Conquistador (14 page)

The distant ticking of their engines, or the occasional car or truck drawing a white plume along a dirt road, were the only mechanical noises that intruded among the slow sough of the warm June wind through tall trees. Other sounds melted into that music: an ax splitting wood, human voices in speech or song, the buzzing whirr of hummingbird wings from flower to flower. Behind him were the steep low mountains, rolling toward the Pacific and turning green with redwood groves.

“And it's all part of old John Rolfe's fantasy of a Virginia that never really was,” he murmured. “A pretty fiction of foxhunting squires and sturdy yeomen. A pleasant dream, and a good place to start. But not to
stop.
”

The true power of the Collettas was in their share of the New Virginia gold and silver and mercury mines, the oil wells and factories and power stations, the Settlers who were affiliates of the Colletta family, the weight he and his allies could pull on the Central Committee . . . and above all, the Colletta share of the Gate revenues and the vast corporate holdings FirstSide. But the Rolfes and their allies dominated the committee and the Commission through it, and imposed a policy of caution that irked him more with every passing year, playing at rustic lordship and keeping the Commonwealth of New Virginia inside its kernel. His hand clenched into a fist on the volcanic stone.

“We must learn to dream more grandly. There is a
world
awaiting us—two!”

A discreet cough brought him round. His personal executive assistant stood there: Angelica McAdams, a plain middle-aged woman of formidable efficiency, whose family had been Colletta affiliates since the 1950s. He was easy enough with her that it didn't embarrass him to be caught talking to himself—making a political speech to himself, in fact.

Probably because it's one I
want
to make before the committee, but don't quite dare,
he thought as he nodded to her.

“Mr. Anthony Bosco is here for his appointment, sir.”

“Thank you, Angelica. Hold any incoming calls.”

Anthony Bosco was third-generation; the Boscos were members of the Thirty Families but only as collaterals, relatives Salvatore Colletta had brought in a few years after the opening of the Gate; and Anthony's mother had been of the Filmer Family. He was an unremarkable young man in his late twenties in a neat brown-silk suit, with carefully combed dark-russet hair, a faint trace of acne scars across his cheekbones and currently a hangdog air.

That broke into a painful smile as he advanced to bow deeply and kiss the Colletta Prime's hand with a murmur of
“Bacciamo le mani”;
that was a custom of the Collettas that had spread widely among the Families, like the Rolfes' riding to hounds or the von Traupitzes' student saber duels or the Fitzmorton boar hunts with spears.

“Sir—” he began.

“Idiota!”
Giovanni snapped, as his hand slapped the young man's face to one side.
“Ricchiune scimunito!”

Anthony's face paled, save where the fingers had left red prints. Normally Giovanni Colletta spoke English, like everyone else except recent immigrants. It was a sign of extreme danger when he started cursing in the Sicilian dialect picked up from his father in infancy. From outside the charmed circle, being a member of the Families looked more important than being one of a collateral line. From the inside, particularly if you were a
Colletta
collateral, getting the Prime this angry with you could make life intolerable. And when the business you managed for the Prime was a capital crime by Commonwealth law . . .

“Sir, we delivered the materials
exactly
as per the plans. It's—”

“You should have overseen the final distribution, so that news of it did not leak to the American police, and from them to Gate Security. As it was, we have only Gate Security to thank that the American authorities didn't find the goods intact! And only blind luck to thank that Gate Security did not grab
you.
”

“Sir, those people
don't
appreciate having a seller look over their shoulders while they make their own deals. If you want me to oversee them more closely, then you must assign me more shooters. Otherwise they will kill me, and you will have to assign someone else to deal with the matter.”

Good,
the Colletta thought.
He is no coward. And he dares to remind me that I
cannot
give him more gunmen.

The Commission controlled Gate transit too closely; only adults of the Thirty Families could travel freely back and forth between the worlds, and even their travel was carefully watched. There were only a limited number of Family members with Gate access he could bring into this . . .

Call it by its right name,
he told himself.
It is a conspiracy.

