Ikon

by Graham Masterton

  General Caulfield’s shiny black Lincoln was parked under the shade of a large Virginia oak, not far from the perimeter fence. General Caulfield himself was standing nearby with his hands on his hips, watching a C-5A transport taxi around to the main runway in preparation for take-off. The noise and the heat came in waves.

  ‘How are you keeping, Pierce?’ asked Titus, as he slammed the door of his car and came walking across with his white fishing hat held in his hands.

  ‘I’m well,’ said General Caulfield. He had a relentlessly short military haircut which gave him the appearance of a 55-year-old boy. ‘I haven’t had too much time for fishing lately; but I guess we all have our crosses to bear.’

  ‘Fishing is the least of my worries right now/ said Titus.

  ‘Well, I guess. It shook me, when I was first told about it. I couldn’t believe my own ears. It depressed me, I can tell you. It does, when you first understand that everything you ever fought for, everything you ever believed in, your flag, your country, it’s all been taken away from you and you never knew.’

  Then it’s true,’ said Titus. He looked at Pierce Caulfield narrowly, his head slightly angled to one side, as if he were challenging the general to deny everything; to admit that Ikon was all an impossible joke.

  Pierce Caulfield watched the C-5A thundering up from the runway, one of the largest aircraft in the world, capable of carrying 125,000 Ibs for 8,000 miles. Then he turned to Titus, and said, crisply, ‘Yes, it’s true. The United States has been administered by the Soviet Union since the summer of 1962. And one of the very first things the Soviets did was to ensure that the American forces could no longer effectively threaten the Soviet Union.’

  ‘But why didn’t they simply dismantle the US forces? Surely that would have been easier than all this elaborate pretence?’

  They weren’t stupid, said Pierce. “They knew that in spite of the nuclear edge they had managed to win over us, it would still be touch and go if they tried to take us over by brute force. I don’t know all of the details; I wasn’t privy to what was going on at the time. In fact, I personally wasn’t told until 1974, nearly twelve years later. But, as far as I can gather, they decided to convert us to Communism over a very long period of time; to break us down, socially and morally, politically and economically, until at last we would consider that Communism was the only option left open to us, and we would consider that amalgamating with the Soviet Union was the only sensible answer.’

  ‘You have to be kidding,said Titus.

  Pierce shook his head. ‘I think that they were far too optimistic about the time that it would take for the American people to be converted to international socialism. I believe that Ikon’s been having some trouble over that with the Kremlin. But the deliberate destruction of the US economy seems to have gone according to plan; and

  there’s no question that it’s brought with it all the social disillusionment that Russia expected.’

  Titus stood with his head lowered while Pierce Caulfield shaded his eyes and followed the flight-path of the C-5A as it turned around and headed west. ‘That’s a magnificent airplane, you know that? An amazing technical achievement. Do you know how much that airplane weighs? Over 325,000 Ibs, empty. They had some difficulty with wing fatigue, but they’ve solved it now. That’s one of the reasons the Soviets didn’t want to tamper too much with America as she was. They recognized our technical expertise, they recognized our educational advancement, they saw us as leaders in almost every field of sophisticated life. It would have been absurd and wasteful of them to throw our space programme away; or take our armed forces to pieces. What was the point, when they could infiltrate enough of their own officers into US military ranks to ensure that our key defences were useless; and that none of our major weapons would ever work? All that our Distant Early Warning stations do these days is to monitor air traffic, for the express benefit of Aeroflot and the Soviet forces. There’s no threat from the Soviet Union any more, there hasn’t been for twenty years. It’s no good fearing the coming conflict; it’s all over, and all of us here in America are nothing more than prisoners of war.’

  ‘But our missiles - ‘ said Titus. ‘Our troops, our airplanes … We’ve just ordered a new tank, damn it!’

