Jacob's Trouble 666

by Terry James

  "Our President Lincoln said it well: “A house divided cannot stand,” Wilson put in.

  "Those words, first spoken by Jesus of Nazareth, have never been more appropriate than now, Mr. Ambassador," Krimhler agreed, walking between Wilson and Jacob. "If we cannot find common ground and come to the point of intelligent compromise, we cannot stand as civilized people. That is our purpose here—to provide the technology and the political forum where the meeting of the mind and spirit of collective Man can begin to take place."

  Krimhler's English was tinged with a nondescript accent, neither German nor Middle Eastern. His words were spoken with economy of effort; the baritone voice, unabrasive to the listener's ear, at the same time had an urgent, disquieting quality that mesmerized. Recalling the articles and news stories he had read, heard, and seen about Herrlich Krimhler, Jacob thought the man's reputation as a persuader well-deserved.

  "I hope your President and Congress are of similar mind, Ambassador," Krimhler said.

  "We are for unification, Herr Krimhler, of course. It remains to be seen whether we are in complete agreement regarding every detail of the Unified European States' concept of how our coming together should proceed."

  "As I said, that is why we are here, Mr. Ambassador. To come to a meaningful compromise, a meeting of the minds, so that we can become one in spirit."

  "We would certainly agree to that, providing there is equal input by all parties involved."

  "Then let us begin as soon as you have been made comfortable. There is to be a time of getting acquainted at six this evening." Krimhler turned to Jacob. "You will find our Communications Center suitable to your needs, I believe, Mr. Zen."

  He motioned to a woman wearing a white smock, who stood from behind a control console table and walked to them.

  "Show Mr. Zen to Satelvid Three, Ms. VanHorne, and instruct him in its use." The young German looked again at Jacob. "Enjoy your visit with Miss Mossberg."

  Krimhler's knowing about his wish to talk with Karen startled Jacob. The young woman hooked her arm between his right arm and body and tugged gently for him to accompany her away from the other men.

  "Come. You will find this most interesting, Mr. Zen."

  "Oh, I already do, Miss VanHorne," he said lightly.

  "I believe you will find Satelvid Three even more interesting," the pretty woman said with a knowing smile.

  At last! A warm, good-humored person with whom to share time in this otherwise impersonal place so far from home... from Karen. "I'm Jacob," he said while they walked.

  "Fredria."

  "Fredria VanHorne... Dutch?"

  "Yes." She continued to hold his arm captive in the crook of her escorting arm. "I was born in Amsterdam, but spent much of my life in England. My father was assigned there in various diplomatic capacities until I was eighteen. When he died, I went back to Holland to study for a while, then later returned to London to complete post-graduate work."

  The name VanHorne — a diplomat in London. The correlation jogged his memory. "You're not Ambassador Robert VanHorne's daughter?"

  "Yes. His younger."

  He remembered the circumstances of the Dutch diplomat's death five years earlier. A victim of a terrorist bomb taped to his Mercedes. Three men and one woman killed in the blast. The woman had been this girl's mother.

  "We've probably come close to meeting at some of those boring diplomatic social functions at one time or the other... maybe in London or D.C."

  "Your parents were in the American diplomatic service?"

  "Not my real parents. They both died when I was quite young. Conrad Wilson has been more than a parent to me."

  "I remember seeing Ambassador Wilson when I was a teenager. It was at a tea or something in Paris, and my father introduced me to him. I think I fell in love with him instantly. And I notice he is still as handsome as then. However, at the time, I certainly was not aware of his handsome stepson."

  "Foster son."

  "Oh, of course, the last name."

  "He never was allowed to adopt me because of my aunt's objection. You don't remember me, probably because there were so many other young men trying to impress you. We probably just missed each other somehow. I certainly would've remembered you." The girl smiled, letting the subject drop.

