Soda Pop Soldier (40 page)

“I agree.”

“Good. I gotta go now; I'm starting to fade before surgery. Damn suite caught fire on . . . the way . . . down. Good . . . to . . . do . . . business . . . with you.”

Then he's gone. I'm checking the news. Reports are starting to trickle in that a Krupp Skyliner experienced mechanical problems over North Africa. No word of fatalities or a crash, much less getting shot down. Maybe Krupp or Lufthansa is buying everyone off. Better for business that way. Plus, I bet a lot of brokers wouldn't mind being declared dead for a while.

The last thing I do before I leave the café is check the website of the Colonial Marines clan. The Bug Hunters. I leave a message telling them how much I appreciated their help and how we couldn't have done it without them. Somehow my words just don't seem to convey my gratitude and respect, or at least it seems that way as I sit and stare at the screen. But I leave the message anyway. On the last screen I find their unit roster. I read all their names alongside their avatars and think about them and the times we had together. The names of their avatars are bold and somehow bigger than their real names. Then I see my tag. PerfectQuestion. Honorary Colonial Marine.

I walk back to Wong's place. He and Trixie are having tea. High tea, they call it. Complete with little cucumber sandwiches. Afterward we have a cordial of brandy. Wong does all the talking. He tells us the history of Douz, going back hundreds of years. Trixie listens intently. I think about what to do next.

Chapter 29

T
he next morning, we fly north over the desert in Freddy's single-engine plane. He uses it to run up to Tripoli to pick up tourists for his treks out into the desert. I'd gone to bed early the night before, and when I wake in the morning, Trixie smiles sheepishly at me as she exits Freddy's room. I tell Freddy I need to get to a major airport, and he tells me Tripoli is the place. I offer to pay, but he declares “Nonsense!” and flies me there. Maybe he wants to make sure I leave. And that Trixie stays. When we taxi up to the executive terminal in Tripoli, Trixie turns back to me from the front seat and tells me she'll be staying. I watch Freddy squeeze her knee once as she says it. Soon the engine stops and we say an awkward good-bye in the desert heat. Like we'd been through more than we had. Like everything we'd been through didn't mean anything. Awkward.

I walk to the commercial terminal and buy a ticket. As soon as I purchase it, I know Faustus Mercator will know where I am and where I'm going. That's how it has to be. You don't get anywhere unless you have a name and a DNA ID card that checks out.

The night before, I hadn't totally made up my mind that this was what I was going to do. I'd lain awake in Freddy's guest room, listening to the heavy silence of the night and the desert and wondering what to do next. And after that, wondering what the shape of my life was now. I'd gone to the wide stone windowsill and looked out on silvery moonlit dunes. There were no cigarette butts, paper cups, or trash of any kind there. The dunes were smooth and I thought briefly of mummies rising from the sands, the sand running off their rotting wrappings in torrents, pouring out from within their ragged bandages. Every plan for the rest of my life is overshadowed by Faustus Mercator. He's the kind of man that doesn't let things go.

I knew what I had to do. I had to confront him, have it out. But what did that mean? Kill him? Buy him off? Both options were out of the question.

I watched the night and the stars fading and the sun rising in the east.

Now, waiting for the flight in Tripoli, I use a public Internet terminal and search Faustus Mercator. There are no hits. But that isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something else. In the moment before the search results come through, the screen pauses. Just a fraction of a second. In that half second I know someone, somewhere, has hijacked the search. They want to know as much about me as possible. A lot of people can do that. But the police are the ones that do it the most.

The small supersonic passenger jet roars out over the Mediterranean.

This flight is the most vulnerable part of my plan. I feel exposed in the tiny little eight-passenger supersonic commuter hop.

But I doubt Mercator will shoot down another plane. Still, I don't really know for sure. For the entire hour, I wait for the cabin to suddenly explode. When it doesn't and we settle onto the runway in Rome, I begin to relax. Even though I have no reason to.

An hour later, using a public terminal, I've collected all my winnings from the Black game and the hush money from Carter Banks. I check into the best hotel in the city. My room costs three thousand a night. It's getting on toward late afternoon. I call the police and ask for Interpol. A detective sergeant, Giacomo Guiglioni, answers once I'm transferred.

