The Eldridge Roster

by Stephen Ames Berry

  “Firewalls?” asked Jim, breaking the long silence.

  “Permeable to the data gofer,” said Masters.

  “You’ve given us a brave new world, Mr. Masters,” said Jim.

  “We know,” said Masters.

  At 1200 Jim went over to the database shop, head still filled with unanswered questions about SLIF. In the corner, her back to him, sat a trim white-uniformed brunette munching a celery stalk, eyeing system usage stats. The blue-white laminate sign on the side of her desk read LCDR Angelina Milano, Database Administrator.

  Jim crossed to her desk. “Care to consort with the enemy over lunch?”

  “Worthless scum sucking civilian,” she said coldly, eyes on her screen. “As you can see, I’m already eating. If you’d really wanted to dine with me, you’d have asked earlier and not merely presumed.”

  “Is that a no?” he asked. “Thursday. Coq au vin.”

  “Oh. Forgot.” She pitched her celery into the wastebasket and picked up her hat and purse. “Let’s go.”

  Jim had known Angie for two years, since she was posted to the Bureau from Naval Air Station Pensacola. At thirty-five, she had twelve years in the Navy and a Master’s in Computer Science from the Navy’s Postgraduate School in Monterey. She was slightly built, with an olive complexion and an oval face that rarely betrayed her emotions and hazel-colored eyes that did. A large diamond solitaire set in white gold had recently come to grace her right hand. For the last six months Angie had lived with her fellow officer, Erik Saunders. Whatever joy that brought her she hid well.

  Erik had made full Commander early: his Annapolis class ring, his high-profile but undemanding tours and his old, high-WASP family with its roots in the Revolutionary War had helped. Erik was being fast tracked for a flag officer’s billet. Jim, a veteran of many Eriks, had seen quickly beyond the false geniality to the underlying sense of entitlement and arrogance that defined the man. (“That’s Erik with a ‘k’, like killer, not ‘c’ like chump, Chum,” he’d said when Angie first introduced them.)

  Jim hated Erik-with-a-K, sometimes daydreaming of desperate battles in which Erik’s Orion P-3 anti-submarine aircraft, shot to shit, spiraled in flames toward the sparkling green sea far below, a horribly wounded Erik pinned in the wreckage, crisping nicely in screaming agony. (“He’s a truculent SOB,” George had said. “But you hate him because he’s shacked up with Angie.”)

  It was true that Jim’s dislike of Erik had grown with his liking of Angie. But he hadn’t violated Jim’s First Rule of Emotional Survival: never get involved—especially with someone who’d never danced to Fats Domino. It was a rule he’d been quietly regretting since the day last week when Angie had come to work wearing Erik’s engagement ring. Smiling stiffly, Jim had offered hollow congratulations then sulked in his cubicle the rest of the day.

  Chez Renée was in South Arlington, on the south side of Route 1 across from Crystal City, a soulless agglomeration of office towers housing Navy Sea Systems Command, the U.S. Patent and Trademarks Office and the usual camp-following Beltway bandits. Route 1’s south side had somehow escaped its northern half’s fate, remaining a now-gentrified urban village of three-story red brick storefronts, boutiques and sidewalk cafes.

  What was Renée’s had previously been an Afghani restaurant. When it folded, Renée, a stocky, voluble Gascon with a Foreign Legion tattoo, had converted it into a red-and-green awninged bistro—nothing grand, just a few tables, fresh flowers, a carefully chosen wine list. And great food. Renée’s offered a simple fare that always delighted—everything fresh, well-seasoned and prepared by Renée and his Algerian wife, with portions unusually generous for Washington. The Thursday special, as always, was Renée’s unsurpassed coq au vin. Jim and Angie ordered it, along with a Chablis Renée recommended as “perk-ee.”

  Angie carried the conversation—mostly about work—who was being transferred where, was Admiral Jameson retiring this year?

  “How was the SLIF demonstration?” she finally asked. She listened with growing incredulity as he described the demo. “It would be scary if it weren’t impossible,” she said when he’d finished. “There’s nothing that can do that—maybe in fifteen, twenty years, when computers and AI and bioengineering meld into some fantastic new information science. But not now. What you saw was either a sham or magic.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. And George is acting weird about it. But victory’s been declared and Stan’s breaking out the bubbly. Though there’s certainly something hinky about SLIF.”

