Prisoners of Tomorrow

by James P. Hogan

  Confusion had taken over the command center in the Government Building. One of the console operators was yelling something, Uskayev was trying to make sense out of what the KGB squad commander was saying via a handpad from the rooftop opposite, and Fedorov was babbling something else from Zamork. What was clear was that the faces of the two men being held up on the roof were not those of Scanlon and McCain. Major Uskayev used another screen to call up shots of the prisoners who had been reported missing. “The German, Haber, is one,” he announced. “The other is Sargent.”

  Protbornov was wearing the expression of a skydiver who had just realized he’d forgotten something important before he jumped. On another screen to the side, Fedorov at Zamork waited for orders but was now forgotten. “What . . . What does this mean?” Protbornov choked. “Where is the American? If those two have returned wrong codes . . .”

  Olga was gaping, horrified, as she took in what it meant. The color drained from her cheeks, and her face became a strained, pallid mask of wax. She turned her head slowly and found Paula watching her with a quiet, satisfied expression. “You betrayed me!” Olga whispered.

  Paula almost burst out laughing. “Me? You wanted me to try to stop a war. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing—what you wanted, in your way. So screw you, too, lady.”

  Total shock had seized the room. Seconds ticked by with nobody speaking or moving. Protbornov stared fixedly ahead of him, heedless of his surroundings as the full enormity of the catastrophe unfolded. In the background, the faces on the screens continued making noises but were no longer saying anything.

  Then the shrill tone of a priority call broke the silence. Major Uskayev answered it woodenly. It was from the duty controller in the Strategic Headquarters located beneath the Government Building, which was where the Soviet leaders had withdrawn to direct the forthcoming operations. He looked dazed. “Please advise General Protbornov that American battle lasers have just fired without warning on our spacebased missile defenses,” the controller said. “The whole shield has been crippled.”

  Down below, inside Strategic Headquarters, the First Secretary of the Communist Party and his immediate circle were staring dumbfounded at a message appearing on one of the main display screens. It had started coming in over a priority link from Moscow just as the Soviet supreme commander was about to send the order for Anvil to commence return-fire.

  The message, signed by President Warren Austin of the United States and endorsed by all the Western European and East Asian premiers, was addressed to the First Secretary personally. But instead of being addressed to him at the Valentina Tereshkova space colony, it was addressed to him at “Potemkin, Ground Zero,” and specified correctly the latitude and longitude coordinates of the replica beneath Siberia.

  The West, the message said, had retargeted three thousand of its strategic warheads on those coordinates. The final move of the endgame was up to him.

  EPILOGUE

  “Good evening, Mr. McCain.”

  “Hi, Jerry. That light seems to be fine.”

  “Yes, the maintenance man said it should be okay now. Your cab’s waiting out front.” Jerry took in the dark suit, crisp white shirt, and tie with jeweled clip beneath the overcoat as McCain crossed the rooftop lobby to the main doors. “Going to a party tonight?”

  “No, just a quiet dinner with an old friend.”

  “Have a nice evening.”

  “I’ll try.”

  McCain went out and found the cab waiting on the pad in front of the doors. “Is it the Milburn Towers, sir?” the cabbie checked as McCain climbed in.

  “That’s right. We’ve plenty of time.” The engine note rose, and McCain settled back in the comfortable leather upholstery of the rear seat. Moments later, the brightly lit roof of the apartment building with its garden and pool was falling away below. Lights were coming on in the twilight, and as the cab’s nose swung around, the glow of the Washington, D.C., area moved into the frame of the windshield against the darker sky on the horizon to the east.

  So, the war that would end wars had done precisely that—by never happening. With an entire strategic arsenal ready to rain down on the very point where they had concentrated everyone they had judged as worth the most to preserve—including themselves—what else could the Soviet leaders have done but capitulate? The hills overhead would have made little difference to the size of the hole that would have been made in Siberia.

