‘Stevie …?!’ A voice from the past. Unforgettable.
He halted as someone stepped in front of him, focused on their face and gasped. It was Annie Brickman, his own guard-mother, in a dark blue and white jumpsuit with red insignia – the uniform worn by admin officers of the Provost-Marshal’s Division. They both stared at one another, unable to believe the evidence of their own eyes, then hugged one another happily.
Annie, her face flushed, held him at arm’s length and gazed at him approvingly. ‘My! You look just fine!’ She blinked away the tears and lowered her voice. ‘Roz told me you weren’t dead, but I knew that … inside. And here you are. And she’s gone.’
Annie snuffled into a nose-wipe and dried her tears. Steve hugged her again. He wanted to tell her that Roz was still alive but knew he couldn’t. ‘I never thought I’d see you again.’ He held onto her hands as he stepped back. ‘What on earth are you doing here?!’
Annie hesitated. ‘Didn’t they tell you?’
‘Tell me what? What is it, Annie?’
Before she could answer, another voice made Steve’s blood run cold. ‘Ahh, there you are! Been looking all over!’
Steve turned to find Annie’s kin-brother Bart Bradlee standing right behind him. Crazy Uncle Bart, State Provost-Marshal of New Mexico. His piercing blue eyes flared as they alighted on Steve.
‘Christo! Will you look at this, Annie! Your little Stevie!’ He pounded his nephew’s shoulders. ‘You son of a gun! Last time I saw you, you were chained to the godamn floor!’
‘That’s right, sir. Waiting for the shuttle at Santa Fe. November 2989.’
Bart nodded. ‘And now here you are all dollied up in Family grey! And a captain, no less! By Jimmy! Poppa Jack would’ve been proud of you, boy! Hoo! Why he’d’ve been doin’ somersaults in that chair of his!’ He laid a hand on both their shoulders. ‘All this time I’ve never been able to breathe a word about seeing you, not even to my kinsister here – but this stubborn ole’ mule always refused to believe you were dead.’ He sighed. ‘Cryin’ shame about Roz. No call for her to volunteer for overground duty. Bright girl like that, could have gone right to the top. But what can you do?’
‘Yeah.…’ Steve paused reflectively then asked: ‘So what are you both doing here?’
Bart moved to Annie’s side. ‘Just seeing a friend, Stevie. Just seeing a friend.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Can’t say.’
‘Can’t say, or won’t say … sir?’
‘Don’t press me, boy. I don’t need to tell you how the Family run things. You’re one of them now. If I didn’t tell Annie you were alive ’cos I was told not to, I certainly ain’t gonna start breaking the rules now!’
‘Of course, sir. I understand. And I apologise for asking.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Bart. ‘As long as you know how things stand.…’
‘I’m just a little bit messed up right now. I came here to see somebody and they’ve, uhh … just disappeared.’
‘Ain’t nothin’ I can do about it, boy.’
A senior medical officer appeared at Bart’s elbow. ‘Marshal Bradlee? I’m Colonel Halliday.’ He gestured towards Annie. ‘Is this S.A.O Brickman?’
‘It is.’
‘Good. Would you both follow me, please?’
‘Sure. G’Bye, Steve. You take care now, huh?’ The mad blue eyes widened as they shook hands.
As Bart turned away with Halliday, Annie embraced Steve, planted a hurried kiss on his cheek and whispered: ‘They’ve given Lucas to me!’
She slipped from his grasp and was gone before Steve had time to react. He stood there and watched her walk away flanked by Colonel Halliday and the forbidding white-suited figure of Crazy Uncle Bart.
They’ve given Lucas to me … What the hell was he supposed to make of that? Who was this mystery child who shared his name…?
Steve exited into the lobby served by six elevators and hit one of the down buttons. The elevator announced its arrival with a soft ting. He stepped inside and was followed by just one other person.
‘Captain Brickman?’ It was the young staffer from C.N.O. Bradman’s office. Her face was drained of colour. She spotted a couple more customers and hit the Door Close button before they could enter.
The elevator started down. Steve stood against the opposite wall with his hands clasped together in front of him and waited for the next move. She hit the emergency stop button – halting them in the shaft between two floors.
