“Tanks! I see tanks advancing!” Del Rio seemed breathless. “In their camouflage paint, they look like prehistoric monsters. Thundering to crush this daring American rebellion.”
Her microphone picked up no thunder but the tanks did look monstrous enough. Long and squat, splotched with dirty green and brown, they came down the road in single file, guns trained on the barricade. The camera swept the huddled defenders, caught an officer standing on the hood of a pickup, shouting silently.
Swelling in the monitor, the lead tank lumbered implacably forward. It splintered the flimsy barricade, crushed its path through the line of vehicles. Ahead of it, the riflemen scattered.
“The tank!” Del Rio’s voice suddenly sharpened. “The rebels are running like scared rabbits. But the tank—”
The monitor went blank. Her voice was cut off.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE STREET SEEMED empty again next morning till I saw the Dalmatian leading Abram Koster into view. Carrying a rolled newspaper under his arm, he halted the dog in front of the house and stood a long time scanning Alden’s roses before he glanced around him and bent to dig in the yellowed leaves for the paper he had left. He buried the one he had brought, glanced idly around, and followed the dog out of my sight.
“No news, good news!”
Tex Horn’s mellow bellow greeted me on the infonet. The white Stetson a little askew, he was grinning so broadly that a gold tooth shone, but I saw tension in the set of his jutting jaw.
“The McAdam strike force is still under security blackout, but Pentagon officials report General Zeider’s pacification force advancing as planned. Our satellite service has not yet been able to correct the technical glitch that has interrupted transmissions from the rebel county. Ramona Del Rio is still there, however, squatting on the hot spot for WebWatch One.
“That’s hype from the hip. Hold for the top of the pop from Hopper Horn on WebWatch one.”
The phone rang again while I was mixing pancake batter from a box in Marion’s pantry cabinet. Botman? Acorn Three? The bureau or some city cop? Surely I was wanted more than ever, not just for Ryke’s death and Lydia Starker’s, but now because I was Alden’s brother and linked to the rebels through Pepperlake and his Freeman. I let the phone ring till it stopped.
“—newsbreak!”
Horn was back on the infonet, looking flushed and elated.
“Exclusive from WebWatch One. We bring you Jess Koplovik, the first eyewitness to escape the McAdam battlefield.”
Koplovik was a gangling youth in frayed blue jeans and a Reb T-shirt, his Reb cap turned backward. He seemed ill at ease in this moment of sudden fame. Sweating under the studio lights, he kept shifting in his chair, peering apprehensively aside, reminding himself to look back at the camera.
“Relax, Jess,” Horn cajoled him. “You’re safe here under the WebWatch wing, with a tale that can shake the nation. For a start, just tell the world something about yourself and how you escaped with your exclusive story of the rebel victory.”
“I don’t know—” He gulped and blinked. “I don’t know if it is a victory.”
“Don’t fret about military tactics. Just say what you saw and how you got to see it.”
“Okay, sir.” He pushed the Reb cap farther back and squinted against the lights. “My folks live out of Baker Run. That’s east of town, just off the Lexington road. Dad was a tobacco farmer till the market broke. We’re trying to get into alternative crops. I was an ag major at McAdam College till the trouble began and I went home to be with my folks.”
He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stopped to blink at Horn.
“Great!” Horn told him. “You’re going great. Just tell about the battle.”
“Not much of a battle.”
“The tanks, Jess. About the tanks.”
“I never knew they had tanks at Fort Knox, but somebody said they come from there. Big caterpillar tanks, splotched with funny paint jobs. They come in to park on our east field without asking and posted men with guns to keep us out. One man promised the Army would pay us a hundred bucks when Dad finally got to see him, but I don’t know.”
He squirmed and licked his lips.
“Go on. What did you see?”
“The guards kept everybody out of what they call their perimeter, but I had the infonet news on my laptop. We’ve got a big oak in our hill pasture. I built a spy nest in it when I was a kid—just two boards nailed to a fork in a high branch. It’s still there. I climbed back to it, up to where I could see the road to the county line and the rebel roadblock. That was just their flag on a pole and a painted board propped across the pavement. The rebs had parked a few trucks and cars on the road behind it, but nothing big enough to stop a tank. I thought they were fu—”
He turned red, choking back the word.
