Alternities
Page 43
Bayshore was still resisting. “You’re saying that some power took pity on us and gave us a few extra chances to survive?”
“I am content with that answer. You’re free to find your own.”
The director’s mouth twisted into a wry expression. “No slight intended to my gathered friends, but what makes us worth all that trouble?”
“We’re not in a position to judge how much ‘trouble’ it was,” Eden said.
“Or to judge worth, for that matter,” Shan interjected.
Eden continued, “To an intelligence capable of such instrumentalities, it may have been no more trouble than snipping off the terminal bud of a growing plant to encourage it to branch.”
“They’re not miracles to God, in other words.”
“If you wish.”
Bayshore looked from face to face in search of an ally. He found expressions ranging from somber to numb. “All right.” he said resignedly. “All these ifs and maybes make fine dinner conversation, but we have a problem right here. What do we do about Indianapolis?”
“We take the gate house away from them,” Davis said simply.
“Yes,” Brandenburg agreed. “But that’s not enough.”
“No?”
“Dr. Eden expressed a belief that the channels were not meant to function as bridges. I agree. This gift only works if each alternity believes that it’s the only one, and acts accordingly. We have to think that we only get one chance. Otherwise we might take risks we have no right taking.”
“That particular cat’s out of the bag,” Wallace said. “We know. You know. You can’t undo that. Besides, we’re not your enemies. We’re more like brothers.”
Brandenburg stiffened. “It seems to me that you and your people chose the sides.”
“We should work together. We believe in the same things—”
“Not from the evidence I’ve seen.”
Wallace patiently tried to explain. “You don’t understand where the Russians have us. You could be the difference. You could help us push them back.”
“Why would we want to?” Brandenburg asked coldly. He turned to Eden. “Doctor, what happens if the cathedral is destroyed?”
“I couldn’t hazard a guess. Not without more than second-hand data and blue-sky models.”
Brandenburg closed his notebook. “Yes. That’s fair,” he said. “First things first. Mr. Bayshore, it’s time to move on the gate. How long before Group 10 can be ready?”
“They’ll be in position for tonight, if we need them,” he said, then added a warning. “There may not be many of the Guard left to round up by then. Unless they’re stacking them three deep inside, it looks like they’ve got some sort of move of their own underway.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Brandenburg said. “I want the gate in our hands by morning.”
Bayshore nodded and stood. “Yes, sir. Dr. Eden, Rayne—grab your things. You, too, Shan,” he added in an obvious afterthought. “The Indianapolis Express leaves in ten minutes.”
TARGETING SUMMARY, VMF NORTHERN FLEET, ATLANTIC GROUP
Mixed Counterforce and Countervalue (General Plan SD)
Target Description Location No. Yield
Philadelpia Metropolitan (continued)
Sun Shipbuilding Chester 1 20 KT
Boeing Corp. (aircraft) Essington 1 20 KT
U.S. Steel Works (steel mill) Fairless Hills 1 10 KT
General Electric (indust. elec.) King of Prussia 1 10 KT
Westinghouse (indust. elec.) Lester 1 10 KT
Delaware River Complex Philadelphia
International airport 7 115 KT
Atlantic Richfield Co. (oil refinery)
Naval shipyard
Marine freight terminal
Naval supply depot Philadelphia 1 10 KT
SKP Industries Plant #1 (bearings) Philadelphia 1 10 KT
Naval air station Willow Grove 1 35 KT
New Jersey
(see also New York Metropolitan)
Monsanto (chemicals) Bridgeport 1 10 KT
New York Shipbuilding Co. Camden 1 20 KT
General Aniline Works (elec. comp.) Grassell 1 10 KT
RCA (electronic components) Harrison 1 20 KT
Naval air station Lakehurst 2 40 KT
Javelin missile battery #16 Longport 1 10 KT
RCA Missile & Surface Radar Div. Moorestown 2 30 KT
Naval air station Pomona 1 20 KT
Javelin missile battery #17 Stone Harbor 1 10 KT
Bendix Corp. (aircraft components) Teterboro 1 20 KT
State capital Trenton 1 10 KT
McGuire air base: Ft. Dix army base Wrightstown 3 60 KT
Coast Guard antisubmarine C&C West Cape May 2 40 KT
General Staff of the Glavnyy Voyennyy Sovyet
CHAPTER 20
* * *
Moins Cinq
Boston, The Home Alternity
Long before the Asylum evacuation was called, Walter Endicott knew what he wanted from the Tower.
It had been a long road back to Boston. The planning and scheming that had returned him at long last to this place had begun years earlier. It was he who had placed the idea of leaving this alternity in Robinson’s mind, he who had pointed out what a loyal fifth column might achieve in the service of its commander.
Endicott remembered the conversation, in an Atlantic City hotel room, three weeks after the election. “Best of all is to rule in heaven, don’t you think?” he had said to the President that day. “There are better places than this, Peter. Why not pick one and take it for our own? Why scratch and fight for table scraps here?”
Robinson had said little at the time, but it was barely the dawn of his presidency. The lessons of the limits of power, the weight of the chains forged out of past mistakes, had yet to be learned.
