Dark Alignment

by David Haskell

  “I’ll be okay. I’ve got Thompson out here keepin’ me company. That’s a help.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Listen, we’ve almost got this thing mapped out. Give us another half-hour and then we can come back in.”

  There was a pause, long enough for Thompson to eye the battery pack, as though he thought it might’ve quit. Finally the Chief spoke again. “Hang in there you two. Get back when you can. I know it ain’t easy.”

  Jones held the speaker near his face, squeezing his eyes shut. “Thanks. We’ll manage.”

  He handed the radio back, closed his eyes for a moment, then turned his attention back to their methodical task. Check. Mark. Fix-note-mark. Moving on…

  * * *

  Dennis Quaid eyed Chief Masters closely as he set down the handset and crossed the room. Ever since the blowup, the two had been exceptionally careful around each other, but there was an underlying tension. They both knew it, as much as neither of them wanted to deal with it. Not with everything else going on.

  “Dennis,” the Chief said, careful to keep his voice even, “I’ve got a man coming back in with Vern who’ll be able to guide us, but I’m going to need your go-ahead. It’ll be up to you to convince the others that the needs of the many outweigh…know what I’m saying?”

  The Mayor stared long at his associate, as if judging how far he could push back. It wasn’t unusual for Masters to make demands, but Quaid resented feeling pushed around.

  “If you think it best, I’ll go along,” Quaid said, “but I’m warning you, Masters, folks ain’t gonna like it. And I can only do so much. You’re going to have to show me some goddamned support on this too, you know.”

  Masters nodded. “I know. And I will. But you’ve got to lead ‘em, Dennis. We need you to be strong, and convince them what needs to be done. They still respect you.”

  The last part was mere deference, and the Mayor knew it. Looking around the room, it was obvious at a glance that the majority were loyal to the Chief. If Masters wanted, he could throw the Mayor under the bus in a heartbeat, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing Quaid could do about it.

  “I’ll do what you ask, John,” Quaid said with resignation, “but you’d better be right. The world’s watching, don’t forget that.”

  Masters knew that perfectly well, but he didn’t argue.

  The Mayor looked around until he caught the attention of his assistant. “Get started on an ad hoc town meeting. Set it up for ASAP, but I want the town council to be there. If any of them are delayed, delay the meeting. Call them personally if you have to, but get them all lined up.”

  The aid looked momentarily taken aback by the complicated demand, but shook if off quickly and hurried away, probably in search of a telephone. Unless he was going to have a drink first. His boss most certainly would.

  * * *

  It only took an hour and a half to get the town meeting underway. The press was front and center, something Mayor Quaid didn’t mind. Seeing so many reporters made him feel confident, this being his wheelhouse and all. Looking out past them, a handpicked band of partisan friends stood in the back, at the ready with supportive thumbs-up gestures and ‘you tell ‘em!’ glances.

  Access to the meeting place itself was restricted, both for crowd control purposes, and because Quaid wanted to address a friendly room. The rest of the locals, particularly those who’d opposed him one way or another, were relegated to the town square. There they could watch the event on two large screens donated for the purpose of public information, but there was no way for them to participate. Out there, the mood was far less forgiving, and Quaid fought to ignore the rumble of agitation filtering in from just outside the doors.

  The Mayor cleared his throat and launched into his remarks. Five minutes of praise for the town and her people and their incredible efforts, followed by more thanks, this time on an individual basis. He listed off the deputies and key wall builders, then called the councilmen up to the stage one by one. There were a few golf-claps as those town elders made their way forward, joined the Mayor, shook hands and took their place beside him. Finally he thanked Chief John Masters. Stronger applause as the Chief took the stage, gave the Mayor a congenial handshake, then took the unusual additional step of standing back and applauding the Mayor directly. This encouraged actual cheers, and for a minute or so the Mayor couldn’t go on. But he was finally able to hush the crowd—particularly the ringers in back—and continue on.

  “Folks, we’ve all been at this a long time. I know as well as any of you how heartbreaking it’s been to see our great community suffer. And so many other communities as well, all joined in common tragedy. While caught up in our own struggle, we need to spare a thought for those other places as well, going through the same crisis, perhaps looking to the people of Joffrey for inspiration and guidance. And we them.” He paused, lowering his head as if in prayer, prompting the room to go quiet along with him. He held the pose for a number of seconds before raising his head up and looking out. “I also have the unpleasant duty to report some recent, very unfortunate developments The time has come for us to make some hard choices…”

  * * *

  The extent of Mayor Quaid’s relevant remarks amounted to ‘Yes, we all wanted to save the whole town, but now we have to look to the common good, and that means a good number of us will have to sacrifice our homes’, thought he spent a good twenty minutes warming up to that point. While the mood in the room remained solemn, outside the gathered masses were abuzz with angry chatter. After all they’d done to help, it seemed the government was ready to throw them under the bus.

