Jericho Iteration

by Allen Steele

  It’s amazing how little it takes to amuse some people. I suppose they had already chewed up their rubber balls and tug-toys.

  The bells in the Old Cathedral down by the riverside were tolling twelve times when the armored car slowed down. Its wheels bumped again, this time as if the Piranha was crawling over a curb, then the vehicle ground to a halt. There was a double-rap against the wall in front of the driver’s compartment. Mullens stood up, grasped one of my arms, and pulled me out of my seat.

  “End of the line, buddy,” he said as Hefler unlatched the rear hatches and pushed them open. “Time for you to go see the colonel.”

  “Yeah,” said Hefler as he stepped out of the vehicle. “And when he’s through, maybe you can go for another ride with us. Would you like that, huh?”

  I kept silent as Mullens hauled me out of the LAV. The vehicle had come to a stop in the middle of the wide plaza in front of the stadium’s Walnut Street entrance. Concrete barricades topped with coiled razor wire had been erected around the elm-lined plaza, surrounding the Piranhas parked in front of the closed-down ticket booths and dismantled turnstiles. ERA troopers were goldbricking against the statue of Stan Musial, stubbing out their cigarette butts against his bronze feet. Stan the Man was probably rolling in his grave.

  The walkways winding around the curved outside walls of the stadium were vacant of baseball fans; the World Series pennants suspended from the ceiling of the ground-floor concourse hung limp and ignored, relics of a more innocent age. It had been a long time since anyone in this place had heard the crack of a bat or smelled a jumbo hot dog. That was one thing we had learned from all those two-bit dictatorships in Latin America: how to turn a good sports arena into a hellhole.

  Bob and Bob escorted me across the plaza to a pair of boarded-up double doors beneath a tattered blue canvas awning. The doors led into a narrow lobby where two more soldiers were standing guard duty in front of a pair of elevator doors. One of the grunts reached out to press the Up button on the wall beneath a black plaque reading MEMBERS ONLY.

  “Hey, wait a minute, guys,” I said as the left elevator opened. “We can’t go up there … we’re not members.”

  Hefler actually seemed to hesitate for a moment, confirming my suspicion that he was too stupid even to have held down a job as a busboy when the club had been open. “Shut up, asshole,” Mullens growled as he shoved me into the elevator.

  I stifled a grin. Some people have no sense of humor.

  We rode the elevator up to the loge level and the Stadium Club. I had been here a couple of times before with Uncle Arnie, who was well heeled enough to afford a gold membership card. In its time, the Stadium Club had been one of the ritzier places in the city: good food, good drink, a great view of the diamond from an enclosed eyrie overlooking left field.

  When the elevator doors opened again, my first impression was that the place hadn’t changed since I had last seen it. The oak reception desk was still there, facing a wall lined with photos of players and pennant teams. The barroom still looked much the same; the Budweiser and Michelob beer taps were still in place behind the horseshoe-shaped bar, as was the enormous framed photo of Ozzie Smith, the legendary shortstop’s arms raised in victory as he walked toward the dugout during the final game of the ’82 Series.

  Then Bob and Bob led me farther into the long, concave room, and I came to see that the club wasn’t what it used to be. The round tables and leather chairs were now stacked on top of each other at the far ends of the room; the buffet tables had been brought down to the club’s lower deck so that they were now pushed up against the tall glass windows overlooking the field, and instead of rich, happy baseball fans there were now uniformed men and women seated before the windows, their faces illuminated by the blue glow of computer terminals and TV monitors. The voices of KMOX baseball announcers giving play-by-play coverage didn’t come from the ceiling speakers; all that could be heard in the darkened room was the low monologue of flight controllers, droning a police-state jargon of ten-codes into their headset mikes.

  The Stadium Club had always been a bit snobbish for my taste, but given a choice between a maître d’ refusing to seat me for wearing blue jeans and watching a bunch of ERA androids manning a communications center, I would have taken a pompous headwaiter anytime. Still, the real obscenity wasn’t here but beyond the windows, out on the playing field beyond the deserted seat rows.

