An Eighty Percent Solution Part 26

"I was dealing seconds before you were born," came the reply. "You weren't bad, but not good enough to make a living at it, though."

"OK, you caught me." Tony shrugged.

"Are you going to tell us anything about what's going on? The rest of us have been on edge waiting for the last two weeks while you healed enough to move about."

"OK, I'll tell you this. The first two were just as described. The final card bore only the line, 'Purchase as many puts on major corporations on next Friday as you can.'"

"We move on Friday? What's the target?"

"You will find out next Wednesday, just like all the rest. I need to talk to the heads of those security firms, and one other, first."

"If I were childish, I'd say that Wednesday is still ten days' off."

Tony smiled as he pushed through the street level crowds. "You're right, that would be childish."

Christine, as always, said nothing.

Nanogate sat quietly in his study in a 1960s leather wingback chair. No one kept him company. He clutched the report on the acquisition of Marineris Mining in his left hand, unread. His eyes tracked only the dance of lint specks in a shaft of sunlight through his skylight.

Not a single GAM incident had marred his daily reports in over a week. His corporate espionage reports told him his compet.i.tors weren't circling around the lamed Nanogate as he expected. He didn't know which report worried him the most. The lull reminded him of the quiet of a six-year-old coloring on the walls, a teen with his first narcostick, or that calm just before a squall's first gust.

His sense of self-preservation, honed over many years in the cutthroat world of the corporations, screamed at him to do something-anything. He couldn't think of a thing to do about either of the negative reports. Picking up the single malt scotch, he sipped it gently, brooding over his lack of choices.

It was times like these he particularly missed Mr. Marks. Marks and Nanogate existed in symbiosis, where Mr. Marks's advice often complemented his own. It was a rapport he didn't share with his new bodyguard.

Staring off into s.p.a.ce, he noticed the sudden dimming of the light just before he simultaneously heard and felt a drop in air pressure signifying his floating home was no longer airtight.

An impressive man, clad in canary yellow tights, dropped rapidly through the perfectly round hole in the skylight to a rough landing three meters in front of him. The muscles bulging on muscles, so typical of steroid replacements, made the bodyguard a caricature of a human. A tiny Adonis-like face perched between ma.s.sive shoulders reaching all the way up to his ears. On top of all that, the intruder wielded a wide-field gauss gun with apparently expert skill. Before he finished standing, he leveled it directly at Nanogate's chest.

"Ah, a visitor," Nanogate said, not moving from his chair. "I do have a door and an appointment secretary, you know."

"I've come to deliver a message," the unknown bodyguard said in a tone intended to cow any victim.

"Percomms work, too." Nanogate nonchalantly took another sip of his scotch.

"This one requires your death."

"So melodramatic. So who wants me dead? No, wait, let me guess. I like guessing."

The bodyguard said nothing.

"If it were the Greenies, they wouldn't have bothered to talk. They would've just planted a bomb or shot me from some distant window.

"If it were one of my underlings, they'd be too terrified to confront me, and even if they got the nerve, they would've just shot first and asked questions later.

"If it were one of my family, I would've expected poison, or perhaps electrocution in the bath-I hear that's very popular now.

"Hmm...that only really leaves my contemporaries. As I'm guessing, I would say you represent that b.i.t.c.h, Taste Dynamics."

The bodyguard inclined his comicly malproportioned head. "Well, she did say you'd probably figure it out, so I'm not concerned. She offers you a bargain."

"Oh, goodie," Nanogate incongruously said, bouncing up and down like a kid who just got a surprise present.

"Tell her how you set up Taste Dynamics, and she'll leave your fortune to your family. If you don't, she'll strip them to Nils. You, of course, die either way."

"Hmm. I'll have to think about this one."

"You have ten seconds."

"Oh, I won't need that long. It figures your overs.e.xed boss would pick someone that looked like Adonis with the subtlety of a wounded buffalo. Tell your boss 'p.i.s.s off.'"

The gauss gun didn't hesitate. It showered innumerable fragments of metal outward at just short of the speed of sound. Not fast enough.

Almost instantaneously, a cylinder slammed down, ripping a hole in the ceiling plaster, crus.h.i.+ng an antique end table and indelibly compressing the carpet in a circle less than a meter around Nanogate's chair. The weapons fragments buried themselves in the ballistics barrier's impenetrable skin.

