Distraction - Bruce Sterling [217]
“You’re NSC, aren’t you?” Kevin told him, as they bagged out in the tent to the sound of crickets, blissfully far from the sinister fog of urban surveillance. “I thought they trained you guys to do awful things with the juice of cigars.”
“The President doesn’t order assassinations of his domestic political opponents. If he were outed for that, he’d be impeached. That’s totally counterproductive.”
“Aren’t you one of the President’s agents?”
It was wise of Kevin to point this out. Oscar recognized that he’d been getting a little tangled in the proliferating vines of his cognitive processes. Next day they stopped at a greasy spoon outside the town of Mamou, and called the NSC from a satellite pay phone.
It took quite some time for Oscar’s immediate superior to answer a random pay-phone call on a deeply insecure line from the heart of Cajun country. When he came on, he was livid. Oscar announced that he had been poisoned, was non compos mentis, had suffered a complete mental breakdown, could no longer be considered responsible for his actions, was no longer fit for public service, and was therefore resigning from his post, immediately. His superior ordered him to fly to Washington for a thorough medical assessment. Oscar told him that this was not on his agenda as a newly private citizen. His superior told Oscar that he would be arrested. Oscar pointed out that he was currently in the center of the state of Louisiana, where the locals were profoundly unfriendly to federal agents. He hung up. It had been a lot to say. His tongue felt sore.
Kevin was getting into the swing of things. He suggested that it might be a good idea to similarly break all ties with Senator Bambakias. They went out for a leisurely brunch of red beans and rice, and returned to find the original pay phone swarming with Regulator goons in fast pickup trucks. They tried to earn a little money with their guitar and accordion, and they were told to get lost.
They hitchhiked from Mamou to Eunice, and made another pay-phone call, this time to the Senator’s office in Washington. The Senator was no longer in Washington. Bambakias had gone on a fact-finding mission to the newly conquered Netherlands. In fact, the entire Senate Foreign Relations Committee had set up shop in The Hague, in a vacated Dutch government building. Oscar apologized, and was about to hang up, when the Senator himself came on the line. He’d been paged from across the Atlantic, and he had woken from a sound sleep, but he was anxious to talk.
“Oscar, I’m so glad you called. Don’t hang up! We’ve heard all about the event. Lorena and I are just sick about it. We’re going to pin this thing on Huey. I know that it means outing me on the Moira debacle, but I’m willing to face the music there. Huey can’t go on savaging people like this, it’s atrocious. We can’t live in a country like that. We have to take a stand.”
“That’s very good of you, Senator. Courageous principled apologize it was all my fault anyway.”
“Oscar, listen to me carefully. The Haitians have survived this thing, and so can you. Neurologists around the world are working on this problem. They’re very angry about what was done to Dr. Penninger, it’s a personal affront to them and their profession. We want to fly you into Den Haag, and try some treatments here. They have excellent hospitals here in Holland. In fact, their whole infrastructure is marvelous. Roadblocks absolutely unheard-of. These government facilities here are top-notch. The Foreign Relations Committee is getting more work done here in Den Haag than they have in a year in Washington. You have resources, Oscar. There’s hope. Your friends want to help you.”
“Senator, even if you do help Greta, I’m a special case. I have a unique genetic background, and neural Colombian conventional medical useless.”
“That’s not true! You’ve forgotten that there are three Danish women here in Europe who are basically sisters of yours. They’ve heard about your troubles, and they want to help you. I’ve just met them, and