Jed Culver had scored himself three adjoining rooms at the Hotel Monaco, and standing in the centre suite, straining to listen to a CNN report on the nearby Constitutional Convention, he wondered if he should’ve grabbed a couple of spares. For the overflow. There had to be more than a hundred people in here. The roar of such a large crowd in so closely confined an area was loud enough to bury the sound of the television unless you knelt down in front of the set and jacked up the volume. He’d done that a couple of times, but within a few minutes the background noise had simply grown in response.
Dozens of people pressed in close around him, also trying to listen to the report, but their own cries of outrage drowned out the TV just as effectively as the background roar. On the screen, a doughy-faced man with an unfortunate comb-over banged his fist on a podium, shouting out his words. ‘It would only be temporary… a three-year sunset clause, with… extension only if the emergency requires it. But we need… measures now. We face annihilation without…’
A small band of type flashed up, identifying him as Reggie Guertson, whom Jed now knew of as a GOP mayor from some pissant burg out east that for the last month had been holding its breath right up against the edge of the Wave.
‘The military got us through the worst of this,’ yelled an increasingly red-faced Guertson, ‘and they’ll get us through the worst that is to come. But only if we give them what they need to get the job done.’
‘He’s a poet and don’t know it,’ cried out one of the hecklers standing behind Culver.
On screen, the camera panned around as the auditorium erupted with fierce catcalling and jeers, but Jed estimated that at least half of the howls of protest were directed against anyone who’d objected to Guertson’s proposal to reserve a third of the new congressional seats for the armed forces. As an emergency measure.
The reaction behind him, in the hotel room, was uniformly negative. Deafeningly so. Nobody here was backing the idea. The Louisianan lawyer frowned and tried to get some more volume out of the television, but it seemed to have been programmed by the hotel to preclude inconsiderate or hard-of-hearing guests from annoying their neighbours. He could just make out a rising cacophony as Guertson attempted to shout down a sizeable chorus who were chanting over and over again, ‘Sieg heil! Sieg heil!’ The image cut to a shot of the convention chairman, newly elected Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, banging his gavel and calling for order, entirely without effect.
Culver shook his head and pushed himself up to his feet. His knees hurt and he felt a little giddy, probably from all the smoke in the room. All three suites were choked with cigarette smoke, despite all of the non-smoking signs, and the whole space reeked of wet clothes, body odour, recirculated air and stale farts. The carpets had disappeared under an inch-thick mat of crushed potato chips and pizza rind, and every flat surface was full of empty bottles and paper cups. Clear plastic bottles of spring water stood next to crushed cans of Canadian beer. He wondered sometimes how many people were here simply because he had a proven supply of snack foods and free beverages.
Well, not free. There was nothing so gauche as a cover charge for entrance into Jed Culver’s lair, but everyone in these rooms would pay a price for being here. Sometime, somewhere.
‘Hey, Culver. Been looking for you.’
He turned, looking for the owner of the harsh Brooklyn accent. Or Brooklyn by way of Warsaw, to Jed’s well-travelled hearing.
‘Mr Cesky,’ he called back, over the din. ‘I’ve been looking for you too. Wanted to thank you for your help yesterday.’
Cesky, a short, thick-shouldered man, with the hardened hands and beaten-down features of somebody who’d worked in construction all of his life, waved him off with one hairy, bandaged paw. ‘Nah. Fuggedaboutit,’ he said. ‘What’s money for if you can’t fuckin’ spend it to gets what you want?’
Culver smiled but said nothing. For all of Cesky’s two-fisted, roughneck routine, he’d found him to be quite a shrewd operator. A hard nut, his old man would have called him. Not likely to crack under the hammer. The businessman was covered in suture marks and bandages from whatever misadventures he’d endured getting himself and his family out of Central America. Cesky had said nothing to Jed, but the lawyer had done his background work before taking the man’s favours, and he knew that after a couple of failed attempts, Henry Cesky had pulled off a remarkable escape from Acapulco, right in the middle of the city melting down. He had to have some kind of smarts, and he was obviously tough enough to have come through intact, if not unharmed.
Like all men, however, he was cursed with his own particular weaknesses. That crack about the money, for instance. That wasn’t just for Jed’s benefit, reminding him of how much credit he’d poured into the lawyer’s ‘discretionary account’ – his black-bag fund, for want of a gentler euphemism. No, it also let everyone within hearing distance know that Henry Cesky was no fucking chump. Henry Cesky had somehow managed to salvage a good deal of his personal fortune and what was left of his business, and Henry-fucking-Cesky was still a fucking player. Especially by the much-reduced standards of the American body politic, as they were now being played out in the surviving seat of power, the Pacific Northwest.
