The Stickmen

by Edward Lee

  “Good to see you too,” Garrett replied and pulled up a stool.

  Craig was proverbially polishing glasses behind the long dark-wood bar top. “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking even? Even for an AA reject like you?”

  “I didn’t come here to drink, but since you offered, gimme a beer.” Garrett stubbed out his cigarette, wincing. “And how about a real cigarette? These generic things are killing me.”

  Craig slid him a beer and a cigarette. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, the phone.”

  “What, don’t you have a phone in that gorilla cage you call an apartment?”

  “Oh, there’s a phone there, all right,” Garrett elaborated, “but it’s not much good when you don’t pay the phone bill.”

  “That’ll do it.” Craig sniffed. “You forget to take a shower today?”

  “Couldn’t pay the water bill either.”

  “That’ll do it.” Craig slid Garrett the bar phone. “Local calls only, my friend. You

  tip like you pay your bills.”

  Garrett dialed the number, waited, then heard Jessica’s voice over the line:

  “Hi, this is Jessica. I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave a message and I’ll return your call. Unless this is Harlan, in which case I won’t return your call even if you have suddenly become the last man on earth.”

  Garrett frowned through the beep. “Honey, please pick up. I know you’re there. We’ll work this out, I promise. I miss you, I— I…you know, I love you—”

  He hung up and the line went dead.

  Craig was shaking his head, aligning half-yard beer funnels in wooden racks. “Don’t tell me. The redhead give you the heave-ho again?”

  “Yeah, but she loves me,” Garrett assured. “Give her a few days and she’ll be back on my doorstep, you wait.”

  “I’ll wait but I won’t hold my breath. You ever think maybe she wants a guy with, you know, motivation, responsibility, a solid career and direction in his life?”

  Garrett looked up after his next sip of beer which left a foamy mustache. “What am I, Santa Claus?” Then he glanced despondently at the phone. “Look, Craig, how about break? Just one long distance call to New York. I gotta really good job cooking. No lie.”

  “All right,” Craig groaned.

  Garrett anxiously punched in the number that he’d scrawled onto the back of a parking ticket, waited for the line to connect.

  “They Are Among Us Magazine,” a male voice answered. “John Peters, Editor-in-Chief.”

  Garrett perked up at once. I got him! Finally I got him! “Mr. Peters, I’m sorry to disturb you, but you may not remember me, we spoke at the Roswell Convention last July?”

  “Who is this?” the editor asked.

  “Mr. Peters, I won the 1997 MUFON Award for Best Investigative Series, and, sir, have I got a story for you. Three interviews, with names and pictures, of former Army Science and Research Command employees. I’ve got the full scoop, the whole tamale, nailed. These three guys have agreed to go public with their knowledge of black-funding research at Fort Meade and NSA. They were all hired as channelers for remote-viewing missions against Russian intelligence vaults in the mid-Eighties.”

  “Wow, that sounds very interesting,” the editor remarked. “But…who is this?”

  “Sir, these guys actually psychically penetrated a Russian defense mainframe and the records safe at the Moscow Academy of Sciences, not to mention—”

  “Great, great, but who are you?”

  “—not to mention ECM codes on a Soviet Whiskey-Class sub, plus they’ve got actual hardcopy documents of their Army protocol orders, and—”

  The editor interrupted a final time. “This wouldn’t be Harlan Garrett, would it?”

  Garrett’s shoulders slumped. “Uh, yes, uh, sir, it is I won the 1997 and I have three commendations from the Northwest Geological Survey for assistance during their search for—”

  “Let me ask you something, Mr. Garrett,” the editor posed. “Does the word ‘blackballed’ mean anything to you? Or how about the phrase ‘your name is mud’? I wouldn’t touch an article of yours with a ten-foot pole. You’re a walking libel action. Any publication you write for winds up getting sued.”

  “Hold on now, Mr. Peters,” Garrett stammered. “I don’t think you realize the impact of my most recent research. I’ve got it lock, stock, and barrel, sir: the tracking photos, the names and the actual codes, the docu—”

  click

  Garrett hung up and let out a long sigh. “Who needs your rag anyway?” he tried to justify. “They make up more of their features than the damned Weekly World News.”

