Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Shaw spoke to
Foveaux.  “You can put that gun away now, Commissioner.”  Foveaux
withdrew from her tunnel of concentration and was somehow back in the
room.  She lowered her gun and without even thinking about it raised her
other hand to her head.  She could feel a warm sticky liquid and pulling
her hand away she could see it was blood.

“Let me look
at that,” said Shaw.  She pulled Foveaux’s head toward her and gave it a
cursory examination.  “Glancing blow,” she said.  “You’re
lucky.  Couple of centimetres lower and you’d be going the same place as
him.  Are you okay?”

Foveaux
blinked.  “I’m fine.  Where were we?”

“Well,” said
Shaw, “we need to get this sorted out first.  Where’s that medic?”

“Bowers is
dead,” said Edley.

Outside a
group of troops had gathered at the top of the stairs.  They had their
rifles drawn and they looked serious and intense.  A medic squeezed between
them and ran to the office, where she squatted next to Bowers and began to work
on him.

“Back to the
lobby,” said Shaw through the door.  “It’s all over here.  The
situation is under control.”

Edley watched
the medic work but she knew it was futile.

“Where’s that
pen?” said Shaw.

“I think it’s
still in your hand, Colonel,” said Edley.

“Oh
yes.  It is,” said Shaw.  “Will you please come here and witness this
for me?”

Edley moved
to the desk and watched as Shaw signed the papers in two places as Foveaux pointed
them out to her.  Foveaux was clutching at her head with her other hand
and blood was seeping between her fingers.

Shaw called
to the medic, “When you’ve finished there I have an injured officer
here.”  She looked at Foveaux.  “So you didn’t get your bloodless
coup.  Damn shame, you came pretty close.”  She offered her hand to
Foveaux who shook it gratefully.

“I’m sorry it
happened this way,” she said.

“Me too,”
said Shaw.  “Are you going to be taking me back with you?”

“There’s no
need.  I’ll leave a small deployment here.  You can gather your
things, speak to your troops, organise the handover.”

“You trust me
to do that?”

“I have your
word.”

“Thank you,”
said Shaw.

“I’ll come
back tomorrow for an official handover.”

“Let me see
you out,” said Shaw, and she went to guide Foveaux around the medic and the
body of Bowers, which had been stripped to the waist and was now staring
lifelessly at the ceiling.

“You forgot
this,” Edley called after them.  As Foveaux turned Edley handed her the
articles of surrender.  They were smeared with blood.

Bobby picked
Christina up around seven.  They were at the restaurant by eight. 
They had stopped by at one of the older domes - Bobby wanted to
reminisce about the times, many years before, when Christina had brought him
there.  There was a children’s play area in the dome and Bobby, as a
thirteen-year-old, was torn between rejecting it out of hand as a
worldly teenager and showing off his physical prowess to his oh-so-sophisticated
(as she seemed to him then) guardian.

Christina had
started babysitting for the
Karjalainens
when she was
around fifteen.  Bobby was ten and Anthony was eight; she could just about
handle them.  She knew them vaguely from school.  Being rich kids
they had all gone to the exclusive Glenn Academy.  While Venkdt and
Karjalainen were business rivals their partners had met each other through the
school and had quickly made friends.  They and the kids were often in and
out of each other’s houses.  Christina was too old to play with the boys
as peers but she had a strong maternal streak and loved to spend time looking
after them, helping them play together.

When Bobby
was sixteen he had asked Christina out on a date.  Not quite sure of the
dynamics of such an interlude she had cautiously agreed.  In truth, she
was quite a young twenty-one-year-old.  She had spent a
lot of her adolescence wrapped up in books, either schoolwork or her adored
fantasy novels.  She was mildly shy and stood off from the world a little.

Bobby, on the
other hand, wanted to grow up fast.  Nothing ever fazed him or gave him
pause and, like most teenagers, he knew everything.  Why wouldn’t you ask
your babysitter on a date?  She was kind of cute, and that reserved way
she had immediately peaked one’s interest.  What was going on in that
hinterland behind the coy smile and gentle flick of the hair?  There you
are, sixteen, a man or as good as.  Ask the girl out.  Why not?

As the waiter
brought their drinks Christina looked around the room.  “Remember the
first time you brought me here?”

