The Light of Other Days

part 1: THE GOLDFISH BOWL Chapter 9 - THE AGENT
When the FBI caught up with Hiram, Kate felt a rush of relief.

She had been happy enough to be scooping the world-but she had been doing that anyhow, with or without WormCams. And she'd become increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that such a powerful technology should be exclusively in the hands of a sleazy megalomaniac capitalist like Hiram Patterson.

As it happened, she was in Hiram's office the day it all came to a head. But it didn't turn out the way she expected.

Kate paced back and forth. She was arguing with Hiram, as usual.

"For God's sake, Hiram. How trivial do you want to get?"

Hiram leaned back in his fake-leather chair and gazed out of the window at downtown Seattle, considering his reply.

Once, Kate knew, this had been the presidential suite of one of the city's better hotels. Though the big picture window remained, Hiram had retained none of the grand trimmings of this room; whatever his faults, Hiram Patterson was not pretentious. The room was now a regular working office, the only furniture the big conference table and its set of upright chairs, a coffee spigot and a water fountain. There was a rumor that Hiram kept a bed here, rolled up in a compartment built into the walls. And yet there was a lack of a human touch, Kate thought. There wasn't even a single image of a family member-his two sons, for instance.

But maybe he doesn't need images, Kate thought sourly. Maybe his sons themselves are trophy enough.

"So," Hiram said slowly, "now you're appointing yourself my bloody conscience, Ms. Manzoni."

"Oh, come on, Hiram. It's not a question of conscience. Look, you have a technological monopoly which is the envy of every other news-gathering organization on the planet. Can't you see how you're wasting it? Gossip about Russian royalty and candid-camera shows and on-the-field shots of soccer games... I didn't come into this business to photograph the tits of the UN Secretary General."

"Those tits, as you put it," he said dryly, "attracted a billion people. My prime concern is beating the competition. And I'm doing that."

T "But you're turning yourself into the ultimate paparazzo. Is that the limit of your vision? You have such power to do good."

He smiled.

"Good'? What does good have to do with it? I have to give people what they want, Manzoni. If I don't, some other bastard will. Anyway I don't see what you're complaining about. I ran your piece on England invading Scotland. That was genuine hard-core news."

"But you trivialized it by wrapping it up in tabloid garbage! Just as you trivialize the whole water-war issue. Look, the UN hydrology convention has been a joke."

"I don't need another lecture on the issues of the day, Manzoni. You know, you're so pompous- But you understand so little. Don't you get it? People don't want to know about the issues. Because of you and your damn Wormwood, people understand that the issues just don't matter. It doesn't matter how we pump water around the planet, or any of the rest of it, because the Wormwood is going to scrape it all away anyhow. All people want is entertainment. Distraction."

"And that's the limit of your ambition?"

He shrugged. "What else is there to do?"

She snorted her disgust. "You know, your monopoly won't last forever. There's a lot of speculation in the industry and the media about how you're achieving all your scoops. It can't be long before somebody figures it out and repeats your research."

"I have patents."

"Oh, sure, that will protect you. If you keep this up you'll have nothing left to hand on to Bobby."

His eyes narrowed. "Don't you talk about my son. You know, every day I regret bringing you in here, Manzoni. You've brought in some good stories. But you have no sense of balance, no sense at all."

"Balance?. Is that what you call it? Using the WormCam for nothing more than celebrity beaver shots?"

A soft bell tone sounded. Hiram lifted his head to the air. "I said I wasn't to be interrupted."

The Search Engine's inoffensive tones sounded from the air. "I'm afraid I have an override, Mr. Patterson."

"What kind of override?"

"There's a Michael Mavens here to see you. You too, Ms. Manzoni."

"Mavens? I don't know any..."

"He's from the FBI, Mr. Patterson. The Federal Bureau of..."

"I know what the FBI is." Hiram thumped his desk, frustrated. "One bloody thing after another."

At last, Kate thought.

Hiram glared at her. "Just watch what you say to this arsehole."