  As Chief Masters stepped out to call for quiet, even he received a number of jeers and foul comments for his trouble. He ignored them, and waited for calm. When they’d settled down sufficiently, he accepted his trusty bullhorn from one of the deputies, and addressed the crowd.

  “Most of you know me. All of you’ve heard from me in the past few days. And I think you’d agree that I’ve been as straightforward as I could since this whole mess began. I hope you know that my sole purpose has been to save this town we call home, and that still is my purpose, maybe even more than ever. Now, we can’t save everyone’s home. I know that, and you know that. So to share the sacrifice, I’ve made one change to the master plan. My ranch was set to be one of the spared, but I’ve asked our structural engineers to re-visit that sector and realign things. My place will be vulnerable, same as the rest of you.”

  The crowd began muttering again, though the noise that rose up was less an angry reaction than a surprised, questioning one. Behind Masters the mayor stepped back up to join him. The Chief noted the fact that he’d only made himself visible after the crowd had settled down, which made his next comment an easy one to commit to.

  “I also call upon the remainder of city workers, and city officials, to do the same.”

  At this, an audible gasp went up, and although he couldn’t see in the back of his head Masters imagined that the mayor had a shocked look on his face. The image amused him, but he dismissed the petty emotion and continued with the speech. “I’ve coordinated with the engineering team to work out the particulars, and this is a voluntary thing so if you’re in, you need to stick around and talk to them. I can’t make any promises, but if we get some participation in this, we might just be able to save more places than we’d originally thought. That’s my hope anyway.”

  He looked around. Many of the faces had softened. There was still a fair amount of outrage, but his message seemed to have been received—at least by the majority of folks. “I wish I could do more, but that’ll have to do. Some of us will lose our homes, but our community will survive. We have to take comfort in that. It’s all we can do.”

  He sensed that the people were feeling mollified, while also tiring of the speechmaking, so he finished up by saying, “That’s pretty much all I have to say, except that I understand your anger, and your frustration. Any of you who want to go on resenting the people re
sponsible for this decision, I’m your man. I’m responsible for the decision as much as anyone, so you can go ahead and blame me if you want. Thanks for listening.”

  Masters handed off the bullhorn and turned back to the town hall. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Dennis Quaid, who didn’t look nearly as comfortable as he had minutes ago in front of the press. The noise grew steadily now and people switched from whispering to outright chatting with each other. There was no applause, but the muted reaction was enough. His sacrifice meant something to them. He hoped it would be enough.

  32.

  The decision was made to resume the conference after the emergency quarantine lifted, mainly due to the fact that flights were still restricted in and out of the region. Besides that, so long as they had everyone stuck in one place, the idea of hashing out more of their collective concerns held appeal to most participants.

  The leaders of China, the Pan-Asian alliance, Brazil, and South Africa sat on one side of the table, their de facto representative General Secretary Zhang seated in the middle. Across from him America, represented by the president, was flanked by the Brits, the French, the German and the Canadian delegations. Finally, seated in such a way they appeared to oppose all, were the Soviet Socialist Territories at one end, and delegates of the formally unaligned nations at the other. So far, there’d been a fair bit of talking, but nobody was listening. Mostly they complained about the fact that nobody was listening. This was interspersed with complaints about their physical discomfort.

  Given the sensitivity of the situation, the threat of leaks was ever present. Any such attempts at subterfuge could scuttle the talks. As countermeasures could be thwarted by ever more sophisticated listening devices, the extreme decision was taken to soundproof the room and seal the ducts. This being a typical Norwegian evening, the room was fast turning frosty in a physical sense, in addition to the metaphorical.

  “We hear rumors, sir, that you have been sharing information with our Chinese colleague,” the President of South African told Webster, arms crossed in defiance. A glare from Zhang went ignored. “If you think you can fracture our coalition by picking us off one at a time, you’ll find that we’re more united than you think.”

  “Nobody’s trying to pick off your allies,” Webster replied, “and to ease your concerns, I’m prepared to offer a demonstration of good faith in the form of our most recent scientific findings. These will be revealed to you all, under certain conditions.”

  “What do you mean ‘under certain conditions’?” the South African leader shot back, throwing up his arms, “Why not tell us right now? We have the right to know!”