“That was the last large shipment, in any case,” the Colletta said gracefully. “Perhaps the next meetings will be more carefully managed. You may stay; it is possible you may contribute. Say nothing unless I tell you.”

Giovanni seated himself behind his desk, pressing a discreet control. A screen slid upward, and he pulled out a drawer and tapped at the controls as it lit. A surveillance camera at the main eastward gate of the hall's gardens showed a convoy of vehicles approaching from the south, the long plume of their dust behind them. The Batyushkov home estate was much farther south, over the Santa Cruz Mountains and down into the northern edge of Monterey Bay. The earlier distributions nearer the Gate had gone to the American majority among the Thirty or to the English, German-Balt, Franco-Algerian and British-African creations. There had been quite a gap between the last of those and the time the Russian Batyushkovs and Afrikaner Versfelds were granted committee status in the 1990s. That meant that they were farther out, in the Parajo Valley and the Los Angeles basin respectively. That seemed to bother the Batyushkovs more than it did the Versfelds; they were also the only two Families whose Primes were still FirstSide born.

Except for the Old Man, of course. Even he had been handing over more and more of his duties to his son Charles in the last two decades, although he seemed determined to make the century mark.

Dimitri Batyushkov came in a small convoy, his own hard-topped six-wheeled Land Rover preceded and followed by open Hummers mounting machine guns. All of them had the double-headed eagle on their doors; the New Virginia Russians had adopted Czarist symbolism, Orthodox piety and Cossack customs with ostentatious zeal, for all that many of them had been KGB and presumably at least nominal Marxists before they met Commission recruiters looking for desperate men. There was a black-robed bearded priest in the Batyushkov's car, for that matter.

Perhaps there is something in the air of the Commonwealth of New Virginia which inclines us to pageantry,
Giovanni Colletta thought, and smiled slightly as he spoke to the air.

“Angelica, the refreshments.”

It wouldn't do to go down to the door and greet the Batyushkov; he wasn't ready to imply that much equality of status, not quite yet. Nor would it do to insult him by showing himself less than prompt in offering hospitality.

Besides, Russians don't consider any business serious unless it's accompanied by a drink,
he thought.

He watched his eldest son walk out the tall carved doors of the hall to greet the Batyushkov; Salvatore Colletta II was
not
in his father's inner circle on this matter; the third-generation scion of the Collettas was too cautious to endorse a plan such as that his father had devised, preferring a quiet life. Giovanni was confident he'd go along when confronted with a fait accompli, and in the meantime greeting a distinguished guest with proper protocol was part of his duties as heir apparent.

The cars came to a halt at the foot of the long stairway, and a servant sprang to open the main car's door. A squad of troopers in sharp-pressed gray Commission Militia uniforms—their Family affiliation marked by Colletta shoulder flashes—brought rifles to present arms. The Batyushkov reviewed them gravely; when he had passed, their commander saluted his opposite number from the Russian's escort and led them and the drivers off to appropriate entertainment. Father Sarducci greeted his Orthodox opposite number with the strained politeness of a cat forced to put up with a strange feline on its territory; doubtless they'd either exchange limping chitchat or end up pulling each other's hair over the
filioque
clause to the Creed, the one Catholics and Orthodox had split on in 1054 amid a flurry of mutual anathemas and excommunications.

Giovanni's smile grew to a shark's grin for an instant at that. His son conducted the Batyushkov and his immediate retainers—two bodyguards in black leather jackets and a technician with a briefcase—to the elevators.

Meanwhile the Hall staff had bustled in, spreading linen tablecloths and laying out a buffet lunch around the long rosewood meeting table. There was thin-sliced cured wild-boar ham wrapped around ripe figs and melon, caviar in glistening mounds surrounded by artfully arranged sprays of crisp rye toast, prawns grilled with garlic and chili beside equally dainty skewers of spring lamb, colorful salads, oysters fresh in the shells or wrapped in strips of bacon and fried, sliced roast loin of pork stuffed with figs, almonds and olives, breads and cheeses and glistening pastries of kiwi and cream, fruits in glowing piles, wine bottles resting in silver coolers on gleaming shaved ice. It was a meal that could be eaten without servants present; his retired discreetly before the guests arrived.

