by John Farris
He noticed the man who had accompanied Eden behind the wheel of an Expedition that was coming out of the parking lot. Instead of turning left to join the small cortege he went the other way, down Sutter toward the Interstate. Carl felt confused. Why was he leaving? Carl heard a helicopter overhead. Still circling, as it had been when they arrived almost an hour ago. He didn't look up. His brow was sweaty. He ate a couple of Tums.
The helicopter was landing behind Shipp and Proffit's. Coming down near the courtyard and the hearses parked there. One hearse, with the rear door open, had received Riley's coffin and was now being loaded with baskets and small trellises of floral remembrances. Some of the flowers were scattered like chaff in the whirlwind generated by the descending chopper.
Two men wearing dark blue blazers left the funeral home by the front entrance and jogged down the wheelchair ramp toward Carl. Sunglasses. Take-charge types. Like the Secret Service men one saw keeping pace watchfully beside the presidential limousine. These men also had the little radio receivers, ear-buttons with pigtail cords that disappeared beneath their shirt collars.
"Carl Waring?"
"Yes?"
One of the men showed him identification. Photo, thumbprint; the name of an agency Carl didn't catch except for four boldly capitalized letters. M-O-R-G. What the hell was—
The spokesman propped his sunglasses on the dome of his head. He had a freckled face like rusting sheet metal and eyes as expressionless as peepholes in doors.
"You can accompany your brother to his resting place now. Our condolences."
"But—I'm waiting for—"
"Eden apologizes. She won't be able to join you and the family at the cemetery."
"She—what are you saying, I don't understand what this is about!"
The other agent, who was lanky and had a sour-grapes expression, said, "There's no problem, really, Mr. Waring. Nothing to concern you. Sir, would you get into the lead limo now? I believe the hearse is on its way."
Carl glanced between the two men. The hearse was headed slowly up the drive to the street. And, in the courtyard below, escorted in lock step by two men not unlike those he was confronting, Eden had crossed the bricks to the black helicopter, a helicopter with a decided wasplike appearance.
"There's Eden! Where is she—my God! You've handcuffed her?"
Neither man bothered to look. Mr. Freckles said, "I don't think you saw handcuffs, sir. Probably sunlight was reflecting off one of her bracelets. There were no handcuffs."
Carl hesitated, stood a little straighter, and said, "Gentlemen, I don't know who you are, but I am the mayor of this city and I demand to know where you are taking my niece. Is she under arrest? Permit me to have a look at your warrant."
One of the city cops came off the street where he was directing traffic to see what was up.
"Mayor, anything I can do?"
The sourball MORG agent glanced at the cop's nameplate and said, "Government business. You're out of your depth here, peace officer Pat."
Carl didn't like the way his heart was reacting, and he was suddenly short of breath. Eden had disappeared into the back of the helicopter. He watched with a growing chill of dismay as it lifted off, hovered, banked east, and poured on the speed. He hadn't known helicopters could move that fast.
"This is outrageous! By whose authority! You have no right! I demand!"
"Go easy, Your Honor. Your niece is taking a little trip. Some people want to talk to her. She'll be okay. VIP treatment, we guarantee."
"Free country! Constitutional right! Due process of law!"
"I think he's about to come in his shorts," the lanky one said to his partner. "Seriously."
"Let's break this up," Mr. Freckles suggested. "Please get in the car, sir. Or do you need our assistance?"
"You better not touch him," the cop named Pat warned.
And then to the sourball agent: "Who do you think you're looking at?"
"Am I looking at something? I don't see anything. A pile of day-old dog crap, maybe."
Mr. Freckles said, "Learn to use a little psychology, Kyle."
The lanky one lifted his face disgustedly to the sky. "Jesus, I hate it down here in the minor leagues."
Nobody said anything else for a dozen seconds. Carl couldn't talk at all. He had choked to the chinline and was seeing red. Feeling inadequate.
Intimidated, as the silence wore on. He'd always been first in his class, captain on the field. In his third term as mayor of Holbrook, California. Intimidated? Carl Waring? It was emotional sacrilege.