“I'm going to say a name,” I begin before he can say anything other than his name. “I don't know if it means anything to you guys . . . but let me know if it does, and then I'll tell you how to find him. Sound good?”

“Sì. But first, ah, whom am I, ah, talking to?”

I tell him, “John Saxon.”

“All right, go righta ahead.”

“Faustus Mercator.”

I hear fingers tapping loud plastic keys.

“Caspita!” The detective sergeant blurts out. “Ah, I'ma so sorry, my friend. It's good that you called. If you waita for a moment, I need to put you ina touch with someone. Could you stand by, please?”

I say that I can.

Moments later, Detective Guiglioni is back.

“Signore Saxon, I have Gunnar Larssen ona the line. He's ah . . . an inspector with Interpol. He's a gonna take over now. Ciao bella.”

“Mr. Saxon?” says Gunnar Larssen. Inspector with Interpol.

“Yes,” I reply.

“Were you on the
Belle of Berlin
?”

“I was.”

“You are in Rome, currently?”

“I am.”

“Excellent. We are very interested in talking to you.”

“Good. I'm interested in talking.”

“All right, you said you know where this man might be?”

“I do.”

“I am not in Rome, Mr. Saxon. But I'm leaving within the hour. Do you need protection until I get there?”

That stops me. Does he think I need protection? Maybe this is even more serious than I've realized. But I need room to move about for a little while. Police escorts aren't gonna help.

“No. I'm fine.”

“Mercator . . . He is very dangerous. Are you sure?”

I wasn't.

“Yes. I'm sure.

Chapter 30

I
go out into the early Italian evening after getting cleaned up as best I can. I need new clothes. I hit the still hot streets, listening to the babble of Italians above the motorbikes and café music. Fountains bloom suddenly as beautifully dressed people seem carefree in their lingering. Men wearing suits without ties kiss beautiful, thin women in light dresses of swirling colors holding shopping bags.

I need a secure computer. I have to finish the Black tonight.

I find a book store on the Via Borgognona. Inside, the latest books are available along with their overloaded price tags. Their displays cycle through all their amazing computing features. After spending about an hour with the salesman, Marco, a gamer himself, I set my sights on a high-end factory Gauss that's been ultraclocked by Marco and his brother. It runs at unbelievable speeds, using dual cold reaction chipsets and eight stacked Nvidia GO CandyCruncher graphics cards. I'd once seen a guy in a café running just two of those cards, and it'd been simply amazing to watch. I remember having to close my jaw with my hand. Now I have eight of them. Even though most of the world uses nebulae servers to store all their data and run their programs, the Gauss goes old school and runs an internal state-of-the-art Tetration hard drive, in which every bit of memory cubes itself and generates more available memory. Or maybe it subdivides; I'm not totally sure how it all actually works. But the slavering Marco almost has a heart attack explaining it. More important, the Gauss MK 7 book gives me access to Gauss's very secure private telecommunication network in which all my telemetry, communication, transactions, and gaming will be totally anonymous from wherever I choose to use it. It cannot be identified or tracked or traced. Gauss even maintains a separate in-house division that forges electronic signatures and random IP addresses, updating the book constantly. Totally anonymous. Guaranteed. This is the selling point Gauss punches in their marketing campaign. They're the Swiss bank of computer makers. In fact, they even operate from inside Switzerland. I pay Marco twenty-five thousand U.S., and we both exchange a moment of silent happiness for me. Then he breaks the silence by saying, “Oh yeah. I forgot. You getta the SamuraiLeather messenger bag with purchase. Hand-tooled. From Japan.” He runs in back and comes out with a metallic titanium case; he opens it and removes the SamuraiLeather messenger bag. SamuraiLeather's claim is that it's not just a stylish messenger bag, it's bulletproof. But it looks pretty cool too.

“You also get to keep the titanium case for when you travel and have to stow it in cargo,” adds Marco.

I can't ever imagine wanting to be apart from my brooding backlit Gauss MK 7. But I take the titanium case anyway.

