Alternities (33 page)

And when strange thoughts come into your head, you wonder if it’s little Shan James, fighting for a little more of her life, sending you a message. When you told me that I laughed—I didn’t mean to, it was just such a surprise—and you got angry.

Except with what I’ve seen, I’m never again going to tell anyone what can’t be. So don’t tell her, little spirit
, he thought as he trailed Shan to the album rack.
Please don’t tell her that I already want her—unless you see in her that she can love me, too.

The beating of the helicopter blades overhead was a perfect multiple of the throbbing in Gregory O’Neill’s temples, making the twenty-minute flight from the small jetport at International Falls into the heart of Superior National Forest an unending torment. Neither aspirin nor massage, both of which he had applied in large quantities, had brought any relief.

Relief, if there was to be any, lay another fifteen wooded miles ahead, at the cabin on the southwest shore of Black Duck Lake. For the torment was only partly physical. O’Neill had thought the cold blind anger was under control, thought he had successfully pushed it down under an insulating layer of rational professional discourse.

But the closer the single-rotor four-place blue and white Boeing Vertol came to where the President was waiting, the harder it was for O’Neill to forget his personal outrage, the sharper and more intemperate became the inner voice rehearsing the encounter. It had been playing in his head for twelve hours, becoming a conversation that would not wait, could not keep until Robinson returned from his vacation.

Lied to me. You lied to me
—

The news had come to him late the night before, in a phone call he had taken at home in his quiet, book-lined den. The call was from the SAC commander, a dutiful, unexcitable man O’Neill had known for twenty years, since he was Senator Church’s aide and the commander the project leader on the YF-70 interceptor project.

“Gregory, what in the hell does the CIA need with an H-bomb?” he had asked, quietly but quite indignantly. “And why in the hell was I cut out of the procurement process?”

How could he answer? What could he say?—Sorry about that, Blaze. I was cut out, too. How fast would
that
little story spread, destroying his credibility with the Pentagon, crippling his ability to control the men who occupied the Tank, the Joint Chiefs’ boardroom enclave off the Bradley Corridor.

Shaken himself, O’Neill had little sympathy to spare, little capacity to soothe someone else’s ruffled feathers. “There’s nothing I can tell you now,” was his blunt reply. “But I’m going to get some answers.” It was a weak promise, and the SAC commander was unassuaged. But O’Neill had managed to both hold down his own feelings and hold off his old friend until he could escape from the conversation.

Then he had seized the glow-eyed black-boxed NSA scrambler in both hands and hurled it, broken wires flying out behind, through the den window and into the snowy backyard. Nor was that the worst of it. When his wife came running to see what was wrong, he had barked something about minding her own damn business, and then walked out on her when she refused to take the advice.

O’Neill was not proud of the way he had handled it. But there was no question that the provocation was extreme. He had been fighting against the same kind of loss of control ever since, fighting the impulse to forgo words and express himself by opening up Robinson’s skull.
It would be an interesting trial
—

“Pinetree, this is White Rose,” the pilot was saying into his radio.

“How’s the ice on the porch?”

“Twelve inches thick if it’s a foot,” came the answer. “Bring her on in.”

The pilot twisted his head around until he could see O’Neill. “Wally says the lake’s solid,” he shouted over the rotor noise. “I can put you down right by the front door, if you don’t mind a little slipping and sliding. It’ll save you that long walk in from the helipad.”

O’Neill bobbed his head in agreement, then slid sideways on the seat to peek out through the small side window. The FNS called the Black Duck retreat—a five-room frontier-style log cabin heated with twin wood stoves, the only permanent structure inside a thousand-acre national preserve—the “White House in the Wilds.” Taking a more sarcastic turn, the
New York Times
called it Pa Robinson’s “Little House in the Big Woods.”

As O’Neill watched, the trees suddenly fell away beneath them. The pilot swung the helicopter wide over the lake, then dropped down to within a few feet of the lumpy, snow-drifted lake ice and bore in toward the shoreline where the cabin stood, a hundred feet upslope from a small pier. A man in a long gray coat stood on the end of the pier, watching the chopper’s approach.

