“You have a nice day now,” the one said.
“Be careful, alone out here like this,” the other said.
“With you guys to watch the store,” she shouted after them, “I’m not afraid!” But she feared for all the Snuffys out there. They grinned, waved, and lumbered off along the endless twirls of concertina wire, rifles slung.
As she neared the MP check point, a dark humvee pulled up, and three burly young men with gym bags got out. She looked the other way, pretended not to see them. They pretended not to see her, and no salutes were exchanged. Football player big, they trudged through the checkpoint with a brief show of ID. Tory gave it a moment, then followed. As she signed in, she noted their unit on the lines in the sign-in log above her own: 3045th MI. The two soldiers at the booth were female. She asked superciliously: “Who are the hunks?”
The two women exchanged glances. One said: “Ma’am, excuse me, but them boys got somethin’ downright dead cold by they hearts, if you know what I mean.” The other one said: “I’m married, but even if I weren’t they just got this look that, I dunno, you look in they eyes, you be scared.”
Tory entered the lobby and tossed aside her wet newspaper. She had made it on time. Lots of noise came from the Assembly Hall that stuck out from the three towers the way the U.N. General Assembly Hall stuck out from its single tower in New York. The scene she encountered was disturbing and disgusting. Somebody kept banging a gavel, to no avail. There was a pounding of fists on tables, a raucous noise and counter-noise, as if the delegates were animals. These were the brilliant minds, Tory thought, who claimed they could do better than Washington and Madison and Hamilton and Franklin in Philadelphia during the long hot summer of 1787 (Jefferson being in Paris as U.S. Ambassador to France, but about to return and do his part by promoting Madison’s Bill of Rights). The Second Constitutional Convention was first becoming a laughing stock, and then an object of apprehension across the country. A 900th amendment was just being introduced--something about sending all immigrants of the past 25 years back to their countries of origin, and closing the borders permanently. The unarmed private security guards with limited authority, hired to maintain order in CON2, had already lost control as shoes and empty, greasy paper lunch sacks flew through the air. Two delegates argued on the verge of a fist-fight; since the delegates had complete legal immunity, they could not be arrested. In one corner stood a group loudly and constantly yelling things from the Bible; in another stood Hare Krishnas, chanting and ringing bells. Each group had been invited there by one or more delegates, and could not be removed for some technical reason. In the hall outside, in the gray area between private security’s jurisdiction and General Montclair’s, two drunks lolled on the floor, one in a pool of reddish-clear wine vomit. Trash was strewn everywhere. Tory shook her head and took the elevator downstairs, where the heavy CloudMaster machine virtually reassigned to Operation Ivory Baton sat on its concrete base.
Jet met her there, glad to see a friend. “Ma’am,” Jet said, “there are more and more strange rumors flying around. There’s been another murder, this one an OCP Congressman from Samoa.” Tory was sick of the war of words, sick of the twisting of words, sick of the sickness America had borne for so long, and wanted only to fly away to a tropic island with this wonderful new man in her life, David Gordon. For a moment, assaulted by the bedlam that confronted her, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to regress a few hours. There was David, in her bed, looking sleepy and vulnerable, like a beautiful tiger, powerful but innocent. Her heart melted as she clung to the image, wanting to possess him, to surrender to him and conquer him all in one passionate embrace. The memory of last night rose in her like the smell of rose petals in a summer rain. If he wanted to be with her again, she was ready.
Colonel Bentyne stopped by. She’d only met him a few times. He was a chunky, red-faced man with an odd smile that looked uncomfortable. He wore thick glasses, and his starchy fatigues looked too big on him. He also had tiny sores around his lips, which he’d treated with a glossy cream of some kind, Army-issue, generic, gleaming yellow. By contrast, his teeth were nice and white; hand him that much. “How are you, Breen?”
“Fine, Sir.” She had to remember that this man was going to write her review for the CON2 period, and it would stay in her file forever, and one point less than a perfect score was a negative signal to some future promotion board not to advance her. After shaking his hand, she secretly wiped her hand on her pants. “It’s the best thing,” he was saying. “Get everybody consolidated here. You’ll like it here. It’s a very exciting time, and it’s an interesting place to be.”