  Craig was screwing on a Scheidmantel Silber Bock tap-head onto one of the keg levers. “Hey, Harlan, you want some friendly advice?”

  “No,” Garrett said.

  “Get yourself squared away.”

  “You sound just like Jessica… Too bad you don’t look like Jessica.”

  “You’re a smart guy, you’ve got marketable skills. But…writing about all this ESP and UFO bunk? Come on.”

  “It’s not bunk,” Garrett objected.

  “Oh, sorry. I meant poop. It’s stuff in tabloids, Harlan. It’s fiction for gullible people who’ve got nothing better to do with the lives that God gave them than worry about government conspiracies and abominable goddamn snowmen. All this poop you write about is nothing but a bunch of modernized folklore.”

  Garrett glared. “These guys I interviewed last week used to be psychic technicians—”

  Craig grinned. “Psychic technicians. That’s rich.”

  “—for the Army. By using telethesic perceptions, they can read files locked up in vaults 10,000 miles away.”

  “Telethesic perceptions. Every time you walk in here, you’ve got a new one. And you really believe that? You don’t, do you? Please tell me you don’t honestly believe that psychic technicians can see through vaults ten thousand miles away by using their telethesic perceptions. Tell me, Harlan.”

  “Of course I believe it. When General Dossier was kidnapped by the Red Brigade, these techs were the same guys who used their minds to get the address of the house he was being held hostage at. I know it’s true. I saw the D-O-D documents verifying it.”

  Craig began to chuckle outright. “Yeah? And today in the Globe I saw a photo of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…in Arizona. Harlan, you’re losing it. You’re getting too caught up in this stuff. Jesus, last month you were telling me that ‘government operatives’ were tapping your phones.”

  “They were, and camphoring my mail too, and tailing me. They put a direction-finder on my car, for Christ’s sake!”

  Craig just kept chuckling, just kept shaking his head. “You know, Harlan, it’s really easy to see why the redhead dumped you and your wife divorced your butt. I mean, no offense, but…you’re crazier than a shit-house rat.”

  Garrett winced over his beer. “No offense taken, Craig, good buddy old pal. Oh, and fuck you very much. No offense.”

  ««—»»

  The maid’s name was Lynn but she wasn’t really a maid. She looked like one, though, in the short black gathered skirt with white trim, the serving apron, and the puffed laced-cuffed sleeves. She was dressed exactly like the real maids at this four-star hotel, and she’d even taken an occupational familiarization class back at the Center. Well, at least I know I’ll be able to get a job here if Clinton cuts the C.I.R. budget again. She opened the door to Room 3112 and called out:

  “Housekeeping! Anyone here?”

  Several moments passed, and her inquiry was not answered.

  Thank God. She closed the door, then touched the tiny wireless earphone.

  Myers’ gruff voice instantly responded. “Thermograph’s clear. You’re the only one in the room—”

  “Jack the nanos to 365 and start a lateral cross-matrix sweep,” Lynn whispered. “The clock’s ticking.”

  “Relax. The apex should find this baby in about two seconds.
”

  Officially, Myers was brass, a SCD—Senior Case Director—but when he got bored, which was most of the time, he’d go on field assignments and run tech duties. Right now he was communicating to Lynn from a loaded surveillance van parked thirty stories down across the street. Parlance referred to these vans as “Junk Boxes,” and the junk they contained were devices such as cadmium thermographic processors, acoustic noise generators, tri-point ultra-low-frequency radar, UV, IR, and passive zero-light scopes, and about $10,000,000 worth of assorted other covert and privacy-violating government trinkets.

  At this moment, Lynn was walking around the room in a manner that would appear normal in the event that hotel security had a video in the room; she was dusting, in fact. Pinned to her white-lace collar, however, was a 22mm digital wide-angle lens which piped half-second digitizations back to Myers in the van.

  “Got it, Lynn,” Myers confirmed into her earphone. “Check the night stand. Under that…thingie there.”

