Death Wave (23 page)

“Vera's going to be the associate producer of your interview,” Otero said.

Jordan heard the plane's engines begin to whine softly. Electric engines, he thought. Then one of the crew closed the main hatch and the faint sound cut off entirely.

As the plane began taxiing toward a runway, Jordan asked, “Where are we heading?”

“Corporate headquarters,” said Otero, gesturing to the plush seats. “Boston, Massachusetts. Land of the bean and the cod. The Hub of the Universe.”

 

THE HUB

“The way to do this,” Otero was saying, “is to produce a news special about you. But we don't announce that you'll be making an appearance. We emphasize that you've disappeared, that not even the World Council knows where you are. Then, once the show begins—
wham!—
there you are, live.”

The electrojet plane was winging to Boston, flying high above a smooth gray blanket of clouds. Otero was relaxed in a plush chair, a glass of tequila in one meaty hand. Vera Griffin had been sipping slowly at a tall glass of iced tea, her eyes never leaving Jordan, who had accepted a glass of grapefruit juice from the uniformed flight attendant who served as bartender.

Otero had then dismissed the flight attendant and they began to make plans for the special show and Jordan's unannounced appearance.

Leaning earnestly toward Otero, across the aisle from his own seat, Jordan said, “I want Halleck to release my wife. She's being held—”

“I know, I know,” Otero said impatiently. “From what my snoops tell me, your wife is cooperating with the scientists in Barcelona.”

“She can still cooperate without being imprisoned,” Jordan grumbled.

Jabbing a finger at him, Griffin said excitedly, “That's what we want on the show! That kind of indignation. Get the viewers sore at the Powers That Be.”

Otero nodded happily.

“All right,” Jordan agreed. “But let's remember that the prime reason for this appearance is to tell the public about the death wave and the other worlds that are in imminent danger from it. Worlds we've got to help.”

Otero's swarthy face grew somber. “One thing you've got to realize, Jordan, is that
telling
people something is nowhere near as impressive as
showing
it to them.”

“Yes,” Griffin agreed. “We don't want this show to be a bunch of talking heads. We need visuals.”

“Visuals—from worlds that are light-years away?”

Otero waved a meaty hand. “Oh, I suppose we could 'gin up some very realistic-looking animation. Computer graphics. That sort of thing.”

“We've got to give the audience something to look at,” Griffin emphasized.

“Something they've never seen before,” Otero added.

With a slightly bitter smile, Jordan said, “My handsome countenance won't be enough, eh?”

“For maybe five minutes,” Griffin said, straight-faced.

“Three, tops,” said Otero, grinning. “Remember, this is show business.”

“I thought this was to be a news broadcast,” Jordan said.

“Oh, it's news all right,” Otero replied. “But even the news is show business, too. Show business, first and foremost.”

*   *   *

“We've lost track of him,” Gilda Nordquist admitted.

Sitting behind her sleekly imposing desk, Anita Halleck looked grim. Like an empress who's about to order heads to roll, Nordquist thought.

“How did that happen?” she asked, her voice tight, holding her anger in check—barely.

Nordquist was standing in front of the desk. Halleck had not invited her to sit in one of the comfortable chairs arrayed on either side of her.

“He must have had half the reservation helping him,” Nordquist reported. “We were tracking half a dozen pickup trucks, but it turns out he wasn't in any of them.”

“No trace of him?”

With a shake of her head, Nordquist said, “I can only assume that he's left the reservation.”

“And gone where?”

For the first time, Nordquist saw a ray of hope for herself. “You know we regularly keep a watch on key people. So I queried the heuristic program about who Kell might have gone to. It came up with an interesting correlation.”

“What is it?”

“Carlos Otero flew out to St. Louis yesterday. He stayed only a few minutes, never left the airport, then flew directly back to his corporate headquarters in Boston.”

Halleck's expression grew thoughtful. “Did he?”

“He might have gone there to pick up Kell and bring him back to his own surroundings.”