  With the escalator ride at an end, they walked at a fast pace along the 8-foot wide rubber mat that sat atop the cement walkway. A monorail track, similar to the one that had conveyed Wilson and him earlier, ran parallel to the walkway along the ceiling of the long tube-train shaft that narrowed in the distance into a pinpoint of light, giving him the feeling that he was looking down the inside of a gigantic rifle barrel.

  "I have just about every kind of clearance known to the western world, and I've never heard anything about this." He gestured with a sweep of his free hand. "It's incredible!"

  The tube train overtook them, then came to a stop 50 feet ahead. People in uniforms, some in white coats like that worn by Fredria, some in the orange jumpsuits like he wore, either boarded the train or stepped from it.

  "How long have you been working on this project?"

  "Six months or so ago, Herrlich Krimhler asked that I join the project's communications section. I was not long out of graduate school and had just begun work within his laser robotics facility outside Bonn when he asked me to work here."

  "Then you aren't involved in any of the political aspects?"

  "Heaven forbid! Politics is the farthest matter from my interest. I know little or nothing of the ultimate purpose or grand design for this complex; only my job, which is overseeing the development and implementation of its communications capabilities. And that is what I am about to show you now."

  "You know Herrlich Krimhler. I'm puzzled about something that happened just before he introduced us. Maybe you can help me."

  "I will try, of course."

  "He seemed to know that the one thing on my mind was to call someone back home. He mentioned her specifically, by name. To my knowledge, no one had time to say anything to him about my wanting to contact her. He knew who she was and how important it is to me that I get in touch with her."

  "I can only tell you that Herr Krimhler makes a point to know everything about everyone with whom he has dealings. How he has this ability is a mystery many of us have questioned from time to time. Many things about him stimulate one's imagination. I have been associated with him for more than a year, working closely at his side for long periods of time, and still I am amazed at the extent of his knowledge. So it doesn't really surprise me, what you have told me."

  "The classic enigma."

  "A perfect description of Herrlich Krimhler," she said, reaching into a pocket of the smock and bringing out an identification card. She inserted it into a slot on the wall and a door slid open. They entered the room, Jacob's eyes taking in a fantastic array of futuristic machinery.

  "Our miracle technology, Jacob," Fredria said with pride. "This is what I have spent the last six months of my life working on. Satelvid Three!"

  She smiled, seeing the look of intimidated amazement on his face. "Don't worry. I will have you in contact with your young woman before you know it. She is young, isn't she? And beautiful?" Fredria cocked an eyebrow and grinned.

  "No lovelier than my present company," he continued the banter.

  "My... you Americans have all the right words to turn a girl's head," she said lightly, leading him toward a maroon-colored chair that faced a darkened booth-like chamber.

  "I promised you an interesting experience. Here is where it begins." She placed her hand on the chair. “Sit down, and we will start." When he complied, she went to the console board to his right and manipulated a number of controls, causing the chamber in front of him to come alive with colored lights that danced in brilliant flashes. "Push the large button on the right side of the chair's arm when I tell you."

  "That seems easy enough, even for me."

  She ignored his joke, her attention fully on activa
ting the machine. When she had done so, she swiveled in her chair to explain.

  "So far as I am aware, this is the first such operating system in the world. It involves holography. Are you familiar with the term?"

  "Only slightly. Has something to do with three-dimensional images, doesn't it?"

  "To put it in its most simple terms, yes. It is a process by which a three-dimensional image is produced using lasers and photography. There have been, of course, many successful uses of holographic techniques over the past 10 years. And, holographic television will be put into the commercial markets of the world soon. But there has never to this point been a workable holophone. That is, holography that is applied to picture phone technology, whereby one can see the three-dimensional image of the person with whom they are conversing."

  "And that's what this light show is about?"

  "Yes. It is still somewhat primitive as compared to what we hope it will become very shortly, but, as you will see, it is a wonderfully radical departure from conventional picture-phone technology."