The Brooklyn construction king slipped one of his heavy arms around Culver’s shoulder. With Cesky’s shirt sleeves rolled up, Jed could feel the thick mat of gorilla fur on the man’s forearms tickling the back of his neck. He ignored it. Getting inside your personal space was a favoured ploy of Cesky’s, and as the lawyer had about four inches and a good number of pounds on him, he let it slide.
‘What I wanted to talk to you about was them fucking army engineers,’ said Cesky ‘They’re doing a lot of work for the city at the moment and I can’t help thinking that it could be done a lot fucking quicker and cheaper by the private sector, you know. By people who don’t need to cross every fucking “i” and dot every fucking “t”, if you know what I mean.’
Jed didn’t correct him. He knew what the construction magnate meant. T hear you, Henry,’ he bellowed back. ‘I’m a hundred per cent behind you on that. But for now, at least, the army’s a law unto themselves here. You’ve seen that. They’re still running this place, really’
And he had to wonder at that, given what he’d been hearing about relations between the city and Fort Lewis over the last month.
Cesky took his arm away. He’d had to reach up some, and it couldn’t have been comfortable for him. ‘Well, they need to get back in their fucking box,’ he said. ‘Or someone needs to put them there. I heard about what they did with the council guys. Coming the fucking heavy like that. No fucking wonder they got the contracts locked up for this joint, eh?’
Culver would have shaken his head in amazement. Another Henry Cesky weakness was a complete inability to see the world in terms other than his own. He honestly regarded the army as little more than a rival firm, undercutting him on his bids for city work. In their position, it’s what Cesky himself would have done; so, obviously, that’s what they’d been doing when they ‘sequestered’ the local councillors during the worst of the immediate crisis following the Disappearance. They were simply looking to do Cesky out of a buck. Un-fucking-believable.
Jed held up both palms. ‘No argument from me, Henry. I can see why they moved the way they did at first. It was probably the only way to keep things together here. But we’re past that now, aren’t we?’
Cesky nodded sagely. Or in a manner that he obviously thought of as sagely, if he even knew what the word meant. ‘Fucking lotta work to be done here, Culver,’ he went on as they threaded their way through the heaving crush and heat of the crowd. ‘Not just spade work neither. There’s a lot of rebuilding up here, too,’ he added, tapping the side of his head with two thick fingers.
Culver nodded, a little surprised at his insight. That’s why this week is important,’ he replied. ‘It’s why we need guys like you on side, Henry. Things are at tipping point, if you ask me. Could go either way. We could fuck this up, end up with Fort Lewis running everything and doing guys like you out of a job, or we could make a whole new start. And all this bullshit about giving the army seats in any government – that would be fucking things up, don’t you think? That’s third-world stuff.’
Cesky nodded vigorously. He grabbed a bottle of Molson Old Style Pilsener off a tray as it wobbled past at eye level. Whether he bought Jed’s argument as a point of high principle, or whether he saw his main chance being cruelled by his major competitors getting their camouflaged butts into Congress, was a moot point. From Jed Culver’s point of view, Henry Cesky was an ally because, like everyone else in this room, he was firmly in the ‘No’ camp when it came to the question of rewriting the Constitution.
‘I dunno what these assholes are so frightened of,’ declared Cesky. ‘I don’t see anywhere dealing with the fucking Wave as good as us, and we got hammered flat by the fucker. Look at them French assholes, killing each other in the street. Fucking China, falling apart like a cheap fucking toy. And England, it’s a fucking prison camp. None of that happened here, and never will, unless we let it.’
Jed could have argued with him about some of the prison-camp aspects of post-Disappearance Seattle, but he let it go. ‘Good man,’ he said, as he slapped Cesky hard on the back. ‘That’s the spirit. Question is, though, what are we going to do about it? What are you going to do about it, Henry? The days when we could leave this stuff to the insiders and the beltway crowd are over. Those assholes are gone. Well, mostly gone. There’s a few of them hanging around like farts in a phone booth at the convention, let me tell you. But that just means we’ve got to step up. You have to.’
‘Hey, I’m doing my bit. I’m here, aren’t I!’
‘Yeah, but it’s going to take more than standing around flapping our gums, Henry,’ replied Culver, steering the smaller man into a makeshift alcove formed by a couple of couches. He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Might come a time soon when we have to act… How would you feel about that?’
‘What do you mean, “act”? You mean, break some fucking heads? If that’s what it takes, Culver, that’s what it takes.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it won’t come to that,’ said Jed, moving them off again, towards a door connecting two of the hotel suites. ‘There’s no point butting heads with the army. You’ll lose. But it’s good to know, Henry, that if push comes to shove in some other way, we have you and your organisation behind us.’
