Distraction - Bruce Sterling [148]
He’d outdone himself.
True, he’d suffered the elemental blunder of being kidnapped. But after that, he had handled every situation, every developing crisis, with astonishing aplomb and unbroken success. Every move had been the proper move at the proper moment, every option had been an inspired choice. It was just that there were too many of them. He was like an ice-skater performing an endless series of triple axels. Something was going to snap.
He felt a sudden need for shelter. Physical shelter. Locked doors, and a long silence.
Returning to the hotel was out of the question. There would be people there, questions, trouble. The Hot Zone, then.
He trudged to a Hot Zone airlock, now manned by a pair of elderly nomad sergeants, up on the night shift. The camou-clad grannies were amusing themselves, doing cat’s-cradle string-games with homemade yoyos of chemically soaked sponge. Oscar walked by the women with a ragged salute, and entered the empty halls of the Hot Zone.
He searched for a place to hide. An obscure equipment closet would be ideal. There was just one more little matter, before he relaxed and came fully apart at the seams. He needed to have his laptop. That was a deeply comforting thought to Oscar: retreating into a locked closet with a laptop to hold. It was an instinctive reaction to unbearable crisis; it was something he had been doing since the age of six.
He had left a spare laptop in Greta’s lab. He crept into the place. The former Strike headquarters, once sterile and pristine, bore the scars of political backroom maneuvers—it was filthy now, full of scattered papers, half-eaten food, memos, bottles, junk. The whole room stank of panic. Oscar found his laptop, half buried below a stack of tapes and catalogs. He pulled it out, tucked it under his arm. Thank God.
His phone rang. He answered it by reflex. “Yes?”
“Am I lucky! Got the Soap Salesman first try! How’s it goin’, Soapy? Everything under control?”
It was Green Huey. Oscar’s heart skipped a beat as he snapped to full attention. “Yes, thank you, Governor.”
How on earth was Huey inside the lab’s phones? Kevin had assured him that their encryption was uncrackable.
“I hope you don’t mind a late cold-call, mon ami.”
Oscar sat slowly on the laboratory floor, bracing his back on a metal cabinet. “By no means, Your Excellency. We live to serve.”
“That’s mighty good of you, Soapy! Lemme tell you where I am right now. I’m riding in a goddamn helicopter above the Sabine River, and I’m lookin’ at a goddamn air strike.”
“You don’t say, sir.”
“I DO SAY!” Huey screamed. “Those sons of bitches blew my people away! Black helicopters with missiles and automatic weapons, murdering American civilians on the ground! It was a goddamn massacre!”
“Were there many casualties, Governor? I mean, besides that unfortunate French submarine?”
“HELL YES there were casualties!” Huey screeched. “How could there not be casualties? Woods on both sides of the river were crawlin’ with Regulators. Total operational dysfunction! Too many spooks spoil the broth! A total screwup! Goddammit, I never ordered those pencilnecks to dump you and the Genius Girl inside some goddamn fake ambulance!”
“No, Your Excellency?”
“Hell no! They were supposed to wait patiently and catch you when you were sneaking out of the lab together on a hot date. In that context, an abduction woulda made sense. The problem with nomads is mighty poor impulse control. Not what I wanted, boy, not on my agenda! I just had something that I needed to show ya, that’s all. Right now, you and me and the ladylove coulda been puttin’ our feet up, with parasols in our drinks. We’re supposed to be havin’ a scientific summit over here, we’re supposed to be ironing out all our difficulties.”
Oscar narrowed his burning, grainy eyes. “But the abduction team had a mishap on the road. They arrived late for the rendezvous. Your reception committee became anxious. When a federal SWAT team arrived unexpectedly, a violent encounter ensued.”
Huey was silent.
Oscar felt