Islands in the Net (10 page)

“I'm Laura Webster,” Laura told the Ranger. “The Lodge coordinator.” She offered her hand. The Ranger ignored it, giving her a look of blank hostility.

The Vienna spook set down his portable terminal, took Laura's hand, and smiled sweetly. He was very handsome, with an almost feminine look—high Slavic cheekbones, a long, smooth swoop of blond hair over one ear, a film-star mole dotting his right cheekbone. He released her hand reluctantly, as if tempted to kiss it. “Sorry to greet you in such circumstances, Ms. Webster. I am Voroshilov. This is my local liaison, Captain Baster.”

“Baxter,” the Ranger said.

“You witnessed the attack, I understand,” Voroshilov said.

“Yes.”

“Excellent. I must interview you.” He paused and touched a small stud on the corner of his dark glasses. A long fiber-optic cord trailed from the earpiece down into the vest of his suit. Laura saw now that the sunglasses were videocams, the new bit-mapped kind with a million little pixel lenses. He was filming her. “The terms of the Vienna Convention require me to tell you of your legal position. First, your speech is being recorded and you are being filmed. Your statements will be kept on file by various agencies of Vienna Convention signatory governments. I am not required to specify these agencies or the amount or location of the data from this investigation. Vienna treaty investigations are not subject to freedom-of-information or privacy laws. You have no right to an attorney. Investigations under the convention have global priority over the laws of your nation and state.”

Laura nodded, barely following this burst of rote. She had heard it all before, on television shows. TV thrillers were very big on the Vienna heat. Guys showing up, flicking hologram ID cards, overriding the programming on taxis and zooming around on manual, chasing baddies. They never forgot their video makeup, either. “I understand, Comrade Voroshilov.”

Voroshilov lifted his head. “What an interesting smell. I do admire regional cooking.”

Laura started. “Can I offer you something?”

“Some mint tea would be very fine. Oh, just tea, if you have no mint.”

“Something for you, Captain Baxter?”

Baxter glared. “Where was he killed?”

“My husband can help you with that.…” She touched her watchphone. “David?”

David looked into the lobby through the dining room door. He saw the police, turned, and shot some quick, urgent border-Spanish over his shoulder at the staff. All Laura caught was
los Rinches
, the Rangers, but chairs scraped and Mrs. Delrosario appeared in a hurry.

Laura made introductions. Voroshilov turned the intimidating videoglasses on everyone in turn. They were creepy-looking things—at a certain angle Laura could see a fine-etched golden spiderwebbing in the opaque lenses. No moving parts. David left with the Ranger.

Laura found herself sipping tea with the Vienna spook in the downstairs office. “Remarkable decor,” Voroshilov observed, easing back in the vinyl car seat and shooting an inch of creamy-looking shirtcuff through his charcoal-gray coat sleeves.

“Thank you, Comrade.”

Voroshilov lifted his videoglasses with a practiced gesture, favoring her with a long stare from velvety blue pop-star eyes. “You're a Marxist?”

“Economic democrat,” Laura said. Voroshilov rolled his eyes in brief involuntary derision and set the glasses back onto his nose. “Have you heard from the F.A.C.T. before today?”

“Never,” Laura said. “Never heard of them.”

“The statement makes no mention of the groups from Europe and Singapore.”

“I don't think they knew the others were here,” Laura said. “We—Rizome, I mean—we were very careful on security. Ms. Emerson, our security person, can tell you more about that.”

Voroshilov smiled. “The American notion of ‘careful security.' I'm touched.” He paused. “Why are you involved in this? It's not your business.”

“It is now,” Laura said. “Who is this F.A.C.T.? Can you help us against them?”

“They don't exist,” Voroshilov said. “Oh, they did once. Years ago. All those millions your American government spent, little groups here, little groups there. Ugly little spinoffs from the Old Cold Days. But F.A.C.T. is just a front now, a fairy story. F.A.C.T. is a mask the data havens hide behind to shoot at each other.” He made a pistol-pointing gesture. “Like the old Red Brigades, pop-pop-pop against NATO. Angolan UNITA, pop-pop-pop against the Cubans.” He smiled. “So here we are, yes, we sit in these nice chairs, we drink this nice tea like civilized people. Because you stepped into the rubbish left over because your grandfather didn't like mine.”

