House of the Sun (33 page)
Yeah, right. I was playing "spot the lie," and I caught three of them. First, there was nothing "jury-rigged" about the devices—not judging by the fireball I saw, at least. Unless the bombers had wheeled it into place inside a fragging moving truck, that was an efficient, high-yield bomb.
Second—again judging by the fireball—there's no fragging way the damage done was "minimal." A blast powerful enough to rattle double-glazed transpex at three klicks? Cut me loose, here.
Third—no casualties? Give me a break, boys and girls of the media. In one of those herky-jerky on-the-spot tridcasts, I saw at least two body bags getting loaded into a meat-wagon. If you're going to lie, at least make sure your own trideo footage doesn't contradict you too blatantly.
As it turned out, I was treated to a little more than the official story. While scanning the channels, I came across something that had to be a local pirate tridcaster. The production values chewed, and the announcer seemed to be halfway out of his head on some choice mind-bender, but at least he had an innovative take on the whole thing.
According to the pirate, the whole fragging thing was the corps' faults. Peaceful demonstrators had been protesting outside the corp zone on Sand Island, and at about oh-four-hundred, the zone's corp sec-guards had—without provocation—opened fire. It was only then, with scores of their comrades injured or dying, that some of the protesters did
something
—the pirate announcer wasn't precisely clear on what—that caused the explosions as "fair and just retribution" for the corp-instigated carnage.
Yeah, right. "Peaceful demonstrators" packing satchel-charges of C12 "just in case?" Pull the other one.
Still, I thought as I lay back on the bed, Barnard had raised an interesting point earlier, one that could also apply here. When you've got two contradictory reports, coming from two sources with vested interests, assume that both are tissues of lies. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. Maybe some relative innocents
were
cacked ... either before or after the blasts. (Frag, if I were a corp sec-guard and the site I was supposed to protect just went kaboom, I'd probably be a little less stringent than normal about identifying targets before shooting ...)
So, predictably, the Powers That Be were trying to downplay the story, while the hotheads were trying to blow it out of all proportion. I could see already how it was going to polarize. Gordon Ho and his supporters would champion the official line—no casualties, minimal damage.
Na
Kama'aina
and ALOHA would be hard-selling the pirate's take on the whole thing.
I climbed back into bed with a sigh. It didn't much look as though cooler heads were going to prevail after all.
The situation had gotten even worse, I discovered as I watched the trid over my room-service breakfast. Monobe security forces had tracked the bombers—or some convenient "suspects," at any rate—and gotten into a high-speed pursuit through the streets of Aiea. All the suspects had been shot while trying to resist arrest (tell me another one). What was worse, all in all, was the total casualty count: four suspects killed, two innocent bystanders geeked when a Monobe MPUV "Hummer" T-boned their car, another non-combatant winged by stray gunfire and not expected to make it, plus four more civilians messed up to one degree or another. Frag it all, if the corps had decided to go out of their way to stir up popular sentiment against themselves, I couldn't think of many more efficient ways of going about it.
The news crews also showed several pretty nasty demonstrations against the
Ali'i
—one right outside the lolani Palace. The protesters must have had a shaman or mage among their number because the statue of King Kamehameha the Great had been magically altered to include bugged-out eyes, a bleeding tongue, and a noose around its neck. Nice.
I know a little about demonstrations from my time with Lone Star. No matter how nasty they may look, their real significance depends on who's involved. Average slobs-on-the-street, who really believe in what's going down? Troubling, chummer. Professional
agents
provocateur
—"rent-a-mob?"
Much less troubling ... although it's still something you don't want to turn your back on. Which was it in this case? I had no way of knowing.
The tridcam focused again on the magically altered face of Kamehameha the Great, prompting a new thought. Did Gordon Ho know what was going down? I don't mean the bombings and the protests and that drek—of course he'd know about that. But maybe he
didn't
know that someone—probably Harlech—had blown my connection with the
Ali'i
. I'd promised to tell him anything that Barnard passed on to me about the situation, hadn't I?
And besides, I had the gross and chilling conviction that things were starting to come apart around me, which was giving me the strong urge to talk with somebody—
anybody
—about it. Ho just happened to be the closest and most convenient. I pulled out the mylar card the
Ali'i
had given to me, crossed to the telecom, and punched in the number.
I waited out the usual delays and ghost-clicks; by now I was getting used to cold relays. Finally, the Ringing symbol flashed on the screen. A few seconds later, one last click indicated the circuit was complete.
"la
wai
?" The screen stayed blank.
I hesitated. The voice didn't sound like Gordon Ho's . . . or was I just being paranoid? "I want to speak to the
Ali'i
" I said.
"Ka
?" the voice asked. Now I was sure—it
wasn't
King Kamehameha V. "Who is this?"
I struggled to keep my face expressionless, silently cursing myself for placing this call with my own video pickup online. "The fact that I know this number means I don't have to tell you that," I said coldly, playing my corp hard-man act to the hilt. "Put the
Ali'i
on. Now."
"I'm afraid that's impossible," the voice said, matching my tone chill for chill. "The
Ali'i
is indisposed at the moment. Leave your name and contact information, and I'll pass it on."
I was already reaching out to slap the Disconnect key. With a sigh I leaned back in the chair.
Frag it to hell. Something was seriously wrong here. Ho
had stressed to me that the number on the mylar card would
reach his personal line, no matter where he was. If he couldn't answer for whatever reason—if he was 'indisposed," for example—
no
one
else
would pick up the line. Obviously, the ground rules had changed. Maybe "indisposed" was just a polite circumlocution for
"deposed
." Was Gordon Ho still
Ali'i
of the Kingdom of Hawai'i?