Cesky stood a little taller and nodded emphatically. ‘Six hundred guys I got on my payroll, Culver. Six hundred families I’m keeping fed and housed and warm at night. I’m fucking proud o’ that, you know. It’s not just about the money or my own family. It’s what I can do for others. You need me to get out the vote – it’s out. You need boots on the street – you got ‘em. They’re my people. They know who looks after them, and they know who’s been trying to take food from their fucking tables, too.’
Cesky frowned and waved his beer at a TV in the next suite. Through a shifting mass of bodies, Culver could just make out somebody on the screen, wearing an army uniform.
‘Mr Culver, Mr Culver.’
He gratefully embraced the distraction. Looking for an excuse to break free of Cesky, Jed craned his head around, searching for whoever was calling his name. Unfortunately, the builder saw the guy first.
‘Over there. Faggy-looking mope.’
Culver saw him straight away then. Aaron Metz from Microsoft. He was attempting to cut a path through the tidal flow of the crowd, and not doing so well. Jed could see he was holding something aloft in one hand.
‘Come on, make a fucking hole, would you,’ shouted Cesky, bruting his way into the crush and virtually hauling the fragile-looking Metz out of it by force. ‘Not you of course, buddy,’ Cesky added, grinning at the Microsoft executive. ‘Wouldn’t want you making free with any holes around me, eh?’
The very obviously gay Aaron was both flustered and grateful, and chose to ignore the upfront homophobia of his rescuer’s comment. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘So many people here, Mr Culver. It’s almost as mad as the convention floor. Not that I can get in of course, but -’
‘How can I help, Aaron?’ Jed asked, cutting him off before he started to babble. He’d learned the hard way not to let Aaron Metz get up a head of steam.
‘Oh, Mr Ballmer wanted you to have this, sir, right away, Mr Culver. It’s one of our new smart phones. Well, not ours – it’s an iMate but it runs the Windows Mobile OS. It was still in development, you know, when…’
Culver nodded and waved off the rest of the explanation. ‘Thanks, Aaron. You tell Steve it’s greatly appreciated.’
‘It has some special security features, Mr Culver…’
‘I’m all over it, Aaron. Thanks again. Tell Steve and Bill, I will be in contact, later today.’
Metz looked even more flustered now than when Culver had first seen him. He gushed and flapped around, and even bowed at one point.
‘What a bag of fruit,’ grunted Cesky as soon as he was out of earshot.
‘To each their own,’ said the lawyer, pocketing the smart phone. ‘I’m grateful for their help, Henry. I’m grateful for anyone’s help, given the mess we’re in.’
‘So how come they’re not here, then, those big software guys? You got a lot of corporate types here, Culver. Really heavy hitters, eh? You can’t tell me there’s anyone big enough in this town to put the fucking frighteners on Bill Gates. He’s still richer than God.’
‘You wouldn’t think so, would you,’ Jed replied, but not with enough volume for Cesky to hear him. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said, a little louder. ‘I have people I need to talk to. Now, as for you, Henry, I can count on you and your guys?’
‘You bet, Culver. I’m not gonna get rolled over and ass-fucked without a fight.’
‘Great. And your family, they’re good? There’s nothing I can do to help out there?’ he asked, studiously avoiding the actual reason Cesky had fronted him – his complaint about getting shut out of city work by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Cesky shook his head and flexed one bandaged hand. ‘We had some trouble getting out of Acapulco,’ he said. ‘Some people I gotta settle up with about that one day. But my girls are all in Sydney now. They’re safe. I don’t have to worry about them if things get difficult around here.’
He cracked the knuckles on his undamaged hand and jutted his chin out. Culver gave him a comradely squeeze on the shoulder, excused himself and made for the nearest exit. As he muscled through, at least six or more people attempted to intercept him, but Jed shook them off with a smile and a wave of the smart phone that implied he had A Very Important Call to make, which he did.
Although it wasn’t nearly as hectic and crowded out in the corridor, he was unsurprised to find a spillover crowd, working the space just as intently as the folks back in his trio of rooms. It was a weird vibe for an old hack like Culver. He saw figures he recognised from both the left and right of politics, some of them West Coast, others national figures who hadn’t been caught by the Wave. Heads bent together, their devious minds were plotting against a new enemy – this cross-party faction in favour of a total rewrite of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, paring them back, and ceding permanent powers of near autarchy to a smaller, militarised executive, all of it sold in terms of the dire need to protect the Republic from annihilation or anarchy or some such bullshit.
Culver had seen it all before. Frightened people driven to mortal foolishness by the extreme situation in which they found themselves. Well, not on my watch, buddy, he thought to himself.
He’d been blindsided by how bad things were politically, when he’d first arrived here in Seattle. But Jed Culver was nothing if not adaptable.
