by Bill Walker
Denise smiled. “Hell, Jack, the party’s our cover. This is the meeting.”
“This is the meeting?”
“Close your mouth, Dunham, and let’s go.”
When they approached the house, Jack could hear people engaged in spirited chatter, punctuated here and there by someone’s hyena-like laughter. It clearly sounded like everyone was having a great time. Through the window, he saw people dancing and eating. Jack’s stomach growled. At least he’d get something in his stomach.
They reached the front door and Denise knocked. Three knocks in rapid succession followed by two slow knocks.
Jack saw the light behind the view port on the door go out, indicating someone was giving them the once-over. A moment later, the door swung open.
“Welcome to Lambda, Jack,” Denise said.
If he’d looked shocked earlier, nothing could compare to what he must have looked like now. The living room was empty. In the center of the room stood a complex array of video projectors pointed at all the windows. Jack noted that each window had been taped over with rear screen projection material. He could now see the reverse of the scene he saw while approaching the house. Even in here, the illusion was astounding. Outside, it was perfect.
“Incredible,” he said, turning back to Denise. She stood next to a tall, lanky fellow who looked entirely average except for the bright, red lipstick he wore.
“Jack, this is Henry Geddings, head of Lambda’s Miami chapter. Henry, this is Jack.”
Henry held out his hand in the manner of women expecting it to be kissed. Feeling a tad awkward, Jack took the hand, surprised when the grip turned out to be inordinately firm.
“Glad to meet you, Henry.”
“Denise, you never told me he was a charmer. You’ve been keeping secrets.”
“That’s right, Henry, and he’s my secret. Tell all your friends that it’s hands off.”
Henry smiled, revealing perfect, capped teeth.
“But of course, my dear, we’re all friends here. Especially tonight.”
“Uhh, excuse me,” Jack said. “But where is everybody?”
“Ahh, we still have you fooled, eh?” Henry said. “Follow thus into our secret garden.”
“He’s a frustrated actor,” Denise whispered. “Humor him.”
Jack smiled and waved his hand in a flourish.
“Lead on, MacPoof,” he said.
“Ah, a wit! I know we shall get on infamously.”
Denise shook her head in mock disgust and Jack shrugged as they followed Henry into a small den lined with bookshelves. This room also had a projector pointed at the window. The image was of a man snoring contentedly as he slept on a small love seat. The sound emanated from a small speaker hidden behind a plant.
Henry smiled. “Guaranteed to make most people die of boredom. Everyone except for those shameless peepers in State Security. They’ll watch anything.”
As he spoke, he reached for a book and pulled it out. Jack heard a click and saw one of the bookshelves swing inward. Behind it lay a flight of stairs leading to the basement. A lone bulb lit the passageway that plunged steeply into the earth. They could hear the faint murmurings of many voices.
“I’m impressed,” Jack said. “I didn’t know the houses here had basements.”
“Well, you remember that craziness in the sixties when everyone thought the Canadians were going to drop the bomb? Everyone built bomb shelters. The people who owned this one were clever about it. Shall we?”
Henry pointed the way and both Jack and Denise padded down the stairs, turning right at the bottom. Jack looked back up and saw Henry talking to a reed-thin man with acne scars on his face, a lookout no doubt. The other man nodded, then pecked Henry lightly on the lips and disappeared, closing the panel behind him. Henry joined them and they walked into the large, smoky room.
For Jack, this was the second surprise of the night. As soon as they walked in, he felt all eyes on him. Some smiled and some looked at him with open hostility, still others had a blank look. None of them were what State Security would have called normal. During the day, these men and women wore regular clothes, spoke and acted just like everyone else. Here, within the safety of a bomb shelter thirty feet underground, everyone felt free to be themselves. Jack saw two women kissing passionately, oblivious to all others around them. Most of the men wore heavy makeup, while the women preferred little to none. For Jack, the whole scene made him feel like the odd man out.