“It sure is, Sir,” she said. “A historic moment.”
“Staff meeting at five this evening, my suite on the 36th Floor. You’ll get to meet Colonel Bronf, the Chief of Staff. General Montclair might even poke his head in.”
“Yessir, I’ll mark it on my calendar.”
“Very good. We’re staffing up here, and I expect you’ll be supervising at least twenty people for me. Big shop. Combined Admin, Data Processing, Medical Support Services, you name it.” He noted her corps insignia on her lapels and winked. “Just the job for an MP officer, eh?”
“Yessir. I feel right at home.” After he left, Tory went to the office canteen and washed her hands and face in the little corner convenience sink.
Jet nudged her. Jet had that pixie smile, with slight overbite, and a twinkle in the eyes. She held up a big cookie with chocolate frosting and sugar sprinkles. “Ib’s favorite,” she told Tory. “I just thought you might need something sweet and gooey.”
Tory played along and snatched the cookie. “Do I ever. Gimme that cookie! Is there any coffee here?”
“I made you a pot. I figured you’d need that too.”
“You’re a life saver.”
Chapter 26
Maxie had just finished her part of the drug inventory inside Flight 1 when the radio crackled. Major Chavez, the pilot, had a brief conversation, then turned and hollered: “All Up Alert. We’ve got a live situation developing fast and heavy. Big one, folks.” The engines throttled up and the airframe began to hum. The nurses secured loose items that bounced around on the curettage counter. All together, they turned off the lights and flipped the counter up, locking it secure. Then they strapped in. As Chavez and Dash prepared the roaring, straining helicopter for flight, the rest of the air crew hurried on board--a flight surgeon, two physician assistants, three EMT’s, and two more flight crew. Bladed air swirled hard around them. The EMT’s had smuggled in coffee and donuts, which they handed out after everyone was strapped onto seats and benches. “Where are we headed?” someone asked.
“Don’t know yet,” someone else said. “There’s a new plume of smoke down there.” Several arms reached out and fingers pointed toward the northwest part of the District, past Rock Creek Park, toward a settlement of old brownstone townhouses jammed daintily together in tree-lined neighborhoods. Maxie sipped her coffee and watched disinterestedly, ignoring the smell of carbs and fat emanating from the donuts. Ilitch’s red lipstick had parted into a circle of enormous size, as the woman stuffed in an eclair the size of an eyeglasses case. Ilitch’s eyes became correspondingly large, almost desperate, slightly crossed, as if they wanted to meet around the back of the eclair. And she wonders why she had three chins. Maxie resisted the urge to giggle quietly. She wished she had a camera.
“Bomb explosion,” Chavez announced on the P.A. “Some secret Army installation just got the patriot treatment. They’ve got burns, amputees, stacks of bodies. Better inhale those donuts. This looks like a busy day.”
Slowly, Maxie remembered that--wasn’t that the part of town where David worked? Silence reigned in the ops bay as they finished their coffees and stared out of the windows. Maxie saw tall flames rising from one building, smoke from the building beside it whose roof had fallen in. Civilian police cars and ambulances were there. Chavez’s voice crackled on the intercom: “Few survivors below. Flight
1 is going in. ETA in two minutes. Flights 2 and 3 are turning back to base. Be advised, that’s a highly restricted area down there. Don’t talk with anyone.”
Chapter 27
David groaned as he came to lying on his back. For some glacially long seconds, he thought the flashing colors in his mind and the screaming sirens were the same thing. Then he began to untangle his senses. The colors and the screaming separated, the colors giving way to a grayscale landscape painted in drizzle, while the screaming turned into sirens. The screaming also turned into the feeble cries for help coming from the second building further away, which had not directly suffered the blasts, but must have partially collapsed and now was in danger due to spreading fire.
