by Dean Ing
Lon Salter's holo image was that of a frightened man. "Mills, I'm watching XEPN, the Mex station. Can you receive it?"
"We own FBN, Salter. I can get an Ellfive station if I like."
"How nice for you, Your Arrogance. Turn on XEPN and pray that Young doesn't see a replay." Salter broke the connection.
Frowning, Mills snapped on the holo; coded the illegal Mex station that catered so brazenly to the rebel Indys. He slouched in his chair, not particularly surprised to see the two-shot of Ynga Lindermann and homely old Jim Street. But his frown deepened as the audio gained strength.
"… knew about the explosive implants in those Army Intelligence agents during the war," Street's gravelly voice insisted. "But we could never prove those same agents were still in the field. Well, they are, under President Young's direct orders, and their primary job is still assassination."
Lindermann was playing straight-woman. "They certainly keep a low profile, Governor."
"Hell they do, they wear the same uniforms as all the regular members of Search & Rescue." Audible gasps from an unseen audience. Street pressed on: "But they have extra equipment. Body bags. Silenced weapons. That mastoid-implant radio I mentioned. Whenever you see a lone S & R member, you may be looking at someone like him."
As the old man nodded to his right, the holo camera zoomed back. Boren Mills sat bolt-upright, a chill beginning at his widow's peak and centipeding down his spine. Ted Quantrill sat beside Street, clearly uncomfortable in a full dress uniform of S & R. No matter that the uniform must have been faked for this broadcast; the psychological impact was enormous; charismatic.
The old man said, "Of course some of them want out, but you can imagine what it's like to know your skull can be blown open anytime Young's people—they're called 'Control'—get the slightest suspicion that you could be an embarrassment to them. Young Quantrill had an incredible piece of luck, never mind the gory details, but somebody got that damnable thing out of his head before it exploded. And the instant he was free, he came hot-footin' it to us." A sly smile: "As all free Americans will, sooner or later."
Lindermann glanced into the camera. "A shameless political plug," she said archly, as though she were not a crucial cog in the Indy media machine. "I understand that he was pursued. Ted, how did you escape?"
Closeup of the uneasy young man in the sleek S & R uniform. "Well,—they caught me," he said, clearing his throat, trying to ignore the camera. "I guess their mistake was in training us so well."
Street, off-camera for an instant: "They caught each other, Ynga. And it cost Young three of his best men, including two instructors. They got good Christian burials—better'n they deserved. The instructors didn't have those critic things in their heads but the young fella did. Chased Quantrill into a storm sewer and—well, I saw the body myself. Sure made a believer out of me. Poor fella was an olympic-caliber gymnast before the war; Kent Ethridge, his name was. Damn' shame he threw in with the wrong folks."
"He didn't have a choice!" Quantrill's objection knifed through the old man's words. "None of us did." He seemed ready to subside.
Lindermann, sensing the young man's readiness to unburden himself, prompted him with, "Would it be too painful to say how all that affected you, Ted?"
Quantrill leaned forward, hands on his knees, then looked directly into the camera. He had been sweating, but not now. Now he was willing to stare the holo camera down.
In his eyes was a look that saw beyond anguish, the scarlet pain burned out, leaving only a dull and apparently permanent rage in the impassive, too-youthful face. "Okay, then." he leaned nearer into the camera. "You know about our mastoid critics. You know we're kept for killing—and they'd monitor our thoughts if they could. But nobody's told you what it does to us. I'm going to tell you now."
A long pause, the green gaze unwavering, muscles twitching at the corners of his mouth as he framed his words. "Think of the people you love the most; your brothers, sons and daughters, a wife or lover. You've trained and grown together for years, saved one another from dying, held—", and here he paused, throat working convulsively, "—held each other for comfort, knowing you must never—ever—say 'I love you'. Not even in a whisper. Because if you did they'd kill you."
"But you find ways to show it. And then realize you don't dare. There's always that fear in your guts that the training has been too good; that maybe loving is a sign of weakness; that if you show weakness you'll be rejected, maybe killed, by the one you need most.
"And the day comes when they force your own sweetheart to kill you, and instead she defies the entire system and gets you out of it all, knowing you don't completely trust her, knowing they may blow her away at any moment.
