Wild Cards 14 - Marked Cards by George R.R. Martin

Author:George R.R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-08-03T15:01:16+00:00

Feeding Frenzy

2

Shad's wiretap of Herzenhagen's phone got him precisely nowhere, so he got on the motorbike he'd bought that morning and followed Herzenhagen's Jaguar to his club. He returned to his apartment long enough to pick up another wiretap kit and his phone company uniform. Then he stole a phone company van he found double-parked, drove it to Herzenhagen's club, and tapped the phone. He abandoned the van, changed and went up the building across the street.

Most of what he heard was junk. He had to keep switching from one line to another in order to monitor all the calls. But finally he heard the one he was waiting for.

"Philip von Herzenhagen, please."

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

"The Quarantine Bill is stuck in conference committee," Senator Flynn said. "President Barnett could resolve the whole thing with a few phone calls, but he's not making them."

Herzenhagen adjusted the receiver to his ear. "What's giving him cold feet?"

Flynn was Gregg Hartmann's successor as chairman of SCARE, the Senate Committee for Ace Resources and Endeavors. It had taken the Sharks years to get him in place. "He's getting information from somewhere else. My guess is that it's the Vice President's office."

"Zappa."

"Yeah, Zappa." The Oklahoma accent dripped with scorn.

Inchoate anger flailed in Herzenhagen's head. He'd made General Frank Zappa, Jr. Recommended him for the job of destroying the Rox, introduced him to the old political hands who promoted his memoirs and built him into a candidate.

Damn it. Zappa's father had died of the wild card. Zappa had fought with the Joker Brigade in Vietnam - he had to have known what a menace they were. And he'd made his reputation fighting jokers on the Rox.

Who'd have thought he'd turn soft now?

"Zappa's got his own connections. He spends a lot of time with Barnett. Barnett always wanted to be in the military - he ran off to join the Marines at sixteen, remember - and Barnett really looks up to Zappa. So they get together a couple times a week, and sometimes Zappa brings along his stepfather, the Marine, and they all smoke cigars and tell war stories and Barnett just laps it up. And what Zappa is saying is that the Quarantine Bill isn't necessary, that if what we really want is to find a cure for the wild card and help the jokers, all we need to do is use the clinics and systems already in place, and just fund them better."

"Damn it."

The hell of it was, Zappa was perfectly right. The existing system was more efficient than quarantining all the wild cards in "Hospital Centers" on Federal reserves in the western US.

The only reason - the real reason - for moving the wild cards into the camps was so that, at the right time, they could be dealt with all at once.

Faneuil had demonstrated how, back in Africa, then again in Central America.

"I think I should come to Washington," Herzenhagen said. "We need to meet in person."

"Who with?"

"The General and Rudo are in Europe. I should see Peggy, so that she can liaise with Rudo.

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