It had to be Rodman. As much Robinson’s friend as his chief of staff, Rodman was the only White House aide allowed to accompany the President on his retreats. And it was Rodman who had answered when O’Neill had called to tell them he was coming. Rodman who had told him flatly to stay in Washington.

“He and Janice are celebrating their twentieth,” Rodman had said. “You know that. Let ’em be. We’ll all be home Tuesday.”

“I’m sorry. This can’t wait. Bill.”

“If it’s important enough to disturb Peter here, then it’s important enough for him to come back to the city,” Rodman had countered. “Why don’t you tell me what the emergency is, so I can tell Peter why he has to cut his second honeymoon short.”

At that, O’Neill’s veneer of civility had evaporated. “I didn’t call to ask permission, particularly not yours. I called to give the President fair warning. I’ll be there about two this afternoon.”

“Don’t do it, O’Neill,” Rodman had threatened. O’Neill had not answered. He had simply hung up.

It had to be Rodman waiting, and it was. He pounced on O’Neill as soon as he had disembarked. “You’re way out of line on this one, Greg-boy,” Rodman said, blocking O’Neill from advancing down the pier.

“Get out of my way, Bill.”

The helicopter roared up over the trees toward the helipad, the downdraft creating a brief, furious blizzard. “Goddamned Ivy League faggot,” Rodman said. “You know what your problem is, O’Neill? You don’t know what it means to be part of a team. I should have told the Secret Service to blow your goddamned chopper out of the sky.”

The insulating layer burst, rent through as though slashed by a razor. Without conscious thought, O’Neill took a half-step forward and delivered a savage roundhouse right to Rodman’s jaw and throat.

The sound of his gloved fist against Rodman’s bare skin was muted, but the power of the blow was not. Rodman’s head whipped to the left. He took one, two staggering steps in that direction, half retreat, half quest for balance. The second step found nothing but air beneath it, and Rodman toppled off the pier and crashed heavily to the ice. There was a cracking sound, and the gurgling of water.

Two Secret Service agents in white winter combat suits came running from the woods, one arrowing toward Rodman, one, weapon drawn, toward O’Neill on the pier. Feeling release rather than guilt, O’Neill started toward the cabin. He did not trouble himself to see if Rodman was hurt, or drowning, or both. In that moment, he did not care. With equal disdain, he brushed aside the agent who tried to intercept him.

“O’Neill, Gregory Patrick. January 11, ’27, Hempstead, Long Island,” he recited without breaking stride. “The President is expecting me.”

The cabin was little more than a rectangular box twenty-five feet by sixty, seemingly the product of a box of Lincoln Logs in the hands of an unimaginative child. The logs which formed the heavily-chinked walls were as raw on the inside as the out, and the ceiling overhead was a forest of rafters and roof timbers.

A wall of heavily varnished knotty pine divided a third of the cabin’s length off as a bedroom suite. For all practical purposes, the rest of the cabin was a single large room, broken up by a massive stone chimney pillar in the center. The chimney served both a fireplace facing the living room and a wood-burning stove in the kitchen.

From beyond the pine wall, O’Neill heard the sound of running water, and then Robinson’s voice: “Make yourself comfortable, Gregory. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Faintly, he heard Janice laugh, or more aptly, giggle.

Leaving his coat and gloves on the coat tree by the front door, O’Neill walked to the other end of the cabin and settled in a chair facing the cold hearth. No one else was in the cabin, nor had he expected there would be. This place was all Robinson’s. The Secret Service, the command communications staff, and even Rodman were obliged to live in trailers adjacent to the helipad, a quarter-mile away.

Despite their exile, the cabin’s rustic atmosphere seemed false and forced. Over the hearth hung a thirty-inch muskellenge mounted on a plaque, its mouth gaping open as though about to take the hook. O’Neill doubted it had been caught in Black Duck Lake, or even by Robinson personally. The muskie’s blank staring eye gave the trophy a surreal quality.

Discomfited by the wait—an old trick, making a caller wait—O’Neill went to the window and looked out toward the lake. There was no one in sight, so presumably Rodman had survived the encounter. O’Neill felt a brief pang of guilt, but it was tempered by the pleasure of discovering that somewhere between the pier and the cabin his headache had vanished.

Turning away, O’Neill looked for something else to divert him. There was not a book, magazine, or newspaper anywhere to be seen.