Soon enough Endicott began to see signs that his suggestion had been taken to heart. The Guard growing like a wild weed, to serve the king in his new kingdom. A new emphasis on first-strike weapons, so that there might be a dramatic exit. Rathole, by which the king’s favored courtiers might blindly accompany him on his journey.
I die and am born again, exalted. I shall not want.
The flaw, annoying and aggrieving, was that Robinson had transmuted the “we” into an “I.” Like a parasitic playwright, Robinson had taken Endicott’s idea and built it into a powerful script in which he was the only actor of substance. Endicott’s sole thanks was to be written in as a supporting role.
Though Endicott remained first among the courtiers, true power-sharing eluded him. Blinded by the courtesies and the other symbols of status, Endicott learned too late that Robinson never truly consulted others in his decisions, never suffered the insecurities which would lead him to meaningfully solicit opinions and advice.
But in seeming to, Robinson had a powerful tool for collecting information and controlling people. And Endicott had been one of those controlled—with comforts and confidences, garnished with an illusion of responsibility. I need a friend in the Senate, someone I can count on—But it could have just as easily been another.
Outwardly gracious, Endicott had never crossed Robinson on any matter of substance. He carefully negotiated the traps laid for him by those who coveted what they wrongly thought he had. And he bode his time with stoic patience, waiting for the right moment to introduce a bit of anarchy into the play.
And now that moment had arrived. There are many worlds, Endicott thought. I will find a new one.
Tackett’s gnomes tried to make Endicott a prisoner of the ninth floor, locked up in storage with the round-faced men and thick-lipped boys, the wire-haired wives waiting uncomfortably in line for the toilet. The gnomes took him for one of them, one of the bleating sheep herded to Boston with no more grasp of events than an animal on its way to be butchered.
To be lumped with them was an insult, but Endicott could not concern himself with insults. To be penned with them was a strait-jacket, a strangling hand on his throat. But the gn
ome supervising the warren had already gone deaf to special pleadings long before Endicott arrived.
“I’m sorry. Senator. I can’t allow any green badges to leave the floor without word from above.”
“I’m sorry. Senator. Yes, the director is in the building, but he’s not available.”
“I’m sorry, Senator. I don’t know where to reach the President.”
Then Robinson made a brief visit to the ninth floor to lance the boil of anxiety which had been growing all day. Looking composed and almost cheerful, the President climbed atop a desk to address the evacuees.
“I know you all have questions which aren’t being answered,” he said in a voice that carried to the far corners of the room. “I’m afraid that all of us upstairs have been too busy doing to do much explaining. I can tell you that the Soviet Union has not backed down from its threatening posture, but neither have they launched any attacks on our forces.
“We’re ready to defend ourselves and to respond to any hostilities, though I hope we won’t need to. But if fighting does come, I promise that you and your families will be safe. Please continue to cooperate with the NRC staff, as you already have so magnificently. Your prayers and your patience are both invaluable to me in this crisis.”
Endicott fought his way forward to catch the President by the elbow before he could exit the room.
“A minute,” he insisted. “We need to talk.”
“Of course,” Robinson said, leading him through the checkpoint and into the corridor outside. “What is it, Walter?”
“I gave you all this,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Everything that’s about to be. The Tower wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me. I don’t like being locked up here like a stranger and a security risk. There aren’t any secrets that need to be kept from me.”
The President distractedly agreed. “Get the Senator a visitor’s pass,” he told the gnome at the checkpoint.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Unrestricted,” Endicott said helpfully.
“Sir, there’s no such thing as an unrestricted guest pass,” the gnome said. “We just don’t let people roam free here. Except for you, of course,” he amended hastily.
“If you can make one exception, you can make two.”
The gnome squirmed, discomfited. “Sir, all visitors must be escorted. That’s SOP here.”
“Then get the Senator a pass and an escort, and custom will be served.” Robinson turned to Endicott. “I know you understand, Walter, that I’ve got my hands full—”
“Oh, I understand, Peter.” The blue and white visitor’s badge now dangling from his lapel just below the green Alpha List badge was all he had needed from Robinson. “I won’t be underfoot.”
“Thank you.”
With an acknowledging salute, the President boarded an elevator and left. Endicott waited for his escort, gloating at the gnome who had earlier refused him. Warm bodies were apparently in short supply, for it took nearly ten minutes to produce one. But when he finally arrived, the escort gnome proved more astute than the guard gnome had been.
“I know you,” he said, recognition dawning in his eyes. “You’re the one that shot that Russian spy. I saw you on the news, didn’t I?”
“That’s right,” Endicott said, pleased at being recognized. A little innocent awe and deference would be useful in the hours to come. “What’s your name?”
“Edwards, sir. White Section. Where can I take you, Senator?”
“You have a cafeteria here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What’s the chance of the coffee being any better than the poison they’re serving in there?” he asked, jerking a thumb in the direction of the warren.
“Not good, sir. But I know a department on the sixth floor that has a supply of Colombian and a black-water wizard named Angelica. We can probably boost you something potable there.”
