The Web

by neetha Napew

  big, big hand!" Rourke held his cup in his teeth a moment and applauded,

  then kept moving toward the woman with the unsmiling face.

  Slower country music started to play and the crowd started splitting up.

  Rourke cut easily through the wave of people now, some of them gravitating

  toward the edge of the square, some pairing off and dancing to the music.

  The woman with the unsmiling face apparently wasn't with anyone; she

  turned and started away. Rourke downed the rest of his Coke and tossed the

  cup into a trash can nearby, then called out to her. "Hey—ahh." The woman

  turned around.

  Rourke stopped, a few feet from her, saying, "I, ahh—"

  "Y'all want to dance?" she smiled.

  "All right." Rourke nodded, stepping closer to her.

  She slung her handbag in the crook of her left arm on its straps. Rourke

  took her right hand in his left, his right

  arm encircling her wais*- She was about forty, pretty enough, but not a

  woman who seemed to try to be pretty at all.

  Her face was smiling, but not her eyes.

  "Who are you?" She smiled, coming into his arms.

  "John—my name's John," he told her.

  "You're carrying a gun, John," she whispered, her head close to his chest.

  "I read a lot of detective stories. I'm the librarian. I know."

  "You oughta read more," he told her softly. "I'm carrying two."

  "Ohh—all right, John."

  "Hasn't anyone heard about World War III here?" he asked her, smiling as

  they danced their way nearer the blue-grass band.

  "If anyone else heard you mention the war, John, the same thing would

  happen to you that happened to all the rest of them. We'll talk later, at

  my place."

  "Ohh." Rourke nodded. He wondered who the rest of them had been. As he

  held the woman's hand when they danced, he automatically feit her pulse;

  it was rapid and strong. . . .

  Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy stepped down from the aircraft to the sodden

  tarmac of the runway surface. "The weather—it is insane," he shouted to

  the KGB man with him.

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel." THe man nodded, offering an umbrella, but the

  rain—chillingly cold—had already soaked him, and Rozhdestvenskiy watched,

  almost amused, as a strong gust of wind caught up the umbrella and turned

  it inside out.

  He shook his head, and ran through the puddles toward the waiting au

  tomobile. He read the name on it as he entered. "Suburban." He ran the

  name through his head—it was a type of Chevrolet. . . .

  The ride had taken longer than Rozhdestvenskiy had anticipated because he

  had been unable to use a heli­copter. But as the large Chevy wagon

  stopped, he felt himself smiling—it had been worth the wait.

  There was already a searchlight trained on the massive bombproof

  doors—they had been bombproof at least. They were wide apart now, gaping

  into darkness beyond.

  "Mt. Lincoln," Rozhdestvenskiy murmured. The presidential retreat.

  He stepped out and down, into the mud.

  "Comrade Colonel," the solicitous officer, who had tried the umbrella,

  said as he joined Rozhdestvenskiy in the mud.

  "It is all right, Voskavich—do not trouble over the mud. The facility is

  secured?"

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel—there were no prisoners." The KGB officer smiled.

  "I wanted prisoners."

  "They were all dead when we arrived, Comrade. A fault in the

  air-circulation system. The bodies, were, ahh . . ." The younger man let

  the sentence hang.

  "Very well—they were all dead, then." Rozhdestven­skiy dismissed the idea.

  "We will enter—it is safe to do so then?"

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel." He extracted from under his raincoat two gas

  masks.

  "This is for—"

  "The bodies, Comrade Colonel—they have not all been removed as yet and—"

  "I understand." Rozhdestvenskiy nodded. He ran his fingers through his

  soaking hair as he started toward the entrance, nodding only at salutes—he

  was dressed in civilian clothes—and stopping before the steel doors. "You

  were able to penetrate these?"

  "One of the particle-beam weapons ordered here by the late Colonel

  Karamatsov, Comrade. It was brought here for this purpose I presume?"

  "Partly. It is sensitive material that we cannot discuss here in the open.

  It was efficient," Rozhdestvenskiy said, looking at the doors and feeling

  genuinely impressed. The entire central section of both doors looked to

  have been vaporized.

  He ran his fingers through his hair again, pulled on the gas mask, and

  popped the cheeks, blowij^out to seal it; then he started forward with a

  hand torch given him by the younger KGB officer. Through the gas mask,

  hearing the odd sound of his own voice, he said, "You will lead the way

  for me, Voskavich."

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel." The younger man was a captain and Rozhdestvenskiy

  decided that the man had no intention of remaining one.

  "You have done well, Voskavich. Rest assured, your superiors are aware of

  your efficiency."

  "Thank you, Comrade," the younger man enthused. "Be careful here,

  Comrade—a wet spot and you might slip."

  Rozhdestvenskiy nodded, staring ahead of them. There was a lagoon; or at

  least there appeared to be one in the darkness of the massive cave inside

  the mountain.

