Freedom's Sons

by H. A. Covington

  “According to our orientation back in Washington, D.C., when you people go off on wild tirades like that we’re supposed to smile and change the subject,” said Bella Sutcliffe.

  “How?” asked Campbell in amusement.

  “Very carefully, because you’re dangerous psychopaths who live in a culture of violence where weapons-carrying is actually encouraged, and you respond to difference of opinion by acting out with potentially lethal consequences.”

  “That sounds like a direct quote from an ONR lecture,” remarked Bob.

  “It is,” replied Bella. “Seriously, I suppose I’d better climb down. For all I know the ONR is right and you may really shoot me. I just love pushing the envelope. They find any more interesting and anomalous artifacts over there?” she asked, pointing to the dig site.

  “Not yet, I don’t think,” said Jason. “Your boss Doctor Wyrick went back to the university so she can watch the carbon dating process on the fish hook tomorrow. I’m surprised you didn’t go with her.”

  “She left me behind here to spy on you!” whispered Bella conspiratorially. “Thanks for the chat, Dave.” She slid past them and headed back toward the crowd around the dig site.

  “You can tell she’s still got those Jewish chromosomes in there somewhere,” remarked Jason thoughtfully. “She seems to have this irresistible urge to get in our faces, as if she can’t help it. Like it’s instinctual.”

  “Pushing the envelope, she called it,” said Campbell. “Let’s hope she doesn’t push too far and really piss somebody off to the point where he kneecaps her. That’s all we need. The Political Bureau would have conniption fits.” He pulled his CID shield from his pocket and flashed it at the Northwest Power and Light technician. “You’re from the Anaconda transmitter?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Colonel,” said the tech. “Working out of Anaconda this week, anyway. I travel a lot. I’m actually based out of Coeur d’Alene and I hit south Montana every couple of months. Name’s Dave Speidel, senior field inspector.”

  “What was the lady with the mouth on her talking to you about?”

  “The Tesla generator,” replied Speidel. “She was curious about how it worked, and so I ran it down for her. Like you said, it’s not as if it’s a state secret any more. I helped install this unit and I’m here to check out the calibration on the receptor cells and make sure they’re still spot on. The plates on these new T-Twelve mobile units have a tendency to slip out of synch sometimes, and it cuts into the pulse conversion ratio. These are okay, they’re converting at about eighty percent, which is about as good as you’re going to get this far away from the pulse source. I’ll fine-tune the antenna a bit as well.” He pointed to the twelve-foot tall reception dish assembly on top of the shed. “When they get that next series of relay towers up between Anaconda and Butte you’ll be able to pull down ninety-six or ninety-seven percent, if you’re still out here then.”

  “NP&L says we’ll have the whole country covered within four years, right?” asked Jason curiously.

  “More like three,” said Speidel proudly.

  “That was all she was talking about? The Tesla?” asked Campbell.

  “Yeah, pretty much. Oh, she dropped a few off-putting remarks that made it clear she thinks we’re all a bunch of dumb rubes, but I know she’s from Out There, and they’re all assholes by nature, so I didn’t bite. That all you want to know, Colonel? I also need to check on your alcohol back-up generator while I’m out here, so in case anything goes wrong at the transmitter or with this unit here, you won’t be without power.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jason with a nod. “Thank you, Comrade.”

  “Uh, I’m not a Party member,” said Speidel, eyeing Jason Stockdale’s Old NVA ribbon and Bob’s Party pin with embarrassment. “Just never was all that into politics. Never could find the time.”

  “Citizen?” asked Bob.

  “That I am,” he returned with some pride. “Second class. I was a tech sergeant in the Luftwaffe during the second war. Worked on Bluelight and V-3 launch systems.”

  “Well, then, you did your bit, citizen,” said Bob. “Most people in the Republic aren’t Party members. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

  As they were walking back to the main dig, Jason asked, “Now why would La Sutcliffe be interested in the site’s electric power source?”

  “It may be nothing, but I think her raven locks just rose a bit higher on the radar than the rest of them,” replied Campbell.

  “Ironic if you of all people were to be the man who caught a female spy,” remarked Jason. “Then you’ll have seen the same game from both sides.”

