Decenti rose and thrust out his hand, and he was wounded when Creighton was slow and clearly reluctant to reach for it. They shook hands, and Ranold said, “C.C., we go back a long way, and you know I’m a son of a gun when it comes to apologizing. ’Fact, you’ve probably never heard me do it. Well, let me just say that I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I did a lot of barkin’ here just because I was upset. You know I’m hurting over the loss of my son and my wife, and of course I don’t want any harm to come to my daughter and her kids. I admit I don’t feel the same about that husband of hers.
“But what I’m tryin’ to say is, take what I said with a grain of salt. Give me the benefit of the doubt that I was just gassing. Nothing personal, no hard feelings. Okay, pal?”
When Decenti got to the door, he spun sharply a hundred and eighty degrees and snapped off a crisp salute. That should have said everything. It should have clarified to C.C. that Ranold meant every word of his so-called apology and that in the end he respected the General of the Army.
But C.C. just looked pitifully at him, lifted a hand in a weak wave, and said, “I’ll see you, Dece.”
It was the ultimate insult. Ranold strode to his waiting ride wounded, worried, and determined to deal with at least one thing he could manage before calling it a day. He had to do something about Bia Balaam.
* * *
Bia was as sound asleep as she’d been in two weeks when her phone awakened her. She tried to speak through a cottony throat. “This is Balaam,” she said.
“Decenti. Where are you that I’m getting such a bad connection?”
“Parking garage, sir. Sorry.”
“Where you going?”
She leaped out of the car. “Not going, sir. Coming. On my way to my office. You want me to find a better cell?”
“I can hear you, but if you find a spot that’s better, stay there.”
“You want me to come to your office?”
“No, I want to deal with this right here and right now. I want to know the status of Agent Roscoe Wipers.”
“I thought we were clear on that, Chief.”
“So did I. Now what is his status?”
Bia’s pulse seemed to double, and as she heard heavy static, she stopped, hoping the bad connection would buy her time. “I’m not able to report anything different than what I reported several days ago, sir.”
“I missed some of that, Balaam. Find a clear spot.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Now what’s the skinny? That man dead or alive?”
“Would it help for me to rehearse for you what happened when I was on the phone with him the night I heard the gunshots?”
“It would help if you would get to a clear area and call me back as soon as possible. And be ready to tell me the truth. Then we’ll meet in my office in half an hour. Are we clear?”
“Sorry?”
“Are we clear?”
“Bad connection. I’ll call you from a better cell, sir.”
37
FELICIA THOMPSON could tell something was up the minute she reached the Chicago bureau office. First she assumed people looked and acted differently because they didn’t expect her back so soon and didn’t know what to say about her husband’s suicide. But soon she learned it had nothing to do with her. More likely it had to do with what she had heard on the radio during her drive.
Felicia was still living in a haze, stunned and numb and frequently wondering what was the point. But getting up and out and back into the game—as Straight, her new mentor, had suggested—proved a tonic for her. She couldn’t say she was excited or enthusiastic. But having something to do—even if it meant only getting out of bed, eating, showering, dressing, driving in—well, that was better than nothing.
It wasn’t that anything could take her mind off her losses. The best that busying herself had to offer was, unlike sitting home alone with her depression, it made the clock move.
Felicia had turned on an all-news station for the drive and was barely listening until one piece caught her attention. Rumors were flying around Washington that a high-level meeting had been called by interim international chancellor Madame Hoshi Tamika. Heads of state from all over the world were expected in Switzerland within twenty-four hours.
People noticed Felicia in the elevator but looked away—all but Trudy Nabertowitz, who squeezed her shoulder, saying nothing. Otherwise, it seemed that Felicia was able to get all the way to her office without being seen.
Strange. In her in-box, along with the normal buildup of busywork, were more than a dozen sealed plain white envelopes. Each contained a folded sheet depicting a simple ichthyic symbol, the sketch of a fish made by two intersecting curved lines. Could there be that many secret believers here?
Hector Hernandez called. “Mrs. Thompson, I wonder if you have time to help me with something?”
“Be right there.”
So she hadn’t been invisible. How could Hector, being on a different floor, know she was even there? Trudy.
On her way down to his cubicle, carrying a stack of files and folders as a cover, Felicia became aware that the brass were all away from their offices. Every conference room, large and small, was full, and people milled about, engaged in conference calls.
Hector stood and formally shook her hand, otherwise keeping his distance, apparently to mislead the curious. “Just fan out some papers on my table,” he whispered.
As they sat across from one another, ostensibly studying printouts, Hector spoke under his breath. “You doing all right?”
“Under the circumstances.”
“I was so sorry to hear—”
“Thank you.”
“Did you get some notes of encouragement?”
She pointed to a row of numbers and he leaned forward as if to read them. “Let’s just say my office is swimming with fish,” she said. “Were those all from different people?”
He nodded. “You’d be amazed at how many there are here. You know tonight is the monthly meeting.”