“I do,” said
Bobby.  “It was the first date I ever had.”

“Oh!” said
Christina, “so it
was
a date.”

“Of
course.  What did you think it was?”

“I just
thought one of the kids I looked after was treating me as a thank you for the
many times I had taken care of him, played with him, tucked him up in bed and
read him stories.”

Bobby
smiled.  “Maybe that too.”

“And anyway,
you never called afterwards,” Christina smiled back.

“Well, you
were a little intimidating, I guess.”

“Intimidating! 
Me!”

“You know;
sophisticated older woman.”

“Ha!” said
Christina.  “You were so funny, so full of yourself.”

Bobby
nodded.  “And I hope I haven’t changed.”

He had
changed.  The bright sparkle in his eyes had dimmed a little.  The
‘Let’s do it here!  Let’s do it now!’ enthusiasm had been dialled back a
little, too.  Christina wondered if it was the war, or if it was just that
he was older now.

“What are you
up to now?” said Christina.

“I’m just
staying at my dad’s place.”

“No work?”

“No. 
I’ve got a combat pension and some money from the book.  I guess I should
figure out what I’m going to do next.  No rush.”

“How is your
dad?”

“He’s not
great.  I don’t think he’s got long left.”

“I’m
sorry.  Have you seen him?”

“Yes. 
I’ve been going to the hospital.”

“That’s
great.”

“I don’t
think he’s got the energy to argue anymore,” Bobby shrugged.

“But it’s
great he’s talking to you again.”

“I
guess.  It’s why I came back, I suppose.”

“Family’s the
most important thing, Bobby.  It’s really good that you’ve made peace with
your dad
before .
 . .”

Bobby noticed
her discomfort.

“I wouldn’t
go as far as ‘making peace.’  He can stand to have me in the room with
him.  Progress, I suppose.  How about your dad?”

“Well, as it
happens, he’s the president of Mars.  I always knew he’d make something of
himself.”

They laughed.

“How’s that
going,” said Bobby.

“It’s sort of
ordinary, at the moment.  He was always the unofficial Mayor of Mars Town
anyway.  I guess this just makes it official.  Or not official,
depending on your point of view.  There was some dodgy business over at
the garrison yesterday.  Our security people were supposed to take the
place over but something happened and someone got killed.”

“I heard
about that on the streams.”

“It’s awful
that someone got hurt but I think it’s all over now.”

“How about
you?  How’s the law?”

“It’s
good.  I’m working mostly for my dad, taking on the odd thing here and
there.”

“And your
personal life?”

Christina grimaced. 
“My
private
life?  Private, I guess?” she offered.

“You can do
better than that,” Bobby teased.

“Well, I’m
still a spinster, if that’s what you mean.  What about you?  Still
breaking hearts?”

“No, I’m a
spinster too.”

“I thought
you were all partnered up.  Back on Earth.  It didn’t work out?”

Bobby
shrugged.  “You know.  The war.  She had to travel a lot for her
work.  It kind
of .
 . .” his
sentence trailed off.

“What was her
name?”

“Askel
Lund.  She’s an engineer.  One of the top development people at
Helios, actually.”

“Askel,” said
Christina.  “It’s a nice name.”

“It is a nice
name,” said Bobby.  “Shall we order?”

Christina was
determined to find out about Askel.  She thought of Bobby like a younger
brother and instinctively wanted to look out for him.  There had been rare
occasions when she had imagined what it might be like if she and Bobby were a
couple.  He was a good man and certainly not hard to look at.  But
that was an idle daydream.  Christina was too down-to-earth
for a livewire like Bobby and besides, it would just be weird.

“So Askel
travels a lot?” said Christina as they ate.

“She does,”
said Bobby, between mouthfuls.

“She sounds
like just your type.”

Bobby
paused.  “Do I have a type?”

Christina
thought.  “I guess not.  What I mean is that you’re a doer.  You
go places, you do things.  It sounds like she is too, so it seems like it
should have been a good match.”

“
Askel’s
a great gal, and we got on really well
together.  But we both had lots of work commitments and we were based in
different countries.  It was a strange time, with a war going on and all
that.”

Christina
surveyed Bobby’s face as he ate.  He seemed rattled.

“So it was
just the war that came between you, then?”