"And they do, the sons of bitches." Softly, softly: "They blow a piece of her head away and she dies, with no assurance that all of her love and trust and longing meant a God-damned thing to anyone else, including you. Including you," he repeated, nodding into a ghastly self-accusation.
The studio was so quiet it seemed one could hear the slow blink of those eyes, dry and green and entirely without pity. "And when someone offers you a chance to tell about it on holovision, you know you won't find words, there are no words, to truly explain how the bastards have hollowed out your soul and filled it with hate. But you know they monitor rebel 'casts." The nostrils flared infinitesimally. "They've made a death list naming a thousand innocent people, LDS and gentile alike." The barest suggestion of something like a leer. "They also know how well you can carry your assignments out. Who are they? Men like Lon Salter of S & R; Boren Mills of IEE; and their chief executive, your chief executive—President Blanton Young.
"Should they be surprised to hear that I have a little list of my own?" He was silent for two beats, his unwavering stare a promise of annihilation. "Be seeing you," he warned.
Old Jim Street's face was flushed and Ynga Lindermann appeared genuinely shaken. Quickly she put in, "Mr. Quantrill's opinions are his own, of course. We'll continue with our next guest after these brief messages…"
Mills realized that the phone was clamoring for attention. Salter? Young? Shit, who cared? He was slumped down, as far as he could get as if trying to disappear into his cushions and no goddam phone was going to pry him out. Mills began to wonder if there was any cushion anywhere deep enough to hide him from that green-eyed maniac. He did not have six months to unload. If he was very, very cunning, he might have six days.
Chapter 61
The morning after Quantrill's broadcast, the Governor would not be swayed. "You blew it, son," he said in exasperation, swiveling in his high-backed old office chair to follow Quantrill's pacing in the room. "They might think he's dead," he jerked a thumb toward the silent Ethridge. "But you? Ever' pistol-packin' spook in Streamlined America will have an eye cocked for the noodlehead who threatened the life of the President on international holovision! And I'm not sure it was smart to let that little fella Mills know we've linked him to S & R. Nope; if I put you on that penetration team it'd purely jeopardize the mission. Besides that, there's things we need you for right here in Wild Country. And quit makin' those funny hand-signs to each other! Makes me gawddam nervous and it isn't polite."
Ethridge: "I was only telling Ted I'm better in a vertical shaft than he is, anyway."
Quantrill caught and erased his grin. Ethridge had really said, "After we blow CenCom I'll do a singleton. Mills's scalp sound good to you?"
The old man jabbed a peremptory finger at a nearby couch and Quantrill dutifully sat. "Nobody's goin' after that computer until our own crypto fellas have sucked out all available information with that little radio you brought us, Ted. And even then, I'll scrub the mission if it looks like they've got another memory storage as backup." Leaning back, balancing precariously, he stared at the cedar-beamed ceiling and mused, "The great drawback in a secret police setup like Young's is that he dassn't trust anybody with duplicate records. If we can mount a clean operation, we can cripple just those parts of Streamlined Americ
a that Young and Salter need to keep folks in line.
"It's all got to be in that central computer. S & R's rover files, records of Young's undercover deals with industrialists, maybe even physical evidence they keep for blackmail. Oh, it's an old pattern; wish I could say I never stooped to anything like that myself."
"I can tell you where it'll be," said Ethridge, tugging carefully at the bandage on his head. "I had to disappear a cipher clerk for Salter once. There's a maze of tunnels under the LDS genealogical vaults where Salter keeps what he calls 'executive exhibits'. I'd guess they're forensics exhibits. Mormons aren't going to thank us for blowing a hole under their most treasured records. And how the hell do we destroy corridors in solid rock without a trainload of plastique?"
Startled at Ethridge's knowledge, the old man flopped his chair down with a squeaking bang. "You boys know too damn' much," he complained.
"All right, then: we're aware of that. What we're plannin' now is how to get every innocent soul out of those LDS vaults when we tote a suitcase nuke in below. Genealogical records are sacred, but they have duplicate vaults in Nauvoo and Jerome. At least history won't record that we did to the Mormon Church what Caesar did to the library at Alexandria. I have to think about things like that."