  She turned to the control panel and punched several buttons; the interior of the chamber took on a foggy appearance, and an undulating electronic whine began at a low pitch, and accelerated until it became a steady hum. "The system is ready now, Jacob. Do you know the number you wish to reach?" He nodded affirmatively. "Press the button on the outside of the chair arm and speak the number. If she is not near a picture phone, the holographic portion of the transmission will automatically be activated when she does plug in the picture phone."

  He pushed the button. "Now follow the instructions on the marquee above the Holochamber," Fredria said. The readout displayed the input needed to make the connection to McLean, and Jacob gave it in the order requested. When he finished, the bright mist within the Holochamber formed into a solid white mass. Fredria VanHorne spoke quickly.

  "They answered on a conventional phone. We will get the hologram when they switch to picture phone. Just talk as you would by telephone."

  "Hello? Jacob Zen here," he said, interrupting the man on the other end of the line, who had already spoken into his receiver.

  "Yes? This is Stone Oaks, residence of Ambassador Conrad J. Wilson. May I help you?" Jacob recognized the dignified voice as belonging to Andrew Cogdon, head of Wilson's domestic servant staff.

  "Cog... This is Jacob. I need to speak to Karen. I'm on picture phone."

  "Yes, Jacob."

  They seemed to be temporarily cut off, but Jacob could hear muffled voices in the background.

  Moments later, Cogdon was back on the line.

  "Jacob. We shall have to get her out of her bath. Can you hold for a moment?" There were more muffled shuffling noises in the background. "She is on her way to the basement, now," Cogdon said. "How is everything with you and the Ambassador?"

  "Fine... just fine," Jacob replied impatiently.

  "Hello?"

  It was Karen!

  "Hello, Sweetie! You okay?"

  "Where are you?" she asked; he saw her put her hand over her eyes, apparently trying to see his image on the picture phone's screen.

  "I'm in the Aegean. Sorry, can't give you my exact whereabouts. You know... Top Secret... and all that," he said lightly.

  She made no response, and he looked to Fredria. "There's something wrong with the image in the chamber."

  "One of our problems, I'm afraid. It takes a few minutes to reach maximum clarity."

  "Jacob, I'm told this picture phone unit has lost audio reception, and they can't fix it. They say all our phones here are having problems right now, and I can't see you clearly at all. In order to talk with you, I'll have to leave Stone Oaks, and I don't think you would want me to do that. I'm fine. Can you call me later? They tell me they'll have the problem fixed as soon as possible."

  Karen's image was clear in the Holographic Chamber now — as if he could walk into it and put his arms around her and hold her. His frustration with not being able to do so was overwhelming.

  "Karen! I've got to talk with you... It's okay to go find another phone! I'll give you a number where I can be reached."

  Desperate, he looked at Fredria VanHorne, who shook her head negatively. "Sorry. We can't give our communications contact information until it is okayed by Herr Krimhler, and that will be when the center is fully operational. We can only call out... she can no longer hear you."

  He slammed his fist against the chair arm. "You mean there's no way I can contact her? With all this technological garbage around here?!"

  "Perhaps the communications can be reestablished shortly."

  "Jacob, I don't know whether you're still on the line, because the picture is a blur now, but I want you to know... I love you..." Karen's image seemed to break apart... "I love you."

  He looked to Fredria, who had left her seat to check something on another console panel several yards away. He started to call for her to restore the video, but changed his mind when it reassembled on its own. "...I want you to know... I love you..." Her words were repeated with the same inflection as before. The hologram broke apart once more then reassembled, seeming to slip backward several seconds in time, then repeat itself. "I want you to know... I love you..." Karen's image said again before disintegrating completely.

  At 5:58, the room with the long tables, arranged in a squared banquet configuration, was animate, with perhaps, Jacob silently estimated, 150 people. He knew none of them as far as he could tell.

  Like himself, they were dressed in formal eveningwear, his tuxedo given him by one of Herdrick Franke's colleagues.

