Tintagel (16 page)

"Yes," he said. "It's a Villa-Lobos piece from last century. How's your Baktropol holding out?" Lanier didn't feel that this was the place to discuss the complexities of Latin American music.

Charlie laughed. "Hell, I'm too busy flying to listen to music and freak out right now." Charlie grinned behind his mike. He was used to this sort of thing, and had gotten his ScatterCat experience during the fall of Johannesburg a number of years ago. And he loved every minute that he was in the air.

But this time, their 'Cat was totally unarmed. Charlie, through Lanier's influence, had gotten clearance to lease the VTOL so that they could get back into the center of Los Angeles. Charlie had left some important microfilm files back in a special place in his suite of offices. They would need something as sleek and versatile as a ScatterCat to get in and out fast enough.

Besides that, Charlie needed the excitement. Montana had already gotten to him.

"Draco's doing it, I suppose," Lanier speculated, "To harass anyone listening in."

They flew under two monstrous expanses of high-tension wires. Lanier gripped his arm-consoles, almost closing his eyes. Charlie was good.

Charlie lifted the 'Cat, spinning off toward the west.

"We're three minutes away. Looks like a mess, doesn't it?"

Lanier looked down below them. Most of the city still functioned in pockets, like ancient city-states. But many of the neighborhoods smoldered from fires, and barricades were erected on most of the freeway entrances and exits. Very few of the freeways were open, now that Draco had taken over most of Los Angeles. The guerrillas were everywhere, it seemed.

Charlie kept the ScatterCat low.

Lanier listened to the music. He mused out loud. "It's probably Draco's way of getting even. It's quite beautiful." The soprano voice of the singer in the recording filled the narrow spaces of the two modules with a pleasant reverie. Lanier could feel the tensions in his nervous system, and hoped that Charlie wasn't listening to the transmission. He wondered how Charlie and Christy, being so emotionally involved with each other, were able to survive the disease so well. A lot of Baktropol was probably behind their endurance.

"Ok," Charlie announced, "we're in for a rough ride. See that?"

Lanier squinted. "Right." They were now over smog-smothered South Gate.

The sky was full of the black clouds of antiaircraft fire. But it was hard to tell if it was the National Guard or Draco's contingent. The fighting in the city was so confusing. Either way, they would have to go through it.

"They're tracking us," Charlie breathed into the microphone. Radar interception indicators blinked before each of them on their individual consoles. "And even if they don't have SAMs, they've got the firepower to bring us down."

Lanier said, "We can go around them."

"I know," Charlie responded. "But we're in a hurry, and, well"—he turned to his right, winking—"this is more fun."

"Right." Lanier smiled back, though not as confidently.

The section of the city before them was almost entirely burned out. An occasional freeway overpass lay crumpled like the broken backbone of a dinosaur. This part of the city was very much a war zone. Large, ugly columns of smoke billowed from buildings and from cracks in gas mains beneath the streets. These latter were on fire. And much of the smoke rising to meet them was from antiaircraft guns.

"Tracking now." Charlie tensed up. The ScatterCat hummed along the tops of the houses.

"Ready," Lanier said, throwing switches. The wheel eased gently into his hands as both modules now went over to manual.

The smoke approached them. The aircraft rocked with punches from the explosions.

"
Now!
" Charlie shouted, and the ScatterCat pulled apart just before the sky filled with awesome fists of bursting flak. Thunder surrounded them.

In two parts, the ScatterCat went off in either direction and the guerrillas on the ground hesitated for a minute under their nets of camouflage, trying to decide which one to track. A stolen howitzer on the back of a refurbished flatbed swiveled indecisively as Lanier went sharply to the northeast and Charlie banked off toward the west.

Lanier kept low, rounding a hill, and came back into sight. Charlie exited a cloud of smoke, sheared the top of a cyprus tree, and flew ahead of Lanier.

"You OK?" he asked Lanier through the static.

"I'm fine. You want to join up now or keep apart until we pass over Inglewood?"

Charlie banked closer to Lanier's craft. "Let's wing it apart until we get beyond L.A. International. I hear that it's under siege, and we can't afford to get caught in something we can't get ourselves out of. Besides, the Guard is probably shooting at anything within a few klicks of the airport."