Another surveillance camera showed them walking up the curving staircase and into the long carpeted hallway outside the master's office, with the Russian's bodyguards and his circling each other like stiff-legged dogs. They settled down to mutual watchfulness, and the Batyushkov and his attendant came through the doors of ebony and silver.

“Dimitri Ivanovich!” Giovanni cried, springing to his feet and walking forward with outstretched hand. “Welcome to my home, my friend. It has been far too long since we met.”

The Batyushkov's firm stride missed a half step as he raised his eyes and met those of the portrait behind Giovanni's desk. Behind his affable mask, the Colletta bared his teeth again at the picture's effect; even from his grave, Salvatore Colletta was still fighting for his blood. The two Family Primes shook hands, and kissed each other on the cheek.

The Russian was a thickset man, a few inches shorter than Giovanni but broader, with a wide snub-nosed face and pale blue eyes and an air of straightforward bluntness that was a lie in itself.

“Giovanni Salvatorovich, it has indeed been too long,” he said; his English was excellent, though thickly accented. “May I present my nephew, my brother's son, Sergei Ilyanovich? He has met your young collateral, I believe, here and FirstSide.”

Not just a technician, then.
A tall, slender, sharp-featured man in his early thirties, dark of hair and eye.
I've heard the name.
Sergei was a real scientist, a rarity in the Commonwealth, orphaned when his father was killed fighting in Afghanistan, and raised by Dimitri and his wife.

The younger Russian bowed deeply and kissed the Colletta's hand; Anthony Bosco followed suit with the Batyushkov, and then the juniors shook in the gesture of equals.

“But come,” Giovanni said, indicating the table. “Drink; eat; honor my house by using it as your own.”

The men seated themselves. Giovanni lifted a small frosted glass of chilled vodka, looked the Batyushkov straight in the eye and said:
“Za nas!”

He breathed out through his mouth and tossed the cold spirits back, a streak of chill fire down his gullet.

The Russian drank his in the same manner and replied: “
Za nas
—to us, indeed!” Then, with an unfeigned smile: “
Khorosha chertovka.
Damned good drink!”

“From FirstSide,” Giovanni said. “Stolichnaya—Dovgan.”

“You were well-advised: an excellent brand.”

The two men smiled at each other, neither under any illusions that they were bosom friends, but more relaxed; young Sergei opened his leather-covered instrument case and did a quick, discreet check of the office while the Primes conferred.

All in the game,
Giovanni thought, putting down the vodka glass and using chased-silver tongs to transfer some of the ham to his plate while the Russian scooped caviar onto rye toast.

Batyushkov showed deference by coming to Colletta Hall and Giovanni's office; Giovanni showed respect by closeting himself with the Batyushkov on equal terms, and taking the effort to learn Russian drinking rituals.

For that matter, making the Batyushkovs one of the Thirty Families, with a seat on the committee and a share in the Commission's revenues, was itself a gesture by the established Family lines. Batyushkov had been helpful in recruitment, and in establishing contacts with post-Soviet Russia's burgeoning commercial demimonde; that eased the perennial problem of laundering the Commonwealth's minerals and gems on FirstSide. It had enabled the Commission to step up shipments quite substantially, more than compensating for one more minimum Family share of the take.

Still, there had been no absolute necessity to put him on the committee.

Yet there were several thousand Russians in the Commonwealth now, and they had been very useful in this land-rich, labor-starved economy. Inevitably they were still mostly at the bottom of the occupational pyramid, working in factories, mines, fishing boats, farms. Knowing that one of their own had been raised to the highest circles of power was likely to ease their adjustment to New Virginia's unfamiliar society; and a Russian member in the Thirty Families could jump-start several hundred of his compatriots up the ladder of preferment and patronage.