Amerika (10 page)

“I guess it surprised us, too. The country was filled with millions of guns. And we supposedly had a tradition of not letting anyone tell us what to do.” “Maybe it had become just that—a tradition. Perhaps you had just gotten too soft, too selfish, too afraid of losing what you had to protect it.”

“We had no plan. At first it was our own troops just keeping order. Then the UNSSU Peacekeeping teams. By the time anyone realized what was going on, the Special Service Units were completely in place and they seemed invulnerable. Not to mention the communication problem. Nobody had any idea what was going on anywhere else.”

“I’ll let you in on a secret Soviet strategy. We believed that the Electro Magnetic Pulse would disrupt your military communications enough for us to succeed. And your banking system. What we didn’t expect was that without communications the United States would revert to a collection of separate peoples— separate regions. We’ve just restricted communications from area to area—-with the intent to diminish the sense of national unity, of common purpose, so to speak. And it worked. People in one area don’t care about anything but what happens to them.”

“You just got the drop on us,” Peter said somewhat defensively.

“You don’t believe that. We both know the Soviet plan worked because you lost your country before we ever got here.”

Peter stared incredulously at Andrei. “You sound disappointed that you succeeded.”

Andrei did not respond. Suddenly he felt as if he had

been a little too open with Mr. Bradford. “Why is it you wish to help us?”

Peter appeared shocked. “I don’t wish to help you. I wish to help my country.”

“There is no country.”

“My people then. My family—my community.” “Why do you think we should accept that your purposes and ours are compatible?”

“I’m not saying that you should accept it. You asked for this meeting.”

There was a burst of fire in the street. They both watched the people below scattering like apples from an overturned cart.

“I’m enough of a realist,” Peter continued, “to know you’re not going to let America become a threat to you.” He looked at Andrei. “But maybe there’s a way for us to pull together more as an area. Hell, give us an incentive. Give us the incentive of getting rid of the occupation and maybe we’ll prove that we can function and not be a threat.”

Andrei turned from the disturbance and looked at Peter, somewhat solemn. “It’s a tragedy, isn’t it? A great country, a great idea. You have no idea how many people looked to the American experiment as the answer—the hope. Now we’ll never know.”

“What?”

“Whether it would have destroyed itself anyway.”

As Justin, Jackie, and their Milford friends moved warily toward their cars, Justin looked down the street back toward the club and saw the Cavern disc jockey casually chatting with a police officer.

“It was a setup,” he declared, climbing into the station wagon. “Can you believe this bullshit?”

He whipped the car down a deserted alley, taking
evasive action even though it seemed they were not being followed. But within seconds, the headlights of another vehicle cut into the empty street behind them.

“Jus, there’s a police car back there,” Puncher said, his voice sticking in his throat.

Justin skidded around the next comer at fifty, and the other car followed close behind. They drove without lights toward the outskirts of the city, the police cruiser always following too close for comfort. After several miles the cars headed down a country road along the river. Justin drove carefully and slowly for a bit, stringing their pursuers along. Then, swiftly, with screaming tires and groaning axles, he cot the car sharply down an overgrown dirt path. After a few moments of inky darkness on all sides, they knew they’d gotten away. Justin drove a bit farther, then stopped the car and, for the first time since fleeing the Cavern, looked over to Jackie. She sat shaking quietly beside Mm. He moved closer and put his arms around her, holding her tenderly. She reached up and kissed him hungrily, almost desperately, the unaccustomed wine spicing her breath. With nervous laughs bom of a close call, the others in the backseat egged Justin on until he turned back angrily and demanded quiet.

They all drove back to Milford in silence, exhausted from the chase. About a half mile from the bam, Justin pulled the wagon to the side of the road and the pickup followed suit. Before Jackie knew what was going on, he’d managed to persuade everyone in the wagon to hitch a ride to the bam in the back of the pickup. Suddenly, after ail the bodies, all the noise, all the racing and dancing and running, they were completely alone.

Justin grabbed the handle and ripped the car door open. He pulled Jackie out of the car with him and they stumbled a short ways down a wooded path. He held her to him, listening to the night sounds around them. Over her shoulder, he could see a stream with a mass of ice chunks bobbing by, their whiteness caught by the

moonlight.