The bodyguard looked stunned. Belatedly, he fingered his grav belt, but ceramic composite shutters, stronger than any metal, slammed closed over the skylight.

A thick mist started to rain down into the room as trillions of nanites cascaded out of nearly invisible sprayers. The bodyguard writhed and wiped frantically as his skin took on a metallic sheen. He took another wild shot at his target, with predictable results.

"I'll send your remains to Taste Dynamics," Nanogate said as the nanites continued to eat the intruder, from the neck down, one molecule at a time.

That one of the highest members of the American Mafia chose such opulent surroundings still gave Tony pause. Knowing his host, the brilliant gold of the new wallpaper may have been just that-true gold. Priceless works of art replaced the previous priceless works of art like some sale gallery's rotating stock. The previous Roman theme had been replaced with a Louis the Fourteenth sunburst in the carpet and boulle woodworking in the walls. Even the chair bore fantastic marquetry within its simplistic, straight wooden lines of the period.

"Welcome back, Tony," Jamie said, sliding onto a lounge chair wearing only a long, flowing dressing gown that left no illusion as to her natural red hair.

"Ah, you learned my real name."

"Not difficult with the newly elected leader of the GAM. Sonya was a naughty girl. She led me to believe you were less important than you are."

"You knew Sonya's real name also."

"She knew that I knew. It was a game we both played."

"Hmm. In either case, my notoriety seems to be preceding me."

"Fame, not notoriety."

"Whichever. Both can be dangerous for a guerilla."

"I won't debate that with you. The corporations already know your name, so what's the harm?"

"Good point."

"I'd offer you something for brunch, but I can tell you're a man of action and not one to be put off by the civilities of life," Jamie said, stretching out her long legs to be admired.

"Perhaps in the future we can investigate those civilities, if you're so inclined. However, right now I beg your pardon in that I'm short of time."

Jamie sketched a Marilyn Monroe pout on her face. "Well, if we must. Pray tell, what business can be so pressing?"

"I'd like your organization to delay any of the Portland Metro responses to a specific area for a period of two hours."

She looked at him almost incredulously before she threw her whole body backward on the lounge and laughed in a deep, throaty way.

"Have I said something funny?" Tony inquired in all seriousness.

This seemed to only cause the young woman more mirth. The new bodyguards in the room even took notice of their employer's antics.

"Yes, quite. I can see why Sonya kept you around. You're quite an amusing fellow."

"I can a.s.sure you I'm quite serious."

"Then in that case it would cost...say, twenty million," Jamie said, throwing out a number in such a way as to make it obviously out of reach.

"Let's make it twenty-five million instead to cement a new friends.h.i.+p," Tony said in a declarative tone. "Would you like cash or a cas.h.i.+er's credit?"

The mirth instantly left Jamie's face. "You're serious, aren't you? Where would you get that kind of credit? We used to have to discount to Sonya just to keep her armed."

"We've come up in the world. Looks like your sources aren't quite as effective as you thought."

Jamie sat looking deeply into his eyes, all hints of the siren gone from hers. Her eyes now only held hard, cold business.

"Tony, remind me never to play poker with you," she remarked after a moment.

"As you say, miss."

Tolly died late Tuesday night, bleeding out through every orifice. Fortunately, he had suffered a major stroke first thing in the morning, so the mental release came long before his body's gruesome death. Fear and antic.i.p.ation warred with one another Wednesday morning when Tony brought the team together in Sonya's apartment.

"Why are they here?" Andrea pointed at the knot of four Greenie members who normally didn't sit with the action committee. "Mark only does supplies and Susan is in fundraising...not that we need much of that anymore."

"Wait," Linc noticed. "They're the rest of the members that are sick. Let's see what Tony has to say."

"Good morning," Tony said as cheerfully as possible. "I won't beat around the bush. You've all come here to hear the plan I have-a plan that could end this war. It isn't the perfect solution, but then I don't believe there is such an animal."

All eyes focused on him. His words held magic. They would listen to their witch doctor.