He read off her name tag, then eyed her quizzically. ‘What’s going on, Sutton?’
She stayed pinned against the wall by the lift controls and grimaced nervously. ‘Listen, Captain. If anyone finds out I’ve been talking to you, they’ll shaft me. I mean I’m dead, right?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Look, I made a big mistake, back there. I checked again, and there is no entry for Lucas Brickman. I don’t know how the mix-up happened. It was just one of those days. So, look – I know I have no right to ask you this but please, please, don’t take this query any further. Because if it gets back to Bradman it’s going to make all kinds of trouble for a lot of people who don’t deserve it.’ She turned and slammed her hands against the wall. ‘Fucking computers!’
‘Did Bradman send you? Tell me the truth, Sutton – or I will report this conversation!’
‘Yes, sir. That information was supposed to have been wiped.’
‘So who is Lucas Brickman?’ He saw the terrified expression on Sutton’s face. ‘Don’t worry, I promise you this won’t go any further.’
‘He’s … he’s the baby that the woman in Room 18 gave birth to. The one you saw was a…’
‘… a substitute? What’s going on here?!’
‘Ohh, shit,’ groaned Sutton. ‘Please, Captain! Don’t ask me any more! That’s all I know! It was all taken care of by people from the White House. I’m nobody! I made a mistake and I’m in way over my head!’
Steve made a calming gesture. ‘Okay, okay. I’m not going to make any waves. Hit the button.’
Sutton did so.
‘Now ruffle your hair and undo that front zip.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Beg pardon, Captain?!’
‘Just do it! When we reach the next floor, people are going to be wondering what happened in here. We’ll both live longer if they think I’ve been inside your pants. Or would you rather I told ‘em you’ve been passing me state secrets?!’
Sutton yanked down her front zipper – revealing a good firm pair of breasts under a green T-shirt.
Steve ruffled her bobbed hair and pinched her cheeks. ‘Now try and look as if you enjoyed it.’
They switched lifts at the next floor. Any questions people in the lobby might have had died on their lips when they saw Steve was Family. Sutton hurriedly rearranged herself and went back up. Steve carried on down to take the short subway ride to the White House interchange and the special turnstile that only accepted Family ID cards. The first stage of the journey back to Cloudlands.…
Despite his casual demeanour in the lift, Steve’s mind was in even greater turmoil than before. Clearwater had vanished with the wrong baby. Did she know they had been switched? She must have, surely! Was that why she had cried?
But why did she not say anything? Was it to protect him? Or was it to protect Lucas Brickman? Who had chosen that name for their son? His son – who had been handed over to his own guard-mother. To be raised by her and Crazy Uncle Bart.
It was a nightmare which didn’t make sense. If the P-G was ready to swap Clearwater for Fran after mounting a costly operation to capture her, what was the point of the substitution? Why would Jefferson want to keep her baby? And why was he, the father – the supposedly loyal and well-rewarded servant – being kept in the dark?
Steve couldn’t figure it out. But then he didn’t know that Mount St Helens had erupted as Clearwater delivered her child into the world, or that Jefferson the 31st was convinced that he, 8902 Brickman
S.R., had sired the Talisman.…
Chapter Fifteen
As he turned off the shower, Steve heard muffled voices coming from the bedroom. The deeper one belonged to Joshua, the grey-haired Mute who was Head of Service at Savannah. Steve pulled a bathrobe over his dripping wet body and emerged, to discover who his visitors were.
He caught sight of Joshua exiting into the hall then glimpsed a sudden movement behind him. He whirled around and was sent staggering backwards as Fran flung herself at him with an excited laugh.
‘You pleased to see me?!’
Steve loosened the choking embrace and put some warmth into his voice. ‘Of course I am! I’m only sorry I wasn’t there at the hand-over. Karlstrom told me I was down for it and –’
‘Who cares?’ Fran silenced him with a hungry kiss. ‘You’re here, I’m here – both safe and sound. That’s all that matters.’ She hugged him happily. ‘When I saw you lying face down on the verandah, Christo – I thought you were dead! Jeez! Now that really did frighten me!’
