“Brigadier General Harlan H. Spikes.”
That name sounds familiar. Seems important. But I can’t imagine it being that great on the TV, so I let it go.
“What about that patch?”
He taps the snarling cat face. “This?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you’ll get one of these one day,” he says. “You get this when you get out of Cougar Scouts.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like the Boy Scouts, only better. Turn right here, we’re going to go down to the Hero Garden.”
We’re at the top of a rise in the field, looking into a copse of trees.
“How do you get in?”
“My scoutmaster picked me,” he says, puffing out his chest. “That’s how you know you belong. My dad didn’t pull any strings.” He gives me a worried look. “No offense.”
I wave him off. “What is the Cougar Scouts?”
He frowns. “Well, it goes Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and then either Eagle Scouts or Cougar Scouts. Unless you bypass that. Like you did.”
“What do you mean?” I say. “I’m not a Cougar Scout.”
“Well, not yet,” he says. “You skipped out on Godspeed Summer Camp, from what I hear.”
I vaguely remember that name. The camp. The camp Arthur and I ran away from just days ago.
The guard shakes his head. “Should have hung around. Godspeed is what some of us call a kitten camp, for guys like you with dads who grease the wheels. But I hear it’s fun. I hear on day five you actually club baby seals. Check this out, Winthrop. This is important.”
I blink. We’re standing inside the trees. Tall concrete columns surround a wide, flat patch of land completely covered in cement. Three rows of statues crisscross it. A path leads out of the trees to the docks, where I can see the Crab Shack and Le Gavroche.
Atop a pedestal in the center, etched onto a stone tablet, are the words: Vir Apud Gens.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“It’s the Heroes of Civilization Sculpture Garden,” the guy says. “The secretary had this installed personally.”
We stroll among the rows of statues. One is a likeness of a man in an old-fashioned suit, staring intently at the horizon. Next to him is a big oil derrick, out of which trickles real oil that pools on top of a stone vase of what looks like dying flowers.
Luther B. Robertson, Inventor of the Oil Derrick, reads the gilt plaque below the statue.
“All these guys were Cougar Scouts,” the guard says. “Anybody who is anybody. The secretary. The president. General Spikes. Your dad.”
His Eminence? An image flashes of an old man in a Cub Scout uniform cradling a tumbler of scotch. But I’m still hollowed from the TV, so the thought falls in on itself until it’s a tiny dot.
The other statues show likenesses of people I’ve never heard of before, with names like James Watt, Anne Gorsuch, and Ronald Reagan. One statue is of three smiling men standing aboard the deck of a ship. It’s labeled: Dedicated to William Murphy, Joe Hazelwood, Harry Claar, and the rest of the crew of the beloved Valdez.
I hear a crackling noise, electronic buzzing, and a voice. “Carmison.”
The man holds a black radio to his face. “Copy.”
“We’ve got movement over in the south sector. Would you mind taking a look? Over.”
“I’ve got the kid. Over.”
“We just need you to look, Stu. Leave the kid in the garden for a minute.”
The guard sighs. “Ten-four.” He looks at me. “I need you to do me a favor, Winthrop.”
“What?”
“I need you to sit tight here for just a second, okay? I have to go check something out. Just sit right here.” He points to a stone bench across from the Valdez statue. “I’ll be back in five minutes. Okay?”
“Then can I watch more TV?”
“Yeah. Then you can watch more TV.”
I sit. On the TV, the Valdez guy statue would glow with an inner light. So would His Eminence in a scout uniform. How about that? Well, I guess it makes sense that if great people were part of this group, His Eminence would be too, right? And if I would have stuck around camp, then maybe I would have been part of it too. Somehow, though, that doesn’t seem like a good thing.
“Stubby!” a voice hisses.
Esmerelda creeps out of the woods.
“Hi!” I say. “Hey, you’ve got to see this TV they’ve got here.”
“I know all about the TV, Winthrop. I need you to listen.”
“Okay. Why are you whispering?”
“Shhhh. Look. The’ve got the Doc, Kang, and Arthur locked up on the west side of the mansion.”