  Their entrée arrived, wreathed in an aroma of fresh garlic, onions and white wine.

  “Really? What?” she asked as they dug in.

  “I dunno. Just intuition. Something’s wrong.”

  Talk swung to Erik, who was heading for the Tailhook Convention in Baltimore, the annual Naval aviators’ gathering, bullshitting with the other carrier-qualified fliers. “No booze,” said Angie, sipping her ice tea. “No cake-sprung bimbos. The world continues watching.” (Youthful hi-jinks at previous Tailhooks had focused unwanted attention on the Navy Department.) “Erik’s chairing a panel on the latest in towed sonar arrays.”

  “Cool,” said Jim. Probably contract some vile social disease, he thought.

  “Doing anything for fun?” she asked later as he ran a light at the Pentagon City Mall, the two of them pleasantly relaxed, filled with coq au vin and crème brûlée.

  “The usual. Repainted the living room, went hiking in the Shenandoahs last weekend. Picked up some fine if obscure first editions antiquing up in Warrenton.”

  “Picked up any women recently?” she asked.

  “No,” he said primly. “Avoid ‘em like the plague—nothing but trouble. Besides, I’m a bit of an antique myself.”

  “Really? So you’re content to putter about that house of yours, get out now and then? That’s life?”

  Jim’s house was nearby, a green-gabled 19th century farmhouse nestled on a hillside in Arlington’s aging boomer and DINC country—a pricey area he could never have afforded without the large separation bonus from his previous employer.

  “Yup,” he said. “That’s life.”

  “You’ve no wife, no kids. This is your fifth job in fifteen years...”

  “Sixth,” he lied, admiring her eyes in the afternoon sun. “A venal contractor, I flit from agency to agency, following an ever-increasing hourly rate.”

  “You know, Jimbo, there are women at work who like you.”

  “Who besides you?” he asked, pulling into the Bureau’s lower parking lot.

  “I have names. You’re smart, witty, not entirely ugly—they’d go out with you. Nothing terrifying, just fun.”

  “You’re too kind,” he said, parking the car. Angie grinned as he flipped down the visor and examined himself in the vanity mirror: sandy-haired, with a large nose, splayed a bit from an old break; an open, good-humored face and what he considered devastatingly attractive gray eyes. He was large-boned, fit but not slender, his life an up-again, down-again battle against pudginess. “No, not entirely ugly,” he agreed. “I’d do.”

  “But you don’t,” she said as they got out of the jeep. “No one gets close to you.”

  Someone could, he thought, walking beside her up the hill. “Cut me a break, Angie.”

  It was well past lunchtime and there was only one other person in the parking lot—a thin, slightly stooped figure a few hundred yards in front of them, moving briskly up the driveway that led to the busy four-lane road between the parking lot and the Bureau.

  “Is that George?” asked Angie.

  “Yeah. Funny. He never goes out to lunch. Has soup and crackers at his desk. And you think I’m pathetic. Ha!”

  “Probably got an eighteen year-old coed stashed in his condo,” suggested Angie. “Slipping out for a nooner.”

  “Angie!” Jim protested.

  Tires screeching, the big black SUV roared into the parking lot, accelerating down the hill. Jim, Angie and George froze. Afterwards, Ji
m remembered the deep-tinted windows and the big off-road tires—the sort of vehicle some of the senior NCOs drove, but never so fast. And no NCO, no matter how angry with him, would swerve after George as he turned too late toward the safety of a row of parked vehicles, hitting him square on, tossing him high. It unfolded for Jim in a surreal, cinematic slow motion—George twisting in the air, limbs flailing, landing with a sickening, hollow boom on his back across the bed of a pickup truck, his torso inside, legs hanging over the truck bed.

  The SUV closed on Jim and Angie, gathering speed as they stood frozen, gawking idiotically.

  No plates, Jim thought dimly. He’s got no plates. Turning, he shoved Angie back and down between parked cars, dropping on top of her, a hot breeze washing over them as the vehicle roared past.

  With a squeal of brakes and rubber it was gone, racing toward Route 395.

