‘I’d offer you dinner, Jed,’ he said. ‘But Barbara only picked up enough for two. And I’m not good at sharing.’
Culver set his glass down on the galaxy-black granite benchtop and held up both hands. ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt pork chop night, Mr President.’
Kipper resisted the temptation to start turning the meat. In his humble opinion, too-frequent turning made the meat tough and dry and was a crime against humanity. There should probably be a law against it. He’d have to look into that. After another beer.
‘So, what was it you wanted to bug me about? Your minute starts now.’
‘Just an update, Mr President. Secretary Humboldt just sent over a briefing note from her department on how we might handle dispersing the women and children out of the camps in the east. I’ve read the executive summary, and I’ll try to digest the whole thing later tonight. But from a practical point of view, it looks okay. We’re going to keep the families together, but break up the tribal groups and scatter them like chaff. Most will be going out to the frontier, to work on government farms, so they’ll be under supervision. And working plenty hard with it.’
Kip found he could work his spatula under the chops without having to push too hard. A sure sign they were ready to flip. He was about to call Barb down when she appeared at the door in her dressing gown and slippers, looking rested and even a little flushed from the hot water and the alcohol.
‘Hi Jed,’ she said. ‘You staying for dinner?’
‘No,’ both men answered at the same time. Culver found a weary smile somewhere and added, ‘I’m picking up Marilyn at the apartment and we’re going out to dinner. Although I have to say, my mouth is watering right now and I could be talked out of it – except that your husband and my wife wouldn’t approve.’
He emptied his beer in two long pulls before rinsing out the glass and replacing it on the draining rack. ‘And anyway, I really was just dropping in on my way through. We can discuss how we handle Sarah’s plan tomorrow,’ he added, turning back to his boss. ‘And I’ll need to have a word with you about Texas as well.’
‘Okay then,’ agreed Kip. ‘Right now I have perfectly cooked pork, cold beer and a smoking-hot wife. I’m afraid I don’t intend to be distracted from that by affairs of state.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. But I did speak to the Bureau, as you instructed, about the Texas matter. They’re going to do what they can, but it will take time. I just –’
Kipper held up his free hand like a nightclub doorman. ‘Nope, Jed. Not tonight. There’s nothing I can do about it tonight. And even if there was, I wouldn’t. Because it’s pork chop night. You want me to ring Director Naoum first thing in the morning and lean on him, that’s fine. But it’s not happening tonight.’
He expected a fight, and was preparing himself for one, getting a rein on his temper before it got away from him, but the Chief of Staff merely sighed and shook his head. Almost as if he was trying to shake off a wearisome thought or mood.
‘No, sir. That won’t be necessary. You said you wanted the FBI on this. They’re on it, in their own methodical, dilatory fashion. I’m sure they’ll do a thorough job. But I just want you to know it will take time. And there are alternatives that I could set in play before I have my first martini tonight.’
‘Only if you really want to go to jail, Jed,’ the President said, half in jest. But with a tone to his voice that, he hoped, implied he was serious also.
‘Fair enough,’ replied Culver, finally seeming to accept that he’d lost. ‘Tomorrow morning then. Barb.’ He dipped his head to say goodbye and left to locate his driver.
‘Not a happy customer,’ said Barb once he’d gone. ‘Can I help there?’
‘Sweet potato bake and trees are in the oven. They’ll be good to go by now,’ Kipper told her, trying to recover his good mood from earlier on. He was relieved that Jed hadn’t pressed the point about Blackstone and, he presumed, that damned Echelon woman, but he was still pissed off he’d even had to think about it this evening. That was the problem with living where you worked: there was no escaping the office.
Barbara busied herself with removing the two porcelain baking trays from the oven, one heavily burdened with a large sweet potato done au gratin, the smaller one holding the obligatory greens, namely broccoli baked with lemon wedges. ‘Trees’, as Kip still called them. A term from his childhood. Broccoli he wouldn’t eat, but ‘trees’ he would. Just like their daughter now. There were times it drove Barbara batshit, right up there with the fart jokes when Barney Tench was around.
