzzles. I could feel the black bores aimed at me like an itch on my skin, and wondered if this was going to get me killed after all. But my hunch was that they wanted me alive, not dead. I needed to be seen as in charge, not as a potential prisoner.

“What is the meaning of this?” I said. “I’m here on official business. What sort of greeting is this?”

“Hands above your head!” one of the men said.

Like hell I would. I walked directly toward the speaker instead. It seemed a safe bet he was the man in charge here. I stopped about two feet away from him - any closer and I think he’d have fired. His gun was aimed at the middle of my chest. He wasn’t that much older than I was, and I could see a sheen of sweat on his forehead. This whole situation was making him very uncomfortable. Good. It wasn’t making me happy either. I was acutely aware that if I made one wrong move any one of these men could kill me in an instant.

“What are your orders?” I asked.

“I…” He seemed unsure of himself.

“What are your orders?” I repeated myself.

“You are the son of a known fugitive,” he said. “We have orders to take you into custody for questioning.”

Fugitive? Dad had been condemned to exile from Earth. Which I suppose would make a fugitive, if he ever returned to the planet. But since I didn’t think he had any intention of ever doing so, it wasn’t likely that the question would ever come up. As for myself, I had no intention of letting these men haul me into some interrogation room hidden in the bowels of this building. The last thing dad needed was me as a UN captive. They were not going to use me as a weapon against him.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You and your men will escort me to Admiral Perrault.” He was an old friend of Dad’s, and the man I was hoping to see here today in the first place. He ought to be able to help me unsnarl this mess.

“Those aren’t my orders, sir,” he said. At least he was calling me sir now.

I was stuck. With my hand to hand training, I could probably close the gap between us and maybe even take his gun away. But then the other soldiers would shoot me. I could let them haul me away, but who knew when or even if I’d be able to get out of this place again. Once Choi had me in his grasp I had a feeling I’d be staying there for a while.

The sound of the roof doors opening caught both our attention. An older man in a Navy dress uniform stepped out into the sunlight, taking in the scene with the glare that would melt ice.

It might have been my lucky day after all. That was Admiral Perrault, and he didn’t seem happy with what he was seeing. Assuming he was still on my side he might have the authority to get me out of this. Right now that seemed like it might be assuming too much.

Everyone seemed frozen in place, waiting to see what the admiral would do. He took a few more steps forward. He gave me the briefest of nods in greeting, and I relaxed a little. But only a little. Those men still hadn’t changed where they were aiming their rifles.

“Admiral. Good to see you. I was just coming to pay my respects when these men detained me,” I said.

“I’ll deal with this lot later,” he said. “Mr. Stein, come with me.”

“Sir, we have orders,” the soldier I’d been speaking with protested.

“And they are now countermanded,” he replied. “Lower your weapons. Now!”

They did as he commanded, but there was more hesitation than I was comfortable with. I had a sense that Perrault wasn’t any happier with it than I was. He was used to being obeyed instantly, and I could see the spark of anger growing behind his eyes at the sluggishness with which his command was followed.

Just what the hell was going on, down here on earth? Sure, this was a UN building. And these were UN troops, while Perrault was US military. But I sensed an underlying hostility that I’d never seen between these two forces before. Perrault was the US military liaison to the United Nations armed forces. Pissing him off should have been very bad for these men’s careers, but they were awfully hesitant about obeying his orders.

Learning what was going on have to wait. First I had to get off this roof. Getting away from this building in one piece was high on my priority list as well.

“Follow me, Thomas,” Perrault said.

Unlike the soldiers, I did as he asked without questioning him. The questions burning in my head could wait until later. He headed back for the doors into the building. It wasn’t my first pick of a direction. I’d have given just about anything to be someplace else right now. Preferably some tens of millions of miles away. But I needed answers, and I’d already risked a lot to get them.

I looked over my shoulder. The soldiers were following us in. My driver made a jerking motion with his hand. He wanted to get the hell out of there, and I couldn’t blame him. I nodded to him, and he climbed back into the air car and started the engine. Better for both of us if he headed back to base. He could let Acres know I’d run into trouble. And if it came down to trying to escape this place, I’d be better off without someone else in tow.

Being who I was might make these men hesitant to shoot me. After all, I could be a useful pawn against my father, if I was captured. I’d be less useful dead. The same couldn’t be said for my driver, and I didn’t want his death on my hands. He took off, and I stepped out of the sunlight into the building. I could only hope that my exit would be less dramatic than my entrance.

T
he elevator doors snapped open
. Directly ahead of us was an enormous American flag. We’d arrived at the US headquarters in the building. I was pretty sure the UN soldiers didn’t have any jurisdiction here. This might be the one place in the entire building where they didn’t. One of them moved as if to follow us, but the admiral’s frosty glare stopped him in his tracks.

“I’ll take it from here,” Perrault said.

The elevator doors closed slowly, cutting off my view of the unhappy looks the soldiers were wearing. My elation was short-lived, however. Perrault turned that same look on me, making me wonder for a moment if I wouldn’t have been safer with the soldiers after all.

“Thanks,” I said. I managed a small smile.

“My office. Now,” Perrault said. He didn’t return the smile.

He ushered me down the short hall and into a plush office. Once we were both inside, he shut the door. I started to speak, but he held one finger to his lips urging me to silence. I kept my mouth shut, curious but willing to wait. Perrault went to his desk and pulled a small device from his drawer. It looked like a black box about the size of a thumb drive, with a single button on it and a pair of diode lights. He pressed the button and placed the object in the middle of his desk. A light flashed red on the device for a few moments, and then winked out to be replaced by a green light. Only then did he seem to relax. He settled into his chair, and motioned me to another seat across the desk from him.

