Alan E. Nourse & J. A. Meyer (23 page)

From:
BRINT USNXY To: BRINT HQX LONDON
Priority: IMMEDIATE ATTENTION Distribution: HQX-K7 ONLY

Dear
Roger:

I'm
using our private channel for this letter because I am becoming more certain
every hour that our normal channels are under constant DIA surveillance, and I
clearly cannot route my personal opinion of the situation over here through
Julian Bahr's hands if I have any hope of keeping my Scotch neck in one piece
and serving any useful purpose in die future.

As you might guess, Arthur and his people in
the NY office are rather at
a
loss,
with the city walled off by the recent communications edict. I am relying on
the usual private channels to keep in touch with my groups, and particularly
with Carl
Englehardt
. So far every report in my hands
indicates that the pot of water is heating at a far greater rate of speed than
we had originally assumed would be the case.

Arthur
persists in adhering to our original immediate and long-range plans, ignoring
the almost incredible pattern that has been emerging in the past weeks, and he
feels that we must try to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. He
has sent (against my outcries of warning) a note to Bahr suggesting a meeting
which could be nothing more than
a
ceremony
of agreement.

I oppose this.

"Normal"
in Federation America is at best a relative term; I am certain now that if Bahr
proceeds unchecked, he will in a matter of weeks have initiated an irreversible
reaction, and that "normality" in the present sense of the word will
never be seen again. If we could predict, even in the broadest terms, where
this reaction would end, I would be enthusiastically in favor of riding it
out. Unfortunately, I don't think that Bahr himself knows where it will end,
and this alone makes his position intolerably dangerous.

We
have assumed from the start that DEPCO, with all its systematic precautions to
keep emotionally unstable personalities out of key spots, would have
automatically harnessed a man like Bahr very early in the game. This has not
happened. His emergence confirms what I have been telling you for several
years: that the DEPCO system has been in a spiraling decay since the death of
Larchmont, and that something new is certain to emerge.

At
this writing, that "something new" is taking the shape of Julian
Bahr.

Bahr
has seized the alien crisis as his chance for power. This is hardly surprising.
I predicted it, you recall, when Project Frisco was first launched. What I
could not predict was the simple fact that Bahr has run headlong into the

DEPCO
restraint system and broken the restraints one by one. Ironically, the DEPCO
philosophy, which aimed at controlling and inhibiting men like Bahr, is
inadvertently guaranteeing his success. If he succeeds in destroying DEPCO,
there are no strong men at the top in Federation America to oppose him.

I
think it is most important to realize this early. If Bahr succeeds, there will
surely be very strong central control emanating from a single point, and no
chance for us to encourage internal schism as we have in Asia and USSR. Nor
would it then be safe to think of replacing him with a puppet if he were
deposed or in some way removed from power.

It
is my considered opinion that if Bahr is allowed to reach that point, we will
have lost everything we have been working for. Unfortunately, we have needed
him badly, and right now we continue to need him. I believe that
Englehardt
will support Bahr at all costs in order to get
the Space Project in operation. I will talk to Carl personally about this as
soon as possible, but I have very little hope of dissuading him.

Meanwhile, it is imperative that we be ready
to cope with the political and economic changes which I think are about to
begin; ultimately we must be in a position to cage Bahr or destroy him. Bahr
may have considerable information on our activities, so we must be alert to a
purge of some kind. He is very abrupt and direct in his actions; with the alien
threat to justify him, he may move without warning at any time.

I
wish I could be more optimistic, but I honestly think it is all as bad as I
have outlined. I think things will be a bit tricky for quite a while, and I may
have to move quickly without clearing through you or Arthur. There is one item
of genuine promise, the matter of the elusive major that I mentioned before.
Here is a man who has successfully thwarted Bahr, and he still remains at
large. Indications are that he can be extremely useful to us . . .
or
extremely dangerous to us. I am bending all efforts at present to locate
him. Saunders had his trail in St. Louis, but lost it. I will have more to
report on this at a later date.

Meanwhile,
if you see some brilliant chess move that will put us back in a position of
advantage, contact me without delay through Talbot. Repeat, night or day.

Best
wishes,

Paul
MacKenzie

At one a.m
. the phone jangled insistently, and Bahr,
still sleepless, reached over and seized it. "Bahr," he growled.

"Abrams,
Chief. I just wanted to co-ordinate with you on discontinuing the search."

Bahr sat upright, suddenly tense.
"On what?"

"The drag . . . for Alexander.
I just wanted to advise you I was dropping
it. I'm checking out the field units now . . ."

"Scrambler,"
Bahr said.
"Four-three-nine.
Baker."
He punched the scrambler buttons on his own phone and tested. Then: "What
in hell are you talking about, dropping the search? Did I give you
orders
to drop it?"

A long silence.
"No . . . but . . ."

"You
get those field units back into operation in three minutes, or I'll
greencard
you so fast . . ."

"But, Chief, didn't you hear? He's been
picked up."
"Where?"

"East St. Louis.
They
booby-trapped a motel room.
I'd lost him an hour before, just picked him
up again two hours ago and then they landed him.
Another DIA
unit.
Didn't you get the report?"

