Conquistador Read online

  Their father was a not-very-successful country lawyer; Rolfe’s had been career army, until TB retired him to a miserly pension and a hopeless battle to support a son and two daughters on that and the remnant of the ancestral acres. Which were just about enough for a big kitchen garden, a cow and a tumble-down house two centuries old and three quarters boarded-up, with a few cannonballs from McClellan’s gunboats still embedded in the brickwork. They were all men whose families had spent the last three-quarters of a century going downhill in a world less and less suited to their sort. The great days of the First Families of Virginia had been nostalgic memory before the War For Southron Independence, and since Appomattox they’d mostly been too poor to paint and too proud to whitewash, as the saying went, living on a thin gruel of memory spiced with glory.

  This other-side California had a number of advantages over the James River swamps in Chief Powhatan’s time, besides the climate. It really did have gold, and he could look up the exact location on a map before digging. The climate was better and the Indians less formidable, too. His hand caressed the Garand resting across his knees.

  “Yeah, Cap’n, this place is our oyster if we can keep doggo about it,” Salvatore went on. “Uncle Sam gets his sticky hands on that Gate, they’ll stamp it Ultra Top Burn Before Reading Secret, and we’ll get a pat on the fanny if we’re lucky. Only ones who’ll make anything off it are the ones who can already afford a congressman or three of their own.”

  O’Brien looked around at the darkling wilderness, full of mysterious night sounds and the distant chanting of the Indians; he wasn’t a hunter or country-bred, like the three Virginians, and unlike Colletta he hadn’t adapted well.

  “My family got off the boat in South Boston and stayed right there,” he said. “That was in the first famine. I can’t see myself being the bold pioneer, Captain. I’m a city boy. I like pavement under my feet and a good bar on the corner, and working with machinery, not cows.”

  “The pioneers didn’t have a big city right at their backs. Just a hop, skip and a jump away, whenever they needed something, with gold by the ton to pay for it,” Rolfe said, jerking his chin back over his shoulder.

  They’d rigged up a shelter of poles and tarpaulins to hide the silvery surface of the Gate on this side; it was hideously conspicuous at night, a beacon across the countryside. The Indians were terrified of it, and of the men and strange beasts who’d come out of it. Rolfe snorted at the memory of what it had been like smuggling horses into his basement without attracting attention, not to mention building the ramp without anyone suspecting. And getting his cousin-once-removed, Louisa—she was Aunt Antonia’s husband’s brother’s daughter—to house-sit for him, with no questions asked. Her bribe had come with a ring, which was fair. She was a good kid, no Ava Gardner but pretty enough. Smart, too, and she’d hung around him since they were both toddlers. His mother had been dropping hints about grandchildren since the day he got out of the hospital, and anyway, he’d never planned on being the last Rolfe.

  “With the Gate, we can bring in anything—anyone—we want,” he said. “We’ll have to buy the house in Oakland; buy up the block and the neighborhood, come to that, get it rezoned. Start a company; trading to the Philippines, say, or Siam, and investing in some old mines there, to cover the gold—you can buy fake customs stamps cheap in Manila, or anything else for that matter. And… as I said, we need organization. That means someone has to provide the leadership. I think I’m the best man for the job. Anyone disagree?”

  His cousins shook their heads.

  So did O’Brien, grinning broadly and exaggerating the brogue a little: “You got me through Leyte and Okinawa alive, Captain,” he said. “I’ll keep backing you the now. You’re still the Old Man.” He shook his head in wonderment: “Mother O’Brien’s little boy a lord! Mary and Patrick, you know, I like the sound of it!” Softly: “She’ll be off her knees and washing no more floors on Beacon Hill the way she did to feed the six of us before the war, and that’s the truth.”

  Colletta turned up his hands with a smile of melting sincerity that made Rolfe suspicious….

  But Salvo’s trustworthy enough. You just have to watch him, and remember he’s always figuring an angle.

