Shadow Puppets (17 page)

“Against the advice of my military commander and others, I brought the notorious Achilles Flandres, at his own request and with his assurances of loyalty to me, into my compound. I was warned that he could not be trusted, and I believed those warnings.

“However, I thought I was clever enough and careful enough to detect any betrayal on his part in plenty of time. That was a miscalculation on my part. Thanks to the help of others, it was not a fatal one.

“The disinformation now coming from Achilles Flandres in the former Hegemony compound about my alleged embezzlement is, of course, false. I have always maintained the financial records of the Hegemony in public. The broad categories of income and disbursement have been published every year on the nets, and this morning I have opened up the entire set of financial records of the Hegemony, and my own personal records, on a secure site with the address ‘Hegemon Financial Disclosure.’ Except for a few secret items in the budget, which any military analyst can tell you is barely enough to account for the very few military actions of my office over the past few years, every dollar is accounted for. And, yes, we do keep those records in dollars, since the Hegemony currency has fluctuated widely in value, but with a distinctly downward trend, in recent years.”

Another laugh. But everyone was writing like crazy, too, and he could see that this policy of full disclosure was working.

“Besides seeing that nothing has been embezzled from the Hegemony,” Peter went on, “you will also see that the Hegemony has been working with extremely limited funds. It has been a challenge, with so little money, to marshal the nations of the world to oppose the imperialistic designs of the so-called ‘Universal People’s State’—
otherwise known as the Chinese Empire. We have been extremely grateful to those nations who have continued to support the Hegemony at one level or another. In deference to some of them who prefer their contribution remain secret, we have withheld some twenty names. You are free to speculate about their identity but I will say neither yes or no, except to tell you candidly that China is not one of them.”

The biggest laugh yet, and a couple of people even clapped their hands a few times.

“I am outraged that the usurper Achilles Flandres has called into question the credentials of the Minister of Colonization. But if there were any doubts about Flandres’s plans, the fact that this was his first act should tell you a great deal about the future he plans for us all. Achilles Flandres will not rest until every human being is under his complete control. Or, of course, dead.”

Peter paused, looked down at the rostrum as if he had notes there, though of course he didn’t.

“One thing I do not regret, however, about bringing Achilles Flandres to Ribeirão Preto, is that I have had a chance now to take his measure as a human being—though it is only by the broadest definition that I include him in that category. Achilles Flandres has achieved his power in the world, not by his own intelligence or courage, but by exploiting the intelligence and courage of others. He engineered the kidnapping of the children who helped my brother, Ender Wiggin, save humanity from the alien invaders. Why? Because he knew that he himself did not have any hope of ruling the world if any of them were working against him.

“Achilles Flandres’s power comes from the willingness of others to believe his lies. But his lies will no longer bring him new allies as they have in the past. He has hitched his little wagon to China and drives China like an ox. But I have heard him laughing at the poor fools in the Chinese government who believed him, mocking them for their petty ambitions, as he told me how unworthy they were to have him guiding their affairs.

“No doubt much of this was merely part of his attempt to convince me that he was no longer working with them. But his ridicule was by name and very specific. His contempt for them was genuine. I almost feel sorry for them—because if his power is ever solidified and he has no further use for them, then they will see what I saw.

“Of course, he has scorn for me as well, and if he’s laughing at me right now, I can only agree with him. I was snookered, ladies and gentlemen. In that, I join a distinguished company, some of whom fell from power in Russia after the kidnappings, some of whom are now suffering as political prisoners after China’s conquest of India, and some of whom even now are arresting people in India for…carrying stones.

“I only hope that I will turn out to be the last person so vain and foolish as to think that Achilles Flandres can be controlled or exploited to serve some higher purpose. Achilles Flandres serves only one purpose—his own pleasure. And what pleases him…would be to rule over every man, woman, and child in the human race.

“I was not a fool when I committed the Hegemony to opposing the imperialistic acts of the Chinese government. Now, because of my own mistakes, the prestige of the Hegemony is temporarily diminished. But my opposition to the Chinese Empire’s oppression of more than half the people of the world is not diminished. I am the implacable enemy of emperors.”

That was as good a stopping point as any.

Peter bowed his head briefly to acknowledge their polite applause. Some in the crowd applauded more than politely—but he was also aware of those who did not clap at all.