She frowned. "This government-appointed law enforcement arsehole from the FBI, you mean? Even you answer to the law, Hiram. I'll say what I think best."

He clenched a fist, seemed ready to say more, then just shook his head. He stalked to his picture window, and the blue light of the sky, filtered through the tinted glass, evoked highlights from his bald pate. "Bloody hell," he said. "Bloody, bloody hell."

Michael Mavens, FBI Special Agent, wore the standard issue charcoal-gray suit, collarless shirt and shoelace tie. He was blond, whiplash thin, and he looked as if he had played a lot of squash, no doubt at some ultracompetitive FBI academy.

He seemed remarkably young to Kate: no more than mid- to late twenties. And he was nervous, dragging awkwardly at the chair Hiram offered him, rumbling with his briefcase as he opened it and dug out a SoftScreen.

Kate glanced at Hiram. She saw calculation in his broad, dark face; Hiram had spotted this agent's surprising discomfort too.

After showing them his badge, Mavens said, "I'm glad to find you both here, Mr. Patterson, Ms Manzoni. I'm investigating an apparent security breach."

Hiram went on the attack. "What authorization do you nave?"

Mavens hesitated. "Mr. Patterson, I'm hoping we can all be a little more constructive than that"

"Constructive'?" Hiram snapped. "What kind of answer is that? Are you acting without authorization?" He reached for a telephone icon in his desktop.

Mavens said calmly, "I know your secret."

Hiram's hand hovered over the glowing symbol, then withdrew.

Mavens smiled. "Search Engine. Security cover FBI level three four, authorization Mavens M. K. Confirm please."

After a few seconds, the Search Engine reported back, "Cover in place. Special Agent Mavens."

Mavens nodded. "We can speak openly."

Kate sat down opposite Mavens, intrigued, puzzled, nervous.

Mavens spread his SoftScreen flat on the desktop. It showed a picture of a big white-capped military helicopter. Mavens said, "Do you recognize this?"

Hiram leaned closer. "It's a Sikorsky, I think."

"Actually a VH-3D," said Mavens.

"It's Marine One," said Kate. "The President's helicopter."

Mavens eyed her. "That's right. As I'm sure you both know, the President and her husband have spent the last couple of days in Cuba at the UN hydrology conference. They've been using Marine One out there. Yesterday, during a short flight, a brief and private conversation took place between President Juarez and English Prime Minister Huxtable." He tapped the "Screen, and it revealed a blocky schematic of the helicopter's interior. "The Sikorsky is a big bird for such an antique, but it is packed with communication gear. It has only ten seats. Five are taken up by Secret Service agents, a doctor, and military and personal aides to the President."

Hiram seemed intrigued. "I guess one of those aides has the football."

Mavens looked pained. "We don't use a "football" anymore, Mr. Patterson. On this occasion the other passengers, in addition to President Juarez herself, were Mr. Juarez, the chief of staff, Prime Minister Huxtable and an English security agent.

"All of these people - and the pilots - have the highest possible security clearances, which in the case of the agents and other staff are checked daily. Mr. Huxtable, of course, despite his old-style title, holds an office equivalent to a state governor. Marine One itself is swept several times a day. Despite your virtual melodramas about spies and double agents, Mr. Patterson, modem antisurveillance measures are pretty foolproof. And besides, the President and Mr. Huxtable were isolated in side a security curtain even within the Sikorsky. We don't know of any way those various levels of security can be breached." He turned his pale brown eyes on Kate. "And yet, apparently, they were.

"Your news report was accurate, Ms. Manzoni. Juarez and Huxtable did hold a conversation about the possibility of a military solution to England's dispute with Scotland over water supplies,

"But we have testimony from Mr. Huxtable that his speculation about invading Scotland is - was - private and personal. The notion is his, he hadn't committed it to paper or electronic store, or discussed it with anybody, not his Cabinet, not even his partner. His conversation with President Juarez was actually the first time he'd articulated the idea out loud, to gauge the extent of the President's support for such a proposal, if formulated.