"Right."

The two of them raced above the neighborhoods, the abandoned freeways, the supermarkets, and shopping centers. They met no more resistance. Within minutes they had reached the outskirts of Culver City, or what remained of it. The San Diego Freeway was open only to police and military traffic. The caissons rumbled below them.

"OK," Charlie signaled. "I think it's safe now. Let's do it fast."

"Roger."

The ScatterCat quickly joined, in flight, and Lanier relinquished control of the right-hand module to Charlie.

"Perfect," Charlie told him. "Too bad you weren't in Africa. You'd have been better off there than training 'Cat pilots back here."

"I'm not much on warfare," Lanier said. "Never was. I like being safe."

The ScatterCat pulled into the low, dreamy hills that surrounded Beverly Hills. Many of the hills had been scorched with brush fires or mortar fire. Although the Guard had effectively protected this part of the city, mortar shells were often lobbed in from kilometers away at random. The homes of the rich had been among the first targets of Draco's vendetta.

"Damn," Charlie muttered.

They swept over what was left of his offices. A large impact crater occupied half of where the suite of business offices used to be. What was left of the structure listed at an awkward angle, gutted completely by fire.

"So much for that," he said. "I should've had Cradock and Auerbach take those files out first thing. It's my mistake."

Lanier gazed below him. "I wouldn't worry. I imagine most of your clients have already left the city."

"Sure," he said. "But we had information on a lot of local corporations. I was hoping to use some for leverage later on. It was material HomeCom didn't have access to."

"Well, Charlie," Lanier began, "we'll be lucky if we
have
a future later on. Let's get out of here."

"You got it. At least we tried."

The ScatterCat soared off toward the west. Charlie felt it would be infinitely safer if they traveled over the ocean to Shaughnessy's Nacimiento estate. The Coast Guard was informed of their flight plan, and they encountered no resistance once they made their presence clear.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Charlie asked Lanier when they were well out over the ocean, paralleling the coastline, speeding north-northwest.

Lanier laughed. "Look at this like a little vacation. I'm still curious about Ellie Estevan and Burton Shaughnessy."

"Right."

"No, I mean it."

Charlie, despite his normal extroversion, didn't like parties of the well-to-do. Like Lanier, his own childhood had hovered constantly on the fringe of poverty, and he didn't like associating with people who had been born rich, people who never suffered for economic means.

"You'll like it there. And we won't be long. I want to find out who hit Shaughnessy's home. There's a lot I don't know."

Charlie grunted. The ScatterCat flew smoothly over the ocean.

"And," he said to Charlie, "we'll impress the hell out of them when you drop the 'Cat onto his lawn."

"I just hope I don't run into any of the honchos I've trounced in court. I've ruined a lot of local media folks. They tend to hold grudges."

Charlie nudged the 'Cat back toward the northeast when the coast near San Simeon appeared. Charlie flicked on the ground control.

"Good," he said. "Shaughnessy's got a directional homer on. We'll find it easily."

The hills around San Simeon were low and brown in the late autumn sunlight. The 'Cat rocked slightly on the updrafts of the shore, now that the sea winds had reversed themselves. The estate came into sight behind a grove of mangificent eucalyptus trees.

This mansion was much more outlandish than Shaughnessy's Colorado hideout, perhaps because this was, after all, California, where things generally tended to be outrageous, if only for the sake of appearances. Two small helicopters and one other private VTOL crouched like sleeping insects on the front lawn of the estate.

"Surprise them, huh?" Charlie said with mock disappointment.

Lanier smiled. "Well then, put it down out in the back. That's where the action is."

Charlie felt happier at this prospect.

He pulled the 'Cat in low over the top of the mansion, causing the pines and eucalyptus to toss wildly beneath the rotors. Women's dresses and carefully coiffed hairdos plunged in the wind. Everyone laughed as the craft settled gracefully at some distance from the empty swimming pool. Leaves from the late-shedding oaks danced in the air all about them.

Lanier popped open the cockpit and climbed out. A number of people rushed over, several of them private guards looking grim and disturbed.

But Shaughnessy was in the midst of the group, and elbowed the riflemen aside.

"Easy, boys!" he said to them. "They're company. How are you, Frank?"

