But his main interest today was in the semitrailer parked in the middle of the hangar, surrounded by generators and compressors, its back door open, a tangle of hoses and cables connecting it with the outside world. This was the package, a very unusual shipment intended not for sale, but for their own special use.
Eager as he was to see the contents of that truck, he waited patiently a few feet from his car, hands in plain view, as one of the armed guards and a short woman in a lab coat approached him. He recognized the woman; in fact, he had hired her into the organization himself. Still, he did not complain as the guard carefully compared his picture with one on his clipboard before nodding in recognition and putting away his weapon.
He tried to recall the woman’s name. Bervin. Yes, that was it, Dr. Frances Bervin. He watched her from behind as they walked, the heels of his dress shoes clicking on the concrete as everyone around him moved silently on sneakers or tennis shoes. She was broad hipped, a little stout, salt-and-pepper hair worn in a tight bun, wire-rimmed glasses propped on her forehead.
She might have been mistaken for a PTA mother except for the glint in her eye that had initially interested him in her. He saw it whenever a technical challenge was thrown at her, and it was never dimmed in the slightest by conscience or any ethical dilemma. She had a passion for her work, and had little or no concern for how it was applied. He liked that in his people.
He could see the interior of the truck as they rounded the end of it. From the outside it appeared to be a conventional refrigerated trailer, down to the chain grocery store logo painted on the sides, but inside it was a high-tech workshop in the making. One side of the truck had been lined with polished white workbenches, which were now being outfitted with electronic test and assembly equipment. The front of the truck formed a compact but reasonably complete machine shop, with heavier hand and power tools. But all this existed to serve the row of tarp-covered objects that lined the other wall of the trailer.
There were seven of them, each draped with blue canvas held on with nylon straps. Each was about seven feet tall, vaguely human shaped in a wide, slope-shouldered sort of way, held upright in individual service gantries bolted to the floor.
Ivan climbed a set of folding metal steps into the truck. It smelled of ozone, hot metal, and melted plastic. He put his hand on one of the wrapped forms, feeling the reassuring solidity of metal underneath. “I expected them to be bigger,” he said.
Dr. Bervin stepped in beside him. “Most of the series are. These are covert models, designed for stealth, speed, and operation in close quarters. Street fighters, not walking tanks.”
“They seem reasonably complete. Why the delay?”
Bervin laughed harshly. “If I took these tarps off, you would see these are only stripped-down chassis. Most of the electronics, the power supplies, the servo-actuators, the weaponry, are being worked on in our shops while we finish outfitting the truck. We’ll continue to work on them all during the trip east.”
She walked down the line of shrouded machines, touching each one gently as she passed it. ‘ ‘None of the units was complete when we received it. What we got were ‘spare parts,’ written off of official inventories one by one, the stripped-down hulks of a dozen units, from which we figure we can finish these six. Even then, there will be some variations in functionality and armaments.”
Ivan frowned and jammed his hands in his pants pockets. That was not the package as it had been sold to him, but then, he’d suspected that the Transabal revolutionaries he’d been dealing with had been less than truthful with him, and there had been little opportunity to inspect the units without attracting official attention.
Bervin watched his reaction with great interest. “Never fear. These units will function, and function well. Just don’t expect them to operate at factory specs. Given more time, I could likely fabricate the missing parts, perhaps even offer some upgrades, but—” she shrugged “—the Expatriate has put us on a strict timetable.”
He met her eyes, and she did not flinch. “Do not expect any flexibility in that schedule either, Doctor. In fact, do not be surprised if it is pushed up. As much as possible, prioritize your efforts to have as many units operational as soon as possible, rather than having all completed at once. And most of all, we will need one unit to operate to full specs, and we will need it ready quickly, to allow for the cosmetic modifications that we require."
Bervin leaned back against the workbench, allowing a workman toting a welding torch to move past her. “You ask a great deal.”
“I ask nothing. The Expatriate demands. Do not fail him.” “I have no intention of letting our mysterious leader down. I can shuffle enough parts to make one unit with all the bells and whistles, and I can make it the first one we complete.” “Make it the second one. I wish you to make your mistakes, do your learning, on the first. This unit must be perfect.” “How soon then?”
“Five days.”
That harsh laugh again. “Absurd. What you ask is impossible.”
Ivan felt his features harden into what one of his KGB associates had once termed the killing face. He stepped closer to her, and this time, she did flinch. “You disappoint me, Doctor. We have spent much, gone to considerable trouble and risk, to smuggle this package back into the country, and we have so little to show for it.”
“Five days,” she said, relenting. “I can promise you the two units in seven days. The others I can have in ten to twelve days, though there may be compromises.”
He stepped closer again. A forklift loaded with crates stopped behind the truck, casting the interior into shadow. “I am troubled, Doctor. What assurances do I have that you can make these units functional at all?”
“Admittedly, the technology is unusual, challenging. This is not like adapting a Stinger missile to Russian guidance radar, or converting an aircraft Gatling gun for antipersonnel use. But I had anticipated your concerns, and prepared a little demonstration for you.”
His eyebrows rose, the killing face fading. “Demonstration?”
