It was only natural, then, that the appearance at his guard booth of a petite woman carrying a cake provided a good excuse for him to act official.
“Hold on, Ma’am,” he said as he stepped out of his shack. “No unauthorized access past this point.”
“Oh, hi. Listen, my husband Jim, he works the night shift. Anyway, it’s his birthday tonight, and I made him this little cake so he and Andy and the other boys could celebrate.” She finished with a smile that would have gotten the Army to open the door at Fort Knox.
“What’s your name?”
“Eugenia Nichols. What’s yours?” She extended the hand that wasn’t holding the cake on the plastic tray.
“Well, I’ll be … I’m Eugene. Eugene Harns.” He allowed a smile at the seeming coincidence, not realizing that she read his name badge a split second earlier. “I’ll just call the night desk and see if they’ll come down to escort you.”
As Eugene picked up the telephone to call the night manager, she politely protested. “Gosh, don’t spoil it. It’s supposed to be a surprise!” Eugene looked the suburban mom up and down, her shyness causing her eyes to avert then reconnect during his scrutiny. If it hadn’t been dark, he might have noticed that her eyes kept moving rapidly when she wasn’t focused on him. Nevertheless, even in bright sunlight, Eugene would not have seen beyond her incandescent smile, her happy blue skirt, and her sensible shoes. His thirty-two years as a cop told him that she was as sweet as the cake. Her promising him a piece of the chocolate seven-layer on her way out also persuaded him to let her have her little surprise. He nodded his head as he allowed her through. She gave him a kiss on the cheek, which made him feel old, as if she thought of him as a grandfather or something.
Maybe I’m getting soft, he thought as she sauntered toward the main building.
∞§∞
Upon entering the main room, the woman looked up to find dozens of brightly painted pipes of all sizes crisscrossing at different levels above her head. The tops of huge, three-story-high chemical vats jetted thin streams of vapor. She climbed up the aluminum stairs, her sensible shoes clanking all the way, onto a grated metal walkway. Walking directly to a valve-control panel box, she noticed a 6,000-gallon vat behind her, standing tall from the floor below. A red label read “Caution: Super Corrosive Content.” She placed the cake on top of the metal box and opened the panel. Inside was a large red valve held in check by a safety rod with a red flag on it, reading, “DO NOT REMOVE.” She pulled the rod out and turned the wheel. Immediately, the giant spigot at the bottom of the tank opened and a torrent of acid poured out—instantly vaporizing everything in its path.
A technician ran down the catwalk toward the woman. “Turn it back! Close the valve!” he screamed.
Without flinching, she pushed her hand into the cake and lifted it up, pieces of cake and icing falling off, revealing the .38 caliber snub-nose revolver she so painstakingly placed between the layers this afternoon. As she pulled the trigger, the loud report of the gun startled her, causing her to ask herself, where did this gun come from? Yet she was compelled to continue as the remaining cake in the front of the pistol blew off while she pumped three holes in the technician’s chest. He tumbled into the acid, dissolving like a pat of butter on a hot skillet. As the structure on which she was standing weakened and started to buckle from the same acid, she sat down in her very confused state, her jittery eyes bouncing in her head. Wasn’t there a meeting at Jenny’s school tonight? Where’s the cake I baked for it? Seconds later Doris Polk, aka Eugenia Nichols, slid off into the same corrosive mix.
∞§∞
That was a different sound, Eugene thought as he poured a fresh cup of coffee in anticipation of the slice of cake. He looked over to the little single-cup Mr. Coffee in the guard shack, as if that were the source of the rumbling thunder. Then he heard a noise he had never encountered in his life, something like a gigantic squeaky door accompanied by the low guttural rumble a Trident nuclear submarine would make if you dragged it across Interstate 80. He didn’t even notice the hot liquid burning his leg from the coffee cup that slipped through his hand. Mesmerized, he watched as the entire Plant Number Five collapsed in and on itself like a startled soufflé dissolving into oozing goo right before his eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
SPIN
200 years ago it must have made sense, but the hard marble steps and floors of the former military academy were killing the Captain’s legs. He calculated that he must walk 30 kilometers a day over these things that were half the rise of normal stairs. The “standard issue” boots he wore as part of his daily uniform were designed for tramping through terrain, not over polished marble. The steps and floors were designed this way so that generals and commanders of the legions of Italy, who once occupied this country, could ride their mounts right up the stairs to their offices. That perk of command was now causing his legs to ache two centuries later. The closest anyone in this compound ever came to a horse lately was a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser. The steed-inspired length of each step caused him to hobble up the stairs in a manner not unlike a small boy, with both feet landing on every center-worn tread. This small annoyance piled up to once again have him doubt his lot in life. He had risen to the rank of Captain early, and with pride, only to have his career stalled at that level. Younger men than he were now his superiors. He considered himself a glorified office boy running antiquated Teletype messages, deemed secret, to various parts of the massive military structure. It was that level of sensitivity, which demanded that no underling, beneath the rank of Captain could ferry these signals to the Command staff. He hurried past statues of great former generals and busts of other old men whose bones were now dust, those marble effigies keeping them in eternal service to a country that had been occupied more times than a hotel room in Paris.
