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  After eight or ten minutes, the President's man came in. He sat down at the head of the table and put an overstuffed briefcase on the polished surface. All eyes swung toward him.

  "The Baltimore-Washington Expressway was jammed," he said. It was not an apology.

  CIA lounged back in his chair and said, "You'd save a half-hour's driving if we had these meetings at Langley."

  "You've got windows at Langley," the President's man said. He nodded at the general. "I like your new security arrangements, Sam."

  "We try," the general said.

  The President's man chuckled. "I thought your young watchdog was going to shoot me before I could find that crazy-looking pass you sent me. Shoot me!"

  They all chuckled dutifully with him.

  "All right, gentlemen," the President's man said in his heavy, professorial voice. "We seem to have a problem on the Persian Gulf. We keep losing CIA agents there."

  Heads swiveled toward CIA. "How many?" said DIA's admiral.

  CIA cleared his throat. "Five," he said. "Five in the last three months."

  "What are they doing there?" said State.

  "They're keeping an eye on the oil," the President's man said.

  CIA nodded. "More than half the world's reserves are there," he said. "In Saudi Arabia and Oman and Qatar and Kuwait and all those little flea-bitten patches of sand that call themselves the United Arab Emirates. The Chinese have been stirring up trouble for us in the area."

  "PFLOAG?" said the admiral.

  The Deputy Secretary of Defense, a new man at the meetings, looked puzzled, and CIA said: "PFLOAG. The Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf. It's a left-wing insurgent group that's been giving Oman and Yemen a lot of trouble. The Chinese are supplying them with guns, rockets, equipment. They're spilling over into the other Arab oil kingdoms, making contact with other local insurgent groups. But for some reason they've pretty much left Ghazal alone. We think the Emir is secretly dickering with the Chinese. And that worries us."

  "Where the hell is Ghazal?" the man from Defense said.

  CIA got to his feet and pulled down one of the big wall maps. "It's right about here — this little wedge of desert poking into Saudi Arabia from the shore of the Persian Gulf. It has rather fuzzy borders with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and three of the United Arab Emirates. There are periodic border skirmishes — a few tribesmen get killed, and the boundary shifts a couple of miles one way or the other. Ghazal's not considered a good neighbor by the other Emirs. The Saudis don't much like him either."

  "Never heard of the place!" Defense snorted.

  "Not surprising. The population's under two hundred thousand — mostly nomadic tribesmen. They export a few dates, do a little pearl fishing in the Gulf. If they weren't swimming in oil, they'd be nothing but another patch of sand on the Arabian peninsula."

  "But we keep losing CIA agents there?"

  "We've got a lead this time. A partial transmission from the last man we sent in. He was disguised as a Bedouin — spoke a flawless Jeballi dialect. Good man, one of our best linguists."

  "What kind of a lead?" the man from State said.

  "That's classified," CIA said tightly.

  "Horseshit!" the admiral said. "Nothing's classified in this room."

  CIA remained silent, a stubborn expression on his face.

  NSA's general glanced at the President's man and got a quick nod. He made a tent out of his fingers and said, "Something about an entire village turning to jelly."

  "You son of a bitch," CIA said. "You've been spying on us again! Cracking our in-house codes!"

  "Come off it, William," NSA said pleasantly. "You know we monitor all transmissions, all over the world. Military, civilian, friend and foe. Even yours. And crack the codes. That's what we're in business for."

  CIA turned an apoplectic face toward the President's man. "This is the kind of thing I mean," he said. "This damned place is getting out of control, with its computers and its secret budget and the operational agent it's not even supposed to have! I told the President…"

  "The President thinks the NSA should continue to have autonomy," the President's man said.

  CIA pressed his lips together and fell silent.

  "Now," the President's man said, "we'll have to do something about this situation in Ghazal. We can't afford to be kept in the dark much longer."

  "We're briefing another agent right now," CIA said grimly. "This one's going to go in as a Shihuh tribesman. As soon as his circumcision heals…"

  "No," the President's man said.