“Did you know they think Kang isn’t an Indian, but a Mexican?”
“Keep your voice down! Listen to me. I’m not who you think I am. I’m AICO.”
“What’s that? Did you know my dad was a Cougar Scout? And I’m going to be one too.”
She grabs my face between her palms, and her green eyes look into mine. “They scrambled your brain, stubby. I need you to listen to me.”
I move my jaw to kiss her, but she pushes me back. “Listen to me. I’m an AICO agent. Secretary Sweetwater is guilty of murder. I have proof. And we need to spring Kang, Arthur, and the Doc, or they’re next. Do you understand me?” The words slip from her mouth like hailstones into a pond.
“Harlan Spikes . . . was a Cougar Scout. Isn’t that the guy the Birmingham Kid talked about?”
She grimaces, a terrible twist of a smile. “I know all about Harlan Spikes. I need you to promise me something, stubby. Don’t watch any more of that TV, okay? It’s a mega high-def. It’s an addictive TV, Winthrop. They use it to control people’s minds. They introduce it when they need a docile populace. It’s illegal. Don’t watch it, Winthrop. Shut your eyes and think about something else.”
“The Grizzlies?”
“If you have to . . . shit.”
Esmerelda is gone. I hear her hiss into the leaves.
“Winthrop?” the guard says. He’s standing next to me, gun slung over his shoulders.
“TV?” I ask.
The guard laughs. “A little more,” he says. “But too much will rot your brain.”
the war
“What people don’t know, Winthrop,” Sweetwater says, “in fact, what 98.2 percent of the population doesn’t know, according to our most recent research, is that this nation is at war.”
We’re sitting in the room with the TV. She makes me take breaks every couple of hours. I hate these breaks. For most of the day, my head has been filled with this awesome history lesson—all about how settlers battled bears and crocodiles, how we dump drums of sludge in the ocean to kill sharks, how after Hurricane Katrina we carpet bombed the Galapagos Islands and killed twenty sea turtles.
“Sure they know,” I say, “we’re at war with . . .” but the name of the most recent one I occasionally catch glimpses of on Fox News escapes me. Something ending in –stan.
“Not that war, Winthrop,” she says, her small face beams behind the horn-rims. “Wars like those are largely unimportant skirmishes, you’ll find out. They’re launched as distractions. We’ve been fighting the war I’m talking about for more than two hundred years. Now, this is something you’d learn after becoming a Cougar Scout, dontchaknow. But you’re a legacy, and you have a right to know. I’m sure your father would approve my telling you.
“Did you ever notice how geese fly in perfect formation?” she says. But I’m only partly listening. I want to tell her that by the location of the sliver of moon just over the river, I can tell that it’s getting close to nine p.m., and Sniper Dude X might literally blow my mind broadcasted on the giant TV just over her shoulder. I want to be there for the mushroom cloud.
“Geese fly in V shapes,” she goes on, “because they were drilled to do it. Ants march in straight columns. Bee hives are geometrically perfect fortresses. Nature isn’t just a wild collection of animals and plants and rocks that’s there to
be pretty for you. There’s something intelligent behind it. Something organized. And it wants us all dead.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her delicate little hand grabs my arm.
“This is information the vast majority of the general public does not know, Winthrop. Only we select few. It’s certainly something small-minded environmentalists like your psychotic friend Doctor Seabrook will never understand. Men of his ilk believe everybody should be driving hybrid cars, cuddling little fuzzy things, and making love to trees. Their kind doesn’t understand the war. But a few enlightened souls—myself, your father—know the stakes.”
“Can I watch some more TV?” I ask.
“We’re at war, Winthrop,” Sweetwater says, “with what romantics like Doctor Seabrook like to call the forces of nature.
“People like Seabrook don’t get it,” Sweetwater mutters, gazing out the window. “They think we should just ride around in horse-drawn carriages eating twigs and berries. Thank God our forefathers weren’t fooled. They knew the beasts and the weather and the forests wanted to wipe them out. They knew nature is the enemy of man.
