Payback

19

Lia woke to the incessant ringing of the phone. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was-Peru, France, Morocco? Her assignments blurred together, her life a kaleidoscope of danger in exotic places.

Korea, always Korea-the memory of pain permeated her confusion. A cold and barren fear rose in the room. Lia was paralyzed, unable to move.

“No,” she said aloud. “No.”

She reached over and picked up the phone. It was her wakeup call: 9:30 a.m. She was meeting Fernandez for breakfast downstairs in fifteen minutes.

She got up with a lurch, shoving herself from the bed and to the floor. She took a cold shower to push the lingering memories away and got dressed.

Fernandez was waiting in the dining room on the second-floor balcony when she arrived. Tables lined the railing, giving breakfasters a view of the wide lobby; on the other side, they could look out the window and see the city, already wide awake.

“Coffee?” asked a waiter, pulling the seat out for her.

“Yes,” said Lia.

“Sleep well?” asked Fernandez.

“OK.”

“Voter cards again?”

“I thought I would rearrange my schedule, if you don’t mind,” Lia told him. “Let’s do the voting machines today. The ones for Lima.”

“The cards will begin shipping to regional centers Friday.”

“I think I can do the rest of the tests tomorrow. If not, I have to make tests in the field anyway,” she told him. “Besides, that safe feels a little claustrophobic.”

“Yes, of course. Whatever you want. You’re in charge.” said Fernandez.

Her coffee arrived. Lia drank it quickly, then signaled for more. She was not much of a coffee drinker and ordinarily would not have liked the harsh taste of the local brew, but this morning she needed the caffeine.

The voting machines that would be used in the Lima area were stored in two warehouses on the outskirts of the city. Lia would test six at each spot. Fernandez took her first to the warehouse northeast of the city in the direction of the Huara Valley and the nearby Andes. Though the building was only a few miles out of town, the traffic in the city was so bad it took nearly two hours to get there.

Security at the warehouse was strong but not as obsessive as it was at the bank. Two dozen armed guards were scattered around the outside of the building; an armored car and a gray fire truck with a water cannon sat near the entrance as well. Water cannons were often used for crowd control in Peru and were a common sight at political rallies, though Lia wondered if the powers-that-be were expecting some sort of mass demonstration against voting that would necessitate its use. A metal detector was used at the door; a gray-haired Kenyan monitor nearby shook Lia’s hand, then went back to a card game with some of the local election officials and guards.

The machines were stacked in large black cases about half as big as a small desk. They were secured by numerical tumbler locks, but the combinations had not been changed since the boxes were packed at the factory, and so they were secured by the same combination: 1-1-1.

Fernandez complained that the election commission had not authorized him to have the combinations changed.

“So change them yourself,” suggested Lia as she arranged the machines on a pair of tables at the front for testing.

The locks were of a simple type and could be reset with a master reset tool.

“I couldn’t do that without approval. I don’t have the authority.”

“Do you have the reset key?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

Lia didn’t bother to argue. Some people were destined to be flunkies their entire lives.

The voting machines looked like flat-screen TVs mounted on oversize shoeboxes. Essentially simple computers optimized to record and transmit votes, the machines’ electronic guts were hidden behind the screens, which voters simply touched to indicate their choices; the base units were there solely for ballast. Considerable engineering skill had been put to use designing units that could withstand heavy use. As with many technological achievements, success would be measured by the absence of problems; if the machine was essentially invisible to its users, it would be judged a great success.

Lia connected her laptop to the first unit with a special cable, inserted a diagnostic card into the slot where the voter card would ordinarily be placed, and put a control card in the remaining slot, just as the poll supervisor would do on the day of the election. The machine responded with a series of beeps, and an automated diagnostic procedure began. A report of the process was stored on the voting machine as well as Lia’s laptop, one of several precautions against tampering.

It took nearly as long to hook the laptop to the machine as it did to run the diagnostic. Lia entered the serial numbers of the machines she tested in her marble notebook, then added a confirmation number from the diagnostic screen when the test was completed. Within an hour and a half, she had tested six machines.

“Good timing,” said Fernandez. “We have to leave for lunch.”

Lia thought about begging out of the luncheon, even though the Art Room had asked her to get a feel for what the commission members were thinking. But she decided not to; there would be plenty of time for a nap in the afternoon. Realizing that she had failed to check in since arriving at the warehouse, she reached to the back of her belt and activated the communications system as she packed up.

Rockman had apparently been waiting for some time back in the Art Room and greeted her with a sarcastic, “Hello, lost soul.”

“Ha, ha,” muttered Lia.

“Lunch with the commission still on?”

“So where’s lunch, Julio?” she said loudly, indirectly answering the runner.

“Nice place downtown. You’ll like it. Very chic.”

They were about two blocks from the restaurant when a traffic snarl of epic proportions stranded them amid a rising chorus of honking horns. Fernandez, spotting a parking area nearby, suggested they get out of the car and walk. A block later, they discovered the problem: a group of protestors had closed down the avenue in front of the restaurant where the UN election committee was having lunch. The police had lined up across the roadway, standing stoically but unemotionally as the protestors chanted “_¡Claro!”, a Spanish word that might be translated as “clear” or “transparent.” In the context of this election campaign it had become a slogan for “fair and open.”

It wasn’t clear to Lia why they would be demonstrating in front of the people who had come to Peru to ensure that those demands were met, but in her experience protestors rarely exhibited any kind of logic. Less than a hundred men and women were walking back and forth across and near the roadway. They ranged from a baby in the arms of a well-dressed man of twenty to a pair of gray-haired grandmothers.

“You see the slogans?” asked Femandez, pointing to the signs. “They’re the same ones Victor Imberbe of the Peruvian Centrists uses as part of his campaign.”

“So these people are with him?”

“They’re his supporters. They’re afraid the government is going to steal the election, and they want us to do our job.”

“Fair enough,” said Lia. And though just a moment ago she’d looked on them with condescension at best, she decided that the protestors did have a point. And more than that, for the first time since coming to Peru she felt what was at stake in her mission. Felt, not intellectualized, how basic the right of democracy truly was and what was at stake for the people around her.

“Does the campaign pay these people to protest?” Lia asked.

“I doubt it. Imberbe doesn’t have the money. They’re organized, but they’re volunteers. They might be part of a church group; they have a lot of grassroots support there.” He pointed to the left. “We can go this way. Come on.”

As Lia began to follow, a black shadow loomed in the comer of her eye. She whirled around and saw two men dressed in black emerge from the building behind where she had been standing. One raised his arm, pointing something toward the crowd. He had something in his hand.

A gun.

“Get down! Get down!” yelled Lia, though in her heart she knew it was too late.