The Raft (21 page)

Blockading the Freaky Kon-Tikis, it was just
about the most provocative act the government could have conceived
of. Nothing was integral to the Raft, more a part of it, than the
Kon-Tiki Races.

And this on top of Meerkat's death. Despite
all Maggie's best efforts, she knew that Chemcial's baseless
allegations against the Senator would be Raft-wide by now. It
didn't take a conspiracy nut to start connecting the dots of
Meerkat's death and the Blockade.

It was one big powder keg, a burning stick of
dynamite about to explode and destroy the Raft. And poor Gandalf
was standing on top of it, trying to snuff out the fuse.

The other Gray Beards milled at the front of
the car deck. Orac was standing, a foot rested on J.P.'s mouth,
speaking in a low voice to Gandalf. Tiger Print saw Maggie
approaching and ordered the crowd to part, letting Maggie through.
When Maggie pulled free of the armed mob, Tiger Print took her
hand.

“Oh, Maggie, this is terrible. Gandalf can't
convince them, they're hungry for blood, the lot of them.”

“No, it didn't sound like it was going very
well.”

“Why would the Coast Guard do such a foolish
thing, Maggie? Don't they understand what they've started?”

“They don't want to be seen as weak.”

“Where's your lovely friend? The reporter?
Perhaps she can help?”

“She's back on dryland.”

“If the dryfoots understood what was going
on, don't you think they'd try to stop -”

Gandalf spied Maggie and hopped down off his
improvised podium. “Excuse me, can I borrow Maggie?” he interrupted
his wife, taking Maggie by the elbow. He pulled Maggie aside behind
the clown head, out of earshot of the crowd. “What's the news on
Meerkat's murder?” he asked.

“I'm still investigating,” Maggie had to
admit. “I went ashore last night, I met with Senator Hadian and
Horus. All I know is neither of them is our man.”

“Damn it, Maggie!” Gandalf cursed. “Don't you
understand what's happening here?”

“I do.”

“If you had
something
on Meerkat's
murder it could help.”

“I'm sorry, but I just don't know more -”

“And Hadian has nothing to do with it? What
Chemical Ali G said?”

“It's all false. Not a grain of truth.”

“But what can I tell
them
?” Gandalf
thrust a thumb back at the gathered throng. “You know, people think
the Senator is behind this blockade to cover up his involvement
with Meerkat.”

“That isn't true.”

“Maybe, but can you prove it?”

“Well, no -”

“Then, what does it matter if it's true or
not? Maggie, I need a murderer here. If I could prove to this crowd
that the Senator has nothing to do with Meerkat, I could perhaps
defuse the tension a little. Do you have
anything
?”

“Gandalf,” Maggie grimaced. “I just haven't
had enough time.”

“Anything, Maggie, anything.”

“I'm not going to make wild guesses.”

Gandalf threw up his hands. He turned and
stomped angrily back around the gargantuan clown head. Maggie
turned to see Tiger Print standing well within listening distance
of their conversation. Tiger Print gave Maggie a look of sympathy,
perhaps pained acknowledgement, and turned to catch her husband's
arm.

While Maggie and Gandalf were conversing,
Orac had stepped up onto the hat of J.P. Patches. The audience now
listened to him attentively as he spoke about non-violence.
“...need to remember the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King. That
when faced with a stronger enemy, it is beholden on the weak, not
to attempt to meet strength with strength, but to rise above the
fray and transcend.”

Gandalf paused at the base of the clown head,
looking up at Orac with a confused look on his face.

Orac continued. “If we sail forward from this
place and brandish our weapons, we will be met with a hail of
death. A cloud so thick that not a rat will sneak forth from the
storm. No, my brothers and sisters, that is not the fate that
should befall us. That is not what the Raft stands for, what the
Raft has always embodied. We are not a violent people, we did not
flee to the water to bully and deject each other. We live in peace,
we are peaceful people. Ten times – a hundred fold more peaceful
that the dryfoots could ever imagine. Aboard the Raft there are no
thugs to kick down your door, no bureaucratic cut-purse to browbeat
the innocent. Here, aboard the Raft, we live in peace and harmony.
So it is and so it shall always be.

