by Kim Newman
"We're not supposed to lose," said Maxwell. He had graced the game by deciding to captain the British team and had been bowled out for a duck. "It makes us look stupid. It makes me look stupid."
There was a summerhouse hidden in the grounds of Cord's mansion, which they used as a changing-room.
"No use crying over spilt milk," said the Rev. Bev, filling an embarrassed silence. "I'm looking forward to tucking into the cucumber sandwiches."
Back in the USSA
"You'll do nothing of the sort," fumed Maxwell, face almost purple. If he wasn't careful, thought Lowe, he'd have a coronary. It was just a question of whether his arsehole could hold out longer than his heart. "The game didn't last long. There's still plenty of time left. I'm going to demand a re-match."
"But..." said at least three people.
"I won't have arguments. I'm demanding a re-match," said Maxwell, picking up a bat and pointing it at Blair. "And I want to know how you propose to win this time?"
"I suppose we could start by putting them in to bat first," said Blair. "We'll have to give them everything we've got, get some good fast bowlers, throw a few googlies."
It was just possible that one or two of the locals might have played cricket before, but what had done for them was the homecoming queen, who'd been grenade-throwing champion of the women's branch of the New Mexico Military Reserve. Then, for all his hatred of baseball, Elwood turned out to be a demon batsman, notching up a whole over's worth of sixes against Penny's underarm bowling.
"Sir Robert," said Beverley, "I do think perhaps we should be a bit more sporting about this. Whether they beat us fairly or not, our hosts will think us terribly childish."
Maxwell threw his bat in impotent rage. It crashed through a window.
"I own the biggest-selling newspaper in Britain. I have a business empire with interests stretching around the globe. During the War, I killed Germans with my bare hands. A lot of them. But I can't organise a cricket team to beat a bunch of thick provincial Yanks. It makes me angry, and when I'm angry I'm very dangerous."
Someone somewhere out of Maxwell's view sniggered.
"Who was that?!" he roared.
Penny burst through the door. "Sir Robert," she said, "the local big-shots are just dying to meet you. I told them about your wartime exploits. They want to hear more about your adventures."
Maxwell harrumphed, brightened a little.
"Lowe," he said as he left. "You're still on sufferance. Don't think I'm going to forget those two easy catches you dropped. Now I want you to write a report on this game, and I want the result to be the correct one. Understand."
Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman
Flagstaff, Ariz.
Letter from America, by Joanna Houseman
A very strange place, is Flagstaff. Under the old regime, it was a resort; bigwigs from Arizona and even Texas owned ranches here, while the Party maintained a couple of hostels where quota-busting farm or factory workers would be rewarded with family holidays. Now, Flagstaff is a bizarre melting-pot for the desperate. Accommodation is cheap, if not actually free; ranches and resort cabins have been taken over by squatters. The owners are too far away and with too many worries of their own to go to the trouble of evicting them. Many squatters are stalled migrants, people on their way to California who ran out of gas (petrol), or suffered breakdowns (mechanical or otherwise), or just didn't feel like carrying on.
Most bizarre of all, Flagstaff has become a spiritual capital—the Glastonbury, if you will, of North America. Under the New Deal, First Americans started holding an annual "Pow-Wow" here in July. I don't know if the region is especially sacred to the Indians, but naturally the gatherings included medicine-men and shamans. These attracted the white kids and spiritual seekers. The streets are thick with American beetniki (known as "hippies") panhandling for "spare change" or handing out leaflets. They claim the Great Spirit or a spaceship or plain old Jesus Christ, is going to descend on Arizona any time now and take them all to a better place.
In the wake of the hippies came other zealots and charlatans. British and German Buddhists vie with Russian Hindus for pitches on street corners. The clean-cut, sinisterly wholesome Bavarian Catholic missionaries are the biggest act in town because they have the most money. About 2,000 people attend their midday prayer services for the free bread and soup afterwards. Danish Lutherans at least made themselves useful with a free clinic and contraceptive advice, but their HQ was fire-bombed last month. No one knows who did it, but everyone has a conspiracy theory.
