Worlds in Chaos

by James P. Hogan

  “Let’s see what Len thinks.” Olsen used a mouse to click the “Call” box of a communications dialer already displayed on one of the screens in front of him. Moments later, Len’s voice answered from a connected speaker.

  “Watcher here.”

  Len was at the Metro in Atlanta, observing from back inside the motor lobby entrance. The situation had demanded that somebody else be on hand in case of problems developing, not just the cabbie. The phone that Len was carrying had a video pickup.

  “Collector thinks the subject may have a tail,” Olsen said at the mike. “How do you read it?”

  “Yes, I’ve got him too. The subject’s a woman. It looks like they know each other. Collector came by and then took off. Subject is making like ‘What do I do?’ The tail is shaking his head.” As Len spoke, the screen in front of Olsen switched to show a crazily angled shot of a woman in a light blue coat, wearing a yellow hat, standing beside two bags. Her face was indistinct in the light under the roof outside the lobby doors. She was looking to her right, then turned away in the other direction. The scene cavorted as the camera swung, then settled on a tall man in a light-colored jacket, keeping farther back in the shadows. The figure became clearer as Len moved out toward the doors, then jumped into closeup. It was a man his midthirties, angular cheeked with narrow eyes, and brown wavy hair combed back at both temples.

  “Oh my God!” Marie whispered weakly. “What’s he doing there?”

  Olsen turned his head. “You know him? Who is he?”

  “It’s him . . . the person it came from. My ex-husband. That’s Roland. . . . He must have come with her, to make sure things went okay.”

  Olsen studied the image thoughtfully. “That means we don’t have to listen only to this woman we don’t know. We can get his input too. You’re sure he’s likely to be straight?”

  Marie nodded affirmatively. “Oh yes.”

  “Then let’s bring him along.” Olsen leaned forward and touched a key. “Watcher?”

  “Here.”

  “The tail is friendly. In fact, we’re glad he’s here. So include him in the party too.”

  Rebecca was getting agitated, looking back at Cade and making empty-hands motions. Cade didn’t know what was going on. It had seemed that the cab driver had spotted her and pulled over; then he seemed to change his mind at the last moment. Cade signaled back tersely for Rebecca to stop making it so obvious that they were together. She seemed to get the message, calmed down, and directed her attention back toward the motor lobby entrance. An airport shuttle that had been filling with departing hotel guests started up and departed.

  Perhaps the business with the cabbie had been genuinely a case of mistaken identity. Cade checked his watch. Seven minutes past the hour. Was it reasonable to expect people in this kind of line to be punctual—especially with all the trouble that was going on? He opened the newspaper that he’d been carrying under his arm and stared at it. He felt like ham in a spy movie. Well, hell, what was he supposed to know about this kind of business? He found he was looking at the sports section. He didn’t even understand the rules of baseball. A white limo appeared and disgorged a couple both with long hair and in blue jeans. While the driver came around to begin unloading luggage from the trunk, a bellman appeared from inside the hotel, pulling a cart.

  And then a cab appeared in the entrance and slowed. Cade wasn’t certain, but it seemed like the same one that had passed through before. This time it drew up directly in front of Rebecca. She stooped to peer inside uncertainly. The nearside window lowered, and the driver leaned across to say something. Rebecca nodded. The cab’s trunk lid popped open, and the cabbie got out to take care of the two bags. Finally, everything seemed to be going well. Rebecca opened the rear door, and climbed in, glancing out from the window to nod quickly. Cade watched the cabbie slam the trunk lid shut, then go forward and get back in. Just a few more seconds now, and the whole business would be out of Cade’s hands. He exhaled a long sigh of relief.

  “Take it easy. Don’t turn around. Just get in the cab too.” The voice spoke close to his ear. It was low, little more than a murmur, but had a distinct no-nonsense quality.

  Cade tensed reflexively, then forced himself to relax again, realizing that anything else was futile. “What is this?” he breathed.

  “I don’t know either. It seems that the people meeting your friend want to talk to you.”

  “I’m just a delivery man. I don’t know anything about what goes on.”