He lifted down two white, square dinner plates from the crockery cupboard and wondered why they had to be square. What was wrong with round, normal-looking plates, for chrissakes? American dinner plates. Fucking Seattle, sometimes they just push things too far here. He definitely needed more beer.
Once he’d drained his beer and handed the glass to Barbara, he found he was too hungry to give a damn anyway, but that his mood had improved. The beer, of course. And the prospect of another one. Barb returned with a refill, giving him a kiss.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Good to know the President still has some supporters.’
He pulled down a tray, loaded the plates on top and followed his wife into the media room – a techie’s wet dream of entertainment equipment, most of it Korean or Japanese these days. A sixty-inch Samsung LCD came to life as Barb settled down on the leather couch that dominated the centre of the room.
She smiled. ‘Snuggle time, Mr President.’
James Kipper had never been much of a TV-dinner guy before falling ass backward into the presidential rumble seat. But he found nowadays that once he was free of the office, all he wanted to do at night was smash down a beer or two, have a nice dinner and put his feet up in front of the tube. It was a pity there was never anything on but reruns and imports, especially from Britain. Local Seattle television had started to offer a sitcom called Forever Wild that Barbara seemed drawn to. It followed a bunch of ‘econauts’ around various protests and coffee shops while they made lame jokes about the military-industrial complex. Econuts, more likely, thought Kip. He preferred his comedy delivered stand-up and low brow. Frankly, he missed Jeff Foxworthy.
And he really missed wall-to-wall sports broadcasting on ESPN, ESPN-2 and ESPN Classic. Granted, he had never had time to watch much, but it’d been nice to have the choice in theory. Now, with the economy only just grinding its way out of the subsistence years, there simply wasn’t the money for professional sport like before. The reconstituted National Football League and Major League Baseball were filled with wannabes and a few broken-down retirees who could-a been outplayed by any decent high school team. Paul McAuley assured him it would come back. Even New Zealand, with a population still many times smaller than America’s, managed to support a service-driven, consumption-based economy. But then they hadn’t had to rebuild themselves from the ruins of the Wave.
‘Damn, I forgot to kiss Suzie goodnight,’ said Kipper just after sitting down. ‘Is she still awake, reading?’
‘Worst. Father. Ever,’ said Barb. ‘She’s been down for about half an hour. Fell asleep reading Harry Potter.’
Neither of them wanted to watch the news. Or the woeful Christmas specials. Kipper couldn’t handle yet another dose of Jane Austen on PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre either. English costume dramas just didn’t do it for him at all. And the First Lady had banned any consideration of repeats of pre-Disappearance sports highlights shows. They couldn’t understand the accents on the Australian soap operas. It was too early for any of the cooking shows, so they settled on Grand Designs, an English program that followed couples – for some reason, it was always couples – as they built or renovated their dream homes. Every week it was the same thing: the couples always underestimated the budget; the dreams always ran ahead of their resources and the available time; and it was as if nobody had ever heard of employing a project manager. Barb enjoyed the aesthetics of some of the old houses being brought back to lif
e, while Kip, who’d had to be ordered to keep his nose out of the Dearborn House restoration efforts, enjoyed shaking his head and muttering ‘assholes’ under his breath as these idiots made the same basic engineering errors and project management mistakes week after week.
At least it made him feel better about his own manifest inadequacies. He was the type who loved to crack wise about Dubya before the Wave. Now he imagined a pantheon of departed American presidents, looking down on him, smacking their foreheads in constant aggravation and cursing, ‘What a fucking moron!’
The commercial breaks had likewise changed greatly since ’03. Many of the spots were taken by the Advertising Council. A particularly entertaining one tonight featured an African-American male doing pull-ups for the camera and stating that he didn’t need to take his heart medication because he was just fine. As he hoisted up into the camera for the last time, he could be seen twitching before dropping off the bars and out of view with a loud thud. It ended with a reminder to go see your doctor and take care of your heart.