“That’s okay.” Horn shrugged. “Just say what you saw.”
“I thought the rebs had gone crazy.” He caught a long breath and wiped his forehead. “I’ve got an old spyglass my uncle gave me. I had it with me in the tree when the tanks came. Snorting and rumbling, they came out of our east field one at a time and crawled on down the McAdam road in a single line.
“I had the glass on the front tank when it came to the road block. It never fired a gun, not that I could see. It just smashed through the painted timber and knocked the flagpole down and ran over the cars and pickups on the pavement. The rebs scattered back to their cars like scared rats. But the tanks—”
He scratched his head and blinked against the lights.
“The front tank stopped. Dad thinks it run over a land mine, but I never seen no flash or smoke. Not till men began tumbling out of it. I hope they all got out, because it finally caught fire and stood there a long time, burning. I think what hit it was more than any land mine.”
“Why, Jess?” Horn asked him. “Why do you think so?”
“Sir, the tanks all stopped. The whole damn line. The others didn’t bum, but something stalled them. I stayed up there in the tree till an Army jeep came down the bar ditch, a man in the back yelling at the tanks through a bull horn. I couldn’t make out what he was yelling. Something stalled the jeep. He got out and ran on toward the county line, hammering on the tanks. The lids opened and the crews crawled out. A few stayed on guard around the tanks. The others walked back to where I couldn’t see.”
“You don’t know what stopped the tanks?”
“No, sir.” He frowned and licked his lips. “But it stopped more than the tanks. I could see into the camp they’d set up beyond our field. Tents and jeeps and trucks and big guns. Big trucks had been coming out to the road, ready to follow the tanks. They all stopped when the tanks did. I can’t say why.”
“Anything else, Jess? Anything at all?”
“I guess that’s all I seen.” He squirmed and squinted at Horn. “Men started walking back toward the camp from the stalled tanks. I climbed down out of the tree. Our phone was dead when I got back to the house. The TV, the lights, my laptop—everything was dead.
“Mom was scared when I told her what I’d seen. She was afraid the rebs had fired some secret weapon that might of killed all the world. She made me a sandwich and I walked out to my Uncle Ben’s place. He lives four miles back from the county line. His phone and his power were okay. He was watching the infonet, but there hadn’t been anything about the battle. He said what I seen from the tree might be important.”
He turned uneasily to Horn.
“Sir, what do you think?”
“What will Higgins think?” Horn whistled and took off the Western hat, revealing a lot of bald pink scalp before he clapped it back. “What will the Pentagon think?”
“Do you think I’ll be in trouble?” He mopped his wet forehead. “Should I have kept my mouth shut, like Dad told me?”
“You’re okay, Jess.” Horn grinned a little too heartily. “So long as you’re telling the truth.”
“It’s all true, sir.” He put his hand o
ver his heart on the sweat-drenched T-shirt. “It’s what I seen.”
He vanished from the tube, and Horn spoke alone.
“That was Jess Koplovik of Baker Run, here on WebWatch One with his startling story of the first military encounter of the McAdam County War. Stay with us for anticipated reactions from the White House or the Pentagon.”
Searching for those reactions, I found bits of Jess Koplovik’s story on a dozen channels. Another was running a hypertext history of “The American Malaise” that began with any hot key you happened to click and never ended anywhere. I found my own face, still atop the wanted list. Finally, I got a contemptuous White House spokesman dismissing the foolish rumors of any military reverse in Kentucky.
Some public confusion, he admitted, had been caused by an unexplained power loss from the Moorhawk plant, which served a wide area in central Kentucky. Probably an act of sabotage by rebel sympathizers. In any case, the strike force had its own generators. It had not been affected.
