The Cobweb by Neal Stephenson; J. Frederick George

Author:Neal Stephenson; J. Frederick George
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction:Suspense
ISBN: 9780553383447
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2005-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

twenty-nine

SEPTEMBER

“THIS YOUR first one of these?”

Dean Kenneth Knightly, piloting his rust-ravaged ZX across the Mississippi River bridge on I-80, glanced over at Kevin Vandeventer, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat with the window rolled halfway down, trying to fight back Knightly’s cigarette smoke. Though the wind blowing in through the rust holes in the floor did that better than any window.

“These what?” Kevin responded with a bit of an offended edge in his voice. He didn’t like the dean, his scuffed cowboy boots, his unfiltered Camels, his Texas accent, his blue blazer from Kmart. In short, he did not like the fact that the dean, despite his high position, made no effort to disguise his agro-American roots. “I’ve gone back to the beltway a number of times for Dr. Larsen, but I believe this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to attend this particular meeting.”

Knightly was tickled. He didn’t like this mousse-haired tadpole anymore than Kevin liked him. Partly, he didn’t like him for the simple and obvious reason that he was an arrogant little shit with a freshly minted Ph.D. and a closet full of suits with the outlet-mall price tags still on them. But that all came with the territory. He really didn’t like him because he worked for Larsen, and Larsen was crooked.

“Well, then, let me tell you a bit about where we’re going today, representing the Eastern Iowa University. We’ll be attending the thirty-eighth—I believe the program has it in Roman numerals, I believe that is ea-ecks, ea-ecks, ea-ecks, vee, eye, eye, eye. It is among the oldest postwar white-slave exchanges in the world, although most of the people we move now are brown, black, and yellow.”

He was just trying to provoke Kevin, and Kevin was too provoked to figure it out. “It’s fine for you to be cynical, but our job, in our shop, is saving lives and making the world a better place.”

The dean began to laugh. “What’s the Rainmaker up to now? A quarter of a billion lives?” He finished a cigarette and poked the butt through a rust hole in the floor of the car. “Look. Don’t get me wrong. There are some good things that come out of your shop, as you call it—people get fed, students get trained. But there are some wonderful babies born out of whorehouses, too. And you, Dr. Vandeventer, are working in the intellectual, multinational equivalent of a whorehouse in which, in the pursuit of legitimate goals, your pimpo magnifico, the fucking son of a bootlegger, provides services for a massive profit, breaking laws, treaties, moral and ethical guidelines—and working against his own country’s national interest.”

“Jesus!” Kevin exclaimed. He’d always been trained to be nice, polite, and not bring disagreements out into the open—especially with someone he was about to spend the whole day with, cooped up in cars and airplanes. He was knocked off balance by Knightly’s sudden double-barreled attack.

“Oh, he does have the best accountants between Chicago and Denver working for him.

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