  “That’s not for me to decide. I’ve just got orders.” There was a pause. Cade hesitated. “Come on,” the voice said. “You don’t want to mess with us. Let’s move.”

  Cade sighed and walked over to the cab, the stranger following. Somehow, the cabbie seemed to know they would be coming and was waiting. Cade opened the door, shrugged in response to Rebecca’s bemused look, and got in next to her. The stranger squeezed in beside Cade and closed the door. He was maybe sixtyish, Cade saw as he sat back. Tanned, wrinkled features; hair going white; dark, indecipherable eyes—the kind that never gave away exactly where they were focused. He was wearing a hip-length coat of brown suede over a tan, crew-neck sweater. The cab pulled back out onto Peachtree, negotiated several blocks, and descended an on ramp to a highway that signs said were Interstates 75 and 85 South, which led back toward the airport. But after a few intersections it exited again onto a road leading among industrial premises, where it entered a parking area and stopped beside a black, windowless van. “Here, we change,” the stranger informed them. “Not much of a view from here on, I’m afraid. But I’m sure you understand that these things are necessary.”

  The three got out. A driver was waiting in the van, wearing a hat over a full head of hair, who could equally well have been male or female from the brief glimpse they were able to get. Before they had even walked around to the rear doors, the cabbie had deposited Rebecca’s bags and was on his way. Interestingly, the stranger hadn’t paid him anything, Cade noted. The stranger opened one of the van’s rear doors, picked up the suitcase, and ushered the other two in. Cade took the travel bag. The interior had seats on both sides and across the front, and was lit by lights in the corners. Cade and Rebecca settled down facing each other across the rear end. The stranger moved past them to sit looking back. He banged his hand a couple of times on the wall behind him, and the van moved off.

  Cade quickly lost track of the turns, so that by the time he felt the van accelerating back onto what felt like the Interstate again, he was unable to tell whether they were still going south or had about-turned. As time wore on he made sporadic attempts to start some kind of conversation with the stranger, but the responses were brief and noncommittal, except to say that they could call him “Len” and it was okay for Cade to call Lou Zinner’s pilot and say he had been delayed. Cade was mildly surprised that he had been allowed to keep his phone, and concluded that he wasn’t some kind of prisoner. Hence, if this dragged on past the pilot’s deadline for returning, he didn’t think he would have much difficulty getting a regular flight back. Maybe on principle he should ask CounterAction to cover the fare.

  A little under two hours passed. Since the people they were going to meet hadn’t known how they would be traveling, it made sense that the initial rendezvous should have been set in a regional center like Atlanta. There was no reason why the ultimate destination should be conveniently close, of course. But it puzzled Cade that Len, and presumably those he represented, seemed unconcerned about the possibility of police checks on a journey of this length. The most likely explanation he could think of was that in their own territory they had the highways staked out and were able to pass warnings of roadblocks in time for them to be avoided.

  Eventually, the van’s motions signaled that they were leaving a highway. A few minutes of intermittent turns and stops followed before it halted, and the engine died. Len got out, turning to retrieve the bags. Cade and Rebecca followed, stretching cramped legs and flexing arms, to find themselv
es outside the rear of a typical midrange motel.

  Len led them to room 127 and rapped on the door. It was opened by a petite woman in a thin, knitted pattern sweater, loose slacks, and lightweight hiking boots. She had wiry hair that wavered between dark blond and burnt auburn, styled short and easy to manage, sharply defined features that couldn’t be called “cute,” yet were attractive in their own in-depth kind of way, and dark, almost black eyes that in moments gave the impression of never being still, darting over the arrivals and already seeming to have gleaned all the information there was to see. The eyes came to rest on Cade and softened into mischievous liquid pools at the astonishment on his face.

  “So hi,” she greeted. “I guess, for once, I get a turn with the surprises. It’s been a long time.”

  It was Marie.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was so sudden and unexpected that Cade found himself at a loss for anything to say that wouldn’t have seemed inane. For several seconds, all he could do was stare. While he was still getting over his surprise, Marie brought them all inside. She had doubtless come from a hideout or safe house somewhere in the area to make the initial contact. Cade and Rebecca wouldn’t expect to have been taken straight there.

