by Terry James
What if he had concocted the whole problem in his mind? What if Stone Oaks, the people in the mansion, were innocent of the misgivings he had about them? Was all this skulking about necessary? He was tired and growing more so because of jet-lag and hunger, which burned at the center of his stomach. The nerve-wracking ordeal he had been through combined with the body-weakening process to dilute his mistrust — to lessen his caution. He couldn't afford that. The faithful instinct assured him that to let his guard down, even briefly, might be a fatal error.
Moving quietly, Jacob edged up the stairs slowly, watching the closed door at the top. He forced his mind to re-analyze the facts that supported his need to continue considering those in Stone Oaks his enemies.
Fact 1: His call to Karen from the hotel in Brussels. The fear in her voice, afraid at first to talk. His own fear that Treasury agents, who Marchek felt might be part of a conspiracy of some sort, could be listening in on his and Karen's conversation. His, perhaps wrong, decision that they would have to take a chance and discuss what she had learned.
"I know it sounds paranoid, Jake. But that's what you thought before we were nearly killed and Dr. Marchek was... murdered," Karen had said. She had found notes of some sort in which the eschatologist had written something about a secret place where he kept what Karen said were things he told no one, not even her. Marchek died the night of that day he made the notes. "I found out the reason he was murdered," Karen had said. "...I found out that they killed Dr. Marchek because he learned that this country, that is, some people at the top, have..." They had been cut off.
Fact 2: The surveillance, the cameras, the guard at Naxos who walked in on him, obviously wanting a look at what he was concealing in the closet. Was this part of something to do with the evil in this old house? Or a separate evil?
Fact 3: The certainty, in his own mind at least, that his own government and Conrad Wilson were keeping the full truth from him.
Fact 4: The most troubling of all--his Holophone conversation with Karen had been doctored. A pre-recording that duped him the first time around, in which her voice displayed no emotion. Her demeanor having changed completely from the terrified state she was in when he talked with her from Brussels. That call had been made, supposedly, to this house. The picture phone connection made in a basement room within 20 yards of where he now stood.
A strong case for regarding those in the mansion as his collective nemesis.
And, what about the disappearance? A factor he could not even fathom. Where did the sudden disappearance of all those people fit in his nightmare? Or did it?
Looking first into the other basement area was the logical tactic. The governmental nerve-center of the old house, consisting of the latest telecomputer communications and cryptology equipment, was the place to start his search for answers — and for Karen. During the least precarious of times, that area was manned by at least three people from State. Now, with the dual cataclysms, with the certainty that martial law would be instituted, security would be stepped up. Increased activity surrounding the estate lent credence to that likelihood.
What if he were discovered? He could claim indignantly that Stone Oaks, after all, was his home. Why, then, the sneaking in? Because of the disappearance or whatever it was... Because of the Russian thing... He simply did not know what to expect, the old mansion being an unofficial international liaison point for the State Department.
Whether those excuses would work ultimately made no difference. If it came down to it, he would use the one weapon he had, the explosive in the attaché case. Unless this enemy knew about his mission to the President, and about the explosive and how it worked. The operative had said however, that only he, the operative and President Farley knew the explosive device's formula for detonation. So, he must be satisfied, for the moment, with that thought.
The immediate problem was how to get to the DNC, Conrad Wilson's pet term for the Diplomacy Nerve Center. Again childhood experience made a way for the adult to proceed with the least chance of being exposed. The sealed-off dumbwaiter was the answer. Like the sewer-tunnel, there was a question of whether it was usable after so many years. And could he get to it without drawing attention to himself, considering the noise it would be necessary to make?
Opening the door at the top of the steps, he looked through the crack in all directions. He must make it through the dark hallway, through the small, informal dining room and into the pantry just off the seldom-used kitchen, with the hope that Wilson had not ordered the antiquated elevator taken out.
Moving into the hallway, he crept along one wall and through the doorless archway into the dining area — stopping, then ducking beneath a big oak table in the center of the room when he heard voices coming from the kitchen only a few steps away. The dining room was dark, except for the light spilling beneath the kitchen's swinging doors. He would be safely out of view when they passed through — something they must do because there was no other exit from this kitchen.
The feet of two men shuffled back and forth in the line of light beneath the doors. The voices were clearly audible.
"As I see it, it's our job to present this thing in a way that will convince, or at least explain in the most convincing way possible, what's happened and why it happened."
"Yes... that it's more than just theory. It's rationally explainable."
"But that the details have to wait."
"Exactly. The details have to remain classified."
"For security reasons."
"Yes. We tell them that the details of what's happened have to remain classified for security reasons, until such time as the facts can be fully presented without danger."
"We'll talk only in terms of a natural phenomenon, then..."
"That's right. The scientists will continue to explain it as two separate events, caused by a single phenomenon. They'll say that due to the complexity of it all, they won't talk about it further, publicly, until they can give all the facts in understandable terminology."
"So what we'll be doing for now is just expanding on what we've already given them. The cosmic disturbance story."
"Exactly."