“The few members of the unenlightened public believe that when the government gives tax breaks to oil companies and undermines alternative energy concerns, they’re protecting the interests of big business.” Her pinkness flashes scarlet. “They don’t know what’s really happening. They can’t see the forest for the trees. They don’t know what oil is. Ever since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve known why it’s such a valuable resource. It’s more important than its ability to drive engines and make plastics. Hell, we have the ability to do that with sunlight now. These crazy spotted-owl porkers will never get it.”
She flushes, embarrassed. “Excuse me,” she says. “Oil is a weapon. It pollutes the air. It kills plants and animals. It’s one of our most effective weapons, as a matter of fact, and it’s my duty to keep wrongheaded people like Doctor Seabrook from trying to bring it down. Think about it. If it wasn’t for fossil fuels polluting the atmosphere, plants and wildlife would flourish! They’d invade the cities and overpopulate the earth! We wouldn’t stand a chance.
“We are a proud agency, Winthrop. We have a long and storied history of success. We have saved this country from the likes of Seabrook, time and time again, for more than two hundred years now. And one of these days this war is going to end.
“Nature wants the United States for itself. It wants the water, it wants the air, and it wants the land. When we try to take the land—which is our God-given right—it fights us. It sends its animals to attack us. It assaults us with storms, floods us, hits us with earthquakes, or tries to burn us up in forest fires. It’s our destiny to control this country and all its resources, regardless of what we’re up against.”
“But, like, won’t that kill the people too, if you destroy the water and air and stuff?” I ask.
“It’s called mutually assured destruction, Winthrop,” she says. “You might have witnessed the concept in microcosm during the Cold War with the Russkies. We can’t weaken. Do you honestly believe that nature, if she really wanted to, couldn’t wipe us all out with a monster volcano, a hurricane, or a great flood? Well, she wouldn’t dare try because of our nuclear deterrent. The stalemate is what’s keeping us alive for the moment. But that won’t last forever.
“Now,” Sweetwater says, “do you see why that boat can never make it to California? It would tip the balance. We have nature on the run, but tree huggers like Seabrook are giving her hope. Nature is warming up the atmosphere, threatening to melt the polar ice caps, hitting us with hurricanes. That boat is a danger, an unwitting capitulation from a peace-mongering pinko. Say Seabrook made it to California, and people actually listened to his nonsense. The trucking industry might just take a hit. That would cripple our air pollution arsenal. Trucks create a significant percentage of the air pollution in this country. We can’t have that curtailed, Winthrop.”
“Uh-huh.” I want this conversation to end. “So why didn’t you just set up a roadblock or drop a bomb or something?”
“We’ve tried. It’s not that simple.”
“Is this like a bin Laden thing?”
“I told you, we’re fighting a war,” Sweetwater said. “You were first spotted aboard the Tamzene on the Allwyn River in Pennsylvania. Remember?”
I barely do. Most of my being at the moment is concentrating on the power button to the bottom right of the TV.
“Do you recall what happened? Three of our boats almost overtook you.”
“There was a big storm.”
She looks at me over the horn-rims.
“I don’t get it.”
“In Pennsylvania, there was a storm. Another storm in Ohio. Bird attacks. Bear attacks. Suicidal frogs getting lodged in our engines. Whenever we’re close, something happens. This Tamzene is clearly very important to our enemy, Winthrop. It recognizes the threat to our arsenal. That’s why we’ve got to find it.”
“Got ya,” I say. “Now can I watch TV?”
She smiles. “In a moment, Winthrop. There’s something I need your help with first, if you don’t mind.”
From nowhere, Sweetwater pulls a remote control and presses a button.
The room changes. On a secret conveyor belt, my recliner turns counterclockwise. The wall slides upward, clearing the way for a window into another room.
It is a room with whitewashed walls and a metal floor. Handcuffed to chairs in the room are Arthur, Seabrook, and Kang.
They look miserable. Their jaws are slack, and each of them has little crimson half-moons scattered up their arms and on their cheeks. Next to them—towering over them, actually—is a box made of black metal.
Tears sting my eyes. I want to go to them, but I feel so hollowed out and weak it’s difficult to move.
