The Confederacy was expected to stave off any move from the south. To date, that had meant isolated firefights with Mexican forces in southern Texas. Large troop concentrations, however, had been reported by high-altitude recon flights across the border. It appeared as though the Mexicans were waiting for more conclusive results on the part of their Asian allies before making any real commitment.
That left the west.
Confederate forces were scant along the Nevada–Arizona border. Clancy had told him he’d been assured by the War Office that the japs weren’t going to try anything across the desert. That they weren’t going to cross the Black Rock, the Smoke Creek, or the Mojave. “If they come, they’ll come from the north,” he’d been told confidently.
Clancy had marched across enough deserts in his time. He told Webster he didn’t buy it. Hence the need to set up an Advanced Command Post on the Patton. Hence the need to send nine senior military staff out west.
Webster had taken it all in. It was no surprise that Clancy had relegated Kennedy to the bottom of the shit list.
When the conversation turned to the Patton, Clancy told him the airship was packing atomics. He had mentioned a fleet of six German stratolites sighted over the Arctic, and they’d pondered the significance of such a flotilla.
Webster protested that he had things to do in Houston, but the President would not be swayed. He rang off at seven. Webster was back in his office by eight.
He went through a list of Bureau operatives currently stationed aboard the Confederate stratolite. He assigned a separate detachment of tactical agents for bodyguard duty. They would arrive on the Patton within the next six hours. He went through his files on the other men who’d be joining the post. All capable, all reliable. He had dirt on five of them, a reasonable majority.
He ran the Desert Inn footage a couple more times. It helped fuel his purple-driven thoughts.
He’d boarded the Raptor at sunset. He was thinking he could snatch a few Zs before Phoenix, maybe a couple more on the shuttle. He was thinking about Kennedy. Clancy might well claim he was no longer important, but Kennedy or his cohorts had been sighted at two different flashpoints that had escalated the conflict: Nashville and Savannah. And nearly half of Kennedy’s men still roamed Nevada.
Kennedy appeared guilty of a crime that put Webster’s paltry frame-up to shame. Imagine that? Imagine promising away a continent that wasn’t his to give. Webster found the whole idea utterly fascinating—so marvellous and beyond belief that he simply couldn’t put it to rest. What could Kennedy have been thinking? And who was his paymaster? Japan or Germany?
The age of conquest was long gone, but everyone was still going through the motions, offering first aid to a rotting carcass. Populations might be moved, languages and beliefs could be banned, but in China, Afrika, Australia—so many places—revolt was merely a question of when. The Union danced to Japan’s tune, while thrice-conquered Paris champed at the worn German bit. Amusing ... terrifying ... pitiful.
He thought about the two Emperors, Ryuichi and Wilhelm. Of their personal injuries. Two sons dead: one by design, the other by default. It had all the trappings of a feudal skirmish, and all the charm of vendetta ... and emperors rarely suffered alone. These two had America laid out between them.
“Two eunuchs disputing a whore,” he said, wondering which outcome he despised the least.
From Camelot to Avalon.
Camelot was like the grail itself. Once so close within his grasp and now forever lost. And like the grail—like any holy or unholy artefact—it reflected the desires of its observer. For Kennedy, it was the means to some unknown yet predictable end. Unknown in that his masters remained a mystery—though it now occurred to Webster that he had most likely been hedging his bets. Predictable in that he would certainly have secured himself a position of power in the new world order.
Webster knew what he himself wanted. One America, united and free. He was just uncertain about the asking price.
Drowsiness washed over him. He rubbed at his eye socket and adjusted the thin cotton sheet that passed for a blanket. He tried to concentrate on some image that might ease him into pleasant dreams. He pictured one of his secretaries, the thin one with the large tits. He put her in a bikini. He put her in a spa. He gave her Malcolm’s face.
Delicious.
III
April 27, 2012
In transit: Las Vegas, Nevada / CSS Patton
He’d changed planes at Vegas. From there, the Patton was an hour away, tucked beneath the horizon’s rim.
To either side of his scout, two more flew in loose formation. Generals Cathcart and Mayhew had shaken hands with him briefly on the tarmac before they’d boarded their respective craft. The rest of the command post personnel were on their way. At the limit of his vision, glints coursing amongst the stars, Webster could make out their military escort: a wing of Corsairs.
Dawn presented him with two sunrises.
The sun was a ruby haze at the world’s edge. Above it, the glowing golden orb of the Patton basked in its reflected light. She grew with each passing moment. A speck, a smudge, a sphere, until finally she hung up there occluding half of the sky. A vast hornets’ nest of plastic and iron, surrounded by a horde of scouts.
He’d been present for the stratolite’s launch three years ago, but the object that greeted his eye now was barely recognisable. The ballonet system was almost completely concealed by metal plating. The under surface was densely packed with all manner of appendages: living quarters, hangars, cargo holds and weapon platforms. Silver stalactites of communication towers hung inverted beside the downwards mast, where a radar dish swung in slow arcs.
They circled the Patton for twenty minutes awaiting clearance to land. Two decks were currently active, and the stratolite was holding zero airspeed to facilitate the stream of arrivals. His pilot brought them in a wide approach towards one of the flight decks. They skirted the massive spherical domes of the ballonets, flying just above an array of long tubular structures that plucked at the sky like Medusa’s mane.