  “Not really a spectator sport,” replied Bob. “Nor one I like playing, either, on any side.”

  There were no more major finds that day, just a collection of animal bones and a nondescript flint blade. About 7 p.m. the dig shut down for the night. The students got back into their vans for the drive into Anaconda or all the way back to Missoula, as the case might be, while the remaining Eminent Persons piled into their cars to follow Ally back to the government guest house about eight miles from the dig site. Their luggage had already been deposited there that morning and they had all been assigned rooms. This particular establishment was the former Fairmont Hot Springs resort hotel, a pleasant hostelry set in a wide valley with both an indoor and an outdoor swimming pool. It was rumored that the last American owners, a Hindu couple, hadn’t gotten the NVA’s message in time and were buried somewhere on the property.

  Jason Stockdale and Bob Campbell drove back into Missoula together. It was almost a hundred miles, but although Old Interstate 90, now National Highway 12, had not yet been refitted with levitational magneto strips, after the Seven Weeks’ war the highway had been re-built, re-graded, and re-finished as well as expanded to eight lanes, leaving plenty of room. Lack of speed limits combined with Northwest hi-tech engine performance meant that they were back home in a little over an hour.

  Bob got up early the next morning. His wife Millie and youngest daughter Maggie, aged fourteen, came into the breakfast room as he was on his second cup of coffee. Maggie Campbell and Melanie Stockdale were friends and would be starting at Samuel Johnson High together in September. “Are you going back up to Anaconda today, Dad?” asked Maggie. “If you are, can you bring me and Mel along? We want to see the dig. It’s on TV and in the papers, but Mel’s father won’t take us.”

  “Mel’s father and I were up there together yesterday, but he’s right, honey, we’ve got business to take care of, and we wouldn’t be able to show you the site properly. Not that I would be all that sure what’s worth seeing and what isn’t. But we’d rather you girls not be running around loose up there and getting into things. It’s actually a pretty sensitive site in the national sense. Tell you what, I’ll speak to Ally. She and Bobby Three are working on the dig together, and I’ll make sure they can make the time to give you two a tour in a few days, okay?”

  “Are you going to see Tom today?” asked Millie.

  “Probably,” her husband told her.

  “Do not let him forget the shoot-out Friday night,” she reminded him. “Eli insists he can win the Little Willie and Marie thinks he can too, and it would be a shame for his father to miss it.”

  Tom’s fifteen-year-old son Eli, named after his grandfather, was competing in the Young Pioneers’ Southern Montana District riflery competition. His specialty was Little Willie, a target game fired at 50 yards on a regulation competition range. It featured three steel armor plates in the design of an old-style American judge in a black robe with a gavel, a large-nosed Jewish attorney with a briefcase, and a sinister-looking FBI agent in sunglasses. The Little Willie was a smaller, mobile target in the shape of a sniveling, cretinous little man, sometimes enhanced with sound effects such as cackling insane laughter or farts, along with a satisfying, pig-like squeal when it was hit. Little Willie moved on an electric or sometimes hand-hauled rail between the three shields, legs and arms pumping, at varying speeds. Th
e object was to hit the creepy thing as it flashed briefly in the open, running back and forth to hide behind the judge and his gavel, or the attorney and his briefcase, or the federal agent. This was harder than it sounds, even at a mere 50 yards, because the target flitted back and forth very quickly between shields in a random pattern chosen by the range operator. The Pioneers demanded each marksman use a bolt-action .22-caliber rifle with a 20-round magazine. This meant the marksman had to fire, chamber another round, and re-sight on the speeding little eedjit. It was a hard shoot, and perfect scores of 20 hits were rare enough to make the sports pages of the local paper. Eli had managed it once since he was twelve years old.

  “I’ll make sure Tom doesn’t forget,” said Bob. His phone bleeped; he pulled it out of his belt clip and saw it was Tom Horakova. “Well, speak of the devil!” He flipped the phone open. “Top of the morning to you, Thomas!”

  “Top of my ass!” swore Tom into the phone, which was unusual for anyone of his generation.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Jason.

  “We both need to get down to the Fairmont Lodge, now!” said Horakova. “Meet me at the cop shop. Never mind the Heep, I’ve already laid on a Guard helicopter for us.”