"Our objective is the council of CEOs." The eyes of his audience offered no clue to what they thought. "They meet two days hence, Friday, at fifteen hundred right here in Portland's own Powell's Tower. This council doesn't even give themselves a name, so I certainly can't think of one, unless you want to borrow 'Axis of Evil.'"

A smattering of chuckles proffered themselves. Andrea's hand went up.

"Yes, Andrea?"

"We can't get to them. We've examined such a plan long before you pointed us to fiscal targets rather than executives."

"Minor correction to that, Andrea. If I recall, in the past the plans were nixed because the cost would be too high. I read your own write-up on that proposal. You said, 'While possible from a theoretical sense, the cost would devastate the ranks of the GAM action committee. This makes it infeasible.'"

"That sounds about right."

"Well, I'm here to tell you that the cost hasn't dropped. The plan will require every operative we have and then some. Worse, I antic.i.p.ate there will be two teams of three and a lone individual who'll be in this on a suicide mission basis."

"Seven lives lost? Are you insane?"

"Yes, seven lives plus incidentals. I antic.i.p.ate the total cost at considerably higher myself. I'd say more like nearly twelve. And to answer your question, yes, I might be insane, but please listen to my plan. I'll accept your judgment."

"One other question. Why are we going after executives again? Won't others just fill their place?"

"That is a recognized feature of the plan. The security on these men is fierce. They're guarded by a phalanx of army droids posing as innocuous security bots and by a squad of fast-attack dragoons always on standby during one of the council's meetings-not to mention the Metros themselves.

"All the security and alarms for this meeting place are run off an isolated system, not touching the net in any way. It's an isolated system, so it can't be hacked. In addition to this, we have the physical security. The only access is through a one-person grav portal. To use the portal you must give a visual, DNA, and electrical characteristic scan. The grav portal won't function for anyone but the head executives. If you do somehow succeed, at the top are both automated weapons and live guards all programmed to shoot anyone who doesn't belong. In addition, there are two private security firms, rotated among seven on a random basis, who are on speed alert to any incursion in this area. They're authorized to use deadly force.

"Now, through the help of Augustine's capabilities, I've learned which security firms are on protection detail Friday. I've dealt with each of them individually. Neither knows what our target is. One will have a mysterious power outage Friday at fifteen-twelve. The other will have their receiver sabotaged. I've also found a way to deal with the Metro response.

"There's only one way we can take out the on-site security teams, both live and robotic. They must be ambushed just as they deploy from their bivouacs. The robotics can only be stopped with an EMP. We have a pinch that'll do the job. It can't be done remotely, so the problem is whoever sets that pinch off will likely die in the ensuing conflagration. With the right equipment and explosives, the live group should be killed easily-however, their location is such that it's doubtful the team could escape before backup can arrive.

"That leaves the grav lifts. We can rig it with the right combination of hack and illusion so that we can get past it, but there's no way we can take down the guards or the robotics going up individually, unless one of us is a suicide bomb.

"Once on the grav platform, we're effectively at the meeting room. Just a couple of locked doors. Did I mention that all of this has to happen within seconds of one another or the guard teams will seal the top of the building and jettison it into orbit where the leaders will be removed by another fast response orbital craft?"

"It is an expensive plan," agreed Andrea after a moment's consideration. "As you said, it's suicidal in many phases. You still didn't explain how this will end the war, though."

Tony smiled and explained for two short minutes. Before he even asked, the eyes of every person, sick or not, volunteered for the suicide missions.

"Ma'am, this package was delivered addressed personally to you," the security guard said, holding out a nondescript cube-shaped box, 40 centimeters on a side.

"So? It can't wait?" Taste Dynamics snapped.

"Ma'am, per standard protocol we scanned the box. It contains no explosives, no active electronics nor any molecular technology. It does, however, contain a human head."

"Really? I'm intrigued," Taste Dynamics purred. "It isn't every morning someone delivers such a unique item. Is there a return address?"

"No, ma'am. It was mailed from a branch office of the actual US Post Office that doesn't even have surveillance cameras."

"Curiouser and curiouser. Who belongs to this head? Did I know him or her?"

"We couldn't make that determination without opening the package, ma'am. It's addressed to you."

"Well then, open it up."

The guards snapped the imperv lokt.i.te strips and popped the lid off. The box held Adonis's face, captured in mid-scream.