“I didn’t know. At Wilson’s?”
“In Joliet, right. Need directions?”
“No, I know the place.”
“Six o’clock for dinner. We have a private room.”
“How many will be there?”
“Nearly thirty.”
“Not all from this office.”
“Oh yes.”
“You’re right, Hector; I am amazed.”
He turned to a file cabinet and rummaged through it, she guessed just for effect. When he turned back he said, “I suppose you know what’s going on.”
“Just what I heard on the news. The new chancellor has summoned the heads of state.”
“More than that. She’s including each of the seven USSA governors.”
“For?”
“No one knows,” Hector said, “but we can guess.”
“So guess.”
“Has to be something to do with the looming oath-of- loyalty deadline.”
“Is she going to accelerate it?” Felicia said. “Find out who’s with her and who’s not?”
“That’s one theory.”
“There’s another?”
Hector leaned back and sucked air through his teeth. “Some think she might call for a vote on lifting the ban against the practice of religion.”
* * *
“We have to hold,” Paul said, and that Jack and Greenie flinched was no surprise. They huddled around an institutional table in a room not far from where Roscoe Wipers was incarcerated.
“Hold nothing!” Greenie said. “We should have started moving people out of here last night. We’re talking seventy hours max now, and who knows if your contact’s information is good?”
“She was my secretary for years,” Paul said. “She has access to everything in Chicago.”
“The international confab,” Jack said, “if there really is one, ought to be easy enough to confirm. But how can we be sure what they’re talking about? What if it’s the
opposite of what you’re hoping, Paul? What if they decide to move up the deadline on the loyalty oaths?”
Paul slid his chair back. “Don’t assume I’m unaware of the risks here, Jack. But nothing is riskier than exposing a thousand zealots to the light of day, or even the darkness of night.”
“Nothing?” Greenie said. “Nothing is riskier than getting out of here? That’s lunacy. Riskiest is sitting here like so many targets for that crazy father-in-law of yours. Who knows what he might do, especially if the vote went our way.”
“How do you figure?” Jack said.
Greenie stood and paced. “Okay, best-case scenario: the international government lifts the ban. All of a sudden we’re free. Decenti is bound to know that before we do. He still wants us dead, so he triggers. Regardless of what happens in Bern, we’ve got to get out of here.”
If Paul knew anything, it was that he needed to get out. He’d never felt so restless, so confined, so powerless. He wanted to be topside, and in his heart of hearts, he wanted to confront Ranold face-to-face.
“I’m going to make an executive decision here,” Jack said.
“You’re not going to consult the elders?” Greenie said.
“No, but don’t worry about it. This is going your way anyway. If everything is in order, let’s start the exodus at sundown tonight. Begin with the original families. Follow with the rest of the women and children. By Thursday night we’ll be down to the men, and then the elders, and then us.”
* * *
Ranold returned to his office, his mind full of options—few of them good. He had hoped his ascension to head of the NPO would return him to the status of a real mover and shaker in Washington. He hadn’t enjoyed the deference and respect commensurate with his history and accomplishments since shortly after the war, when he had been in on the ground floor of the founding of the organization.
Now he was not only reminded frequently of his interim status, but he was also challenged, argued with, disagreed with, even by old friends. Was he the man he used to be? He wanted to think so. Sure, the years had cost him some of his reflexes and acuity, but for an old man, he believed he still had his chops.
But could he trust his staff? He’d been right about Aikman, hadn’t he? How could he know? He was sure right about Dengler. That had to be the highlight of his career. But without Governor Hale’s approval of and Chester Creighton’s cooperation in the attack on the Columbia zealot underground, eliminating Dengler may have all been for nothing.
Was Ranold supposed to feel some guilt, some twinge, some something about having murdered two men? He had come to acknowledge that he, along with most of the rest of the known world, had been wrong about the existence of God. But did that mean he had to find God’s law and live by it? Everybody knew murder was wrong. You didn’t have to be religious to understand that. But he was a soldier, in combat. Not all killing was the same.
God must not have wanted Ranold B. Decenti dead or He’d have slain him by now, right?
His secretary slowed him as he strode toward his office. “Governor Hale will be back in town Monday and would like to visit you at your convenience.”
“He’d like to visit me? I’m not going over there?”
“No, sir. That’s the message. I asked the same question.”
“Well, book it for the morning then, I guess.”
He hurried into his office suite and into the bathroom, where he studied himself in the mirror. He was going to be fired. That was it. Why else would Hale want a meeting here? It made no sense otherwise. Unless . . . unless Hale was going to personally report to him on the big confab in Bern. And why had Ranold not been invited? He had been cleared in the assassination probe, but did they still suspect him?
Decenti planted himself behind his desk and informed his secretary to have Commander Balaam wait ten minutes from when she arrived and then to announce her. He got on the phone.
* * *
Bia hesitated in an alcove down the hall from Ranold’s office and dialed Paul. “He’s going to push me to the wall,” she said. “Do I just flat out lie to him?”