  It was a standard motel room with a pair of double beds. A woman’s topcoat was thrown on one of them; a couple of magazines lay on the other, which was rumpled, as if Marie had been reading while she waited. Coffee was brewed in the pot provided, and some deli sandwiches, chips, and soft drinks laid out alongside it. Len threw his coat on top of Marie’s and handed her a phone that he had been carrying, which Cade saw was a video type. Now he realized why Marie hadn’t been surprised on seeing him. Len had sent back an image, even before he accosted Cade in Atlanta.

  Marie positioned the phone on a corner table to take the room in its viewing angle and attached a speaker extension. Evidently, the proceedings were to be monitored remotely. Cade wondered how normal it was for any face-to-face contact to be permitted at all in a first meeting. It seemed dangerous. Had they relaxed their usual precautions, perhaps because Marie had vouched for him?

  “We need you sitting here, Rebecca,” Marie said, waving to indicate the nearest of the two beds. “You can munch while we talk.” Rebecca moved the coats aside and sat down. “Roland, I’m going to have to ask you to take a walk outside with Len,” Marie said. “You’ll get to talk later. I’m sure I don’t have to explain.” Cade nodded, shrugged in a way that said it was okay, selected a sandwich to take with the coffee cup he was holding, and moved to the door. Just before Len opened it, Rebecca got up again, went into the bathroom, and came back out with a towel, which she spread by her on the bed to put her sandwich plate on. “Okay? Let’s get started,” Cade heard Marie say as Len closed the door behind them, hanging the “Do Not Disturb” sign outside.

  He sipped his coffee and stood, looking around. The van was gone—or at least, moved from the slot it had been in. Extending away beyond the fence were the trappings of what could have been the outskirts of virtually any city. In the distance, however, in a direction that Cade judged to be the west or south from the position of the sun, stood a high, flat-topped mountain, forming one side of a valley. He had noticed that the room’s call terminal carried the area code 423. Offhand, he didn’t know where that was. Two hours driving from Atlanta? . . . But then, he didn’t know if all of that had been in the same direction.

  “Kestrel suggested we take a walk,” Len said. “Let’s walk.”

  “Kestrel?” Cade grinned. “Is that what you call her these days?” Len grunted, seemingly irked at having given away more than necessary. They moved to the end of the block and stood chewing sandwiches and finishing their coffees. Then they crossed to a dumpster standing on a corner of the parking lot to dispose of the cups. Vehicles were parked here and there. It was early yet for the evening arrivals to begin showing up. Cade saw license plates from Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, one from Florida, another, Indiana. It didn’t really tell him much. They strolled back to the room. The sign was still hanging outside the door. They made another circuit of the block. When they came back, the sign had gone. Len knocked, and Marie let them back in.

  Now it was Cade’s turn to talk to the camera and answer questions. Len stayed, while Rebecca left with Marie. There were no surprises. Cade told his story as it had happened, omitting details of precisely who had initiated the contact into CounterAction for him, because he wasn’t asked. The question that caused him the most difficulty was regarding his motivation: Why had he done it? Why had he gotten involved? He couldn’t say it was to help with their cause—truth was, he had never given much thought to it. His own life was pretty comfortable, thanks to no one else, because he had made it that way. It was up to others to worry about what he considered to be their problems. He didn’t feel that whoever he was talking to would appreciate a discourse on personal philosophies of that nature, however.

  “Julia—the person I’m with now. It seemed important to her,” he said. “Apparently, they were close friends back in college. . . . I guess I just wanted to do what I could. I didn’t have any thought then of getting involved.” He gestured to indicate the room he was in. “Not like this.” Which was true; but somehow not enough. Cade didn’t find it satisfying.

  “There was nothing of a more . . . ‘personal’ nature, maybe?” the voice from the phone speaker queried.

  Cade sat back, jolted by the question. “No. . . .” But he wasn’t sure. He realized how impossible this would have been had Marie remained present.

