by Jim Stark
"Jesus Christ,” said Randy. He stood up and tried to shake off the numb feeling that was leaking through his entire nervous system. “Are you saying ... that the WDA could ... like, nuke us!?” He stared at her. “I'm sorry, but that just isn't believable,” he snorted. “I want to talk to my dad, now!"
Lilly stood up and hugged him—she couldn't think of what else to do. It wasn't easy, but she got him to sit down again in the gazebo. “Just ... for a few more seconds,” she assured him as she broke off the embrace. “I—uh—I don't have my LieDeck-equipped Sniffer any more, but we've got Victor's original prototype, the LieDeck that he showed to your Grandpa Whiteside before you were born. It sort of—uh—reappeared ... it's a long story. Your dad has it upstairs in the lodge. All that stuff I told you, or at least the stuff about Lars, it's ... verifiable,” she said. “Gil—Gil Henderson—he had it to verify Lars and me across the lake at your dad's cabin, before we came over here to the lodge ... except we had to whisper over there and...” Her voice withered away, and her eyes started to tear up.
Randy had never had his entire universe turned upside down before—that wasn't supposed to happen any more; not since the Revolution. Was it possible that the often-ridiculed nuclear policy of the WDA was actually a serious policy, meant to be used, or that it could actually come into play here ... now ... or soon? “So what's the plan?” he asked in a barely audible voice. “What the hell do we do now?"
Lilly hung her head and put her slim hand back on Randy's shoulder. All her life, it seemed, people had leaned on her, depended on her, asked her if things ought to go this way or that. Now it was her turn to be vulnerable, and she had only a scared, angry and confused eighteen-year-old to give her support. She closed her eyes, trying not to regress. “I'm afraid,” she began, “we haven't yet figured that out."
Chapter 80
ISN'T THAT A CORKER?
Saturday, May 14, 2033—3:05 p.m.
Sheena Kalhoun stormed into General George Brampton's office at WDA headquarters in New York. She was absolutely determined that this would be their last showdown, that the farcical “king of peace” would make like a good old soldier and fade away ... finally. She slammed the door hard and shouted: “Call it off, George—NOW!"
Brampton was almost expecting her, and he was ready—not so much emotionally as by circumstance. He had passed the point of no return several minutes ago, and couldn't call off the attack even if he wanted to—which he didn't. “Who told?” he asked calmly. “Not that it matters one way or the other, but ... just out of curiosity."
Sheena melted inside. George was a bully and a coward at heart, so she knew that this level of confidence didn't come from the strength of character it took to bluff. Her quick mind locked onto the reality—she was too late. “Are you telling me that you can't?” she demanded to know.
"Please sit down, Sheena,” intoned the old man, motioning with a loose, wrinkled hand.
My God, this is the end, felt Sheena as she sank weakly into the chair on the visitor side of Brampton's desk. “Where did you get ... the information?” she asked—it was a question that would be critical at his trial, if not right at this moment. Sheena was still a lawyer, even if she hadn't practiced in years, and one way or another, she was going to bring this bastard down.
"We put the cook on twenty-four hour archive,” the general said—he could never remember Noel's name unless he went through an internal checklist of Christmas-related words. “He's gay. He's got a cyberboyfriend. He talks. But the important thing is that there's two escaped felons in that lodge, as well as the man who's plotting the overthrow of the WDA. And you, Ms. Kalhoun, do not have the jam to do what's needed."
Sheena felt the blood leaving her head and rushing for lower extremities. Brampton was speaking from a position of pleasure as much as of power, and with the deformed righteousness known only to those whose minds had settled for second fiddle years ago. He was what Victor Helliwell would call a typical Human Two, a man who, faced with even the smallest perception of a threat, reacted with overkill ... the way a wild animal has to react.
"You came charging in here thinking that you're going to get me,” the old coot went on, “but I wouldn't bet on it. Christ, you figured it out two months ago, when you gave me your cute little Beckett lecture. You're as much a part of this as I am, Sheena, even if you didn't know about all of it until now. So get this right the first time, lady!” he said brutally. “I deny nothing!"