She took advantage of his change of mood to slip past him, gesturing him to follow. They climbed down out of the track and she led him around the stacks of warehoused crates, through another set of blackout curtains, and through a small door in the back of the hangar.
The sunlight hurt his eyes as they crossed a few yards of gravel walkway to a small metal shed that might have once hangared a single light aircraft. She unlocked another door, and they stepped back into cool darkness, the air inside damp and musty. He heard a switch click, and a row of fluorescent tubes in the ceiling flickered reluctantly to life.
At one end of the enclosed space, several sawhorses had been set up to create a crude test stand. On the floor, a large power supply was connected to a wall outlet, and to the test stand by a pair of finger-thick black cables. There, an array of electronics was spread out in crude, breadboard fashion and in the center of it sat a polished object, slightly tapered toward the rear, open muzzle pointed out toward the front wall.
Without explanation, she turned on the power supply. There was a hum, and a whine so high pitched that he could barely hear it. She flipped another switch, and the sliding doors at the front of the building rolled back.
Again, the sunlight blinded him, and he shielded his eyes for a moment with his hand, but when he took it away, he could see the parking apron of the abandoned airstrip outside, and on it the stripped hulk of an old twin-engine airplane, motors missing, windows smashed, tires flat on the cracked concrete. Though smaller than a modem airliner, it was not a light plane. A vintage DC-3 airliner, he thought, the famous Gooney Bird. “What is this?”
The doctor smiled at him. “A target.” She fished a key from her pocket, placed it into a switch on the breadboard, and turned it. A row of indicator lights glowed green. She pointed at a large red push button near the butt end of the silver cone. “Do the honors.”
He placed his finger over the button, then looked at the plane parked outside. �
�What can I expect?”
“This is an electromagnetic constrictor device. The effects are spectacular, yet controlled and closely contained as suits the design of these units. As I said, they are designed for surgical, close-in strikes.”
“Recoil?”
“None. This is a directed energy weapon.”
He pushed the button. There was no recoil, though the unit bucked slightly, and he felt his watch pull against his wrist. A beam of energy lanced out from the muzzle, green with arcs of blue electricity that spread over the plane like tiny snakes, a nest of baby constrictors after a single huge meal. Then the plane contracted, crumpled like a soda can being crashed by an unseen hand into a central point in the air, until the glow winked out and the mass of metal, now little bigger than a minivan, fell to the concrete with a crash.
He nodded. “Impressive, but our targets are flesh and blood.”
She smiled her poisonous smile and waved off his concern. “This is less effective on nonmetal objects, but I suspect that none of your targets is as large as an airliner either. Besides, we’ll have a whole arsenal of surprises ready to keep them entertained.” She touched the barrel of the weapon gingerly, and he realized that it was hot. “I don’t envy them.”
He nodded, satisfied. Suddenly he was anxious to get on with business. “Proceed, then. There are other preparations to be made. In Wyoming, you’ll rendezvous with our special-effects man. He will need access to your best unit, to make measurements and take casts of the shell. It is important that you be ready for him.”
She looked confused. “Special-effects man? Do you mean that literally?”
“The best that we could hire away from Hollywood.” He chuckled as he headed for the shed’s door. “How else do you expect that we will build a mutant?”
Angelo scratched the stubble on his chin and watched as Everett draped a hammock across the high observation chair that they’d come to call the top-gun seat. He had arranged the hammock in such a way that one could sit in the seat and have one’s feet and legs supported by the lower end of the hammock.
Angelo sniffed. “You sure you want to sleep up there, Roger Ramjet? We got plenty of room on the sofa bed.”
Everett finished tying the last knot and slung himself into the seat experimentally. He squirmed a little, looking for the most comfortable position. “You kidding me? This is the best bed in the house/* He tapped the Plexiglas dome over his head, looking up at the blue sky only now beginning to darken with sunset. “Sleeping right under the stars, waking up to the first morning light. What’s better than that, huh?”
Angelo just shook his head and chuckled. ‘ ‘Were you bitten by a radioactive Boy Scout, or what?”
Jono sat in the driver’s seat, swinging it back and forth on its swivel, a pair of headphones covering his ears. He glanced up at them curiously, then went back to his listening.
There was a tapping at the door, and it opened a crack. “You boys decent in there?” It was Paige’s voice.
“For you, chica, I could be much better than just decent.” Paige pushed on through the door, an annoyed look on her face. Monet and Jubilee followed close behind. Paige and Jubilee sprawled on the couch. Monet sat cross-legged on the recliner.
Angelo pretended to ignore them, digging through the small fridge for a soda. He found a can he liked, pulled it out, and popped the top. He took a deep swallow before turning his attention back to the girls. “To what do we owe this visit from the great castle on wheels? Our Xabago is your home.” Paige was not amused, or wasn’t showing it if she was. “Serious powwow, Angelo. We want to ask you a question.” Angelo took another swig from the can as he considered. Not, “Can we ask you a question?” Whatever they wanted, Paige wasn’t about to let it slide by, and that chica could be as stubborn as the hills she was bom in. Might as well get it out of the way. “Sure,” he said, “give me your best shot.” But it was Jubilee who asked the question. ‘ ‘When you were grilling the bib-overall battalion today, you asked them where they got their mad-on for mutants. They said something about the radio, something about a guy named Norman, and you freaked. Why?”