  "We have boats, Comrade Colonel. The Americans used them I believe to

  inspect the lagoon and we must use them to cross it. This was a service

  entrance and the most direct route to the presidential suite is—"

  "I know, Voskavich; I, too, have read these plans until they were

  something I dreamed about. We shall take one of the boats—Charon."

  Rozhdestvenskiy laughed at his own joke—the boatman to take him across the

  river Styx.

  But Voskavich was not the boatman; another KGB man, a sergeant, was

  running the small outboard. Rozhdestvenskiy climbed aboard from the lagoon

  shore­line, reassessing his nomenclature in terms of the American

  language. This would not be a lagoon, but rather a lake because of its

  progressively greater depth. A man-made lake? he wondered. None of his

  readings of intelligence reports dealing with Mt. Lincoln had ever

  indicated the origin of the waters there.

  There was a small spotlight jury-rigged to (he helm of the large rowboat;

  and between that and the flashlights both Rozhdestvenskiy and Voskavich

  held, there was ample light to see the even surface of the waters. At its

  widest, Rozhdestvenskiy judged the lake to be perhaps three-quarters of a

  mile across. He leaned back as best he could; he liked boat rides, despite

  wearing the gas mask, despite the lighting. When he someday returned a

  hero to the Soviet Union, he had decided, he would get a boat and a house

  on the Black Sea. There were many beautiful women there, and somehow

  beautiful women seemed especially fond of influential KGB officers.

  And influential he would be if he were able to solidify all the

  speculations regarding the Eden Project, and thereby eliminate this last

  potential U.S. threat. He favored the most popular theory—that the Eden

  Project was a doomsday device. The
Americans had always been kind and

  careful people so if they had a doomsday device encircling the globe now,

  there would be some way of deactivating it in the event it had been

  launched by mistake. He would find that way of deactivating it, then be

  the hero.

  It was simple.

  He even knew where to look for the plans for the device. Part of Mt.

  Lincoln held a filing room containing duplicates of the most highly

  classified war-related docu­ments, for the reference of the president. It

  was there that this most classified of documents would be kept— there that

  he would find his answer.

  Rozhdestvenskiy felt the motorized rowboat bump

  against the far shore of the lake. The ride was over. . . .

  Rozhdestvenskiy felt like a graverobber, like an unscrupulous archeologist

  invading the tomb of a once-great Pharaoh—and perhaps it was a Pharaoh's

  tomb, the tomb of the last real president of the United States. He

  discounted this Chambers; he had taken the power, but by all reports from

  the late quisling Randan Soames, Chambers had taken the power reluctantly.

  The power had not been given him as it was to other American

  presi­dents—such a strange custom, Rozhdestvenskiy thought as he shone the

  light of the torch across the gaping mouth of a partially decomposed U.S.

  Marine. To hold free elections and trust the mass of the people to select

  a leader who was accountable to them.

  "No wonder they didn't prevail," Rozhdestvenskiy murmured.

  Voskavich asked, "Comrade Colonel?"

  "The Americans—their absurd ideas of doing things— it accounts handily for

  their failure." The thought crossed his mind, though, that Soviet troops

  were now retreading to regroup for the fight against American Resistance

  on the eastern seaboard. Their failure had not yet been completely

  recognized.

  Voskavich stepped across the body of the dead Marine, saying, "These men

  were trapped here—perhaps locked inside."

  "That is not the American way. They were probably happy to have died in

  the service of their country. Give the devihhis due, Voskavich."

  Rozhdestvenskiy picked his way over the bodies, seeing ahead of him at the

  end of a long corridor what he thought was the room.

  It recalled the Egyptian tomb analogy to his mind— fhese Marines, priests

  of the order, guardians of the Pharaoh, who was their high priest. The

  priests of De-

  mocracy—an outmoded religion, Rozhdestvenskiy thought. But he did not

  smile. Despite himself, he was saddened to see the death masks o[ these

  priests, the anguish, the sorrow, the shock. He wondered what loved ones

  they had left behind, what dreams they had held dear. They were young, all

  of them, these priests.

  He stopped before the "temple." There was a combina­tion lock on the vault

  like doors, "I shall need experts in this sort of thing—immediately,"

  Rozhdestvenskiy ordered.

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel," Voskavich answered, start­ing to leave. The

  younger man paused, turning to Rozhdestvenskiy. "Should I leave you here,

  Comrade?"

  "The dead cannot hurt me," Rozhdestvenskiy told him. Voskavich left then

  and Rozhdestvenskiy stood amid the bodies, by the sealed doors, studying

  the faces.

  In not one of them could he find disillusionment. They had died for

  something important—what was it? Rozh­destvenskiy wondered. . . .

  A sergeant, a corporal and two lieutenants had labored over the locking

  system ofthedoors,formorelhanahalf hour, and now Voskavich turned to him,

  saying, "Com­rade Colonel—they are ready."