His nine-year-old daughter GayLee poked her head out of the lead limo of the cortege and clamored, "Come on, Daddy! My dress is making me itchy. I hate new dresses!"
Carl looked at her, then looked to see if the black helicopter was still visible against the summery buttermilk clouds. No trace of it. He looked again at the MORG agents. He found his voice. But it was shockingly weak to his ears.
"We'll sue."
"Free country," Mr. Freckles said with a slight smirk.
CHAPTER 9
WASHINGTON, D.C. • JUNE 2 • 2:45 P.M. EDT
Rona Harvester interrupted a tour of the White House she was conducting for the Senegalese president and his wife to take a call on a secure phone. "Got her!" Victor Wilding said, sounding almost jubilant, a welcome contrast to his recent mood and tone.
"Wonderful, Victor! Any problems?"
"No. Just as a precaution she's been sedated."
"That may be wise. Where are you taking her?"
"Plenty Coups. I'm already here and I thought, since you're planning a trip to the western White House next week, it would be convenient for you to meet her where we can guarantee security."
"Good idea. I assume everything else is going well?"
"The cake is out of the oven. Delivery date is the sixth. By the way, if you haven't been watching the news—"
"I don't watch the news; I'm all the news I care about," Rona said, half jokingly. "But AG called me. Search and Rescue located one of the Conan helicopters?"
"It had crashed in an isolated cove where, apparently, some cultists have been practicing ritual sacrifice. They discovered fragments of what may be human bones on a rock that served as an altarpiece."
"Doesn't that give you the creeps?"
"The remains of the pilot were in the chopper, but there's no trace of Robert Hyde yet."
"Now, do you suppose—"
"The Bureau's forensics people may be able to tell something froth the bits of bone that weren't consumed. But only if Hyde's DNA is on file someplace. Maybe he kept frozen sperm in the office fridge, along with a bowl of boogers and a ball of belly-button lint."
"You're in such a good mood today. Love you with all of my heart."
"Can't wait to see you—Madame President."
"Oh, Victor. We don't want to uncork the champagne just yet."
CHAPTER 10
PLENTY COUPS, MONTANA • JUNE 2 • 4:05 P.M. MDT
The girl was tucked away in the bedroom of the apartment reserved for Victor Wilding when he was in residence at the facility. She was sleeping off the narcotics combo she had been injected with prior to the flight from Metro Oakland airport to Plenty Coups, which had kept her numb and dumb all the way. Marcus Woolwine had already paid a visit to her bedside to withdraw blood and supervise an IV drip with a chemical mix designed to repress fear and unwelcome memories and elevate her mood to the level of, say, a newly crowned Miss Universe. She was wearing a headband of Woolwine's invention that provided electromagnetic stimuli to several different areas of her brain, interspersed with taped instructions and information she would find useful upon awakening. She had two registered nurses from the facility's medical staff watching over her, but they wore mufti. Dr. Woolwine had specified sandals, shorts, and Polynesian print shirts. Soothing colors and fragrances had been chosen to take the edge off the apartment's rather austere, masculine look and further refresh her spirits when she woke from a sleep deepened by pharmaco
logy. As soon as they learned her preferences she would have her own apartment, anything else she wanted. But she would never spend another moment alone, nor set foot on the surface of the world again.
Not that she would miss her other life, Woolwine assured Victor Wilding. Her foster mother and college friends. What was left of that life would exist in her memory like a rosy dream of childhood.
"She now will be entirely focused on pleasing the most important person in her life—her guardian, mentor, friend. Lover, if you'd like. She's at the peak of her beauty and vulnerability at this age. So tempting. But I advise against taking full advantage of the affections we are going to create for your benefit."
"Whatever you say. But how long will it take before she trusts me completely?"
"I'd like three days. If it's a rush job, I suppose I can cut the time to under fifty hours, but—"
"Three days! Aren't we taking a hell of a risk with all this brain engineering? Destroying what makes her unique?"
Woolwine held up a cautionary finger. "Remember, what we are doing with this girl is positive conditioning. Reinforcement of basic emotional needs. Enhancing her pleasure drive through hypnotic hyperesthesia. We are making her very happy, even as she slumbers. Now, if you'll recall the case of Peter Sandza—"
"It's because of his father that Robin has been on a ventilator for twenty-some years. He deliberately dropped Robin from the roof of Psi Faculty. Not that I blame you, of course. You were on another team then. You had your orders."