He stopped at the desk of the assistant to General Nandeserra. The Captain hated the General’s clerk, who had adopted an air of royalty, simply because he was the lackey of a commanding officer (an elevation in life to which his goat herder of a father could never have imagined).
“Is he in?” the Captain asked flatly.
“He’s busy,” the little snit replied.
“It’s a communiqué.”
With an almost disgusted sigh, the aide laboriously lifted the phone and buzzed into the inner office. “Captain Falad, with a telex.”
As he entered the room, Falad was surprised to see 10 high commanders in conference around a map of the United States. There were pins inserted at various places, one in a place called Ohio. He stood waiting to be recognized as the men discussed something about the effect on their plan.
“So, are you saying that the Americans won’t look this way?” General Nandeserra asked in an accusatory tone meant to belittle any opinion that didn’t originate within his brain.
“I am saying, General, that they have established no links or any connection to us or Samovar.” A slight-of-build, mustached Colonel, in an ill-fitting uniform, explained.
Falad surmised that he must be in the intelligence service, since intelligence officers were not warriors, just brains. The army could make a uniform fit the body of a man of action, but could not make a dress shirt for a brain. Brains, Falad thought, required a private tailor. He noticed the copy of an intelligence report; it was in Arabic but the words “Canton Ohio,” which had no Arabic translation, remained in English. He then heard Nandeserra mutter, “Yes.”
Falad stepped forward, put his feet together, as is appropriate when addressing an officer of flag rank, and handed the papers to him. The General put on his half-height reading glasses and gave the paper a quick scan, “That will be all, Captain.” He dismissed Falad without looking up from the Teletype impacted paper.
As the Captain headed for the door he heard the General announce, “It appears the Americans do not have any idea that they are under attack, at least from the disposition of their military assets in the world. There has been…” the door shut behind him, cuttin
g off the General’s words.
Falad walked across more than 1,000 meters of unforgiving Turkish marble back to his desk in the basement. Falad was stationed in the “Eyes and Ears,” the nickname he and his unit called the modern listening post that was finally approved for installation. It was really nothing more than a few satellite dishes with K-band receivers hooked up to a distribution system that allowed for many television sets along with many video tape recorders to monitor worldwide satellite broadcasts. It was crammed into a small space amidst the clanking metal Teletype machines that still carried encrypted communications to various levels of the government and military.
Ever since the Gulf War of the last century, nation states of the world realized that much intelligence was flying around the globe in the form of satellite news networks like CNN. Critical information regarding operations, troop movements, and the future deployment of forces were the common fodder of American journalism. Falad estimated that America’s lust for news had saved nations around the world billions in intelligence gathering costs. Having lived for a short time in the U.S., Falad was well aware of the open nature indicative of that society as well as its puppet governments throughout Europe. That’s how he got this assignment. To his chagrin, he was pulled from an active field artillery unit on the western border only to shuttle papers and culturally interpret the programming they were receiving.
America had made a sport of political and governmental news coverage. They just couldn’t help themselves from broadcasting these matches to the rest of the world. Falad had been brought in to separate the dung from the fertile soil. There was much dung on these programs. People, who had no idea of what was truly going on in government or military affairs, were given airtime and the privilege of discussing pressing matters of the day with anchors and hosts of talk shows. For the most part, those moderators’ only apparent reason to exist was to fill up the spaces between Weight Watchers advertisements and recorded music offers. This massive amount of uninformed guessing and supposition was confusing to standard, direct translators. It became clear that “who was talking?” and “what true knowledge did they have?” were more cultural questions than ones of fact. Many horse’s asses were allowed to pontificate on matters of the day, essentially polluting the well of information which was originally so pure when Peter Arnett broadcast direct from Baghdad. One could plainly see, in night vision green and white, the air war happening over his shoulder. Today 90 percent was garbage and people speaking merely to hear themselves talk. Falad’s job was to monitor, decipher, and rate the relative importance and political power of the various heads that spoke so that the “intelligence” they spewed could be either dismissed or considered.
∞§∞
Getting the hang of the White House could certainly be a daunting task; her level of security pass clearance had its limitations unless a senior person accompanied her. The first thing she learned was that Hiccock had “All Access.” He seemed to have a direct line right to the president, a truly rare circumstance between a science advisor and POTUS, which is what she learned the insiders called the President Of The United States. It was a carry over from the abbreviation used on the old White House interoffice phone system.