He looked hard at the woman who had taken his position as the head of the WDA, the woman who thought she could just bump him aside with her little democratic vote and a few weeks of clandestine lobbying, the woman who thought she could take the place of a great man who had literally saved the world ... as if I was garbage, he thought bitterly.
"You seem surprised,” he noted with a wicked smile. “Why?” he asked in a tone that allowed for a response. He just let the word sit in the air for several seconds, and gloried in the silence that emanated from the haggard, drawn face of Sheena Kalhoun. “You think you caught me in the middle of doing something wrong, just like those ... bleeding hearts thought in twenty fourteen, when I nuked the fuck out of Leningrad. And you know what happened then. The whole fucking world thanked me for what I did! I personally sucked the poison out of the civilian United Nations, and I re-made the institution in my image—into a tough, fair body of qualified military rulers who have brought security, peace and prosperity to an entire planet for nearly twenty years now.
"Yes,” he said, leaning forward to make sure her Sniffer caught every word, “I have a little group of technically non-existent warriors, men and women whose bioIDs are not recorded in any MIU ... anywhere. They are loyal to me, to me alone, and while you and your MGAs have been deliberating—” he over-pronounced the word in what he felt was a wonderful display of contempt “—these few fine soldiers have been safeguarding the sacred principals of the WDA Charter, a document that I wrote with this old hand.
"Yes, we did a little ... something to our friend Lester Connolly ... as you've known since the middle of March, and you did nothing! You covered your ass, like I knew you would, as long as I acted contrite and scared and beaten. And yes, we've done a number of other equally necessary covert operations, without which world order would have been jeopardized. And yes, we've got a few valiant men slogging their way through the bush right now, on their way up to Whiteside's lodge on Wilson Lake. And no, they can't be stopped, not by those puny Patriot agents, not by you, not even by me. My guys don't even have Sniffers on them. And it wouldn't help to warn Michael Whiteside. My guys are close enough now, and if they see any significant movement away from the lodge, they'll detonate early and sacrifice themselves to the cause. So, what exactly ... was your point?"
Sheena made her decision. She knew she was going down. She couldn't change the past, nor could she stop this current crime. The WDA would fall to civilian control as a result of this, and she determined that she would do all in her power to help that happen quickly and thoroughly. “Collateral damage?” she asked. It was the next logical question for a military mind.
"A little bit,” shrugged the old general. “But we get one really fantastic bonus point!” he added with evident delight.
The man is well and truly mad, Sheena knew ... again ... for sure this time. “Bonus point?” she asked incredulously.
George began to laugh, and try as he might, he just couldn't stop. “Gil Henderson,” he said through the guttural cackling.
"He's ... at the Whitesides’ lodge?” Sheena asked. “Up in Québec?"
"Yeah,” said George as he swept away happy tears with the backs of his fingers and got his jiggling body under some control. “Well, he left a note for his secretary saying he was going there,” he said as he pulled a tissue from the box on his desk and dabbed the wet bags of flesh that hung under his gray eyes. “Isn't that a corker?"
Chapter 81
LOCKDOWN
Saturday, May 14, 2033—3:22 p.m.
>
Randy went into the lodge alone and found his father in the claustrophobic, windowless fallout shelter, sitting at the kitchen table, writing out the score by hand. He must have finished helping with that interview upstairs, he realized. They embraced ... for the first time in years, thought Randy. “Lilly just told me that—” he started.
"Better let me get through this first,” Michael interrupted as he sat back down and returned to his figuring. A Patriot agent had brought him up to speed on the new arrivals, and now the numbers didn't work. “Mom's in the medical room with Victor,” he said, hoping his son would take a few minutes to go in and hug her, and let him get back to his calculations. “Grandma's in there too,” he said absently. “Actually ... no ... she's in one of the bedrooms.” He completely forgot to say “happy birthday” to his son. And Randy forgot to expect it—he just walked around the table and sat opposite his dad.