  There was a pause. Then the voice on the phone said, “Very well.” Evidently, Cade had passed muster; the subject was closed. So was that what he had been brought all this way for? It needled him.

  “Well, I’m glad that you’re satisfied,” he said. It was one of those rare times when he was unable to keep an edge of sarcasm out of his voice. “My plane back to LA will have left already. I’m going to have to get some kind of a regular connection instead from here, wherever this is—unless you’ve got rules that say we have to go on another mystery tour first. You realize that you’ve cost me my whole evening.”

  The person who the voice belonged to seemed unimpressed. “There are people out there right now for whom it’s costing their homes, their families, their lives,” he replied coolly.

  The remark hit Cade as disconcertingly as it came unexpectedly. He sat back on the bed, finding himself too troubled and confused to respond. He had never thought of it that way. Somehow, the thought of putting in an expense claim didn’t feel like such a good idea.

  Marie and Rebecca came back. Len held a muted conversation over the phone. It seemed that business was concluded for the moment. He would need to go back to confer, he announced. Rebecca would probably be moved to another location later that night and arrangements made to send Cade home. In the meantime they were to remain here. Marie would keep them company. Len collected his coat off the bed. When he opened the door, the van had magically reappeared. As he was leaving, Marie caught Cade’s sleeve, and drew close to keep her words private. “We have to take care of business first,” she murmured. “Maybe we’ll be able to talk a little later. There must be lots. It’s been a long time.” Cade nodded.

  While Marie rinsed out the coffee pot and prepared another brew, Rebecca lay back along the bed they had been using and stared at the ceiling. Cade paced disconsolately to the door and back several times, then settled down on the other and picked up one of the magazines still lying there. An ad at the bottom of the page it was opened at was for a restaurant called the Chattanooga Chew Chew. Its phone number had the area code 423. Well, that answered one question, anyway, he told himself.

  The miniature locator that ISS operative “Ruby,” currently operating under the field name Rebecca, had attached beneath the collar of Len’s jacket while it lay on the bed updated its position from satellite fixes every five seconds and had connected with the national security network via booster relays covering the area.
The computers at ISS Regional Command in Atlanta had found voiceprint matches with two samples from previously tapped recordings, both established from interrogation leads as belonging to members of the Scorpion cell. The male was the operative known as “Len”; the female went as “Kestrel.”

  For ten minutes, the plot from the locator traced a route northwest of Chattanooga to coordinates shown on a large-scale map as pinpointing one of a number of mobile homes situated in a wooded area just over the Tennessee River. Conversation picked up later inside the house identified the Scorpion member, believed to be cell leader, known as “Olsen,” and a female voice not on file. Then, after a further fifteen minutes, another male voice was detected. Within seconds, the analyzer monitor in Atlanta started beeping and flashing a box with the caption priority. An operator transferred spectra samples to an auxiliary screen and ran a full Fourier and time series comparison. He picked up a red phone that connected directly to the section supervisor.

  “Bingo!” he reported. “It’s him, Reyvek. We’ve found the defector.”

  A Status Report, Operations Plan, and Request for Action Approval were flashed to Washington within eighteen minutes. Before a half-hour was up, the response came back: GO.

  Choppers from a base in the mountains between Chattanooga and Nashville, experimentally fitted with quiet-running Hyadean ducted fans in place of conventional rotors, landed strike teams a mile from the target in opposite directions along the north bank of the river. Their orders were to identify and take out the designated Subject, along with all other opposition on sight. When that objective was confirmed, a second unit would go in to relieve operative Ruby in the motel on the south side of the city, and eliminate the two remaining hostiles there.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Cade lay propped against the headboard and watched as Marie poured two coffees. She added some creamer and a sachet of sugar to his, left hers black, and brought them over. Rebecca was in the bathroom, and from the time that had passed, could conceivably have fallen asleep there. Cade took the cup that Marie offered. She sat down with her own at the foot of the bed and regarded him over the rim as she took a sip. He returned the look evenly for a moment, saw that she was simply being open, inviting things to take any turn from here, and let his face soften.