Angelo felt a dent in his machismo, and pulled himself indignantly up to his full height. “I did not ‘freak.’ ”
Paige stood up too, her arms cross defiantly across her chest. “I saw it too, Angelo. I may not have a photographic memory, but I remember well enough. Norman was the name.”
Jono seemed to have tuned in on the conversation. He swung around toward them and took the headphones off, setting them in his lap. Tiny, unintelligible voices could be heard from the earpieces.
Everett looked down from his perch, making eye contract with Angelo. Angelo turned to see that Jono was staring at him too. So were the girls. He felt his too-large skin tighten involuntarily. “So, yeah, I got a little stressed. Is there a problem with that?” He tapped his chest with the fingertips of both hands. “You try looking like me, you’d get a little stressed too.”
Paige just locked eyes with him. “You’re holding out on us, all of you guys. Tell me, Angelo. Why?”
Before Angelo could say anything, Jono interrupted him. “There’s a taped repeat on one of those high-power AM stations in the Midwest. I just got it tuned in.” He reached over and tugged the headphones out of the jack. Suddenly the voice of Walt Norman was coming at them from all twelve speakers, immersing them in his thinly veiled hate.
It was night and the two-lane road was empty. At times like this, Ivan liked to roll the windows down, turn the radio up loud, and drive until he could hear the tires scream for mercy on the curves. His preference was for classical music; he could not stand the American forms of country or rock and roll, but there were no appropriate stations in this wilderness, and while the car had been fully equipped in other ways, the only tapes he found in the vehicle were of the despised rock. And so he found himself listening, for the first time in a while, to The Walt Norman Show.
While Ivan applauded the antimutant tone of the show, he had little stomach for anything else about it. In his opinion, Norman was a buffoon, a useful clown and nothing more. That he should consider himself superior to his fellow humans, especially one so capable as the Expatriate, was laughable. He was uncertain how the man known to the world as Trent McComb could stand this charade.
Then he heard the Expatriate’s voice, not as he normally heard it on the phone, but booming and jovial, introducing a commercial for some itch powder, another useless product of American decadence. What a country this is, seductive one moment, repugnant the next. But no matter how he rationalized its weakness, there was no doubt that it had toppled his beloved Soviet Union. That was a transgression he could never completely forgive, his unending reason to use the country’s ways against itself, to bedevil it from within in every way possible.
As for the Expatriate, his hatred was more focused. The Americans had wrecked his homeland of Genosha as well, driven him into exile—but not the United States as a whole, just a few of its denizens, the mutants known as the X-Men. They were out there even now, hidden in the darkness like rats, but they could not hide from the Expatriate’s wrath, not when he could reach the minds of millions of their countrymen, fanning their hatred of mutants, then using that engine of media hatred for a second purpose, providing arms to terrorists and antimutant groups.
There was a sweet justice to it all that made the buffoon on the radio almost bearable. But only almost. He reached over and snapped off the radio, leaving him with only the road and the darkness.
Angelo reached for the radio knob. The girls had been listening to the Norman show for almost an hour, more than enough to get the flavor of the thing. As for Angelo, he wondered if he’d ever get the bad taste out of his mouth.
But Paige grabbed his hand and pulled it back. “Wait!” The announcer was giving the numbers for the listener call-in line, and Paige dug through the clutter on the counter until she found a felt-tip pen and a napkin she could write on. She jotted down the toll-free
number.
Angelo poised his hand over the radio knob again. “Now?” She nodded. “That’s enough for now.”
Angelo clicked the radio off and settled back into the passenger-side front seat. “So, there you have it.”
Monet looked up at Angelo. “He’s not a very nice man.” “Perceptive,” said Paige, a sarcastic edge on her voice. “Well,” she insisted, “he isn’t.”
Paige shook her head in exasperation. Monet was difficult to figure out sometimes.
Angelo leaned forward in his seat and looked at the napkin that Paige clutched tightly in her hand, but it was Jono who expressed his unspoken question.
“You aren’t thinking about calling this blighter, are you?” Paige glanced up at him and held her gaze for a moment before answering. “I’m thinking. Just thinking.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The President, seen here at a fund-raising dinner in Texarkana, Arkansas, again denied that the White House is considering new measures to control mutant terrorism. The President will remain in Texarkana for several days of golf, and to participate in a fun run with local celebrities. The event will benefit children’s charities. In other news, curfews in Dayton have been rescinded and National Guard patrols withdrawn as the ‘mutant panic’ seems to have subsided. Dayton’s mayor has formed a city wide task force to study the mutant problem, and to plan a firm and organized response should an actual mutant threat ever strike the city.”
—excerpt from WNN news report
Everett was riding in the top-gun seat again. At times it seemed to Angelo as though they’d never get him down from there again, especially now that they were climbing into the mountains of Montana. From where he was stretched out on the sofa, Angelo could see Everett grinning, his eyes constantly scanning the horizon as though he didn’t want to miss a single scenic beer can.
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