Arthur Clarke - Richter 10

“For what?”

“Not questioning my intuition.”

The birds had attracted Lanie’s attention, too. She watched them with a frown. “Dan says that you feel it in your arm.”

“What else?”

She turned and smiled at him. “He knows it must work because he can feel your feelings as a sharp pain.”

“In the ass?”

“Yeah. Those birds over there … aren’t they awfully large for gulls?”

“Too big and too noisy. Hear the hum?”

“No.”

He watched as they glided close, their little focus motors whirring—radio-controlled cameras disguised as gulls searching for them. “I think the press corps has ferreted us out.”

The cams swooped low over the deck, news broadcast logos on their sides, then swung gracefully out to sea, making a wide circle around the Diatribe, then tightening the circle.

“We must be getting close,” Lanie said. “Did you see the unmarked birds?”

Crane nodded. “FPF, the G. They’re keeping tabs on Brother Ishmael. My bet is that they’ll try and take him before we dock.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“He should have left when his bodyguards did, right after the meeting. I can’t believe he stayed.”

One of the unmarked birds buzzed the deck, Crane swatting at it as it passed within a foot of him. “Thank you for welcoming us back to America!” he called through cupped hands to the rest of the hovering cams. “We’ll be looking forward to meeting with many of you upon our return.” Then he whispered, “Bastards.”

He waved with his good hand, urging Lame to smile and wave also.

“Look at the clouds,” Lanie said. Crane looked up to see his smiling, waving face projected onto cumulus clouds fifty thousand feet high.

“Those bulges make me look fat,” he said, then raised a finger. “Let’s have some fun with them. Stay here.”

He hurried down the ladder, laughing, and to the lifeboat tethered on the main deck, grabbing the survival kit before hurrying back to observation.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he opened the aluminum box and sorted through it.

“Must be here somewhere,” he said low, then, “Ha!” He pulled a flare gun out of the box and held it triumphantly in the air. “If the world is watching us, then let’s give them a show they’ll remember.”

“You’re not serious,” she said, backing several paces away from him.

“I’m always serious,” he returned and shoved a fat shell into the single chamber. He snapped it closed, and raised the gun with his good hand. He fired right into the midst of the fifteen gulls. A whump, then a pale red tracer tracked upward into the flock, the flare bursting bright red on impact.

“Bulls-eye!” Lanie said, clapping as two gulls, in pieces, went into the ocean, a third moving off, losing altitude by the second. The wounded bird was unmarked, FPF obviously. The bird disappeared behind a swell five hundred meters from the Diatribe, all the other cams turning in that direction to watch.

He reloaded and handed the gun to Lanie. “Want to try one?”

“Can I get into trouble for this?”

“Who cares?”

She pulled the trigger, bringing down a newscam in a white hot rain of shimmering magnesium. The remaining gulls scattered and put more distance between themselves and their hunters.

Crane could see boats dotting the ocean, converging, the curious or the professional turning out to see the earthquake man. Beyond the boats, the distant outline of land filled the horizon. They were home.

“Good shooting!” Crane yelled, the sky now covered with clouds, all of them showing television pictures, people tuning in through their aurals.

“I think you may be right about the FPF coming for Mohammed Ishmael.” Lanie pointed to several innocuous-looking speedboats.

“I’m going to get down there and try and stop them.” Crane dropped the box and hoisted a leg over the ladder.

Boats drew alongside, their decks filled with men in white jumpsuits with white hoods and standard issue face saver masks with built-in goggles. They were armed.

Lanie caught up with Crane as he was about to enter the dining room. “Do you know what you’re doing?” she asked, grabbing his bad arm.

“No,” he said. She had beautiful, inquisitive eyes. They told the truth. “I’ve been making it up since Ishmael dropped his bombshell back on VEMA. I took a shot, needed all the cards to fall right. Ishmael screwed it up enough to queer things.”

“But you’ve got the deal.”

“I’ve got nothing.”

Loudspeakers squawked from all around them. “This is the Federal Police Force,” a pleasant female voice whispered like thunder. “We have been authorized to detain Leonard Dantine, a.k.a. Mohammad Ishmael, in accordance with the Safe Streets Control Act of 2005.”

“I think this will play badly in the polls,” Crane said, watching white faced ghosts climb onto Diatribe’s main deck.

The galley door banged open, Newcombe sticking his head out. “Can’t we do anything to stop them?”

“Is stopping them the right thing to do?” Crane replied, then waved off Newcombe’s angry scowl. “I’ll try.”

The gangway was filled with men in white, coming at them fore and aft and from above. Lanie was right on Crane’s heels.

“What do you mean you don’t have a deal?” she asked. “I thought Li—”

“Li told me I’d have to do it again.” He stepped up to address the uniformed person before him. The G was anonymous—the source of their strength and their power to produce fear.

“This ship is outside the territorial waters of the United States,” Crane said. “You are, consequently, outside your jurisdiction and have no right being on board. Kindly leave now.”

The G spoke into his pad, then nodded. “Two point nine miles,” he said pleasantly, then gestured toward the door. “Is this the only way in or out of that room?”

“No,” Lanie said, as Newcombe, angry, made to block entry. “There’s a starboard door also.”

“He won’t run from you,” Newcombe said stepping aside. “He told me.”

The G moved into the room in force. Brother Mohammad Ishmael sat calmly at the dining table, smiling beatifically. “Do you gentlemen have a reservation?” he asked.

“On your feet,” the lead G said. “You’re under arrest.”

Ishmael stood. “I’m not of your country. Even so, I have broken none of your laws. You cannot place me under arrest.”

“You may make an official statement to the booking robot,” said the G, punctiliously polite. “These gentlemen are going to escort you. You may choose the degree of difficulty.”

Six men moved forward. Seemingly unarmed, their sleeves bristled with electronic and microwave bands, deadly defensive weapons. They formed a loose cordon around Ishmael, then moved in quickly, grabbing.

They got empty ah*. Ishmael was transparent as they tried to take him, their arms moving through his body, flailing uselessly.

“A projection.” Newcombe laughed. “It’s not really him.”

“Only since this morning,” Ishmael called, walking right through the table and up to Newcombe. He whispered in the man’s ear, “Contact me.”

The G filed out without a word, the last one handing Crane a bill for the downed gull.

Ishmael’s laughing projection turned a circle for the remaining gull cams that were perched on the rails looking in through the portholes. “People of the world,” he called, “this is how the white animal behaves. In savagery. In hatred. I wanted you to see why we must have our own homeland. Nothing will deter us. It is the will of Allah.”

The specter vanished. Crane walked back outside, knowing the government types were going to try and set him up for something with Ishmael to take the heat off themselves. He had to get past it. He moved onto the deck, the gulls flying off, and leaned against the rail, staring out at the G climbing back into their boats. The professional news showed up with the amateur camheads. He sensed Lame at his arm and turned. Newcombe wasn’t with her.