Henry walked to the front of the room while Jack and Denise took seats toward the back.
“Thank you all for coming. Without further delay, let me introduce to you our guest speaker. He is a renowned attorney by day, but by night he fights alongside his brothers and sisters in the American Resistance Movement. Ladies and gentlemen, Fred Williams.”
Applause erupted throughout the room, loud and fervent. A man in the front row stood up, immediately dwarfing Henry. He had bushy, red hair and looked like a former football player.
“Curly,” Jack whispered, tears coming to his eyes.
Denise leaned over, concern etched on her face.
“You okay, Jack?”
Jack smiled and joined the applause. “Never better, Malloy, never better.”
Curly took his place on the makeshift stage, nodding and acknowledging the applause. He waved to a few he recognized. Soon the noise subsided and Curly cleared his throat.
“I’m sure you all know why I’m here,” he said.
The room filled with murmuring.
“Well, let me tell you. It’s worse than you can imagine. General Order Four, calling for the forced resettlement of all homosexuals and other undesirables will be in effect and commence on May fifteenth, Heldentag.”
“Hell no, we won’t go!” someone shouted.
For Jack, it was almost nostalgic. He suppressed the urge to smile. Curly continued.
“That’s the right attitude, but the wrong way to go about it. We can’t win if we go off half-cocked. For one thing, you need to know that Resettlement is a deception. No one has ever been resettled.”
One of the women stood up.
“I got a letter from my lover just last week. It was postmarked from New Iberia.”
Curly’s expression saddened. “I’m sure you did, Rena. But I’m sad to say that is the only one you’ll ever get.”
The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “How do you know that!” she screamed. “How can you stand up there and tell me that?”
Another woman came to her and put her arms around her. Jack swallowed, his throat feeling tight and scratchy.
“How many of you have black friends or lovers?” Curly asked. “Please, raise your hands. We’re all friends here.”
A good half of the room raised their hands.
“Have any of you received letters from Africa?”
About half the hands dropped.
“Any receive more than that one?”
No hands remained aloft. Rena sobbed quietly, her hands covering her face.
Curly continued.
“I have with me slides taken at Andersonville Concentration Camp a little over two weeks ago. I have to warn you, these photos are not pleasant. For any of you who have weak stomachs, I strongly urge you not to watch. We at the ARM have shown these at all our meetings to underscore the urgency of our cause. The time for open rebellion is coming, and if we are to emerge victorious, we must know the truth. Lights?”
The lights snapped off and the beam from the slide projector sliced the darkness. When the first image hit the screen, everyone gasped.
“Oh, God,” Denise said.
Though they sickened him, the slides held much less shock value than for the others. Some cried openly, others stared in wide-eyed horror, still others ran from the room clutching their mouths, about to be sick. Jack stared, his expression grim.
It was all too familiar: the barbed wire, the hollow-eyed, living skeletons, the leering guards, the bodies. So many bodies. They lay heap
ed like cordwood, open-mouthed, eyes cloudy and sunken into their sockets. On a few, the expressions looked stunned, as if being dead were a total surprise. There was only one fundamental difference between these pictures and ones from Dachau or Auschwitz: the faces here were black.
The lights snapped back on and Curly returned to his place on the small stage. He scanned the crowd, his eyes sad but determined.
“I’m sorry you all had to see that,” Curly said, “but make no mistake, you are next. It’s too late for our black brothers and sisters. All but a few are gone.”
Rena began to wail, her sobs wracking her small body. Denise gripped Jack’s hand like a vise.
Curly continued. “Tonight, we are going to break into our cadres and go over the plan. Weapons are on the way from Canada. We are going to strike on Heroes Day. We will show these Nazi pigs just what real heroes are made of!”
“Yes!” someone stood and shouted. The rest were on their feet in an instant, their voices roaring their assent. Curly stepped down from the stage and melted into the crowd surrounding him, patting him on the back and cheering their approval. The rush of warmth and good feelings washed away the earlier moments of fear and horror. Everyone’s eyes shone with hope and fervor reborn.