  Thingie, she thought. He meant the doily. Lynn approached the nightstand, leaned over, and flipped up the doily. That’s about the worst hiding job I’ve ever seen. Beneath the doily lay a silver-dollar-sized optical computer disk in a plastic sheath. Lynn slipped it into her maid’s apron and quickly replaced it with an identical disk, all the while still pretending to dust. I’m out of here, she thought. Thank you, Mr. Scammell.

  She began to wheel her cart toward the door, but stopped, alarmed. The doorknob began to rattle; an instant later the door swung wide. Standing there facing her now was their target: one J.M. Scammell, a bald fat pock-marked scumbag in a Brooks Brothers suit. Scammell was a simple private-sector courier but these days couriers were paid very well considering the potential worth of their deliveries.

  “Oh, hello, sir,” Lynn managed without a start. “I was just finishing up cleaning your room.”

  “Well, thank you very much,” Scammell said.

  “I’ll just be on my way now.”

  Scammell nodded and proceeded into the room just as Lynn would push her cart out and leave. God, that was close, she thought. “I hope you enjoy your stay, sir,” she added.

  “Stop!” Scammell said.

  Lynn froze in the doorway, behind the cleaning cart. He must’ve made me! Did I forget to fold the doily back over? As she slowly turned back around, her hand crept for her apron pocket, for her 4mm flechette pistol.

  “What kind of a maid are you?” Scammell griped. “Did you even look in the bathroom? How about some fresh towels? How about cleaning the mirror? And—

  come on! You didn’t even empty the wastebaskets!”

  “Sorry, sir,” Lynn peeped back, relieved. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Scammell stood tapping his foot for the next twenty minutes, his arms crossed as he sternly watched Lynn clean the room. Lynn felt humiliated…but at least she hadn’t been “made.” Over her earphone, she could hear Myers laughing: “Looks like Scammell’s pillows could use a fluffing too. Yeah, and Lynn? How about giving the toilet a quick scrub, huh? We want our customers to come back, don’t we?”

  That’s real funny, Myers, she thought, bending over to grab some fresh towels.

  ««—»»

  Lynn, now wearing an overcoat, approached the WASHINGTON GAS & ELECTRIC truck on the other side of P Street. She entered through the back door into the hardware bay where Myers sat in his padded chair before ranks of display terminals and surveillance apparatus. He was pink in the face from laughing.

  “Real funny,” Lynn said.

  “See all the great things you get to do in this job?” Myers said. He looked more like an over-the-hill high school principal than a decorated technistics chief. Mid-50s, cheap suit and tie, gray hair and a perennially bad haircut. “You get to plant bugs, blackmail double-agents, put spies away for life…and wipe toothpaste specks off mirrors!” Myers, then, broke into more laughter.

  Lynn frowned. “Laugh it up, Myers, but I’ll bet I made more money than you did today.”

  “How’s that?”

  Lynn whipped out two fifty-dollar bills. “I did such a good job cleaning the room, Scammell tipped me.” She waved the bills in front of Myers.

  “That’s an unauthorized gratuity,” Myers reminded. “You have to turn it in to the finance-control office.”

  Lynn gave one of the fifties to Myers.

  “Like I just said,” Myers commented. “Fuck the finance-control office.”

  “I thought that’s what you said.” Next, Lynn gave him the tiny optical disk she’d swiped from Scammell’s hotel room.

  “Good work. You make the switch all right?”

  “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Can’t wait for our friend Saddam to recalibrate his anti-aircraft radar now. Those old frequencies on the snowflake will guide our AMRAMs right to target.”

  “We’re getting a lot of mileage out of Scammell.” Lynn grinned. “The moron thinks he’s selling his country out, but doesn’t have a clue that every page of classified defense data he’s giving the Iraqis is fake. I’ll bet we can use Scammell several more

  times before they get wise. Men are just so stupid.”

  “I hear that,” Myers said. “Come on, let’s go get lunch.” He smiled at the newly acquired $50 bill. “With this kind of money—hell—we might even be able to afford sushi.”