“But if there's violence today, the
government will portray it as fulfillment of prophecy. That the
Raft was always a doomsday cult, a floating Jonestown, just waiting
for the spark to send it plummeting to the bottom of the sea. If
there's violence today, that will be the only legacy that we will
leave behind us. The only truth that our children and our
children's children will ever learn.

“But it is within our power to write the
history of this day. The government wishes to make this into a Ruby
Ridge. Let us make this into a Birmingham, Alabama.”

“What?” Gandalf said from below,
surprised.

Orac continued on, lost in his own rhetoric.
“If the Coast Guard meets us with guns, we will meet them with open
arms. If they would board our ships, we will stand aside.

“Gandalf spoke the truth when he said in ones
and two they will pick us off, but together we can resist this cowl
of oppression. And that is what we will do, brothers and sisters.
Perhaps you look around and see a Raft – your friends and neighbors
standing at your side, their ships lashed to this ferry outside.
But what I see, standing here looking out at your faces, is an
armada
. The greatest armada ever collected on an ocean,
dedicated to truth and peace. Should this armada set sail and turn
its course towards the clenched fist of anger that awaits us to the
north, nothing on this planet will stop it. A thousand, ten
thousand craft we can assemble, and what force on earth can stand
in the way of that?” Agreeable murmurs arose from the crowd.
“Divided we are weak, but together we are a force that can never be
opposed. Brothers and sisters, sail together today and we shall
crash against this blockade like the tide breaking on a beach. It
shall collapse like so many twigs set before our bows! Brothers and
Sisters!”

A cheer rose up from the crowd.

“We set sail!”

And Orac, leaping down from the gargantuan
head of J.P. Patches, was swept up by the crowd.

Chapter 23

Before Gandalf could fully comprehend it had
happened, he'd lost control of the Raft.

Of course, Gandalf had never been elected as
leader of the Raft, the whole idea being against the most basic
establishing principle of the commune. But people being people, any
voice that spoke with authority had been dutifully listened to. And
Gandalf, with his control of the Exchange, had spoken with command.
He'd never contemplated up until that moment that his position at
the top of the pecking order could be taken away from him. And
perhaps that was why it was so easy for him to be blindsided. Orac,
out of nowhere, had stolen Gandalf's Raft from him. Gandalf stood
dumbfounded as Rafters began to clear the
Kalakala's
car
deck and return to their junks.

With one blow, Orac had both taken control of
the Raft and doomed it to its destruction. Perhaps he really
believed that the Coast Guard blockade might part at the sight of
his enlightened non-violence. He'd been able to convince much of
the rest of the Raft that it would. But it was suicide, plain
suicide, Gandalf knew. He was left standing alone in slack-jawed
silence.

The Coast Guard would eat them alive, fire on
any ship that refused to heave to. Anyone who thought any different
was insane. But the whole Raft had cheered Orac as he'd conjured up
images of the 1960s and the civil rights movement.

But unlike Martin Luther King, no one onshore
would blink an eye if the Raft vanished tomorrow. There'd be no
difficult questions asked. The Rafters didn't understand... that
they were a problem the dryfoots simply wanted the government to
take care of. They wouldn't balk if the Coast Guard had to sink one
or two or even a dozen Rafter ships. As long as the Raft
disappeared, no one would fuss over the loss of a few Rafters. They
would be obliterated, Gandalf foretold, and he'd let it happen.

“You've got to stop them,” Gandalf said,
grabbing Maggie by the arm. She'd taken her first step back towards
her boat, joining the others.

“I know,” Maggie pulled on Gandalf's grasp,
trying to break free.

“You've got to stop them, Maggie,” Gandalf
repeated.

“Let go,” Maggie yanked on Gandalf's iron
grip. Her arm pulled free.

“Maggie -” Gandalf lunged for Maggie again,
but Tiger Print stepped up and put a comforting hand on Gandalf's
shoulder. That broke the spell and Gandalf realized he was being
aggressive. “Maggie, if they try to run that blockade...”

“I know, but they've decided on their fate.”
Maggie watched as the last Rafters hopped away, clear of the
Kalakaka
. The fools were going to get themselves killed.