Bobby put his
cutlery down.  “Are you my mum?” he asked.  He tried to make it sound
playful but the underlying irritation seeped through.

“I just want
you to be happy, Bobby.  Am I prying?”

“You are, a
little bit.”

“I’m
sorry.”  They carried on eating but Christina still couldn’t let it
go.  After a few moments she said, “What about when the war was
ending?  You didn’t think about getting back in touch with her?”

“Look,” said
Bobby, “
Askel’s
great, right?  She’s terrific,
she really is.  She’s a great person, she’s incredibly talented, good at
her job and she’s beautiful too.  War is a strange time.  I’d
finished my tours and was being let go from the army.  My moment in the
sun was over. 
Askel’s
star was rising higher
and higher and I knew I just had to let her go.  I always knew I was going
to come back here and I couldn’t see Askel in some backwater like Mars. 
It’s just not where she belongs.  I could see how it was going to end up
so I had to walk away.”  He looked sad and thoughtful.  “She
was .
 . .” he began, but he didn’t finish the
sentence.

“I didn’t
mean to upset you,” said Christina.

“It’s okay,”
said Bobby.  “I guess everything has a way of working out in the end
so .
 . .”  He paused.  “I’m sure it
was all for the best.”

Christina
looked at Bobby sympathetically, nodding.  “If you love her, set her
free,” she said, absentmindedly.

Bobby looked
at her with a screwed-up face.  “
Did you just say that
?” he
said.

Christina
snapped upright and she caught herself.  “No!” she said.  “I
absolutely did not.  You just imagined it.”

They carried
on eating.

“If I offered
you a million bucks would you sell me that skirt you’re wearing right now?”

“For a
million bucks, yes, I think I would.”

“But I mean
right now.  You can’t change or send out for a replacement.  You take
it off here, now, and hand it over.”

“I think I
still would for a million.”

“Okay, here’s
the thing, it’s not even that.  For a start, it’s not a million,
it’s
cost plus ten percent.  How much was the skirt?”

“I don’t want
to .
 . .”

“How much was
the skirt, Lorene?”

“It was a
hundred and twenty dollars.  On sale.”

“Okay, a
hundred and twenty dollars plus ten per is a hundred and thirty-two
dollars.  Let’s call it a hundred and forty.  If I came to your
office, ripped your skirt off and left a hundred and forty dollars on your
desk, how would you feel?”

“And you’d
love to do that, wouldn’t you?”

Farrell
smiled.  “This isn’t about me, it’s about you.  How would you feel?”

Lorene
thought.  “I don’t know.  Violated, I guess.  Robbed?”

“Exactly!” 
Farrell jabbed the air with his finger.  “Violated and robbed.  It’s
not a trade unless both parties agree.  Robbery.  Exactly!”

“However, if
you were going to take my skirt unannounced I’d rather you left a hundred and
forty dollars than didn’t.”

“Not the
point at all.  It’s a crime.  A major crime.”

“So what do
we do?”

“We have to
make it right.  Not only is it criminal, causing huge distress and damage
to Venkdt Corporation and their shareholders, it also affects national
security.  The world runs on deuterium.  All the while we have
control over its production we are energy independent.  If we are forced
to buy our deuterium from an independent state we are no longer energy
independent; we are reliant on them.  They could withhold supplies, raise
prices on a whim, whatever.  We would be totally beholden to them and that
is not acceptable.  Those deuterium processing facilities belong to the
USAN.  Their value is far beyond their dollar worth.”

“You haven’t
answered the question.”

“Not up to
us.  It’s up to the big guy.  It’s up to us to
advise him
. 
We have to impress on him what is at stake.

“And we have
to give him options.

“We can give
him those; trade embargoes, diplomatic channels and all that.  But it’s
bullshit.  Any trade embargo is going to hurt us far more than it’s going
to hurt them.  The clever bastards have waited until they didn’t need us
anymore.  We need that deuterium.  What do they need from us? 
Diplomacy is up the spout too.  Our most senior person on that planet is
the colonel from the garrison; she was put under house arrest yesterday. 
We’re screwed - we have nothing to offer him.  The only
people who have anything they can put on the table are Andrews’ merry band at
defence.  We’ve got nothing.  Nothing.”

“The meeting
has been bumped forward to 14:00 this afternoon.  I can get you a
teleconference with Andrews before then.  Would that be useful?”