  “You can get off me now, Jim,” said Angie.

  “You okay?” he asked. He pulled her up, breathing hard, his hands shaking.

  “A few fractured ribs. Otherwise, I’ll live,” she said, face pale.

  “George!” he called, taking off at a run, Angie following.

  They reached him ahead of the guards and onlookers rushing from the Bureau, clambering up into the truck bed and kneeling beside him. Blood trickled from George’s mouth and nose. Jim took his hand—it was cold. George’s eyes latched onto Jim’s.

  “Take... the disk,” George whispered. He touched his shirt pocket. Unthinking, Jim slipped the diskette from George’s pocket into his own. “Hang in there, George,” he said, squeezing the old man’s hand. “Medics are on the way.” He glanced up at Angie, saw the tears in her eyes.

  Wheezing, George tried to speak again. Jim leaned closer. “Save... Angie,” George whispered. “From herself—from them.” Jim’s mind reeled at George’s next words. “Your Emma and Angie...same. Stop them.”

  Jim leaned close, his face inches from George’s. “Who are you?” he demanded. “How do you know about Emma?!”

  George closed his eyes.

  “Who are you?!” he repeated, grabbing George by his shoulders.

  “Jim! Stop!” cried Angie.

  Suddenly there was a crowd and medics from the Bureau’s dispensary. From somewhere came the sound of sirens quickly drawing near. All too late for George.

  Chapter 2

  Rourke drove through the carefully tended grounds of Admiral Whitsun’s Chevy Chase home and parked his car under the portico beside the silver-gray Rolls Royce with its GDR1 license plate. Walking to the front door of the mansion—inspired by Madame DuBarry’s chateau at Louveciennes—he found himself, as always, disgusted by the ostentatious display of wealth and the appalling waste. Raised in a Spartan, almost communal environment, the CIA Director believed that all surplus resources should be dedicated to shared goals and higher principals. And yet here he was in Washington, one of the 20th century’s foremost centers of conspicuous consumption. Sighing, he rang the doorbell.

  After a moment, Whitsun’s elderly Swiss housekeeper appeared and ushered him down to the Admiral’s trophy room. The Admiral sat on a leather club sofa, talking on the phone. He looked a fit, tanned seventy-ish—rapier-thin, with a lean face and an elegant shock of long white hair that still held a few streaks of blond. Hanging up, he motioned Rourke to a chair. Neither man offered to shake hands.

  “You’ve grossly exceeded your authority, Terry,” said Rourke without preamble.

  “Having Campbell killed?” Whitsun shrugged. "You have authority, Harry. I’m just an old sailor who does what needs to be done. Like this morning, when I had one hour to make a decision and three to implement it.” He jabbed a finger at Rourke. “And where the hell were you, sir?”

  “Showing the Russians around Langley. There was no way I could have spoken with you.”

  “It had to be done,” said Whitsun, before Rourke could. “But it’s my fault that it had to be done so quickly. I let us grow complacent and we got caught napping. I never thought anyone outside knew about Telemachus other than a few very necessary people like you. Over the years we’ve discredited whatever real information slipped out—the Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment now have as much credence as Roswell and Area 51. We thought we were safe.”

  “You were wrong.”

  “Clearly. Someone knew what we were doing, knew what SLIF was all about and was waiting to snatch the prize. Waiting God knows how many years, some spider sitting in the shadows, patiently tending its toils. Drink, Harry?”

  “Scotch on the rocks, please.”

  Whitsun stepped to the bar. “Were you really briefing the Russians?” he asked, handing Rourke his drink.

  “War’s over—we’re all friends now,” said Rourke as Whitsun sat back down.

  “I’m so glad I’m retired.”

  “Wish I were,” said Rourke.

  Slightly built, in his early 50’s with curly black hair, large competent hands and clever eyes, Harry Rourke had known Terry Whitsun for years, thoroughly mistrusted him, and was here today to deliver a message. “Why did you have some obscure bureaucrat killed?” he asked as they sat on the green sofa, the stuffed heads of game animals peering down glassily upon them. He’d once examined them carefully: gazelle, zebra, tiger, a black panther. Barbaric.

  “What do you know about SLIF?”

