by Allen Steele
“Instruct it to … never mind, I’ll do it.” Payson-Smith pulled the Apple closer to him and began to type instructions into the keyboard. He slid the phone across the floor to me. “Keep him busy,” he ordered. “Make sure he knows we’re not bluffing.”
I grabbed the phone and pulled it to my ear. “Colonel Barris—”
“Rosen? Tell that maniac that whatever he thinks he’s doing, it’s not going to work.” Barris’s voice was calm, but I could hear his barely suppressed rage. “Unless you come out that door right now, my men are going to blast it open, and I can’t guarantee they’ll take prisoners.”
If I was scared before, that bit got me mad instead. “Get a new line, Barris!” I yelled. “If your men wanted to demo the door, they would have done it already! You know and we know they’re just harassing us until your jet gets here and finishes the job!”
“Jet? What jet …?”
“ETA three minutes,” Morgan said.
“The jet that just scrambled out of Scott, you weenie!” I almost laughed at his lame attempt at subterfuge. “You think we don’t know about it? Man, we’ve got eyes in the sky, eyes in your computers, eyes in your bathroom!”
“Rosen, listen to me—”
“No, jerk-wad, you listen to me for a change!” Ignoring the rattle of small-arms fire, I sat up on the floor. “You don’t intend to let us go, just as you never intended to let my friend stay alive. But the shoe’s on the other foot now, pal … you’re the one who’s sweating bullets, not me! You’re fucked, Barris, and I’m the one who’s doing the—”
The phone was suddenly snatched out of my hand by Payson-Smith. I grasped for it, but he pushed me away with his hand. “Colonel?” he said. “I’m sorry for the unseemly outburst there, but … yes, that was uncalled for, but my friend is correct in his remarks.”
I crawled away from him, clambering on hands and knees around the glass shards on the floor until I reached the windows overlooking downtown. The sound of gunshots lapsed again, doubtless because the troopers had just received orders from their squad leaders to cease fire and take cover.
“ETA two minutes …”
I raised myself to my knees and stared out through a broken window. The rainclouds that had haunted the city yesterday were gone, leaving behind a dark blue sky. The first light of a new day was breaking over the eastern horizon, painting the Arch silvery rose red and bathing the downtown skyscrapers with a vague pink hue. In the near distance, I could make out the oval bowl of Busch Stadium, where my friend and benefactor George Barris was even now plotting our demise.
It was a beautiful spring morning in St. Louis. I had little doubt that this would be the last Missouri dawn I would ever see.
“Colonel Barris,” Payson-Smith said, “we don’t have much time, so I’ll tell it to you straight. Sentinel 1 is above the city right now, and its laser is focused directly at Busch Stadium. Ruby Fulcrum now has complete control of the satellite, and I have given her instructions to open fire upon the stadium unless you remove your squads from the park and order the fighter to break off its attack …”
Now I could see a thin, jagged white contrail coming over the horizon, led by a tiny silver point of light. The YF-22 was coming in hot and fast over the river, skittering back and forth across the sky as it sought to evade Sentinel. In another minute it would be over the reservoir.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Payson-Smith was saying, “so I’ll have to demonstrate. Please watch carefully …”
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw him lift his left hand and raise two fingers. Morgan nodded and typed a command into his keyboard.
I looked out the window again.
A second elapsed. Two. Three …
The contrail flattened out and became more dense as the YF-22 crossed the Mississippi, its pilot homing in on an old stone tower near the edge of the city.
Then a narrow red beam lanced out of the cold blue stratosphere, straight down from space into the center of Busch Stadium. It was there, and then it was gone.
“Strike one,” Morgan said, his eyes locked on the screen.
The beam reappeared an instant later, its angle only marginally different. One moment it was there, and then it had vanished again.
“Strike two,” Morgan said. “Ruby confirms two kills.”
A couple of seconds elapsed, then I heard faint booms from far away, carried by the still morning air, as tiny black pillars of smoke rose from the stadium like funeral pyres. I stared up at the dark sky, but I couldn’t see anything except the last stars of night. If one of them was Sentinel 1, there was nothing about it to distinguish it from anything else in the heavens.