The ones everyone keeps a wary eye on are the repellent Russian doomsday cultists, the Khlysty and the Skoptzy, who preach that the day of judgement is at hand. They occupy two ranches on the edge of town where they are rumoured to have regular orgies. To become a full initiate of either sect, however, the males have to castrate themselves. Sheriff
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Back in the USSA
Robertson would dearly like to run the Khlysty and the Skoptzy out of town, but he has two deputies, four rifles, three pistols and not much ammunition. The bitter irony of this is that there used to be a huge military arsenal in Flagstaff until one night guards who hadn't been paid for two years were persuaded to look the other way. By the following morning, the arsenal had been emptied. By coincidence or not, the Russian cultists are extremely well-armed.
Both factions have American leaders: the Khlysty are represented by a fire-eyed prophet named Charles Manson, the Skoptzy by a guitar-playing egomaniac named David Koresh. Interestingly, both of these men were failed musicians before they discovered their religious calling. Neither man, by the way, is castrated; as leaders of the sects they have already "transcended" the temptations of the flesh.
"Yeah, sure," as Sheriff Robertson would say.
The Sheriff asked the Federal Government to send in help nine months ago, but the government has more pressing problems to see to. In the meantime, Manson and Koresh skirmish with each other, and the town trembles. Everyone in America talks about Apocalypse like the British talk about the weather. The sky is filled with signs and portents. Rumours of war fly thick. Dark strangers stalk the roads. Flagstaff is on People's Road 66, the mostly derelict interstate constructed under Capone for cross-country military traffic. All the signs have an extra "6" spray-painted in red. This is now PR 666.
Kingman, Ariz
The only car ahead was the antenna-festooned Bentley from which Maxwell controlled his empire. Further past, maybe a mile on, was what appeared to be a roadblock.
A motorcycle tore past them. William Brown wore dark glasses and black leather but no helmet. Slung across his back was a gun.
"SIG 540 machine-pistol," commented Lowe. "Swiss. Very expensive, very efficient. A cold little cutie from the cantons. Not quite state-of-the-art, though. An '80s thing. Brown's obviously a connoisseur."
In the back of the Roller, Penny stirred from reading a three-month old issue of The Lady. "I didn't have you marked down as a gun nut."
"I'm not. It's a legacy of one of several failed novels. I read up on guns when I was trying to write a best-seller a few years ago, about an
Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman
attempt to assassinate the French President-Chairman Jean-Luc Godard. Wasn't such a bad stab, too. Got up to page 70 before binning it."
Brown stopped up ahead in the middle of the road, signalled to Maxwell's driver to slow right down, then rode back past the convoy like a hired gun marshalling a wagon-train.
"Are we in trouble?" said Penny.
"Hard to say. Someone up at the front wants us to stop. Maybe the local boss wants us to pay the toll."
"There's a gun hidden under the glove-compartment," she said.
"I know."
He'd accidentally found the Czech vz61 Skorpion gaffer-taped under the walnut dashboard when rooting around on the floor for a dropped cigarette. Just ten inches long, it was a little war all by itself. "If we need it, we're probably already dead. Better trust in God almighty and William B
rown."
There was a clicking noise from the back seat. He glanced in the mirror in time to see her push the chrome-plated and pearl-handled Tokarev automatic back into her handbag.
"This, my dear, is why I'm an aristocrat and you're not. We're always ready to fight. It's how my ancestors seized your ancestors' land, livestock, women and dignity."
Maxwell's car slowed to 20mph. Brown's bike rumbled past them once more and on towards the roadblock.
A distant throbbing noise rapidly grew louder. In a few moments, two matt black helicopters hovered overhead, no more than 30 feet from the ground. The car shuddered in the rotor down-draught. Dust swirled all around.
Both the huge black insects carried missile-pods, and had sinister arrangements of gun-barrels beneath their noses. Chain-guns. The helicopters hovered over the road just in front of the roadblock. Tumbleweed twisted in with the sand-storm. Brown rode his bike into the dust.
The helicopters landed, side-on, to either side of the road.