“You know Arthur’s dad is NSA, right?” I say.
“NSA?” she laughs. “We know all about your friend. The NSA are glorified postmen, Winthrop. He won’t be missed. Now listen, we need your help. We’re going to try one last time to find out from these Greenpeace wannabes where the heck they hid the Tamzene. I know it’s painful, but if you catch them in a lie, speak up, all right?”
I stare into the other room, wishing against everything that I was somewhere else, that I’d never left camp, that Arthur and I could have just gone on and joined whatever stupid club His Eminence had me set for.
“Of course,” Sweetwater adds. She seems to grow taller as she leans over my chair. “If you happen to know where the boat is yourself, why, you could tell me. Then we won’t release what’s in that box.”
I look into the knowing slits she has for eyes.
“Do we understand each other?” she asks. She gives me one more look and leaves the room.
A moment later she’s in the white room with two armed guards in black uniforms. She stands in front of Kang and chuckles.
“Gentlemen,” she says to the guards, knifing Kang with her eyes. “This is a historic day. More than two hundred years ago, when this great war of ours was in its infancy, our forefathers realized that one way we could demoralize those pesky early environmentalists, the Native Americans, was to rob them of adequate footwear. So they systematically destroyed the Milliconquit tribe—which was what some scholars called the Shoe Salesman tribe.”
Kang’s face hardens. It grows tighter and tighter until tears bulge from his eyes.
“Took some doing too,” Sweetwater continues. “But that was nothing a little smallpox couldn’t fix. But I digress. Today we finish the job. Even though our friend Jorge here is only a faux Milliconquit.”
Kang opens his mouth. “I,” says the nasally voice I’d heard in the woods, “am a Milliconquit. My name is Kang.”
“Well,” Sweetwater laughs, “now you’ll die like a Milliconquit.”
“My name is Kang,” he says again, this time his voice thundering. “I am a Milliconquit. Your people tried to kill the Milliconquit, but we survived. We hid ourselves among your p
eople. We hid ourselves in the cities. We married you, and you bore our children.”
Kang looks at Arthur. Tears are slipping down Kang’s cheeks now. Arthur smiles. “I was born in Arizona. I lived in a little town in a little white house with a normal little white picket fence and lived a normal little life. And yes, I grew up as Jorge Zuniga, a normal little Latin American kid. I was nothing special. I took a normal little job as a normal computer programmer. But then I started researching who I was, and I learned that through my veins courses the blood of a great and powerful tribe, and I knew that I was Kang. I knew I was a Milliconquit. And I know there are others like me. And they’re coming for you. I am Kang, the Milliconquit.”
I hear what sounds like a bumblebee. It rumbles lazily somewhere outside. I glance behind me, out the tall windows that were hiding behind the blinds while I blindly watched TV. I look past the boats and the Crab Shack and the other building with the French name. Nothing but the moon glinting off the river and casting shadows through the trees.
“Yes, yes,” Sweetwater says. “We know all about you, Mr. Zuniga.” But she doesn’t seem quite as sure of herself. She glances quickly at the officers behind her. “He went off his nut, dontchaknow. Had a nice job in Flagstaff—data entry. Then one day he shows up wearing no shirt and a big headdress full of feathers he probably bought at the Halloween shop. We are what we are, Mr. Zuniga. And I hate to break it to you, but you’re no Indian shoe salesman.”
“Oh, but I am,” Kang says. “As my father was before me.”
“A corpse,” Sweetwater says. “That’s what you’re going to be.” She goes to the metal container and places her hand on top of it. “Before we leave you alone with our furry little friends here, do you have any last requests?” she asked.
The buzzing noise grows louder. I crane my neck. I can see a faint light glowing around the bend in the river.
“No?” Sweetwater says. “Then I’m going to ask you one last time. If you fail to give me the location of the Tamzene, I will open the box. We’ll carpet bomb the area. It’s sloppy, we don’t like to do things this way if we can avoid it, but it’s been done bef—”
Her voice trails off. She looks through the window at something over my shoulder.
We Are All Crew Page 24