A Song Called Youth (42 page)

“I am no bloody
way
getting use to it,” Willow muttered.

They were in the basement of the safe-house, tiny dirt-floored rooms once part of
les caves,
the wine cellars, when the building had been someone’s house.

Rickenharp said, “I mean, anyway, its just like I imagined it. Something hits, and the place shakes, a little dust comes down from the ceiling. You feel a vibration go through you. Only it sounds different than I thought it would. Sometimes. There’s a kind of whining sound after the blast. I think it’s metal breaking—”

“Rickenharp,” Hard-Eyes said suddenly, “you proved yourself on three raids now. You did great. Everyone thinks so. You got balls. But Rickenharp, shut the fuck up.”

Rickenharp shrugged and shut up.

Hard-Eyes was far from used to the shelling. It scared him more than a firefight, though he was probably less likely to get killed here. It scared him because he was helpless. The whole shebang could come down on his head, and it was no use trying to shoot back at it. There was no strategy except run to a hole and hide in it. You just sat and waited to see if your number was up. It sucked.

The Front had moved back. The US Army had been backed into Paris, and now the Russians were shelling it. Rubbling all that history.

The town was down to a fourth of its population, maybe less; more streaming south every day, running from the shelling. Thousands were clogging refugee camps, trading one kind of suffering for another. But maybe it was better than being stuck in the ghettos, hammered helplessly by shells.

He looked at the others in the light from the lantern, trying to get his mind off it. Rickenharp, Willow, Yukio, the doctor, Jenkins, Carmen. The others in other cellars. Everyone here looking sullen, or looking as if they were trying to keep from looking scared, except goddamn Rickenharp, that brain-damaged asshole, expression on his face like a kid watching fireworks.
Ceiling falls in and we’ll see if you’re having fun, pal.

There was a little room left near the door. He was surprised Smoke wasn’t there. Smoke usually hung out with Yukio.

“Where’s Smoke and the—” He broke off as they heard the thud, felt the vibration pass through the room, chattering teeth as it rippled through them. Dirt sifted down from the ceiling.

“Smoke’s gone to the States,” Carmen said. “You were out on a hit, you weren’t in on that. Steinfeld set up—”

Another thud, another nasty vibration, feeling closer now.

She went on, her voice straining for normalcy. Rickenharp was looking at her, not smiling now. Thinking what Hard-Eyes was thinking: Carmen’s scared, wants someone to hold her, but her pride won’t allow it.

She said, “Steinfeld set up a route, everything. Smoke’s going to do some kind of lobbying in the States to get backing for us.”

Jenkins said, “That old burn-out?”

Carmen said, “Steinfeld says Smoke’s not a burn-out. He used to be some kind of traveling reformist. Philosopher, writer. Then something bad happened and I guess he gave up, lost touch . . . He’s like, changing, Steinfeld says. Says he used to talk to himself all the time. Now he talks to the crow or to people and that’s all. He writes stuff in notebooks . . . Steinfeld says he’s got some kind of special talent . . . ”

Hard-Eyes thought of the scarecrow Smoke had been when they’d met. He nodded. “Yeah, he changed.”

They were silent for a while. So were the cannon.

The Algerian came to the door, a lantern in his hand.
“Okay ici? Bon. Steinfeld dis, C’est fini.”

“What’s ’e fooking know about it?” Willow said irritably.

Yukio said, “His listening station in the north. He picked up their radio commands. We have the code.”

Hard-Eyes felt something unwind in him. He was going to live another day.

He found himself looking at Carmen. Thinking, Funny how, after you almost get snuffed, you want to fuck.

But she was looking at Willow.

Hard-Eyes shrugged. No accounting for taste.

Kessler’s first impression of the island was of a strange, almost featureless flatness, and a blaze of light.

Julie put down her hand-luggage, and fished in her purse for her sunglasses. “This light’s
great
for my headache,” she muttered, slipping the dark glasses on.

“It was a long flight,” Kessler said. “You’ll feel better after you get some rest.”

“I just can’t sleep on airplanes. I’m afraid they’ll crash while I’m asleep.”

“That’s the best time for it if—oh, there they are.” Charlie was coming toward the Lear jet in a three-wheeled jitney; the jitney’s driver was an islander, skin so dark he was almost purple. The pilot and the steward came down the metal steps behind Kessler. The pilot pointed a plastic matchbox at the plane and pressed a button; the steps retracted, whining, and the door sealed itself.