  He considered, while sipping his drink, how this could be any one of the many dinners he had attended with Conrad Wilson over the past 15 years. And the Ambassador was treating it no differently than he had on those occasions, making his way along the table toward Jacob, nodding, smiling, shaking hands, bending to kiss the cheek of one woman, then another.

  His face was reddened, causing his white hair, mustache and eyebrows to glow effulgently above the black tux. Wilson looked to be what the old man liked to term “in full sail”—inebriated to the point of having the best possible time, yet in control enough to protect the image he treasured—that of consummate senior statesman of the United States. Jacob worried that the red glow meant the old man's already-high blood pressure was probably elevated to a dangerous level.

  The noise level in the big room increased, shrill laughter coming from the table across the open space from where Jacob sat. A cacophonous mixture of old men's guffaws and young women's giggling, of tinkling cocktail crystal and boisterous toasts that vied to outdo those offered before, of promises that would not be remembered the next day, much less kept. He wanted, more than anything he had ever wanted before, to be with Karen.

  Something about the aborted conversation bothered him. Should the stopping, restarting and slipping of transmission be a part of holographic communications? He had not seen it happen since the earliest days of the more familiar two-way telecommunications known now as picture phone. Maybe the holograph was now going through a similar ironing-out-the-bugs process. But the slipping and repeating of Karen's image, her repeated words, were not the most troubling aspect of the one-sided conversation. It was the distance that seemed to separate them during his attempt to reach her. A spiritual distance never before experienced, no matter the number of miles keeping them from each other.

  Things could not have changed that much in that short space of time. She was practically frantic when he talked with her from Brussels. Now she seemed content to the point of being sedate. The whole thing was eerie, unnatural, even allowing for his first-time experience with the holographic set-up. Was he truly paranoid?

  Stone Oaks, one of the best maintained residences in the world—right up there with the White House--its telephone systems, totally out of commission?! And, even Conrad Wilson seemed to find the situation not unusual, even though he had boasted on many occasions that Stone Oaks would have communications, even if most others should be
disrupted.

  The old mansion had priority second only to the White House, the vice presidential mansion, the secretary of state's residence and a few key congressional leaders' apartments and homes. Something was significantly amiss at McLean, and no one but him seemed to care! Was it the Russian threat? Did that crisis so totally dominate all else at the moment? Certainly not to look at the faces, everyone equal in glow to that of Conrad Wilson's.

  "All alone in this crowd? One's own thoughts can sometimes be better company on such occasions, though, can't they?"

  The tap on his shoulder and the soft voice startled him. "Good evening, Fredria."

  She was dazzling, in a midnight blue evening dress, her honey-blonde hair drawn in a tight, piled-swirl above one of the loveliest faces he had seen. Pear-shaped diamonds, at least a carat each, dangled and danced brilliantly from either ear, reflecting light from the chandelier above them.

  "I'm not going to say how great you look, because whatever I said would fail to do you justice. I hope you don't find that too corny of me," he smiled, taking her hand.

  "Corny? I'm not familiar with the expression."

  "It means trite... backwards... socially silly. I guess that's the definition."

  "Ah! But do you mean what you said?"

  "You'd better believe I mean it," he said, holding her hand more tightly.

  "Then I have not, how do you Americans say it? Been handed a line?” She laughed. "No... No... don't tell me. If I have just been handed a line, my ego could not tolerate a fall from such heights as your compliment has placed it."

  "The line might be a bit worn, but in your case, it's totally true," he said.

  "You are kind, Sir." She tried to look teased. "Now let us see if you think me... corny. I haven't time to be subtle, because I do not know if we will be together again before this is over."

  Fredria cocked her head, her voice becoming less businesslike, her pretty blue green eyes sparkling. "Would you stop by my flat this evening? Around 11? It has been a long while since I've enjoyed the company of someone I really wish to be with. Do you think it terrible of me to say so?"