The doors swung open and Jacob moved deeper into the darkness beneath the table. Both men stood for a moment in the doorway, silhouetted against light from the kitchen. The taller, slimmer one spoke. "Well, we've been looking for a reason strong enough to warrant the merger. This has certainly provided us a legitimate reason."
The voice — the familiar face — discernible now while its owner faced the light. Lawrence Thorton, top-rated network news anchorman. "It's all in place, and the Social Security input makes it easy to make the conversion. UNIVUS and UNIVER aren't that different from INterface, as I understand it," Thorton said.
"Except that INterface is a million times faster in its ability to provide detailed data on everyone who's lived since Social Security records have been kept. And its capabilities in the area of physically keeping tabs is unparalleled."
"I'm talking about the ease of converting all personal data and transactional aspects from the old system to the new... they're similar."
"Yes... they are basically the same as far as basic technology is concerned. It'll just be a matter of pushing a few buttons. The satellites, lasers, fiber optics and computers will do the rest. Our main thrust is to get people to accept the concept, once and for all, of global citizenship."
"With these calamities they've witnessed, that shouldn't be a problem."
The other man moved slightly, to a position where the light struck his face. He was Martin Vestoble, President Parley's chief of staff. "Certainly not in Europe. And people here will come around once they know we've lost so much in this disappearance thing. People in this country, despite political differences, have always looked to the sitting president as leader in a crisis. With Farley gone, and the Vice President doing what he's going to do, they'll accept a more global leadership."
"He will have to institute Executive Order 16,000 to get
the authority he needs to do it," Thorton said.
Executive Order 16,000! Giving the Executive control over every facet of national activity! — In effect, dictatorship!
"Farley would've never imposed 16,000. If not for his disappearance, and the Russian invasion, we would have had to go to the alternate option. Farley would've had to go," Martin Vestoble said.
So they didn't know what caused the Russian destruction or the disappearances. They simply accepted those cataclysms as fortuitous to their one-world plan. And, that plan would have been carried out, even if they had to create artificial calamities. They would have assassinated the President, if necessary, and invoked Executive Order 16,000, regardless. What about the Vice President? What could he do, once he took the oath of office, that Vestoble apparently believed would be even more dramatic than invoking the Executive Order?
"We're lucky this thing didn't happen earlier," Vestoble said, reaching into the kitchen to flick off the light. "A month ago we could've offered only promises. Now, the system's in place and ready to go."
"I'm looking forward to seeing how it's all going to fit together," Thorton said, while both men passed through the dining room, then walked down the hall, their voices becoming muffled in the distance.
His instincts had been right, drawing him clandestinely to Stone Oaks. Whatever lay at the heart of their plan to deal with the monumental changes taking place in the world could, perhaps, be learned here in the old mansion. And, maybe, whatever was at the root of his own problems.
After an estimated two minutes, Jacob moved from beneath the table and crept through the kitchen into the pantry. A large china cabinet covered the wall where the dumbwaiter was once loaded and unloaded in the transport of food, laundry and trash -- the shaft running vertically the height of the three stories. The last time he rode the manually operated lift he was 13, and probably 70 pounds lighter. Would it support his weight now?
He strained to move the old cabinet from the wall. The opening was covered by 1/8"-thick plywood, hinged at the bottom on either side and latched at the top with a throw-bolt. He pulled the bolt to the left, freeing the covering to swing down and against the wall. He wished for light to see the condition of the dumbwaiter, but had to settle for feeling the chains that were strung over pulleys and gears at various points up and down the shaft. They felt relatively clean, not rusted or corroded, but more flimsy than he remembered, and he did not relish climbing into the black shaft, or trusting the wooden floor of the lift to support his 182 pounds.
He reached into a recess inside the wall and unfolded a handle. Cranking it slowly at first, he became bolder when the sounds of the apparatus proved less noisy than he had feared. The platform came to him after 20 seconds of cranking and he ran his hands across the flat, dusty surface after locking the cranking mechanism back into place. He had to risk it.
Carefully placing one foot at a time on the carrier and pressing down to test its solidity, he continued to support the bulk of his weight on the heels of his hands until satisfied the old platform was reasonably trustworthy. It creaked and swayed, but seemed to want to hold the weight. Would the gears allow him to lower himself slowly, under control? Only one way to know.
He crouched, his full weight now on the carrier, and turned the tension knob on the brass plate beside the cranking mechanism to full tension. Holding tightly to the chain that held him suspended, he freed the crank handle. The platform jerked and fell a few inches, but the tension chain held. He tested the lift by slowly letting it ride downward; for the moment, at least, the thing was working well.
The dumbwaiter arrived at basement level with a bump against the shaft's floor. He fumbled through the right pocket of his pants for the nail clippers, silently cursing when he realized they were not in the right pocket but in the left, making it hard to retrieve them because he had to slide the handcuff and the attaché case as far up his left arm as possible, then get his left hand deeply enough into the pocket to reach the clippers.