When they finally got the green light, Webster found himself with another pink under his tongue. He held on to the harness, both arms tight across his chest. The pilot killed the jets as the deck’s maw beckoned, a thin stretch of flickering lights that seemed too transient to be of any guidance. It vanished as the pilot brought the scout into a steep angle of attack.
The wide frame of the Patton’s bow loomed impossibly close now. The jets kicked back in and the scout pitched forwards and up. Flame-scored walls, seemingly too narrow for their scout’s wingtips, lurched into view. He felt the tugs as the arrester gear hit wire after wire, a pummel of blows to his gut.
As the scout rolled to a halt, two crewmen ran up to the plane’s sides. They wore fur-lined oversuits and their faces were completely concealed behind elaborate oxygen masks. He watched as they secured the bay doors. They gave the thumbs up and the pilot hit the canopy release. Webster inhaled great gulps of the fresh air. He felt light-headed and nauseated, on the brink of vomiting. His heart was a jackhammer in his chest.
He would have to do this again.
Admiral Illingworth greeted him outside the pressure doors. The admiral wore a white dress uniform. The relics of a frown carved his swarthy face. He made polite enquiries about the flight while they waited for the two generals to disembark. Then he gave them the tour.
He led them down a spiral stairway that traversed four floors of hangars. Each wide expanse stretched unfeasibly into distant darkness. Each held the capacity for forty scout planes, and perhaps a thousand crewmen moved between the levels, attending their duties. Illingworth pointed out the flight director’s station with a casual wave as they left the air fleet.
He told them that while the Patton spent most of her time well above forty k, all habitats were pressurised to eight thousand feet. He further explained that despite the gargantuan mass of the great vessel, only five per cent of her volume was occupied space.
The remaining ninety-five was devoted to helium. The inert gas was stored in the multitude of cells that comprised each ballonet.
The admiral showed them the dining rooms and the library, the observatory and the lab. From the rear-viewing chamber, amid a bristling array of anti-aircraft weapons, he showed them the row of self-rotating propellers. The blades extended well beyond the reach of their vision. He showed them the greenhouse, the heat pumps, and the energy storage batteries—huge carbon towers arranged like the magazine of a giant’s gun. And at Webster’s insistence, he showed them the Kaiser’s gift—a gift that had eased the way for the war games in Arkansas and the increased German deployment in the Confederacy. A gift that had inexorably bound the fates of the two nations. He showed them the atomics.
The tour ended in the Eye, a glass-walled sphere that hung suspended beneath the lowermost habitat of the stratolite. Patrolling scouts winged back and forth across the sky below them where the Earth was a murky brown smudge. They drank scotches.
The pink was kicking in and Webster made his excuses. A few more hours’ sleep would get him back on track. He followed his bodyguard along the narrow connecting passage tubes, his tired mind pleased with the fact that both he and the Patton shared the distinction of possessing a single yet all-seeing eye.
A red light was flashing on the console by the desk in his quarters. He had a message from Houston. It was coded, and revealed that an Avalon operative had made contact from Arkansas. Webster rued the scotches and the pills and the long flight. He washed his face and moistened the socket. He placed a call to the Houston office, selecting a frequency and activating his personal scrambler.
The operative called back within ten minutes.
Webster wasn’t surprised to hear a male voice on the speaker. Malcolm, playing the cards close to her chest, was true to form. He was very surprised to hear what the operative had to say.
“Can you confirm that, Black Knight?” Webster said.
“Yes, sir. Guinevere secured Pendragon late yesterday afternoon. He’s in custody, along with one accomplice.”
Webster felt a momentary spell of giddiness. He put it down to the pink. He said, “Details, please.”
“Pendragon was approaching Morning Star in Garland County. As you know from my prior reports, Guinevere tried to arrange watchposts around the four towns called Morning Star in Arkansas. Looks like we were in the right place at the right time, sir.”
“Brevity, Black Knight.”
“Sorry, sir. Pendragon was intercepted by our unit outside an engineered crash site. He came quietly. He’s currently being held, along with the accomplice and our previous prisoner, in a lockup in Hot Springs.”
“How many agents in your unit?”
“Four, sir.”
“She’s an insidious creature to have kept quiet about this, and you took your sweet time in sharing your knowledge.”
“This was my first chance to contact you without arousing suspicion.”
“Were there any official plans to notify me?” Webster’s voice was ice scraping ice.
“She said she was going to contact you following a preliminary interrogation of Pendragon.”
“Prevarication. She’s an apt pupil, though foolhardy. When is the interrogation scheduled to take place?”
“Some time this morning, sir. She’s just waiting on final results from the evidence lab in Savannah.”
“What more evidence could she possibly require?”
“Some latent prints taken from our first prisoner.”
“Fair enough. Your assessment of her current behaviour, Black Knight?”
“Frankly, sir, with Guinevere it appears to go beyond not seeing the forest for the trees. She wants to count every fucking branch.”