She thought she was heading down to the White House mess when she found herself in the little room, off the pressroom, filled with reporters filing their stories. The United Press International correspondent immediately zeroed in on the blonde as she entered the room, appearing somewhat bewildered.
“Can I help you?” Dave Higgins asked.
“I can’t believe I wound up back here,” Carly admitted out loud.
“New here, aren’t you?” he asked seeing the special badge hanging from her neck. It was a “short term” issue, usually for reporters whose newspapers didn’t have a permanent reporter assigned to the press corp.
“Yes, my second day.” She extended her hand. “Carly Simmone from Scientific American.”
“Dave Higgins, UPI. Want a cup of coffee?”
“Actually, I was heading to the mess for an interview.”
“Ah… that’s the next door over, then make a left.”
“Thanks.” she turned to leave.
“Who are you interviewing?”
“William Hiccock.”
“Right, Scientific American!” he made a gesture with his finger like a gun and shot her a wink. She reciprocated, shot him back a pressed grin, and left.
∞§∞
It took all of five minutes. Wally Smith, the producer of MSNBC, found his way into Naomi Spence’s office.
“What can I do for you, Wally?”
“Naomi, we all play by the rules here. You say hands off Hiccock and we back off.”
“Thank you for reminding me of my own rules”
“…Well today this girl shows up with a special, and Dave Higgins tells me she’s having lunch with Hiccock, doing an exclusive egghead piece for American Science magazine. What gives?”
“First off, it’s Scientific American. Secondly, she is not a girl, she is a woman, a reporter, and, for your information, the story was set way before anything blew up.”
“Listen, Naomi, I represent over four million viewers. Throw in NBC and CNBC and we got 30 million adults 25 - 54 watching. I don’t think I like the idea of being scooped by some monthly journal of a science rag, when we are covering hard news here.”
“Yesterday you did a seven-minute package on the president’s daughter Marie’s poodle and how she got better doggy health care being the daughter of the president. Real hard there, Wally”
“So that’s what this is about, revenge for a little human interest?”
“The only thing human about that piece was the cute shot of the dog, Wally! Otherwise you were going for PoodleGATE.”
“You know, Naomi, when we were back at 30 Rock, you understood how tight this business is…”
“Stop right there, Wally. We worked together back in New York 15 years ago. You have cashed that chip more than a few times, and now it’s done.”
“You can be so infuriating.”
“My husband tells me that all the time.”
“How’s Larry doing?”
“The doctors say as long as he walks the straight and narrow, his kidneys will be with him ‘til we own a place in Miami.”
“Say hi for me, and think about what you are going to do to make this up to me.”
“Up yours, Wally. I’ll tell him you said hello.”
“See ya round, Spence.”
“See ya round, Wal.”
As soon as he left, Naomi called her assistant. “Sue, pull the Scientific American file. I want to see last month’s request for access letter one more time.”
“Do you ever regret not playing in the NFL?” Carly asked a half-hour into her interview with Hiccock.
“I never connected with football the way I have connected with science. Football was a game, a diversion. I have always been a scientist.”
“Are you just saying that because we are doing a SciAm article right now?”
“No, I told the same thing to Sports Illustrated.”
“When?” she asked. “I didn’t see any article from S.I. in my research.”
“Exactly. I told them the same thing I just told you. Took all the fun out of it for them, I guess.”
Carly was smiling. “So then you learned from that, what to say to me?”
They both laughed.
∞§∞
Wally Smith was getting a cup of coffee when the laughter turned him around. As he looked at this girl, this blonde, very attractive blonde, with a great smile… he felt inspired.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fall into the Gap
THERE THEY ARE, right where Walter said they would be. Rusty and filthy, enough to beat the band, but they will do, Martha thought as she put the jumper cables into the backseat of the car. She returned to the garage and opened an old, dusty Army footlocker. She was inundated with the intense smell of mothballs. Aga
in, there where her dear departed Walter left it, tucked under the heavy brown cloth of his sergeant’s uniform, lay his illegal war prize. It was still oily, situated next to a magazine. The magazine held nine bullets. When inserted into the German Luger, it would be transformed from a dead war relic to a deadly weapon.
She shut off the light in the garage and went out to her car as the setting sun drew long shadows on everything in her quiet little neighborhood. Walter needed her. Soon she would see him again and help him with the dead battery in his car.
∞§∞
Mr. Quimby was watering his lawn when he noticed Martha backing out of her driveway cautiously. “Eh, Martha,” he called out across the picket fence that separated these neighbors for thirty-five years. “Going to the grandkids?” He chalked up her lack of response to the widow Krummel being hard of hearing of late. As her taillights disappeared around the corner, he turned back to his meticulously manicured lawn. The last few days of Indian summer had been brutally hot and that meant lawn-browning weather if one wasn’t careful. Maybe he would water Martha’s as well.
The Eighth Day Page 5