by Sandy Nathan
Jeremy looked at the girl. That was his mother’s voice. The siren. The seductress, giving the guards just the tiniest indication of her powers.
“I’m sure that you don’t want to inconvenience me. And I know that you don’t want to inconvenience my friend,” the voice of the most powerful woman on the planet purred. “My dear friend would be most annoyed to have to get out...” The chuckle became deeper, implying that her friend really didn’t want to be seen.
The two additional guards ran back to the other side of the vehicle and stood well away from it. One pulled out a phone and spoke into it.
“Darling,” that maddening upper-class voice drawled, “sometimes a man goes somewhere and doesn’t want anyone to know he’s there. Captain Laughlin would understand that. That’s why he’s a captain, dear. Would you get him for me? I believe he wants to talk to me.”
The kid pointed his gun at the middle of the bulletproof glass in the rear door, the weakest point of the vehicle. “Open this door. I’m going to count to three. One... two... thr—”
A noise between a growl and a cough came from the vehicle. Everyone knew that sound. They knew it from the State of the Union address to the Declaration of War Against Those Who Would Disturb the Peace. They knew it from news broadcasts. When he was angry or meant business, he growled at everyone, enemy or friend. The unmistakable voice continued, “Son, lower that gun. Turn around and give it to Captain Laughlin before I come out there buck naked, and use it on you.”
“Yes, sir!” He saluted awkwardly and spun, handing his weapon to the captain.
“You are under arrest, Private. Guards, take him to detention.”
Captain Laughlin frantically tried to redeem himself. “I’m so sorry, sir... ma’am,” he said to the closed door. “I was detained by another matter.”
“I understand how trying business can be, Captain,” Mrs. Edgarton’s voice said. “But I wanted to have a pleasant trip to the estate. I don’t get there very often. Do you think you could call ahead to the other boys and let them know we’re coming? My friend has so little free time.”
“Certainly, ma’am. I’d be glad to.”
“Good. No need to punish that wretched little boy too sternly. Now, if you ask my driver, he has some of those cookies you like so much.”
Another hrummping growl from that very well-known voice, and they were off.
The guards stood watching the limo leave. “Was that the president?”
“Yeah.”
“So she’s two-timing the general with the president?”
“I didn’t say that.”
20
Val yanked open the refrigerator door, eyes searching for the metal container. It sat in its accustomed place in the door. The pain was so bad she could barely stand. The lights and aqua blue flashed in her mind, muddled with falling timbers and dust and the roar of today’s explosion.
The steel case clattered on the counter when she lifted the lid. Twelve vials sat in insulated receptacles. Only twelve left. Combat packs. The pain goaded her. You’re not addicted, she thought. It’s just for the pain.
Deep inside, hidden below thought and memory, Val’s addict brightened. She could get all she wanted at the front. She’d be going in three days and never coming back. Who cared what she did now?
Val pulled a metal vial from the carrier and made her way back to the sofa. She took off her jacket and pulled up her sleeve, exposing the pale flesh of her inner arm. The vein inside her elbow bulged nicely. She wasn’t using too much; she wouldn’t have veins like that if she were.
Sitting back, Val flicked the vein and placed the perforated mesh on the vial’s business end next to her skin. She depressed the button on the top and clenched her teeth, waiting for the blast.
“Oh, yes,” she gasped. “Oh, yes, baby.” She rocked back and forth for a few seconds. The high from a combat pack was unbelievable, but it didn’t put you out. She would be ready to kill in seconds.
Val sat straight, all uncertainty gone. All pain, too. Her ruined back felt better than whole and healthy. The explosion wasn’t even a memory. Knowing they were sending her out to die didn’t bother her, and neither did anything else.
She was on top, knew everything, and had nothing to fear. The feeling of omnipotence peaked with the high. She could break the school case. Pleasure coursed through her. Come on, Val, she thought. Get it together. She had to get back to work; she couldn’t disappear into the high when so much work needed doing.
She knew exactly what was going on with the school explosion. It was the girl. She’d left the ballet studio and gone down the hallway to Richard’s room. He was killed. Why? Why was he maimed so horribly? Could a tiny little girl do that? No, but an alien could. Why would she kill him?
Val’s hand went to her mouth as she realized the truth. Of course! The girl was looking for someone, but Richard wasn’t the one she sought. So she’d killed him and gone down the hallway, to meet... who? Who was smart enough to call aliens down from the sky? Who was she meeting? Not Jeremy Edgarton.
The whole thing came clear—that was the beauty of combat packs. They sped up mental processes. You always knew who to kill. Mrs. Edgarton was to blame. Was the alien going to meet her, or destroy her? Did they blow up the building together, or did the alien do it to kill Mrs. E? Were they dead or on the run?
Mrs. E had to be the ringleader. Everyone knew how smart she was. Who else was involved? Her son couldn’t plan anything; she’d heard that from everyone she interviewed. The old man, Henry, might be sly, but he couldn’t run an operation. The teacher, Mel, was intelligent and capable of destructive action, with proper leadership. If Edgarton wasn’t down there, Mel was the one who’d done it.
