After America ww-2

by John Birmingham

  She'd refused. Richardson and his crew had come after her through Bret and Monique. She wouldn't leave the room until he broke and told them why. Indeed, she believed her presence had probably contributed to undermining his will. He'd seen her execute his comrades, some of them in cold blood, and she gave him no reason to believe that she wouldn't be just as ruthless with him.

  "Still and all, he did give a good accounting of himself in there, didn't he?" said Dalby as they reached the foot of the ladder leading up to the old barroom. "That was quite a job of work getting him to talk. Your Mister Baumer really knows how to put the frighteners on a chap."

  Caitlin shook her head in disgust.

  Bilal Baumer. Al Banna.

  She thought she'd seen off that worthless blood clot years ago. But here he was, back in her face, even if it was only through the agency of cutouts and dupes like Richardson. She finished the dregs of her coffee before pulling herself up the old wooden ladder hand over hand. She was amused and a little touched to see that Dalby made a conspicuous effort not to stare at her butt as it swayed past his eyes.

  He was good guy, old Dalby, she had decided, even if he was a little too ready with the shaving razor and the Zippo during interrogation. He followed her up the ladder and directed her through the small pod of desks, where the typist she had met earlier was having a late-afternoon tea, nibbling a jam-covered scone and reading an old gossip magazine. Not that there were any new gossip mags being published. Not in paper form, anyway. After all, a big swag of the world's celebrity supply had disappeared back in '03, but more important, the all-powerful Ministry of Resources had deemed august journals such as Hello! and OK! "surplus to the national emergency requirements," making them prohibitively expensive to publish. Like most of the print media, they had downsized and gone online, where they scrabbled over some very meager pickings from advertising and subscriptions.

  "This way," Dalby said, using a key to open a door at the far end of the room. The day had grown even gloomier while they'd been downstairs, and outside it was so dark with the lowering clouds and rain that she could barely see beyond the windows. Springtime in England, she thought gloomily. A log fire burned in the center of the old barroom, providing welcome light and warmth, but fluorescent tubes hanging from the ceiling shone with a much harsher effect, laying a flat white light over everything. Caitlin tailed Dalby into the room, which looked like it might have been the pub manager's office at one time. It was furnished in the same spare utilitarian style as the main area, but he had softened the space with a few amateurish oil paintings and a potted fern, which he sprayed with water from a plastic bottle before sitting down. There were three framed pictures sitting on his desk, which was otherwise free of clutter. She assumed they were of his family but could not see from her side of the room.

  "Sit down, sit down. That's the comfier perch," he said, indicating a very tired-looking leather armchair in a corner behind her. It sat next to a gray metal bookcase that was mostly filled with government documents and a few nonfiction books: The Legacy of Jihad, Bravo Two Zero, The Disappeared. There were two novels there, however, lying face up on the top shelf: a well-thumbed copy of The Cruel Sea and what looked like an unread science fiction title, Tearing Down Tuesday. She assumed it was sci-fi because of the green robot on the cover. She was probably sitting in Dalby's reading chair, she realized. It was, as he had said, a rather comfortable perch.

  "I must apologize for the unpleasantness downstairs, Caitlin. It did get rather fraught once or twice."

  "Big boys' rules," she said casually.

  "Indeed. Which brings us to the question of which rules we're now playing by as regards Mister Baumer."

  Caitlin shifted her position slightly in the chair. The mention of Baumer's name upset her more than she would care to admit. She could not avoid the image of her husband and child, her precious family, lying dead in a field had she not been there. And where was she now? Not by their side, that was for…

  She forced her mind to stop rambling.

  "I thought he was supposed to be chained up at the bottom of some hole in Guadeloupe, helping the gendarmes with their inquiries."

  "Indeed," Dalby said with a quirk of the lips that might have been rueful or wryly amused.

