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  Lanie suddenly could see Crane’s strategy. As well as Mohammed Ishmael, he had induced Kate Masters, the head of the Women’s Political Association, and Aaron Bloom, the head of the Association of Retired Persons, to attend. Ishmael, Masters and Bloom represented the voting blocs in the United States of America. They were Crane’s stick with Liang Int, the real power. And the earthquake prediction project was the carrot Crane offered them all, the opportunity to save lives and property and trauma among their constituencies, or at least appear to do so… appear to care. And Liang Int was, of course, interested in the man-hours and buildings and equipment to be saved… protecting profit. Lanie shook her head sadly. Profit was the motivator of almost everyone everywhere in the world. Everyone except Crane and the handful of people like him and like her and Dan.

  A gong sounded.

  Lanie levered herself out of the deck chair, feeling more ambivalent than she ever had. Part of her wanted to run away from the politicos below; the other half wanted to race toward the excitement that Crane generated and the potential he was gambling everything on to realize tonight.

  Chapter 3: The Great Rift, The Pacific Ocean

  18 JUNE 2024,

  THE WITCHING HOUR

  A huge submarine, its bubbled-out glass foresection like a giant, staring eye, sat starboard of the Diatribe, dwarfing the yacht. Deckhands were slipping out of the conning tower to throw lashing ropes to their counterparts on the yacht as the guests reassembled on its deck. VEMA II was emblazoned on the hull of the sub.

  “Prepare to spend the rest of tonight beneath the ocean,” Crane announced. “I promise you an experience you’ll never forget.”

  “Rift runner,” Newcombe said beneath his breath.

  “Rift runner?” Lanie asked.

  “Yeah. We’re going to see a mother giving birth.”

  “Mother… what mother?”

  “Mother Earth,” he replied.

  Within minutes they’d all been herded into VEMA II’s observation hall. Crane stood at the head of a long table and smiled at the aggregate of crooks and bastards sitting before him. In all the world, he had determined, these were the people who could best give him what he had to have, and a more intensely self-serving lot of rogues he’d never seen. Camus had said that politics and the fate of mankind are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. So be it. If he couldn’t talk sense, he’d put on a show. It was, after all, how he’d survived the thirty years since the death of his parents.

  “I must ask that each of you stretch out your hands and touch the person next to you,” he said. “We need to be sure that this is the real thing.” Everyone reached out to perform the ritual, checking to see that the bodies on either side were real. Legal, binding negotiations could not be undertaken by holo projections.

  The observation windows were locked down, shuttered tight as Sumi moved fluidly through the crowd, replenishing drinks doctored with dorph. Newcombe sat beside Ishmael, their heads together, talking low as everyone else stared at them.

  “Civilization exists,” Crane said, “by geological consent, subject to change without notice. With all the wonders we’ve created for ourselves, we’re still terrorized by the world we live in. The question is why?”

  The room was large, perhaps fifty feet long and thirty wide, by far the largest enclosed space ever put on a sub. It was bare, utilitarian, but met the needs of the scientists and sailors who worked this ship on the edge of the rift. Diffuse lighting glowed instead of brightening the room. The ship occasionally shuddered slightly to the sound of a tiny thump, which the audience assumed to be engine noises. Crane knew better; so did Newcombe.

  Crane walked slowly around the table. “Our planet is nearly five billion years old and still seems to be primordially forming itself, tearing itself to pieces minute by minute.”

  “The nature of life is struggle, doctor,” Brother Ishmael said.

  Crane stopped walking and addressed the man. “And the nature of Man is to try and rise above the struggle.”

  “To deny God!” Ishmael persisted.

  “To make a better world.” Crane returned to his place, his good hand clasping his bad behind his back. His left arm was throbbing. He faced the group again. “There are over a million earthquakes a year, on the average of one every thirty seconds. Most are not felt, but about three thousand a year do make their way to the surface, of which thirty engender appalling devastation. The tendency is to say it has always been so and always will be.” He looked at Mohammed Ishmael. “I disagree. How many of you really know what forces drive these quakes?”