  “What’s happened?” demanded Jason.

  “Bella Sutcliffe,” said Tom tersely. “She was found floating in the pool this morning, dead.”

  “She drowned?” asked Jason, stunned.

  “No. Strangled first. I’ll bet my shirt this is Scorpius! Instead of using one of the Eminent Persons as an accomplice to fool around with the bits and pieces of old bones and whatnot on the site, stuff only eggheads would understand, he’s splattered the whole project with murder!”

  XXVII

  DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

  (32 years, seven months, and nine days after Longview)

  Take thy fortune; thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.

  —Hamlet: Act III, Scene 4

  The Civil Guard helicopter was warming up on the pad outside the station when Bob arrived and parked his car. He hopped into the aircraft beside Tom Horakova, fastened his seat belt, and a minute later they were in the air and headed southeast. “Who’s the primary on the scene?” asked Bob.

  “One of your guys from the Anaconda detachment, a Detective Sergeant MacPherson,” replied Horakova.

  “Yeah, I know Mac. He’s sharp and efficient. What do we know so far? First off, who found the body?”

  “A couple of Labor Service kids working at the guest house. They went in to the indoor pool about six thirty this morning for a quick dip, and they saw her floating in the deep end. They pulled her out, and the boy tried to resuscitate her, but she was long gone. I had a word with the Anaconda station commander last night, advising him that we were keeping an eye on our special guests out at the Fairmont and they should contact me if there were any problems, so I got the call about six forty-five. The local medical examiner will also be there by now, a Doctor Cantone.”

  “Yeah, I know him, too,” said Campbell. He took out his phone, called the Anaconda Civil Guard station, and had them patch him through to Sergeant MacPherson at the Fairmont lodge. He spoke at some length with MacPherson and the police doctor, then closed his phone. “Cantone ballparks time of death at around midnight. Bella Sutcliffe was strangled with a thin cord or wire, a garrote. No weapon was found on the scene. No defensive wounds, nothing under her nails. No obvious sign of sexual assault. Looks like it all happened quick, neat, and clean. The body was then dumped in the pool.”

  “Probably so the long soak would wash off as many forensic traces as possible,” said Horakova. “A garrote sounds like a trained ONR assassin. Our buddy Scorpius, most likely.”

  Campbell nodded. “Could be. She was last seen in the hotel bar at about eleven, knocking back Blue Goose cocktails like they were going out of style.”

  “What the hell is a Blue Goose?” asked Horakova.

  “Kind of a half-assed martini made out of vodka, lime juice, and some kind of liqueur,” Campbell told him. “By all accounts so far, she held it pretty well and she wasn’t visibly drunk when she left the bar.”

  “Alone?” asked Horakova.

  “Mac didn’t want to commit himself on that, since he hasn’t had time to run down all the witnesses. She changed out of the jeans and denim blouse she was wearing at the dig site yesterday, and she was wearing a dark maroon single-piece summer dress and high heels, which is what she died in. The shoes were at the bottom of the pool. Mac says he gave her room a quick once-over, but nothing obviously hinky jumped out at him. No sign of a struggle in there, so she was presumably done in by the pool, or nearby. He’s canvassing the staff and the guests now. We’ll check them all out, of course, but obviously we’ll be especially interested in the EPs who were staying overnight at the guest house. Some of them were there last night, and some of them drove back into Missoula yesterday and spent the night there to be present at the carbon dating of that fish hook we found. That would be our Oxford don Fred Haskins, Doctor Fortis, Doctor Wyrick, Doctor Kellerman, and both the Martineaus. The assistants Renfrew, Tarricone, and Haines were staying overnight at the lodge where the killing took place. Your people are tracking all their GPIs from the BOSS office tech room, right? Vehicles, American FLEC cards, and their American and Euro personal chips? You need to check and make sure none of them drove back to Anaconda last night.”

  “Already done, first thing after I got the call,” said Tom. “Some movement around town to restaurants and such, but no one left Missoula. Among the Anaconda contingent, no one left the Fairmont after eight p.m. or so. Doctor Arne Wingard was there as well, although we can’t account for his movements, since the Republic isn’t in the habit of planting tracking chips on our own people like they were exotic wildlife whose migration patterns we want to study.”

