A Song Called Youth (83 page)

“We can claim the New Resistance stocked the ship, made up some of its own people to look like SA troops,” Chancelrik said.

“Shit,” Crandall said. (Making Ben look at Crandall with surprise.) “If it was by itself, we could make it look like it was bullshit. But along with the video of Bester talking to that incompetent tub of lard and the damn book . . . well, do what you can. Make this go away—or I swear I’ll make you go away, my friend.”

He cut Chancelrik’s connection and cut into another line. “Johnston?” Head of Second Alliance International Security for the United States.

“Yes, Reverend?”

On the screen, Smoke was talking about CIA files that had come to his attention recently. He was talking about a man named Kupperbind. He was talking about a campaign to purge the ranks of CIA Domestic of blacks and Jews. He was talking about files—he admitted they’d been stolen from the CIA—that discussed the CIA’s part in the initiation of a European apartheid.

Crandall was saying, “Johnston, Jack Brendan Smoke.
Tagged.
Quietly as possible—but kill him! Try to make it look like he was killed by . . . radicals. A power grab or something. And tell Sackville-West I want him here by tonight. Here,
in person!”
His voice breaking, almost weepy with anger.

Tagged. Make it look like an accident or like someone else did it.

“Smoke entered the country under heavy guard two days ago, recorded some interviews yesterday, and left this morning, Reverend. By private jet. The jet was bound for Mexico City. We followed by satellite recon to Mexico City, but after that . . . Witcher’s people are in control of the airport there. Smoke changes planes in Mexico City and we lose track of him. Mexican immigration so far has either been recalcitrant or too inefficient to . . . ”

“No excuses! Find him. Make him
dead
—but make it look good.”

The Island of Malta.

“Recon post Seven is about sixty-five miles southeast of Iraklion,” Steinfeld was saying, tapping the coast of Crete on the map. “The post is the SA’s key Mediterranean reconnaissance center. It coordinates satellite surveillance, it monitors transmissions of all kinds, collates information from their various outposts in Europe. SA troops there number—if the Mossad is right—less than a hundred. Artillery and missile defense is minimal. So it’s underdefended, it’s vulnerable. The Greek government—or the SA occupation government, to be more accurate—has about three hundred men stationed within an hour of Post Seven. But by the time they’re mobilized to give Seven assistance, we’ll be well away.”

Karakos, Torrence, Danco, Lila, Levassier, and the other officers were sitting in a semicircle around Steinfeld. The briefing room was lit only by the map lamp. The back part was in darkness. Sometimes Karakos imagined things moving out of the corner of his eye back there. But when he looked, it was always gone. Sometimes he still felt the strange pressure, and the impenetrable places in his mind, the membranes beyond which he could not pass. He tried not to think about it. He tried to think about Greece. Its Nationalist salvation.

He noticed that Bonham was not there. He was never permitted at the planning sessions. They didn’t trust Bonham.

Maybe,
Karakos thought,
I shouldn’t trust him, either.

Bonham had given Karakos the names of the NR operatives on the Colony. Time would prove whether the names were real or not. To test that, he must once more get to a radio. And, of course, there was the matter of reporting the assault on Post Seven.

Steinfeld went on to describe his strategy for their assault on Post Seven; some part of Karakos’s mind was absorbing Steinfeld’s briefing, but thoughts of this Torrence were like dogs locked in some mental outbuilding, fighting and snarling in there, distracting him.

The bastard was doing nothing, saying nothing about Karakos. But Karakos could feel him watching, even when he didn’t seem to be. Torrence must be working against him somehow. Otherwise, why was it that Karakos still had not been told when the real assault against the SA would commence? Why was he still in the dark about its target? It had to be Torrence. He had planted the seeds of doubt in the others, and despite all their denials, they told him nothing. This business of the attack on Post Seven was minor, just a warm-up for the April Assault.

But he didn’t dare press anyone for information. That would make them suspicious. He would find a way.

“The destruction of Seven will set the stage for the April Assault,” Steinfeld was saying.

And then he looked at Karakos. Expressionlessly. But looked right at him.

Torrence resented the night. It was balmy and the air was sweet as he left the house to take his turn at the sentry shack by the road. He could smell the sea, and the mosquitoes seemed to be on vacation. His mood demanded a stormy night, or at least a driving rain, and as much discomfort as possible.

