Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) (7 page)

"How old is he?" she asked Vanessa on their private channel. Enhancement, of course, made age difficult to tell ... but there was something about Ruben, particularly, that suggested youth. Kazuma, she wasn't so certain of.

"Oh, he's just a wee lad, most of the new ghosties are barely more than kids. That's part of why some of their elders are so little pleased to see them. "

Sandy frowned. "I didn't think anything in Tanusha worked on a seniority system?"

"It doesn't. But that doesn't mean people have to like it. Ari's a kid, he's from a whole different world, and he's real damn good at finding trouble. Like last night. Some people aren't sure if he's finding it, or if it's finding him. "

"Ibrahim doesn't appear to have a problem." Watching the ongoing conversation between the CSR's chief and the young, upstart agent.

"No," Vanessa agreed. "Ibrahim's never minded trouble."

It had, Sandy knew, been Ibrahim's idea. Tanusha had a massive resource in the many thousands of largely self-employed netsters, hackers and network jockeys who constituted the city's enormous techno-underground. Anti-authority and anti-institution, they were a force unto themselves, and were said by most to have a firmer finger on the pulse of Tanusha's swirling confusion of tech politics than CSA Intel.

For a man of Ibrahim's pragmatism, the conclusion was obvioussuch skills would serve the interests of the CSA better on the inside than without. And so, as of two years ago, Ibrahim had ordered a recruitment drive through the underground, with special terms for anyone showing the skills, and willing to make the commitment.

Most had laughed at the offer. But a small few, for their own reasons, had accepted. Ruben was the most prominent of these, and in the two years since his full-time inclusion in GSA's ranks, his star had risen at enormous velocity. Ibrahim, it was rumoured, gave him jobs to handle personally, Director to agent. Such intimate access to the Director was yet another reason the CSA old guard disliked him. That and the fact that he was an independent, young, intelligent know-all who was part of an anti-authority grouping well known for its dislike of the CSA and government in general, and with whom he continued to associate in shady, undercover ways that only made the old guard even more nervous.

"He's good, though?" Sandy asked.

"Sure. As Intels go." As if Vanessa, a SWAT grunt, would either know or care. "Word is Kazuma's the guns, Ari's the brains. "

Kazuma, Sandy noted, was still watching them. A moment's concentration, and Sandy could detect the active scan from across the room, monitoring the fact of their silent conversation if not the words. Contact, as Kazuma registered Sandy's counter scan. Smiled again, curiosity gleaming in narrow, dark eyes.

"So, people," Ibrahim said, and all conversation abruptly ceased. Ibrahim never spoke loudly. His quiet, impenetrable cool and effortless authority ensured that he never needed to. "You've all seen the prelims and studied the details. Let's get to the business. Agent Ruben."

"Um ..." Ruben rubbed his brow with his good hand, a nervous, energetic mannerism. "... fine. Okay. The um ..." Another rub, and a twitch at his smart collar. "... the group at the hotel were Christian Vanguard. They were formed about six years ago, breakaway from an independent sect that in turn broke away from the main Tanushan Mormon Church three years before that ... that's the, um, Central Mormons, not the East Delta Mormons ..." Another fidget at his collar, confronted by blank stares and frowns. "... I know, it gets confusing, I swear they pick up their bad habits from the Hindus."

"Which bad habits would they be, Agent Ruben?" came Personnel Administrator Tirupati's interjection from down the table, a raised eyebrow wrinkling the red spot upon her brow. Ruben looked up directly for the first time, a sudden, unapologetic fix of intelligent dark eyes.

"Fragmentation, disorganisation and general ideological chaos." Deadpan, but Sandy got the distinct impression he was pulling Tirupati's leg. "It catches, you know. Every religious organisation that has arrived on this planet from the founding has split itself at least four ways over the subsequent period ... it's a very Hindu state of affairs."

"Typical Indian shambles," someone else commented. Tirupati realised she was being made fun of, and smiled benignly. Sandy did a fast mental count, and arrived at seven Indians or part-Indians around the table. Minorities making fun of the majority, she'd gathered, was acceptable sport. Only when it turned the other way around did the risk of offence become serious.