Traffic was increasing when I peeked out of Tim’s front window, but nobody was obviously watching the house. I worked out and showered. Marion’s pantry cabinet was nearly bare; I had com flakes for breakfast, with canned tomatoes.
Tex Horn was back on the monitor when I looked again. Bareheaded, in a khaki jump suit, he looked younger and softer without the big hat. The bald scalp was covered now with a mat of shortcut ginger-red hair. Grinning affably into the lens, he was picking his fine white teeth.
“Ramona Del Rio remains in McAdam.” He tossed the toothpick aside. “Still standing by on the top spot for Web Watch One, ready with the pop when it’s hot.” He made a solemn face. “Unfortunately, however, all wire and satellite contact with the rebel county is still cut off by unexplained technical difficulties.”
He paused for a brief montage of Del Rio watching from the hill, the wind molding a vividly crimson blouse becomingly against her. The tank rolling through the rebel barricade and over the rebel flagpole. Jess Koplovik sweating under the studio lights as he told about the tanks.
“Tex Horn here for WebWatch One.” He was back on the monitor, with a shrug of innocent amazement. “Clearly, General Zeider’s advance into the county has run into more trouble than the Pentagon cares to admit. If you want the hype while it’s hyper, WebWatch One is going to open an eye in the sky.
“We have chartered an airplane. Within the next few minutes, I’m taking off from Lexington Municipal for an observation flight as close as I can get to the battle front. The authorities have warned us to avoid restricted areas round McAdam County, but I’ll bring you all I can.”
A total-globe crisis roundup followed, broken by Horn’s radio bulletins. Though his pilot had orders to steer clear of the restrictions, haze filters for his long lens let him see far across the county line.
“The airstrips are still blocked,” his last report began. “I see no unusual movement on the Lexington highway. Farm machines are raising dust in the fields and normal traffic is moving on rural roads. Cattle and horses are grazing peacefully. We are now turning north around the military perimeter. I can make out the tank column stopped at the county line, with no apparent motion anywhere around it—”
His voice was cut off. After long seconds of silence, an announcer spoke.
“That was Tex Horn on his observation flight around the rebel county. His last reported position was an estimated four miles northeast of the village of Baker Run. All contact with him and his flight
crew has been interrupted. Further facts will be relayed as we receive them. In the meantime, we resume our daysnews summary.” That summary began with the howl of savage winds and glimpses of half-naked refugees fighting through angry waves and floating wreckage to reach the hull of a capsized boat.
“Hurricane in Bangladesh,” the announcer droned, “reported to daysnews by Ishmael Singh.”
Horn’s radio bulletins were not resumed. A Web Watch military analyst speculated that his plane had been shot down. A Pentagon spokesman read a press release from General Zeider.
“We have no information about the fate of the missing journalist, Tex Horn. Although air traffic has been excluded from the McAdam County area at the request of Senator Finn, he had received a special clearance for an observation flight. He was told to remain clear of the military perimeter. He seems to have done so. I confirm that no military action was taken against him. Nothing else is known.”
A Pentagon spokesman repeated the official line that the campaign against the insurgent county was still proceeding as planned. Web Watch One was still unable to restore contact with Ramona Del Rio. I worked out on the Total Toner. When I went back to Tim’s window, Abram Koster was walking the big Dalmatian. Very deliberate, he paused to study the fallen leaves on the yard before he let the dog lead him on. For an early dinner, I made waffles made with the rest of the pancake mix, and ate them with what Tim had left of a jar of peanut butter.
Tex Horn was on Web Watch One when I got back to it. His shirt was tom, the Reb cap gone. His bronzed grin seemed painfully stiff, marred by livid bruises and plastic patches.
“Your eye in the sky,” he mocked himself. “Till somebody stuck a stick in it. We were flying at five thousand feet over the Lexington highway, crossing it north of the military perimeter, when the radio failed. The navigation instruments went out. Both motors died, from no cause the pilot could determine. He glided us down to a rough landing on an abandoned road. The photographer had a leg injury, and we waited for the ambulance to pick us up. They were running us to the hospital, but I made them drop me off for this update. I’m Tex Horn for WebWatch One. Back with the scam as quick as I can.”