  That could be valuable; Colletta had been the best scrounger and fixer in Company B, plus he could charm a snake out of its skin when he decided to, plus he had a way with languages. And… most men had to get worked up to kill; O’Brien, for instance, who was a wild man once his blood was running hot, but squeamish otherwise. The little wop was a stone killer; dispassionately skillful, like a farmer’s wife picking a chicken and wringing its neck. That could be very useful.

  “OK, Cap’n, you’re the padrone, no argument,” the small, dark man said, with a massively expressive shrug. “There’s enough here for everyone to be a boss—but we need a boss of bosses, yeah. Capo di tutti capo,” he went on, smiling at something that passed the other men by. “Yeah, or we’ll lose it all to the thieves and politicians and police and the rest of them minchioni. We need a boss, and we need to keep our mouths shut.”

  “Right,” Rolfe said easily. “The first thing is to turn that gold into money and put it somewhere safe; Tangier, maybe, or Switzerland. Then we can start buying up the land… we should incorporate, too….”

  Unexpectedly, O’Brien spoke up: “We need to get Sol Pearlmutter in on this, Captain.”

  Rolfe raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t think you liked him, Andy,” he said.

  That was an understatement. They’d circled and sniffed and growled all the way through training and deployment, and nearly killed each other just before Leyte, when O’Brien made top sergeant—Rolfe had had to sweat blood and crack heads to keep it covered up, not wanting to lose two of his best men to the stockade just before they went into action. And while they’d settled down to work together well enough together after that, it had still been…

  What’s that journalese term? Rolfe thought. When two countries hated each other’s guts and didn’t quite dare to fight, the newspapers said the atmosphere at diplomatic meetings was… correct. The two men had been correct toward each other, in an icy fashion, after he’d threatened to bounce them out to other outfits, where they’d be strangers.

  Pearlmutter was offensively smart, unbelievably well-read, and the only Jew in the outfit; he could also argue up down and black white, and loved doing it. Nobody could figure why he wasn’t a technician or company clerk or at least in the Air Corps, but he’d been worth his weight in gold.

  “I don’t like Sol,” the young man from South Boston said. “A mouthy Jew he is, and too clever by half. But the little Hebe is clever, and he’s got balls enough for a big man too; I saw that with my own two eyes—remember Shuri?”

  Rolfe and Colletta both nodded automatically. Disarming that fiendishly ingenious set of interlinked booby traps while the Japanese mortar shells dropped all around them had required a cold sort of courage. There were men alive today who’d have bled to death if Pearlmutter hadn’t cleared the way for the stretcher party, with nothing but a bayonet, a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and an ability to outguess the Nip sapper who laid the trap.

  O’Brien went on: “He’s studying to be a lawyer, not run a shop like his old man—got into Harvard, I hear, where they like the Chosen People less than they do a mick, and not much better than they like a nigger. We could use a smart Jew with steady nerves, if we’re playing for stakes like these. I don’t think he’ll dislike the pot of gold any more than meself, either.”

  Colletta gave a cold, thin smile. “And if we ever need to shut that flapping mouth of his, well…” He patted the Chicago typewriter by his side.

  “Good idea, Andy,” Rolfe said. “First thing tomorrow, Rob, Alan and I will take the gold back to the First Side”—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder—“and start work. Andy, Salvo, you’ll look after the camp here for a while, until we can get someone in to spell you. Salvo, you write up those names—of the men I need to cont
act and anything I need to know about them—and keep working on the chief’s daughter. Pick up some more of their lingo.”

  The New Yorker laughed and kissed the tips of his bunched fingers. “Hey, Cap’n, dat ain’t woikin’!”

  O’Brien nodded and sneezed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sacramento, California

  June 2009

  FirstSide

  “OK, we know that the condor passed through Oakland,” Tom said thoughtfully, pointing his ballpoint at the map on his computer screen and leaning back in a way that made the swivel chair creak threateningly.