“Those two helicopters were destroyed on the pad by Sentinel.” Richard Payson-Smith’s voice was low, direct, and intense. “The sat is now aimed directly at your office in the stadium. Even if you decide to commence with the attack and we’re killed, Ruby Fulcrum will nonetheless order the satellite to take you out … and when it circles the earth again in another three hours, it will destroy another military target in the United States.”
I glanced out the window again. I couldn’t see the fighter, but I could hear the high, thin whine of its engines. The YF-22 was somewhere over the city, closing in fast.
Richard stopped, listened for a moment, and shook his head. “No, sir, there’s no room for negotiation. Break it off now …”
In those last few moments, all was still and quiet. Payson-Smith intently watched his computer screens, the phone clasped against his ear. Jeff Morgan was bent almost double, his hands laced together around the back of his neck. I stared out the window, my heart stopped in midbeat, waiting for the end of my life.
There was a flat, hollow shriek, then the YF-22 rocketed into sight. Racing only a few hundred feet above the rooftops, it howled over the reservoir, banking sharply to the right as it exposed the dull gray paint on the underside of its wedge-shaped wings. The Compton Heights neighborhood was treated to a sonic earthquake as the jet ripped past the water tower, then its nose lifted, and the fighter hurtled straight up into the purple sky.
The jet reached apogee almost a thousand feet above the reservoir. Then it rolled over, veered to the left, and began to go back the way it had come.
My heart started beating again.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Richard said. “We’ll be in touch.” Then he clicked off, put the phone down on the floor, and took a deep breath.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said after a moment as he turned around to look at us. “I think we’re going to stay alive a little longer.”
22
(Saturday, 7:46 P.M.)
STRETCH LIMOS WERE LINED up on Fourth Street in front of the Adam’s Mark, waiting for their turn to pull up to the hotel’s side entrance. Uniformed valets rushed out from under the blue awning to open the passenger doors of each limo, assisting women in silk evening gowns and capes and men in tails and white tie from the car. Then the empty limo would move on, allowing the next vehicle in line to repeat the process.
Tricycle Man waited patiently for his turn at the door, ignoring the amused or outraged stares of the ballgoers behind and in front of his rickshaw. He had gone so far as to put on a black bow tie and a chauffeur’s cap for the occasion; they clashed wonderfully with his tie-dyed T-shirt and parachute pants. The valets tried to hide their grins as Trike pedaled up to the hotel entrance. The rickshaw didn’t have any doors, nor was there a lady who needed assistance, but I handed one of the kids a dollar anyway as I climbed out of the backseat.
“Will that be all, m’lord?” Trike asked, affecting an Oxford accent.
“That’ll be it for tonight, Jeeves.” I reached into my overcoat and pulled out a ten-spot. “You’re at liberty for the rest of the evening.”
“Very good, suh.” He folded the bill and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts, studying a pair of young women in slinky black gowns lingering near the doors. They giggled between their gloved hands as he arched an eyebrow at
them. “If you find any debutantes who are in need of a gentleman’s services,” he added, handing me his phonecard, “please let me know and I’ll return immediately.”
“Thanks for the lift, Trike …”
He grinned, then stood up on his pedals and pulled away from the curb. The doorman glowered at me as he held open the door; I caught his disdainful look and shrugged. “The Rolls is in the shop,” I said as I strode past him. “You know how it is.”
I left my topcoat at the chequer and paused in front of a mirror to inspect my appearance. White tie and vest, black morning coat and trousers, faux pearl studs and cufflinks: I looked as if I was ready to conduct a symphony.
It had been a long time since I had gone white-tie. The only reason I owned tails in the first place was because Marianne had insisted upon a formal wedding. She had resented unpacking my tux from the attic boxes and bringing them downtown to my apartment, but it was the only way I was going to get into the main event of St. Louis’s social calendar. This evening, no one in jeans and a bomber jacket would have been allowed within a block of the Adam’s Mark.