The jitney pulled up, Charlie jumped out, grinning under his mirrorshades, and pumped Kessler’s hand. “ ’Sap, man!”

“Hi, Charlie . . . This is all our luggage, just carry-on.”

“Shit, I came here with less than that. Come on.”

They rode the jitney across sticky black asphalt smelling of hot tar, through the heat-shimmer to the little glass-fronted airport building. There was no customs at all. “This island is
ours,
Jimmy,” Charlie said. “No one comes here but NR. If they do, they’re arrested, and put under an extractor . . . ”

Kessler grimaced. Charlie said, “Yeah, I know. I don’t like the fucking things either. This one’s the only one we got. Anyway, anybody comes to the island by accident, they take ’em into custody—but they let ’em go later if they extract out legit.”

“This island got a name?”

“Merino. No government except a little police force, and Witcher acts as a kind of local judiciary, when he’s here. He’s here a lot now. He’s getting paranoid. Officially, Merino’s a territory belonging to—um, I’m not supposed to tell anybody what it belongs to, because if you got extracted they’d know what area to search through . . . I found out by asking the locals. And then got a big lecture about it. When it comes to extractor proofing, ignorance is safety. Anyway, Witcher’s got a deal with the country that the island belongs to. He owns it—shit, it’s only about thirty-five square miles.”

Kessler shrugged. He was enervated and logy as they got into a limo. It felt cold after the heat outside.

“Oh, God, air conditioning,” Julie said gratefully. They rode along a white crushed-shell road, between rows of palm trees, parallel to a glittering white-sand beach. The sea was a vast blue gem.

They drove through two checkpoints, past electric fences crested with barbed wire; under the unwavering gaze of CCTV cameras that rotated smoothly to watch them. Past guards with rifles.

Julie looked at him, and he squeezed her hand. He knew what she was thinking. That this might turn out to be a kind of prison for them.

Kessler said, “Charlie—they let us come and go from the compound as we please?”

“Absolutely. But they give you a list of things you can talk to the locals about. They speak a dialect sort of half Spanish, half English. They understand you, though.”

They were driving through landscaped estate grounds now, cacti and exotic plants he’d never seen, flowering on both sides. A fountain. A tennis court. But at intervals: concrete bunkers, showing the snouts of heavy machine guns and small cannon.

They passed through a gate, and into a kind of small village. Cottages, two cafés, two bars. They pulled up in front of a whitewashed cottage with red shutters and solar panels on the roof.

“This is your place,” Charlie said proudly. “Bigger’n your apartment in New York. Witcher really set it up nice for us here.”

They went into the cottage. Inside it was shady, cool, comfortable. Wicker furniture, an old-fashioned wooden four-poster bed. Julie lay back on the bed, took off her sunglasses, and threw an arm over her eyes. But Kessler knew she was listening as he and Charlie talked.

“Witcher’s okay,” Charlie was saying. “A little straight. A capitalist—but then so are you. He’s . . . You know—gets his money from a private cop company, in competition with the SA, and from patents on surveillance devices. His people developed camera birds. So sure, he’s straight. But he’s a good guy.”

“Why’s he do it? Why’s he fund the NR?”

“Not even Steinfeld’s sure. Witcher says he hates racists and anyway the SA’s his biggest business competition. But I don’t know. Thing is, you can trust him. You can feel it.”

“Steinfeld here?”

“No. He’s stuck in Europe. Maybe in deep shit . . . You’ll get the whole briefing later. There’s a guy coming, Jack Brendan Smoke.”

“Yeah. I read him. He was way ahead of everyone else—”

“He’s going to be working with you, to counter Worldtalk’s subliminals and the PR for . . . You’ll get it all after dinner.”

“Okay. But—” Kessler hesitated, not sure what it was he wanted to say. What was bothering him was, he supposed, simple disorientation. And worry. Could he really trust these people?

