An Eighty Percent Solution (CorpGov) (60 page)

“Tony, remind me never to play poker with you
,
”
she remarked after a moment.

“As you say,
m
iss
.”

* * *
 

Tolly died late Tuesday night, bleeding out through every orifice
.
Fortunately
,
he
had
suffered a major stroke
first thing in the morning
,
so
the mental release came
long before his
body’s
gruesome death
.
F
ear and anticipation warred with one another Wed
nesday
morning when Tony brought
the team
together in Sonya’s apartment
.
 

“Why are they here?” Andrea pointed at the knot of four
Greenie
members
who
normally didn’t sit with the action committee
.
“Mark only does supplies and Susan is in fundraising…not that we need much of that anymore.”

“Wait,” Linc noticed
.
“They
’
re the rest of the members that are sick
.
Let’s see what Tony has to say.
”

“Good morning,” Tony said
as
cheerfully as possible
.
“I won’t beat around the bush
.
You
’
ve all come here to hear the plan I have
—
a
plan that could end this war
.
It isn’t the perfect solution
,
but then I don’t believe there is such an animal
.”

All eyes focused on him
.
His words held magic
.
They would listen to their witch doctor
.
 

“Our objective is the council of CEOs
.”
The eyes of his audience offered no clue to what they thought
.
“They
meet two days hence, Friday, at fifteen hundred right here in
Portland
’s own Powell’s Tower
.
This council doesn’t even give themselves a name
,
so I certainly can’t think of one
,
unless you want to borrow
‘
Axis of Evil
.
’
”

A smattering of chuckles proffered themselves
.
Andrea’s hand went up
.

“Yes, Andrea
?
”

“We can’t get
to
them
.
We’ve examined such a plan long before you pointed us to fiscal targets rather than executives.”

“Minor correction to that, Andrea
.
If I recall
,
in the past
the plans were nixed because the cost would be too high
.
I read your own write-up on that proposal
.
You said, ‘While possible from a theoretical sense, the cost would devastate the ranks of the GAM action committee
.
This makes it infeasible.’” 

“That sounds about right.”

“Well
,
I’m here to tell you that the
cost hasn’t dropped
.
The plan will require every operative we have and then some
.
Worse
,
I anticipate there will be two teams of three and a lone individual
who’ll
be in this on a suicide mission basis
.”

“Seven lives lost
?
Are you insane?”

“Yes, seven lives plus incidentals
.
I anticipate the total cost at
considerably higher myself
.
I’d say more
like
nearly twelve
.
And to answer your question, yes, I might be insane, but please listen to my plan.
I’ll
accept your judgment.”

“One other question
.
Why are we going after executives again
?
Won’t others just fill their place?”

“That is a recognized
feature of the plan
.
The security on these men is fierce
.
They’re
guarded by a phalanx of army droids posing as innocuous security bots and by a squad of
fast
-
attack dragoons always on standby during one of the council’s meetings
—
not to mention
the Metros themselves
.

“All the security and alarms for this meeting place are run off an isolated system, not touching the net in any way
.
It
’
s an isolated system
,
so it can’t be hacked
.
In addition to this
, we have
the physical security
.
The only access is through a
one
-
person grav portal
.
To use the portal you must give
a
visual,
DNA
,
and electrical characteristic scan
.
The grav portal
won’t
function for anyone
but the head executives
.
If you do
somehow
succeed, at the top are both automated weapons and live guards all programmed to shoot anyone who doesn’t belong
.
In addition
,
there are two private security firms, rotated among seven on a random basis, who are on speed alert to any incursion in this area
.
They’re
authorized to use deadly force.

“Now
,
through the help of Augustine’s capabilities, I’ve learned which security firms
are on protection detail
Friday
.
I’ve dealt with each of them individually
.
Neither knows what our target is
.
One will have a mysterious power outage Friday at fifteen-twelve
.
T
he other will have their receiver sabotaged
.
I’ve also found a way to deal with the Metro response.

“There
’
s only one way we can take out the
on-site
security teams
,
both live and robotic
.
They must be ambushed just as they deploy from their bivouacs
.
The robotics can only be stopped with an
EMP
.
We have a pinch that
’
ll do the job
.
It can’t be done remotely
,
so the problem is whoever sets that pinch off will likely die in the ensuing conflagration
.
With the right equipment and explosives
,
the live group should be killed easily
—
however
,
their location is such that
it’s
doubtful the team could escape before
backup can arrive
.

“That leaves the grav lifts
.
We can rig
it
with the right combination of hack and ill
usion
so
that we can get past it, but
there’s
no way we can take down the guards or the robotics going up individually
,
unless one of us is a suicide bomb
.

“Once on the grav platform
,
we’re
effectively at the meeting room
.
Just a couple of locked doors
.
Did I mention that all of this has to happen within seconds of one another or the guard teams will seal
the top of the building and
jettison
it
into orbit
where the leaders will be removed by another fast response orbital craft
?”

“It is an expensive plan
,” agreed Andrea after a moment’s consideration
.
“
As you said
,
it
’
s suicidal in many phases
.
You still didn’t explain how this will end the war
, though
.”

Tony smiled and explained for two short minutes
.
Before he even asked,
the eyes of
every person
, sick or not,
volunteered for the suicide missions.

* * *
 

“Ma’am
, this
package was delivered addressed personally to you
,
”
t
he
security guard said
,
holding
out
a nondescript
cube-shaped
box
,
40 centimeters on a side.

“So
?
It can’t wait?”
Taste Dynamics
snapped
.

“Ma’am, per standard protocol we scanned the box
.
It contains no explosives, no active electronics nor any molecular technology
.
It does, however, contain a human head.
”

“Really
?
I’m intrigued,”
Taste Dynamics
purred
.
“It isn’t every morning
someone delivers
such a unique item
.
Is there a return address?”

“No
,
m
a’am
.
It was mailed from a branch office of the actual US Post Office that doesn’t even have surveillance cameras.”

“Curiouser and curiouser
.
Who belongs to this head
?
Did I know him or her?”

“We couldn’t make that determination without opening the package,
m
a’am
.
It
’
s addressed to you.”

“Well then, open it up
.”

The guards snapped the imperv loktite strips and popped the lid off
.
The
box
held Adonis’
s
face, captured
in
mid
-
scream.

* * *
 

Tony kneeled next to the grav chute as Augustine wired into the local computer
.
He reached over and shook Linc’s hand
.
Linc, wearing a suit of molecular explosives,
nodded and smiled
.
He gave Tony a thumbs
-
up sign and smiled even wider
.
Tony had
picked carefully for the three suicide missions, not taking anyone
who
didn’t show frank symptoms of the two virus
.
Even knowing this, he regretted sending any of them to die.

Augustine gave an
OK
with her fingers and pointed to the grav tube
.
She then gave two innocuous clicks over the mission frequency
.
Linc closed his eyes for a moment
.
He took a deep breath, pulled out his automatic and walked into
the
entrance
.
Tony watched as he
disappeared up the tube at blindingly
high speed
.
Tony spared enough time to hope
that Linc would shoot
that
quickly up to heaven
,
or whatever eternal reward he deserved
.

* * *
 

“Which brings us to the excellent news of our actions against the GAM,”
Taste Dynamics
said,
her
face twisted into a sardonic grin
.
“For another week
we’ve
had zero actions against our facilities or people.”