"Just so. Peter Sandza was both a challenge of rehabilitation—he was in miserable physical condition when I got him—and a feat of negative emotional conditioning. We researched the subconscious dynamics at our disposal—Peter was engaged in a life-and-death pursuit, which took the form of an archetypal quest in the paleomammalian brain—and strengthened his will to find his son at all costs. We did nothing to disturb the cutting edge of his high purpose. We didn't want him to lose a jot of his animal cunning. Remember this. When Peter Sandza was on a hunting trip at the age of ten, he accidentally shot his father to death. A classic archetype that horrifyingly came to life. From that moment his life was shaped by an act of accidental violence. Peter slew the godhead; thereafter he sought to atone for his error by undertaking a painful quest against what are commonly held to be the evils of the world. But the quest was largely a delusion proposed by the archetypal Black Magician: Childermass, our founder. In the beginning Peter's quest served as a time of rigorous preparation and testing. Peter compensated for what might have become a pathological monomania by marrying and fathering a son of his own. Thus he led a, quote, 'normal' life at those times when he needed to lay down the banner and quit the arena for a while."
"But how did you condition him to—"
"Peter had been a lieutenant commander in the Navy. He often referred to young Robin as 'Skipper,' and when he did so the boy invariably responded with 'Commander.' A term of both affection and respect."
"You got all of this out of Peter through hypnosis?"
"Yes. We assumed that Peter Sandza would overcome the obstacles placed in his way by the Black Magician and eventually be reunited with his son. We reinforced in Peter's mind the usage of Robin's nickname. 'Skipper' would very nearly be the first word from his lips. And Robin surely would respond with a joyous 'Commander.' The single word that would compel Peter to instantly destroy his son, with whatever means were at hand. As it happened, Robin was dangling from the roof in Peter's grip, and when Peter heard him say 'Commander,' he released him to smash on the rocks below. He was simply obeying an instinct more powerful than the one we overrode. Peter loved his son. But don't forget that Robin had acquired mythological status in Peter's unconscious mind. The circle had closed. Peter slew his father; Peter's primal fear was that Robin would grow up to slay him. That fear allowed Peter temporarily to assume his own father's role. Peter simply defended himself, as his father could not."
Woolwine did something Victor Wilding had rarely seen; he took off his mirror sunglasses and looked straight at Wilding. His eyes, the yellow of aged ivory, glowed with a chilling rapture.
"I wrote the last act of a grand tragedy that was preordained when man first began to walk upright. Fascinating, don't you think?"
Wilding looked toward the closed door of his bedroom and helped himself to another shot of whiskey. Woolwine waved away the offered bottle and continued to regard Wilding steadily. Wilding wished he would put the glasses back on.
"That girl is Peter Sandza's blood. Gillian Bellaver's prowess. My last hope. Whatever is there in her brain that makes it unique—don't fuck with it, Doctor. There can't be any more tragedies."
Woolwine rose from his chair, no effort for him in spite of his years. He stood five feet seven on bowed but muscular legs.
"If you'll pardon me, I'm running late for my game with Dr. Fries. We wouldn't want to lose our court." He slipped on his reflective glasses again, a businesslike but somewhat dismissive gesture. "By the way. It may reassure you to keep in mind one simple fact. Marcus Woolwine has never failed."
CHAPTER 11
4:40 P.M. MDT
Victor Wilding met with the Director and chief strategist of MORG's Accelerated Counter-Insurgency Defense operations, a man named Willis "Bronc" Skarbeck, in the Situations and Planning Center.
Bronc Skarbeck was a lean man with chili-pepper-red hair, dyed, and fuming blue eyes. While serving as commanding general of the Marine Corps he had been passed over for chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Not long after this crushing disappointment he suffered a psychotic break, paying lewd attention to a sixteen-year-old girl who was the granddaughter of a Supreme Court justice and a patient of his psychologist wife. The two of them set out in a twenty-nine-foot boat intending to sail around the world. They didn't make it out of Chesapeake Bay. Bronc lacked critical seafaring judgment with half a quart of rum under his belt, and after he cut too closely across the bow of a large yacht the Coast Guard put an end to his spree. That night General Willis Skarbeck led off the evening news.