  Thus in a position to dictate terms, the West had obtained a reconnection to its agents and allies inside Potemkin, and used them to ensure that the Soviets stayed put while an international inspection force was dispatched to Valentina Tereshkova. What they found there, with the world looking on, was enough to topple the Soviet empire, and a modern democratic state eventually emerged from the ensuing internal chaos. Some observers described the process as “1917 played backward.”

  It was November 7 again, and on that date McCain usually found his mind going back to the events that had culminated on that day in 2017. It was customary when thinking over things like that to say that it didn’t seem like ten years, he reflected as he looked up through the cab roof at the stars that were starting to come out—some of them were the artificial worlds being built out there, which at certain times were visible to the eye; he’d seen all he wanted to of artificial worlds and was content to make the best of the real one. But the truth was, it did seem like ten years. A lot of things had happened in that time.

  With the big standoff between the giants at last resolved, the world had been left with little more than local squabbles and police actions to occupy its military minds while it completed its process of growing up. Defense institutions had shrunk accordingly, and the release of creativity and resources from all nations into more productive enterprises had made visible already the beginnings of a social and economic upheaval that promised to dwarf the Agricultural, Industrial, and Information Revolutions put together. The human race would soon explode outward across the Solar System. Real colonies were taking shape in the Earth-Moon vicinity now—in fact, the interior of Valentina Tereshkova had been rebuilt, and it was now one of them. There was a permanent base on Mars, which was mushrooming as new arrivals poured in. Gigantic manned ships for voyaging to the outer planets were under construction in lunar orbit, and robot starprobes were at the design stage. And the underground space colony that had been called Potemkin was still there and working underneath Siberia, as a familiarization and training simulator for would-be colonists. Earth’s population was plateauing out; that of the Solar System, the experts said, was about to take off. The late twentieth century of McCain’s boyhood, with its endless pessimisms about imminent doom and declining everything, seemed a long way away.

  The cab joined one of the traffic corridors into the city, and minutes later was over the rainbow-lit heights and glass canyons of the metropolis. It singled out the blue-frosted pinnacle of the Milburn Towers, circled into its descent, and let McCain off outside the doors leading in from the roof-level parking area, where other vehicles were discharging their loads of evening diners, hotel guests, and revelers. McCain walked through the lobby to the Orchid Lounge adjoining the restaurant, checked his coat, and gave his name to the host, who showed him through to the booth where he was expected.

  The figure that rose to greet him was wearing a dark gray suit, maroon tie, and matching handkerchief protruding from the breast pocket. The face had filled out a little since McCain had last seen it, although the eyes still had a noticeable bulge. It showed the lines of ten additional years, but at the same time had mellowed out and lost the tenseness it had once radiated. It was a face that seemed more at peace with itself and the world now.

  “Hello, Mr. Earnshaw, journalist,” Scanlon said. “It’s been a long time. Your face has undergone some improvement, I see.”

  McCain grinned. “You’re not looking so bad yourself.”

  They shook hands warmly, and Scanlon dropped the act. “Lew, I’m glad to see you so well. Th
is is a fine place you picked.”

  “One of the best in town. Have you been here before?”

  “I can’t say that I have. Washington isn’t a place I’ve ever had an opportunity to get to know.”

  “The restaurant’s beautiful—looks right down over the center of the city. You’ll like it.”

  The cocktail waiter appeared at the booth. He was Oriental in appearance. McCain ordered a Napoleon cocktail, and Scanlon took a refill of Bushmill’s Irish with a touch of water. It was getting on near ten years since they’d last seen each other at the end of the winding-down after it all, when Scanlon had disappeared to pursue his own life. Then, a month or so ago, he had called out of the blue to say he would be in Washington in early November. November 7 had seemed a good day to choose for getting together.

  “So, this is one of your regular haunts, eh?” Scanlon said, raising his glass.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say regular. Once in a while, maybe. . . .”

  “And a fine place for charming the ladies out of their wherewithals, too, I wouldn’t wonder. ’Tis a grand view out there on that side. Do you live near here?”