Quantrill's chuckle was low, but it made the old man study him quizzically. "If the Feds thought you had any portable nukes, every rover in S & R would've been down here before now," Quantrill explained.
"We don't have one yet. But one of my best field men told me a story about a small SinoInd nuke that a young girl found in Wild Country during the war. She didn't know what it was at the time, but—well, it could be just a story. That's what I want you to check on, Ted—you and my man, Lufo Albeniz. Fact is, he knows you." A sparkle of youthful deviltry danced in the rheumy eyes. "Mean as hell, Lufo is. Begged me not to let the cougar outa the sack until he could watch, just so he could see you jump."
"It's been tried," Quantrill grinned, "but I don't recall the name."
"Why would you, boy? This is Wild Country," the Governor winked, and returned to the topic at hand. "I don't really want to nuke that CenCom facility; I believe in due process of law and besides, the thing's too useful. But usin' that little gadget out of your head, Quantrill, my computer spooks are breakin' into its memory banks. Already stole a pisspot full of information, they tell me."
"You know what a trojan horse program is? A trapdoor?" Blank looks and, from Quantrill, a shrug. "Me, neither," Street admitted, "but we have fellas from Sperry-Rand and Osborne who use 'em to gain access to CenCom. They're workin' around the clock to find ways to generate destructive commands—in other words, tryin' to get CenCom to tell us everything and then kill itself. Well, it's workin' only up to a point. Don't ask me what a 'security kernel' is, but it keeps us from makin' CenCom commit electronic suicide. There's stuff we can't get at—so we'll have to atomize it. Without casualties, if possible."
Ethridge, acidly: "Some of those people know exactly what they're doing. Fuck 'em."
"And let innocents suffer too? That's exactly the em-oh of the Federalists who are tryin' to strengthen this country again by boostin' the gross national product at the expense of the average citizen. Read any text on American history after the Civil War. It's a record of spreadin' corruption, boys."
Ethridge could not resist it: "Governor, you ever see a boy with false teeth and balls like a cantaloupe?"
The old man slapped his knee and cackled. Nonetheless: "Lots of 'em," he replied. "To this day, I want to yell and cheer, yep, and cry for joy like a kid, ever' time I see even a picture of a P-47."
Ethridge and Quantrill together: "A what?"
Jim Street laced his fingers, cracked the horny knuckles, stared out the window toward the creek that meandered near his study. "Well boys, it was near sixty years ago, just days before Christmas, and German incomin' rounds were pourin' in on us like shit through a tin horn. We were nearly out of food and artillery rounds and the fog was bitter cold, and the Air Corps couldn't see through it to drop supplies, and the sumbitchin' krauts had corralled us.
"And then some corporal from Kilgore whacked my helmet to pop me outa my foxhole early on the 23rd, and it was a clear cold mornin' and waves of fat P-47 fighter-bombers were swarmin' down on the kraut armor at chimney level with napalm, frag bombs, ever'thing but spitwads, while our transports dropped a scad of supplies down to us in Bastogne; and if there was one man in the One-Oh-First Airborne not yahooin' like a boy, I sure-shit didn't see him." He nodded to himself. "To this day," he said again, chuckling. He added, "Maybe enthusiasm is what makes the boy. So don't feel all cut-up when a boy eighty years old says you're another."
To Quantrill, the events seemed as distant as the battle of Waterloo. Yet here was a grizzled old warrior who'd taken part, was still taking part in struggles against dictatorship. "Battle of the Bulge." he said in awe.
Ethridge recognized the allusion. "If you went through anything that bloody, how can you worry about snuffing a few enemies in the CenCom vaults?"
"Because I'm not a Blanton Young. The American system of government has taken some terrible shocks, but it can still recover. We can cut away those secret Fed controls without bloodshed and let honest elections replace Young's administration—or we can fight without regard for human lives, and start a full-scale revolution. None of us would profit from that."