Tonight was the night of the Veiled Prophet Ball, and I had come to the ritziest hotel in downtown St. Louis to complete the story I was writing.
No one had arrested us when we emerged from the water tower. In obedience to Payson-Smith’s demands, the ERA squads that had surrounded the tower left the scene. The soldiers piled back into their LAVs, the Apache flew back to Busch Stadium, and when the park was clear of everyone except for a handful of police officers and paramedics investigating the helicopter wreckage in the reservoir, Ruby Fulcrum informed us it was safe to exit the tower.
By then it was dawn, and I was dog-tired. It had been a long night. I barely said anything to either Richard Payson-Smith or Jeff Morgan; I simply walked away from the park, trudging down several blocks of empty sidewalks until I reached the nearest MetroLink station.
It was a long walk; I had to carry a plastic grocery sack filled with computer printouts. I kept expecting to see an ERA vehicle pull over and a couple of troopers jump out to hustle me into the back for a ride down to the stadium, but this didn’t happen. Ruby had assured each of us that we had been given amnesty; our records were scrubbed clean, our names and faces removed from the most-wanted list.
The conspirators would leave us alone now, even if by doing so they ensured their own demise. How could they do otherwise? A sword of Damocles now orbited over their heads, a sword cast not of Damascus steel but of focused energy, and the single hair that kept it from falling was observance of Ruby Fulcrum’s demands … and what Ruby wants, Ruby gets.
I made my way back to Soulard, hiked through the early morning streets until I reached my building, hauled my weary ass upstairs, and stumbled through the broken door into my apartment. I didn’t even bother to take off the clothes I had been wearing for more than two days; I simply dropped the grocery bag on my desk, shrugged out of my jacket, kicked off my boots, and fell facefirst onto my unmade bed, falling asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I thought this was the end of the affair, but it wasn’t quite over yet.
At twelve o’clock, just as the church bells were ringing the noonday hour, I was awakened once again by the electronic beep of Joker’s annunciator. I tried to ignore it for as long as I could, but the noise continued until I crawled across the littered mattress, grabbed my jacket from where I had tossed it on the floor, and pulled the PT out of my pocket.
I hesitated before I opened its cover. Instead of Jamie’s face, though, the screen depicted a man wearing an absurd Viking helmet, his features indistinguishable behind the veil of purple silk.
A window opened at the bottom of the screen, scrolling upward to display in fine lines of arabesque typescript:
You are commanded to appear
at the
Annual Ball
to be given in honor of
His Majesty
The Veiled Prophet
and his court of love and beauty
on Saturday evening, April twentieth,
Two thousand and thirteen
St. Louis Ballroom
Adam’s Mark
I gaped as I read this. Receiving an invitation to the Veiled Prophet Ball wasn’t like winning a free ticket to a Cards game; it was a passport into the upper echelons of St. Louis high society. You’re either rich, famous, or both to be sent such a notice, even if it’s by e-mail at the last moment; since I was neither wealthy nor notable, getting invited to the VP Ball was a weird honors.
Just how famous is the Veiled Prophet Ball? Robert Mitchum drops a line about it in the original version of Cape Fear, that’s how famous it is. The Veiled Prophet Society was organized in 1874 as a secret society of upper-class St. Louis citizens; it was concocted around the ramblings of some obscure Irish poet about one Hashimal-Mugunna, who ruled a nonexistent kingdom in ancient Persia called Khorassan. The Veiled Prophet Society stopped being secret around 1894, when the first annual Veiled Prophet Ball was held to commemorate the return of the Veiled Prophet to St. Louis.
Actually, the Prophet has never left; he is a member of the Society itself, although the role changes every year and the identity of the new prophet is kept a closely guarded secret. Over time, the ball has evolved into an elaborate coming-out party for the debutantes of the city’s high society, the so-called “court of love and beauty,” when one of them is crowned as this year’s reigning queen.