The ads for private businesses tended to be hyper local. One shaky camcorder spot featured a large man in bib overalls rocking back and forth on his feet, trying to convince folks that they needed his lawn-tending services. Kip’s favourite place in Pike Place Market, Frellman’s Brats and Sausage Hut, was a little slicker. Home of the Thrown Brats, they gave you a fishing net to snare the bangers out of the air.
He was surprised to see a lengthy, much more professional-looking ad for Cesky Enterprises’ new prestige apartment project in the renovated Smith Tower. It reminded him of the days when television advertising wasn’t a cottage industry.
‘What did Jed want to talk about, honey?’ Barbara asked when they had finished eating.
‘Oh, I’ve had him and Sarah working on what we might do with all those people in the camps back east,’ Kipper declared, around licking his fingers. He knew he couldn’t tell her the real reason Culver had called in, to try to bully him into sending Agent Monroe to Fort Hood.
‘They’re mostly women and children, aren’t they?’ said his wife.
‘Mostly. There’s a couple of old geezers in there. And we’ve got another camp full of fighters who survived New York. They’re more of a problem. But most of them have ties to the women and children.’
Barb finished her wine and thought about pouring another one, before deciding against it. She placed the empty glass carefully on the coffee table, next to her plate.
‘Can’t send them home, then?’
‘Not all of them, no,’ Kip sighed. ‘A lot of places in Europe, if that’s where they hailed from, won’t have them back. And a lot of their original homelands still glow in the dark.’
The show was returning from another ad break, but Barb used the remote to mute it.
‘And I’ll bet Jed is worried about how you sell the idea of letting them stay,’ she ventured.
‘Hell, I’m worried about that myself. Honestly, they don’t deserve to stay. If he had his way, he’d stick them on a garbage barge, tow them out past the twelve-mile line and sink them if they tried to come back.’
‘Most people would.’
‘I know. And I totally get that. But these guys were just servants, followers. After every war we’ve ever fought, we’ve eventually forgiven the enemy. It’s what makes us better than them. Stronger, I believe, in the end.’
He wondered if there could ever be forgiveness between Blackstone and himself. Probably not, if the FBI turned the case Jed Culver had made into a real indictment. Hell, it could even lead to the mad bastard trying to secede. But Kipper didn’t see that he had any choice. If there was some link between the Governor of Texas and the Emir’s forces in Manhattan, the President had to maintain as much distance from the investigation as possible. When they finally went public, there could be no suggestion of political interference. Jed, however, wanted to handle the whole thing in as Machiavellian a fashion as possible.
‘Why?’ asked Barb. She turned around to face him on the couch.
‘Huh?’ She’d surprised him. Was she talking about Jed – about Monroe even? Had he mumbled something in a beer haze? ‘Er, why what, Barb?’
‘Why does it make us stronger than them?’ she said, dragging him back on topic.
Kip’s heart sank. He really didn’t want to get into this, not on pork chop night. On the other hand, at least he hadn’t inadvertently blown the Blackstone investigation . . .
‘A couple of things,’ he began. ‘The strong forgive, because they can, and because holding on to their hatred makes no sense past a certain point. You beat your enemy, and then you move on. If you can’t do that, you become as obsessed with your never-ending war as he probably was to begin with. You start to see everything as part of the war. In the end, you’ll lose your life to it, as surely as you would getting killed on the battlefield.’
He finished his own drink, but unlike his wife he decided to have another one. He stood up to go to the kitchen, picking up her glass too as he did so. Barb shook her head.
‘I thought we might go to bed early,’ she said. ‘We could snuggle a bit.’
‘I’m all up for snuggling,’ he replied, heading for the door while at the same time finding he was warming to his little dissertation. ‘But, you know, the other thing is, we can use these people. We can use everyone who’s willing to put up their hands and declare for us at the moment. Those fighters, if they want to live here, if they want to see their families again, they can damn well earn the privilege fighting for us. I’m more than happy to watch them get chewed up seeing off pirates on the East Coast. Plus, the intelligence guys tell me we can turn them and send them out pretty much anytime we want. As long as they’ve made the commitment to us. They become our weapons.’