But in spite of the busted career and wrecked marriage and court-ordered psychiatric hospital time Bronc subsequently served, Victor Wilding thought Skarbeck probably still had good mileage left and gave him a job offer. The job description was to plan a military-style takeover of the United States government that would not involve hostilities with the military establishment currently in place, then implement that plan.
Bronc said bullshit, couldn't be done without massive intervention by a major foreign axis like the recovering (from a bout of democracy) Russians and their newfound, slant-eyed buddies to the east.
He was urged to give it more thought. Starting with the premise that if the American People were scared enough of an outside threat to their security (an unnamed supergroup of terrorists supported by a dozen nations that, individually, could not defeat the U.S. in armed conflict), and there was someone they could turn to who seemed to have the power to keep their hopes and dreams alive, they would put up with a shredding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to obtain the security they desired. Most of them didn't care all that much for politics anyway. The AP just wanted things to go on working the way they were used to having them work. It was an imperative of human nature.
So Bronc came up with the idea of ACID, which was a kind of Big Daddy for local law enforcement agencies throughout the country. ACID provided money, training, and materiel that was gratefully received. ACID used a tidal wave of profits from MORG's global drug operations to create a unified force of agencies that ranged from state game and fish commissions to major-city police departments. Within forty-eight hours of the national emergency that Bronc postulated, his Accelerated Counter-Insurgency Defense command would be in charge, by Executive Order. Every base commander of every military installation in the U.S., many of whom were clandestine MORG supporters (either through bribery or blackmail), would be relieved or implemented by ACID personnel. The evacuation of official Washington would be conducte
d quietly. Bunkers had been prepared for the legislators in the Maryland and Virginia countryside, where they could count on a long stay while Clint Harvester ran the country from the western White House. But Rona soon added her contribution, even bolder ideas than Bronc Skarbeck dared to conceive.
The detonation of two or three nuclear devices on American soil was a regrettable part of the master plan. Even Rona had hesitated to use nukes. But only nuclear terror and the threat of more bombs had the power to unite the masses and escalate their approval of the Harvesters to near idolatry.
The American people would pray to Jesus. But only Rona could give them hope, give them back their lives.
On her terms.
The main feature of the Situations and Planning Center was a three-dimensional computer-constructed map of the United States, based on high-resolution satellite photographs, that took up an area the size of a football field on the main floor. A gallery like a running track in a gymnasium afforded a view of the layout. The gallery was honeycombed with virtual-reality booths in which technicians could monitor MORG operations in as many as twenty cities simultaneously by following agents equipped with sophisticated transponders, cameras, and sensors along the streets or through skyscrapers. Ride in elevators with them. Take an advance look at potentially dicey situations, as a mission unfolded and advise the team leader. All the super-computers needed were street numbers in order to create a complete virtual-reality environment, including customers sipping coffee at a sidewalk cafe and a basset hound peeing on a nearby hydrant.
Marcus Woolwine's contributions to virtual reality, Randy and Herb, had departed Plenty Coups at noon with lots of fishing gear in the back of their '97 Jimmy and a Hiroshima-yield nuclear device in what appeared to be a large tackle box. The box had been designed to shield neutron emissions. S and P Center was tracking Randy and Herb eastbound on Interstate 90 through the Wyoming grasslands. They would be stopping for dinner in Rapid City, South Dakota; then Herb would take over behind the wheel. They had a reservation at a Comfort Inn near Sioux Falls where they would sleep with the tackle box in the bathtub and MORG agents occupying the rooms on either side of them, fully alert through the night. A dedicated satellite fifty-five miles above the Comfort Inn also would be watching. The atomic demolitions device, like the one that had been detonated in Portland, was Russian made and had once been a part of a 132-bomb stockpile. At least eighty-four of them could no longer be accounted for by the Twelfth Department's high command. MORG owned six, and knew the whereabouts of twenty more.