  "Our last information had him so situated. But that was a year ago, and I'm afraid that communications between metropolitan France and the territoires d'outre-mer are not what they might be. Frankly, Mr. Baumer was no longer an active concern of ours once it became obvious that we were never going to be given unfettered access to him. Or any access at all, beyond furnishing the DST with a list of questions they might just pass on to the Directorate of Military Intelligence, which took control of him back in 2003."

  "So, what, all of our work on him was for nothing? Or was it because we were asking. Rather than MI6 or the Yard?"

  "Could be," Dalby conceded with a wave of one hand. "We're not flavor of the month in the Elysee Palace. Never have been, which is only reasonable, I suppose, given our brief. Frankly, I would rather that Echelon had remained a private affair and hence deniable rather than declaring our hand as we did after the Vancouver Conference. I really don't think your Mister Kipper did us any favors there."

  Caitlin leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees, locking her elbows straight, imitating her father without realizing she was doing so. She agreed with the Englishman but could not get worked up over it in the same way. Echelon had worked very well in the old world as a secret arrangement among the Anglophone powers to divide up responsibility for spying on the rest of the world. And it wasn't as if the rest of the world didn't know about them. Compromised elements of the DGSE in France had been able to roll up most of Echelon's network there in the first days of the intifada.

  "That's all politics, Dalby. And history now. Fact is, we are in the open, we are declared players, and the French are going to have to give up whatever they know about Baumer. This guy is out, and he's running assets again, on our turf, against me."

  "You really think it's personal?" Dalby asked. He sounded skeptical.

  Caitlin threw her hands into the air. "Richardson was paid by a man called Tariq Skaafe, also known as Terry Skaafe, one of Baumer's old aliases. He was contracted to drive up here and put a hit on my family. He got a bonus payment if he managed to drive back to London with me in a bag. It sounds personal, dontcha think? The guy's been sitting in a fucking hole in Guadeloupe for two or three years, eating his craw, stewing on the infidel bitch who put him there. Fuck knows how he got out, but if Sarko doesn't really control the external territories anymore-and who does have a handle on the fucking Carribean these days?-then it's entirely fucking possible that Baumer got sprung from his spider hole for a packet of fucking cigarettes and a handjob!"

  Caitlin, who had leaned far forward in making her case, fell back into the chair, annoyed with herself for losing control in front of Dalby, for losing control at all. If Baumer really was on the loose and coming after her, she was going to need to stay frosty until she could reach into his fucking chest and rip his heart out herself just to make sure the fucker was really dead.

  Dalby nodded sympathetically and opened a drawer behind his desk. "Do you mind?" he asked, taking out a pipe. "Helps me to think things through. And I received a new bag of tobacco the other day. From Missouri."

  "Knock yourself out, Sherlock," she said, smiling an apology. "I'm sorry to rant, but it's not just about me, you know. Those assholes this morning came after my husband and my kid. It doesn't get any more personal than that."

  Dalby tamped down the small bowl full of brown leaf and lit up with the same lighter he'd used to extract the information about "Terry Skaafe" from Richardson. "You know this al Banna chap better than anyone," he said as he drew in the first puffs. "Do you think there's a chance he's still in the country?"

  Caitlin shook her head. "None at all. He'd have moved in and out very quickly. The Skaafe cover was a good one. He didn't use it when I was trailin
g him. We only found out about it afterward. A solid jacket as a Kurdish-Austrian businessman working in medical supplies. That would have got him all the travel stamps from the Resources Ministry. He was on a clean EU passport, Austrian nationality. Gave him a free pass at border control. Richardson took the job from him six months ago. Paid by small multiple Web transfers into his betting account. He came, he went, he's gone."

  Dalby took a long draw on the pipe and closed his eyes, obviously enjoying the indulgence. The smoke had a whiff of port and old leather about it. Rain pattered at the single pane of glass between the office and the training area beyond. A chopper passed by, the hammering blades audible some distance away. It could lull you to sleep if you didn't mind yourself, Caitlin thought.

  Dalby was quiet for so long, with his eyes shut and his head bobbing slightly, that she was beginning to wonder whether he might have fallen asleep when he spoke again.