She looked as if she meant it too. But for how long? Being around Fran was like walking on quicksand. Steve hugged her back. ‘How d’you think I felt when I woke up, tied hand and foot and found you were gone?!’ He led her over to the table which held the crystal decanters of wine and the stiffer kind of booze he’d come to rely on when Fran was around. ‘What happened?’
‘Can’t say exactly. Someone hit me over the head. When I came to I was blindfolded and gagged and wrapped inside what felt like a bed quilt.’ She took the offered drink, toasted him, then moved around the room as she talked, touching familiar objects like an animal putting down territorial markers.
‘Goddam nearly choked to death. I was on or in some kind of wheeled vehicle then, after a while I heard waves breaking on the shore. I was slung into a rowboat – I could tell that by the way it bobbed up and down – then transferred onto a junk. Once that got underway, the sound of the engine told me all I needed to know.’
She came back for a refill. ‘Anyway, they cut me loose from the quilt, and took the gag off but I still couldn’t see anything. They put me some place where I could hear water sloshing around – and there were rats too!’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘Jeezuss!’
Steve gave her a soothing shoulder-hug. ‘Sounds like you were down in the bottom of the boat. The bilges.’
Fran resumed her walk-about. ‘Yeah, well, it was goddam awful wherever it was. They kept me tied up, but some jap came and fed me spoonfuls of boiled rice and a little tea. They left the blindfold on till we reached Sara-kusa. The first thing I see is the inside of another prison cell. Only this one was clean. It was me that stank.’
She stopped in front of him. ‘D’you know that all the time I was tied up those jap bastards didn’t let me go to the john?! For nearly three days! First you go through the agony of trying to hold your water, and then you suffer the humiliation of having to pee in your pants! Ugnnhh! I wanted to die!’
‘Yeah, I know how it feels,’ said Steve. He’d been in the same jam after being ‘posted’ by Malone’s renegades. He poured himself another drink. ‘Then what?’
‘Things started to get better. They brought in a tub, soap and hot water … towels … and took my clothes away to be washed and pressed.’ Fran unzipped her grey tunic and tossed it aside, sat down on the edge of the bed and offered up her right leg. ‘And I met your friend Cadillac.’
Steve straddled her leg and eased off the close-fitting boot. ‘He’s no friend of mine.’
‘You’re right there.’ She raised her left leg. ‘He made it quite plain he hates your guts.’
Steve worked up some indignation as he wrestled off the second boot. ‘The feeling’s mutual. That bastard took Roz from The Lady and then stood around and let her die.’
‘Yes.’ Fran drained her glass and placed it on the chest that ran along the foot of the bed. ‘I asked him what happened – just to keep the records straight. He said she was one of several people who died after eating some smoked meat. Ironic, isn’t it? All the talents she possessed – and yet she couldn’t protect herself from the poisonous crap these lumpheads stuff down their throats.’
She stood up and caressed Steve’s face. ‘And she very nearly took you with her. It’s really weird, isn’t it – how your body reproduced all the symptoms …?’
‘Yehh – but none of the toxin. It drove the doctors crazy.’
‘And me too. That was one of the worst weeks of my life.’ She kissed him. ‘At least there’s no danger of that happening again.’
‘Don’t be so sure. You know what they say – “Trouble always comes in threes.”’
‘Well, I’m going to make sure you stay out of trouble from now on.’ Locking her arms round his neck, she pulled him down onto the bed beside her. ‘So what happened after you came round? How did you get away?’
Steve outlined the nail-biting suspense that had accompanied the theft of a junk, then touched upon the long sea-voyage around Florida and across the Gulf of Mexico where the sea had been discoloured by a huge plume of mud nearly a hundred miles long.
‘Yeah, it’s from the Mississippi,’ said Fran. ‘There’s been massive flooding in the east. Some of the divisional bases and way-stations have been badly hit.’
Steve drew his head back. ‘There’s been nothing on Channel 9.’
Fran kissed the tip of his nose. ‘That’s ’cos we dont believe in broadcasting bad news. What have you been up to since you got back?’