  “Wingard didn’t go back to Missoula?” asked Campbell in some surprise.

  “No, but that’s not unusual,” Tom told him. “He has his own suite at the Fairmont, to save travel time to and from Lost Creek, which is understandable since he’s always the first on site in the morning and generally the last to leave. Hmm… look, I don’t think it’s one of the EPs, I think it’s Scorpius himself. We know he was already here before they arrived. It has to be a local. Jesus, you don’t think Arne Wingard is Scorpius, do you?”

  “I doubt it,” replied Campbell, shaking his head. “I took a look at his file when this business first came up, just for background. Wingard is a genuine political refugee: there’s still a euro-warrant out on him for inciting to ethnocentrism, whatever the hell that means. He Came Home fifteen years ago and he brought his wife and two children with him. His wife died of a brain hemorrhage four years ago. His son and daughter are both grown and married, and he has grandchildren. He appears absolutely dedicated to his work and the university, and Ally thinks the world of him. He would have to be one hell of a long-term sleeper agent with an elaborately faked background, inserted years before anyone anywhere had any idea where the hell Lost Creek even was, never mind what was under it. While we both know that’s possible, in fact Wingard has been the guy who’s ramrodded the whole Lost Creek project from the get-go, assembled and published all the evidence, and who pushed for this whole Eminent Persons visit to try and authenticate the discoveries here. If his secret mission is to bury the truth about our Aryan ancestors here in America, he’s going about it in a strange way, when there were a dozen other means by which he could have sabotaged the project from the inside.”

  “I just mentioned it because if the killer of Bella Sutcliffe is Scorpius, he’ll be a local with some kind of access to or inside knowledge of the dig,” said Tom.

  “Mmm, yeah, but I’ve been thinking about that. Just because somebody has access to the data here, and transmitted it to the ONR, doesn’t mean they necessarily have access to the site itself. We may have to cast our net a bit wider, look for somebody at the University, most likely a recent arrival, in the past year or so,” s
uggested Campbell. “Somebody in the records or cataloging or clerical end who has or was able to get access to the data.”

  “Coming into the Fairmont Lodge helipad, sir,” said the pilot into the headphones over their ears.

  “Good,” said Campbell. “Let’s see what this mess looks like close up.”

  The first thing they saw from the air was a parking lot full of Civil Guard vehicles with flashing green and blue LED lights. The copter landed on a pad just beyond the outdoor pool, which was naturally heated by the former resort’s well-known hot springs. Detective Sergeant MacPherson and his partner, a South African detective named Roelof Botha, came out to meet them. The men shook hands. “Damn! Got the Chief of Ds himself out for this one!” said MacPherson, a lanky Montana native dressed in civilian jeans and jacket with sharp-toed leather cowboy boots and a Stetson hat. Botha was a lean, blond young Afrikaner in simple work trousers and a windbreaker.

  “How you been doing, Mac?” asked Campbell.

  “Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment from time to time.”

  “This is Captain Tom Horakova, Bureau of State Security,” said Bob as they walked toward the hotel’s main building.

  “Yeah, I heard the trenchcoats were on this,” said MacPherson, shaking Tom’s hand. “You really think this was done by an honest-to-God enemy agent?”

  “I think it’s probable,” Tom told them. “A man or possibly a woman using the code name Scorpius. We don’t know much about him, but we know he’s been nosing around the Lost Creek archaeological site and transmitting just about everything there is to know about the dig to the ONR in La Cesspool Grande.”

  “Damn!” swore MacPherson angrily. Bob and Tom noted he wore the Seven Weeks’ ribbon over his left front pocket. Anyone who had been through the war and seen the shells and bombs and missiles crashing into the Homeland had no time at all for America or America’s spies. “I have to say I’m not completely surprised. This was a cold kill. Northwesters who get ticked off at other people tend to use guns, or sometimes axes or Bowie knives if they’re in a more hands-on frame of mind. A noose isn’t really indigenous to our rambunctious lifestyle here in the Republic. If you’re right, why did this Scorpius character kill Miss Sutcliffe? Was she tied in with him in some way?”