  “Please, just continue with the briefing,” Mui, Li’s associate, said.

  “This is much more than a briefing,” Crane replied. “The Earth we live on is made up of huge tectonic plates, twenty-six in all, six majors. The plates move fluidly on a cushion of hot, nearly liquid mantle. Ninety-five percent of all earthquakes occur in what are called subduction zones where the moving plates crash into each other, the plates that hold the oceans of the world literally crawling beneath the continental plates.”

  The sub shook again, this time more noticeably. “Is there some… problem with the boat?” asked Rita Gabler, a hand to her throat.

  “No, none at all. Let me return to the subject. The oceanic plates are feeding themselves back into the core once they subduct beneath the continents,” he said, his voice louder now to get over the nearly continual banging and shivering of the VEMA. He could feel the tension thick in the air, smiled at the sweat that had broken out on the faces of those in his audience. “Once the plate subducts, it begins a long process of transformation that results in… this.”

  He hit a console button on the table, the metal curtains sliding open immediately. Before them, the ocean glowed red-orange, brilliant. Belches of lava rose between the peaks of undersea mountains in an unbroken line as far as they could see in either direction, and they could see fire for many miles. The participants were hushed to silence in the face of magnificent turmoil on a planetary scale. This was how Crane wanted his audience—humbled.

  “Rebirth!” Crane said loudly, moving right up to the window and pointing out with his good hand. “What you are looking at is the Earth repairing itself. Basaltic magma is rising from the asthenosphere and forcing itself between those incredible peaks and valleys beneath you only to cool in the ocean waters, form more peaks, then push the plate thousands of miles into more subduction.”

  VEMA shook hard, for the rebirth of the planet was accompanied by continual earthquakes.

  “Is it… dangerous for us here?” Mr. Li asked, his even tone betraying no emotion.

  “Only if we walk outside,” Crane said, laughing. He turned to watch the beating heart of the Earth Mother that had indirectly killed his own mother. They were five hundred yards from the plasmic rift, the Pacific Rift. The sight of the orange-red liquid fire filled him with awe and anger, and he let his emotions spill over before turning back to the people he needed if ever he was to tame that fire.

  “Come to the window,” he urged them. “Come look at the open wound that gives much, but causes humanity such pain and heartache.”

  They rose tentatively. He wanted them to trust the sub, to trust Man’s ability to control his own environment. It was sucking them in, he could feel it, the temperature rising in the room, bright red light from the eruptions dancing over their faces. It was the primal power of an entire planet unleashed.

  “Incredible,” Lanie said, her voice hushed. She moved around to face Crane, her eyes reflecting the fire from without and from within. He smiled, knowing what she was feeling, knowing that she would be the perfect tool to help forge his vision. She was a dynamo, a natural.

  So, too, was Kate Masters, who’d moved close and was eyeing him. Finally, she spoke. “What has any of this to do with me?”

  “You’re my hammer, ma’am,” he said. “To make these fine people do the right thing.” He turned and pointed to Brother Ishmael, then to the gray-
haired Aaron Bloom of ARP. “So are you… my hammers.”

  “I’m not sure,” Gabler said, “but I think we’ve just been insulted.”

  “Let me handle the business discussion, Mr. Vice President,” Li said, making no effort to hide his contempt for his front man.

  Crane continued around the table, stopping behind Newcombe and King. “With the help of these two able people, plus your assistance, I guarantee you that I can produce within a few years a computer program that will predict to the hour every earthquake that will happen on Earth. The program will tell not only where the quake will occur, but its magnitude, the strength of its P and S waves, the areas of primary, secondary, and tertiary damages. We will be able to tell you where it’s safe to stand and when to get out of the way.”

  “Show me the profit,” Li said, Mui nodding his Tweedledum agreement.