Lanier jumped from the stubby wing of the ScatterCat. He shook Shaughnessy's hand as if neither had seen each other for eons. Both had by now been so impressed with each other's celebrity that a natural alliance had been struck.

"Glad you could get here in one piece," Shaughnessy said over the whine of the rotors winding down.

"So am I."

Charlie clambered down from the other module, and Lanier introduced him to Shaughnessy.

Here, only a few kilometers from the balmy southern California coast, the temperature was quite comfortable. The entire party had been outside all afternoon long, and would still be here far into the night. Lanier, used to this kind of weather, felt that an outdoor party would agree with him. At least, right now he was feeling very much like being at a party. Perhaps it was the excitement over Los Angeles that had drawn him out. He felt like a survivor.

Shaughnessy took an immediate liking to Charlie, perhaps, because they were almost the same size.

"You fly that thing well," Shaughnessy said to him, cocktail in hand. They walked back toward the esplanade.

"Thanks. I flew in the war."

"Don't brag," Lanier admonished, smiling. A waiter came out to the poolside with a tray of drinks.

Charlie laughed, taking one up. "It's about the only thing I do really well these days since the practice was shut down."

Shaughnessy's in gear
, Lanier thought.
He'll keep Charlie going
.

Shaughnessy said, "I know what you mean. Everyone here had to leave L.A. for one reason or another. Things are mighty hot there right now."

The party at the Nacimiento estate was easily twice as large as the
soirée
in Colorado. More people had flown up from Hollywood or down from San Francisco for the get-together. Lanier recognized many more movie stars and stage actors. Everyone was wearing bright summertime colors.

He ordered a light tea from the waiter. The man waddled away with his empty tray held at his side.

Shaughnessy directed them to a table where the food was set out. Dozens of people clustered about, chatting and laughing. Lanier wasn't taken aback this time at Shaughnessy's style.

Shaughnessy seemed to have a comfortable predilection for largesse, for gatherings where there was a lot of food and a lot of famous, easygoing people to consume it.

"You do this often?" Lanier asked Shaughnessy.

Shaughnessy laughed loudly. "Not as often as I'd like, you can believe me. This is special. Got some politicos here tonight and there's a fund-raiser going on tomorrow night in Sacramento. These happen to be friends of mine."

Charlie mooned over to Lanier's side.

"Shit," Charlie whispered.

"What?" Lanier turned slightly.

Shaughnessy was silent, sipping his drink noisily. He watched both Lanier and Charlie.

"Over there, with those women." Charlie pointed with his drink.

Lanier saw the large form of Senator Albertson Randell laughing among a gathering of ladies. Lanier was surprised this time.

Shaughnessy said to them, "Yep, all sorts come to these gigs of mine. And sometimes they invite their friends." He snorted. His eyes twinkled, as if challenged by Randell's presence. "I don't even get to meet half of them myself." It was almost as if his remarks were meant to understate Randell's appearance at the party. Or, as Lanier thought, it only meant that Shaughnessy wasn't afraid of
any
politico. Even Randell.

Two of the armed guards came up to Burton Shaughnessy.

"Nothing else coming in on radar, Mr. Shaughnessy," one of them said. Both of these individuals looked quite tough. They were mercenaries.

Charlie examined them closely. Belgians. He looked at Lanier, who nodded. The Belgians were among the very best guerrillas in the world. They were excellent fighters and were very loyal.

Shaughnessy put a hand lightly to Lanier's shoulder. "No need to worry about protection while you're here, Frank." He pointed to the men. "I should've had them back at Aspen with me. At least it might have made it harder for the bomber to get through."

"Right," Lanier remembered. "What
did
happen back there?"

Shaughnessy laughed as if this were the kind of thing that happened all the time. "Almost the minute you disappeared, we got an anonymous call saying that there was a bomber in our midst."

"Bomber?" Charlie asked. "I haven't heard of one of those in years."

"Right," Shaughnessy said. "Spontaneous human combustion is rare, but I guess there are enough terminal cases around to volunteer their services to the highest bidder. Anyway, he didn't seem any different from anyone else at the party." He laughed. "We had a
hell
of a time getting everyone out. The guy was drunk and had a magnesium bomb in his stomach. Couldn't put him out, so we let him burn. The whole place went up."