Farrell
thought, distractedly.  “Yes, it would.  Do that.  If we present
together it won’t look so much like we have nothing to bring to the
party.  I’ll get behind Andrews and back her up.  She’s got guns and
shit - that’s the only thing that’s going to get this mess
sorted out.”  Farrell stared out of the window.  “I used to think
politics was a noble calling.  Debate, reason.  People, nations even,
talking things out instead of fighting.  Finding common ground,
compromising, building by common consent.  But over the last seven years
I’ve come to realise, and this is just demonstrating it all over again, that
just being right doesn’t count for shit.  You don’t win the argument by
making your point better than the other guy, or by persuading people of their
logical errors.  At base, when it comes down to it, you prevail by
punching the other guy harder than he can punch you.  And first, if
possible.”  He looked at Lorene.  “We do all the arguing and
persuading here, don’t we?  And it hasn’t got us anywhere.  Andrews
is in charge of punching.”

Lorene was
fiddling with her comdev.  “Andrews has a window at 12:15.  Should I
book you fifteen minutes?”

“Do it.”

Directly in
front of the president’s huge oak desk in the New Oval Office, set back a way,
were two leather sofas facing each other over a long coffee table. 
Adjacent to the sofas were two leather armchairs, at either end of the coffee
table.  The set up was not dissimilar to a small living room.  Cortes
liked to have meetings there if they were small enough to allow it.  He
liked to dispense with formality so people could express what was really on
their minds.  The sofas helped with that.  Cortes sat in one of the
armchairs with his back to the desk of office.  He was framed by the flag
of the USAN on one side and the flag of the President of the USAN on the other.

On one sofa
were Farrell and White.  Opposite them was Andrews.  Cortes was
flipping through the latest intelligence briefings.  He looked up. 
“What can we do?”

White
spoke.  “Mr President, at this stage I think we should proceed very
cautiously.  The Martians, maybe I should just say Venkdt, have timed this
very well.  There is little here in our favour.  Obviously, we have
to condemn the Martian actions in the strongest terms now, but in the long run
we can deal with them.  They can be allies.”

“So we suck
it up?”

“No, Mr
President, we tread carefully with our eyes on the long term.  For now we
make the right noises about justice and rest of it, but downstream our priority
is a stable Mars that we can do business with.”

“What about
you?”  Cortes asked Farrell.

“Mr
President, we’re very concerned about the situation.  As you know, we are
dependent on Martian deuterium.  An independent Mars will have control
over our ability to produce energy supplies - something which
underpins everything we do.”

“We have
other sources of deuterium,” said White.

“But not
enough, and way more expensive.  The financial ramifications alone are
truly scary.  If the Martians decided to push the price of deuterium up,
or even withhold supply, it could destroy the economy.  That planet is
ours, that deuterium is ours.  We simply cannot afford to have it under
someone else’s control.  And this whole thing is illegal, anyway.
 None of the Venkdt shareholders have agreed to be bought out.  We
can’t let that go.”

“I agree, I
agree,” said White, “none of this is ideal.  But we live in the real
world, where it’s messy and ‘good enough’ has to do.  Ideally none of this
would have happened, and the buyout is morally unsound, we all know that. 
But let’s work with what we’ve got.  Provided the Martian government is
stable, and we currently have no reason to suspect it won’t be, we can deal
with them as allies.  Have them inside the tent pissing out.  As long
as the deuterium keeps flowing I say let them fly their funny new flag.”

“You think
the most important energy producing region of the USAN should just be allowed
to secede?” said Cortes.

“I would
rather that didn’t happen, of course,” said White, “but it has, and we have no
remedies open to us.  Working with what we have I say we should let the
initial impact blow over then work like hell to keep them onside.  Get the
diplomatic channels working, keep the deuterium flowing.  Get an embassy,
you know.  Hold them close.”

“No
remedies,” Cortes repeated.  He jotted something down on his briefing
notes.  “I thought we were modifying the
Aloadae
?  How’s that
coming along?”

“Work is
progressing,” said Andrews.

“It is?”

“Yes, Mr
President.  As you know, Helios are working on modifying the
Aloadae
for interplanetary travel right now.  We could have them in Martian orbit
within five months.”