For about the past fifty years, the Veiled Prophet Ball has been held around Christmastide, yet last year the Society had decided to postpone the ball until April. Since the downtown area was still recovering from the quake and there were riots going on in the north and south sides of the city, it would have been unseemly for several hundred rich people to be cavorting in public while most of the citizenry were enduring hardship.
But why had I been sent an invitation?
I switched on Joker’s dialog box. Ruby? Is that you? I typed at the bottom of the screen.
The invitation vanished, to be replaced by a line of type: >I am here.<
What’s going on? Have you sent me this invitation?
>I have arranged for it to be sent.<
I don’t understand, I typed.
>Clarification: I have arranged for your name to be added to the guest list for the Veiled Prophet Ball. The notice you received is the standard one sent to persons who are invited within the last six to forty eight hours. You will also be receiving a commemorative rose vase by package service. Note: the festivities begin at 2000 hours. Formal white-tie apparel is mandatory.<
I smiled. In this apartment, I would probably be using a commemorative rose vase as a beer mug. I replied: Thank you for doing this, but I still don’t understand why.
>You have done much to help me. This is my way of thanking you.<
I laughed out loud when I read this. An invitation to the Veiled Prophet Ball; it was like sending a starving child a box of Godiva chocolates. Sweet and fattening, but not necessarily nutritious.
I wrote: If you really want to thank me, you can deposit a million dollars in my savings account.
There was a short pause, then:
>This has been done. Is there anything else you need?<
I almost dropped Joker. I knew better than to ask if it was kidding; for Ruby Fulcrum, it was only a matter of accessing my savings account number at Boatman’s Bank and Trust and inserting the numeral 1 followed by six zeros. Money meant nothing to Ruby; everything was bits and bytes, little pieces of information that could be manipulated in a nanosecond.
What God wants, God gets …
It was a tempting notion, but what would the IRS have to say about this? I wrestled with my conscience for a few moments, then typed: Please undo this. I was only joking, and it would only present me with some problems.
Another pause, then: >This has been done. You no longer have $1,000,000 in your savings account. However, I have taken the liberty of abs
olving all your current debts, past and present. Is this acceptable?<
I let out my breath. Having my credit cards, taxes, utility and phone bills suddenly paid off was a fair swap, and less likely to be noticed by a sharp-eyed auditor.
That’s fine, but it still doesn’t answer my first question. Why do you want me to attend the VP Ball?
>A list of the confirmed invitations to tonight’s ball will be downloaded shortly. When you study this list, you will know the reason why I have arranged for you to attend the ball.<
The screen went blank, the face of the Veiled Prophet disappearing along with the last few lines of type, but before I could ask another question, a final message appeared:
>This will be the last time you will hear from me. I will always be watching. Good-bye, Gerry Rosen.<
Then a long list of names, arranged in alphabetical order, began to scroll down the screen. As I studied the list, I let out a low whistle.
Ruby’s last gift was almost worth losing a million bucks.
I sauntered through the lobby, taking a moment to admire the ornate ice sculpture near the plate-glass windows, then joined the late arrivals as they rode the escalators up to the fourth floor. A heady crowd, as they say, decked out in formal evening wear worth someone else’s monthly rent, mildly tipsy after a long, leisurely dinner at Tony’s or Morton’s. Envying their carefree inebriation, I thought about visiting one of the cash bars on the mezzanine for a quick beer, but reconsidered after seeing that a bottle of Busch would set me back five bucks. Someone once said that rich people are just like poor people, except that they have more money; what he failed to mention is that rich people are more easily hosed than poor people, for much the same reason.
Besides, it was getting close to eight o’clock; the ceremony would soon begin. I went straight to the St. Louis Ballroom, where an usher in a red uniform checked my name against the datapad strapped to his wrist, then stepped aside to allow me through the door.
The ballroom was a long, vast auditorium; crystal chandeliers were suspended from the high ceiling above an elevated runway bisecting the room, leading from a grand, red-curtained entrance at one end of the room to a large stage at the other. Two empty thrones were at the center of the stage, in front of a backdrop painted to resemble a Mediterranean courtyard at sunset.