Likewise radio or TV. A victrola stood along one wall, but its record compartment contained only bottles of liquor. No distractions, O’Neill thought. Except Janice.

Somewhere a door opened and closed, and O’Neill looked up to see Robinson approaching, barefoot and wearing an ankle-length burgundy robe.

“Hello, Gregory,” Robinson said, his voice and manner relaxed. “Janice and I were out skating just before you got here, all the way to the west end and back. I swear that a hot shower is the only way to really drive the chill out.” His smile broadened. “Well—almost the only way. Do you skate?”

“I never learned how.”

“I had to teach Janice. But you’d probably be forcing things now to try. It’s a skill best learned at a young age, when the bones are forgiving and you don’t have so far to fall.”

“I’m sure.” Was there a second message to that? Robinson was not usually that subtle.

Before O’Neill could decide, the front door opened, and there was the stamping of snow-covered feet. Then Rodman appeared at the end of the little hallway between the chimney and a rank of closets. His cheek was reddened by more than the wind, and his eyes were cold and hard.

“Sorry I’m late, Peter,” he said, advancing toward them. His voice had a hoarse rasp to it. “I had to change clothes.”

Robinson held up a hand to stop him. “No, Bill. No notes on this one. Leave us alone.”

Query, disapproval, and threat passed across Rodman’s face, the first two meant for Robinson, the last directed at O’Neill. “I’ll be in the trailer,” he said gruffly, and retreated.

Robinson turned to O’Neill. “Well, Gregory. You came a long way to get something off your chest. Why don’t you do it?”

“You’re going ahead with this Q-plane business.”

“It has a name now. Mongoose. Yes, I gave Dennis the green light to advance the work on hardware.”

“Without telling me.”

Robinson lowered himself slowly into an easy chair. “You said that you preferred not to have anything to do with it.”

“That’s bullshit. You led me to believe this thing was dead.”

“I never said anything of the kind.”

“You said you wanted me to stay on.”

“Yes. To do the things that you do best. Though I assume that one of the reasons you’re here is to resign again, and to get it right this time.”

“I’m here because this scares the shit out of me, and I’m trying to find out what the hell is going on in your head that it doesn’t scare you just as much.”

“Why don’t you sit down, Gregory?”

“Is it that bad?”

Robinson laughed. “I just thought you might be getting tired of looming over me like a vulture.”

Feeling foolish, O’Neill retreated to a chair.

This is starting to get away from me
, he thought.
I should never have hit Rodman. I could have used that anger
—

“You know, of course, that I don’t have to answer to you,” Robinson was saying. “But I don’t mind you knowing what’s going on in my head on this, because I know that the logic is very clear. And because you could make a positive contribution to the effort if you came to see that.”

“I don’t see myself supporting this under any circumstances.”

Robinson waved a hand absently. “The world is full of surprises. Wasn’t it you that said ‘there are no one-punch fights?’ Or are you just so fast I didn’t see the flurry?

“Yes, I saw, from the bedroom window.” he went on, not giving O’Neill a chance to answer. “I’ll wager it’s been a few years since a Cabinet member laid out his President’s chief of staff. I’m going to have to ask the White House historian about that when we get back.”

“I don’t think Bill considers the fight finished.” O’Neill said flushing. “Which is exactly my point about Mongoose. There are major command and control centers in Kiev, Omsk, and Khabarovsk, manned by generals and admirals who will know exactly what is expected of them when the lines to Moscow all go dead.”

“The weakness of strong centralized power, Gregory, is that the satellite regions become dependent on it. It’s why dolphins are easier to kill than sharks.”

O’Neill shook his head. “Snakes—sharks—this zoo of metaphors you have for the Soviet Union worries me. Mi. President. I worry that they get in the way of seeing the Soviets for what they are.”

“And what is that, exactly, Gregory? What insights do you have that escape the rest of us? Or have you spent so much time in the E-ring that you’ve been infected by the Pentagon’s habits of mind?”

Robinson came up out of his chair and paced in front of the hearth as he continued. “The Reds are ah-powerful. They have tougher tanks, bigger missiles, better soldiers. They have no alcoholic sentries, no careless maintenance techs, no defective build-it-cheap-and-build-it-fast hardware.”