She began rouging her lips. "Gresham, we have to figure how to hustle those Azanians. They're old-fashioned, funny about information. They wouldn't let me near their damned telex, and they'll want to clear everything with Pretoria."
"We don't need them," he said.
"We do if we want to reach the Net! And they'll want to see the tape first-they'll learn everything."
He shook his head. "Laura, look around you."
She put down the mirror and humored him. They were in a . dome. Fabric over metal ribs and chicken wire.
"You're sitting under a satellite dish," he told her.
She was stunned. "You access satellites?"
"How the hell else do you touch the Net from the middle of the Sahara? The coverage is spotty, but during the right tracking times you can make a pass."
"How can you do that? Where does the money come from?" An awful thought struck her. "Gresham, are you running a data haven?"
"No. I used to deal with them, though. All the time." He thought about it. "Maybe I should start my own haven now.
The competition's down, and I could use the bread."
"Don't do it. Don't even think it."
"You must know that biz pretty well. You could be my adviser." The joke fell completely flat. He looked at her, meditatively. "You'd come right after me, wouldn't you.
You and your little legions of straight-arrow corporate people."
She said nothing.
"Sorry," he said. "It hardly matters at the moment... .I wouldn't want to send this tape to a data haven anyway."
"What do you mean? Where would you send it?"
"To Vienna, of course. Let 'em see that I know-that I've got the goods on 'em. FACT has the Bomb, and they've blackmailed Vienna. So Vienna cut a deal with them-let 'em beat the crap out of the havens, while they covered up for nuclear terrorists. Vienna's failed, and I know they've failed.
To shut me up, they might try to hunt me down and kill me, but I've gotten pretty good at avoiding that. With any luck they'd buy me off instead. Then leave me alone-the way they've left Mali alone."
"That's not enough! Everyone must know. The whole world."
Gresham shook his head. "I think we could hustle Vienna, if we play it right. They don't mind buying people when they have to. They'll pay for our silence. More than you might think. "
She held the mirror-to her face. "I'm sorry, Gresham. I simply, truly don't care about Vienna or its money. That's not who I am. I care about the world I have to live in."
"I don't live in your world," he told her. "Too bad if that makes me sound crass. But I can tell you this much-if you want to go back, and be-who-you-are, and live your cozy life in that whole world of yours, you'd better not try to kick its jams out. Maybe I could survive a stunt like that, ducking and dodging out here in the desert, but I don't think you could.
The world doesn't give a shit how noble your motives are- it'll roll right over you.. That's how it works." He was lecturing her. "You can hustle-cut a corner here, a corner there-but you can't tackle the world...."
She examined her hair in the mirror. Wild prison hair.
She'd washed it in the Azanian camp and the dry heat had fluffed it out. It stood up all over her head, like an explosion.
He kept after her. "It's no use even trying. The Net will never run this tape, Laura. News services never run tapes of terrorist hostages. Except for Vienna, who knows it's true, everyone will think it's wild bullshit. That you're speaking under duress, or that the whole thing is bogus."
"You took tape of that nuclear test site, didn't you?" she said. "You can tag it on to my statement. Let's see 'em refute that one!"
"I'll do that, certainly-but they could refute it anyway."
"You've heard my story," she told him. "I made you believe it, didn't I? It happened, Gresham. It's the truth."
"I know it is." He handed her a leather canteen.
"I can do it," she told him, feeling brittle. "Tackle the world. Not just some little corner of-it, but the whole great grinding mass of it. I know I can do it. I'm good at it."
"Vienna will step on it."
"It's gonna step on Vienna." She squeezed a stream of canteen water into her mouth and shoved the makeup kit out of camera range. She set the canteen by her knee.
"It's too big for me to hold anymore," she said. "I've got to tell it. Now. That's all I know." At the sight of the camera, something was rising up within her, adrenaline-wild and strong. Electric. All that fear and weirdness and pain, packed down in an iron casing. "Put me on tape, Gresham.
I'm ready. Go."
"You're on."
She looked into the world's glass eye. "My name is Laura
Day Webster. I'm gonna start with what happened to me on the Ali Khamenei out of Singapore ... "
She became pure glass, a conduit. No script, she was winging it, but it came out pure and strong. Like it would carry her forever. The truth, pouring through.
Gresham interrupted her with questions. He had a prepared list of them. Sharp, to the point. It was like he was stabbing her. It should have hurt, but it only broke open the flow. She reached some level that she'd never touched before. An ec- stasy, pure fluid art. Possession.
She couldn't keep that edge. It was timeless while she had it, but then she could feel it go. She was hoarse and she began stumbling a little. Sliding off at the edges, passion slipping into babble.
"That's it," he said at last.
"Repeat the question?"
"I don't have any more. That's it. It's over." He shut off the camera.
"Oh." She wiped her palms on the carpet, absently.
Drenched. "How long was it?"
"You talked for ninety minutes. I think I can edit it down to an hour."
Ninety minutes. It had felt like ten. "How was I?"
"Amazing." He was respectful. "That business when they buzzed the camp-that's the sort of thing nobody could fake."
She was puzzled. "What?
"You know. When the jets came over just now." He stared at her. "Jets. The Malians just buzzed the camp."
"I didn't even hear it."
"Well, you looked up, Laura. And you waited. Then you went right on talking."
"The demon had me," she said. "I don't even know what the hell I said." She touched her cheek. It came away black with mascara. Of course-she'd been weeping. "I've run my makeup all over my goddamn face! And you let me."
"Cinema verite," he said. "It's real. Raw and teal. Like a live grenade."
"Then throw it," she told him. Giddily. She let herself go and fell back where she sat. Her head hit a buried rock under the carpet, but the dull jolt of pain seemed a central part of the experience.
"I didn't know it would be like this," he said. There was real fear in his voice. It was as if, for the first time, he had realized he had something to lose. "It might just happen-it could get loose in the Net. People might really believe it."
He shifted uneasily where he sat. "I've gotta figure the angles first. What if Vienna falls? That would be great, but they might just reform and come back with bigger teeth this time. In which case I've fucked myself and everything I've tried to create here. Crap like that can happen, when you throw live grenades."
"It has to get loose," she said passionately. "It will get loose, sometime. FACT knows, Vienna knows, maybe even governments.... A secret this huge is bound to come out, sooner or later. It's not just our doing. We just happen to be the people on the spot."
"I like that line of reasoning, Laura. It'll sound good if they catch us."
"That doesn't matter. Anyway, they can't touch us, if everybody learns the truth! Come on, Gresham! You've got goddamn satellites, think of a way to get through, damn it!"
He sighed. "I already have," he said. He got to his feet and walked past her, unrolling a spool of cable. After a moment she rose on one elbow and looked out the triangular pie slice of door, after him. It was late afternoon now, and the Tuaregs were throwing two of the domes onto their backs.