  Rozhdestvenskiy only nodded, then touched his black-gloved right hand to

  the door handle, twisting it. Pulling it open toward him, he shone his

  light inside. He felt like Carter at the discovery of Tutankhamen. No

  golden idols were here, but file cabinets, unopened, unlike the ones in

  other parts of the complex. There was no pile of charred papers and

  microfilm rolls in the center of the floor.

  "No tomb robbers have beaten us»" he remarked,

  then stepped inside. He walked quickly through thedark-ness, the light of

  his torch showing across the yellow indexes on the file drawers.

  He found the one he wanted—the ones. There were six file drawers marked

  "Project ,-C/RS." He opened the top drawer to pull out the abstract

  sheets at the front of the file. He read them, then closed his eyes,

  suddenly very tired.

  "Voskavich, these drawers are not to be looked in. I will need carts for

  removing the contents after they have been boxed. Bring the cartons here

  and I will do that personally."

  "Yes, Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy,' Voskavich answered.

  "Leave me here—alone." And Rozhdestvenskiy, when the last one of them had

  left, switched off his torch and stood in the darkness beside the file

  drawers. He knew now what the Eden Project was. The Americans never ceased

  to amaze him.

  "I wasn't born here. Most of the rest of them were, and their parents were

  born here, too, and before that," the woman told him.

  "What the hell does that mean, lady?" Rourke asked her, exasperated,

  smiling as he spoke through tightly clenched teeth while the men and women

  and children of the town who had made up the knot of humanity in the town

  square were now breaking up, going home.

  "My name's Martha Bogen." She smiled.

  "My question wasn't about your name. Don't these people—"

  'That's right, Abe." She smiled, saying the last words loudly, a knot of

  people coining up to them, stopping. She looked at a pretty older woman at

  the center of a group of people roughly in their sixties, Rourke judged.

  She said, "Marion—this is my brother, Abe Collins. He finally made it here

  to join me!"

  "Ohh," the older woman cooed. "Martha, we're so happy for you—to have your

  brother with you. Ohh— Abe," she said, extending a hand Rourke took. The

  hand was clammy and cold. "It's so wonderful to meet you after all this

  time. Martha's younger brother. I hope we'll

  see you in church tomorrow."

  "Well, I had a hard ride____I'll try though." Rourke

  smiled.

  "Good! I know you and Martha have so much to talk about." The older woman

  smiled again.

  Rourke was busy shaking hands with the others, and as they left, he smiled

  broadly at Martha Bogen, his right hand clamping on her upper left arm,

  the fingers boring tightly into her flesh. "You give me some answers—

  now."

  "Walk me home, Abe, and I'll try." She smiled, the smile genuine, Rourke

  thought.

  "I'll get my bike; it's at the corner." He gestured toward it, half-expect

  ing that in the instant since he'd last looked for it someone had taken

  it. But it was there, untouched. "I suppose you've got a fully operational

  gas station, too?"

  "Yes. You can fill up tomorrow. You should stay here tonight—at my house.

  Everyone will expect it."

  "Why?" Rourke rasped.

  "I told them you were my brother—of course." She smiled again, taking his

  arm and starting with him through the ever-thinning crowd.

&
nbsp; "Why did you tell them that?"

  "If they knew you were a stranger, then they'd have to do something." She

  smiled, nodding to another old lady as they passed her.

  Rourke smiled and nodded, too, then rasped, "Do what?"

  "The strangers—most of them didn't want to stay."

  "Nobody's going to think I'm your brother. That was so damned

  transparent—"

  "My brother was coming. He's probably dead out there

  like everybody else. God knows how you survived."

  "A lot of us survived—not everyone's dead."

  "I know that, but it must be terrible out there—a world like that."

  "They know Fm not your brother."

  "I know they do," Martha Bogen said, "but it won't matter—so long as you

  pretend."

  Rourke shook his head, looking at her, saying, his voice low,

  "Pretend—what the hell is going on here?"

  "I can't -explain it well enough for you to understand, Abe—"

  "It's John. I told you that."

  "John. Walk me home, then just sleep on the couch; it looks like there's

  bad weather outside the valley tonight. Then tomorrow with a good meal in

  you—not just those terrible hot dogs—well, you can decide what you want to

  do."

  Rourke stopped beside his bike. "I won't stay—not now," he told her, the

  hairs on the back of his neck standing up, telling him something more than

  he could imagine was wrong.

  "Did you see the police on the way into town—John?"

  "So what?" He looked at her.

  ffThey let anyone in, but they won't Jet you out. And at night you won't

  stand a chance unless you know the valley. I know the valley. Before he

  died, my husband used to take me for long walks. He hunted the valley a

  lot—white-tailed deer. I know every path there is."

  Rourke felt the corners of his mouth downturning. "How long ago did your

  husband die?"

  "He was a doctor. You have hands like a doctor, John. Good hands. He died

  five years ago. There was an influenza outbreak in the valley and he

  worked himself

  half to death; children, pregnant women—all of them had it. And he caught