“What are we
going to do, invade Mars?” said White.

Cortes lifted
a hand and gestured for White to back off.  “What would that do for us?”

“It would
focus the minds of the Martians.  It would demonstrate that we take this
issue very seriously.”

“It would
needlessly escalate -”

Cortes cut
White off.  “What do you think, Farrell?  Overkill?”

“Mr
President, I think a prominent demonstration of USAN power would be very
useful.  If it’s possible.”

“It’s very
possible,” said Andrews.

“Okay,” said
Cortes, “we have two of our most powerful ships in orbit around the
planet.  They know we mean business.  What next?”

Farrell
spoke.  “Our most senior person on the planet, Colonel Katrina Shaw, can
step up and negotiate on our behalf.  The
Aloadae
will provide the
big stick she needs when she’s talking softly to them on our behalf.”

“Shaw. 
What’s she doing for us now?” said Cortes.

“She’s under
house arrest since they took control of the garrison on Monday.”

“Goddammit!”
said Cortes.  “So who do we have up there, anyone?”

“At the
moment, Mr President, no, we don’t have anyone.”

“Jeez,” said
the president.  “Okay, so we bring our big guns in and somehow reactivate
Colonel Shaw.  What next?  What if they don’t play ball?”

“I think we
all agree, Mr President,” said Andrews, “any threat or deterrent has to be
credible.  There would be no point sending the
Aloadae
to Mars if
we didn’t have a military strategy to go with them.  If the provisional
Martian government refused to accede to our demands we could take the deuterium
processing plants and all other ancillary facilities by force.  Remember,
Mars has no military capability to speak of.  They have a security service
with a few lightly armed transports and a handful of small arms.  It would
be a simple matter to capture the vital areas and implement control over them.”

“Okay,” said
the president, “so maybe we’re bluffing, but it’s a credible bluff.  We
could realistically, by force of arms, retake the planet quickly and with
minimal casualties.  That’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s
exactly what I’m saying, Mr President.”

“Okay, let’s
continue with this train of thought.  What next?  We have all the
vital facilities we need, we’ve taken control.  What then?  What
about the population?  The vote was emphatic.  How would we maintain
order when we have just crushed a hugely popular government?  We could win
the war with barely a shot being fired; how would we win the peace?”

“While the
vote for independence was very strong,” said Farrell, “it wasn’t
absolute.  Some voted against it.  Jack Karjalainen, the other
leading industrialist on Mars, was opposed.  There were others too, enough
for us to form a government there.”

“Karjalainen. 
Why do I know that name?”

“Probably
from the oldest son, Mr President.  He was something of a war hero. 
Wrote a book about it, too.”

“That’s
right.  I gave him a medal, didn’t I?”

“I believe
you did, Mr President,” said White.

“So you’re
saying we could install Jack Karjalainen as a friendly president if we have to
put boots on the ground?”

“Not him, Mr
President,” said Farrell, “he’s ill.  Dying, actually.  His son
Anthony is set to take over the family business.  We could maybe do
business with him.”

“It’s way too
early to be talking about boots on the ground and installing governments and
the rest of it,” said White.  “Unauthorised elections, compulsory buyouts,
it’s all illegal, we know that.  But how’s it going to look sending in the
army to capture USAN territory?  To have English-speaking soldiers
firing on other English-speaking soldiers.  Maybe even kids from the
same home town, who knows?  How’s that going to look?”

“Relax,” said
Cortes, “it’s never going to come to that.  But we have to plan as if it
might.  Audrey’s right; a threat with no credibility is no threat at all.”

“We are
sending the wrong message here,” said White.  “How can we complain about
them running elections when we haven’t had one here in nine years?”

Farrell and
Andrews froze momentarily and looked to Cortes for his reaction.  His eyes
narrowed and he stared coolly at White, who was staring coldly back.

“You know,
Gerard, that the introduction of the Restrictive War Measures here in the USAN
was an absolute necessity given the unprecedented security issues which arose
during the war.  I took the step of suspending elections with the heaviest
of hearts, and I did it in the best interests of this great nation that we all
love.  I would prefer it if you didn’t compare the actions of a loyal and
dedicated president with those of self-interested renegades who are
threatening the very stability which we’ve strived so hard to protect over the
last seven years.”