“Hey, Jim—” Charlie put his hands on Kessler’s shoulders. “You won’t have to stay in this place forever, but you got to understand:
this is home!
These people have been through it all—with Worldtalk or the SA or the fucking CIA. There’s a woman here who was extracted by Worldtalk—you can talk to her. I’m tellin’ you. The fences are to keep the enemy out, not to keep us in. You’re home, man. You’re home . . . ”

Purchase was sitting in one of Worldtalk’s video conference rooms, thinking he needed to go to the enzymologist and have his stomach acid turned down again, when Fremont on Screen One said, “Look, let’s boil the problem down to its basics. We have journalists, congressmen, you-name-it—not too many, but then, any amount is too many—accusing the SAISC of anti-Semitism, of creating racial pogroms in the war zone, of misusing NATO funding, of—hell, everything.”

Chancelrik, on Screen Three, said, “Basically they’re hinting the SA chiefs are actual
fascists,
for Christ’s sake. Well in fact—I don’t know if you fellas saw this report—that there’s a group that calls itself the New Resistance responsible for—” He paused to read off a printout. “—thirty-five military attacks on SAISC stations and personnel in six European capitals, and according to this source they’re spreading propaganda calling the SA ‘Nazis’ outright.”

“Okay,” Fremont said, “that’s the upshot. But you note that ninety percent of the accusations have to do with things happening in the war zone. We can point up that things in the war zone come to us garbled because of the difficulty of getting clear information through the Russian blockade, all the antisat scrambling, you-name-it. Any thoughts on that, Purchase, my boy? Heard scarcely a peep from you.”

“Uh-huh. What I think is . . . ” Purchase contemplated the faces on the screen—Fremont transmitted from LA, Chancelrik from Chicago, Barley from Miami. “ . . . I think you’re on the right track, Sammy, and uh—” He thought desperately, managed, “I think we should suggest through our news-sheet editorializing channels that there’s a kind of prejudicial attitude here, behind these accusations, because, uh, our lady prez has come out as a supporter of the warzone policing program so, uh, basically what we have is the Democrats seizing on an issue, spouting a lot of hearsay and, uh . . . ”

Something about the way Barley was clearing his throat a little too loudly into his headset made Purchase realize he was blowing it. Barley said, “I think—correct me if I’m wrong—I already brought up that point, remarkably close wording—”

In his humorous drawl, kidding him about it.

Purchase said, “Of course, sorry—I’m out of it today, little personal problem. Uh, in fact I’ve got to make a call about that, do you guys think—”

“Hey, you take as long as you want, Purchase, my boy!” Fremont said.

“Sure! Go ahead!” the other two chimed in.

“Thanks.” But he knew as soon as he was out of the room they’d say:
Isn’t it a shame about Purchase, guy isn’t keeping it together anymore.

He stood up and put his screen on hold, then went down the hall to his office, thinking that maybe it was stupid to wait it out.

He’d been waiting for word from Swenson—or about Stisky. Confirmation that Stisky’s cover was blown. But maybe it was a mistake to wait. Maybe he should run—
now.

He’d told himself he had work to do here. It was a crucial time. If he could find a way to sabotage the SA’s Worldtalk propaganda campaign . . . 

No. He made up his mind. The risk was too great. He’d leave here, join the others in Merino. He was holding back out of sheer inertia, really. Habit. He’d come to the office every weekday barring holidays for eight years, and old habits—

The thought broke apart and spiraled into irony:
Die hard.

Because when he stepped into the office he saw the two SA bulls in full armor standing to either side of the door. He saw them reflected in the window beyond his desk.

“Mr. Purchase,” one of them said. Wearing the helmet they wear when they come to take people away.

“Okay,” Purchase said. “I understand.”

Thinking,
Try to call the cops?
These guys had no real legal authority to do more than detain him, as long as he didn’t resist. But they’d never let him call the cops. They planned to take him somewhere quiet, and interrogate him, and eventually kill him.

He turned to face them, smiled, and said, “Let’s go.” He started to go out the door between them—then stopped and snapped his fingers as if just remembering something. “Uh—you mind if I get my wife’s picture from my desk?”

One of the guards turned his opaque faceplate toward the desk. “There’s no picture on the desk, sir.”

“It’s in the drawer,” he said, turning to the desk casually as he could manage, his heart pounding, sweat starting out on his forehead. “I don’t like to have her on the desk there staring at me accusingly all day, so I keep her in the drawer—” Little chummy laugh there. “But I’d like to have the picture”—opening the desk drawer—“to look at now and then.” Reaching in.

“Mr. Purchase, I’m getting a rising heartbeat rate and a respiration signal on you that’s a little worrisome. I think you’d better hold it right there—”