  There was laughter farther down the table. “Excuse me,” said a bald man with a red beard, a representative from the insurance industry who sat next to a brunette from the Krupp empire. “Such a program would render insurance companies able to write policies on earthquake damage that make sense. We’ve been studying the figures since we left Guam. With knowledge of the kind you could supply, we could deny insurance in major damage areas, perhaps even pass laws to keep people from building there. In the secondary areas we could legislate building regulation. In existing businesses, foreknowledge enables breakable items to be stored beforehand. It would save billions a year—billions, I might add, that are then available to be loaned to you industrial producers to expand your own businesses which will earn further billions. A perfect circle.”

  “Impressive,” Li said.

  “You’d know where not to build factories, dams, and power plants,” Crane said. “Armed with my program, you’d lose nothing in a time of disaster, not man-hours lost to casualties, not downtime for rebuilding and repairs.”

  “That hurts the building industry, then,” the Wang International spokesman said, and Crane thought of the namazu.

  “Wait a minute,” Newcombe said, standing. “You’re stacking the building industry up against the loss of ten to fifteen thousand lives every year. How can you—”

  “That’s all right, Dan,” Crane said, nodding the man back to his seat. “We all inherently care about the value in human lives saved, am I right?”

  There was a low mumble of semi-agreement around the table. “There… see?” Crane said. “Everyone’s heart is in the right place.” He looked at Li and Mui. “Have you considered the value of exclusive rights to my program?”

  “An exclusive.” Li smiled. “An interesting thought.”

  “This would be meant for the world,” Newcombe said, a hint of anger in his voice.

  “Certainly it is,” Li replied, “but at what price? If we held the cards, we could sell the information to competing countries on major disasters. Or not.”

  Mui laughed and took a drink. “We could make the Earth pay for itself.”

  “On the yacht you mentioned re-election,” Gabler said, shifting uneasily in his chair.

  “Think about it, Mr. Vice President,” Crane said. “It would seem the ultimate humanitarian gesture. The people of the United States see that their government, the government they thought didn’t care about them in this pay-as-you-go world, is willing to go all out to gather the knowledge to protect its citizens. It’d be worth a sweep in California alone.”

  “And what would you get out of the deal?” Masters asked.

  “I get what it takes to do the job right,” he said. “This sub we’re riding in belongs to the Geological Survey. I want it. I need every bit of knowledge I can get my hands on. I want control of the thousands of seismographs we’ve planted over this globe, and absolute access to everyone else’s. I want the Geological Survey’s Colorado headquarters and their database. I won’t fire anyone. They’ll simply work for me. I want the entire Global Positioning System, satellites doing nothing but working for me for the next five years. And I want an open checkbook to fund my operations. No overseers.”

  “You’ve got guts, all right,” Ishmael said. “What makes you think these power boys are going to share anything with you?”

  “That’s where you come in, Brother,” Crane said. “You and Ms. Masters and Mr. Bloom. You three control millions of votes in the major metropolitan areas. With your backing, we could—”

  “You don’t have my backing,” Ishmael said simply, standing. “We don’t take handouts from white men. We don’t vote for white men. We are self-sufficient.”

  “I’m not talking about handouts,” Crane said, incredulous. “I’m talking about disaster planning. Can you imagine what would happen to the War Zone in LA if the San Andreas Fault—”

  “You don’t understand me,” Ishmael said, his voice low. “We take nothing from the white animal and we give nothing. Your silly talk about earthquakes makes me laugh.” He pointed to the window with its view of roiling lava. “This is the will of Allah.”

  “That’s not sensible, Brother Ishmael,” Crane said. “If it helps you to save lives, why not take advantage of it?”

  “There are worse things than death, doctor. Submission is one. Submission brings slavery and degradation, life worse than any animal knows.”

  Crane looked sadly at the floor. “Death is pretty bad,” he said. “It ends everything.”

  “We all live forever in the kingdom of Allah,” Ishmael said. “But you wouldn’t understand that.”