Val wasn’t sure why they would blow up the school Mrs. Edgarton supported. A sudden insight provided the answer—she had built a secret lab in the basement and wanted to get rid of it. All those packages she sent weren’t bird feeders for her son; they were computers for Mel!
That was it. She laughed at the ease with which she’d made the connection. She felt wonderful. Delicious, sensuous. It was too bad Will had died in the blast; she was ready to party. Val forced herself to think about her work.
Someone was plotting insurrection. And then an alien had shown up. Val should have gotten that from the beginning, but she’d been distracted by the ballet teacher. She’d let herself get off course. Maybe she should be eliminated, which is what being sent to the front meant. A shudder ran through her.
“Shut up!” she said to herself. “You’re not dead yet. Figure a way out.”
She put her hands on her temples, dizzy. She was thinking too hard, making too much of what that office manager had said. Keep it simple. The teacher, Wally, had corroborated the conspiracy perfectly: he’d said Mrs. E had a secret computer lab under the school. She was plotting to take over the United States. The general was involved. Val trembled, even thinking about him.
If Mrs. E wasn’t in the city, where would she be? If she didn’t blow up the school herself, where would her people hide the rest of the evidence? If they wanted to take over the country, there’d be lots more evidence: computer labs, weapons.
Was the stash in the Edgarton town house a mile or so away? No. That was too obvious. Besides, if she blew up the school to hide evidence, she’d blow up her house, too. No other explosions had occurred.
The image popped into Val’s mind unbidden: the ancient stone façade of the Piermont estate in the Hamptons. Veronica Piermont Edgarton must have a larger computer lab there; Henry, Jeremy, and the driver—what was his name?—went there all the time.
It was an obvious place to run, but a clever one, too. The Hamptons were beyond the reach of civilization. They were like the Wild West was long ago, lawless and deadly.
She sighed. Catching Mrs. Edgarton might be hard. If the general was with her, it might cost Val her life. The general was the one man on earth Val wouldn’t mess with. He was the head of all the Russian armies, more pow
erful than the tsar. He moved around the United States as though he owned them. The rumored atrocities at his camps appalled even her.
Her phone rang. “Yes.”
“Lieutenant Zanner?” Her phone was secure. She could speak freely on it.
“Yes.”
“I’ve got the confession from that enemy agent, Wally, signed and typed up.”
“Great. How does it look?”
“Came out pretty impressive.”
“Good.”
“Shall we do the usual with his body?”
“Of course. I’m coming back in. I want to take this investigation to the next level.”
21
“How did she do that?” James exclaimed after they’d put some distance between them and the more-exciting-than-they’d-wanted check stop. The barrier between the two parts of the vehicle was down and they were all the same group again.
“She did the same thing in my class,” Mel said. “The students were getting on her case to prove she was Russian. They wanted her to speak the language. She obviously didn’t know how, but, when they pushed hard enough, she gave a speech not just in Russian, but in the dialect of the first imperial court.”
“She got your mom,” Henry said to Jeremy. “That was Mrs. E if I ever heard her. ‘Cept maybe your mother sounds more like a queen than that.” Chuckles went around the cab.
Everyone joined in but Jeremy, whose cheeks flamed. His mother was a whore. Eliana had put her hand on his back and read his mother loud and clear. What else did she find out about him?
The girl tried to embrace him. He pushed her away. He didn’t want her near him. She could read minds.
“Hey, Arthur,” Jeremy said into the speaker. “Pull over. I want to ride with you.”
He moved to the front compartment with relief. Sitting next to a commando was much more comfortable. Arthur had trained him to be a commando, and he had inducted Arthur into the brotherhood of computer geeks. It was a good exchange. Arthur was as capable of running the underground shelter as he was, and Jeremy could take care of himself. No, he was better than that. He was a soldier, too.
They rode silently until they approached the next checkpoint.
“You better get in back, Jeremy,” Arthur said, pulling to the side of the road. “They said they’d call ahead and make sure they knew we were coming, but you never know.”
Jeremy settled into the back compartment, and the rest moved around as before. The guard station was similar to the first one, but smaller. The road was deserted, as were the guard booths. Arthur slowed, looking around carefully, and then shot through the metal kiosks.
“Did you see that?” he said into the mike moments later, accelerating down the pocked road.
“See what?” Jeremy said. The windows in the rear were heavily tinted; it was hard to see through them.
“Something had smashed the tollbooth,” Mel’s voice said from the front.
“Blood was smeared all over the door,” Henry added.
Arthur again pulled to the side of the road. “I want all of you in back. Put your seat belts on, and, Jeremy, keep that gun handy.” Arthur took off, driving as fast as he could across the pitted tarmac.
“What could have done that?” James asked when they’d recovered enough to speak. “The whole booth was smashed in. Those things are made of steel.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years I’ve been coming here,” Henry replied. “Those stations are kept up better than the roads. The next one’s up ahead. We’d better get ready.”
“Arthur, do you want us to move again?”
“No. I’m not going to stop.”
Turned out there was no need: the way station didn’t exist. The metal canopy that ran from one side of the road to the other was ripped off its concrete-and-steel supports. The guard booths were torn from the ground and tossed. Arthur chose the widest clear lane and punched it.