“What do you plan to do?”

“I ought to scold you,” Voroshilov said. “But I'm going to scold your ex-CIA commissar upstairs. And my Ranger friend will scold too. My Ranger friend doesn't care for the nasty mess you make of the nice reputation of Texas.” He flipped up the screen of his terminal and keyed in commands. “You saw the flying drone that did the shooting.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me if you see it here.”

Images flashed by, four-second bursts of nicely shaded computer graphics. Stubby-winged aircraft with blind fuselages—no cockpit, they were radio controlled. Some were spattered in camouflage. Others showed ID numbers in stenciled Cyrillic or Hebrew. “No, not like that,” Laura said.

Voroshilov shrugged and touched the keys. Odder-looking craft appeared: two little blimps. Then a skeletal thing, like a collision between a helicopter and a child's tricycle. Then a kind of double-rotored golfball. Then an orange peanut. “Hold it,” Laura said.

Voroshilov froze the image. “That's it,” Laura said. “That landing gear—like a barbecue pit.” She stared at it. The narrow waist of the peanut had two broad counterrotating helicopter blades. “When the blades move, they catch the light, and it looks like a saucer,” she said aloud. “A flying saucer with big bumps on the top and the bottom.”

Voroshilov examined the screen. “You saw a Canadair CL-227 VTOL RPV. Vertical Take-Off and Landing, Remotely Piloted Vehicle. It has a range of thirty miles—miles, what a silly measurement.…” He typed a note on his Cyrillic keyboard. “It was probably launched somewhere on this island by the assassins … or perhaps from a ship. Easy to launch, this thing. No runway.”

“The one I saw was a different color. Bare metal, I think.”

“And equipped with a machine gun,” Voroshilov said. “Not standard issue. But an old craft like this has been on the black arms markets for many, many years. Cheap to buy if you have the contacts.”

“Then you can't trace the owners?”

He looked at her pityingly.

Voroshilov's watchphone beeped. It was the Ranger. “I'm out here on the walkway,” she said. “I have one of the slugs.”

“Let me guess,” Voroshilov said. “Standard NATO 35 millimeter.”

“Affirmative, yes.”

“Think of those millions and millions of unfired NATO bullets,” mused Voroshilov. “Too many even for the African market, eh? An unfired bullet has a kind of evil pressure in it, don't you think? Something in it wants to be fired.…” He paused, his blank lenses fixed on Laura. “You're not following me.”

“Sorry, I thought you were talking to her.” Laura paused. “Can't you do anything?”

“The situation seems clear,” he said. “An ‘inside job,' as they say. One of the pirate groups had collaborators on this island. Probably the Singapore Islamic Bank, famous for treachery. They had the chance to kill Stubbs and took it.” He shut down the screen. “During my flight into Galveston, I accessed the file in Grenada, on Stubbs, that was mentioned in the FACT communiqué. Very interesting to read. The killers exploited the nature of data-haven banking—that the coded files are totally secure, even against the haven pirates themselves. Only a haven would turn a haven's strength against itself in this humiliating way.”

“You must be able to help us, though.”

Voroshilov shrugged. “The local police can carry out certain actions. Tracing the local ships, for instance—see if any were close offshore, and who hired them. But I am glad to say that this was not an act of politically motivated terrorism. I would classify this as a gangster killing. The FACT communiqué is only an attempt to muddy the waters. A Vienna Convention case has certain publicity restrictions that they find useful.”

“But a man was killed here!”

“It was a murder, yes. But not a threat to the political order of the Vienna Convention signatories.”

Laura was shocked. “Then what good are you?”

Voroshilov looked hurt. “Oh, we are very much good at easing international tension. But we are not a global police force.” He emptied his teacup and set it aside. “Oh, Moscow has been pressing for a true global police force for many years now. But Washington stands in the way. Always trifling about Big Brother, civil liberties, privacy laws. It's an old story.”

“You can't help us at all.”

Voroshilov stood up. “Ms. Webster, you invited these gangsters into your home, I didn't. If you had called us first we would have urged you against it in the strongest possible terms.” He hefted his terminal. “I need to interview your husband next. Thank you for the tea.”