  "What?"

  "Agents wandering around the desert are very romantic and all that. But we need to get closer to the Emir."

  "Impossible. The Emir is suspicious as hell. You can't sneak an outsider into the palace. All the servants are family retainers."

  The President's man turned to NSA. "Can you get Coin into the palace?"

  "I don't see why not," NSA said. "Coin's gotten into tougher places than that."

  "How?"

  The General spread his hands. "I don't know. You know that I'm prohibited by executive order from knowing Coin's identity. Hell, the President himself doesn't know who Coin is. All I can do is funnel instructions through Key."

  "Damned nonsense!" CIA said.

  "The President doesn't think it's nonsense," the President's man said. "Coin gets results. And there aren't any leaks."

  NSA got to his feet. "I'll get Key on it right away."

  "Aren't we supposed to vote on it first?" CIA said sardonically.

  "Of course," the President's man said. "Gentlemen, what do you say? Do we drop Coin into Ghazal?"

  Everybody voted yes, including CIA. The President's man was polite. He always asked first.

  * * *

  Five thousand miles away in Rome, John Farnsworth winced.

  "That's all for now, Emilia," he said in the middle of dictating a letter. "Hold my calls. I don't want to be disturbed for an hour."

  He winced again. The last shock had set his whole skull throbbing.

  Emilia closed her pad and stood up. "Si, capisco, signore Farnsworth," she said sympathetically.

  She thought she knew what was wrong with Signore Farnsworth. He had a hangover. Too much Scotch whiskey at the party he'd thrown last night for the Rome clients of International Models, Inc. And he was still suffering jet fatigue from his transatlantic flight. She had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do now. It would be the usual routine. He'd draw the blinds to get the light out of his eyes. And he'd try to nap. And finally he'd give up, take a couple of swallows of whiskey to even out the hangover and call her back in to finish the letter.

  Farnsworth waited until the door was closed. Then he reached under his desk and pressed the button that locked it. Another button brought the drapes sliding shut, plunging his paneled office into gloom.

  Farnsworth was a lean, tanned man in his late fifties. He kept his body hard and fit with polo, tennis and handball, and he dressed it in conservative custom-made suits from Huntsman of London. There was the suggestion of a military bearing in the way he moved. He had a well-bred face with a thin, aristocratic beak and a clipped, iron-gray mustache. He also had a silver plate under his scalp, courtesy of his wartime experiences with the OSS.

  The silver plate stabbed him again, triggered by the rice-grain-sized transducer that was embodied in it.

  Farnsworth swore, and made a violent gesture that swept the top of his desk clean. The desk lamp shattered against the floor. Fashion sketches and glossy photos of models fluttered to the carpet. He flung the lid of the desk open, revealing the electronic console underneath. He stabbed the Accept button, and the jangling shocks in his head ceased.

  "Good morning, Key," his desk said to him. "I've got a job for you."

  "It's afternoon where I am," Farnsworth said.

  "And where's that?" the desk said, in the voice of the general from Fort Meade. "No, don't tell me; I don't want to know."

 
; Farnsworth grinned. The general's voice was being beamed via an NSA MESTAR (Message Storage and Relay) satellite, far out in space. The signal was bounced off any number of the legitimate communications or environmental satellites that NSA had bugged, searching Key's various electronic addresses until it found him, wherever he was in the world. Only MESTAR's electronic brain knew where that was; no human programmer could decode it. That was the way Farnsworth had set it up. For all the general knew, Farnsworth was in Washington.

  He could see the general's face on the miniature TV screen. He had no idea what the general was seeing on his own screen. Anything that the computer could dream up to satisfy the identification code!

  Farnsworth listened for a quarter of an hour. He took no notes. Once he inserted a tape cassette into a slot on the console. There was a brief high-pitched whir as the high-speed attachment imprinted thirty minutes worth of sound in approximately four seconds.