Late that afternoon Abram Koster came strolling once more down the sidewalk, holding back the eager Dalmatian and carrying a rolled-up paper under his arm. He stopped in front of the house, glanced quickly up and down the street, and deftly exchanged the paper for the one he had hidden under the leaves.
A motion detector? Metal detector? Infrared detector? Geiger counter? Or what else?
I eased away from the window and went back downstairs. The phone was ringing when I passed the kitchen. I felt sick of the strain, sick of watching the infonet and waiting for nothing. With the refrigerator and the pantry cabinet empty, I must soon move on. I picked up the phone and listened silently, my heart thumping.
“Marion?” My Aunt Julia’s anxious voice. “Marion?” She spoke again before I found the wit to answer. “Marion, are you there?” “It’s Clay.”
“Clay?” She echoed my name. “Where have you been?” “Hiding. Here in the house. She and the kids were gone when I got here.”
“She was frantic about you. On her way to Kentucky, to do what she could. I offered to come and stay with the kids, but Tim was determined to go with her and she said she couldn’t leave little Angela. Not even with me.”
“So she’s there in the county?”
“I haven’t heard, and I’m worried sick. Clay, is there anything—Do you want to come out here?”
“I’m wanted. I can’t travel. I’m afraid to say any more. I’ve got to hang up and get out of the house.”
I ran back upstairs. In Alden’s vacant office, I spun the dial of the wall safe to get his wallet, the cryptophone, the spare car keys. Five minutes later, I was backing Marion’s car out of the garage.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DRIVING AS FAST as I dared, I watched the rearview mirrors. At last, when no flashing lights had come up behind me, I felt relaxed enough to switch the satellite mapper to the HotBit channel. A Pentagon spokesman was laughing off “that bragging hillbilly kid” and his crazy tale of General Zeider’s tanks in trouble on the McAdam county line. The general had reported no unexpected resistance. He was advancing into the troubled county with due deliberation.
The Washintel channel was rerunning Tex Horn’s interview with Jess Koplovik. That was followed with his own story of the crash of his observation plane when he flew too near General Zeider’s halted ta
nk column on the county line.
“The old spin game!”
Horn himself came back on the tiny screen, sitting propped up in a hospital bed, plastic patches on his face, wearing a white bandage instead of the hat.
“Listen to Higgins and the Pentagon. Listen to Washintel
WebWatch One. Believe what you please—and hold the hoop for the high-test hype.”
Stopping only when I had to for gas and coffee, I was somewhere in West Virginia when another news report jolted me wide awake. The cops and the FBI had Clayton Barstow on the run. Wanted for murder and thought to be a secret agent of the McAdams rebels, Barstow had fled his Washington hideout just minutes ahead of a police raid. My photo was on the screen, along with the license plate number of Marion’s car.
Outside the next town, I pulled into a run-down motel where the VACANCY sign still flickered. The yawning night clerk took the cash I offered from Alden’s wallet, shoved a key across the counter, and jabbed his pen at a map to show me my room. Behind the building, nothing was moving in the half-lit space between the parked cars and a wall of trees and underbrush. I pulled into a gap beside a long gas-guzzler with a Tennessee plate. Five minutes later, grateful for the pliers and screwdriver Marion kept in the glove box, I was back on the highway with the traded plate.
By sunrise, I was in Kentucky. Hungry and groggy for sleep, I found a counter seat at a roadside diner, ordered bacon and eggs, and listened to a refugee who sat beside me with his pregnant wife. He looked jittery, as tired as I was, and he wanted to talk.
“Ain’t it a bitch of a thing? Nothing nobody wanted. Folks like us caught between a pack of idiots back in McAdam and bigger idiots in the White House.” He slurped his coffee and shrugged at the woman. “Could be we were fools to leave the farm, but I was worried sick for Mandy Ann. God knows what will happen to the farm before we get back. If we ever do get back.”
The Silicon Dagger Page 15