  Lynn rolled her eyes. “In this town.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Denny’s, here we come. Oh, say, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How’s your crackpot ex-husband?”

  Lynn rolled her eyes again. “Harlan? I don’t know and could care even less.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  APRIL 19, 1962

  Swenson was young for his rank: a brigadier general now at age thirty-three. In a decade, he’d have three more stars but he could hardly have known that at this moment, dressed in fatigues and riding in an open jeep through the ridged Nevada desert. The sun beat down on him like a crushing, physical weight. The jeep’s suspension yanked him back and forth against his canvas seat belt as if trying to throw him out onto the sand.

  Another one, he thought.

  Swenson’s job seemed ironic; with all the crucial matters going on in the world, Swenson’s discreet assignments were the most crucial of all, yet no one would ever know. There was talk of a nuclear test-ban treaty, and there was Vietnam. The current president in Saigon was using U.S. funds to fight the Buddhists instead of the Vietcong, and rumors were rife that Kennedy wanted a new administration there, even if it meant assassinating the old. And as for Cuba, a full year after the Bay of Pigs failure, Swenson had already seen the NSC briefings between the state department and the CIA; Kennedy had six more assassination plots on Castro in the works, plus another full-scale invasion plan. Cuba was going to get hot fast; Swenson wouldn’t be surprised if the Soviets started installing missiles there soon.

  Racial unrest was exploding all over the country—this man named King—and pro-communist militias were springing up everywhere. Heroin was flowing into every major city, and a risky tampering with the oil-depletion allowance could potentially shatter the economy.

  Yet with all these dire examples, Swenson could only think these two words that felt like a dark throb in his head:

  Another one��

  “—by NORAD and the VLRA in New Mexico, sir,” his driver was saying, Lieutenant Hanover, was saying beside him. The young officer steered the jeep like a quick skiff, swerving around obstacles of rock and cattle skulls. “The 1022nd SPs have already secured the site but…it’s a big site, sir.”

  “They always are,” Swenson said more to himself.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Nothing.” Swenson eyed the desert. “Thank God it cracked up here and not downtown Las Vegas or Reno.” Mother of God, he thought. Can you imagine?

  The jeep buffeted over more sandy hillocks. Cacti stood out all around them, like sentinels. Soon, though, the sentinels would be just as green but heavily armed. From beneath the se
at, he pulled out a roll of black duct tape. He peeled off a piece and placed it over the embroidered name-tag over his left breast pocket, then handed another piece to Hancock.

  “Cover that nametag, son. The SOPs don’t change just because we’re on government land.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A short time later, the jeep ground to a halt. Swenson slowly got out, looking ahead at the edge of the bluff. Security police milled about several commo trucks.

  “I need—”

  “The retrieval units are already being choppered in from Edwards, sir,” Hancock said.

  “Good. Use the star-net band and radio 1st Air Transport. I want them right behind the retrieval teams.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Hancock briskly departed for the commo truck, leaving Swenson to stand alone looking out at the edge of the bluff.

  He didn’t sweat in the great blaze of sun; instead it seemed to dry him out like a twig, like something drained of all moisture. Yes, Swenson was young for his rank, but right now he felt ancient, enfeebled.

  Another one, came the repeating thought.

  “Would you like to take a look, General?”

  The voice caught him off guard. A security sergeant had approached, was offering a pair of binoculars. The sergeant didn’t salute because he was armed. Slung to his shoulder was one of the new Stoner assault rifles which everyone was saying would win the Vietnam war.

  “Thank you, Sergeant.” He took the binoculars. “Carry on.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Swenson walked to the edge of the bluffed, brought the binoculars to his eyes, and looked down…

  God in heaven, he thought.

  ««—»»

  “God in heaven,” he croaked, just as he had thirty-eight years ago on that sun-swept desert bluff. General Swenson was seventy-one years old now, and dying. The disease had confined him to the convalescent bed surrounded by flanks of beeping cardiac monitors and medicine cabinets. The was an armed guard in the house round the clock, as well as an orderly from Walter Reed. He hated to think how many tax dollars were being spent simply to have his inevitable death properly overseen.