The questions began then, but because he had accused himself from the start, he fielded them easily. Two questioners tried to get more information on the source who tipped him off and what it was he tipped Peter off about, but Peter only said, “If I say anything more on this subject, someone who has been kind to me will certainly die. I am surprised you would even ask.” After the second time he said
this—word for word—no one asked such a question again.

As to those whose questions were merely veiled accusations, he agreed with all those who implied that he had been foolish. When he was asked if he had proven himself too foolish to hold the office of Hegemon, his first reply was a joke: “I was told when I took the job in the first place that accepting it proved I was too dimwitted to serve.” Laughter, of course. And then he said, “But I have tried to use that office to serve the cause of peace and self-government for all of humanity, and I challenge anyone to show that I did anything other than advance that cause as much as was possible with the resources I had.”

Fifteen minutes later, he apologized for having no further time. “But please email me any further questions you might have, and my staff and I will try to get answers back to you in time for your deadlines. One final word before I go.”

They fell silent, waiting.

“The future happiness of the human race depends on good people who want to live at peace with their neighbors, and who are willing to protect their neighbors from those who don’t want peace. I’m only one of those people. I’m probably not the best of them, and I hope to God I’m not the smartest. But I happen to be the one who was entrusted with the office of Hegemon. Until my term expires or I am lawfully replaced by the nations that have supported the Hegemony, I will continue to serve in that office.”

More applause—and this time he allowed himself to believe that there might be some real enthusiasm in it.

He came back to his room exhausted.

Mother and Father were there, waiting. They had refused to go downstairs with him. “If your mother and father are with you,” Father had said, “then this better be the press conference where you resign. But if you intend to stay in office, then you go down there alone. Just you. No staff. No parents. No friends. No notes. Just you.”

Father had been right. Mother had been right, too. Ender, bless his little heart, was the example he had to follow. If you lose, you lose, but you don’t give up.

“How did it go?” asked Mother.

“Well enough, I think,” said Peter. “I took questions for fifteen minutes, but they were starting to repeat themselves or get off on wild tangents so I told them to email me any further questions. Was it carried on the vid?”

“We polled thirty news stations,” said Father, “and the top twenty or so newswebs, and most of them had it live.”

“So you watched?” said Peter.

“No, we flipped through,” said Mother. “But what we saw looked and sounded good. You didn’t bat an eye. I think you brought it off.”

“We’ll see.”

“Long term,” said Father. “You’re going to have a bumpy couple of months. Especially because you can count on it that Achilles hasn’t emptied his quiver yet.”

“Bow and arrow analogies?” said Peter. “You are so old.”

They chuckled at his joke.

“Mom. Dad. Thanks.”

“All we did,” said Father, “was what we knew that tomorrow you would have wished we had done today.”

Peter nodded. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Man, I can’t believe I was so dumb. I can’t believe I didn’t listen to Bean and Petra and Suri and—”

“And us,” said Mother helpfully.

“And you and Graff,” said Peter.

“You trusted your own judgment,” said Father, “and that’s exactly what you have to do. You were wrong this time, but you haven’t been wrong often, and I doubt you’ll ever be this wrong again.”

“For heaven’s sake don’t start taking a vote on your decisions,” said Mother. “Or looking at opinion polls or trying to guess how your actions will play with the press.”

“I won’t,” said Peter.

“Because, you see, you’re Locke,” said Mother. “You already ended one war. After a few days or weeks, the press will start remembering that. And you’re Demosthenes—you have quite a fervent following.”

“Had,” said Peter.

“They saw what they expected from Demosthenes,” said Mother. “You didn’t weasel, you didn’t make excuses, you took the blame you deserved and refused the accusations that were false. You put out your evidence—”

“That was good advice, Dad, thanks,” said Peter.

“And,” said Mother, “you showed courage.”

“By running away from Ribeirão Preto before anyone so much as glared at me?”

“By getting out of bed,” she answered.

Peter shook his head. “Then my courage is nothing but borrowed courage.”

“Not borrowed,” said Mother. “Stored up. In us. Like a bank. We’ve seen your courage and we saved some for you when you temporarily ran out and needed some of it back.”

“Cash flow problem, that’s all it was,” said Father.