"Must have been a slip-up in the tracer
relay," Bahr growled. "They're probably trying to locate me
now." Then, cautiously, "Which unit was it picked up the major?"

"They
didn't sign through the roadblocks as a unit," the man said. "It was
on a personal chit. Only I didn't know you had any informal units working this
drag with us."

"Whose personal
chit?"

"Carmine's.
But I don't see why they didn't notify us
they were shadowing, too.
I
mean, it's customary. Unless you . . ."

"You're certain it was
Alexander they picked up?"

"Positive,
Chief.
There's no mistake."

"Okay,
drop the search.
Ill
pick
up
the story from this end. And thanks for the call."

Bahr
hung up, flipped the scrambler off, and dialed the locator relay.
"Bahr speaking.
Any calls come in for me?" He knew
before he asked that there had been no call.

"No call, sir."

"Where can I locate Frank Carmine,
DIA-43P" He heard the whir of the locator file on the other end.
"He's in transit now.
Destination, Red Bank, New Jersey.
Field Unit HQ there. Planned arrival two A.M. Shall I try to make contact when
he arrives?"

"Just
deliver a message. Tell him to meet me at two-thirty at the Red Bank Ground
Terminal. There won't be any answer. I'll be leaving
shordy
for that same destination number."

He
was resetting the scrambler when Libby sat up, turning up the light.
"Trouble, Julian?"

"Go
back to sleep," Bahr said. "I've got to take a
litde
trip."

"But you've got the prelim
tomorrow." She glanced at her watch.
"This
morning!"

"I'll be back. It's
only over in Jersey."

"You
can't take the prelim on
no
sleep. The suggestions
won't cue in properly if you're too tired. We can't risk all the work we did
this afternoon."

He
continued placing his call, and motioned her to silence as it came through.
"Bahr speaking.
Get one of the dummies ready. Tell him
to take a 'copter to Rahway, and a ground train from there to Red Bank Ground
Terminal. Tell him to get there at two-thirty. No, nothing else, just report
back afterwards. And," he added, "
tell
him
Condition B when he hits Red Bank. Use his stunner if he has to.

Double A security on this,
too.
And
see that his stride is right. I take big steps. Okay, see you."
"Sending a dupe?" Libby asked.

Bahr
nodded as he disconnected the alarm from his
Markheim
stunner on the knee table, hefting the sleek, surprisingly heavy weapon
thoughtfully.

"What is it, Julian?
Aliens?"

"Maybe," Bahr
said, dressing hurriedly. "Maybe . . ."

"Are
you taking a 'copter unit with you? Are you sure you'll be back in time for the
prelim?"

"Where are the keys to
your Volta?"

"On
the sill.
But
what do you want the Volta for?"

"If
anyone calls, I'm on my way to the ground terminal. Don't mention the
Volta." He tucked the stunner into his shoulder holster.

"You're not going
there alone! Julian!"

The door closed quietly
behind him.

2001,
die
fourth year of the crash that had staggered North America and most of the rest
of the world, a year of desolation, a year of retrenching and finally coming
to grips with the horror of the crash, when some semblance of order was
pounded, often quite unmercifully, out of chaos. Federation America, a broken
nation
...
a nation without jobs or
purpose, without the stability of money, with broken-down communications and
impossible transportation and the imminent, momentary, endless threat of war.

2001,
and Julian Bahr had been rounded up with a lot of other drifters, young and
old, and hauled to the Indianapolis Processing Center for testing and
relocation in line with the personnel policies of the Department of
Exploitation in the fledgling
Vanner-Elling
Stability
government. He had been fingerprinted, photographed, weighed, measured, and run
through the maze—the personality and intelligence tests that, unrealized by
him, were going to mark off the sharp limits of his future for him.

After a year of shiftlessness, hunger, ration
lines, pilfering, and completely unlimited freedom of movement, Bahr was
hostile and suspicious of the newly-designated authority figures.

"How old are you, kid?"
"Thirteen."

"You're too big for thirteen. You're
fifteen." "Go to hell."

They
found the ID card he hadn't bothered to show them, and sent him into the
testing center. The testing procedures were routine, the operators bored and
indifferent. They paid no attention to Bahr's resentfulness and hostility; when
he scored a sloppy dull-normal on the initial tests, the test teams looked no
further, assumed the worst, and hustled him through the Rorschach, thematic
apperception and
Vor
-nay without ever getting far
enough behind the shell to even glimpse what the big, belligerent youth's mind
was really like. He looked big, tough and stupid. They sent him to Riley to let
the military knock the rough comers off.

Fort
Riley Infantry Tech School, the new kind of military academy, where boys in
their early teens were molded into the toughest guerrilla troops in the world.
Just as they reached the beginning of their peak years in stamina and physique,
they were offered the option (which they all accepted) of a ten year enlistment
in the 801st. The weeding-out was enormous; screened before they entered, only
twenty percent survived as guerrilla fodder, while the rest were sloughed off
into the normal backwaters of Army administration and logistics. The Hitler
youth groups in its most fanatic hour had never approached the tremendous group
pressure techniques that drove, goaded, and quite often crushed the raw
material into the proper shape.