David shook his head as he sat up. He touched his forehead and found it slippery. He saw blood on his fingers. Beside him was a pile of bricks where Tabitha Summers’s body had been, and he guessed she must be under there. No way she could be alive. A fire engine was trying to get into the alley, but was blocked by debris. Jagged, scorched timbers stuck out of heaps of broken masonry. Combs of lath and plaster were scattered about. Concrete blocks revealed teeth of torn rebar.
David heaved onto his stomach, then did a pushup to get onto his knees and palms. He remembered the urgency of Tomasik and Jankowsky--dead now, along with Tabitha, and how many other innocent people? Gone also was the list of names. David remembered the blond-haired man and the opaque-eyed shadow in the driver’s seat, and suddenly had a sense of desperation. Whoever they were--whatever Operation Ivory Baton was--they were killing everyone connected with Ib Shoob’s discovery. And that meant that he, David, was next. Perhaps he was the only one left alive who knew. He rose, swaying, and pushed down his uniform. The raincoat, although filthy, had only a small tear. His car was down the street on the other side. People were running to aid him, but he yelled. “Go help the ones inside! There’s a woman’s body under the bricks here.” Civilian paramedics offered to help, but he brushed past them. A thick gauze pad got onto his forehead somehow, and he waited a moment while someone wrapped his head. “Just a grazing flesh wound,” he heard. “Get that cleaned out and stitched up. You okay, bud?”
“Thanks,” he whispered. He accepted a drink of cranberry juice. Never during those two or three minutes did he sit down. It started raining again--a fast, straight rain from a bright sky--and he welcomed the cooling water that dribbled through the heat and pain on his forehead and swept the mud from his coat.
He turned onto the side street just as the first military vehicles arrived. Combat soldiers in full gear jumped out and began forming a perimeter. As David turned the corner onto the bigger street where his car was parked, and crossed to the other side, he began to think that he’d be able to get away. Just keep walking, walking, walking, hands in pockets, don’t look left or right. He heard the sound of a helicopter and looked up. There, flying at 2000 feet, he saw three dark choppers flying in a row, each with big red crosses on white square backgrounds. The rear two choppers swung to one side, still in line, turned slowly, flew away. As he walked, David spoke Tory’s work number into his collar com.
She answered: “Yes?”
“Tory.”
“David!” She sounded pleased.
“Something terrible has happened.”
“What!”
“The place I work has been bombed. Everyone is dead, including Tabitha Summers.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m not badly hurt, and I’m walking away. I saw some of the guys who did it. I think. I recognized one man I saw the night Ib was kidnapped. Pleasant preppy blond guy. The other was in Top Five. Reminds you of a lizard. You remember, the guys in the police sketches.”
She cut to the area of her main concern. “How badly hurt are you?”
“Scrape on the head. Civilian Fire Department already patched it up. I’m coming in to see Mattoon. We were betrayed from up top, I don’t know by whom. Someone or some group high up in command. In case I don’t get to him, you do the same. One of us has to reach Mattoon. Tell him to watch out for Operation Ivory Baton. Montclair is in on it. So is Felix Mason. So are two dozen other important people whose names I don’t remember just now. It’s on the list, which Tabitha had and which is now lost. See if you can get Jet to dig it out of the system. It’s got the names of all the important conspirators. They killed Consiglio and Shoob. I’ve got to talk with Mattoon, get him to call off the convention. See if you can get to Mattoon also. CON2 must be canceled. Stopped dead. Killed.” As he stumbled along, he could see the rest of it. There were people waiting in the wings, just waiting for the right moment to step in and take over with a Constitution of their own.
“David, please take care--”
“I’ll be there for you, Tory. I’ll see you in a little while. I’m coming over there.” He stepped off the curb and crossed the street. He saw his car. A row of dark green Army and dark blue Air Force MP squad cars cruised by with flashing lights and screaming sirens. Inside sat MP’s and Air Police in fatigues, holding shotguns. Civilian police cars stood parked with flashing lights, apparently told not to go any closer. A row of Army field ambulances crawled in--olive boxes with white squares and red crosses, their windows and headlights covered with steel mesh. Their headlights were round and yellow, trailing wisps of rain and fog, sallow candles in a funeral procession.