Webster smiled thinly. “That would be consistent. For my own part, I’ve always found napalm to be a fitting remedy for troublesome forests.” He paused to allow the agent a brief, simpering chuckle.
“There was one other thing, sir. Guinevere spoke briefly to Pendragon and his accomplice this morning.”
“A preamble to her interrogation. How quaint. Any sign of collusion?”
“Not at all, sir. Guinevere appears clean, Pendragon seems very surprised to find himself in his current predicament.”
“Have you secured a recording of their exchange?”
“I have, sir. Where would you like it sent?”
“Hold on to it for the moment, Black Knight. Just give me the gist of it.”
“She confronted him about some camps, sir, clearly pertaining to Camelot. She questioned him about the location of a third camp, in addition to the Nevada and Louisiana installations. He sounded distinctly shocked by the accusation, then... offered to show her the site himself. She terminated the interview without replying.”
Webster felt his pulse quicken. How could Malcolm possibly know about the third camp?
How could Kennedy?
Apart from his own hinting at its possibility to Clancy yesterday, its existence was a complete secret. As long as Malcolm tied it to Kennedy, everything would be alright. If she took it a step further, she would require silencing and that would be such a pity.
“Are you still monitoring their conversation?”
“Of course, sir. So far Pendragon and his accomplice haven’t said anything of any interest. I suspect they know they’re being tapped.”
“No matter,” Webster said. “Call in your location to the Arkansas field office, it’s time to end this little farce. Request a squad of tac agents. No soldiers, no police. Once they’ve arrived, you may act in my name...” His voice trailed away.
And do what?
He couldn’t leave the Patton at present, and there was no way he was bringing Kennedy onto the stratolite. Alpha camp lay somewhere in the sands below. The thought of taking him there was a pleasant irony, considering that was where he’d been heading anyway. Pleasant, yes, but it held the melodrama of a penny dreadful. Clancy wanted the Kennedy angle killed. Perhaps a literal response, then, was required. Kennedy could always be linked to the third camp—Webster’s brain child— posthumously.
“Take over the Hot Springs installation and hold it with your men till I give you further orders. I don’t need to remind you to take every precaution when dealing with Pendragon.”
“Hardly, sir. What about Guinevere?”
“Secure her as well. I’m curious to know where her suspicions stem from. She may appear clean, so treat her thus, but watch her.”
“Yes, sir.”
Webster replaced the headset clumsily.
Patricia Malcolm. Who’d have thought it?
The third camp had been covertly constructed on Texan soil. It held a thousand men, compared to the four thousand that had been scattered in Kennedy’s camps. Men skilled in tasks as vulgar as rape and mass murder, as delicate as sabotage and assassination. Men who made Kennedy’s trainees look like blushing debutantes, whose actions would tarnish Kennedy’s reputation beyond any hope of redemption. Whose actions would bury Kennedy with them in the bloody dénouement and reprisals of Webster’s vision of Camelot.
How could she know?
How can Kennedy be shocked, and then offer to show her the camp himself?
He needed to sleep on it but he couldn’t get the question out of his head. He kicked off his shoes and drew the blinds. He threw himself onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. He wanted to know if he could have Kennedy killed and still survive himself without knowing which nightmares had driven that asshole down the path he’d chosen.
It was a tough call.
He popped another pink.
IV
April 27, 2012
Hot Springs, Arkansas
The cell was a standard ten feet by twelve. There was a bunk bed, a washbasin, a chair and a toilet. A discoloured brick wall separated them from the other prisoner.
Lightholler lay stretched out on the lower bunk, his head propped up on his folded jacket.
Kennedy sat a
cross from him on the chair. He had his elbows on his knees, his hands supporting his chin as he leaned forwards. His face held a look of despondency, and only the slightest sideways flicker of his eyes betrayed any interest in the tactical agent on the other side of the bars.
The tactical agent had his feet on the edge of a desk as he thumbed through a paperback. Kennedy watched the ash mount on the end of his untouched cigarette. He watched as the residue fell away in little grey slabs into the ashtray. The agent looked up at Kennedy and winked before returning to his reading.
Kennedy looked back at Lightholler. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed in slumber. The words were so faint he thought he’d imagined them. He leaned closer.
“What now?” Lightholler repeated. He saw that he had Kennedy’s attention and added, “She seemed ... informed.”
“I don’t know.” Kennedy looked away. The agent seemed immersed in his book. “To be honest, I’m not sure why we’re still alive.”
“Comforting,” Lightholler murmured.
Kennedy got up and went to join him. Lightholler moved his legs aside and Kennedy perched on the edge of the bunk. He continued in a low undertone. “They can’t have moved us too far. I think the flight was a feint, I can’t see any other reason for blindfolding us for the trip. If we were back in Texas, the director would have paid us a visit by now.”
Lightholler nodded.
“And look at the walls,” Kennedy said. “It’s a recent paint job. This is no Bureau cell.”
“We’re still in Arkansas.”
“And we’re still alive.”
“And we have company.” Lightholler signalled towards the brick wall with a subtle gesture. He gazed back at Kennedy with a spark of his old self. “What do you make of it?”
“They didn’t even put us in separate cells, John.”
The Company of the Dead Page 39