Laura left him and went upstairs to the telecom office. Emerson and the mayor were sitting together on one of the rattan couches, with the satisfied look of people who had beaten a debate into submission. Magruder was forking his way through a belated Tex-Mex breakfast of migas and refried beans.

Laura sat down in a chair across the table and leaned forward, vibrating with anger. “Well, you two look comfortable.”

“You've been talking to the Vienna representative,” Emerson said.

“He's no goddamn use at all.”

“KGB,” Emerson sniffed.

“He says it's not political, not their jurisdiction.”

Emerson looked surprised. “Hmmph. That's a first for them.”

Laura stared at her. “Well, what do we do about it?”

Magruder set down a glass of milk. “We're shutting you down, Laura.”

“Just for a while,” Emerson added.

Laura's jaw dropped. “Shutting down my Lodge? Why? Why?”

“It's all worked out,” Magruder said. “See, if it's criminal, then the media get to swarm all over us. They'd play it up big, and it'd be worse for tourism than a shark scare. But if we shut you down, then it looks like spook business. Classified. And nobody looks too deep when Vienna comes calling.” He shrugged. “I mean, they'll figure it eventually, but by then it'd be old news. And the damage is limited.” He stood up. “I need to talk to that Ranger. You know. Assure her that the city of Galveston will cooperate in every way possible.” He picked up his briefcase and lumbered down the stairs.

Laura glared at Emerson. “So that's it? You shut down the scandal, and David and I pay the price?”

Emerson smiled gently. “Don't be impatient, dear. Our project isn't over because of this one attack. Don't forget—it's because of attacks like this that the pirates agreed to meet in the first place.”

Laura was surprised. She sat down. Hope appeared amidst her confusion. “So you're still pursuing that? Despite all this?”

“Of course, Laura. The problem has scarcely gone away, has it? No, it's closer to us than ever before. We're lucky we didn't lose you—you, a very valued associate.”

Laura looked up, surprised. Debra Emerson's face was set quite calmly—the face of a woman simply relaying the truth. Not flattery—a fact. Laura sat up straighter. “Well, it was an attack on Rizome, wasn't it? A direct attack on our company.”

“Yes. They found a weakness in us—the F.A.C.T. did, or the people behind that alias.” Emerson looked grave. “There must have been a security leak. That deadly aircraft—I suspect it's been waiting in ambush for days. Someone knew of the meeting and was watching this place.”

“A security leak within Rizome?”

“We mustn't jump to conclusions. But we will have to find out the truth. It's more important than this Lodge, Laura. Much more important.” She paused. “We can come to terms with the Vienna investigators. We can come to terms with the city of Galveston. But that's not the hardest part. We promised safety to the people at this conference, and we failed. Now we need someone to smooth the waters. In Grenada.”

Rizome's Chattahoochee Retreat was in the foothills of the Smokies, about sixty miles northeast of Atlanta. Eight hundred acres of wooded hills in a valley with a white stony creek that was dry this year. Chattahoochee was a favorite of the Central Committee; it was close enough to the city for convenience, and boondocky enough for people to stay out of the Committee's collective face.

New recruits were often brought here—in fact this was where Emily had first introduced her to David Webster. Back in the old stone farmhouse, the one without the geodesics. Laura couldn't look at these Chattahoochee hills without remembering that night: David, a stranger, tall and thin and elegant in midnight blue, with a drink in his hand and black hair streaming down his back.

In fact everybody in that party, all the sharper recruits anyway, had gone out of their way to dress in penthouse elegance. To go against the grain a bit, to show they weren't going to be socialized all that easily, thank you. But here they were, years later, out in the Georgia woods with the Central Committee, not new recruits but full-fledged associates, playing for keeps.

Of course the Committee personnel were all different now, but certain traditions persisted.

You could tell the importance of this meeting by the elaborate informality of their dress. Normal problems they would have run through in Atlanta, standard boardroom stuff, but this Grenada situation was a genuine crisis. Therefore, the whole Committee were wearing their Back-slapping Hick look, a kind of Honest Abe the Rail-Splitter image. Frayed denim jeans, flannel work shirts rolled up to the elbow.… Garcia-Meza, a hefty Mexican industrialist who looked like he could bite tenpenny nails in half, was carrying a big straw picnic basket.