  "And so where to for Mister Baumer, assuming you're correct?"

  She relaxed slightly, relieved that they were moving forward again. She wanted this dealt with so that she could get home.

  "Well, not metro France, that's for damn sure. Paris isn't Guadeloupe, and old Sarko runs a pretty hard-hitting crew nowadays, at least in the parts of the country he controls. He's got the migrant ghettos sewed up pretty tight, too. If I had to make a guess, I'd say we'd need to start looking for Baumer in Neukolln, where his mom lived. Still might, if she's alive. Germans didn't go in for the whole ethnic cleansing thing. And they took in a shitload of refugees from France after the war. From here, too, after the Tories took over. A third world shariatown like Neukolln would be a good place for Billy to hole up. He knows the place inside out, and it's crawling with his sort of people. Lots of new faces, too. Makes it hard for the Germans to keep track of the talent. Not that they have time anyway with the Poles and the Russians keeping them busy."

  She sighed and shook her head. "What a world, Dalby."

  He had the pipe running hot now. Caitlin didn't smoke, but she appreciated the strong, earthy odor after the stink of the interrogation room.

  "So you would propose to go back into the field?" he said. "Into Germany as a first measure?"

  She nodded. "I had a watching brief on him there for a year. He has a network. Or had one, anyway. The old Doctor Noor outfit…" She paused. "I suppose you can tell me that Doctor No is actually dead, right? The French didn't fuck that up, too."

  Dalby smiled.

  "No. That half clip of nine-millimeter hollow-point you emptied into his chest back in Paris well and truly sent him off into the afterlife to enjoy his seventy-six raisins with the blessed Prophet. He, at least, is no longer a bother."

  "Well, that's something," she conceded. "And to answer your question, yes, I think Germany is the place to begin. I'd like to start as soon as possible."

  "I can drive you down to London when we're cleaned up here if you wish," Dalby offered.

  "No," Caitlin said. "I'd like to see my family before I leave." "You know, kickass superspies aren't supposed to have leaky breasts. I checked in the manual. It's like an actual rule or something."

  Caitlin swaddled Monique in a fresh blanket and placed her on her back in the cot by Bret's hospital bed.

  "Yeah, that might have been a rule once upon a time, but it was superseded by enlightened affirmative action policy ages ago," she said. "Any jihadi whack job or hired killer who tries to take unfair advantage of my leaky breasts is so going to get a severe dressing down from the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Plus new moms are perfect assassins. They're supergood at being very quiet, being up late at night, and sneaking around in the dark not stepping on LEGO or shell casings."

  Bret smiled, but the effort involved was painfully obvious. Her husband was trying to make light of her departure but failing. He had refused any pain relief so as to be clearheaded when she called, and Caitlin knew him well enough to see that he was trying to hide a serious hurting from her. More important, she knew, he had not forgiven himself for the morning, no matter how many times she told him he had nothing for which to seek forgiveness. He was too much of a soldier to let it go, a ranger no less, no matter how much he tried to distance himself from that past.

  He'll never forgive himself, she realized. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

  A low-watt lamp on the shelf by his bed lit the hospital room. Full night had fallen a few hours ago, and the curtains were drawn. Monique gurgled a few times and fell asleep, snoring ever so quietly and all but breaking Caitlin's heart. She had fed her one last time. She gently eased herself down on the edge of the bed next to Bret and took his hand, linking her fingers through his, being careful not to dislodge the IV line or hurt any of his injured digits. She was dressed for travel in jeans, a thick woolen shirt, and her favorite black leather coat, whereas he lay in bandages and a thin cotton nightgown with no ass. It felt wrong, just wrong, to be leaving them, but she had to tell herself that she was not abandoning her family, she was protecting them. And that meant going out into the dark to hunt for monsters.