  The transmission wouldn't do a bit of good to anybody who happened to intercept it. The audio and video signals had been broken up into four separate channels, with each channel scrambled by Pulse Code Modulation into over a million digital pulses per second. The channels, each on a different wavelength, were themselves scrambled, with fractions of signals jumping from frequency to frequency according to a computer program. Mathematically, there were more combinations than there are atoms in the entire universe. Only Farnsworth's own computer — a breadbox-sized device in his lower desk drawer — had the information needed to put the pulses back together in the right order.

  When the general had finished, he said, "Want to know what my video screen's showing me now?"

  Farnsworth said, "Why not?"

  "An old Miss America contest. And your voice is coming through as a sexy soprano."

  Farnsworth chuckled. No doubt the scrambler turned it into a girlish giggle at the other end. "I think my computer's making a pass at you," he said.

  He signed off and closed the console into his desk. He looked ruefully at the mess of photos and sketches on the floor, and helped himself to a swig of Scotch from his desk flask. His head still ached from the transducer shocks. He'd have to have Sumo lower the voltage next time he was in for servicing. Or take to wearing a wristwatch pager, the way Coin did.

  He buzzed for his secretary. She came in, looking wary. Her eyes went to the desk flask. Without a word, she started cleaning up the mess of papers and the broken lamp.

  "Emilia," he said, "where's the Baroness now?"

  She looked up from her kneeling position, her hands full of fashion photos.

  "In the place of the blue grass, Signore Farnsworth," she said.

  "Kentucky?"

  "Si, that is it. Kentucky."

  2

  When the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini walked into the auction barn, the bidding stopped.

  The price of the yearling in the show ring was already up to a quarter of a million dollars, but the auctioneer paused in mid chant. "I've got two-fifty, two-fifty, two-sixty," he droned, "will you go two-sixty, two-sixty…"

  A murmuring and rustling of programs went through the enormous barn with its tiered seats and circles of spotlights up near the curve of the roof. The hundreds of seasoned horse buyers tore their eyes from the yearlings — a grandson of the legendary Majestic Prince and a cousin of Secretariat — and followed the progress of the Baroness down the aisle toward the auctioneer's circle.

  Nobody ever pays any attention to anything except the horses at the Keeneland Summer Sale. The twenty million dollars' worth of rarified horseflesh that is peddled there every year is about the most important thing happening.

  But the Baroness was something else.

  She was breathtaking in a simple blue frock by Marc Bohan that couldn't have cost much more than a thousand dollars. There was an astonishing display of breasts, spilling over the deep square neckline, and though she wore nothing underneath as the designer had intended, there was barely a quiver as she took her long-legged strides. Her shoulders and legs were bare, showing a magnificent golden tan. Her only accessories were a big straw bag, sandals and a mannish-looking digital wristwatch from Carrier's.

  The Baroness was a compelling beauty whose face had been seen on all the major fashion magazines. A glossy black mane framed wide sculptured cheekbones, enormous emerald eyes, an exquisite nose and a generous mouth with strong white teeth showing now in a dazzling smile. She was a tall, supple-bodied woman in her early thirties, with broad shoulders, tapering torso and flared hips. There was an athletic bounce to all her movements.

  She slid into the empty seat next to Harley Chase III and said, "Give me your program, darling."

  "Baroness!" he said. "When did you get here?"

  He was a large, deeply tanned young man with crinkly blue eyes and corn-colored hair. He had brown, capable hands with little golden hairs curling down over the knuckles. His family had made one of the great American fortunes in caustic chemicals, coatings and oil. Harley was spending it on horses. He was owner of the three-thousand-acre Elysium Farm in the heart of Kentucky's blue-grass country, breeder of some of the choicest Thoroughbreds on the racing scene and owner of Sea King, the fabulous super-horse who seemed destined to go down in history along with Man O' War and Secretariat.

  "About a half-hour ago," she said. "I put down my jet at the airstrip near South Elkhorn."

  "Baroness!" he said, shocked. "That strip won't take jets!"

  She laughed. "It will the way I fly them, darling. The Whitneys and Phippses and all those people can have those Cessnas and Beechcrafts and things they fly here!"

