Laura spoke heavily. "Can you run the tape back? I think that man who just walked off-camera was Sticky Thompson."
They stirred in shock. Mrs. Wu ran it again. "Yeah,"
Laura said. "That walk, that salute. Under that veil, it's got to be him. Sticky-Nesta Stubbs. Of course-where else would he go? I wondered what had become of him."
"That's horrible," de Valera said.
"No, it's not," Laura told him. "He's over therein the desert with Gresham. He's not over here."
"Oh, my God," McIntyre said. "And to think I stay up at night worrying about atom bombs. We'd better tell Vienna immediately."
They stared at her. "Smart move," de Valera said at last.
"Vienna. Wow. That'll really scare him."
Mrs. Wu rubbed her forehead. "What do we do now?"
"I can think of one thing," Laura said. "We can protect his supply lines, so no one else bothers him! And I know one supply that's got to mean more to him than anything. Iron
Camels, from GoMotion Unlimited in Santa Clara, Califor- nia. We should make inquiries."
"Rizome-GoMotion," McIntyre said. "Doesn't sound half bad."
"Good," Garcia-Meza said. "He is vulnerable, as I said.
Transport-that would give us influence over him."
"We might be better off forgetting all about him," de
Valera said. "It's hot in the Sahara. Maybe they'll all evaporate."
"No one's ever going to forget Gresham," Laura said.
"They never forget what they can't have.... We'd better get hold of that company." She looked around the table as they sat in the flickering television dimness. "Don't you see it?
Iron Camels-the Jonathan Gresham Look. Every would-be tough guy and rugged individualist and biker lunatic on this planet is gonna want one for himself. In six months Arizona will be full of guys in nylon tagelmousts breaking their necks." She propped her head in her hands. "And there's not a damn thing he can do about that."
"Could be worth millions," de Valera mused. "Hell, I'd bet on it." He looked up. "When does this thing air?"
"Three days."
"Can we do anything in that time?"
"In California? Sure," said Mrs. Wu. "If we get right on it.'
So they got right on it.
Laura was cleaning her kitchen when her watchphone buzzed.
She touched it and the door opened. Charles Cullen, Rizome's former CEO, stood out in the corridor in denim overalls.
"Mr. Cullen," she said, surprised. "I hadn't heard you were back in Atlanta."
"Just dropping in on old friends. Sorry I didn't call, but your new phone protocols.... Hope you don't mind."
"No, I'm glad to see you. C'mon in." He crossed the living room and she came out of the kitchen. They hugged briefly, cheek-kissed. He looked at her and grinned suddenly.
"You haven't heard yet, have you?"
"Heard what?"
"You haven't been watching the news?"
"Not in days," Laura said, throwing magazines off the couch. "Can't stand it-too depressing, too weird."
Cullen laughed aloud. "They bombed Hiroshima, he said.
Laura went white and grabbed for the couch.
"Easy," he said. "They fucked up! It didn't work!" He rolled the armchair behind her. "Here, Laura, sit down, sorry.... It didn't explode! It's sitting in a tea-garden in downtown Hiroshima right now. Dead, useless. It came flying out of the sky-tumbling, the eyewitnesses said-and it hit the bottom of the garden and it's lying there in the dirt. In big pieces "
"When did this happen?"
"Two hours ago. Turn on the television."
She did. It was ten in the morning, Hiroshima time. Nice bright winter morning. They had the area cordoned off. Yel- low suits, masks, geiger counters. Good helicopter overhead shot of the location. Tiny little place in wood and ceramic in some area zoned for small restaurants.
The missile was lying there crushed. It looked like some- thing that had -fallen off a garbage scow. Most of it was engine, burst copper piping, ruptured corrugated steel.
She turned down the gabbling narrative. "Isn't 'it full of uranium?"
"Oh, they got the warhead out first thing. Intact. They think the trigger failed. Conventional explosive. They're look- ing at it now."
"Those evil bastards!" Laura screamed suddenly and slapped the coffee table hard. "How could they pick Hiroshima?"
Cullen sat down on the couch. He could not seem to stop grinning. Half amusement, half twisted nervous fear.. She'd never seen him smile so much. This crisis was bringing out the bizarre in everyone. "Perfect choice," he said: "Big enough to show you mean it-small enough to show restraint.
They're evacuating Nagasaki right now."
"My God, Cullen."
"Oh," he said, "call me Charlie. Got anything to drink?"
"Huh? Sure. Good idea." She called the liquor cabinet over.
"You've got Drambuie!" Cullen said, looking. He picked out a pair of liqueur glasses. "Have a drink." He poured, spilled a sticky splash on the coffee table. "Whoops."
"God, poor Japan." She sipped it. She couldn't help but blurt her thought aloud. "I guess this means they can't get us."
"They're not gonna get anybody," he said, gulping. "The whole world's after 'em. Sound detectors, sonar, anything that can float. Hell, they got the whole Singapore Air Force scrambling for the East China Sea. They picked the bomb up on airport radar coming in, got a trajectory...." His eyes gleamed. "That sub's gonna die. I can feel it."
She refilled their glasses. "Sorry, there's not much left."
"What else have we got?"
"Uh ..." She winced. "Some plum wine. And quite a bit of sake."
"Sounds great," he said unthinkingly. He was staring at the television. "Can't send out for liquor. It's quiet here in your place ... but believe me, it's getting very strange out in those corridors."
"I've got some cigarettes," she confessed.
"Cigarettes! Wow, I don't think I've smoked one of those since I was a little kid."
She got the cigarettes from the back of the liquor cabinet and brought out her antique ashtray.
He looked away from the television-it had switched to a public statement by the Japanese premier. Meaningless fig- urehead. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to barge in on you like this. I was in your building before I heard the news and.... Actually, I was just hoping that we could... you know ... have a good talk."
"Well, talk to me anyway. Because otherwise I think I'm going to have a fit." She shivered. "I'm glad you're here, Charlie.
I'd hate to be watching this alone."
"Yeah-me too. Thanks for saying that."
"I guess you'd rather be with Doris."
"Doris?"
"That is your wife's name, isn't it? Did I forget?"
He raised his brows. "Laura, Doris and I have been sepa- rated, for two months now. If we were still together I'd have brought her with me." He stared at the television. "Turn it off," he said suddenly. "I can only handle one crisis at a time. "
"But-"
"Fuck it, it's gesellschafr stuff. Out of our hands."
She turned it off. Suddenly she could feel the Net's ab- sence like a chunk taken out of her brain.
"Calm down," he said. "Do some deep breathing. Ciga- rettes are bad for us anyway."
"I didn't know about Doris. Sorry."
"It's the demotion," he said. "Things were fine as long as
I was CEO, but she couldn't take the Retreat. I mean, she knew it was coming, that it's customary, but ... "
She looked at his denim overalls. They were worn at the knees. "I think they take this demotion ritual a little too far
... what do they have you do, mostly?"
"Oh, I'm in the old folks home. Change sheets-reminisce- pitch a little hay sometimes. Not so bad. Kind of gives you the long view."
"That's a very correct attitude, Charlie."
"I mean it," he said. "This Bomb crisis has people totally obsessed right now, but the long-term view's still there, if you can back off enough to look at it. Grenada and Singapore