Before Doc could ask, Tecumseh was already anticipating his next question. “No one’s going to see us unless they’re coming in through the front door.”
The Pacific Ocean was a five-hour drive west; the nearest Japanese military post three hours away. If the japs decided to move on Confederate territory from the Occupied Zone, they had to pass through Nevada. If the Eastern Shogun had survived New York, if he presented the Japanese High Command with working knowledge of Camelot, any advancing troops might take a detour through Alpha base. That was too close.
“How many men do we have?”
“Same as yesterday.”
Two hundred ghost dancers, with no possibility of reinforcement. They were good alright, but not that good.
“Nearly two thousand more around Alpha,” Tecumseh added.
Doc sighed, “Might as well be twenty for all the good it’ll do us here.”
Returning to the pool, he surveyed the sights he’d grown accustomed to. There on his left was the commissary. When he’d first arrived it had been a small bungalow. Workers, brought in from the Dallas compound, had replaced it last year. A long, low building now stretched out in its place. The entire facility appeared to be an officer training camp. The staff were shipped in and out every two months from somewhere down south; no one who spoke English, no one who saw anything that lay outside the perimeter. Wheels within wheels. Deceptions within deceptions.
Project Camelot had involved setting up two camps for the training of interdiction, sabotage, force multiplication. They were located in Nevada and Louisiana. Alpha camp lay sixty miles to the south, but Red Rock was the business. No one who’d been to Alpha had also been to Red Rock. Anyone who’d been to either believed they’d been to the only camp in Nevada.
Red Rock was hidden in plain sight.
Of the staff who worked here on a day-to-day basis, who cooked and cleaned, repaired the roads and maintained the barracks, only a few were aware of its true purpose. If anyone else was curious enough, if their questions seemed pertinent enough, they soon disappeared. Found themselves working in a Hughes aircraft factory, and were usually glad about the pay rise.
Beyond the compound, stretching away from the collection of small buildings, lay the Timpahute and Pahranagat mountain ranges. Lands where Tecumseh’s people once roamed.
Wells’ journal had mentioned that the Waste Land lay near Groom Lake. When Kennedy first obtained maps to the region he had found no such place, of course. But he did find a Groom mine, situated near the Naquinta Springs. He put Morgan on the case.
Morgan discovered that Groom had been a miner on his way to Oregon to find his fortune. Coming across a passable chunk of ore in 1864, he’d claimed the region and built the mine. When this area was first surveyed by white men, it was described as one of the most desolate regions on the face of the Earth.
Doc returned to the pool, its surface rippled with the glint of late morning sun. He made a final inspection of the horizon.
It was nice to know that some things didn’t change.
VII
April 24, 2012
Houston, Texas
Last night she’d dreamt he was cradling her in his arms and she’d woken up in a sweat. She’d wondered if she sought protection for him or from him. She couldn’t finish her breakfast, nauseated at the thought she’d contemplated either form of betrayal.
That morning, driving through the rain along silent streets to her office, she tuned in to a Japanese propaganda broadcast. A “good-ol’-boy” was saying that it had been nearly a hundred-and-fifty years since American soldiers had fought brother against brother, father against son. “Is that what you want to happen again?” he asked.
Joseph, you dumb bastard. What have you done?
Arriving at Headquarters, she brushed past the security guard and went directly to Archives. As the director had promised, the last of the available files on Joseph Kennedy had been left for her, forming a two foot stack on her desk.
She went through pages and pages of charts and notes, tracing the tentacles of Camelot. The material had been heavily censored. She read between the lines, following where the money went. There were two operational bases, two-thousand trainees per base. For some reason there was a cultural divide within the cadre. While Bravo was composed of a mixed assortment—disenfranchised Texicanos, Mexican exiles, negroes, white trash—Alpha camp appeared to be mostly American indian. All were recruited from Special Forces.
Yet more than five thousand men had been drawn from that reserve.
She did the maths.
Despite the extra recruits, Camelot was running at a profit.
Webster had too many men. Joseph had too much money.
Interesting.
She scanned the documents on Hardas, Morgan, Saffel, Friedman, Kobe, Tecumseh. Scanned the documents and read about agents and gangsters, historians and bartenders, lawyers and holy men. Cowboys and indians.
A slender file on Lightholler yielded little; the odd man out in Joseph’s coterie. She cross-referenced Shaw and Collins, the two CBI agents previously affiliated with Alpha and Bravo camps, found dead at the Queens Midtown Tunnel. There was a note in Webster’s untidy scrawl, below pages of typed print, that posed the question: Kennedy wrapping up loose ends?
There was a list of Kennedy’s close associates over the years. Her own absence from the list was an oversight worth noting. Who else might have been omitted? Who else did you know when you knew me, Joseph?
There was too much here for a day’s work and a day was all she had. She separated the files, arranging them by relevance, and that was how she almost missed it.
Rising from her chair to stretch her legs, she knocked aside a pile of folders she thought had little bearing on her inquiry. A stapled set of papers slipped out of the topmost file, catching her eye. It was a CBI memorandum, marked Extremely Confidential and addressed to Director Bush, Webster’s immediate predecessor.
