Man O' War, стр. 10

The door opened again. The senator stepped through, shrugging his jacket on, extending his hand at the same time.

"Benton Hawkes! Just the man I've been waiting for."

The ambassador took the hand, almost caught off guard. He had expected Beckett to come back and usher him to a chair. He had expected Carri to be facing a wall, standing, so that he could turn and attack a sitting target. Hawkes took the senator's hand and shook it. He gave Carri a greeting as noncommittal as the senator's, then followed him into the office. Taking the seat offered, he waited while Carri hurried himself back behind his desk.

The senator rustled through his papers, clearing away what seemed to be a mountain of paperwork.

"Look at all this," he said absently as he worked at restoring the desktop to its former order. "I remember my grandfather telling me that people thought computers were going to do away with all this, 'The paperless society'— that's what they called it—what we were supposed to have." Carri sighed convincingly, then waved his hands about him, adding, "But look at all this."

"Well, no one's come up with anything cheaper," Hawkes offered, waiting for the bell so the first round could begin. Before Carri could answer him, Beckett buzzed, letting the senator know his lunch had arrived. She ushered in the staged "working-through" snack, setting it off on the sideboard.

"I apologize for this," said Carri, indicating the prop lunch. "No time to get out these days. Too much to do. Which makes me ask"—the senator notched a growl into his voice, moving into the character Hawkes had expected—"just exactly what are you doing here already? You weren't supposed to be here until tomorrow."

"Well, I . . ." The ambassador waved his hands. His mind was racing, trying to catch whatever angle was being thrown at him.

He recognized Carri's ploy . . . could see that everything about the man's attitude was being engineered to guide him somewhere into something. . . .

But where? And what? What's going on here? Hawkes wondered. Just what the hell am I missing?

Finally, deciding to risk simply going with the truth, he said, "I thought it was such a wonderful day . . . why not drop in on my old friend Mick Carri. We could catch up on old times. I could tell you why I threw a moat around Australia, you could tell me I was finished in government service . . . you know. Fun stuff."

"Ben. Ben." The senator reached down into his lower ranges for a suitably hurt tone. "What? You want to get right down to . . . all of that?"

"Unless you need that extra day to sharpen some kind of retributional tools . . ."

"Ben, for God's sake . . ." Carri did his best to appear flustered, even embarrassed, covering the raging anger that burned within him convincingly. "Is this your opinion of me? That the only thing that counts is some dollar-studded bottom line?'' Putting up his hands in an attempt to look frustrated and possibly hurt, he said, "All right, you want to get into it—fine." The senator pushed himself back in his chair, giving himself more room. Rubbing at his face, he said, "Let's get down to business. Did you cost me something? Oh, yes, quite a lot. Deutcher's already backing my opponent in the next election. What a surprise, right?"

"I'm sorry about that, Mick."

"Of course you are," growled the senator. "You're comfortable Benton Hawkes. Snug and warm in your blanket of respectable ethics. Spitting your pious sentiments down into the grave as you shovel the dirt in on top of the rest of us."

Carri reached for the sandwich on his sideboard. As he turned away, he allowed his eyes to go hard, allowing Hawkes to see the move. The senator turned back and took a bite, then started talking again, putting on one of his nastier faces.

"It must be easy to be you. Everything for you is laid out in such lovely shades of black and white." Shaking his sandwich at Hawkes, Carri snarled, "You take a hard line and everyone just assumes that it was the right thing to do. You're the good guy, you're the goddamned cowboy with the goddamned white hat, and anyone that says nay to you is some moustache twirler in a black one."

The senator looked at the sandwich in his hand. Having purposely mashed it for effect, he threw it back on the plate, as if seeing what he had done to it had taken some of the fight out of him. Looking around him wearily, Carri continued, asking, "I mean, did you think I liked giving you the orders I did? We're the same kind of person, Ben." Waving his hand toward the pine forest vid with calculated casualness, he said, "We want the same things, love the same things. But you aren't willing to do your share so that America holds its place—so that we get to keep what we have."

Hawkes started to protest, but Carri put up his hand, blocking the ambassador's effort. Acting as if he had wearied of their conversation, the senator shifted gears and started in on another track, bringing their conversation back to its beginning point to keep Hawkes confused.

"And so you want to know if you cost me? Yeah, you cost me. You cost me big, you bastard. You backed me into a corner and cut my balls off. And you sit there wondering how I'm going to thank you for it." The senator paused for a breath, then asked in mock earnestness, "You tell me, Ben, what am I supposed to do, throw some kind of hissy fit and hand the media a field day? 'Carri Says: Fuck the People' . . . that would look good in ninety-six-point type, wouldn't it?"

"I had to do it, Mick," said Hawkes defensively. "They wanted to take people's land