  “I try, sir.” Pain choked Crane’s voice. “I really do.”

  “Why are you here?” Gabler asked Ishmael.

  “I came here because—” began Ishmael.

  Alarms beeped loudly on the Secret Servicemen. “Sirs,” one of them said, ripping a small scanner from his belt, “we’re picking up some form of surveillance… microwave transmission.”

  “Isolate,” Li said, everyone talking now, confusion filling the room as the jumpsuited men moved about, trying to read the signal.

  “We scanned,” Crane said. “There was nothing.”

  A whistle sounded, followed by the voice of Captain Long over the intercom. “Dr. Crane, we’re picking up microwave generation from somewhere in the foresection… in your area.”

  “Must have been turned on in the last few seconds,” Crane said, punching up the intercom on the table. “Thank you, Captain. We’re isolating down here.”

  “As I was saying,” Ishmael interrupted, “I came here so I could move through your government’s webs of baffles and bullshit and present you, face to face, with our list of demands. Though your government does not recognize our government, we do exist. And we intend to be heard.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gabler said, his hands shaking as his men hurried their scan.

  “Autonomy,” Ishmael said. “Self-rule… an Islamic State in North America covering the areas now occupied by the states of Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.”

  “We’re close!” one of the scanners called as he and his counterpart converged near the hatchway.

  Ishmael, calm in a growing tempest, took a palm-size disc from his dashiki and slid it down the length of the polished table to Gabler. Li grabbed it.

  “Our plan for self-rule is outlined on this disc,” Ishmael said, “which is just now being shown to billions of viewers all over the globe. We demand secession, Mr. Vice President. We demand it now!”

  “This isn’t the proper setting,” Gabler said. “I do not accept your words or your disc.”

  “Here!” one of the techs yelled, pulling something off the wall with a long pair of tweezers and running back to the table. He dropped the miniature camera, no bigger than a pinhead, on the table in front of Gabler, who promptly picked it up and swallowed it. “This… this scene was transmitted.”

  “It certainly was,” Ishmael said. “The world now has heard me and our demands—and seen you in action, Mr. Vice President.”

 
; “I doubt very much if the citizens in the states you mentioned would find your claims very legitimate,” Gabler said.

  “Perhaps your forefathers should have thought of that before they kidnapped my people from their homeland in slave boats and brought them here.” Ishmael smiled, then walked to a silent Crane. “I don’t care about you or your earthquakes, but I thank you for giving me the opportunity of meeting with Mr. Gabler and his, ah… handlers. Now, I believe I’ll get some rest in my cabin.”

  “You are a cruel man,” Crane said.

  “No,” Ishmael said, shaking his head. “I’m a dreamer like you. But I have different dreams.”

  “No dream, sir. A nightmare of bloodshed, anguish and uncertainty. Just remember one thing: Your issue is important for a time, mine for all time.”

  “This package you’re trying to sell these fools isn’t your game at all. You want more, much more.”

  Crane stared coldly at him. “Good night, Brother Ishmael.”

  The man strode from the deck, Sumi Chan hurrying to catch him.

  “Well, this is wonderful, isn’t it?” Gabler said, petulant. He took the disc from Li and stared at it as if it were a dead rat. “We could have had this meeting in Washington, under my security.”

  “At this juncture,” Crane said, “you must take my suggestions if you want to survive. Ishmael just made a fool out of you, Mr. Vice President, before the entire world. You can either leave it at that or rethink the situation. All the latest polls I’ve seen show a large and growing segment of the United States population wanting some sort of closure with its own citizens in the War Zone. Caucasians now form only thirty percent of the total electorate. You can use my plan to make it look as if you have extended the hand of friendship to the Nation of Islam only to have it slapped away. If you follow through with my plan, it shows you have the best interests of all citizens at heart no matter how they treat you. If you don’t, I take the issue to your opposition. They won’t mind looking like humanitarians.”