Barry Longyear - Enemy Papers

"I’ve been following him all day." A recording runs on one of the screens showing the man walking into a bombed-out industrial complex. "He went down to the old IMPEX mines east of the city, spent about three hours, then came back to his house carrying a shoulder bag full of something heavy. He just got back to his own place a couple hours ago, then ate lunch at a sort of soup line the Front runs a block from here. He heard the Amadeen Front’s announcement, left his soup on the table, and rushed back to here. Call me Crazy Horse, but I figure the man is getting ready to blow up something."

"Stay on it," says Reaper. The Red Crawler’s signal goes blank and I see that I am standing. Taking a chair, I sit in it and think. What if it is the Sitarmeda mounting an air assault against the Silver City talks? What if Jacob Drews takes his pain to the talks and blows himself and everyone else to pieces? What if both of them do it at the same time? What if they are joined by other nutballs, both Drac and human? What can we do about it! I look at Davidge. He is leaning against the bulkhead studying the screen of his hand-portable.

I get up from my chair, stand next to him, and look down. The screen shows a single frame from Alley Cat’s feed from the Black October rally. It shows the man in the prayer shawl holding the new beam disrupter above his head. "What do you see?" I ask.

Davidge points with his finger. "See this guy? Look at those strings hanging from his middle."

"Arba kanfot," says Zenak Abi. "The four fringes."

Davidge touches the portable’s pointer and the point of view moves to another figure standing next to the first. He is a large, muscular man with a black beard. He is wearing an ornate knitted skullcap and is also brandishing one of the new weapons. Davidge points at the image. "I recognize this guy from the files: he’s a Moslem. These two are old enough to have fought each other on Earth. That church is full of former enemies―Jews and Moslems, Irish and English, Catholic and Protestant, black, white, red, yellow, and here they all are together, united against the Dracs."

Abi nods and smiles. "Were you thinking that if they got what they want, if all of the Dracs Amadeen vanished, in a few days they would be once more at each other’s throats?"

"Perhaps." Davidge looks up at the Jetah. "What I was wondering is if we could get the Dracs and the humans together by uniting them against something else."

Abi nods and looks up at the screens. "That’s what we are going to do: unite them against futility." It points up toward the screens. "Something else coming in."

For the next two hours we hear the reports come in from eyes and zees, on the line and from regional nets. The patterns emerge after awhile. It appears that the truce caught all of the splinter groups by surprise. Among the other reports, Alley Cat lets us know that the rally isn’t going anywhere, but a Black October central committee meeting is scheduled for three hours from now.

Runner reports that it looks as though the Sitarmeda strike is something that had been planned before the announcement of the truce and once they got to Port Refuge they were told to turn around and go back to their home cell to await further developments. In Douglasville, the Red Crawler is still watching the house of bomber Jacob Drews.

From all reports, the cease fire is holding. I know from the cease fires I have seen that on the lines no one is thinking of peace, a treaty, or even a lasting truce. Their highest hope is for a few days without fighting. They know it will start again, some horror will bring the smoldering fire flashing back to life, but for the moment all sides are cherishing the quiet.

Reports from The Rose, The Fives, Thuyo Koradar, and Tean Sindie show all of the groups have called special meetings to decide what to do. Nightwing, whom we know as agent Rudy Klass, reports that Green Fire, working out of the Front-held territories in the Northern Shorda, seem to be preparing something. They have a number of operational missiles and may be preparing to send a little something into the main Mavedah headquarters in the Southern Shorda.

Davidge frowns and glances first at Abi and then at me. "While the talks are on, there is no place to fire one of those missiles that won’t be a violation. Can Nightwing take out the missiles?"

"It would be better if he was four guns instead of one," answers Reaper. "He’s got a beam disrupter, so he can bring them down. The first trick is going to be getting close enough through Green Fire’s security. The next trick is going to be taking the missiles down between the fire command and when they take off." He glances at Kita.

"We have one more zee in the area. Let’s call him up. If the site fires one or more missiles, have them take out the missiles, the site, and the personnel."

She looks up at Abi, Davidge, and me. Abi nods at Davidge and so do I, although it seems that we have given Nightwing and his hypothetical partner an impossible, probably suicidal, task.

Davidge nods at Reaper and Reaper passes on the orders, finishing with, "Keep on it."

Keep on it. Keep on it. After awhile I find it curious that I confuse the human with the Drac and the Drac with the human. Our agents seem to be of a family and the forces and factions upon which they report seem to be of another family. Perhaps the Navi Di is just another tribe.

"Priority!" shouts Janice. "It’s the Red Crawler!"

A screen shows the dark interior of a small room, the point of view jumping and swinging about wildly. "He’s gone. Drews. He’s gone."

Her hand reaches out and pulls some paper boxes away from a wall. Behind the boxes is a hole. The point of view goes into the hole, meets a solid concrete wall, and looks down. A ladder leads down into a sewer. "Damn. I’ll chase him from this end, Peace. You better wake up a couple of zees in Silver City to head him off. His graphic’s on file. Crawler out."

Reaper immediately issues instructions to the Central Dorado regional net and the two Silver City zees report in less than a minute. The first to report in is a woman, code-named Lilly. The other zee is a man, code-named Peaches. They already have the graphic of Jacob Drews and know where the talks are taking place. They sign off and get moving.

"Keep on it," says Reaper.

Keep on it.

I am too tired to stand and too nervous to sit. If the sides had put off their truce for another six months we would have more coverage in greater depth, and our fully trained strike forces in place and ready to go. But as a man once said to me, if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.

The matter of Jacob Drews preys on my mind. We do not know that he is carrying a bomb. We do not even know for certain that he is still making bombs. I call up the complete record of Red Crawler’s last transmission on my hand-portable. Crawler did not linger, but there are some frames I can freeze. Drews’s workshop has tools, wires, and bits of this and that. Some boxes and other containers. "Reaper, I have the inside of Drews’s house on channel twenty-one. Show me something that proves Jacob Drews has a bomb."

Davidge frowns at me then looks at his own screen. I look at mine and watch as Reaper runs a pointer around the contents of the workshop showing how this or that could be used in making a bomb, or repairing a radio; this or that container might have held explosives, or food, or just about anything.

"We know he could have made a bomb," adds Kita. "We know he has made bombs in the past."

Reaper nods. "And he’s got plenty of reasons not to want a truce. If he isn’t up to something, why’d he go to the mines? Why’s he traveling through the sewers?"

Motive, opportunity, past history, suspicious behavior. When the time comes to judge whether I am to live or die, I hope that my potential executioner will have more evidence than that upon which to decide my demise.