  The diamond was gone, its canvas bases long since removed, even the pitcher’s mound taken away to another place. Beneath the harsh glare of the stadium lights, a dozen or more helicopters were parked on the field, their rotors and fuselages held down by guy lines while ground crews tinkered beneath their engine cowlings or dragged fat cables to their fuel ports. The giant electronic screens above the center field bleachers, which had once displayed the game score, player stats, and instant replays, were now showing cryptic alphanumeric codes designating flight assignments and mission departure times.

  An Apache was lifting off from the first-base zone, rising straight up until it cleared the high walls of the stadium. A couple of jumpsuited pilots were emerging from the home-team dugout behind home plate. Several ground crewmen were sitting on top of the dugout, swilling soft drinks as they rested their butts on the red-painted pennants from World Series games. In the days before ERA had taken over the city, it was unspoken heresy even to step on top of any of those emblems, and only the gods themselves were permitted in the Cardinals’ locker room.

  Now anyone could get an invitation to the dugouts. Closer to the Stadium Club windows, an Osprey’s twin rotors were still in motion as a small group of handcuffed civilian prisoners were led down its ramp by gun-toting guards and marched single file toward the visiting team dugout and whatever brand of hell awaited them in the holding pens beneath the stadium.

  Blasphemy.

  Busch Stadium had always been the pride of St. Louis, one of the city’s sacred places. Generations of baseball fans had watched the Cards win and lose in this ballpark, and even when the team had disastrous seasons, there had always been a certain sense of camaraderie. Now the stadium had been desecrated; even if ERA vacated the place tomorrow, its innocence would be forever lost.

  The look on my face must have been obvious. Mullens, the funnyman of the Bob and Bob team, began to sing just above his breath as he stood behind me: “Let’s go out to the ball game … buy me hot dogs and beer … we’ll go up to the bleachers … get drunk as shit and beat up some queers …”

  “Wrong town, jerkwad,” I murmured. “You must be thinking about New York.”

  He grabbed my handcuffs and yanked them upward, threatening to dislocate my shoulders. My luck he would happen to be a Mets fan. I yelped in pain and pitched forward, nearly falling against the flight controller seated in front of me.

  “Keep it up, pogey bait,” Mullens growled in my ear, “and we’ll be taking that ride sooner than you—”

  “Corporal, is this the man we want to see?”

  The new voice was calm and authoritative, its tone as casual as if the speaker had been asking about the time of day. Mullens suddenly relaxed his grip on the cuffs.

  “That’s him, Colonel,” I heard a high-pitched voice say as I straightened up. “How’ya doing, Gerry?”

  I looked around to see Paul Huygens standing beside me.

  Great. Like I didn’t have enough problems already.

  “Not too bad, Paul,” I replied. “Funny though … seems like every time I turn around, you’re here.”

  Huygens’s grin became a thin smile. “I’ve been thinking much the same thing myself.”

  I was about to ask exactly what he was doing in the Stadium Club in the middle of the night when Colonel George Barris stepped forward.

  I had no trouble recognizing Barris. Everyone in the city had become acquainted with the commander of ERA forces in St. Louis, through newspaper photos and TV interviews: a middle-aged gentleman with thin gray hair and a mustache, so average looking that it wa
s easier to imagine him pushing a lawnmower around a suburban backyard than wearing a khaki uniform with gold stars pinned to the epaulets.

  John had met Barris once, a few months ago when he had written a critical piece about ERA misconduct in the city. “This guy may look like a bank clerk,” he had told me later, “but after a while you get the feeling that he’s seen Patton a few too many times. He’s a hard case, man …”

  I would have to remember that.

  “Mr. Rosen, I’m glad to meet you finally,” he said formally. “I’ve enjoyed reading your columns in the Inquirer, although I don’t necessarily agree with your opinions.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” I said. “I’d shake hands, but I seem to be having a little trouble using my arms lately.”

  He nodded his head ever so slightly. “Corporal, please release Mr. Rosen,” he said, his eyes still fixed on me. “Then you and your partner may return to duty.”