  "That guy Dalby, he's not bad, is he?" Bret said in a quiet, almost croaky voice. "He told me about the arrangements for the farm and the safe house. We're gonna be good to go, Caity, so I don't want you to be worrying about us while you're working. Don't be thinking about having to call and check to see if Monique and I are squared away. Just get on with…"

  His soft, battered beautiful face blurred as her tears came. Caitlin leaned forward over him, her tears falling freely onto his cheeks.

  "How do you shut an idiot up?" she whispered. She kissed him hard, and for a brief instant everything faded from concern. Bret and Caitlin were the only two people in the whole world. When she pulled away, she could already feel her heart hardening to the task ahead.

  "I love you both so much."

  "I love you, too," he said.

  "And I will be back as soon as I can," she promised. "I'll be fine. And we'll be fine. Everything is gonna be cool."

  He squeezed her hand and smiled, but she could tell he did not believe her.

  20

  Air Force One, in transit, New York to Kansas City "Contact," the pilot said over the cabin speakers of Air Force One. Through his window Kipper watched the smaller plane, a fighter jet, take on fuel from their escort tanker. He never got tired of watching the in-flight refueling process. It was a marvel of the man-machine interface and testimony to the fact that almost any problem was amenable to rational thought and considered action.

  Almost any problem.

  "Refueling complete," the pilot of the smaller plane said over the radio. The fighter pulled away from the refueling probe, and a mist of fuel vaporized harmlessly over the fuselage as the pilot rejoined his place in formation against a clear blue sky. Kipper understood, however, that their plane, Air Force One, had no such capability. He had asked about it and argued with Jed for a different aircraft, one of the air force C-17s, but Culver and his staff had fallen on that suggestion like a sack of hammers.

  "The aircraft that is Air Force One needs to be one that upholds the significance and prestige of the president of the United States," they said.

  What prestige? Kipper often wondered as he boarded "his" plane at some lifeless airfield in the middle of nowhere. On this trip, for instance, they'd transferred from the Marine One chopper to Air Force One at an airbase in upstate New York a couple of hours after escaping the city. A grim, windswept outpost it was, too, manned by a heavily armed company of marines. He shook his head. This really wasn't how he'd expected to be coming home. Again he thought, What prestige?

  After the brief interlude of the refueling operation, Kip dropped back into the padded leather chair across from his chief of staff and resigned himself to wrestling with a long list of problems for which no elegant solutions presented themselves. As he sat down, he knocked a book off his armrest: David McCullough's biography of Truman. He'd read over the section on the firing of General Douglas MacArthur for t
he fourth time that morning once they had cleared the dangerous airspace around Manhattan.

  "I didn't fire him because it was the easy thing to do," Truman had said. "I fired him because it was the right thing to do."

  "So, Blackstone," Kip sighed.

  "Well, at least we don't have polling data," Culver said lightly, but he was tired and stressed, and his eyes failed to light up.

  He was right, though. No one bothered to conduct polls these days. There were too many other things to do: food to grow, equipment to scavenge, salvage and clearance work, a nation to rebuild. Those with the number-crunching skills to run polls were put to better uses, such as trying to ration the food supply to keep the population fed or balance a federal budget floating atop an economy that had shrunk to a minuscule fraction of its former size and devolved in part to subsistence and barter. Running polls came in a very poor second. If the president of the United States needed to know what the people were thinking, he had only to go for a walk around Seattle or call up a talk radio station in Alaska, although he rarely did that because of the very real danger of being ambushed on air by Governor Palin.

  Anyway, he didn't need a stack of polls to know that Blackstone was dividing the nation, literally and figuratively. How many times had General Franks warned him that if Blackstone secured control of the Mississippi River Valley and the Gulf Coast, their efforts on the eastern seaboard would be pointless? The true border of the United States would end right about where Kansas City rested in the heart of a dead nation. How many times had Kipper put off confronting this inconvenient truth?

  The problem, as he understood it, was that a good many folks felt Blackstone was doing the right thing down in Texas. Even in Seattle, where he was regarded with equal measures of fear, scorn, and distrust, there had been some grudging support for his move to seize the Panama Canal back from the gang lords who had taken control of it after the Disappearance.