"Now, I and ... my colleagues," with a nod to Kazuma, "have been watching Christian Vanguard for some time now. Their threat assessment was always quite high. Their leader, Claude Christophson, has been a regular on the cult-net for the last three years. Psych had him tagged as a risk almost immediately ..."

"Psychopathic?" asked Intel analyst Pangestu. Ruben's eyes registered mild surprise.

"Um, no, actually. Cattalini insists he's borderline sociopathic, but I think that's a stretch in a heavily religious society already suffering this degree of delusional removal. Most of these guys are just linear thinkers with a persecution complex. But then I think that pretty much sums up Christian radicals everywhere ..."

Uncomfortable shifting in several of the seats down the long table. "Or Jewish radicals, for that matter, Mr. Ariel Ruben," added N'Darie from the far end, with telling emphasis.

Ruben coughed, and scratched at the back of his head. "My people don't, um, have a persecution complex, Assistant Director. It's just that everyone's always out to screw us." Some people grinned. Some did not. Ruben barely appeared to notice. "The point is that while the type is pretty rare, it's not so rare that you won't get a lot of them in this city's population profile among 57 million people."

"Your critique of the SIB's last SCIPS on the matter was considerably more robust than that," Pangestu reminded him. A SCIPS, Sandy recalled, was a Statistical Crime Intervention-Prevention Survey. Typical analyst's jargon-ese, ignored by all but those who compiled them. Ruben restrained an exasperated half smile, it turned into a wince.

"Abi, I've seen more attempts to statistically quantify this city's predilection for various kinds of criminal activity than I can remember ... I mean, religion doesn't even matter much to most people. South Asian theology is mostly inconsistent, anyway, the interactions between various ethnic groups, language groups, philosophies, religions, histories, generation gaps, backlashes, historical nostalgia, politicisation .. He shook his head in exasperation. "... you can't quantify it. You'd be nuts to try. If I deal in broad generalisations, it's because any attempt to quantify the minutiae will immediately be contradicted.

"Now ... Vanguard are right on the fringe, the far lunar-right, but they're not crazy. They're just extreme. It's an extremist culture we've got here, in some sections. The diversity ensures it, the fragmentations just bounce off each other, push each other further to the brink, and of course infotech means everyone's a fucking expert ...

"Why that gathering?" Ibrahim interrupted calmly. "Why Progress Party? Why those senators?"

"Article 42," said Pangestu immediately. "Killing two Progress Party senators and a Progress rep would put a big dent in the probreakaway numbers."

Ibrahim looked at Ruben, who was shaking his head.

"No, that's not how they think. They're not thinking of the numbers. They don't like the system and they're not prepared to play that game. They don't like it, don't trust it, and don't really understand it. It's a statement. Allesandra Parker was there, Arjun Mukherjee was there ... all the people who represent high-power, big business biotech, all the people who'd most like to see the biotech restrictions lifted. It was a big, moral statement. They think they're doing God's work to smite the evildoers and save humanity from the corruption of unnatural technologies and soulless machines."

Flicked a brief glance at Sandy. Sandy gazed back, eyes unblinking.

"How can you be so sure?" Pangestu appeared in an argumentative mood, his stern, angular Indonesian features etched in a serious frown. "Like you said, these groups aren't stupid. The infiltration and assault as outlined by your own report was expertly done and suggested some serious expertise. If they can do that, why can't they figure out the present state of the Article 42 debate, figure the numbers required by either side for the pre-referendum vote, and work out who they need to kill in order to affect the outcome? It's a conscience vote, Ari, the politicians aren't just going to vote along party lines, so we can't just count on Union Party's numbers carrying the day as usual ... that means some of the core Progress Party people become convenient targets. Kill a few Progress Party pollies, you lessen the breakaway vote dramatically."

Sandy watched Ruben as he listened, chewing absently on a fingernail. He had, she noted with interest, a curiously absent, unflappable demeanour. A purposeful blandness. But too purposeful. As if hiding an implacable intellectual drive that burned just beneath the surface. And he shook his head to Pangestu's assertions, abandoning the fingernail.