  The headquarters of the Fish and Game Department bustled around them, but they’d both had enough years in office cubicles to learn to ignore that. Tom sipped more of the vile office coffee from a big mug with a cougar painted around it. Where he came from, if you weren’t doing something that required both hands, you got a cup of coffee, so you brewed it weak. That meant he had to drink decaf here, since Californians couldn’t be brought to appreciate the properly diluted brew that the Norski favored. Consuming that much regular brewed at Californian strength would be like doing meth.

  “Oakland’s a big town, Kemosabe,” Tully said meditatively, playing with the black-and-crimson necktie that fell past his belt. “Big bad town. They had a lot of problems there during the war, couple of near-miss bombings. Close to major airports. Lots of tourists, lots of through traffic on the Interstate. And it’s a major seaport. Smuggler’s paradise and a cop’s nightmare.”

  Tom nodded, and worked the ball of the mouse, his long, thick fingers incongruously delicate. “But! Here’s what I came up with for Bosco Holdings, and what the SEC people have.”

  “‘San Francisco,’” Tully read. The address was not far from the intersection of California and Montgomery. “Financial district.”

  “Yah,” Tom said. “If you dig a little deeper—”

  “Subsidiary of Colletta Enterprises—which has cross-holdings with… mmm, Rolfe Mining and Minerals?”

  “RM and M owns the building. And that address is also listed as corporate HQ for a good thirty-two other corporations,” Tom said. “Nothing illegal, of course. Most of them seem to be sequentially numbered single rooms or suites on the upper floors. Plus, RM and M owns a big operation in… guess where… Oakland.”

  “Nothing illegal. But skanky. Definitely skanky,” Tully said. “Shell corporations are just too damned useful for all sorts of not-goodness…. Do we want to talk to the SFPD or the Oakland cops?”

  “Definitely not the Oakland cops,” Tom said. “And not the SF people, not yet. Too much chance of something leaking.”

  Tully raised one eyebrow, an ability of which he was rather proud. “You think someone on the inside is dirty?”

  “Not necessarily, but something blew the bust in LA,” Tom said. “And we’re not going to inform our good friends in the Bureau just yet either—same reason, you betcha. Not before we do some legwork. And…”

  Tully nodded. “Why share the glory if you don’t have to?”

  Rolfeston

  June 2009

  Commonwealth of New Virginia

  Adrienne Rolfe sat across from her father; she’d changed into the black uniform and peaked cap of the Gate Security Force to emphasize that this was official business; no makeup, and her hair scraped back into a bun at the back of her neck, too. Charles Rolfe was glaring at her over the polished ebony of his desk, and she forced herself not to glare back.

  No sense in going through that again, she thought. We had far too many entirely unproductive fights back when.

  “Sir,” she said. This wasn’t just her father, after all. He was the Chairman of the Commission, and the heir to the Rolfe Family. “We came far too close to seriously endangering the secret of the Gate this time, and the problem isn’t over yet. I must respectfully request permission to pursue this matter further on FirstSide.”

  The Chairman’s office faced west; it was in the northern wing of the Commission headquarters building, where the flat bayside plain began its rise. French doors lined that side of the office; the room was large, but not grandiose—smaller, she told herself with an inward wry smile, than the office of the Colletta Prime. A slight murmur of sound came through and caressed the back of her neck on the wings of the same mild bayside spring breeze that carried the scent of flowers and water; there was a park outside, and then the public plaza of Rolfeston.

  Behind the desk was a wall of polished teak paneling. On that hung a great oil painting of the Founders, the first of the Families making their pact at the beginnings of New Virginia, with appropriate accompaniments—rifles, shovels, miner’s basins for panning gold, rearing steeds, and a few women doing what she thought of as the Sturdy Pioneer Helpmeet Thing. The frame was flanked on either hand by the Commonwealth’s flag, a black field with diagonally crossed red bars and thirty-two many-pointed golden stars.

  The picture was conventional heroic art, but well done: She could recognize many of the faces, though her mind called them up with the wrinkles, bald patches and white-haired pates of old age. Tough, taciturn old men, most of them honorary granduncles, dying one by one as she grew toward adulthood.