  ‘I know,’ said Pierce, with great calmness. ‘I know how you must be feeling. I wondered when I first found out if I ought to kill myself; I even considered launching a one-man suicide mission against the Kremlin. But, in the end, it was strangely reassuring to know that everything that had happened in American life over the past twenty years was planned, that America’s recent moral decay was not our fault. The sexual revolution was planned; the widespread introduction of addictive and hallucinogenic drugs was planned; so was large-scale birth control in order to keep the American population under control.

  Every major national trend - from student uprisings to EST to jogging to conservative chic - was a part of a carefully-devised socio-psychological scheme to make Americans more uncertain of their future, more critical of their past. Thus, when Ikon considers that the time is right, the new golden age of socialism will be announced. A full detente between America and the Soviet Union will form the basis for a ‘proletarian amalgamation’. In five or ten years’ time, we’ll all be drinking vodka and singing The Red Flag.’

  ‘But how did they do it? How did they do it without anybody finding out?’ demanded Titus.

  ‘A great many people did find out. Some have been killed. Others have decided that it is probably safer to keep quiet. Like me. They summoned me up to the Pentagon one September morning and said that they were going to tell me something I wouldn’t much like; but that if I didn’t help them, my sons and daughters and wife would all be murdered. So you can see that I didn’t really have very much choice, did I? I was personally to ensure that all Minutemen missiles were safe, by which they meant that not one of them was to carry a warhead that actually worked. The delivery systems are still functional; and Boeings are still carrying out research on new warheads. But they will never be used against the Soviet Union. If they are ever re-activated and used against anybody at all, it will be the Chinese. We have to be quite clear of this, Titus. Eve’r since Khruschev called up Kennedy and said that there were dozens of long-range nuclear missiles on Cuba, all aimed toward the American heartland, Kennedy didn’t have amy choice. Kennedy surrendered, and then to keep the world on an even political keel he and Khruschev decided between them to make it appear that Khruschev had stood down, and agreed to withdraw the missiles. I guess it was surprising that nobody realized what had actually happened at the time. I suppose we were all too relieved. But that was the only occasion on which Khruschev ever appeared to back down. Backing down just wasn’t in his character. Here,

  come into the car, let me show you something. I expect you could use a drink, too.’

  The two old friends sat in the back of the Lincoln limousine, and closed the doors. Pierce let down the walnut cocktail table, and poured them each a large glassful of Wild Turkey. Then he produced a brown envelope, with a HIGHLY SECRET label on it, and shook out two or three old but still glossy photographs.

  ‘These are the pictures we didn’t release to the media, the day that the Russians supposedly started shipping their missiles back to the Soviet Union.’

  Titus picked them up, and frowned at them quickly. ‘What am I looking at?’ he wanted to know. ‘They look just the same as any other picture to me. Missile tubes on the decks of Russian freighters.’

  ‘Ah, but you look here. The airplane taking the picture has flown quite low. Too low, as it turns out. You can see quite clearly that the nearest missile container, on the port side of the deck, is hollow. The sun’s shining through it. You see here, where the sun falls on the bulkhead? These missile tubes are nothing but shams. Cuba is still bristling with strategic nuclear missiles and always will be.’

  Titus sipped his whiskey, and then sat back in his seat and looked at Pierce with an expression that was half-def
eat, half-resentment.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Pierce? All these years, and I never even guessed. Jesus, Pierce, I was in charge of most of those weapons. It never once occurred to me that there was anything wrong with them. Blind faith, I suppose. Blind stupidity.’

  ‘You weren’t to know, Titus. It wasn’t the ordinary kind of sabotage. It was a massive and systematic programme of secret disarmament, carried out by experts who weren’t afraid to use maximum force. I know for a fact that at least a hundred service-men have been killed over the years for trying to disclose secret information to the media. And quite a few of the media people have found themselves being blackmailed or threatened. One reporter who was working on a nuclear disarmament story for the

  Reader’s Digest was found in his car at the bottom of Chin-coteague Bay. It’s quite possible that if anyone finds out what I’ve been saying to you, then i`ll be at serious risk, too. But when you called me this morning, I couldn’t very well fob you off. It’s time you knew. I just hope that you’ll be able to face up to the implications of it.’