"And at the time you broke the story, neither the Prime Minister nor the President had discussed this with anybody else." He glared at Kate, "Ms, Manzoni, you see the situation. The only possible source for your story is the Juarez-Huxtable conversation itself."

Hiram stood beside Kate. "She's not going to reveal her sources to a goon like you."

Mavens rubbed his face and sat back. "I have to tell you, sir, that bugging the Prez is going to land you with a list of federal charges as long as your arm. An interagency team is investigating this matter. And the President is pretty angry herself. OurWorld could be shut down. And you, Ms. Manzoni, will be lucky to evade jail."

"You'll have to prove it first," Hiram blustered. "I can testify that no OurWorld operative has been anywhere near Marine One, to plant a bug or to do anything else. This interagency investigation team you run..."

Mavens coughed. "I don't run it. I'm part of it. In fact the Bureau chief himself..."

Hiram's mouth dropped open. "And does he know you're here? No? Then what are you trying to do here, Mavens? Set me up? Or-blackmail? Is that it?"

Mavens looked increasingly uncomfortable, but he sat still.

Kate touched Hiram's arm. "I think we'd better hear him out, Hiram."

Hiram shook her away. He turned to the window, hands caged behind his back, his shoulders working with anger.

Kate leaned toward Mavens. "You said you knew Hiram's secret. What did you mean?"

And Michael Mavens started talking about wormholes.

The map he produced from his briefcase and spread over the table was hand-drawn on unheaded paper. Evidently, Kate thought, Mavens was straying into speculations he hadn't wanted to share with his FBI colleagues, or even commit to the dubious security of a SoftScreen.

He said, "This is a map of the route Marine One took yesterday, over the suburbs of Havana. I've marked time points with these crosses. You can see that when the key Juarez-Huxtable onboard conversation took place - it only lasted a couple of minutes - the chopper was here."

Hiram frowned, and tapped a hatched box highlighted on the map, right under the Sikorsky's position at the start of the conversation. "And what's this?"

Mavens grinned. "It's yours, Mr. Patterson. That is an OurWorld DataPipe terminal. A wormhole mouth, linking to your central facility here in Seattle. I believe the DataPipe terminal under Marine One is the mechanism you used to get your information from the story."

Hiram's eyes narrowed.

Kate listened, but with growing abstraction, as Mavens speculated - a little wildly - about directional microphones and the amplifying effects of the gravitational fields of wormhole mouths. His theory, as it emerged, was that Hiram must be using the fixed DataPipe anchors to perform his bugging.

It was obvious that Mavens had stumbled on some aspects of the truth, but didn't yet have it all.

"Bull," said Hiram evenly. "There are holes in your theory I could fly a 747 through."

"Such as," Kate said gently, "OurWorld's ability to get cameras to places where there is no DataPipe wormhole terminal. Like those hurricane-struck Philippine islands. Or Secretary-General Halliwell's cleavage."

Hiram glared at Kate warningly. Shut up.

Mavens looked confused, but dogged. "Mr. Patterson, I'm no physicist. I haven't yet figured out all the details. But I'm convinced that just as your wormhole technology is your competitive advantage in data transmission, so it must be in your news-gathering operations."

"Oh, come on, Hiram," she said. "He has most of it."

Hiram growled, "Damn it, Manzoni. I told you I wanted plausible deniability at every stage."

Mavens looked inquiringly at Kate.

She said, "He means, cover for the existence of the WormCams."

Mavens smiled. "WormCams. I can guess what that means. I knew it."

Kate went on, "But deniability wasn't always possible. And not in this case. You knew it, Hiram, before you approved the story. It was just too good a lead to pass on... I think you should tell him what he wants to know."

Hiram glared at her. "Why the hell should I?"

"Because," said Mavens, "I think I can help you."

Mavens stared wide-eyed at David's first wormhole mouth, already a museum piece, the spacetime pearl still embedded in its glass block. "And you don't need anchors. You can plant a WormCam eye anywhere, watch anything... And you can pick up sound too?"