“We can speak freely now,” he said. “This room is bugged. Every room in this building is bugged. But this thing will make it impossible for them to listen in for a while.”

“I gather things are not that great here on Earth?” I asked.

“You might say that,” he replied dryly. “The situation here has been deteriorating ever since you and your father left. I’m sure you’ve followed the reports?”

I nodded. It was vital that we knew what was happening on Earth. And we had precious few resources for gathering information here. Our corporate offices were all suspect, so the security clearances of our people had been cut after Dad’s trial and subsequent escape. Most of our analysis came from the regular news. The media wasn’t perfect, but at least to give us a feel for how things were going.

“They don’t even tell half the story,” he said. “It’s a mess, Thomas. I can’t believe your father sent you down here.”

“Earth is the center of everything,” I said, shrugging. “We have maybe fifty thousand people living on Mars. There’s what, eight billion on earth? What happens here matters.”

“That, and your father’s canny enough to know that the UN can’t afford to let the colonies slip away,” he said. “Since Mars declared independence, there’ve been rumblings. Venus, even Luna. If the UN isn’t careful, they might wind up with a bunch of small independent nations out there in space, instead of colonies they directly govern.”

“I hadn’t realized Mars had made that big impact,” I said.

“Choi is playing it down in the media,” he said. “But the first tremblings of revolution have already started out there. People are thinking that if Mars got away with it, and the UN hasn’t done anything, maybe we can too. Not just in space. It threatens the UN’s authority over the nations of Earth as well.”

I wondered if that was something we might use. The colony on Venus was tiny, compared to the one on Mars. The one on the moon was far too close to Earth. Choi would never let that one go. But if the other colonies wanted independence too, could we help them? Could they help us?

I decided to change the subject, at least for now. “What was that all about, up there on the roof?”

“That’s easy,” he said, leaning forward and steepling his fingers. “Choi sees you as a pawn, Thomas. He sees you as a tool. Maybe as a weapon. Definitely as something he can use against your father.”

“That’s more or less what I was afraid of,” I said. “What do you think I should do?”

“You never should’ve come here,” he said. “My best advice? Go back to Mars. The mess on earth is going to kill you if you stay here.”

“I think I can handle myself pretty well.”

“Like you did on the roof?” he countered.

“I’m not locked up in a UN cell someplace, now am I?” I replied. He opened his mouth to snap something back - probably to tell me it was only because he’d heard about my landing and been able to arrive in time, but I jumped back in before he could. “Admiral, I appreciate you saving my ass back there. It was a calculated risk. Coming to Earth at all was a risk, and coming to see you here was another one. But we need information.”

“About what? About who tried to kill your father and the Mars President the other day?” he asked. He frowned. “I don’t know. And I wish I did. The terrorists had someone forge completely new backgrounds for them. Which takes money, expertise, or usually both. But US Navy intel hasn’t been able to tell me who paid for it yet.”

Because they didn’t know, or because they wouldn’t tell him even if they did? I kept the thought to myself. I wasn’t the only one in a precarious place. If Perrault was coming into this office every day, and the US and UN were as at odds as they seemed, he was sitting in a hot seat himself. One he’d probably just made more risky by helping me.

“That, and what their plan is for the ships they’re building,” I said.

He quirked an eyebrow. “They’re working on ships to defend the planet, in case of another attack like the one you and your father thwarted.”

“You don’t believe that line any more than my father does,” I replied.

Earth had repealed the Lunar Accords faster than any legislation had ever zipped through the UN council. The Accord - which barred any nation from having ships in space, and was signed by all Earth-bound nations - had left Earth helpless when someone had managed to secretly arm a bunch of ships. My father had managed to arm a pair of them too, and together he and I had fought the pirates. And won, by a hair.

But now Mars was an independent nation, and the only UN member state that hadn’t signed the Accord. George had flatly refused to sign them, and he had a good case. If someone had been able to illegally arm ships before, nothing was stopping someone else from doing it again. Other nations, the US among them, wanted out of the Accord entirely. But the UN still had control over uranium supplies from Mars - that was a condition of Mars being accepted as a member state. Which meant they controlled energy production on Earth.

The result was the UN was the only Earth-based power that would be allowed to build a fleet. Not everyone was happy about that, my father least among them.

“You know Choi was behind the pirates in the first place,” I said. He’d been the one orchestrating the entire affair behind the scenes. And now he was the President of the UN, and building a new fleet.

“There’s no proof of that,” Perrault replied. “Without proof, the accusation is useless.”

“I know that!” I said. I raised my voice more than I’d intended to, but it was frustrating.

“You have to leave,” Perrault said. “Now. Today. Thomas, you’re the son of an old friend. Trust me, go.”

“I…” I wasn’t sure what it was I would have replied. That I couldn’t leave? That Dad needed me to stay here and find out more? That I wasn’t scared? Which would have been a lie. I was terrified. The more I heard about Earth, the less this place seemed like home and the more it felt like some alien world filled with enemies. I’d been born here, but I was no longer of this world.

Before I could say anything else though, Perrault’s little anti-bug gizmo began flashing red. I took that as a bad sign and stopped talking. He tapped the button on the thing again, and the light went out. Then he slipped it back into his desk drawer. All of the formality came back at once. Whatever protection that device gave, it must have stopped working.

“I’ll arrange for transport to take you back to where you’re staying, Thomas. I hope you’ll keep in mind what we’ve spoken of.”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he replied. I caught the double message. He really meant it - don’t pass along what I’d said here to anyone that might leak it back to Choi’s people. I nodded my understanding to him and turned to go.