Torrence was stepping off the porch when someone in the darkness came toward him from his right. He swung his assault rifle around.

“It’s me.” Claire.

He slung the rifle onto his shoulder. The weapon seemed heavier than it should have.

“You want to talk about it?” she asked softly.

His eyes began to adjust to the dark. Her face materialized like a ghost. He tried to not say it, but he couldn’t stop. “You going to sleep with everyone else? Who’s next?”

“That’s not talking about it.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to talk about it. Christ, I don’t know. I’m just . . . I’m human. Shit, Claire . . . ”

She touched his arm. He trembled at her touch and felt stupid about it, so he stepped back from her, and she misinterpreted him.

“You decided you want no contact with homosexuals?”

“You’re not a homosexual. You might be bisexual. But you were feeling things, real things, with me.” His tone challenged her to pretend it wasn’t true.

“Of course I did. I don’t think I’m gay. But she . . . she’s very tender and . . . in some way it’s what I need right now. I don’t know for how long.”

“Should I take a number?”

“Fuck you, Torrence.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Yeah, you always say that. You know me. I don’t know you. You accused me of not opening up more than once, but I
don’t know you.”
He looked up at the stars. After a long moment he said, “Maybe that’s my fault.”

Her silence acknowledged that maybe it was.

• 12 •

Baltimore, Maryland.

Stoner was running—even when he was motionless.

They’d changed motels twice in two days, Stoner making light of it, pretending for Cindy that he wanted one with a Gridfeed screen so she could see her cartoons. And then wanted one with a Gridfeed screen
and
a pool. Trying to hide from his little girl that he was moving them out of simple fear.

But he couldn’t hide it from Janet. Stoner and his wife sat in a window seat overlooking the skating rink of the underground mall their motel was in, sipping weak cocktails in squeaky plastic cups sent up by the automated room service. Janet was sitting there rigidly, staring out at the gliding figures on the skating rink, her eyes tracing the blades that etched off-white lines into the chalky ice below them; Cindy was watching the Japanese reactive cartoon,
Roboboy.
Cindy had the interaction box in her hand; the screen was set to receive the various
Roboboy
interactive programs, and Janet had booted Cindy’s name into the flexible sound track. “Uh-oh!” Roboboy was saying. “Stoned Dr. Drugmaster has shot a hypnotic into Designer Dan! What should I do, Cindy? Should I try to find an antidote, or should I go to the Garbage Marsh to rescue my pal Lowtech without Designer Dan’s help?”

“Find an antidote!” Cindy said, pushing the button for Option A.

“Well, hell,” Stoner muttered, “I wish Roboboy’d rescue us from the Garbage Marsh.” He watched Janet’s face, hoping she’d smile.

But her lips compressed, whitening as she tried to keep from crying.

He glanced at his watch.
Eight.
It would be dark up above. But here, at the underground motel and rink, it might be any time of day. The walk between the motel and the rink was still busy with shoppers and browsers moving like bees gathering pollen at the shops around the rink. On the far side a Silent Radio strip formed marching letters for newsblurbs and ads:

Department of Defense reports New-Soviets continue withdrawal in Europe but increase orbital presence . . . President Bester denies Second Alliance plot allegations calls for investigation into “anti-patriotic propaganda sources” . . . Secretary of Interior Swell reaffirms need for emergency presidential powers, will not rule out media censorship, cites war emergency, historic precedence . . . Acid rain concentrated in tornados blamed for toxicity deaths in Missouri . . . court finds complete vindication for late Senator Spector. Spector was killed during antiviolence laws programming; Grand Jury named for videoframing investigation . . . In sports, the Houston Orbiters shot down the . . . 

Stoner looked away, shrugging. And saw Lopez, standing by the railing of the rink, looking up at him.

“There he is,” Stoner murmured.

“Where?” Janet asked breathlessly.

“He’s coming into the motel now.” Where was Brummel? Stoner wondered.

Lopez came to the door. Stoner let him in, glancing at Cindy. She hardly looked up. She told Roboboy, “Apply for new memories, Roboboy!” and pressed a button.

Lopez went directly to Janet, still sitting in the window. He was wearing a brown overcoat, speckled from rain.