“How many times are you two going to have to save me from myself before this whole drama runs its course?” asked Peter.

“I think…six times,” said Father.

“No, eight,” said Mother.

“You two think you’re so cute,” said Peter.

“Mm-hm.”

“Yep.”

A knock at the door. “Room service!” called a voice from outside.

Father was at the door in two quick strides. “Three tomato juices?” he asked.

“No, no, nothing like that. Lunch. Sandwiches. Bowl of ice cream.”

Even with that reassurance, Father stepped to the side of the door and pulled it open as far as the lock bar allowed. Nobody fired a weapon, and the guy with the food laughed. “Oh, everybody forgets to undo that thing, happens all the time.”

Father opened the door and stepped outside long enough to make sure nobody else was in the hall waiting to follow room service inside.

When the waiter was coming through the door Peter turned around to get out of his way, just in time to see Mother slipping a pistol back into her purse.

“Since when did you start packing?” he asked her.

“Since your chief of computer security turned out to be Achilles’s good friend,” she said.

“Ferreira?” asked Peter.

“He’s been telling the press that he installed snoopware to find out who was embezzling funds, and was shocked to discover it was you.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Of course they ran a press conference opposite mine.”

“But almost everybody carried yours live and his was just excerpted. And they all followed the Ferreira clip with a repeat of you announcing that you were posting the Hegemony financial records on the nets.”

“Bet we crash the server.”

“No, all the news organizations cloned it first thing.”

Father had finished signing off on the meal and the waiter was gone, the door relocked.

“Let’s eat,” said Father. “If I recall, this place always has great lunches.”

“It’s good to be home,” said Mother. “Well, not
home
, but in town, anyway.”

Peter took a bite and it was good.

They had ordered exactly the sandwich he would have ordered, that’s how well they knew him. Their lives really were focused on
their children. He couldn’t have ordered
their
sandwiches.

Three place settings on the little rolling cart the waiter had wheeled in.

There should have been five.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” asked Father, his mouth full.

“That I’m the only kid you’ve got on Earth.”

“Could be worse,” said Father. “Could have been none.”

And Mother reached over and patted his hand.

Petra assumed that she had been taken to Damascus because Ambul had succeeded in making contact with Alai, but neither of them met her at the airport. Nor was there anyone waiting for her at the security gates. Not that she wanted someone carrying a sign that said “Petra Arkanian”—she might as well send Achilles an email telling him where she was.

She had felt nauseated through the entire flight, but she knew it could not possibly be from pregnancy, not this quickly. It took at least a few hours for the hormones to start to flow. It had to be the stark fear that started when she realized that if Alai’s people could find exactly where she was, and have a cab waiting for her, so could Achilles’s.

How did Bean know to choose the cab he chose for her? Was it some predilection for Indonesians? Did he reason from evidence she didn’t even notice? Or did he choose the third cab simply because he didn’t trust the concept of “next in line”?

What cab had he got into, and who was driving it?

Someone bumped into her from behind, and for a moment she had a rush of adrenaline as she thought: This is it! I’m being killed
by an assassin who approached me from behind because I was too stupid to look around!

After the momentary panic—and the momentary self-blame—she realized that of course it was not an assassin, it was simply a passenger from her flight, hurrying to get out of the airport, while she, uncertain and lost in her own thoughts, had been walking too slowly and obstructing traffic.

I’ll go to a hotel, she thought. But not one that Europeans always go to. But wait, if I go to a hotel where everybody but me is Arab-looking, I’ll stand out. Too obvious. Bean would tease me for not having developed any useful survival habits. Though at least I thought twice before checking into an Arab hotel.

The only luggage she had was the bag she was carrying over her shoulder, and at customs she went through the usual questions. “This is all your luggage?” “Yes.” “How long do you plan to stay?” “A couple of weeks, I expect.” “Two weeks, and no more clothing than this?” “I plan to shop.”

It always aroused suspicions to enter a country with too little luggage, but as Bean said, it’s better to have a few more questions at customs or passport control than to have to go to the baggage claim area and stand around where bad people have plenty of time to find you.

The only thing worse, in Bean’s view, was to use the first restroom in the airline terminal. “Everybody knows women have to pee incessantly,” said Bean.

“Actually, it’s not incessant, and most men don’t notice even if it is,” said Petra. But considering that Bean seemed never to need to pee at all, she supposed that her normal human needs seemed excessive to him.