  I felt Mullens move behind me, and a moment later the cuffs were severed by a jackknife. I flexed my arms and scratched an itch on my nose that had been bothering me for the last fifteen minutes. “Muchas gracias, Corporal,” I said. “Thanks for offering me a lift home, but I think I’ll find my own way, okay?”

  Bob and Bob glowered at me, then they saluted the colonel and sulked their way out of the operations center. I made a mental note to send them a nice fruit basket.

  “Well, Colonel,” I said as I turned toward him, “I appreciate being shown around and all, but I think I’ll be going now, if you don’t mind.”

  Barris crossed his arms, still watching me carefully. “No, no, I’m afraid I do mind, Mr. Rosen.” His voice was pleasant, but there was an edge beneath his erudite politeness. “My men have gone to considerable trouble to bring you here. I apologize for any rough treatment you may have experienced, but we still have a number of things to discuss before we let you go.”

  “No one charged me with anything—” I began.

  “No sir,” he went on, “but we certainly could if we wish. Theft of police evidence, for starters.” Barris looked over his shoulder at the balcony just above us. “Lieutenant Farrentino, if you’ll join us …?”

  Surprise, surprise. All my friends had come down to the club to see me tonight.

  I looked up as Mike Farrentino stepped out of the shadows. He leaned over the railing, a sullen smile spread across his lean face. “Hello, Gerry,” he said quietly. “I see you didn’t get a chance to change your pants after all.”

  “Things got in the way, Mike,” I said. “Sorry about the bag, but y’know how things are.”

  I assayed a sheepish shrug and a dopey grin as the three men stared at me. I wondered if it wasn’t too late to catch up with Bob and Bob and see if that offer of a ride home was still valid.

  “You’re not being charged with anything,” Barris said, “so long as you’re willing to cooperate with us. We have a small crisis here, and we need your cooperation. Is that clear?”

  “Like mud.” I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on around here—”

  “You’re full of it,” Huygens muttered.

  “Back off, Huygens,” I said. “I’m not taking any shit from you right now.”

  Controllers cast brief glances over their shoulders at me; out of the corner of my eye, I could see another ERA trooper starting toward us, his right hand on the holstered butt of his shockrod.

  I could have cared less. “Look, guys,” I went on, trying to keep my temper and not doing a good job of it, “I’ve had a long day. My best friend has just been killed, my place was trashed, I was dragged down here by a couple of morons, and Prince Anal here”—I jabbed a finger at Huygens—“decided to throw me out of his party for no reason at all. So unless you’ve got something to say to me—”

  “Be quiet!” Barris snapped.

  Leave it to a military man to know how to get someone to shut up. I went silent, remembering exactly where I was and whom I was dealing with.

  “Now listen up,” he said, a little more quietly now, yet with hardness in his voice. “We’ve been polite with you so far …”

  I started to open my mouth, intending to make some smart-aleck remark about Miss Manners’s advice on how to properly put someone in handcuffs and give them a ride in a tank, but Barris stepped a little closer to put his face near mine. “If you persist,” he said in a half-whisper, “I’ll have you taken someplace where some of my men will enjoy making you more cooperative. Do you understand me, Mr. Rosen?”

  I shut up, my wiseass remarks dying stillborn. There was no mistaking what he meant. Down there, beneath the stadium, were cold rooms with concrete walls, postmodern catacombs where someone could get lost forever. People had a habit of disappearing in Busch Stadium lately. I had heard the rumors, as had everyone else in the city, and Colonel Barris no longer looked like a retired bank clerk who sat around the house listening to old Carpenters records.

  “Do you understand me?” he repeated.

  I nodded my head.

  “Good,” he said. “Now if you’ll follow me, we’ll go to my office where we can talk in private. We have someone waiting for us.”

  He turned on his heel and began walking away, leading the way toward a short stairway to the club’s upper level. Huygens fell in behind me, and Farrentino met us at the top of the steps. Neither of them said a word to me, but Farrentino shot me a brief look of warning: don’t screw around with this guy … he means business.