  It shocked her a little how old her own father looked today, as old as her childhood memories of the Founders; she hadn’t seen him in person for several months. His hair was mostly gray now, at sixty-two, though still thick—the Rolfe men didn’t lose theirs.

  And when did he get those jowls? she thought. He’s putting on weight, too. All those years I changed and he seemed to go on just the same, and now it’s the other way ’round….

  The Chairman’s desk bore little beyond a few pictures and a ceremonial pen and inkstand. It did have a number of hidden screens; two of them had risen, one facing her and one her father. The Commission bought only the best, and the image in them was crystal clear, almost three-dimensional—the face of a man precisely twenty-five years older than her father. John Rolfe VI, Chairman Emeritus and Founding Father; despite the snowy whiteness of his hair and the deep lines on his face, he looked scarcely older than his son. There was less harassed care and more amusement in the steady leaf-green eyes as well, and his belt measurement was the same as it had been when he left VMI. He would be looking at their paired images in a screen in his own sanctum, up north in Rolfe Manor, leaning back in the leather-cushioned chair.

  “It is a bit shocking,” the older man said, with an elegant gesture of one hand. “Thanks to Agent Rolfe’s quick action, largely recouped. But still shocking. I fear we’ve grown a trifle complacent—not to mention divorced from the realities of FirstSide.”

  Another hand entered the pickup screen. It was slim and female; it handed him a cigarette in an ivory holder, and a glass frosty with ice. The old man took a deep draw and a sip of the bourbon and water.

  “Thank you, my dear,” he murmured, turning his head for an instant.

  “We’ve had smuggling before, sir,” Charles Rolfe replied.

  The title of respect was ungrudging, despite his obvious irritation. While he lived, the Old Man was master of the nation he had founded, whatever the formal titles might say. More than law, it was custom, and “custom” was a word that carried a great deal of weight in the Commonwealth.

  “But scarcely on this scale,” said the man who had been soldier, adventurer, and king in all but name. “That was mostly a case of the occasional overshipment of precious stones or gold, and before we had Nostradamus to keep an exact running tally all the way through.”

  Charles Rolfe sighed. “As nearly as Gate Security can tell,” he said, “it’s barely smuggling, technically. None of the goods were on the prohibited list. They went through as bales of general cargo from various Families, through affiliated firms rather than directly—Nostradamus has the shipment records, of course—but they weren’t going to ring any alarms. The Boscos seem to be involved, and they’re Colletta collaterals, of course, but… finding out how it all got bulked into an embarrassing mass r
ather than being dispersed will be tricky politically. We’ve always paid more attention to keeping track of incoming freight, anyway.”

  “And we’ve always had a shortage of qualified personnel for Gate Security,” John Rolfe said.

  “Sirs,” Adrienne said, dragging the conversation back to her concerns. “We’ve got to update that prohibited list. Immediately, and that just for starters. Yes, none of the species represented in the Los Angeles warehouse were extinct on FirstSide—not completely extinct. But those goods in those quantities were absolutely bound to cause dangerous publicity. Someone brought them through, moved them through commercial channels on FirstSide, and then sold them—or delivered them, anyhow—in a single mass.”

  Her father shrugged angrily. “Yes, yes, no doubt it was careless—and we should discreetly try to find out here in the Commonwealth who was responsible, and see that they get a reprimand if it was one of the Families, or a trip to the mines otherwise. However—”

  The man in the screen raised the cigarette. “I think Agent Rolfe had something else to add.”

  “Yes, sir,” Adrienne said gratefully. “Once attention was drawn to the goods, the results could have been catastrophic. DNA scans are now extremely cheap, fast and accurate, and routine. With illegal animal products, they use them even where they’ve got no particular reason; if it’s so easy, why not? When animals are down to a few hundred well-studied individuals, DNA from an unrelated population… we might as well hang out a ‘From Another Universe! ’ sign. Once or twice we can tolerate. People disregard information that upsets their preconceptions. But if we rub their faces in facts they can’t dodge, somebody is going to start connecting the dots.”

  “Individuals have stumbled on evidence of the Gate before,” the Chairman snapped.