Net Force - Tom Clancy [56]
His cousin was talking about a nine-mile-by-thirty-mile zone in Malaysia called the Multimedia Super Corridor. Begun in 97, the MSC stretched south from Kuala Lumpur, and included at the south end a new international airport and a new federal capital, Putrajaya. Once, Jay said. I spent a few days there a year or so back, a real-time seminar on the new graphic platform. Unbelievable place.
They say thats where CyberNations programmers came from.
Yeah? I hadnt heard that. I heard nobody knew where they came from.
Rumors. He shrugged. So much for the sordid tale of a political career gone south. I gotta get back and file my story.
Not a lucky man, your Prime Minister.
Oh, hes real lucky-thing is, its all bad. This aint America where the politicians can get away with such things, you know. It dont play with the family vote over here. Plus it is well known that Sukhos wifes brother was one of the Secret Bandit Warlords before he died. Word is, the wifes still got a couple SBW nephews out in the jungle who would just as soon cut you in half as look at you. The Prime Ministers wife is in big shame over this. Some pictures were of her, taken from a hidden camera, and I bet she didnt know about em. He waved at the burned-out limo. I was Sukho, Id tap my Swiss accounts and retire someplace in a galaxy far, far away. And Id do it under another name, and with fifty grands worth of false teeth, hair dye, and plastic surgery, while I was at it.
Id have thought his computer security would have been better than normal, given what he had to hide and him being a PM and all.
Yeah, youda thought so. My guess is, next guy selling a pick-proof OS around here is gonna make a fortune.
Here and everywhere else.
I scan that. See you, Jay.
Later, Chuanny.
After his cousin was gone, Jay considered the situation. So Thailand was going to get a new Prime Minister. That might or might not have much effect on the world, but he had to figure that whoever was doing this rascal had picked his targets carefully. To what end, Jay didnt know, but his gut feeling was that it was a real bad end.
He better get back himself. The boss would want to know about the newest developments.
On the way, however, something else caught his attention.
Holy shit!
Alex? I think you better see this.
Michaels looked up and saw Toni in his doorway.
In the conference room, she added.
He followed her. The big-screen viewer was on, CNN.
A newscaster was doing a voice-over as images flashed across the large screen.
Bombay, India-known by the locals as Mumbai-is the capital of Maharashtra and the major economic power of western India. Located on the shore of the Arabian Sea, it is a city steeped in culture. From the Victorian façades of the British Raj, to the tourist ghetto of Colaba, to the pulse-of-the-city Fort, eighteen million people call Mumbai home. Most of them are dirt-poor.
There was an aerial shot of the city. Stock footage.
Michaels glanced at Toni and raised an eyebrow. Why did she want him to see a documentary on India?
This is the sidebar, she said. Wait a second and theyll get back to the main story. She sounded grim.
Modernization has brought at least some of Bombay into the twenty-first century, the newscast continued. And modernization has reared its ugly head here today.
The image shifted. Two buses had crashed together in an intersection. One of the red double-deckers lay on its side; the other was tilted, resting against the back of a fruit truck. Some kind of yellow-orange melons were scattered and shattered all over the street. Bodies were laid out along the narrow streets narrower sidewalks. Rescuers ran to the buses, pulling more dead or injured from the wrecks. A man covered with blood wandered in front of the camera, yelling something over and over. A small boy sat on the curb, staring at