  ‘It means I’m a captive,’ said Titus, in a throaty voice. ‘It means I’m not free any more.’

  ‘You haven’t been free for twenty years.’

  ‘But, damn it, Pierce, now I know it! Last week I was the happy idiot who didn’t realize that he was locked up in a cage; now I can feel the bars.’

  Pierce laid a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t want you to rush off and do anything rash, Titus. You’ll be putting a whole lot of people at risk, including me and my family. Just go home tonight and think about it, and then decide what you’re going to do. That’s if you’re going to do anything at all. Meet me tomorrow if you can around the same time, on the shoreline at Windmill Point.’

  Titus finished the rest of his whiskey with one grimacing swallow. Then he climbed out of the Lincoln and walked back towards his Porsche, tugging his fishing hat on to his head as he did so.

  ‘Remember what Kennedy once said, Pierce called after him. ‘The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.’

  Titus stopped, and turned around. ‘That was after the option of a military solution was no longer available to him, he snapped. That was after he had already sold us out.’

  Pierce said something in reply, but his voice was drowned by the enormous thunder of another C-5A Galaxy, coming in to land from the west. Its shadow passed over them both like the shadow of history; a history which filled them both with fear, and which neither of them would ever be able to influence again.

  Twenty-Nine

  Lieutenant Berridge was out jogging with his wife Stella on the banks of the Arizona Canal. It was just six o’clock in the morning; still cool; and the slowly-rippling waters of the Indian-built canal reflected the freshly-risen sun and the overhanging leaves of the willows. They crossed the canal by the bridge which leads into the Biltmore Hotel, and turned west through the groves of orange trees, their professional running-shoes slapping on the blacktop, their Lacoste jogging suits stained down the back with sweat.

  ‘This kidnap case isn’t doing anything for my running,’ protested Lieutenant Berridge. I’m exhausted.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Stella. Her blonde hair bounced as she ran. ‘That’s two nights straight without any sleep. Can’t you leave it to Mulligan?’

  ‘Not yet. Not until I find out what the hell it’s all about.’

  ‘Supposing you never do? They could have taken the girl and killed her and buried her in the desert and who would ever know?’

  i would know. Me. I have an instinct for abductions like that. But I think this girl is still alive. What’s more, I think that what’s-his-name - what’s-his-name? - Daniel Korvitz, knows something that we don’t. You know? I think he’s holding something back. Because why else would he fly off to LA with that Kathy Forbes girl from the Flag?’

  ‘Maybe they’re in love, said Stella.

  ‘In love? Nobody would fancy that blue-stocking.’

  ‘Oh, no? I thought she looked quite pretty in her photograph.’

  ‘She’s average, that’s all.’

  Stella dug at his ribs with her elbow. ‘Whenever you say that a girl is “average, that’s all” that means that you fancy her like all hell. Wolf man Berridge is on the prowl again. Thank God she’s gone off to the Coast.’

  They had almost reached 24th Street, although they were still screened from the main road by a right-hand curve and a thicket of orange trees. Without any warning, a pale-blue Thunderbird came rolling out of a side-turning and stopped just in front of them, wallowing on its suspension. Lieutenant Berridge broke his jogging rhythm and slowed down, catching at Stella’s arm to slow her down, too. The Thunderbird stayed where it was, right on the corner, its engine running and its driver silhouetted in the shadowy interior.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Stella asked Lieutenant Berridge.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Lieutenant Berridge cautiously, but slowed right down to a walk. He circled around the front of the Thunderbird and approached the driver’s window. With the whine of a tired electric motor, the window was lowered. The numbered sticker on the car’s windshield informed Lieutenant Berridge at once that this was a rental car; and the first thing he saw as the window opened was the plastic Avis tag on the ignition keys.

  The driver was a man in late middle-age, wearing a poisonous brown sport shirt and sunglasses. He smiled at Lieutenant Berridge, and said, ‘Anything I can do?’

