Chapter 38
Amapa
"Any man with a prosthetic charisma is undoubtedly a liar in other respects too."
-SOLOMON SHORT
Amapa was a place of nasty surprises.
While the Brazilian ambassador and his entourage were debarking through the forward ramp, a service crew was loading additional instruments, probes, and supplies through one of the aft access bays. Once aboard, several of the service crew disappeared into an inaccessible maintenance corridor and were not seen again.
Shortly after that, a minor problem developed in one of the starboard ballast assemblies, and Captain Harbaugh postponed lift-off until the maintenance team could double-check the rigging. After waiting impatiently in the lounge for fifteen minutes, Lizard tapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go," she whispered.
"Huh?" I looked up from the copy of Newsleak I was leafing through. The federal government had finally concluded its case against the Manhattan Twenty, a Japanese-American conglomerate that had bilked thousands of investors out of billions of plastic dollars with a phony reclamation plan for Manhattan Island. I had been looking through the pictures of the defendants to see if either Mr. Takahara or Alan Wise was there. Neither was.
I assumed that Mr. Takahara was too smart to get caught, and Alan Wise had probably been thrown back because he was too small. Sooner or later, I'd have to put a query into the network and find out what had happened to Mr. Wise.
"Come on," she repeated. There was an edge of impatience in her tone.
"Go where? I'm not through with the article." I held up the magazine so Lizard could see. The pictures of the real Manhattan reclamation project were both extraordinary and inspiring.
Lizard didn't even look at the magazine. She just bent down lower and whispered something amazing in my ear. What was equally amazing was the fact that I could still blush. I must have turned so red I could have stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue.
I managed to gulp out a yes, forgot the magazine, staggered to my feet, and slobbered hungrily after her. I was lucky I didn't step on my tongue. But instead of turning left toward our cabin, she turned right, looked both ways, and pulled open an access door to a service bay. I followed her up a ladder, down a Spartan passageway, and into-
I recognized Dr. Zymph immediately. She looked tired, but determined. The first time I'd seen her, I'd thought she looked like a truck driver; she still looked like a truck driver, but now she was one who'd just driven from New York to San Diego and back without stopping to pee. Beside her stood Uncle Ira—General Wallachstein; still bald, still grim, and probably still carrying the same grudge. He was wearing a plain non-military jumpsuit.
Captain Harbaugh was there too, but only a few other members of the scientific mission were present. All of the military officers were in attendance. I noticed that General Danny Anderson, Duke's son, was also there, also in a non-military jumpsuit. That was a surprise. He was standing next to Uncle Ira, looking like a slab of human concrete. If anything, his shoulders had gotten broader than before. The man was all chest and cheekbones. He must have worked out with heifers instead of barbells.
"What the-?"
"Shh," said Lizard. She pulled me around to a place at the front of the bay. I glanced around quickly. We were standing under the towering silver bags of helium that lifted the Bosch. I looked up. And up. And up. I couldn't see the top of the bags. They disappeared into the soft yellow haze of distance. There were work lights up there, but they could just as easily have been stars.
"All right," said Uncle Ira. "Everybody's here. Let's go to work. We don't have a lot of time.
"The scientific mission you are going on is legitimate, never forget that, but it's also the cover for a major military operation as well. The mission is classified Double-Q, Red Status. With a flag.
"The flag means that certain aspects of this mission have also been kept secret-at the President's request-from certain members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'll say this in the clear. General Wainright knows only that there is a military component to this operation. He has been told that it is merely a security precaution, because that is what we want him to think. He does not know what orders you are about to be given." Uncle Ira looked as grim as I'd ever seen him. "He will never know your orders, nor will anyone else, because all of your orders are being delivered verbally. Nothing has been written down. Nothing is going to be written alown. And that is your first order. Do not put anything in writing that pertains to this operation.
"Other than the President of the United States, the only people in the world who know of the existence of the military aspects of this mission are right here, right now, in this room. We are it. Nobody else in the United States government knows. Nobody in the North American Operations Authority knows. In particular, and most important, nobody in the Brazilian government is even aware that I am on board for this briefing, or even that I am in the country. The same applies to General Anderson and Dr. Zymph. The fact that all three of us are here at once should give you some idea of how important we consider this operation. What we have to say to you is so important that we would not even risk committing it to paper or tape or any other media that might be interceptable."
Wallachstein glanced over to General Anderson. "You want to add anything?"
Anderson nodded. "We cannot stress the secrecy aspect of this operation strongly enough. If your cover is blown, we will try to protect you as best we can, but there is a limit to how far the umbrella will reach. If you get caught with your pants down and it looks like things are going to unravel badly, we'll not only disavow all knowledge of you, we'll probably have to send someone in to kill you. Don't worry, we'll do it as humanely as we can."
I raised a hand. "Excuse me? That's a joke, right?"
"That's a joke, wrong," Anderson snapped back quickly. "The best advice I can give you is to not let your cover be blown. If you talk in your sleep, shoot yourself before you go to bed. If you don't have that kind of willpower, sleep with someone who does."
I glanced over at Lizard. She looked grim. I had no doubts about her willpower. It was not a comforting thought. Before we went to sleep tonight, I'd probably have to reassure myself about her intentions. I suddenly had a lot of questions for her, but most of them were going to have to wait until later.
"All right," said Uncle Ira, taking over again, glancing at his watch. "Here's the hidden agenda. The United States wants Brazil to formally request military assistance against the Chtorran infestation. We have been pressing them to make this request for two years—even before we nuked the Rocky Mountain pustule." Dr. Zymph touched General Wallachstein's arm. She interjected quietly, "It's our concern that the Amazon mandalas are approaching a state of critical mass, a threshold level of stability that will make it possible for the next stage of the infestation to occur. What that stage might be, we can't predict; but, based on the previous history of the infestation, we can't afford to let it happen. These three sites have already become permanent reservoirs of infection; our best-case prediction is that they are about to metastasize. You don't want to hear our worst-case prediction." She nodded back to Wallachstein.
Wallachstein took a deep breath. "Forget all of the diplomatic huggy-face that's been going on, that's just the usual mix of protocol and bullshit. The Brazilians still hate us and we don't exactly like them very much either. There's enough history between our two nations to fuel a major war-and if it weren't for the convenient intervention of the worms, that's probably what most of us would have been doing today instead.
"The bad news is that the common enemy of this ecological invasion has not united the nations of the Earth. On the contrary, if anything, it has exacerbated all our many differences. All of the economic and political issues that existed before the invasion are still unresolved; and in the post-plague reformation, what we're discovering is that power has not passed in an orderly manner in many places, but has been seized by extremists who are placing greater priority on their own local agendas than they are on the multinational cooperation to resist the infestation. The Brazilian junta, unfortunately, falls into this category.