“Why not?” Paul said, hoping her answer would tell him more than he asked.
“Because I’m one of you now. I’m not supposed to do that, right?”
“That’s the question of the ages, Bia. But let me be the first to welcome you to the family.”
“Thank you, but do all the rules change now?”
“Do you have to be good, you mean?”
“That’s what I mean. I know how to dodge, to bob and weave, but what if he asks me straight-out whether I know Agent Wipers is dead?”
“Do you know?”
“Don’t I? You told me he was fine, that the shooting was a setup for my benefit.”
“It was, but he has since died.”
“Oh, he has, has he?” she said. “Of what? Natural causes?”
“How’d you guess?”
“You’re lying to me, Paul. Is that okay, as long as it’s between believers?”
“Let me take the heat for this one, Bia. You won’t be lying. I will be. I’m telling you the man’s dead, so what can you tell your boss when he asks?”
“That I called to reconfirm and was told that Wipers is dead.”
“There you go.”
“You’re going to get me shot, Paul.”
“Oh, I doubt it. You’re good and Ranold trusts you. Plus he needs you.”
“Don’t forget I’m the one person who can pin the assassination on him. Hey, listen, when he asks who I confirmed Wipers’s well-being with, what am I supposed to say?”
“Tell the truth.”
“That I talked with you? Are you serious?”
“I’m trying to draw the man out, Bia. I want a face-to-face.”
“He’s been waiting for your call for ages, Paul.”
“That’s different. Maybe I’ll call him later, but only if he agrees to meet me somewhere.”
“You want me to set that up?”
“Not formally. Just tell him you confirmed Roscoe Wipers was dead and tell him I told you so, and the rest should take care of itself.”
38
BIA BALAAM WONDERED if this would be the end of it then. When Decenti’s secretary told her the director would be a few minutes, she was glad she had brought her briefcase and had something to read.
But she couldn’t concentrate. All she could think of was how to phrase her answers to keep the old fox at bay. But that was the problem. He was old, but he was still a fox. His ego had always clouded his judgment, and he was nowhere near the man he had been when he hired her years before. But could she keep playing him as she had the last several days? He sounded mad now, as if he was really on to something. When he suspected a person, especially if he was right, he didn’t let up until he knew all.
Would this new chapter in her own life make Bia less of a professional? It shouldn’t, she thought. It had better not. Her life was at stake. She had, however, always viewed believers as weak. They hid, after all. Lived underground. Did everything surreptitiously. On the other hand, what were they supposed to do against a powerful government and world opinion? It would have been foolhardy to mount a frontal attack.
Her view was already changing, of course. Paul Stepola was no wimp. She wouldn’t be either. She couldn’t afford to be.
When finally Bia was summoned into Ranold’s office, the tenor was different right from the start. Not only did the boss not rise or attempt to embrace her, but he also didn’t so much as move, let alone smile. His head was cocked, his elbows on the desk, fingers interlaced before him. He was clearly not trying to hide his suspicion, mistrust, and cynicism.
Bia nodded to him. “Chief Decenti,” she said, moving to a side chair and standing before it.
“If you’re waiting to be asked to sit, you’ll wait a long time, Commander.”
She sat.
“I asked you a direct question, and I’ll ask it again right here, right now, with you not eight
feet from me, no bad cells, no weak connections. Is Roscoe Wipers dead or alive?”
“Are you asking me what I believe or what I know?”
Decenti slapped both palms on the desk. “Stop making a game of this! Is the man dead or alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me he was dead!”
“That’s what I believed at the time.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
“I can tell you only what I heard. I was on the phone with him when I heard voices call him by his alias. He gave me the signal that he had been made; I heard the phone drop. I heard two shots. And I have not heard from Agent Wipers since. You can see why I believed him dead.”
“So why do you now say you don’t know?”
Bia shifted in her chair. “Frankly, sir, your questions have made me wonder. It appears you have information to which I have not been privy.”
Decenti swore. “You’re right. I have. And from none other than the General of the Army.”
“I have not spoken to General Creighton in more than a year, sir. If he has any conflicting information, he did not get it from me.”
“You know he and I go back to before the war?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I could get him on the phone in sixty seconds. Would you have any problem whatever in my asking him to corroborate that you have not talked with him in over a year? You want to think that through, change your claim, anything?”
“No, sir. I have no recollection of any interaction with the general by phone or in person. In fact, I believe the last time I saw him was at a Wintermas party a year ago December.”
“Why is he implying that Wipers may still be alive?” Decenti said.
“I have no idea.”
“And have you followed up to confirm what you believe you heard?”
“I have tried calling Wipers’s secure line, yes. No luck.”
“You know who would know for sure, don’t you, Commander?”
“I do, sir, but I assume you would not want me communicating with your son-in-law.”
She expected Ranold to immediately agree and didn’t know what to think when he did not respond. He stood and moved to a window, parting the horizontal blinds and looking out over the capital. “When was the last time you spoke with him?”
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