There was a list of names and pay-offs; there was a list of meetings, presumably political rallies of some sort. A few of the names were familiar, a couple of them significant; no direct mention of Joseph was necessary.
She read the closing paragraph twice: “The subject in question is a flash in the pan. Excellent for short-term projects, with neither the will nor the stamina for the long haul. He has an unhealthy preoccupation with desegregation that can be used effectively to contain him. If presented with the option of concessions to some of his coloured constituents or the risk of a backlash against all of them, he will accept the former without a fight. Having said that, he may be of some future use to the Bureau. Please extend to the President my warmest regards and best wishes for his second term in office.”
It was dated September 14, 1998, placing it two months before Joseph’s election bid. It was signed “Assistant Director Glen Webster”.
She went over to the typewriter and made a copy of the document on a standard Bureau letterhead. She used a sheet of carbon paper to fashion a reasonable forgery of the signature and replaced the papers in the folder. She took the original and folded it and folded it till it was a thick bulky strip and slipped it beneath the garter of her stockings.
It was four o’clock and she had been in the office seven straight hours. She went to the bathroom and spent a moment trying to catch a thought that lurked behind the reflection of her eyes, before applying a thin smear of pale lipstick.
“It’s time,” she mouthed quietly to herself. “I think I know your game.”
She made her way down the corridor to his office.
Webster must have been expecting her because he’d already removed the eye patch. He’d lost his right eye at Mazatlan, a Bureau tactical agent in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’d had the eye exenterated; a complete orbital clearance from roof to floor. The socket never changed; scar tissue stretched taut across the rigid margins of the orbit. The left eye’s condition waxed and waned with its sympathising response to the trauma. Today it was laced
with a red nebula of burst capillaries. Neither presented a particularly enticing view; the left spoke of decay, the right of death.
Behind them lay Webster’s dark, brooding mind.
Malcolm presented him with an abridgment of her findings. She dwelt at some length on Lightholler and Morgan, two fish out of water. Morgan had involvement with Kennedy prior to the New York trip. She reviewed transcripts of phone calls, the receipt for a round-trip flight to Belfast, a one-way to London, and some hotel bills. Morgan had been in Ireland for two weeks last year. She could establish no association between Morgan and Lightholler prior to the maiden voyage. Before Camelot, Morgan was clean. He’d been giving some lectures at Southern Methodist, the major’s alma mater. He’d owed a great deal of money to his ex-wife’s father; debts that had been promptly dealt with by December 2010. It didn’t look like blood money, but it was safe enough to assume Kennedy’s involvement from that point on.
No direct links existed between Lightholler and the major. John Lightholler was born John Jacob Astor II. He’d dropped the “II” and taken his mother’s maiden name after leaving school. He studied at Sandhurst before transferring to the navy. His areas of interest had been military history and maritime law.
Hardas was ex-navy. Kennedy had been in Maritime Surveillance—perhaps there was a connection there?
The one thing they had in common was the ship. Hardas had been part of the Titanic retrieval dive, Morgan was a historian with a special interest in the Titanic, and Lightholler had sailed her replica into New York Harbor with a cargo hold full of German soldiers. Strange connection there.
“What else do you have on Lightholler?” Webster asked.
“He spent ten years in the navy and got his first command in 1998: HMS Jellicoe, a destroyer. He was transferred to the Warspite before receiving an honourable discharge late last year, just in time to be offered the helm of the Titanic. Now, despite numerous assurances from the British High Command that Lightholler was unaware of his cargo, his collusion remains suspect.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
Malcolm forced a smile. “Anything more I need to know?”
“You’re aware we picked up on the Lightholler connection after obtaining transcripts from our friends in MI5. Transcripts of a conversation between the captain and the late Rear-Admiral Peter Lloyd regarding Kennedy.”
“Late?”
“Yes,” Webster said with a sigh. “Following some rather vigorous questioning, the poor man suffered a heart attack. Anyway, we now know that Lightholler’s selection for the maiden voyage came from high up in the food chain.”
“The King of England,” Malcolm replied.
Webster shook his head slowly. “Think big, Agent.”
“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.”
“Kaiser Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig III.”
“Jesus. Who knows this?”
“Friends of Germany know this, and we’re all friends of Germany here, aren’t we. Especially now.”
“So Lightholler knew,” Malcolm said finally.
“Of course, he knew. That shit-heel Kennedy knew. Commander Hardas met with a Brandenburg officer the afternoon before they launched the assault on New York.”
Webster took a slim cheroot from his breast pocket and lit it. He reached for the eye patch and slipped it into place.
“The smoke, Malcolm,” he said. “Doesn’t bother my good eye, but plays havoc with the socket.”
She just nodded.
He exhaled. “So now you see how everything fits into place.”
I think I do, sir, I think I do. You were at Mazatlan, Joseph was at Mazatlan. You lost an eye, he lost an election.
“I wasn’t convinced that Lightholler was a willing accomplice, sir,” Malcolm said. “I’ll have to rethink my theories based on this new information.”
