Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

She stared through the veil at the building. Apparently Reddi was still inside. “Horny?” she said.

“What?”

“You got your pronouns wrong. It isn’t ‘we.’ It’s you that can’t go back to the hotel, and me that doesn’t want to go to the yacht. The other way around, there’s no problem.”

“What do you mean, no problem? Those guys are mean, Leota. I’m not letting you face up to them by yourself.”

Her eyes were on him, and once again he wished he could see her face. She said sharply, “I’ve told you before, Horny, I don’t play this big strong man and little weak woman game. I was dealing with the Reddis when you were still running covered-dish dinners in New Jersey. You go on to the yacht. Call me at the hotel when you get a chance.”

“And what do you think you’re going to do?”

“I’m going back in the waiting room and talk to Reddi. And you can’t stop me.” And he couldn’t, because she picked up her skirts and ran, the intricately decorated backs of her legs flashing under the flopping hem of her gown.

There wasn’t just one boatman, there were five of them, and they were armed. Desert Arabs often carry rifles for decoration, like a walking stick or a rolled umbrella. Hake did not think these rifles were ornamental. He paused on the broad, dead esplanade, but there were no more alternatives in sight than there ever had been. He handed over his letter and got into the covered launch. None of the few strollers on the boulevard paid attention as the high whine of the inertial drive changed pitch when the helmsman clutched in the propellor. Two of the other boatmen cast off the moorings, and they pulled away from the little floating dock.

As they approached the yacht, it began to look like a battleship. Its sides towered twenty feet over them as they approached the gangplank, the masts far higher still. Curmudgeon was standing at the rail and looking down, his face granite. Hake hesitated and looked back at the waves. These waters had a reputation for sharks. But what was he going to face on the yacht?

“Move him on,” Curmudgeon called testily, and one of the boatmen prodded Hake with his rifle. “You took your time getting here,” he said, as Hake came up level with him. Nothing could be read in his expression as he stood with one hand on the rail, open shirt, yachting cap, white slacks, rope sandals. Behind him two more crewmen stood, representing, with the five behind him, a great deal more overkill than Hake thought necessary. Their presence was a threat. But Curmudgeon didn’t threaten. Or even reproach; all he said was, “The others are waiting for you below.”

Hake had never before been on a centimillionaire’s yacht. There was less opulence than he might have guessed, no swimming pool, not even a shuffleboard court on deck. But he could not see most of the deck, only a small portion, deck-chaired and awninged, at the stern, and the short foredeck with hoists and coiled cables; most of the deck space was out of sight on the levels above him. Inside there were no murals or carved panels, and the rails were only brass. But they passed an open doorway, with a sirocco of engine heat coming out of it, and Hake caught a glimpse of pipes and stacks going down, it seemed, indefinitely. Sword of Islam was a sailing yacht. But its auxiliaries looked big enough to drive an ocean liner.

Curmudgeon had told the truth, the others were waiting for him, in a lounge with windows looking out the stern of the yacht. There was more opulence here than in the passages—potted palms, a wall of tropical fish tanks, beanbag pillows thrown about by the chairs and couches—but it looked more like some Short Hills playroom than a sheik’s tent. Jessie Tunman looked up from a gin-rummy game with one of Yosper’s youths—Mario?—and snapped, “You’ll get yours, Horny. You had no right to take off with that chippy!”

“Hello, Jessie.” There were a dozen people in the lounge, and he recognized most of them—Yosper and his boys, the young Hispanic called Tigrito and Deena Fairless, the instructor from Under the Wire. They did not look welcoming.

Yosper hopped off a chair and advanced, his bright blue eyes regarding Hake steadily. Then the old man laughed. “You always were a ballsy boy, Hake. Remind me of myself, before I discovered our Lord Savior—and the Team.”

Hake nodded and sat down, trying to look relaxed as Yosper studied him. “What’s it going to be, Hake?” the old man demanded. “You part of the operation, or are you going to go on being a pain in the ass?”

“I’ve carried out my assignment,” Hake said.

“Oh, sure, Hake, I expect you have. And we’re going to take your report, and then we’ll know for sure. I was asking about from now on.”

Hake hesitated. “If I complete this operation, can I retire?”

“That what you want, boy? Why,” Yosper said easily, “that’s not up to me, but we all got to retire sometime, so why not? I guess it depends on how good your report is, and what you do over the next couple of days. Where’s your lady friend?”

“Leota’s out of it!”

“No, Hake,” the old man said earnestly, “I have to disagree with you on that. She’s not out of it, unless old Hassabou says she is. Right at the moment I think he considers her a piece of his property that got misplaced, and he’s not too fond of you about it.” _ “Why do you care what he thinks, for God’s sake?”

Yosper said, “Watch your language. We care a lot, dummy. Hassabou used to own this whole country. And after they’re bankrupt he’s going to sell it to us. You going to tell us where she is?”

“No!”

Yosper grinned. “Didn’t actually think you would, but that’s no problem. A1 Halwani’s not that big a place. Jessie? Give us those maps, will you? And now we want your report, Hake, starting with reconnoitering the solar-power plant.”

Jessie picked up the cards and slid the cover off the table, revealing a back-projected screen. As she manipulated the keyboard at the side of the table it displayed a satellite-reconnaissance photograph of the coastline, with map outlines superimposed on it in red. She zoomed it up to a close view of the tower and the ridge of flowering dunes, and then handed Hake a light-pencil.

“Pull back a little,” he said. “It doesn’t show the roads.” Greenish dots flickered and swarmed into a new focus, and he nodded. The squat, rectangular spot in the middle of the bay was the solar tower itself. The crescent beach was a mosaic of green and white, the sunplants half open and facing to an afternoon sunset. The roads were darkened by shadow, but they could be made out.

“That’s the main guard shack,” he said, pointing the arrow of the light-pencil to a blotch atop the dunes. “They were in there all night. I don’t think they patrol—anyway, we didn’t see any signs of them along the road. There’s a path up from the highway. There’s cover most of the way, but not much right around the shack.”

“You listening, Tiger?” Yosper demanded. “That’s your job. Take your position; then when we move, you cut communication and immobilize the guards. What about the beach side of the dunes, Hake?”

“They’re completely covered with the plants, all the way down to water’s edge. There’s something down there that looks like a building—” he pointed with the pencil—“but I don’t know what it is.”

“Control center for the tower. Keep going, Hake.”

“That’s about it, as much as I could see. I don’t know why they’re so important—they could just use mirrors.”

“You don’t know cowflops from custard, boy,” Yosper explained kindly. “You use live plants, you don’t have any problem of guidance for mirrors—the plants aim themselves. Keep themselves clean, too, as you ought to know. Or didn’t I read your 201 file right?”