  The colonel’s office was located in the left rear corner of the club, a small cubicle formed by hastily erected sheets of drywall. A desk, a couple of chairs, a computer terminal, a wall map of the city spotted with colored thumbtacks. Very military, very spartan. The only decoration was a glass snowball on the desk, a miniature replica of the Arch sealed in with a liquid blizzard.

  A man was seated in a chair in front of Barris’s desk. He was dressed casually yet well: pressed jeans, a cotton polo shirt, and a suede leather jacket. It was for that reason that I didn’t immediately recognize him when he turned around to look at us as a trooper opened the door to let us inside. It wasn’t until he stood up and held out his hand that I realized who he was.

  “Mr. Rosen,” he said, “I’m happy to meet you. I’m Cale McLaughlin.”

  I shook the hand of the last person I expected to see in Barris’s office; although I tried to keep cool, my discomfiture must have been obvious. “You’re no doubt wondering what I’m doing here,” Tiptree’s CEO said, favoring me with a fatherly smile.

  I shrugged. “Not really. You’re probably the only person here who has a membership card.”

  “Good point.” McLaughlin gave a short laugh, then waved me to the chair next to him. Farrentino sat down on the other side, while Huygens leaned against a file cabinet. “But the fact of the matter is that your friend’s murder is of vital interest to my company. When he learned of what happened tonight, Paul called me and I came down here.”

  “It must have been on short notice,” I murmured, glancing at my watch. “It’s been barely three hours since John was shot.”

  “Hmm … yes, it was short notice. And believe me, I’d much rather be in bed right now.” McLaughlin’s face became serious. “But, as I said, my company is greatly interested in what happened.” He glanced at Barris. “Perhaps I should let the colonel begin, though. George?”

  “You already know that your friend was investigating a recent murder when he was killed,” Barris said as he took his own seat behind the desk. “What you don’t know is why he was killed, nor who did it.”

  “And neither do you,” I replied.

  “No,” Farrentino said. “That we do know—”

  “We’re way ahead of you, Gerry,” Huygens interrupted. “You’re good, sport, but not as good as we are.”

  “Yeah, right. Sure you do.” I gently massaged my wrists, still feeling the chafe left by the handcuffs. “If you’re so swift, then why do you need my help?” />
  Huygens opened his mouth as if to retort, but Barris cleared his throat; the other man shut up. McLaughlin remained quiet, a forefinger curled contemplatively around his chin as he listened. “What Mr. Huygens means is that we now have a suspect,” the colonel said as he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thick file folder. “What we have to do is catch him …”

  He opened the folder, unclipped an eight-by-ten photo from a sheaf of paper, and slid it across the desk. I recognized the face as soon as I picked up the picture: the distinguished-looking gentleman with the gray Vandyke beard I had spotted at the Tiptree Corporation reception.

  “You may have seen him when you visited my company this morning,” McLaughlin said. “His name’s Richard Payson-Smith. He’s a senior research scientist at Tiptree … one of the top people behind our Sentinel R&D program, in fact.”

  “Born 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland,” Barris continued, reading from the dossier. “Received his B.S. from the University of Glasgow, then immigrated to the United States in 1987, where he went on to receive both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of California-Irvine. After he became a naturalized citizen he went to work for DARPA at Los Alamos, where he was involved with various research projects until 2003, when he was recruited by Tiptree to head up a skunk-works team involved with the Sentinel program.”

  He paused, then looked at McLaughlin. The executive picked up the ball. “At this juncture, Mr. Rosen,” McLaughlin said slowly, “we’re about to walk out onto thin ice. We need to discuss matters with you that are classified Top Secret, and I have to know for certain that you will not discuss any of these secrets outside this room.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but he half-closed his eyes and held up his hand. “I know, I know. You’re a reporter, so you’re not in the habit of keeping secrets, nor did you ask to be involved in any of this. But we’re in a bind, and we need to have your full cooperation, so much so that the colonel simply doesn’t have time to ask the FBI to run a background check on you. Therefore, I have to ask you to sign something before we can go any further.”