There were footsteps on the stairs, and Lilly came through the heavy vault-like door. It seemed to Randy that his dad hardly noticed her, even when she placed a hand on his father's shoulder. She was standing behind Michael now, and she put a finger up to her mouth. Randy caught it, and sat back in silence. Then he leaned forward to see what his father was writing, working on. The only sound was the hum from the power generator.
There was a big “13” at the top of the page, circled and underlined, and Randy knew that was the intended capacity of the fallout shelter. “Lucky thirteen,” he remembered being told by his dad when he was little. Then there was a list of names, with numbers beside them. Randy had to concentrate to read the names upside-down, but his father's script was neat enough, so he managed.
The family had been assigned the numbers one through six, Randy observed ... Dad, Mom, me, Venice, Grandma and Auntie Julia. Then there was Lilly ... listed as number seven, Randy noted—he wasn't too sure of his father's sense of priorities on that one, but this wasn't the time for that discussion. Noel, the cook at the lodge, was beside number eight, and the name Annette Blais was beside number nine. Everybody and his brother's in here, Randy thought. Number ten was Victor, but Randy noticed that his dad had put a question mark beside Victor's name. He silently pointed to the odd punctuation.
"The doctor said he's got only days or hours to live,” said Michael to his son. “It may seem heartless, but ... I have to consider that."
A Doctor Valcourt was listed as number eleven, Randy noted. Gil Henderson's name was beside the number “12,” and although “Lars Johannsen” was written beside number thirteen, it had been crossed out and replaced with “Lucky Dees,” Randy's girlfriend. He was relieved. She was still outside with the Roy family, Venice, and the monks, and no way would he have tolerated her exclusion, even if it meant bumping the cook. “We're uh—” he started, but the timing and circumstances could not have been more wrong for a big happy announcement about his engagement. “So what happened to this Lars fellow,” he asked.
"He's ... not staying,” said Lilly. A Patriot guard had told her privately on her way into the lodge that Lars had finished his interview with Gil Henderson, and that he was now in the shelter, in the storage room, getting a pain injection from Dr. Valcourt, and a temporary cast for his fractured wrist. Then he was going to leave, to run for it. Lilly had figured the rest out. He would be taking the lead box with him, undoubtedly with the trap door back in place. He was going to hide the evidence, in case he was killed. He knows the WDA will kill him if they find him, she thought. So he'll use the night, she was sure, especially with the WDA closing in on us. And he'll hide it...? She thought about it. He'll hide it in his old hunting shack, she figured, so it won't hurt anyone and so that I'll know where to look ... no, not in it; he'll hide it near the shack ... he'll figure ... we can find it with a Geiger counter ... or someone else can, if we don't make it. “He's ... on our side,” Lilly quietly reminded Randy, “but ... there's something he has to do."
Just then, Annette tapped Lilly on the shoulder and asked her with a silent gesture to come with her. Lilly got up and followed Annette to the only bathroom in the shelter—Randy assumed it was some sort of “girl problem.” He watched his father struggle with the numbers and with his feelings, neither of which seemed to be working. And Randy decided to stay where he was—he was a Whiteside, after all, and he didn't want to be in some bedroom dealing with somebody's bloody feelings when important decisions were being made.
He looked over his father's shoulder as Dr. Valcourt walked out of the supply room, where he had been treating Lars. Then the young apprentice-plumber-cum-WDA-mole exited the same room, a bulbous cast on his right forearm. He walked unsteadily towards the shelter door.
"You're in no shape to—” began the doctor.
"Goodbye everybody,” said Lars. His eyes seemed glazed, his face pasty. “I wish you all the best."
Everyone in the kitchen-dining area wished him well as he walked out. The door to the shelter was open, and Randy saw him reach down and pick up a green silk pillowcase with something heavy in it. The lead box, Randy realized as Lars plodded up the stairs.
