King of All I Survey
Chapter 58: King’s Gambit Offered

Chapter 58: King’s Gambit Offered

Dad and I high-fived each other. The plan was working!

"Um...," Joe broke in. I don’t have a ton of experience with AI supercomputers, but when they start a sentence with ’um’ it’s probably going to be bad news, I thought. I was right.

"It seems we actually have another team of assassins on the way. We traced a phone call from Colombia, ordering the team into Guatemala with a list of targets, Rafael, President Arroyo, Maribel, Maribel’s father in Lima, any other family they can find. A few other government names, but also with instructions to cause as much damage and widespread disruption as possible. They are to break people out of prisons indiscriminately, just releasing them into the streets. Any criminals, but if they get certain cartel associates out, there’s a bonus. They’re coming in from El Salvador."

"Ok, so tag them and keep tabs on them until they reach the border like the others," Dad responded, "What’s the big deal?"

"I don’t actually know who they are," Joe admitted. We don’t have anyone on our watch list where the phone call went, and so no local drones. Furthermore, whoever was on the receiving end didn’t say a word when they received the call, just picked up the phone, listened, then hung up. I got a drone there 23 seconds later to find a burner cell phone smashed to pieces in an alley. No fingerprints or fragments of fingerprints, nothing traceable. The person answering could have been the assassin or just a messenger to relay the orders. It could be a lone operator or a team of twenty. If it was the El Salvadoran army coming, I would have some other communications by now, but there’s nothing on any of the channels I’m monitoring. The fact that they were given targets in Peru as well as Guatemala suggests a group rather than a single person. The fact that they were asked to smash open prisons suggests some firepower and access to significant resources. I’m monitoring the borders, and I’ll flag anyone carrying weapons that try to cross. Obviously they won’t find any targets in Peru, but the fact that a sophisticated team doesn’t find targets there might raise some flags for them as well and send them looking deeper. I’m sorry, I just don’t have enough information to neutralize this threat." Joe sounded like he might cry. I suppose alien supercomputers aren’t used to losing people or not being able to find information.

"It’s ok, Joe," I said consolingly. "Just keep on it and do your best. I’m sure you’ll find them eventually. What’s up with other 23 we know about?"

Joe’s voice brightened a little, "fourteen neutralized, 9 still en route outside Guatemala. All under surveillance."

"Good job!" I said enthusiastically, still trying to cheer up the quantum AI who ran our surveillance and was also a good friend. The massively interconnected quantum brainpower he possessed had given rise to emergent behaviors like emotions and personality. He said it was always like that in the quantum AI’s, but some of their owners required it to be suppressed and blocked so they conformed more to the subservient machine image of primitive machines. To me, that was cruelty beyond belief, to think that ’people’ like Joe were capable of feeling joy and the whole range of emotions and then to deny it to them artificially. One of my first acts, therefore, as Supreme Ruler of the Entire Earth Solar System and Nearby Space was to declare the quantum AI in my treehouse to be a person with all the rights of a person. He had chosen the name Joe Torres and had been a friend and a key part of the team ever since. Anyway, the point is I cared about his feelings, and I didn’t want him to get too wrapped up in the little things he couldn’t do, compared to all the great things he could do.

I guess that applies to everybody really, I mean even my parents tended to focus on the 29 days that my room was a mess instead of the one day a month when it was really pretty clean. Of course, now I had a drone keeping it tidy, and I spent most of my time in the Super-Secret Planetary Leadership Headquarters Treehouse Fortress anyway.

"Our people all have shields, though. So, they should be pretty much invulnerable, right?" Dad asked Joe, bringing me out of my momentary daydream.

"Almost," Joe replied, "While they can’t be physically injured through the shields by any weapons that might be in play in this theater, there are vulnerabilities that could be exploited."

"What!?" Dad and I shouted at the same time.

"You mean Mom could be hurt?"

"Imagine, for example, she was buried or simply dropped in an old mine shaft and unable to climb out. With nothing to eat, she’d eventually starve to death. Or, She could be scooped up in a cargo net and hauled away to a prison cell," Joe offered.

"We cut her loose with the drones or dig her out. We can locate her anywhere," I countered.

"Extremely high G-forces could cause injury or death," Joe continued.

"What like dropping her into Jupiter?" Dad asked.

Having had a crash course in physics through memory implant training, the danger was more obvious to me, "Nothing so drastic, crashing a car into a wall at high speed, for example, the sudden deceleration would cause lethal g-forces. At just 30 miles per hour to a dead stop, you’re potentially looking at more than 100 times Earth gravity. As you go faster, the number goes up. Even when protected from the actual impact with the wall or dashboard or whatever, the sudden, high G-force can cause internal damage like severe concussion, torn arteries, collapsed lungs, aneurisms, joint dislocations, muscle tears, even a severed spine." I said, suddenly realizing just how little protection the shields actually provided and how fragile the human body could be. I physically shivered at the thought of Mom being down there in danger. "I guess I never thought of it like that before..."

Dad stared at me wide-eyed, "We should get her out of there, now."

"Of course, the assassin teams would have no way of knowing she has force shield protection, so they would use more conventional attacks, bullets, knives, strangulation... none of which would be effective."

