Distraction - Bruce Sterling [191]
Oscar appealed to the President. He was calm, factual, rational, well organized. He pinpointed the locale of the Haitian camp, and recommended that human intelligence be sent in. Someone discreet, harmless-looking. A female agent would be a good choice. Someone who could thoroughly tape the place, and take blood samples.
For three days, Oscar followed his memo with a barrage of anxious demands and queries of the NSC higher-ups. Had the President seen his memo? It was of the greatest importance. It was critical.
There was no answer.
In the meantime, serious difficulties pressed at the Collaboratory. Morale was cracking among the civilian support staff. None of them were being paid anymore. None of the support staff enjoyed the prestige and glamour of the scientists, who were rapidly accustoming themselves to being followed by worshipful krewes of hairy-eyed Moderators. The civilian staff were miffed. The Collaboratory’s medical staff were especially upset. They could get good-paying jobs elsewhere—and they could scarcely be expected to run a decent, ethical medical facility without a steady flow of capital and up-to-date supplies.
There was continued and intensifying Moderator/Regulator feuding in the Sabine River valley. Scouting patrols by rival nomad youth gangs were degenerating into bushwhackings and lynchings. The situation was increasingly volatile, especially since the sheriffs of Jasper and Newton counties had been forced to resign their posts. The good-old-boy Texan sheriffs had been outed on outrageous bribery scandals. Someone had compiled extensive dossiers on their long-time complicity in bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution—all those illicit delights that could be outlawed, but never made unpopular.
It didn’t take genius to understand that civil order in East Texas was being deliberately undermined by Green Huey. Texas state government should have risen to this challenge, but Texas state government was well known for its lack of genius. The state held endless hearings on the shocking problem of endemic police corruption—apparently hoping that the riots would subside if fed enough paperwork.
The biggest wild card on the state border was the provocative presence of European and Asian news crews. America’s hot war with the gallant, minuscule Dutch had made America hot copy again. Savage confrontations between armed criminal gangs had always been an activity that endeared America to its fans around the world. Dutch journalists had been banned in the USA—but French and German ones were everywhere, especially in Louisiana. The British were kind enough to suggest that the French were secretly arming Huey’s Regulator gangs.
The prestige-maddened hotheads in the Regulators were thrilled to receive worldwide net coverage. Young Regulator goons lived for reputations and respect, since they had so little else. The military crisis was distorting the odd underpinnings of the Regulator attention-economy. Violent hotheads were vaulting through the ranks by their daring attacks on Moderators.
The Moderators, in Oscar’s judgment, were a cannier and more ductile lot. Their networks were better designed and organized; the Moderators were cooler, less visible, far less confrontational. Still, it didn’t take much pushing to render them murderous.
On the fourth day after sending his memo, Oscar received a curt message from the President. Two Feathers indicated, in a couple of lines, that Oscar’s memo had been read and understood. Oscar was directly ordered not to speak further on the topic to anyone.
Forty-eight hours passed, and the scandal broke wide open. A squadron of U.S. helicopters had flown by night into the heart of Louisiana, where they