“Your friend. Bigallo. The reporter. You have
to bring her back. If the media is there when Orac tries to run the
Coast Guard's line...”

“I'll see what I can do,” Maggie answered.
But she knew there was no way in hell she'd get Rachael back on the
Raft. Not after last night.

“Then find Meerkat's murderer. If we could
hand him over to the police...”

“I will,” Maggie replied, trying to move as
quickly away from Gandalf and Tiger Print as she could without
appearing ill-mannered. “I'll find out what happened.” And Maggie
turned, trotting off towards the
Soft Cell
.

“It's okay, honey,” Tiger Print said to
Gandalf. “Let Maggie do her job."

#

Maggie let her jog turn into a full sprint.
She had to get back to the
Soft Cell
, she had to get under
sail. There was so little time left. Everything was about to
explode. And she'd wasted so much time, with Senator Hadian, with
Horus, with her feelings and Rachael. All dead ends. She'd gotten
nowhere, no further than she'd been yesterday morning when her old
iPhone had rung.

Do her job, indeed. Maggie was stumbling
around in the dark like an amateur. The authorities onshore,
Galahad, were laughing at her – and so they should. Private
Magistrate, what did that mean? What had Meerkat's money bought
her? A magistrate more interested in lunch and relighting an old
flame than investigating a murder?

No, Meerkat had paid three hours a month and
had expected justice. Maggie would find Meerkat's killer and do
what she'd been paid to do.

But Maggie was at a loss, all she'd
accomplished so far was to positively determine the innocence of
all of her potential suspects. She was back to square one. She'd
come up empty handed.

She'd need Rachael again, Maggie realized.
There was just no other option. If she had any hope of defusing
Orac's Armada, or breaking up the Coast Guard's blockade, or
getting to the bottom of Meerkat's double – triple identity, Maggie
would need Rachael and the resources and prestige her connection to
the
Times
brought along.

But she'd never get Rachael back aboard the
Raft, not after last night, not after that kiss. Rachael was safely
back onshore with her family, sleeping in a nice warm bed. No one
but a fool would cast off and join the Raft just hours before its
total destruction. And Maggie would be a heartless murderer herself
to ask any wife and mother to risk her neck doing so.

There was no way in hell.

Maggie's phone was ringing, echoing out of
the companionway of the
Soft Cell
, as she climbed across the
decks of the ships rafted up to the
Kalakaka
. The main
island of the Raft was breaking up quickly, fleeing the orbit of
the old ferry as quickly as popular opinion had fled Gandalf back
on the car deck.

The Raft was reconfiguring itself into Orac's
Armada in preparation to run the blockade and reach the Freaky
Kon-Tikis. Its change was wordless, leaderless, and organic, with
each and every pilot of each and every craft consciously adjusting,
finding a position in the new command structure. Maggie cast off
her ropes and floated free, letting the Raft transform around
her.

“Hello, hello?” Maggie questioned the black
handset, trying to answer it.

“Maggie,” Rachael's voice finally emerged
from the phone. “I just had the strangest conversation with
Galahad.”

“He's blockading the Freaky Kon-Tikis,”

“Yes,” Rachael said in surprise. “How did you
know?”

“News travels fast on the Raft,
remember?”

“You have to warn everyone, keep to the south
Sound. Kid Galahad is loaded for bear. He's ready for a fight.”

“Yes,” Maggie said calmly. “So are the
Rafters.”

“What's going on?”

“There was a meeting. A War Council.
Decisions were made.”

“They're not going to try to run the
blockade? That's insane.”

“It is, but they're going to do it anyway.
There's been a... coup, I guess. Gandalf isn't calling the shots
anymore.”

“What? Who?”

“Orac,” Maggie said flatly.

“Can you have a coup when you don't have a
leader?”

“I guess so. At least, when it really counts.
I... I need your help again, Rachael.”

“Yes, you do,” Rachael said without
hesitation. “You want me to run the blockade with you?”

“Yes, but I can't ask...”

“You don't have to, Maggie.”

“But Peter and Margaret...”

“I have you to keep me safe, Maggie.”

“I really only have one play here, Rachael,
and it's not a smart one.”