  ‘I’m a police officer. You’re causing a potential obstruction here. Would you mind moving on?’

  ‘You’re a police officer?’ asked the man, looking Lieutenant Berridge up and down.

  ‘Even police officers get time off,’ Lieutenant Berridge told him. ‘But I’d appreciate it if you’d move along now, please.’

  The man took off his sunglasses. His eyes were as dead as stones, and surrounded by wrinkles. The eyes of a man who has spent years searching distant horizons, years peering through smoky bars, years looking for one thing and one thing only, and has found it - and is enjoying his triumph.

  ‘You must be Lieutenant Berridge,’ the man said.

  Lieutenant Berridge backed off a little and then glanced behind him at Stella. Strangers who called him by name always alarmed him. He had been on the beat with a cop

  called O’Manion once, back in his rookie days, and one night on Indian School Road, just as they were climbing into their car, someone had yelled out, ‘O’Manion!’ and a shotgun blast had hit O’Manion full in the back, blood and smoke and tatters of drill-coloured uniform.

  ‘Don’t be frightened, lieutenant/ the man said. ‘I’m not going to cause any trouble unless I have to. But don’t try to be a hero, either. I’m holding an Ingram machine-gun in my lap, and it’s pointing at you through the door, and one incautious or intemperant move will result in severe damage to this automobile’s bodywork, and you.’

  Lieutenant Berridge reached one hand behind him, and tried to wave at Stella to back away. But Stella came a few steps closer, and said, ‘Come on, honey. I’m losing my adrenalin.’

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ the man cautioned Lieutenant Berridge. ‘I’ve come here to warn you, not to hurt you. You’re dealing with the kidnapping of Susie Korvitz, right? And that little bit of business at Mesa.’

  That’s right.’ Lieutenant Berridge’s face was as stiff as the celluloid features on a rag doll. ‘What does that have to do with you?’

  ‘You don’t need to know. All you have to do is fail to find any useful evidence, decline to follow up any cock-and-bull leads, and eventually let both cases sink with silence and dignity into the files.’

  ‘And what if I tell you to go fuck yourself?’

  Then I’ll kill you. You remember poor Chief Ruse?’

  -You killed Chief Ruse?’

  That’s right. And I’ll kill you too, if you don’t behave yourself. Well - I have to make threats like that, you understand. They’re part
of my orders.’

  Lieutenant Berridge said to Stella, in a clear voice, ‘Back away, baby, you understand me?’

  Stella said, ‘What? What did you say?’

  ‘I said back away! I said - take cover

  The man in the car suddenly lifted from his lap a small black-painted gun. Lieutenant Berridge recognized it at once and felt a freezing surge of fear. For one chip of one

  second he couldn’t decide what to do: but then he ran straight towards the car, straight towards the man with the gun, jumped up and over him, and hurled himself with a clumbering bang on to the Thunderbird’s roof.

  His unorthodox action saved him, for as he jumped, the man opened fire, and Lieutenant Berridge heard that brisk and terrifying burp that characterized the Ingram ll’s high-speed fire. One thousand, one hundred rounds per minute, one bullet every five-hundredths of a second, with a velocity of 900 feet per second. The very first burst of thirty bullets took one-and-a-half seconds, and tore into Stella’s legs as she stood in front of the car in total surprise and confusion.

  Both her legs were completely severed at mid-thigh, in a horrifying splatter of blood and bone. She had time to look down at her legs with an expression of baffled hurt. She even had time to look up again, her eyes wide, searching for Lieutenant Berridge. Then her body literally fell off her legs, and she hit the ground with a hideous thump, her severed limbs collapsing in different directions. She thrashed her mutilated thighs, splashing blood across the road in an arabesque of scarlet. Her scream was so high-pitched that Lieutenant Berridge could scarcely hear it. It was the kind of scream that could wake dogs at night; the kind of scream that would come to you for year after year to come, in hideous dreams.