  “No, not in the city. I’ve got a place at Warrenton, in Virginia—west from here.”

  “How far would that be?”

  “Oh, about thirty miles.”

  Scanlon sat back and looked McCain up and down. “And speaking of ladies, do you ever see the blond partner in crime that you had back then? A bit skinny if I remember, but not bad-looking for that. She had a temper on her, too, that’d put many a man to shame.”

  McCain shook his head. “Not these days. We were just doing a job, that’s all. She got together with Razz in the end. I guess they had some things in common. . . . At least he could hold his own with her. They both went off on one of the lunar projects.”

  “Is that a fact, now?”

  “Something to do with beaming power out to spaceships.”

  “Since you’re still in the area, I suppose you keep in touch with your pals from your old firm,” Scanlon said.

  “I still see Bernard Foleda and his family from time to time,” McCain replied. “You remember him from all the debriefings—the guy I worked for.”

  “I liked him. He said what he had to, without any frills or fancy airs and graces. How’s he doing?”

  “He retired after they started closing chunks of the Pentagon down and the excitement went out of life. Myra—that’s his wife—told me once that he couldn’t get used to not having the KGB tailing him to work every morning. It was as if he’d lost old friends. So he quit. He does things with his grandchildren and drinks with old cronies from the Pentagon Mafia.” McCain made a brief openhanded gesture. “I do see Koh every now and again. He’s into big-time politics in Asia again, and travels backward and forward to Washington. He’s always on a tight schedule, but he makes time if he can.”

  The drinks arrived. McCain looked across, hesitated for a moment, then raised his glass in a toast. “Well . . . to old times, I guess.”

  “And old friends.” They drank, and stayed silent for a few seconds. “And what about yourself?” Scanlon asked at last. “Is the world managing to keep you well enough supplied with mischief?”

  McCain set his glass down and shrugged. “Oh, they gave me an allowance that’ll see me okay permanently, so money’s no problem. I fly a plane and keep pretty active. There’s a woman called Donna that I stay friendly with—I am a one-at-a-time kind of guy, whether you believe it or not. She’s a lawyer and doesn’t need full-time entanglements either, so it suits both of us. Politics and history still interest me—I read a lot.” He sipped his drink again. “And I’m collecting information on the history of espionage technology. I’m thinking maybe I’ll try writing a book about it one day.” He smiled wryly. “The only problem is, I’m not sure if there are many people left who’d have any use for it these days. Maybe commercial espionage is the only field left that pays.”

  “Try writing one on mountaineering, then. Ye’ve some experience of that, too.”

  McCain grinned. “Anyhow, what about you? When you called, you said something about teaching? You? Surely not.”

  Scanlon looked upward and rubbed his neck in a guilty kind of way with his fingertips. “Ah, well now, it’s teaching of a kind, all right—‘security adviser,’ I suppose you might call it. Some of these new nations that are appearing in Asia and all over . . . the people who are mixed up in the jockeyings to run them tend to worry about their safety and such, you understand. They’ll pay well for good instructors to teach their bodyguards the business, if you follow my meaning.”

  McCain nodded in a resigned kind of way. “I might have guessed: know-how for sale, eh? Homicide, mayhem, explosives, booby-traps . . .”

  “A man has to make a living,” Scanlon said, using a phrase from the past. “And besides, hasn’t anyone a right to sleep easy in their own beds?”

  McCain fell silent and studied his glass for a while. When he finally looked up, his face was more serious. “Kev, there’s one thing I always wanted to ask you about. What did make you switch sides back in Zamork?”

  Scanlon shrugged. “Ah well, now, the KGB were never happy about having to use a foreigner for a job like that. But then, they could hardly have used a Russian with a fella like you, could they? So they took the risk and lost. I think maybe the let themselves believe too much of their own propaganda on Irish-English-American relationships. . . . And then, who ever understood how the Irish tick, anyhow?”