She was well trained now, however. She didn’t even glance at the first restroom she passed, or the second. She probably wouldn’t use a bathroom until she got to her hotel room.

Bean, when are you coming? Did they get you onto the next flight? How will we find each other in this city?

She knew he would be furious, however, if she lingered in the airport hoping to meet his flight. For one thing, she would have no idea where his flight would be coming from—he was wont to choose very odd itineraries, so that he could very easily be on a flight from Cairo, Moscow, Algiers, Rome, or Jerusalem. No, it was better to go to a hotel, check in under an alias that he knew about, and—

“Mrs. Delphiki?”

She turned at once at the sound of Bean’s mother’s name, and then realized that the tall, white-haired gentleman was addressing her.

“Yes.” She laughed. “I’m still not used to the idea of being called by my husband’s name.”

“Forgive me,” said the man. “Do you prefer your birth name?”

“I haven’t used my own name in many months,” said Petra. “Who sent you to meet me?”

“Your host,” said the man.

“I have had many hosts in my life,” said Petra. “Some of whom I do not wish to visit again.”

“But such people as that would not live in Damascus.” There was a twinkle in his eye. Then he leaned in close. “There are names that it is not good to say aloud.”

“Mine apparently not being one of them,” she said with a smile.

“In this time and place,” he said, “you are safe while others might not be.”

“I’m safe because you’re with me?”

“You are safe because I and my…what is your Battle School slang?…my jeesh and I are here watching over you.”

“I didn’t see anybody watching over me.”

“You didn’t even see
me
,” said the man. “This is because we’re very good at what we do.”

“I
did
see you. I just didn’t realize you had taken any notice of me.”

“As I said.”

She smiled. “Very well, I will not name our host. And since you won’t either, I’m afraid I can’t go with you anywhere.”

“Oh, so suspicious,” he said with a rueful smile. “Very well, then. Perhaps I can facilitate matters by placing you under arrest.” He showed her a very official-looking badge inside a wallet. Though she had no idea what organization had issued the badge, since she had never learned the Arabic alphabet, let alone the language itself.

But Bean had taught her: Listen to your fear, and listen to your trust. She trusted this man, and so she believed his badge without being able to read it. “So you’re with Syrian law enforcement,” she said.

“As often as not,” he replied, smiling again as he put his wallet away.

“Let’s walk outside,” she said.

“Let’s not,” he said. “Let’s go into a little room here at the airport.”

“A toilet stall?” she asked. “Or an interrogation room?”

“My office,” he said.

If it was an office, it was certainly well disguised. They got to it by stepping behind the El Al ticket counter and going into the employees’ back room.

“El Al?” she asked. “You’re Israeli?”

“Israel and Syria are very close friends for the past hundred years. You should keep up on your history.”

They walked down a corridor lined with employee lockers, a drinking fountain, and a couple of restroom doors.

“I didn’t think the friendship was close enough to allow Syrian law enforcement to use Israel’s national airline,” said Petra.

“I lied about being with Syrian law enforcement,” he said.

“And did they lie out front about being El Al?”

He palmed open an unmarked door, but when she made as if to
follow him through it, he shook his head. “No no, first you must place the palm of your hand…”

She complied, but wondered how they could possibly have her palm print and sweat signature here in Syria.

No. They didn’t, of course. They were getting them right now, so that wherever else she went, she would be recognized by their computer security systems.

The door led to a stairway that went down.

And farther down, and farther yet, until they had to be well underground.

“I don’t think this complies with international handicapped access regulations,” said Petra.

“What the regulators don’t see won’t hurt us,” said the man.

“A theory that has gotten so many people into so much trouble,” said Petra.

They came to an underground tunnel, where a small electric car was waiting for them. No driver. Apparently her companion was going to drive.

Not so. He got into the backseat beside her, and the car took off by itself.

“Let me guess,” said Petra. “You don’t take most of your VIPs through the El Al ticket counter.”

“There are other ways to get to this little street,” said the man. “But the people looking for you would not have staked out El Al.”

“You’d be surprised at how often my enemy is two steps ahead.”

“But what if your friends are three steps ahead?” Then he laughed as if it had been a joke, and not a boast.