"No, no, if they kill senators or congressmen, there's an immediate by-election ..." Tapping the table with a fingertip for emphasis. "It'll only put the vote back a few weeks and they haven't finalised a date yet anyway, no big deal. Plus the politicians' vote is just a preliminary on whether or not to submit it to a popular Callayan vote and under what terms ... it's the popular vote that determines the final outcome. Christophson's not stupid, he knew that. He was just doing the good old-fashioned terrorist thing-scaring people into voting the way Vanguard wanted. Or as he saw it, reminding them of God's wrath."

"The by-election could cause a constitutional crisis, it's all untested under emergency legislation," Pangestu retorted. "That could hold up the vote itself. What makes you so sure that has nothing to do with it?"

"He told me."

Pangestu didn't reply immediately. No one did. His frown grew deeper.

"Who told you?"

"Claude Christophson." Very mildly. "Old buddy of mine, we go way back. About a month ago, just after Article 42 was tabled for debate, he told me that any attempt to directly alter the technical process of the vote by violence would be pointless, that the only thing that could work would be to appeal to people's greater moral instincts, the aspects of people's humanity that transcended the technicalities of the process."

"Claude Christophson made a direct threat against this world's elected representatives a month ago," N'Darie said disbelievingly, "and you neglected to tell anyone?"

"He didn't make a direct threat, he was speaking hypothetically." With utter disregard for the Assistant Director's bluntness. "And I did tell someone, I filed a report."

"Lost among how damn many hundreds of Intelligence reports ..."

"If people don't read my reports, I can't help that." Meeting her gaze calmly down the full length of table. N'Darie glared back. "People who value my reports tend to prioritise them for reading. Those that don't ... well, they can set their own operational priorities. I'm in no position to dictate to them what they ought to find important."

"And if we prioritised every report about every person who threatened violent action against Article 42 ..." Kazuma spoke up for the first time, ". . . you'd all be swimming in them up to your ears."

"Already there," someone muttered.

"Ari," Intel Director Naidu intervened, "what's your risk assessment of the religious extremist groups in general at this point? And what do you think we can learn from this attack?"

Ruben nodded thoughtfully for a moment, as if mildly thankful to receive what he considered a useful question.

"Umm ... unfortunately the risk is pretty high right now, ninetyfive per cent of them are all hot air, but considering how many groups there are, five per cent still adds up to a lot of trouble. Mostly they're focused on the public supporters of advanced biotech, or anyone deemed sympathetic to League causes ... most high-level stuff should be safe, though. There's not much expertise out there in hard-target infiltration, just the kind of bureaucratic screw ups we saw at Kanchipuram."

"How many more attacks do you think we could see?"

"From nutter-wallahs?" Which was Hindi-English slang for religious loonies these days, Sandy had gathered. "I'd guess two or three a week at present." Silent disbelief from around the table. "Infotech and tape-teach mean it's real easy for your average Mr. Citizen to make bombs and reasonably sophisticated trigger mechanisms these days. That's the main concern, plus acquiring the skill and knowledge to assemble and use them. And, of course, with the end of the LeagueFederation war a year ago, there's suddenly a surplus of guns on the black market."

"So what do you think is the best proce-"

"Wait, wait." Ruben cut off the new question, as if abruptly troubled by something. "I think I have to say at this point that most of this stuff is just pointless nonsense, a few crazies taking their Messiah-complexes out for a spin around the block ... I don't think we can afford to lose sight of the main game here, whatever the media want to get upset about."

"I'd say firefights and suicide bomb attacks in major industry get- togethers is a fairly serious occurrence, Mr. Ruben," N'Darie said incredulously.

"What is the main game, Ari?" Naidu asked calmly, ignoring the Assistant Director, as he usually did.

"The main game," Ari said, with an emphasis that might have been sarcasm, "is Article 42. Politics. Big, humungous, colossal, mind- blowingly huge politics ... It's not every day that Callay has a vote on whether or not to break away from the Federation. We're a powerful world in the scheme of Federation economics, everyone's upset by this. That's why they're all here, why we've got representatives from every damn planet, political organisation, major corporation and media network in Federation space cramming up all the five-star hotel rooms in Tanusha of late, holding all these talkfests all over town that stretch our security so thin we'll soon have knuckle-dragging gorillas from every pea-brained "fuck the government" organisation strolling through the front doors with auto-cannon slung over each shoulder.