“Perhaps I overestimated you, Malcolm,” he said. “Do you know what was to be? One America, united and governed by Americans. Texans, by God. And what do we have now? Those German war games in Arkansas. They said it was to be the biggest peacetime manoeuvres. They said they had a hundred-thousand troops, including Confederates. I just got off the phone with Clancy. They have thirty-five divisions here, twelve of them armoured and three of them are Brandenburgs. That’s half a million German soldiers on Confederate soil.
“There are a million Japanese troops along the occupied West Coast. Half of them are massed on the Nevada border alone, and we have two-hundred-thousand of our own men facing them. The Mexicans are building up for a push across the Rio Grande. Meanwhile, the Germans have moved their forces up to the new Mason-Dixon Line. They say we’ve beaten the Mexicans twice, we’ll do it again.” Webster mashed the remains of the cigar into his palm. “Know what I say?”
His fury filled the room. Thank God he had replaced the patch.
“I say Kennedy gave the Germans New York, and he plans on serving Dallas to them on a silver platter. Christ knows what they’ve offered him. He may yet make president.”
She had to play it carefully. Webster and Joseph were both holding out on each other. Which was the lesser evil?
She needed more time.
“Sir, Major Kennedy had Hardas waiting for Lightholler at a yakuza joint just hours before the attack. And he’s been spending more cash than he’s supposed to have, a lot more. I don’t think he succeeded in giving the Germans New York; I think he failed in keeping it in Japanese hands.”
“Go on, Agent.” Webster was smiling.
“Two of our men were killed in the Queens Midtown Tunnel and Lightholler’s nowhere to be found. I think Major Kennedy was trying to doublecross the Germans and it blew up in his face. I think he’s on the run.”
“Good girl.”
“What do you want me to do, Director?” Malcolm asked softly.
“Both Alpha and Bravo camps were finally secured last night. There was some trouble in Louisiana, but the Nevada camp was easily contained.” Webster opened a drawer in his desk and withdrew an envelope. He slid it across the desk towards her. “It appears, however, that it was undermanned.” He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. “Eight of my agents are missing or dead, and it looks like some of Kennedy’s men may have evaded the lockdown.”
Malcolm picked up the envelope. It was an effort to keep her hands from trembling.
“We’ve had to beef up the security at every major facility west of the Mississippi,” Webster continued. “I want you to find Kennedy. He’s making his way to Alpha or Bravo camp. He’s looking for his men. Find him and bring him to me.”
He dismissed her from the office with a wave.
A guard was waiting for her outside the room. Still reeling from the meeting, she allowed herself to be ushered into a waiting elevator.
Webster keyed a switch at his desk console. A portion of the wall behind him slid open.
Agent Williams entered the room. He was holding a transcript of the conversation.
“Did you get everything?”
Williams nodded.
“What do you make of it?”
“Are you testing me now, sir?”
Webster examined the tobacco stains on his palm and wiped them off with a cloth. He said, “They expect melodrama and I hate to disappoint. Did she take the memo?”
“Yes, sir. And left a fairly decent facsimile of it behind in case we checked. She must have learned something in Evidence Response.”
“I should hope so.” Webster eyed the transcript in Williams’ hands. “What do you think?”
“She has the makings of a decent analyst, sir, but that’s not why you signed her up.”
“No, it’s not. Make sure it’s no secret that she’s attached to the case. Let’s capitalise on the blunders of New York. I want him to know she’s looking for him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Williams backed out of the office.
Webster lit up another cigar and permitted himself a smile. He was looking forwards to his next meeting with Ass
istant Director Kennedy.
Malcolm felt the bulk of the envelope clasped between her fingertips and became uncomfortably aware of the memorandum she had taken from Archives, scratching against her thigh.
The guard left her by one of the basement offices. Within, a bored duty officer, seated with his feet crossed on the edge of his desk, glowered at her over the top of scuffed shoes.
She said, “I’m here to sign on.”
“I’m just about done here, miss. Can we do this in the morning?”
She held the envelope out.
“Honey, this had better be good.” He rose from his desk languidly. “You anxious to get started with your clerical duties?”
He snatched the envelope from her grasp and returned to his station. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing her with irritation as he slit the letter open with a penknife. Scanning the contents, he rose from his chair with a start. “Jesus, ma’am, I mean, sorry, Agent, I mean ... Christ.”
He said “Agent” like he meant it. He walked over to a cabinet that stood against the back wall. He opened it and inserted a key in its rear panel. He slid the panel open and withdrew a copy of the dossier she’d formulated two days earlier. He handed it to her along with another sealed package. He issued her with a standard nine-millimetre Dillinger and two boxes of ammunition. He punched her ID into one of the computer terminals and assigned her a new watchword.
“100364, Guinevere. This gives you Level B clearance. Only the director and the President have higher.” There was no mention of Joseph. “Sign here, please.”
The names on the register above her own were a who’s who of senior Bureau personnel.
“Welcome to the major leagues, Agent Malcolm. Welcome to Project Avalon.”
By the time she returned to her own office it was early evening. She cleared out her desk, leaving her open cases heaped in a pile in her out-tray. She drove home in the rain.
The Company of the Dead Page 25