Halleck gestured to the armchairs in front of her desk. “How can we determine if he did that?”

As she gratefully sank into one of the chairs, Nordquist answered, “I have people checking with the airport authorities in St. Louis and New York. Nothing official, of course; the Americans aren't accustomed to being interrogated by World Council security agents.”

“Not yet,” Halleck murmured.

*   *   *

Otero had insisted that Jordan stay in his own home, a rambling old residence in Concord that had been built to Otero's own ideas of what a wealthy Mexican landowner's hacienda would look like.

Burnished dark wood beams supported the ceiling of the oversized living room. The floors were tiled, with boldly patterned area rugs scattered here and there. More colorful tiles adorned the walls. The furniture was large and overstuffed, upholstered with gaudy patterns. Flowers were everywhere: in vases on the side tables, in pots dangling from the ceiling. The dining room table could hold twenty. Jordan felt as if he had stepped into a spare-no-expense Hollywood set.

Otero personally showed him through room after room, even the enclosed silver-inlaid swimming pool with its retractable roof.

“It's rather overwhelming,” he admitted when Otero asked him what he thought of the place. Then he tactfully added, “Splendid, though. Magnificent.”

Smiling hugely, Otero said, “I think it was Churchill or one of those British clowns who said, ‘Nothing succeeds like excess.'”

Remembering his old training as a diplomat, Jordan smiled back and murmured, “You've certainly succeeded, then.”

At last Otero led Jordan to the wing of the house that held the guest quarters. It was a full suite: sitting room, dining area, bedroom, lavatory finished in green marble, and even a small garden with a graceful willow tree. Through the foliage surrounding the garden Jordan could see the quiet street that led down to the town's center and the famous bridge where the Minutemen had battled the Redcoats.

To Jordan's surprise, the guest suite was decorated in starkly modernistic style: ergonomic chairs and a fire-engine-red sectional sofa.

“My interior decorator begged me to let him do the suite in a different style from the rest of the house,” Otero said. “What do you think of it?”

“It's … interesting,” said Jordan.

With a shake of his head, Otero complained, “It's not warm, like the rest of the house.”

“It will be fine,” Jordan assured him.

Otero headed for the suite's front door, apologizing that he couldn't have dinner with Jordan.

“I've got to be at a banquet that my own PR people arranged, in the city,” he explained. “I can't very well back out of it. Some of the most important business leaders on Earth will be there.”

“I understand,” said Jordan.

“Officially,” Otero confided, “it's a gathering of multinational corporate heads. We're supposed to be discussing international business trends. But what we're really going to talk about is next year's election for head of the World Council.”

Jordan nodded. “Anita Halleck's running for reelection, isn't she?”

“Against nothing but token opposition,” said Otero. Allowing a slight smile to lighten his face, he added, “But we're trying to change that.”

“You're not happy with her leadership?”

Otero abruptly turned from the door and settled his bulk onto the sectional sofa. Jordan sat in the skeletal chair next to it.

“Listen,” Otero began. “Halleck has been running the Council for too long. Just because people have extended their life spans to centuries doesn't mean that she should stay in office forever.”

“You don't have term limits?” Jordan asked.

“We do, but she put through an amendment that excludes her from it. She's determined to stay in office for as long as she chooses, so long as she gets reelected every ten years.”

“I see.”

“She gets more dictatorial every year,” Otero said, his expression darkening. “Look at what she's doing to you and your wife.”

“And once she gets her hands on faster-than-light communications she'll be able to tighten her grip throughout the solar system.”

Nodding unhappily, Otero said, “So you see why this dinner meeting is important.” Before Jordan could reply, he went on, “And why this show we're doing with you is even more important. Vital! We can't allow Halleck to keep you bottled up. We've got to get your story across to the public!”

Jordan said, “I agree completely.” But he was thinking, I hope I can stay out of Halleck's clutches long enough to do the show.