The future of the country was being fought out in this city, and he was a large part of the battle. As Governor Lingle’s personal envoy to the surviving representatives of the civil authority in what was left of the mainland United States, he had driven the convention process harder and faster than anyone thought possible. And yes, he had to admit, to himself if nobody else, the whole push to institutionalise a role for the military in the new system of government had caught him unawares.
It certainly wasn’t coming from any of the uniformed guys he’d dealt with back in Hawaii. That wasn’t their style, and they had their hands full anyway. And it wasn’t coming from the military power structure here in the Northwest, as best he could tell. Not publicly at least. That Blackstone asshole out at Fort Lewis – a real Captain Bligh character, thought Jed – even he was scrupulously careful not to be drawn into any political debate.
But then, as someone who’d perpetrated all manner of villainy in his professional life, Culver was well aware of how easy it was to use cut-outs and puppets to do your dirty work while you fronted the media, the investigators or some nitpicking Congressional committee with your halo shining and hands washed free of blood.
Somebody, somewhere was driving this madness, attempting to hijack his Constitutional Convention, and he’d be damned if they were going to get away with it.
He threaded through the hallway loiterers, smiling, waving and gladhanding everyone as he went. A part of Jed seemed to float outside of himself, marvelling that a fixer from the backwoods of Louisiana could find himself at the centre of a storm that had destroyed so much already. He spotted a few Alaskan delegates he would need to corral later in the day, and a couple of Canadian diplomats, who caught him by surprise. The lawyer made a mental note to investigate their presence, but hurried on around the corner and into the fire escape. Two floors up, he finally had some privacy.
The numbers were preloaded as arranged and he found the one he was looking for without trouble. He was a bit of a gadget freak, if truth be known, and the chance to play with a new toy was reward enough in itself. But the phone call he had to make was important. The connection went through on the third ring.
‘Hey Bill, it’s me, Jed Culver. I got your package. Thanks for that.’
The strangely youthful voice at the other end came through with great clarity, in spite of all the filters, washers and heavy encryption he knew had been packed into the phone. ‘Oh hey, Jed. Good, that’s great. I’m glad that got through to you.’
‘So, I don’t want to come on as a nattering nabob of negativism, but you’re sure this is secure?’ Culver asked.
The man on the other end laughed. ‘My guys are sure, Jed. As sure as they can be, anyway. I’m confident, if that helps, and I am talking to you, after all. Some people in this town would consider that treason.’
‘Okay. Good enough,’ said Culver. ‘So, you can get more of these units out where they’re needed?’
‘Already on their way. Six hundred of them, give or take a few. They’ll be distributed by nightfall. The network will light up when you want it.’
‘You sure, Bill? I understood the net was terribly patchy now. Not at all reliable. Do we want it sitting there as a weak link?’
‘It’s fine. At least here, it’s fine. There are massive holes everywhere else, but the local nodes in the Northwest are good – we made sure of that. You can rely on them. Especially for this. We’ve taken precautions.’
‘Okay,’ replied Culver, almost convinced. ‘If you say so, we’ll proceed. I can’t tell you how important this is, what a difference it could make.’
‘I’m happy to help. It’s important to do what you can. I’ve been here all along, remember – could have flown out, but I stayed. All my people stayed. We’re not ready to give up yet.’
‘That’s the spirit,’ said Jed.
‘Okay. Well, anything you need, you have my number.’
‘Thanks, I will be in touch.’
‘I hope so,’ said Bill Gates, before hanging up.
Culver studied the small piece of technology, wondering how long it would be before the appearance of such things, and the progress they spoke of, became commonplace again. Possibly never, if he didn’t win the confrontation he knew was coming. He could feel it down in his meat.
He was confident of the alliance he was building up here in the city. In his quiet moments, he was even proud of what he’d achieved since arriving. But he knew it wasn’t enough.
Jed Culver understood humans. He understood their baser, uglier nature, the way that fear could rob them of reason and send them rushing over the cliff like lemmings. Look around the world and you had proof enough of that. But he also knew that if led well, if led with some wisdom and just a modicum of courage, a frightened horde could rise above itself and act with outward calm and considered grace that completely belied any inward turmoil. But they had to be led, and he was not a leader. He had come here knowing he would need to find one, and fast.
He opened up the contacts file on the smart phone again and, yes, the name and number he had asked for were there. He did not dial, however. It was time to make contact, but he would have to do so personally.
Everything he had heard about this man, everything he’d learned since flying into Seattle, had only confirmed Jed’s suspicion that he was the one. But because of that, he was not the sort of man to be played like Henry Cesky.
This one would have to be given the opportunity to make a choice. A real choice for good or ill. Culver was certain he’d choose wisely.
The lawyer put the phone away and headed downstairs.