Daimon Cluj was an “elder statesman” who was a child in the bad old days when Ceaucescu had begun to lose his grip on a country he had dominated ruthlessly with the connivance of the old Soviet Union. Some never forgave him, or the Soviet Union for that matter, for growing so weak that the “good old days” of absolute order went away, that time when there was no drug problem and little crime in the streets because drug dealers and criminals were tortured to death when they were caught, and when there was no political unrest because anyone who got unrestful was arrested and shot.
Cluj, remembering those good old days, was determined to bring them back. And with the help of some thousands of vicious hired thugs — no one knew for sure where they came from, but there were plenty of such people still wandering covertly around the region, looking for someone to hire them and turn them loose — he brought those old days back, in spades. He established an old-fashioned one-man dictatorship, Marxist-Leninist in spirit, full of talk about solidarity and brotherhood and the people, but in fact all about keeping Cluj himself in power and putting his country “back the way it should have been.” His version of “should have been” involved large numbers of secret police, industry being taken over by the government and making what the government thought it should make, people eating what they were told to eat and seeing what entertainment or news they were told to watch, and otherwise keeping quiet and behaving themselves like enlightened citizens of an enlightened socialist state.
This all went well enough for several months, and people saw trains being made to run on time and markets having a lot of food in them — not a whole lot of different kinds of food, but a lot in terms of quantity — and drug dealers and thieves being put up against walls and shot. There was a lot of good feeling expressed about this. But then the prices of food in the markets began to go up, and the trains, though they ran on time, were not allowed to go any farther than the Oltenian or Transylvanian or Hungarian border; and as for the New Army, the grim-faced men with the submachine guns, it seemed no one had given much thought as to what they would do when they ran out of drug dealers to shoot.
Predictably, they turned their attention elsewhere, closer to home, to the ordinary people they had “liberated.” The secret police — no one called them that to their faces; Cluj’s name for the organization was the Interior Security Forces — ran out of organized crime figures to terrorize and started in on those who were neither organized nor criminals — the people of Calmani’s larger towns, Iasi and Galati and Suceava, who were assumed to be “decadent” because they lived in cities. Those who had no reason to be “living in luxury” were turned out of their homes and driven into the countryside to work on collective farms and be reeducated out of their decadent ways. But not everyone was driven out. Some, the ones that the government — meaning Cluj — wanted something out of, were permitted to stay in the cities…but they had to work for the privilege.
Laurent’s father, Maj now realized, was one of these. A scientist would be useful…a biologist much more so. And so very specialized and talented a biologist would be a big asset. They would never willingly let him go, Maj thought. Especially when things were beginning to heat up a little over there, as they were at the moment. Oltenia and Transylvania were doing well for themselves — despite Cluj denouncing them every other day as malicious or deluded lackeys of the Imperialist West, they were building (or in some cases rebuilding) infrastructures to support a slowly more affluent population. They had access to the Net, and much better access than the poor censored (and bugged) public-service terminals, which were all Cluj would permit for the people other than his military and creative elite.
Oltenia and Transylvania were actually making noises about joining the European Union. And worse, on the northern border of Cluj’s country, the Moldovan Republic had just concluded an arms deal with Ukraine. Cluj had apparently found this particular piece of news unnerving, and Maj thought she knew why. Though his ground forces were vicious and had plenty of small arms, Cluj was short on tanks and had no long-range weaponry worth speaking of. To his mind, a deal between Ukraine and Moldova could only mean one thing — Moldavia was planning to invade him while he was vulnerable. This was obvious to Cluj because it was what he would have done himself.
At a time like this, Maj thought grimly, there’s only one thing Cluj’s mind is going to be on. Weapons. He needs weapons.
And Dad said that the government there was beginning to look at Laurent’s dad’s work as something besides medical technology….
Maj shivered. “That’s enough,” she said to the computer. “Virtual call. Tag it nonurgent/accept if convenient. Leave as a message if unavailable or no response.”
“Whom are you calling, boss?”
“James Winters.”
“Working.”
There was a pause.
A moment later, “Maj,” James Winters said. “Good morning.” He was at his desk in his office at Net Force — a plain office, with some steel bookcases and a laminated desk, covered with work as always. The Venetian blinds were pulled up to show the mirror-coated windows looking out onto a sunny day, and, with one exception, showed an inspiring view of the parking lot.
“Mr. Winters,” Maj said. “Wow, you get up early.”
“Actually I slept in this morning,” he said, and grinned very slightly, so that it was hard for Maj to work out whether he was pulling her leg or not. “But congratulations for taking so long to make this call. You’re learning the art of restraint.”
Maj blushed. The last time they had worked closely together, Winters had upbraided her for being impatient. Maj didn’t think she was particularly impatient — it wasn’t her fault if she could figure things out faster than some people, and make up her mind much faster. Unfortunately she suspected James Winters of perceiving her as impatient…and perception was everything, in the game she was preparing to play in Net Force. Assuming they ever hired her…which would almost certainly be a decision that would have to pass across this man’s desk.
“Restraint?” Maj said, playing the innocent for the moment.
“Must be at least a day since you found out what was going on,” he said. “I would have thought you would have called to pump me yesterday.”
Maj could only smile at that, and at the idea that this man could be pumped without his permission. “No,” she said, “that’s not what I’m interested in at the moment.”
“Oh? What, then?” He glanced at the one window that didn’t show the parking lot. Maj knew that window was tasked to show the view in Winter’s backyard at home, where a small brown bird was currently pecking enthusiastically on an empty bird feeder.
“I didn’t know you had clout.”
Winters raised his eyebrows, looked at her sidewise. “I think I’ll take that as a compliment…for the moment. ‘Clout’ how, specifically?”
“You got a whole spaceplane diverted.”
“I did?”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Winters!” She gave him a look that she hoped wasn’t too exasperated. “You were on the link to my dad early yesterday morning…and no more than half an hour later that flight came down two airports away from where it was supposed to be.”
“Mmm,” Winters said, “interesting, isn’t it….”
His attention was on the little brown bird again. “Go away,” he said, “it’s summer, can’t you see that? Come back in October.”