Obviously Street's vision of the good fight did not tally with that of young men trained only for killing. It did not occur to Quantrill or Ethridge that the Governor was devoting a great deal of precious time to their rehabilitation. A man like Young would have had them tossed into the sea like unwanted munitions, and they were only beginning to appreciate this difference between Fed and Indy leadership.
The old man made it clear that he was no pacifist, reminding them that Jose Marti Cross had gone down in a brief firefight like a mad dog, once Street's bogus customs men realized his imposture. The Indy rebels trod a narrow line, aggressors against specific property but killing only in defense.
Ethridge made no secret of his relief on hearing this last point. "So if we make the CenCom raid, and if I get bottled up, you won't object if I pop a cork to get out." He still had his chiller, and patted the armpit where it nestled.
"Whatever's necessary to defend your life," Street replied. "But if you go gunnin' for anybody, you make damn' sure I never hear about it. That goes for both of you. Hell, I believe in law and order!" He banged his fist on the chair arm and went on, growling it, "I've got no place for a plain bad-ass in my outfit, boys. But if Lufo Albeniz can keep his nose clean, so can you. Speaking of which…"
The Governor trundled his chair up to the big carved Mexican desk and punched an intercom stud. "Kit, you know if Lufo's had his beauty sleep yet?"
The speaker replied in a slow masculine West Texas drawl. "He's been out on the porch for twenty minutes now, Gov. Must have an awful bad joke to tell you; he's sittin' there grinnin' and tremblin' like a dawg shittin’ peach seeds."
"Trot him in, then." The old man leaned back in his balancing act. Somewhere in the long ranch house a voice called, a screen door skrinched and clacked.
A moment later, the door swung open to admit the rangy, slim-hipped latino. "Morning, jefe. Oh hello there, compadre," he murmured as if he had last seen Quantrill the day before.
"Lufo,—" Jim Street began.
"Lufo my ass," Quantrill blurted; "that's Rafael Sabado!" In three strides he reached the tall latino.
The Governor turned to Ethridge and grinned. "Always gives me the creeps to see grown men huggin'," he said. Albeniz/Sabado had pegged it right: Quantrill jumped like a rabbit to see the man who'd tagged him for Army Intelligence six years before, a man he'd supposed was long-dead in Wild Country.
Chapter 62
The President lay on his aircouch in a satin lounging robe, his chin resting on folded arms. Salter and Mills both sat on cushions so that their heads would not be elevated above his, and tried to ignor
e the lovely brunette who sat astride Blanton Young to administer his backrub. Before the arrival of Mills, the President had named three LDS Council members who were to be expended through 'natural causes' by the good offices of S & R rovers. Now, with Mills present, Young advanced his agenda to the media problem.
"I'm using all the leverage I have, Mr. President," Mills pleaded. "But the Israelis insist they can't help us knock out those media relays. Surely the Air Force has something that can intercept them."
"A massive search-and-destroy grid for a hundred million dollars, yes," Young snarled. "All to knock down a cheap, slow-flying gadget the Indys can replace the next day for ten thousand. Those broadcasts are hurting us, Mills!"
To divert the President's wrath, Mills said, "It might be a lot quicker to send some rovers into Mexico to—"
"Be reasonable," Salter said in disgust. "A handful of rovers without air support in a foreign country? We've got a medium out of control, Mills! That's your department."
The President grunted something to the tall brunette: shifted so that her perspiration did not fall on his neck. Then, "Salter's right. And you're not handling your departments very well these days."
"There's one thing we might try," Mills hazarded. "You know we're using animated holo that can pass for the real thing. What if we claimed it's the Indys who are faking holocasts?"
"I'm listening," said Young.
Mills expanded on his ploy. That ghastly broadcast with the defector, Quantrill, for example: FBN had enough videotape to generate a sound-enhanced image of the turncoat that would have charisma—would pass for the real thing. Using the animation software stored in CenCom, FBN programmers could electronically fake a holocast in which Ted Quantrill would swear on prime time that he'd been victimized somehow; was still a devoted member of the falsely-maligned S & R. Holo pundits could suggest that the Indy media were using imposters; no need to mention the possibility of electronic fakery. The overall effect might be to cast doubt on all mass media, but FBN could counter that trend if men of unblemished reputation were to vouch for the FBN lie.