Endicott worked the younger man for nearly an hour, sharing stories of Washington and of the President, drawing him out about the Tower, binding him in a conspiracy of confidences. Not until he knew he would not be refused did he voice his real interest.
“I’d like to see the Cambridge,” he said, pushing his empty cup across the cafeteria table. “I’d like to see the gate house.”
“Well, sure,” Edwards began. “There’s a lot of offices above the fifteenth floor with windows on the atrium—”
“I’ve seen it from there,” Endicott said. “I mean the way the runners see it. Ground level, from the atrium floor.”
Edwards looked at his watch. “It’s almost four,” he said. “The pre-evac withdrawals from Blue should be finishing up. It’s been hectic down there, but I guess we can get you a peek.” He shrugged. “Sure. This might be as good a time as any.”
The three monitors working gate control looked like they had been under siege. Voices were hoarse, patience short, and the countertop looked like a battlefield. Several inbound runners were waiting in a ragged line for clearance, check-in, or directions. Other runners waited restlessly in the chute, using their transit bags as seats or pillows.
“Donnie, this is Senator Endicott,” Edwards said, approaching the counter from the side. “I’m going to take him inside for a few minutes.”
“Don’t gaff me. I haven’t got the time,” the monitor gnome grumped without raising his head.
“No gaff. The President gave specific orders for me to take him where he wants to go, and he wants to see the gate house.”
Wearing an expression that said, why-are-you-doing-this-to-me, the gnome looked up and locked a querying gaze on Endicott. The gaze took in the dual badges, then shifted focus to Edwards. “The middle of the craziest day we’ve ever had and you’re giving tours?”
“This is Senator Endicott,” Edwards repeated in a tone that Endicott found pleasing. “Just tell the snipers we’re coming and buzz us through, all right?”
The monitor gnome sighed and surrendered. “Keep it short, will you?”
“The snipers?” Endicott asked.
“You’ll see.”
Endicott did. Bathed in light from a hundred floodlamps and the afternoon sun reflecting down from overhead, the Cambridge stood like the dark kernel of a great towering crystal in the center of a magnificent rectangular atrium. Sixty feet up the inner walls, in the glare zone beneath four of the clusters of lamps, were pairs of armored security nests. Their overlapping fields of fire blanketed the entire open zone surrounding the gate house.
“How do they know not to shoot?” Endicott asked, squinting in a vain attempt to see how many marksmen occupied each nest.
“See there, at the front door?” Endicott looked and saw a black waist-high pedestal. “Everyone coming back has to stop there and dial their transit code. If it’s not a valid code—”
“I get the picture,” Endicott said. “Do you have this kind of security at every gate house?”
“Oh, no. This is special. We’ve got to treat this one like a border checkpoint. We have to be careful who we let in. The outbound traffic can’t hurt us.”
“Can we go inside? I’d like to see the gate itself. You can see it, can’t you?”
“In the dark. But there’s a special forces team monitoring the gate. I don’t think they’re going to let us in.”
“Let’s try, can we?”
There were two sentry gnomes in the brightly lit focus room, crouching behind portable trifold shields positioned fifteen feet from and facing a blank wall, sentries at an invisible door. Endicott allowed Edwards to precede him into the room, then edged to one side until his escort’s body was between him and the more distant of the two sentries.
“Corporal, this is Senator Endicott with me,” Edwards was saying.
“The President wanted him to have a tour. How long until we get outbounds, so he can get a peek at the gate?”
Both sentries glanced Endicott’s way, then turned their attention back to the gate. Discipline, Endicott thought. Albert did a good job with di
scipline.
“Soon,” the sentry gnome replied. “But not soon enough. I’ve got the wanders from staring at nothing for three hours. I don’t know what the old man is so nervous about today. You couldn’t squeeze an extra body through unless it was on somebody’s shoulders.”
Edwards laughed.
Three, Endicott thought. More than I’d expected. More than I hoped for. But it has to be now.
The gun felt larger in his hand than it had in the pocket of his suit jacket. He pointed it at the middle of the nearer sentry’s back and fired twice. The wet slapping sounds of the bullets’ passage though the sentry’s body were almost lost in the echoes which bounced around the bare-walled room. His body twitching, the sentry toppled forward to the floor.
Edwards’ head whipped around in surprise. Behind him, the second sentry was rising from his crouch, trying to see what was happening, starting to push Edwards out of the way. But before the corporal could turn his weapon on Endicott, the Senator’s little revolver spoke again. Seconds later, the corporal was on his back in a pool of blood, sucking air raspily through his chest.
“Jesus Christ,” Edwards breathed, backing toward the wall.
The revolver held two more bullets. The first missed, vanishing through the gate without ever marking the wall. The second caught Edwards in the hip and took him to the floor, where he lay writhing while Endicott calmly reloaded. Endicott said nothing to him before he silenced the screaming with a bullet to the head.
He did not allow himself to think or feel, only to do. Methodically, he discarded watch and ring, shed belt and slacks to reveal a pair of cotton drawstring warm-up pants. He threw his jacket and tie aside, then cupped his hands in the blood pooling on the floor and smeared his remaining clothes with the crimson stain. There’s been fighting in the Tower—I was the last one out—