“It’s raining up there?” Stoner said.

Lopez took off his soft plastic fedora, held it in his hands in front of him, and said softly, “Mrs. Stoner, I’m sorry to tell you, your brother he is dead, or . . . he will be soon. He was stop at a checkpoint and he lost his temper with a policeman, he pull a gun. They hit him and take the gun away, took him to be questioned and . . . they put him under extractor. So . . . they know what he does. Under the antiterrorist section of the AVL laws . . . well, I am sorry. We cannot help him.”

He said all this quickly, and with a sympathetic gentleness that surprised Stoner.

Janet covered her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut, rocked in silent pain. Stoner went to stand beside her, put his arm over her shoulder. And then the implications hit him like a chilled spike:
Brummel, extracted.
Which meant that Lopez would soon be under surveillance.

Lopez, looking at him, saw it on his face and nodded. “We have to hurry. And I will be coming with you. They know about me now.”

Twenty minutes and they were all down in the lobby, bags sloppily packed, on the carrier beside Stoner, who was waiting at the desk for the Pakistani clerk to bring his credit card back. Wondering if maybe there was an APB out for him with a credit freeze tagged to it, which would mean the clerk’s credit reader would refuse Stoner access to his funds. And would alert the police.

Cindy was crying because she’d seen her Mommy cry; she clung to Janet’s legs, and Janet was trying not to cry, and shit, the clerk was taking too long to come back with that card. Why had he taken it into the next room, anyway? He’d slotted it into the desk reader, said it wasn’t working, he’d have to take it to the back room.

Oh, Lord. Stoner looked at Lopez. “I think there’s . . . ”

“Yes,” Lopez said, “we’ll have to leave the bags.”

Stoner bent, took the small blue Tourister off the stack, handed Janet her night bag, said in a low voice, “That’s it, I’m sorry, honey, but that’s it. Come on.” She followed her husband, and Lopez across the lobby to the glass doors, looked over her shoulder at the bags they’d left. Just once. “Mommy, we have to take our bags,” Cindy said.

“Someone’s going to send it for us,” Janet told her, lying with an admirable cheeriness as they went out the doors onto the walk with its skating rink schmaltz music, the generic mockery of crowd sounds.

A neopunk boy in a fatigue jacket, an orange flight suit, and spiked boots approached Lopez. He had a pallid, longnosed face and needled eyes, and he wore a headset communicator. He said loudly, “Hey—ya moneyman, slide me a one forra train, huh?”

Stoner expected Lopez to brush him off and hurry on but he made a show of taking out his wallet, poking through it as the neopunk “panhandler” whispered, “Armando called down, says a Fed copter landed on the roof and a bunch of guys who look too much alike got out of cars and ran into the mall upstairs—about a minute ago.”

Lopez swore in Spanish, handed him a bill for appearance’s sake, and then said, “You find the way?”

The boy nodded and jerked his head:
Come on.
They followed him through the crowds to the door of an office with a dull black plastic sign, mall security. Lopez glancing at Stoner with that look of inquiry.
Betrayal?

But they went past the door, around the corner into an alley littered with waxpaper cups, the wall graffitied:
Jerome-X wins when he loses.

A small three-wheeled truck was parked there, the words mall security patrol on it in the mall’s colors, gold on dun. Another kid was in the driver’s seat, his zigzagged haircut looking odd under the Security guard’s cap. He wore a brown uniform.

Lopez, Stoner, Janet, and Cindy were ushered into the little truck—a van, really—and Janet gasped. Stoner looked, saw a man in yellowed briefs tied up in the back of the van, turned to the back door. Hands cuffed behind his back; ankles cuffed together. Breathing but gagged.

“Mommy . . . ?”

“It’s okay, honey, he’s a . . . a bad guy. But they’re not going to hurt him, they’ll let him go soon.”

“Lay down in the back,” the driver said, a teenager’s voice.

God, we’re in the hands of children,
Stoner thought.

They lay down side by side, Lopez at the rear beside the subdued guard, Stoner turned away from him, toward his wife, the two of them holding Cindy between them. “It’s really a kind of game, Cindy,” Janet said, inevitably making Stoner wince. Because he knew that Cindy wouldn’t fall for it.