"Not yet," Hiram said. "But the Search Engine is a pretty good lipreader. And we have human experts to back it up. Now, Special Agent. Tell me how you can help me."

Reluctantly, Mavens set the glass block down on the table. "As Ms. Manzoni deduced, the rest of my team is only a couple of steps behind me. There will probably be a raid on your facilities tomorrow."

Kate frowned. "Then surely you shouldn't be here, tipping us off."

"No, I shouldn't," Mavens said seriously. "Look, Mr. Patterson, Ms. Manzoni, I'll be frank. I'm arrogant enough to believe that on this issue I can see a little more clearly than my superiors, which is why I'm stepping over the mark. Your WormCam technology - even what I was able to deduce about it for myself - is fantastically powerful. And it could do an immense amount of good: bringing criminals to justice, counterespionage, surveillance."

"If it was in the right hands," Hiram said heavily.

"If it was in the right hands."

"And that means yours. The Bureau's."

"Not just us. But in the public domain, yes. I can't agree with your reporting of the Juarez-Huxtable conversation. But your exposure of the fraudulent science behind the Galveston desalination project, for example, was a masterful piece of journalism. By uncovering that particular scam alone you saved the public purse billions of dollars. I'd like to see responsible news-gathering of that kind continue. But I am a servant of the people. And the people-we-need the technology too, Mr. Patterson."

"To invade citizens" privacy?" Kate asked.

Mavens shook his head. "Any technology is open to abuse. There would have to be controls. But - you may not believe it, Ms. Manzoni - on the whole we civil servants are pretty clean.

"And we need all the help we can get. These are increasingly difficult times, as you must know, Ms. Manzoni."

"The Wormwood."

"Yes." He frowned, looking troubled. "People seem reluctant to take responsibility for themselves, let alone for others, their community. A rise in crime is being matched by a rise in apathy about it. Presumably this will only grow worse as the years go by, as the Wormwood grows closer."

Hiram seemed intrigued. "But what difference does it make if the Wormwood is going to cream us all anyhow? When I was a kid in England, we grew up believing that when the nuclear war broke out we'd have just four minutes" warning. We used to talk about it. What would you do with your four minutes? I'd have got blind drunk and..."

"We have centuries," said Mavens. "Not just minutes. We have a duty to keep society functioning as best we can, as long as possible. What else can we do? And sir, meanwhile - as has been true for decades - this country has more enemies than any nation in the world. National security may have a higher priority over issues of individual rights."

"Tell us what you're proposing," Kate said.

Mavens took a deep breath. "I want to try to set up a deal. Mr. Patterson, this is your technology. You're entitled to profit from it. I'd propose that you'd keep the patents and industry monopoly. But you'd license your technology to the government, to be used in the public interest, under suitably drafted legislation."

Hiram snapped, "You have no authority to offer such a deal."

Mavens shrugged. "Of course not. But this is obviously a sensible compromise, a win-win for all concerned-including the people of this country. I think I could sell it to my immediate superior, and then..."

Kate smiled. "You really have risked everything for this, haven't you? It's that important?"

"Yes, ma'am, I believe it is."

Hiram shook his head, wondering. "You bloody kids and your sentimental idealism."

Mavens was watching him. "So what do you say, Mr. Patterson? You want to help me sell this? Or will you wait for the raid tomorrow?"

Kate said, "They'll be grateful, Hiram. In public, anyhow. Maybe Marine One will come collect you from the helipad on your lawn so the Prez can pin a medal on your chest. This is a step closer to the center of power."

"For me and my sons," Hiram said.

"Yes."

"And I'd maintain my commercial monopoly?"

"Yes, sir."

Abruptly Hiram grinned. His mood immediately switched as he accepted this defeat and started to revise his plans. "Let's do it, Special Agent." He reached across the table and shook Mavens" hand So the secrecy was over; the power the WormCam had granted Hiram would be counterbalanced. Kate felt an immense relief.

But then Hiram turned to Kate, and glared. "This was your foul-up, Manzoni. Your betrayal. I won't forget it."

And Kate - startled, disquieted - knew he meant it.