Maxwell's car pulled to a halt. Lowe stopped the Roller, pulled the handbrake and shut off the engine. His hip-flask was on the passenger-seat. He reached for it, unscrewed the top and offered it to Penny.
"No thanks," she said.
The absinthe burned his throat. He thought of taking a second slug, then thought again. The dust in front of the choppers was thinning.
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Back in the USSA
Brown had parked his bike in front of them and was walking back towards Maxwell's car accompanied by a tall, muscular blonde man in an olive green uniform
He'd never seen the infamous black helicopters before, but knew them now.
"Put the safety-catch back on, Penny. We're in friendly hands."
"I never took it off. Who are they?"
"The United Nations."
As if on cue, the man in green pulled a sky blue beret from the pocket of his immaculately-ironed trousers and put it on.
Two years ago, during a Russian general election campaign, Menshevik incumbent Mikhail Gorbachev—his administration undermined by allegations of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence—had tried to wrest back the moral high ground by getting together with the British Prime Minister, the EU and the United Nations to declare a "New World Order". The world's leaders committed themselves to a visionary plan to eradicate world poverty and hunger and protect human rights.
It was 99% electioneering bluster, of course (and for Gorbachev, it worked), but probably achieved some good in a few places. The EU and Russia put a few million quid into development projects and a lot of earnest, serious young university graduates signed up for Voluntary Service Overseas. Hospitals, dairies, water purification plants, fish canneries and concrete factories got built in various parts of Africa and Asia. Gorbachev twisted Ewing's arm to let UN human rights monitors into certain American states.
And here they were.
"Time to be a reporter," said Lowe, getting out of the car.
The UN presence had probably prevented several massacres and minor local wars, but most Yanks regarded it as an ultimate humiliation. At first, the UN sent unarmed civilians in Land Rovers: some witnessed things they didn't live long enough to report. Then, Ewing was pressured into allowing the UN to deploy heavily-armed soldiers in distinctively unmarked black helicopters.
More or less everyone believed the story that the statue of Abe in Washington's Lincoln Memorial cried tears of blood on the day the first UN troops arrived. Lots of Americans—some of them otherwise intelligent individuals—believed the story that Gorbachev's New World Order was in fact a Jewish conspiracy to enslave or wipe out honest
Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman
Americans. The black choppers were paving the way, reconnoitring the best places to land the invasion army and set up the extermination camps.
"This is Colonel van Damme, of the Belgian army. He commands a mixed Belgian and Irish unit operating in this area." Brown introduced the big man to Maxwell. The Colonel saluted and said something in French. Maxwell embraced the startled officer, and one of the staff photographers emerged from Maxwell's car to take pictures of the historic event. Van Damme writhed in the tycoon's bear-hug and presented a cheeky grin to the camera, turning to show off his profile and jaunty cap.
Another man walked up. A slightly chubby youngster with thick black hair and eyebrows. He wore a slightly outlandish sky-blue uniform.
Lowe introduced himself to the younger man.
"Scott Tracy," said the man in an American accent. "International Rescue."
They watched Colonel Van Damme dazzle the photographers, while Maxwell tried to get into the pictures. The Colonel hopped up on the roadblock and did the splits between two trestles, grinning like Sabu in The Thief of Bagdad.
"You're an American?" Lowe said to Tracy.
"We Tracys prefer to think of ourselves as citizens of the world," he said, letting the accent slip towards something more British-sounding.
"International Rescue?"
"Specialists in the prevention or relief of accidents and disasters."
He couldn't decide if young Tracy was an arrogant little prick or just a bit on the serious side.
"What are you doing with the UN?"
"Helping whatever way we can. We have some special equipment. Excavation and lifting gear. We're only semi-officially here, but the Colonel seems to find us useful."
"What's your business around here?"
Tracy pointed towards the gentle slope away from the road. In the yellowish-grass, something shiny caught the light, an affair of spokes and chrome tubes. There were UN men poking around.
Lowe and Tracy strolled.