‘Learning Japanese and playing games. And let me tell you – that language is a real bitch. I’m way behind.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll help you from now on. If you want to learn a language, there’s nothing better than a sleeping dictionary. We can make love in Japanese. I’ve got one of their sex manuals. We can go through it, page by page.’ Fran snuggled closer. ‘And just who have you been playing games with?’
Steve laughed. ‘I’ve been assigned to the Simulation Room. It’s full of computers and big screens, and there’s this team of programmers who set up various scenarios and strategies involving the Mutes, the Iron Masters and the Federation, and then play ’em through and see how it works out. At the moment I’m pretending to be Cadillac’ He grinned. ‘And the Mutes are gaining ground.’
‘Knowing you, that doesn’t surprise me – the genuine article is no bonehead either. But he has one major character defect. He can’t resist telling people how clever he is – especially if he’s got a captive audience. It was … most revealing.’
A cold dart of fear struck Steve’s heart. When Cadillac had the upper hand he tended to shoot his mouth off. He tried to sound casual. ‘Oh, yehh – what about?’
Fran hesitated then half-rolled on top of him. ‘No. Maybe I’d better not tell you.’
‘Please yourself.’ Steve braced himself for the inevitable assault.
She kissed him then lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve finally got something on that boss of yours.’
‘Karlstrom?’
‘Shuhh! Yes…’
‘I’d have thought he’d be the last person you’d want to make an enemy of.’
Fran’s voice became a snake-like hiss. ‘After the way he dumped us in that mess?’
‘Oh, c’mon! It wasn’t his fault –’
‘No? He’s had it coming for a long time – and now we’ve finally got a chance to cut his balls off!’
‘How d’you mean – get him fired?’
‘Among other things. There’s a lot going on here you don’t know about, Stevie. Let’s just say that President-Generals don’t live for ever and leave it at that.’ She sat up and stripped off the rest of her clothes. ‘You and I have got a much more urgent problem to attend to, Captain.’
‘Yessirr-ma’am.…’ Steve moved obligingly towards the middle of the bed.
Fran landed beside him like a cat on all fours and pinned him down with a long, devouring tongue-sucking kiss that came close to tearing his lips off. ‘Uhh, Stevie! Th
is is what I’ve been missing! Those jap rice balls are okay, but there ain’t nothin’ to match a regular diet of firm red meat!’
She slipped her hand inside his bathrobe. ‘Mmmm-mhhh! Y’see? Things are looking up already!’
Regardless of what his body was saying, there was only one thought in Steve’s mind: I’ve had enough. I gotta get out of here!
A couple of days later, Fran and Steve were invited to watch another late evening movie at Grand Palisades.
‘Is your father going to be there?’ asked Steve.
‘He might be,’ said Fran. ‘Why d’you ask?’
‘Ohh, it was just that … Karlstrom advised me to stay out of his way. On account of –’
Fran fastened the high collar of his jacket together. ‘Don’t be stupid. If my father was out for your blood, d’you think I’d be here?’
‘Yehhh,’ mused Steve. ‘I never thought of that.’ He watched Fran check her appearance in the long bedroom mirror.
Tonight she had chosen a dark blue evening dress with puffed elbow-length sleeves and a deep curving neckline that offered an enticing view of uplifted breasts and a smooth tanned back.
The transformation of Fran into a ‘southern belle’ for these formal occasions never failed to amaze Steve. The effect was always stunning, but he could not understand how someone with so short and so vile a temper could patiently allow herself be squeezed and trussed into a tight-waisted corset by her Mute maid-servant before donning layer after voluminous layer of petticoats. And it took as long again to add a new face and arrange the curled, beribboned hair pieces.
Fortunately they didn’t have to dress up every night. Steve parted the window curtains and looked down at the empty driveway. ‘Are we going by coach?’
‘No, it’s too cold. We’ll take the trolley.’ She fluffed out the sleeves of her dress, gave herself the final seal of approval and presented herself to him.
‘Terrific’ Steve picked up the matching shawl and draped it around her shoulders. ‘What’s a trolley?’
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