Then a new thought hit him: And what happens to Aditi when I do the show?

 

ADITI

Jordan had dinner brought to him in the guest suite. As he ate, barely tasting the food and wine, he wondered if Aditi could reach him in this new location. She had explained to Jordan that the New Earth FTL system tracked his wrist communicator, so that it didn't matter where he was, she would be able to find him.

Yes, he said to himself. But is the system really that good? Can it avoid detection by Halleck's people?

And overriding every other consideration: What will they do to Aditi if I go through with Otero's broadcast? This whole mess started when I made that broadcast last week. What will Halleck's reaction be when I show up on the air again?

“Hello, dear Jordan.”

He snapped his attention to the holographic viewer built into the sitting room wall. Aditi appeared to be sitting there, across the room from him, near enough to touch, to hold.

“Hello, darling,” he said as he got up from the dining table and went to the sectional sofa. “How are you?”

“I'm fine,” she said, smiling a little. “They're treating me quite well. But how are you? And where are you?”

Wondering if he could answer his wife's question without Halleck's people listening in, Jordan plunged ahead anyway. “I'm in the Boston area, a guest at the home of the owner of the Otero Broadcasting Network.”

“It looks rather magnificent,” Aditi said.

“Stylish,” Jordan agreed. “But it's just another prison, really. I can't go outside for fear of being spotted by World Council agents.”

“How did you get to Boston? Why are you there?”

Jordan explained about the special show that Otero was planning.

“I'm going to rattle Anita Halleck's cage,” he said, surprised at the heat seething within him.

Aditi giggled. “We're the ones in cages.”

“I intend to put an end to that.”

“You're going to run for the World Council seat?”

He nodded. “If I can get out from under Halleck's insistence on putting me in protective custody.”

“Wonderful!” Aditi clapped her hands happily. But then she added, “I miss you, Jordan.”

He wanted to get up from the sofa and cross the room to embrace her. She looked so real, so lovely, so desirable.

But all he could do was reply, “I miss you, too, dearest.”

Sensing his discontent, Aditi said, “Tell me about the show you're going to do.”

Jordan explained what he wanted to do, then repeated to her Otero's dictum that he had to show the viewers the alien worlds, not merely talk about them.

“I'll ask Adri about that,” she said.

Jordan asked, “Do you think he has imagery of other worlds?”

“Our astronomers do, I'm sure. The Predecessors sent scouts to many worlds, landers as well as orbiters.”

“That would be wonderful!”

Looking pleased that she could be of help, Aditi said, “I'll ask Adri about it as soon as we finish our talking.”

It took hours before they finished.

*   *   *

Anita Halleck was not accustomed to waiting. When she summoned someone, that person came to her immediately. Not Rudy Castiglione, though. The handsome, roguish Italian was always late for his appointments. Not terribly late: just a few minutes, never more than a quarter of an hour. Just enough to establish some slight measure of independence. And Halleck allowed him to get away with it. Rudy was too charming to chastise. And too useful.

Halleck was pacing impatiently across the carpeted floor of the study in her home on Barcelona's outskirts. It was nearly midnight; the weather forecast called for rain between midnight and three
A.M.
Despite her irritation, Halleck smiled to herself. If Rudy doesn't get here soon he's going to get wet.

“Signore Castiglione has arrived, Madam Chairwoman,” announced the digitized voice of the house's communications system. The human servants were all in their quarters. Halleck wanted no witnesses to Castiglione visiting this late at night. The chairwoman of the World Council has to be above reproach, she believed. Above even the slightest hint of misbehavior.

On the display screen built into the cozy little room's bookshelf-lined wall, she watched Castiglione striding gracefully up the wide staircase and heading straight toward the study—which adjoined Halleck's bedroom.

He opened the door and peeked in, a slightly sheepish expression on his handsome face.

“I know I'm late,” he said, one hand behind his back as he stepped into the room. “I saw these on Las Ramblas and stopped to get them for you.”