  He laughed with her. "Beautiful, you're a marvel!"

  She riffled through the program. "What's going on, Harley darling?"

  The auctioneer had started up again. He pulled at his bow tie and said, "Two-sixty, two-sixty, d'ya want him at two-sixty…"

  A big, swarthy, gray-curled man in a silk suit raised a finger, and a hum went through the onlookers. The auctioneer smiled happily and said, "We've got two-sixty, will you go two-seventy?"

  Harley leaned over and said, "That's Narayan Lal, the shipping magnate."

  "I've met him, darling. Extraordinary man! His house is full of furniture that he has carved for him by hand. Hundreds of thousands of pounds worth! He says he won't sit in a chair that's been owned by someone else."

  "Lal's after the yearling, but he won't get it. The Japanese syndicate wants it too, and they have all the money in the world. Word has it that they're willing to go up to a million."

  "Look at those sickle hocks," she said scornfully. "That horse isn't worth a million."

  "The Japanese don't care. They just want to buy everything up."

  She was running her finger down the page. "Ah, here's the one I want. Royal Rondo out of Soothsayer. Beautiful little filly! She's going to be up next. I got here just in time."

  He cleared his throat. "Baroness, I know you haven't had time to leave a certified check at the cashier's office. I've got three quarters of a million on deposit for this sale. If you've got your heart set on Royal Rondo, I'll be glad to back you…"

  She patted his hand. "That's sweet of you, Harley darling, but I don't want to leave you short. There won't be any problem about my bid. They'll honor it without a deposit."

  The crowd was buzzing now, waiting for the next act in the drama. The Japanese were remaining silent, and the auctioneer had stalled as long as he could. He raised the hammer.

  Penelope located the little group of Japanese businessmen high in the stands. They were conferring, their heads together. Finally, one of them leaned over and tapped the shoulder of the young American who was their agent. He was sweating. Penelope didn't blame him. He got five percent of the bid, and if the Japanese chickened out, he was going to lose his entire commission. His Japanese employer whispered in his ear. He grinned, and raised his program once, twice, three times.

  "I have three hundred thousand," the auctioneer said. He waited, but there was no further resp
onse from Narayan Lal. The Japanese had signified their determination by jumping the bid. Lal knew they'd go as high as they had to. There was no point in bidding them up.

  The gavel slammed down. "Sold for three hundred thousand!" the auctioneer said. The handler led the yearling off, and they brought Royal Rondo into the ring.

  She was a beautiful filly — a glossy chestnut with a blond mane and tail. She had a spectacular head, with large eyes and a dished face that showed her Arabian ancestry. She had a fine spirit too, with a high, prancing step and an alert, graceful carriage.

  The auctioneer looked over the edge of his tall podium and peered down into the ring with evident satisfaction. His attention was distracted by a small wiry Japanese in a neat linen suit, trying to climb over the braided rope. A couple of grooms waved him off, but he shook his head and walked around to the steps leading to the podium.

  "What're those Japanese up to now?" Harley rumbled.

  "That's my Japanese, darling," the Baroness said. "Tommy Sumo, my fashion coordinator."

  Sumo was talking earnestly to the auctioneer. The auctioneer listened, his hand covering the microphone. He nodded when Sumo showed him some kind of paper, and his eyes scanned the rows of seats. The old man's eyes came fractionally to rest on the Baroness, and swept on before the audience could tell who he had identified.

  "Penelope, what are you up to?" Harley said.

  "You'll see, darling."

  The auctioneer uncovered the microphone. A scratchy sound came from the loudspeakers scattered throughout the vast auditorium.

  "I have an opening bid of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," the auctioneer said in a hushed voice.

  The crowd buzzed. Nobody had ever placed a quarter-million dollar opener on any filly before. Somebody was showing that they were very, very serious.

  Harley's eyes goggled. "You?" he said.

  Penelope didn't bother to answer. There was a flurry of movement in the little knot of sycophants around Narayan Lal. The shipping magnate raised a thick finger.