  McCain drank, thought, and shook his head. “That was what you said at the debriefings and interrogations, but it never rang true—not to me. What was the real reason?”

  Scanlon looked across, not answering at once, but his expression showed no surprise. Finally he said, simply, “It was Koh that did it.”

  “Koh?” McCain looked genuinely astonished.

  Scanlon turned his head away to gaze out through the glass wall that formed the far side of the lounge. “It was them things he used to say about civilizations: Greeks, Romans, Europe, America . . . even the Brits. How they all were born suddenly like living things, grew and flourished and expressed what they were in everything they did . . . and then they died. A few stones from the rubble are picked up by the next one and built into something better, but the race as a whole moves on and that’s what matters.” He gestured up at the darkening sky outside. “And that’s what’s going on out there, right now. Wouldn’t anyone like to think that what he did helped make a brick or two of what went into it? And when I got to thinking about it that way, how could I carry on working for the crowd I was with? Everything about that system represented where the rest of the world that mattered had come from, not where it was going to.”

  McCain leaned back and looked at him wonderingly. “So it was all those hours you used to spend talking to him. Koh did it, eh? He sweet-talked an Irishman around. I wonder if he knew what he was doing.”

  “Ah, to be sure he knew. . . . And it was watching the likes of yourself, and Razz, and the rest, and thinking what it all stood for,” Scanlon said. “I’d seen a regime that could only survive through fear—that destroyed people’s minds. And then I saw the power of the human mind, and people who would survive through overcoming fear. And I made my choice.”

  McCain drained his glass, then nodded. “Poetic, and philosophical,” he complimented.

  “And isn’t that what you’d expect from the Irish?”

  McCain looked across the booth. “I never had any quarrel with the people, you know, Kev,” he said. “It was only the system. Look how well they’re doing now. . . . Oh, and guess who I got a letter from a little while ago—Andreyov. Remember him?”

  “The old fella, with the white hair.”

  “Yes, him. He’s back in the Ukraine.”

  “Did you know that his father was there—in Germany in 1945, with Konev’s army?” Scanlon asked. They both laughed.

  “He mentioned the first Russian Disney World that’s opened up
outside Moscow,” McCain said. “He says Protbornov’s running it. I couldn’t make out if he was being serious or not.”

  At that moment the host came back to the table and announced, “More of your party have arrived, gentlemen.” McCain looked up, puzzled, just in time to catch Scanlon giving the host a wink.

  Then a woman’s voice said from behind him, “I thought you’d have picked a Japanese restaurant, Lew.”

  McCain turned disbelievingly. She still had the obstinate curl of hair on her forehead that said so much about her personality, but her figure was more full now. He half-rose to his feet, speechless.

  Rashazzi was behind her, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s our first Earthside leave for eighteen months,” he explained. “We couldn’t let it go by without looking you up. And the timing was perfect.” McCain shook Rashazzi’s hand, then gave Paula a warm hug.

  “It was her idea,” Scanlon said. “She tracked me down and called me from the Moon six weeks ago.”

  “So we’re a little late,” Rashazzi said. “You know how it is—women . . .”

  “Er, your table is ready,” the host informed them. “But if you’d like a cocktail first, we can get you another one later. Mr. Nakajima-Lin called a few minutes ago to say he’d been detained slightly, and for you to go ahead. He’ll join the party shortly.”

  “No, let’s wait for him,” Rashazzi said. “I’m not starving yet.”

  “We’re in Washington for a week,” Paula told McCain. “Why hurry?” Paula and Rashazzi sat down.

  McCain was looking astounded. “Koh? Koh’s coming here too?”

  “One of his little jaunts that you mentioned,” Scanlon aid. “Just between the four of us, I think the tribe is planning on colonizing the United States.”

  “So, what’s it like being scientists on the Moon?” McCain asked.

  “Indescribable,” Rashazzi said. “Exhilarating. The sense of vastness, the sheer rawness of nature up there . . . You can’t imagine it.”