I turned and stared out the window. Almost since this thing had started, I'd felt like a rat in a trap. Now the trap seemed to be shrinking. Options and alternatives were slowly being stripped away. For a while, I'd fooled myself into thinking I had a powerful patron in the
Ali'i
. No more, chummer. For all I knew, maybe Gordon Ho was swinging at the end of a rope, eyes bugged and tongue bleeding like the magically altered statue. Even if he wasn't, it was a pretty good bet he had more important things on his mind than the travails of one Dirk Montgomery.
And Barnard? Frag, I'd already given him my best pitch, and he'd decided to leave me "in-country" to reality-check his other informants. How could I convince him to pull me out? Snivel and whimper?
Maybe ALOHA was hiring. I wondered what the going rate for burned-out
haole
street ops was these days ...
The telecom buzzed, and I almost went over backward in the chair. I glared balefully at the incoming Call symbol on the bottom of the screen.
Who had this LTG number? Monot, obviously, and anybody else she'd happened to tell at Telestrian Industries Corporation. And that was about it . . . wasn't it?
A little apprehensively, I tapped the key to accept the call, but only
after
turning off the telecom's video pickup. "Yeah?"
The screen filled with an image of Gordon Ho's strong features. "Mr. Montgomery?"
I hurriedly keyed my vid pickup back on. "It's me," I told him unnecessarily. "Where the frag
are
you?" And then an ugly thought hit. "And how the frag did you get this number?"
The
Ali'i
of Hawai'i gave me a tired smile. For the first time I noticed the bags under his eyes, the lines of strain in his face. "As to your second question, Mr. Montgomery, I think I told you once before that some members of my military intelligence community were still loyal to me personally. Fortunately, that still seems to be the case. As to your first question, I'd rather not discuss that, for reasons that should be obvious."
"What the frag's going down,
e
ku'u
lani?"
I asked.
His tired smile grew sad. "That form of address isn't appropriate anymore, Mr. Montgomery."
I nodded. "A palace coup?"
"More or less. The throne has been taken—I prefer the term 'usurped,' of course," he added with a wry grin—"by a distant cousin of mine who apparently has been groomed for the position by certain factions within the legislature."
"A mouthpiece for
Na
Kama'aina
," I translated.
"Of course."
"And you?" I asked him.
"Accused of high treason, what else? How else could
Na
Kama'aina
have played it?" He shrugged his muscular shoulders. "I left the palace one step ahead of a warrant for my arrest."
I shook my head. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold, and all that drek. "You've got some people with you?"
"Some," he acknowledged. "Trusted friends."
"And a safe place to hang?"
"For the moment, yes."
I rubbed at my eyes, which suddenly felt very tired. "So what happens now?"
The erstwhile
Ali'i
smiled. "I think I'd rather not discuss that at the moment, Mr. Montgomery," he said quietly. "After all,
my
people have compromised this line ..." He didn't have to finish the thought.
I sighed. "Yeah." What the frag else was there to say? Things had gone way too far beyond my ability to affect them—that's the way it felt, at least. I was adrift on some dark, empty ocean, with no compass or rudder. "Well," I told the
ex-Ali'i,
"if there's anything I can do to—"
He interrupted gently. "That's not why I called you, Mr. Montgomery."
I blinked. "Oh?"
"I've been asked to pass on a message to you."
"From whom?" Suddenly, bleak fatalism morphed into paranoid imaginings.
"Someone who claims to know you." Ho's voice and body language were giving nothing away, no matter how hard I scrutinized him. "Someone who wishes to meet with you. It's your choice whether you accept the meeting or not, of course."
Well, thanks for
that,
at least, I thought. "Who?" I asked again.
"Two people, actually," Ho replied slowly. "That was made quite clear to me. Apparently, one of them you'll particularly want to speak with."
"Why? And who the frag are they?"
Ho seemed not to have heard my question. "If you wish,
I can help you arrange the meet, Mr. Montgomery," he went on. "Some of my people can escort the . .. the
parties
... to any meeting site you wish and guarantee that nothing untoward happens."
"Yeah, thanks, sure," I said distractedly. "But who the frag
are
they, huh?"
Ho looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm assuming this means something to you. It certainly means nothing to me. I was asked to convey to you that there is a message from 'friends of Adrian Skyhill'."
* * *
Oh, just fragging great. The fragging
bugs
. Wonderful, excellent, oh joy.
I accepted the meeting, of course. Frag, what else would I do? Sheer, drek-headed curiosity was enough of a motivation. After the pogroms and all that drek, after the infestation of Chicago by the bugs, after the revelation of insect spirits and their shamans as the next worst thing to the Antichrist himself ... wouldn't a bug shaman have to have one fragging good reason to risk his precious, creepy little skin, arranging a meeting with me? (Curiosity—it's a wonderful thing,
neh
? Think of all the marvelous boons curiosity has brought humanity—thermonukes, germ warfare, trideo sitcoms . . .)
Once that decision was made, it was a no-brainer to accept Gordon Ho's offer of resources. Although I couldn't imagine that a bug shaman would go to all this trouble just to geek a null like me, I figured a couple of hard-men would be good to have around. (If for no other reason than to stop me from geeking
him
. I figured I still owed the "friends of Adrian Skyhill" for what happened to my sister, Theresa.) And come to think of it, physical protection wouldn't be enough, would it? I'd need someone who could do the astral thing as well—preferably a shaman rather than a hermetic, on the assumption that "like understands like." A shaman on my side might be able to predict any assorted weirdness the bug-guy might be considering.
So that's what I asked Ho for: a shaman plus three hoop-kicking bodyguards. I wanted two of the razorboys with me before the meet; the shaman and the other gillette could pick up the bug-boy(s) and escort him/them to the spot. Ho agreed at once; I think he was almost as curious as I was about the whole scam, and expected his people to give him a complete debrief afterward.