"He'll never make it,” said Dr. Valcourt when Lars was out of earshot. “I admire his determination and his courage, but not his common sense."
Randy squeezed his hands together under the kitchen table as the doctor returned to his primary patient in the mini-hospital. Then he resumed watching his dad, who returned his attentions to the papers, the numbers.
But again, almost immediately, Michael was interrupted. A whack and a vague thump emanated from the bathroom. “You all right in there?” he hollered towards the bathroom door. “Lilly?” he called, his voice showing concern.
"Yeah,” came Annette's voice. And then she emerged, looking brutal, slamming the bathroom door behind her, with Lilly still in there. “Give me the tapes, Michael,” she said bluntly as she marched into the kitchen-dining area. “I'm going with Lars."
Michael got up, retrieved the three analog videotapes out of a cupboard where he had stashed them earlier, and handed them over. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to let her take the tapes, but it probably was ... and her departure gives me one more place to play with in my calculations.
Annette stuffed the tapes into the pockets of her jacket, and then she shook Michael's hand. “Good luck,” she said. “To all of you,” she added. Then she just walked out of the heavy door and disappeared up the stairs ... two at a time by the sound of it. “Lars, wait up,” they heard her call.
Randy watched the barely perceptible muscle-movements of his father's body. He's going to make the decision now, the son knew.
"These new people,” said Michael abruptly, meaning Sébastien Roy and his children and the six monks. “Get them in here right now ... and then we go to lockdown."
"But Dad—” began Randy.
"We'll just have to manage,” said Michael.
Chapter 82
ON THE RUN
Saturday, May 14, 2033—3:44 p.m.
Annette Blais eased the small motorboat up to the side of the dock in front of Michael's little cabin on the west side of the lake, and killed the engine. The plan was for them to wait until nightfall, and then to fish out the sunken canoe and paddle up Dora's Creek, back to the “hunting” shack, under cover of darkness. Lars was supposed to stay there with part of the evidence—the lead box with the radioactive pellet in it. Annette would leave him there, hidden in the hole beneath the floorboards—assuming the WDA hadn't torn the shack apart—and head out to deal with the rest of the evidence. She had to find some way of getting the analog tapes flipped over to digital and get them out on the Net before the WDA could intercept the transmission and terminate the effort. That was the plan, but Annette had had serious second thoughts during the brief ride across Wilson Lake.
She held on to the dock, and carefully stepped up to the middle bench, where she sat down and mulled. There was no good plan, really. There was only a choice between two bad plans. Waiting for dark probably meant getting caught, because there was now
little doubt that the WDA was on to the fact that their two rogue agents were hiding out at the Whitesides’ lodge. Annette looked back across the lake at the lodge, and remembered a horrible day back in 2014 when ... no time for all that, she scolded herself.
In fact, Annette couldn't figure why the WDA hadn't already arrived at the lodge and arrested the lot of them. It had been about forty-five minutes or so since the power went off over there, and the WDA had a well-earned reputation for hyper-efficiency on those occasions when the use of force was needed to control a situation. If they were closing in on the lodge now, they would do it in massive numbers—thousands of agents—and they were probably already setting up an air-tight perimeter around the entire estate, including, of course, Wilson Lake. In all probability, unless she and Lars were to accept the suicide option, the only thing they would accomplish by running was to change the location of their arrest. Unless they nuke the lodge! she thought. In which case...
Annette abandoned that line of thought. It was just too ridiculous. “I ... slapped her face,” she said towards the tarpaulin in the front end of the boat.
"What?” came Lars’ strained voice from beneath the tarp.
"I slapped her,” she said again.
"Who?"
"Lilly."
"Why?"
"Long story,” said Annette.
Lars felt weak from the pain shot that Dr. Valcourt had given him before setting his broken wrist in a temporary cast, and he didn't want to move unless Annette said he had to. “So ... tell,” he said, hoping it would at least buy more time to not move from the cold floor of the aluminum boat.