“What did that?” Mel said for all of them. They could see the wreckage through the darkened windows.
“I don’t know,” Arthur answered. “We seem to have a welcoming committee. I hope the house is still there.”
A couple of hours later, Jeremy was slumped against the door. He hadn’t intended to relax, but he also hadn’t slept the night before. He’d been working nonstop for days. He felt Eliana cuddled up against him, one arm across his belly and her head on his chest. Something about her comforted him. He felt safe, like things might turn out all right. He drifted deeper.
Jeremy moved in his sleep, trying to get away from something. He felt himself relaxing, approaching something reassuring. Something sustaining. Something he could trust. He saw golden light in front of him, with tall figures standing in it.
They held their arms out. He wanted to merge with them. The girl smiled at him, hair long and flowing like it was under a golden sea. She raised her face to him, her lips lustrous. He bent down.
He awakened and jumped up, pushing the girl off. “Get away from me,” he said. “Stay away.” He moved closer to Mel.
The girl looked up sleepily.
“We’re in the forest now, almost there,” Arthur called. “Jeremy, get ready. The welcoming committee may be waiting for us.”
When they came out of the forest, they saw it, bursting out of a meadow—white stone, parapets, promenades along the roof, an arched balcony around the second floor. Windowed façades reflected the dying sun. The Piermont estate seemed to be endless.
“It’s a palace,” whispered James.
“Whatever wrecked the checkpoint hasn’t come here,” Mel said. The scene was one of bucolic majesty, a serene and untouched historic tableau.
“The house is about fifty thousand square feet. The stables and servants’ quarters back there are about the same. Gingerbread made of stone. Probably why it’s held up so well. It was built back in the 1800s.” Henry’s tone was worshipful.
“The gardens are in the front.” Henry looked up at the building. “Mrs. Edgarton’s rooms are up there, behind that balcony on the second floor. She liked to look out over the gardens. She never liked the wild sea in the back.”
The group looked behind them. Acres of emerald grass merged into formal gardens brilliant with roses and other plants most of them couldn’t name.
“The gardens are a sight to behold, but the lawns on the other side are what I like best. There’s a cliff out there that drops off into the ocean. The ocean’s like a wild animal, the way the surf snaps and grabs,” Henry said. “The Atlantic is right there. I sometimes feel like I can see Europe. I always wanted to see Europe...”
Their heads turned as Jeremy pulled the girl out of the back of the limousine. He clutched her forearm and dragged her across the lawn into the tangle of gardens. He held Henry’s gun in his right hand, muzzle pointing at the ground.
“Don’t follow me!” he shouted, turning around to glare at them. “I’m taking care of her.”
22
President Lincoln Charles paced nervously as they installed his treadmill in the antechamber to the tiny apartment he and Martha would occupy for the rest of their lives. “Make sure it’s level,” he said to the boys setting it up. “It won’t work right if it’s not level.
“Ron”—he turned to his chief of staff—“you said we’d have plenty of electricity, right?”
“Mr. President, we’ll have sufficient electricity for normal purposes. We’ll be able to power our computers and technical systems, the air recycling and the rest, but...”
“That’s great. We don’t have to run the computers all the time. We can shut them down a couple of times a day so I can run.”
Linc had no intention of getting flabby just because he was confined to a bomb shelter. He’d been as surprised as anyone to find out that the missiles had armed themselves and were set to go off the next morning. But he’d been president long enough to trust the people who worked for him.
While his team ironed out the wrinkles of saving Congress and the White Hous
e staff, Linc decided to get comfortable in the presidential quarters.
“Ron, why don’t you scout around and see if you can find any more hidden bunkers? Maybe we have more legroom than we think.” The White House security systems had been updated and enlarged so many times, no one could count. And every administration had seemed to have its own idea of the amount of underground space needed in the event of an all-out conflagration. They’d found whole wings of apartments they hadn’t known existed.
“Certainly, Mr. President. I’ll take a team and keep you informed.” Ron indicated the telephone sitting on a console table. “The phones and intercoms are set up. The reception’s fine down here. No one will know you aren’t at your desk in the Oval Office.”
Linc waved at Ron’s back and turned to supervise a group of first-term congressmen installing pieces of art into his rooms. If he and Martha had to live on the lowest level of the White House bunker forever, he wanted their place to be nice.
They’d just brought in the unfinished portrait of George Washington that Linc had always loved. Couldn’t let that one get away. Other junior congressmen carried a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and a bronze bust of Lincoln.
“Put it over there,” he called to the congressman from... he’d forgotten where. Shoot, it was that funny little state. He’d remember it. They’d let the regular White House staff go with nice vacation bonuses. Hadn’t told them about the emergency. Maybe he was handling the final shutdown in the way his critics said he handled everything—sneaking out the back door and leaving his underlings to take the rap.
If that was true, why change now? They hadn’t told the staff what was happening or that the bonuses were a charade. They didn’t tell them there wasn’t room in the shelters for everyone and they should run for their lives. What was he going to do? Make them feel bad? He never made people feel bad. His entire life was devoted to making people feel good.