“I like the way Italians dress,” I say in the silence that follows, as Marco packs everything up. I'm painfully aware of my wrinkled gray suit, dirty white shirt, and the scuffed Docs I'd fled my burning apartment building in. I'd been wearing everything the night before that, on the Grand Concourse, in the space elevator, on the SkyVault. As if that all really happened.

“Oh, yes. People of Roma dress very nice. This is very important to us,” says Marco.

“Where could I go and get a nice suit, at this hour, tonight? Like the one you're wearing.”

“Ah, why didn't you say so?”

I did say so.

“My cousin Giuseppino, he has a store just up the street and off the main road. Very nice. Here's my card. You give it to him and he make a real nice suit just for you.”

An hour later, I'm standing in my underwear while Giuseppino cuts me a suit. He works silently in a quiet room at the back of his very chic store, cutting expensive material on a green baize-covered table. Verdi, he informs me, whispers over the speakers.

“Whenever you want a suit, you call me, okay? I have your measurements and I can send it anywhere you want.” He demands this through needle-clenched teeth as he begins to sew the cut material together.

From the back of the store, a tall, beautiful, voluptuous older woman enters, carrying a pot.

“Mama,” cries Giuseppino. “I gotta work. No time to eat!” I doubt this woman, who must have once been a movie star or a fashion model, is anyone's mother.

“Then I feed your customer. Sit,” she barks at me. She fetches bowls and ladles out steaming pasta e fagioli.

Do I need to say it's the best ever?

How could it be anything but? We even have fresh-baked garlic rolls with it, and just before Marco from the book store arrives, Lola, Giuseppino's mother, grills me.

“So whatta you do that you need a suit right now when my son should be eating because his whore wife no can cook, eh?”

“Mama!” shouts Giuseppino.

“She's a whore. Why else do you think I have no grandchildren? She's too busy. Busy doing what, I don't know. But I don't like it. When I was her age, I made movies, did fashion shows, and still cooked and cleaned and had you and your brothers!”

“I just want some new clothes,” I mumble through a mouthful of amazing soup.

“Why?” she attacks me. “You gotta girlfriend? How many? Two, three, four, what?”

“Mama, he's a good customer!”

“No. None,” I admit. “I don't have a girlfriend anymore.”

“Why not?” she says suspiciously.

“I . . . I don't know why.”

“C'mon. You must know why.” Her cat's eyes stare hard at me. As though she can suck the answer from my mind.

“I've been meaning to think about that,” I tell her frankly. “But what with running from my burning apartment and a power-mad egomaniac trying to kill me by shooting down the airplane I was in over North Africa, there just hasn't been a lotta time to think about why I don't have a girlfriend.”

She stares at me for a long moment, then rolls her eyes.

“But it's on the list,” I tell her and spoon up another luscious mouthful of her soup.

“You're a real smart guy.” She laughs. “I like that.” She is very beautiful. I find it hard to think of her as Giuseppino's mother.

“So whatta you do? Are you some kind of secret agent, eh? I dated one.” She raises a long, perfectly curved dark eyebrow.

“I play games. Professionally.”

“You what?”

“I, uh, play games for money. You know, in the Global Gaming League.”

“But you're a man. Why . . . Giuseppino . . .” She fires off a string of Italian at her son who seems to be working on some very minute stitching that requires all his concentration.

“Because, Mama,” he answers, eyes intent on the stitching. “That's his job. Mama, he's a customer. Now leave him alone.”

Marco from the book store enters, and Lola rolls her eyes again as she moves to ladle steaming pasta e fagioli into a bowl she places before him.

He ties a napkin around his throat and picks up the salt, which she bats out of his hand, cursing in Italian. Undaunted, he lowers his spoon into the bowl and closes his eyes in delight at the first mouthful.

When the suit is finished, Giuseppino makes me try it on. He curses himself and makes me take it off. He returns to his work as I try to get more of the delicious soup into my mouth between questions from Giuseppino's beautiful mom.

When the soup is finished, the suit goes back on. But not before Giuseppino fits me with a dress shirt that feels as though it's made of silk, but holds its form like well-starched cotton. The suit, which Giuseppino dresses me in, feels like it's made of cool, cold air. It's a soft gray. It hangs perfectly. He picks up one of my shoulders.