Painfully managing the feat, he pulled open the clippers' handle and slipped it through the crack between the wall and the piece of plywood that was the door covering the dumbwaiter shaft. Would the bolt still be accessible, like when he was a boy? Would the noise alert someone? The door opened into a small room with a concrete floor, an area formerly used for dirty laundry and garbage pickups. Outside the room lay a network of hallways and larger rooms used by the State Department.
The bolt slid to the right, but not without considerable resistance, unlocking the covering, which began its swing downward. He quickly grabbed the edge of the plywood to keep it from banging against the wall below.
Now to analyze his situation. How many times he had done this — happily. A little boy's adventure, troubled only by the villains skulking about in his imagination. How different now, with real terrors to test his stealth.
With the plywood bolted back in place, he moved to the door leading to the maze of corridors and rooms. No activity in sight, but he could hear human sounds coming from somewhere several rooms away. One last childhood secret — the crawl space between the basement and the first floor, accessible only through a maintenance equipment closet just off the hallway. If the closet was not locked.
Outside the tiny room, the hallway was brightly illuminated with squares of fluorescent lights mounted in the ceiling. The off-white walls were uninterrupted by anything that might offer a hiding niche. If he could just make it 30 feet to the maintenance closet.
Made it! - Tried the door - Unlocked! Quickly, he shut the door behind him when he heard voices and footsteps. Two men! There would be only one of two places they were going -- only two doorways in this part of the corridor. The door to the room he had just come from, and the maintenance supply room, where he was now! He backed into the corner that would hide him if the door swung open, and felt around in the darkness for something, anything, that might serve as a weapon. He had not come all this way to be trapped in a janitor's closet! A pipe wrench! He could wreck at least one skull before having to deal with the other man.
The handle turned and the door opened. When the man turned on the light, Jacob would yank him inside and smash his head, then face the other man as quickly as he could. But the intruder didn't turn on the light; instead he fumbled in the semi-darkness, searching the corner directly across from where Jacob stood.
"Where's that cleanser can, Joe?"
"It's just to the right, beneath the sink."
"Yeah... here it is. I got it."
Jacob lowered the pipe wrench, weakness replacing the battle-ready muscle tenseness. Heels clicking in the distance told him the men were no longer a threat.
He would not risk turning on the light in the closet, but must be careful not to knock things over in the crowded area. The ladder was built in as part of the wall, just to the left of the sink — still there, just as he remembered. Feeling his way up the 2" x 4" strips to be sure they were still solid and that there was nothing that might fall hanging on the steps, he used his right hand to touch the plywood piece that covered the opening to the crawlspace. Unlike the coverings for the dumbwaiter shaft, this covering was removed more often, and it raised easily. The wiring and the metal ventilation tubes, as well as, the plumbing, were regularly inspected through this opening to the crawl area.
After struggling upward onto the flooring, he replaced the plywood, then crawled, feeling ahead with his free hand. Like the sewer-tunnel and the dumbwaiter, this one-time friendly play area now seemed hostile, and was more confining than when he and Joey Framington crawled these same planks to spy on the unknowing State Department men and women inhabiting the forbidden regions below. Now, the spying would be for real, the penalty for being found out, much greater.
There was hope, because despite elaborate security — though certainly not as elaborate as what now surrounds the estate — he and Joey were never caught in the act of spying.
It was a simple enough procedure: remove the ducting tape, quietly s
lide the square, metal duct sections apart, and peer through the grated vent. One could observe, without being seen, everything going on in the room below. Each room in this basement area had at least one duct and he would have a look at them all. The trick was to take the silver tape off slowly, carefully, so it could be replaced when the spying was finished.
His first two attempts led to darkened, empty rooms, and he replaced the ducts before moving to the third, the room he remembered as the largest in the State Department complex. Looking between the thin, slanted vent louvers, he saw four big television screens, three filled with images of human activity; the fourth appeared to be a massive computer screen displaying data and graphics. People, maybe a dozen — it was hard to tell because some were out of his line of sight — occupied chairs facing the screens. A tall man wearing a navy blue suit stood with a pointer in his hand.
The President's chief of staff and the anchorman sat in the front row. The man's clear, distinct voice was that of Grant Halifax, Vice President of the United States.
"Each of us here represents government, business or media institutions counted on to maintain order in this Geoquadrant. And it is our job to convince the people that 'The Plan," which will soon be put forth, is the only thing that can assure peace and safety in this crisis and during the transition. It is a transition which has been coming, as you know, but which can now be put into effect with great urgency because of this... cosmic disturbance."
The words were spoken with inflection that implied foreknowledge. "Cosmic Disturbance" — obviously, that was to be the official term for it.
Halifax turned and stepped near the screen displaying the graphics, and pointed. "Of course, it's still too early to know exactly the number we've lost, but according to all indications, it will exceed 25 percent. That, in itself, doesn't sound so bad." He moved the pointer to a line on the screen. "Here are the critical statistics: We've lost 17 percent of the Senate, 13 percent of the House, 19 percent of the Executive Branch, including, of course, the President, and one member of the Supreme Court. Of course, there's no way of knowing right now the total loss of the Judicial Branch on a national scale.