Denise turned to Jack. “Come on. I’ll take you to meet him.”
They pushed their way through the throng and Jack found his stomach filled with butterflies. Would Curly know him? In a moment they stood next to the big man who had his back to them as he spoke with two women dressed identically in black. A second later he turned and saw Denise.
“Denise!” he said, taking her into a bear hug. “How’s my favorite subversive?”
She smiled, blushing a deep red. This surprised Jack. He didn’t think her capable of embarrassment.
“Oh, shut up, you big slob,” she said teasingly.
“I want you to meet my boyfriend, Jack Dunham.”
Jack’s head snapped toward her and she smiled again, her eyes filling with love. He returned the look, then turned to Curly and stuck out his hand.
“Jack,” he said, knocking the hand out of the way and enveloping him in a hug. “I knew you’d come.”
Jack pulled out of the embrace and gripped Curly’s shoulders.
“Curly, you know me? You remember?”
“Like it was yesterday.”
“All right!” Jack said, grabbing Curly in a hug of his own. “How did it happen for you? When?”
“I was addressing a group of Wehrmacht veterans about insurance benefits and afterwards Wiley came up to me.”
“Wiley? You’ve seen Wiley?” Jack was as excited as a kid with a coveted new toy.
“He’s fine, Jack. He’s in Toronto—with Chessman.”
This rocked Jack.
“Chessman? In Canada? Have they—”
Curly shook his head. “Wiley doesn’t have the right stuff. They’ve tried for months. You’re our only hope.”
“Me? What can I do? I’m no more telekinetic than Wiley.”
“Chessman can test you. If you have any ability, any at all, he can develop it, make it stronger.”
“But why not get someone up there who can do it already?”
“Because we need somebody who remembers the way it was, the way it’s supposed to be.”
“What about you?”
Curly shook his head. “I’m too high profile. State Security is always keeping tabs on me.”
Denise shook her head, totally confused.
“Hey, I hate to interrupt old home week, but would somebody mind explaining just what the hell is going on and how you two know each other?”
She stood there looking so impatient and frustrated, both men laughed.
“Oh, great,” she said. “Now I’m an idiot too.
Jack hugged her, still chuckling. “I’m sorry, Malloy, it’s just so crazy, you’ll think we’re nuts.”
“Try me,” she snarled, putting her hands on her hips.
“Come on, you two lovebirds,” Curly said, still laughing. “There’s a private room back behind the stage. We can talk there.”
Curly led them to the front of the room and to a small door that nearly blended in with the cinder block construction. Inside the ten-by-ten room were shelves containing all manner of canned foods. On the floor stood several oil-drum-sized containers of drinking water. The distinctive yellow and black radiation symbol on them told Jack this was the storage room for the shelter. He wondered if any of this stuff was still edible.
In the center of the room stood a small, battered table and four hardback chairs. Denise and Jack sat down while Curly stood.
“Why don’t you start, Jack?”
He sighed. Where to begin? It was all so crazy sounding. He turned to Denise and grabbed her hand.
“Have you ever thought you’ve been somewhere before or felt you’ve known somebody that you couldn’t possibly know?”
“You mean like déjà vu?”
“Sort of.”
Jack began to tell her the incredible tale of his other life, of how Armand Bock and the Nine Old Men changed the face of America, of the world. How they found Chessman and Kruger and how frighteningly simple it had been to alter history. When he was finished, Curly took over and related his own part of the story, including the moment everything came flooding back when he laid eyes on Wiley Carpenter.
“My revelation was not as violent as Jack’s. I don’t know why, but suffice to say, it rocked me to the core.”
Denise was outwardly calm, but Jack could tell she was reeling from all they’d told her. It was a lot to ask anyone to take in.