As he approached his car, David fished out his keys. They jangled familiarly and reassuringly. He’d get in and drive away and start making a list of the names he remembered. He put the key in the door and started to turn it.
“I wouldn’t.”
He looked up.
There was Mr. Blond with the steel rimmed glasses. His cherubic face was wreathed in a smile that wavered between childish delight and ice cold insanity. “It might explode if you turn it on, Mr. David Gordon, a pretend Army guy with the Rots.”
“What are you talking about?” David felt a numb matter of factness. Of course they’d come for him. He suddenly felt tired. The smash he’d gotten to the head made him sway a little.
“My colleague and I,” Blond said indicating with his thumb the reptile man who stepped out of a doorway, “want to save you so we can ask you some questions. If you run or yell, I’ll shoot you in the neck and you’ll never walk again. One way or another, I will drag you in for questioning.”
“I’m a U.S. citizen. An officer--”
“You are a dupe of the corrupt and evil forces that took over our country many years ago. Since you don’t know any better, save your breath. Now walk with us.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Mud-Eyes managed a faint smile. His voice was raspy, as if coming from a leathery throat. “We heard you talk with your little chickie. You want to go to the Atlantic Hotel? Why not let us chauffeur you? A free ride to see Colonel Bronf.”
“And who the hell is Colonel Bronf?” David muttered dizzily as they herded him along. People, running past them toward ruins and fire, ignored the three. Then he remembered Bronf--the sweaty, cigarette-smelling, balding little assistant chief of staff he’d met while working on the Corcoran case. This lizard-man had been in Bronf’s office that day.
David echoed the hotel provost marshal’s complaint. “I thought nobody ever got to see Colonel Bronf more than once.”
And Mud-Eyes said: “You just got lucky, asshole.”
Chapter 28
Tory took Jet aside. They were alone in the basement room with CloudMaster. The room seemed innocently cool and semi-dark, but Tory knew the cameras watching over CloudMaster scanned every person, every face near the precious machine. She whispered: “Jet, this is very important.”
“Okay, Ma’am,” Jet said, looking puzzled as Tory’s fist clawed into her uniform at one shoulder.
“Jet, Tabitha Summers was just killed.”
Jet’s expression flew apart. “Oh no.”
“Listen carefully. Captain Gordon is out there walking wounded, trying to get a message to Mattoon. I’m going to fi
nd Chairman Mattoon and give him the same message in case David doesn’t make it.”
Jet wailed in disbelief: “Why...?”
“I’m going to find Mattoon and talk to him.. I want you to start looking for a copy of Ib’s list of the conspirators’ names.”
“But I’ve been looking everywhere!”
“I know. Keep up the good work and don’t lose hope. The list has got to be in the net someplace, and we need to get it to Chairman Mattoon or General Billy Norcross. See if you can find anything on FED, and find out what those result codes mean.”
“I’ll do my best,” Jet said. “Good luck, Tory.” It was the first time she’d ever called her immediate supervising officer by her first name. Tory was grateful for the personal gesture. They shook on it.
“Good luck, Jet. If you find the list, call me right away.”
As Tory looked for Chairman Mattoon, CON2 was on break. The corridor around the main hall was jammed with delegates, security personnel, members of the press. Tory threaded her way through. She sidled into the hall to the podium area. A young page told her that Mattoon had gone back to his hotel room, Room 1861 in Tower One, for an hour.
After a moment’s hesitation she decided to go up directly, rather than call first. She had no idea how she would broach the incredible subject. She entered a quiet, carpeted corridor on the eighteenth floor, found Number 1861, and knocked.
The door opened, a thick voice said “Yes?” and there he was, 6-5, 240 pounds, former quarterback in college football, ex-Air Force officer, retired senator, active on the boards of a dozen corporations, linchpin of CON2, and a pivotal figure in American politics. She stood flabbergasted for a moment, shocked that he had no bodyguards.
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