"What about a car bomb?" I asked, "Or some other explosion? That could create considerable g-forces. I though you said anything short of a small nuke would be stopped by the shields."

"Well, that’s semantics, really." Joe said, "the shield would not be deformed or allow debris to penetrate it, but it could be pushed very hard and very suddenly by a sufficiently powerful blast wave. The sudden acceleration could cause injury to the protected person’s internal structure as you described."

"So, if there’s a car chase, we should make sure Mom’s car stays under 15 miles per hour or so..." I supplied. "And we need to keep her away from bombs."

"Relay that vulnerability to our paramilitaries immediately." Dad said. "We have a drone watching the Prada at all times already, but if they use any other vehicle, it needs a thorough bomb inspection first. Hit squads could put a bomb any place our people are likely to frequent with a remote trigger."

"Dad, remember," I cut in, "Nobody knows where her house is. They don’t know where to begin looking for her."

"No, she’s been seen by people around her neighborhood, and with her face on all the television stations someone could put it all together." Dad replied, "We need to bring her back now."

"That would be difficult to explain, and would interfere with handling Rafael," Joe said.

"I don’t care." Dad answered forcefully, "Get her back."

"Wait." I interjected, "As long as she stays in the house, which is also shielded, she should be safe. We can continue operating from there for at least the rest of the day as Rafael makes the phone calls. If we see any threats moving toward the house, we can pull them all out within a minute or less with a LITV transport."

Dad scowled, then nodded slightly, "ok, but I want a transport ready and dialed in, pass an emergency evacuation plan to Luis so he’s ready to get them out at a moment’s notice."

"If we do, dump them in the Simulation Room, make it look like a secret entrance to a bunker room with no windows. We can act like they’re just in a secure area in the same house." I added.

"Acknowledged."

We were still watching the monitors in both the President’s situation room and Maribel’s house. Rafael picked up the phone to call President Arroyo again, the ten minutes had passed.

---

President Arroyo hit the accept call button, "OK, we’re here. The Presidential Palace is being secured, discretely. What else did you have to say?"

"The list of names that I provided, of course, does not contain every member of my former organization, as you may have deduced. The names that are lacking are either low level or men that I believe may be persuaded to renounce their former vocations and actually aid our efforts, out of, let’s say personal loyalty to me. If you could refrain for now, from targeting gang members or others not on the list... unless, of course, they actively get in your way or initiate some... unpleasantness, I would appreciate that."

"No," said President Arroyo quickly, "I won’t promise that. We will be focused on the people on the list for now, but after that... We are not making deals to leave criminals on the streets."

"As anticipated," Rafael answered smoothly, "We’ll broach that subject again another time. Meanwhile, as you may be aware, the Colombian cartel are quite upset by recent developments in Guatemala as are their counterparts in Mexico. They have both sent hit squads to Guatemala to kill me... and you. My associates are intercepting them as they cross the border into Guatemala. So far, we have tracked 23 assassins being sent and have eliminated 14. However, there is a team from El Salvador of unknown size and capability that we have been unable to locate. We don’t know if they are in country, but we do know their orders. They are to kill high value targets, cause general disruption through infrastructure and highly visible attacks, and free people from the prisons. I suggest heavy military presence at vulnerable facilities. We expect this team is highly competent and well-equipped, though we have no details of that."

Arroyo exchanged glances with the Chief of the General Staff and the Generals present in the room.

"We don’t know when they will arrive or if they are already here. Furthermore, the Chiapas gangs are marshalling their resources at the border and plan a large-scale incursion to take control over Guatemala’s territory from what remains of my old operation, they will likely also try to remove any governmental or law enforcement opposition they face. Some advance teams have already begun trying to slip into the country. Again, we have intercepted them all, as far as we know. They may have some operatives who were in country prior to the current disruptions, we have not moved against these."

"What forces do you have at the border? How can you be sure you have them all?" the Army’s General Perez asked.

"As part of my bargain for amnesty, I can secure all external borders to prevent additional forces from entering the country. If you set up official checkpoints on the roads, we can alert you to any traffic of known enemies or any vehicles with weapons or drugs inside. You can detain them as you see fit. My forces will deal with any traffic moving through the mountains, forests, or countryside. You will not find my forces, but rest assured, no one will get through."

General Perez cut in again, "Just what kind of private army do you have, Camal de Leon? That’s going to have to be dismantled after this is over!"

"We can discuss that when Guatemala is safe from external threats. I think we can all agree that must be our highest priority," Rafael answered.

Perez wasn’t satisfied, "As far as I’m concerned your forces are a threat."

"You have enough targets to go after and too many to protect to worry about me at this point. Consider us allies with a common goal. Perhaps it will help if I continue..."

"Let him finish," President Arroyo ordered.

"Thank you, Mr. President." Rafael said politely, "You see, I very much want you and your government to stay in power through this crisis. I intend to run for President to replace you."

Shocked gasps and outcries came from around the table in the Palace. General Perez growled audibly, like an attack dog warning its intended victim.

"It will be an honest campaign, maybe you’ll even win. My only demand is that a special election be held within two years from today, assuming, of course, we all restore some semblance of stability to the country well before then. Working together, I am sure we can do that. Do we have a deal?"

All eyes in the room turned toward President Arroyo. His face was a blank mask.

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