“We’re alone in a car,” said Petra. “Let’s have some names now.”

“I am Ivan Lankowski,” he said.

She laughed in spite of herself. But when he did not smile, she stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t look Russian, and this is Damascus.”

“My paternal grandfather was ethnic Russian, my grandmother
was ethnic Kazakh, both were Muslims. My mother’s parents are still living, thanks be to Allah, and they are both Jordanian.”

“And you never changed the name?”

“It is the heart that makes the Muslim. The heart and the life. My name contains part of my genealogy. Since Allah willed me to be born in this family, who am I to try to deny his gift?”

“Ivan Lankowski,” said Petra. “The name I’d like to hear is the name of the one who sent you.”

“One’s superior officer is never named. It is a basic rule of security.”

Petra sighed. “I suppose this proves I’m not in Kansas anymore.”

“I don’t believe,” said Lankowski, “that you have ever been in Kansas, Mrs. Delphiki.”

“It was a reference to—”

“I have seen
The Wizard of Oz
,” said Lankowski. “I am, after all, an educated man. And…I
have
been in Kansas.”

“Then you have found wisdom I can only dream of.”

He chuckled. “It is an unforgettable place. Just like Jordan was right after the Ice Age, covered with tall grasses, stretching forever in every direction, with the sky everywhere, instead of being confined to a small patch above the trees.”

“You are a poet,” said Petra. “And also a very old man, to remember the Ice Age.”

“The Ice Age was my father’s time. I only remember the rainy times right after it.”

“I had no idea there were tunnels under Damascus.”

“In our wars with the west,” said Lankowski, “we learned to bury everything that we did not want blown up. Individually-targeted bombs were first tested on Arabs, did you know that? The archives are full of pictures of exploding Arabs.”

“I’ve seen some of the pictures,” said Petra. “I also recall that during those wars, some of the individuals targeted themselves by strapping on their own bombs and blowing them up in public places.”

“Yes, we did not have guided missiles, but we did have feet.”

“And the bitterness remains?”

“No, no bitterness,” said Lankowski. “We once ruled the known world, from Spain to India. Muslims ruled in Moscow, and our soldiers reached into France, and to the gates of Vienna. Our dogs were better educated than the scholars of the West. Then one day we woke up and we were poor and ignorant, and somebody else had all the guns. We knew this could not be the will of Allah, so we fought.”

“And discovered that the will of Allah was…?”

“The will of Allah was for many of our people to die, and for the West to occupy our countries again and again until we stopped fighting. We learned our lesson. We are very well behaved now. We abide by all the treaty terms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion, liberated women, and democratic elections.”

“And tunnels under Damascus.”

“And memories.” He smiled at her. “And cars without drivers.”

“Israeli technology, I believe.”

“For a long time we thought of Israel as the enemy’s toehold in our holy land. Then one day we remembered that Israel was a member of our family who had gone away into exile, learned everything our enemies knew, and then came home again. We stopped fighting our brother, and our brother gave us all the gifts of the West, but without destroying our souls. How sad it would have been if we had killed all the Jews and driven them out. Who would have taught us then? The Armenians?”

She laughed at his joke, but also listened to his lecture. So this was how they lived with their history—they assigned meanings to everything that allowed them to see God’s hand in everything. Purpose. Even power and hope.

But they also still remembered that Muslims had once ruled the world. And they still regarded democracy as something they adopted in order to placate the West.

I really should read the Q’uran, she thought. To see what lies
underneath the façade of western-style sophistication.

This man was sent to meet me, she thought, because this is the face they want visitors to Syria to see. He told me these stories, because this is the attitude they want me to believe that they have.

But this is the pretty version. The one that has been tailored to fit Western ears. The bones of the stories, the blood and the sinews of it, were defeat, humiliation, incomprehension of the will of God, loss of greatness as a people, and a sense of ongoing defeat. These are people with something to prove and with lost status to retrieve. A people who want, not vengeance, but vindication.

Very dangerous people.

Perhaps also very useful people, to a point.

She took her observations to the next step, but couched her words in the same kind of euphemistic story that he had told. “From what you tell me,” said Petra, “the Muslim world sees this dangerous time in world history as the moment Allah has prepared you for. You were humbled before, so you would be submissive to Allah and ready for him to lead you to victory.”