Lowe's stomach flipped as he realised what he was looking at. In the grass were the tangled relics of a pair of motorcycles. The petrol tanks had exploded, and there was a brown burned patch.
"Been here for a while," Tracy said. "Days."
Green blankets had been thrown over two man-shaped patches.
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Back in the USSA
A Belgian brought something to show Tracy. It was a crash helmet painted with the Stars and Stripes and the Hammer and Scythe. There was a ragged hole in it.
"Good marksmanship," Tracy commented. "Especially with a moving target. And probably fired from a vehicle too. You all right?"
Lowe's stomach was upside-down, and bars of bright black and orange ran across his vision. He held his knees and willed himself not to be sick.
"I knew them. No. I met them. Once. There were three. Billy, Wyatt and...some other name."
"Only two here. The other one'll show up somewhere. We see this all the time. Crime of opportunity. Hippies on bikes come into view, there's a shotgun under the dashboard, nobody cares about road flotsam, so why not score a couple of kills? Bam bam bam. Yank bastards."
Evidently, young Tracy was not an American after all.
Two men lifted one of the bike skeletons up. There was a bullet-hole in the gas tank.
"Maybe it's this stretch of road?" Tracy said.
"What do you mean?" Lowe asked.
He gently escorted Lowe past the motorcycles. They went down an incline and up a slope, then crested what seemed at first like an archaeological dig. A crater of bare earth was being picked over by men with cloth masks and rubber gloves.
"We'd never have found it if it weren't for the easy riders."
Lowe saw the bones. They were recent enough not to come easily away from the bodies. The UN and International Rescue were sorting it all out. Skulls were arranged neatly in groups often. There was a central collection point for spectacles, wallets, intact clothing, shoes, papers. Anything that might be of use in identification.
There was a dry, nasty smell. Dust was blowing from the crater, across the road.
"What happened?" Lowe asked, the journo's most feeble question.
"Seems that two years ago a few hundred Oklahomans settled themselves in a valley just inside Californ-i-ay, raised a few crops, minded their own bus
iness. Someone rounded the Okies up, took 'em over the border and killed the lot of 'em. Some of them were shot, some were beaten or stabbed. I guess whoever did it didn't want to waste too many bullets. Hence, this mass grave here."
"Any idea who did it?"
Eugene Byrne & Kim Newman
Tracy shook his head. "Not yet. But Colonel van Damme will find out. Might be one of the So-Cal militias, might be a landowner tried to drive them out."
Most of the skulls were crushed. Lowe tried to envision it, but couldn't. Some damper in his imagination cut in. He could conceive of the bikers being shot dead, one then another. It was horror, but he could see it. Two shots, an explosion, corpses by the road, waiting to be found. He could conceive of ten, a dozen, twenty, more, dying in a battle, a brisk firefight and casualties all over the ground. He had seen traffic pile-ups on these People's Roads, attended executions, watched a couple of shoot-outs, witnessed murders. But this was outside the scope of his understanding.
Two hundred people.
How long did it take? Were the murderers efficient and dispassionate, or hysterical and sadistic? Did someone think it out and give orders— that touch about not wasting bullets suggested calculation—or did the killers just keep on killing until the job was done? Was it a job, or a crusade, or a spasm of hate, or a natural phenomenon like sunspots?
Two hundred people.
Lowe took out a pack of Strands and offered them. Tracy looked faintly disdainful as he refused. He still couldn't figure this guy out; serious, cool professional, or fucking boy-scout? Then he notices that Tracy's hands were shaking, just like his own. That was sort of comforting.
"Do the perpetrators get punished?" asked Lowe.
"The ringleaders are supposed to be handed over to the Federal Government for trial. But first you have to catch them. Even then, Federal Prosecutors are often reluctant to bring suit. They're all related to each other."
"People who commit crimes like this get off scot-free?"
"Not always," said Tracy. "The way I hear it, the Irish-Belgian UN battalion takes a very pro-active approach to its own self-defence. I'd say that Colonel van Damme would regard whoever did this as a threat to his unit's safety. Action will probably be taken to eliminate that threat."