“So, because Kruger killed Eisenhower and everyone else in that explosion, then convinced Hitler to move the Fifteenth Army—”
“Everything was changed,” Jack said. “You have no idea what our country is like in that other timeline. For one thing, it’s called the United States of America. Not this stupid ‘Avalon.’ You can actually buy a newspaper that tells you the real news, listen to any kind of music you want, speak your mind anywhere, anytime. There’s no State Security, Denise. Police have to have warrants to search your home. And Miami. You wouldn’t recognize it. The Cubans and the blacks, they’re everywhere... and free.”
“What about me, Jack?”
Jack glanced at Curly, who nodded.
“We don’t know each other back there.”
“Maybe we will,” she said. “I mean, you said that because you guys knew about Bock and the Nine Old Men’s plan, you were able to remember it now.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“Then maybe I’ll look you up.”
“That’s only if I go to Canada and if I can go back and change all this. I don’t even know if I can.”
Denise looked at him, her eyes filled with fiery determination. “You’ve got to try, Jack. If you could change all of this, this nightmare, wouldn’t it be worth it? Didn’t those slides make you sick?”
Jack nodded. “Come with me, then. You said it was time for you to go underground. We’ll both go.”
“No, Jack. I can’t—not now—not after seeing that. I’ve got to stay and fight. If you’re successful, then you’ll save millions of lives. If not, then my people will need all the help they can get.”
“Damnit, Denise. I’m not going to argue with you. I want you—”
The explosion ripped through the upper floor of the house, drowning out Jack’s voice. The room shook and the air filled with the sounds of screams and falling canned goods.
“Mein Gott,” Denise said, “it’s State Security!”
In between the screams, Jack could hear the chatter of machine guns and barked orders. They’d sent an Einsatzgruppe, a liquidation squad.
Curly grabbed them and shoved them toward the end of the room opposite the door. “Come on. There’s another way out of here.”
“No! We can’t leave them!”
Curly shook her. In his large hands, she appeared like a small doll. “You can’t help
them! They’re already dead!”
“NO!” she screamed.
Curly slapped her, making Jack wince.
“Come on, Jack. Help me!”
The two of them grabbed her by the arms and pulled her. Behind one of the shelves was an auxiliary entrance to the shelter: a steel door barred with a stout, oak beam. Curly threw off the beam and pulled open the door. The hinges creaked loudly, and a wave of damp, musty air wafted over them. The room quaked from another explosion, this one sounding closer.
“Let’s move it,” Curly said.
The three of them dashed into the dark tunnel. Curly slammed the door behind them, making the tunnel even darker. Lit only by a pair of battery-powered emergency lights, the walls were blanketed by a thick layer of grime and moss, and the floor had about two inches of water covering it. Looking down the dim passage, Jack could see the tunnel extended about fifty yards, ending abruptly at a rusty, iron ladder set into the concrete.
The passage was narrow, necessitating that they run single file. They reached the ladder seconds later. Jack could still hear the screams and the machine guns echoing down the passageway.
Denise stared up the ladder. “Where does this lead?”
“Henry never told me,” Curly said.
“I hope the hell it’s not smack in the middle of this mess,” Jack said.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got no other way out. Let’s go. Jack, you first, then Denise. I’ll bring up the rear.”
Jack nodded and headed up the ladder. Layers of rust crumbled under his hands and feet, and he prayed it continue to take their weight. If it broke, they were trapped.
At the top of the ladder, Jack found what appeared to be a manhole cover. He pushed. It wouldn’t budge.
“This fucking thing is stuck!”
“Push it, Jack. Put your back into it. It hasn’t been opened in over thirty years.”
Jack looked up and sneered at the cover then climbed another rung. Hunched over, he used his knees to push his back against the cover. He shoved hard, feeling the muscles in his neck popping through the skin with the strain. Backing off, he took several deep breaths and pushed harder still. Suddenly, it gave, nearly causing him to topple off the ladder. Denise gasped.