  President Webster was expecting something like this. These talks were nothing if not predictable. “I agree, Mr. President, they’re of vital interest to everyone at this table, and you do deserve to have all the facts. But this is a fragile coalition, sir, and if we reveal what we know prematurely, before we’ve formalized our new relationship, the talks will end then and there. We can’t afford that. We have to unite first. Then we share. Otherwise, we keep our findings to ourself.”

  There was a stunned silence. Then the table erupted on both sides, a dozen voices shouting over each other.

  How dare you threaten us like that?

  You have no right to keep us in the dark!

  Our alliance is decades old. America needs to support its allies!

  Webster noted that there were at least as many angry people on his side of the table. He understood their concern. They had, after all, far closer relations than the unfamiliar group across the way, and they expected a certain amount of deference.

  Webster waited for the room to settle, then called on the one man who’d stayed cautiously quiet. “Mr. Secretary?”

  Zhang nodded and took the floor. “The Americans are right,” he stated, his gaze sweeping the room, landing on each of his allies in turn. Following that theatrical display, he tossed in a casual, “at least as far as this issue is concerned.”

  “The information can not be shared in an open forum,” Zhang continued, “but should be given to all parties in due course. I have my assurances from the Americans, and I trust them. You should as well.” There was a minor uproar again, representatives all along Zhang’s side reacting with surprise at this unusual vote of confidence.

  “My friends, please!” Zhang cajoled his counterparts, but Webster could tell he was only half-assing it. In reality, he wanted them fuming. As they flew off the handle, he was able to come across as the voice of reason. Always an angle with this guy. Webster admired his political savvy. It would be a long while before he got up to that level of mastery, assuming he stayed in office that long. He could learn a lot from Zhang.

  * * *

  With the upheaval Zhang had orchestrated, the leaders had all but given up on the main meeting. This, too, was orchestrated, and worked in Zhang’s favor. When they broke into sub-committees, that was where he could do his real recruiting. First, he spoke with his rivals. One by one, he took them aside and explained his reasoning. He was honest and straightforward, which none of them knew how to react to.

  “I am willing to work with you, and with the Americans, but I need your help. There are certain…stubborn factions I still must convince. As you could see from the reactions, the suggestion of compromise is grating to such people, supporters though they may be. If you could just give them certain assurances—something I can not do from where I stand—it might ease their resistance. Otherwise, I’m afraid we are back to, how do they put it? Square one.”

  Within the hour, he had verbal agreements from all but two. The holdouts, Canada and Japan, were left for Randall Webster to deal with.

  He spoke to the Japanese vice-minister first. It went without saying that the man was reluctant to make any bold promises without the go-ahead of his boss, who had avoided the conference, and the confrontation, with that very reasoning in mind. It was nearly impossible to wrangle an immediate compromise out of the Japanese, everything had to be consensus driven, endlessly re-hashed. With no time for such niceties, Webster had to pull out all the stops.

  “Look, you want to go home a hero, right?” Webster said, ready to offer something the man quite literally could not refuse.

  “Of course, Mr. President,” the vice-minister replied, “who wouldn’t?”

  Fine. “Okay then, tell Zhang to concede the islands. He’ll do so, and you’ll go home a hero.”

  “Unsuitable, Mr. President,” the vice-minister replied, not prepared to give in so easily, “as you well know, those islands belong to Japan.”

  The disputed territory in the Sea of Japan was long a thorn in the side of the Japanese and Chinese people. Both countries claimed those remote island chains as their rightful possessions. While Japan wouldn’t consider a return of ‘their’ islands to be anything heroic, Webster was ready to sweeten the deal.

  “How about the Chinese islands—sorry, Japanese islands to the south,” he repeated, “and throw in the disputed northern islands for good measure.”

  The northern islands were a Russian dispute. In many ways, even more of an embarrassment. The Japanese never forgot that the Soviets had declared war on them just hours after the bombing of Hiroshima. It was then that the Russians had claimed the northern territories, and the Japanese considered the act to be highly dishonorable.

  The Vice-Minister couldn’t help but be enthused by the proposition. His surprised expression told Webster all he needed to know. If he could go back home having gotten one over on the Chinese and the Soviets? He would likely have the next ministership locked up without campaigning at all.

  “I was unaware the general secretary now spoke for the Soviets,” said the Vice-Minister, angling for more, yet unable to keep the excitement out of his tone.

  “We’ll talk to the Russians. You’ll get your concessions. Now, will you voice your agreement with Zhang, or should we go it without you?”

  The Japanese leader gave a start. Now he was under the gun,
and the ultimatum left no room for obfuscation. A thoroughly uncomfortable position for any Japanese person, but the stakes were high enough to override his instinct. “I will support General Secretary Zhang, Mr. President, assuming I have your word.”