  “Only what I was told this morning,” Rourke lied. “Some sort of very advanced data retrieval system being tested by the Navy, funded by us through GDR.”

  The Admiral nodded, sipped his scotch. “SLIF was paid for by you and run by us ostensibly through the Bureau of Naval Personnel so we could know who manned one ship for one day in World War II. A ship not yet commissioned, sailed by a pickup skeleton crew of sailors. Once we found out who those men were, we could find their descendants. And we almost got it. But only after the Navy’s personnel data for all of World War II had been gathered and scanned with agonizing slowness into the SLIF. It was impossible to manually reassemble that roster—its clues lay scattered among millions of pieces of paper, and not one of them the Eldridge roster itself. That was long ago destroyed by panicked little men. But SLIF recreated a virtual Eldridge roster from all those tons of paper—paper now ash. Mr. Campbell debuted SLIF today. It worked flawlessly. Still does, but key data is missing.”

  “Campbell again?”

  Whitsun nodded. “Our contractor at Naval Support Activity New Orleans finished inputting the personnel records last night. This morning the SLIF nexus had everything needed to reconstruct the Eldridge roster. But Mr. Campbell had changed all the SLIF passwords, locking us out. When NSA finally got us back in we found he’d deleted all the World War II assignment data from SLIF after his dog-and-pony show today at BUPERS. He had about a five hour window to get that roster–be assured he did. Now his is the only possible original.”

  “Enter the old records again.”

  “Can’t. The input data’s gone and the physical records are ash. Thanks to Mr. Campbell nothing was backed up. And he had the original paper records destroyed. Last night in New Orleans some lieutenant striving for a golden fitness report set teams of sailor laddies toiling through night. By dawn, all of World War II was gone.” He sipped his scotch. “What a shame—I loved that war. Now only the basic personnel data survives and that only in the SLIF database. We can know everything about everyone in the Navy in 1943, except where they worked. I wish Campbell were still alive so I could kill him myself.”

  “And your purpose in all this was...?”

  “To find out who was on the USS Eldridge the day of the Philadelphia Experiment. Then we’d have related those names to the basic personnel records. A reasoned electronic alchemy, Harry, base data into priceless information long-lost. Names and service numbers from that assignment roster to names and service numbers in the master personnel record, giving us social security numbers, addresses, next of kin and on and on.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m told that SLIF woul
d have quickly ‘gofered’ the information on the Eldridge descendants out of contemporary databases. ‘Gofered.’” He shook his head. “The decay of the language mirrors the decay of the culture.”

  “No doubt,” said Rourke, freshening his drink. “This great quest, Terry—the Holy Grail of DE173. Several people—quite high up—are concerned. Down through the years your project has murdered hundreds of men, women and children while giving sanctuary to a notorious war criminal. The results, though sometimes dramatic, have led nowhere. All you’ve succeeded at is killing off all your subjects – Potentials as you call them. Took a long time, but you did it. You can’t go on.”

  “Wrong. We’re on the edge of success. And we’ve learned so much. All we need is that crew roster and through it the Eldridge descendants. Schmidla’s confident he can demonstrate the process is controllable, that it can work for us, if we can just get him more Potentials. And give him more time.”

  “Terry, there’s serious talk of closing Schmidla down,” said Rourke, meeting that icy blue gaze. “The knowledge that there are, as you say, spiders stalking the project will only hasten a decision.”

  The old man’s laugh startled Rourke. “It never changes! Gutless bureaucrats and empty moral posturing! It’s the money, isn’t it?”

  “Money and fear. The world’s changed. The mantra of national security has lost its sanctity. Invoking it no longer excuses an appalling lack of scruples.”

  “Scruples?”

  Rourke shrugged apologetically.

  “You tell those myopic little men for me, Harry, that this Grail’s no medieval fantasy,” said Whitsun with quiet intensity. “It exists. And it has performed miracles.”

  “Certainly it’s provided hints of a wider reality, Terry. Miracle is overstated.”

  “Call it what you will, if we can give Schmidla the fruits of that roster, Harry, in ten years, maybe less, humanity will have evolved beyond its wildest imaginings. A hundred thousand years of evolution jumped,” he snapped his fingers, “like that. And those weasels would piss it all away to save their scrawny butts and a few bucks.”