‘And Texas?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Kip unconvincingly. ‘Jed’s forever scheming against Blackstone. He leaves me out of it, thank God. In some ways they’re made for each other. But I’m not sure exactly what he’s up to at the moment. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Gotta say, though, my gut feeling is that I should just go down there and have it all out with Mad Jack myself.’
His wife looked sceptical. ‘Kip, he’s such an asshole.’
‘Yeah, but maybe he’s a well-intentioned asshole. I really think he only wants what’s best for the country. It’s just that, you know, he’s an asshole about it.’
‘Well, I’m sure if you fly down and tell him that, man to man,’ she said, cocking one eyebrow at him, ‘he’ll totally come around to your way of seeing things.’
He could tell that she’d be just as hard to convince as his Chief of Staff. The more he thought about what Jed had told him, however, the more likely it seemed that he was going to have to go down and confront Blackstone, even if it was all behind closed doors. Because if the FBI did confirm a link to Baumer and New York, there was no way Mad Jack would go quietly. He’d scream and kick back and fight this thing every inch of the way.
It made the option of sending somebody like Special Agent Caitlin Monroe down there even more tempting. Not to whack the guy, but perhaps to ease him out of power quietly, informally. Kipper was adamant, however: Monroe was going nowhere near Fort Hood.
38
TEMPLE, TEXAS ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION
Forget about coming up with a plan to sneak into Blackstone’s lair at Fort Hood. She might not live that long. There were five dogs in the pack. Not wolves or coyotes, but vicious and hungry-looking ferals, with none of the light of kindness of man’s best friend in their eyes. They had been born to the wild and had the rank stench of it about them. They circled in front of her, growling. She was almost backed up against the brick wall in a laneway behind the supermarket. The pack could not get behind her to rush in and snap at her heels, but nor did she have anywhere to fall back to.
Sofia tracked the largest of the beasts with her handgun. She could shoot it down and drive away the other dogs, but to do so would bring the soldiers running. Ther
e were two patrols out on the streets of Temple that she knew of this evening. They were proper American soldiers, and as much as she held no fears that harm would come her way from them, the Mexican teenager had no intention of being taken into custody, protective or otherwise. Shooting the dogs, while not out of the question, would not be ideal. She hefted the machete in her other hand, waiting for the right moment to make that choice.
She knew it was coming. The growls were getting lower and more intense, turning into short, aggressive barks. Her flesh crawled, an ancient reflex she was powerless to control. She had learned this when she was last in Texas. A brave woman was not fearless. She simply refused to become a prisoner of her fears, to let them rule her. The feelings that coursed through her body, the racing heartbeat, tensed muscles, the way all of her senses seemed to open wide and let the world flood in, were all symptomatic of the fear that wanted to cripple and kill her. But she’d survived on the trail because she had learned from her father, from Maive and Trudi and the others, that the very same feelings could be channelled into a killing rage.
And so she waited.
The pack snarled and skinned their lips back from long yellow fangs. She fancied she could smell the foul odour of their breath, and even in the darkness there was light enough from the moon and stars that their eyes shone like silver dollars laid on the orbs of a dead man. She knew the attack was moments away when two of the animals moved, attempting to flank her on both sides. Ears pinned back, they lowered themselves onto their haunches, where massive knots of muscle and meat quivered and twitched with anticipation of the kill. The sound of their growling slowed, like a powerful engine winding down.
Sophia took a long, deep breath.
The pack leader lunged forward ripping out a fusillade of barks, snapping its jaw like a threshing machine, as its pack-mates launched themselves in from the side. They came flying at the girl as though hurled from catapults. But she had already moved, leaping towards the dog to her left as she swung the machete in a vicious blur of sharpened steel that connected with the animal just below its ear. The sickening crunch of blade on bone and gristle was simultaneous with the horrified, outraged howl of the beast and the crack of the pack leader’s skull as it impacted the brick wall where she’d been standing. A fraction of a second later, and she heard the dull thud of the third animal colliding with the top dog as she used the momentum of her first strike to draw the blade down and out while she pivoted around for an upward stroke that sliced off the snout of the nearest dog, halfway along its jawline.
Angels of Vengeance: The Disappearance Novel 3 Page 40