“Sorry, Jackie,” he said, still holding her close. “This was really stupid. We’re like a bunch of kids—not Resisters. We don’t even know what we’re for or what we’re against.” He held her at arm’s length and studied her tear-streaked face. “Let me tell you, if I ever ask you to do anything with me again, I’ll make damn sure that I know what I’m doing. Okay?”

It was as if she weren’t listening. She leaned into him again, kissing Mm passionately. He held her, confused by her behavior.

“I want to make love,” she said finally.

“Jackie—”

“Maybe we’ll never get a chance. Maybe we’ll be killed trying to get home. I want—”

“Stop it, Jackie. I love you. I want to make love to you.” He paused. “I always want to make love to you, but not like this. I’m standing here listening to you and I feel like—well, like it doesn’t matter who you’re with tonight, like I don’t matter ...”

He shrugged, unable to complete his thought. She looked away from Mm and stared into the stream. She said nothing, just stood there sighing and shaking her head. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded melancholy.

“We’re never going to have anything, are we, Justin? I love you, but it’s like all our life is going to be like . . She sighed again as if it were all too much for her to understand. “I don’t know. Forget it, it’s nothing.”

Justin grabbed her, forcing her to look at him. “No, it isn’t. There’s going to be something, I promise. It’s just not going to be this.”

He pulled her into his arms, staring up at the gibbous moon, swearing silently that one day he would give her all the things he could not give her now. “C’mon. I’ve got to get you home.”

After Peter had been led away to meet with Andrei, Amanda found herself alone and uncomfortable, surrounded by strangers she did not care to know. But her loneliness in the glittering ballroom did not last long; she had no sooner reached the sanctuary of her table when Marion Andrews joined her. They had never been friends in the old days, really; at best, they were acquaintances who didn’t travel in the same circles. Now, their dissimilarities polarity seemed even more distinct—Marion a political powerhouse and a mannequin for haute couture, Amanda a country wife wanting only her old serenity—and yet here was Marion, magistrate and PPP disciple, talking with Amanda as if they had always been the best of pals. To Amanda, Marion seemed somehow calculating, her sleek charm too practiced, too easy. And so they chatted—-a bit awkwardly for Amanda, who asked about the boys but thought it best not to mention Devin.

After a while, Marion excused herself and was replaced soon after by the singer, Kimberly. The difference between the two was, to Amanda, quite remarkable, and she found herself enjoying Kimberly’s innocent chatter about songs and plays, and her indifference to the political pomp that surrounded them.

Peter finally arrived at the table with Andrei. Amanda was prepared to dislike Colonel Denisov, and was almost disappointed to find him so charming as he warmly took her hand and praised her husband. Amanda was surprised, and perhaps a little bit ashamed, to find herself actually enjoying the evening.

As the dinner was served—real pork chops edged with fat that had never tasted quite so savory, fresh peas, ice cream with real cream in it, and honest-to-God coffee—Amanda wondered when these political types would get around to speech making. She knew many of the faces from functions she had attended with Peter and from news pieces on Natnet, the national government television network. She dreaded the thought of listening to harangues on the quality and honesty of life under the New Understanding.

She found herself thinking about Devin. He had been a wonderful speaker, with his unsettling habit of telling the truth making him all but unique among politicians. When he was in Congress, he’d begun one memorable speech, “You people make me sick.” The speech had stretched his fame far beyond the borders of Nebraska. Now all that was changed. Amanda wondered what five years in Russian prisons had done to him—and guessed she’d find out soon enough.

She looked at Andrei Denisov, so sophisticated, so urbane. So “American.” And yet he was one of the people responsible for putting Devin in prison. For what? For being an American? For loving his country? She wanted to hate Denisov, but somehow that emotion was forced, not natural. It was all so damn confusing.

Andrei arose suddenly and clinked his spoon against a 'wineglass. The buzz of the crowd at the tables slowly died down until the room was almost silent. Andrei cleared his throat before speaking; he had their undivided attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very special announcement to make.”

Amanda glanced at Peter, who seemed to be watching Andrei intently.

“Since Congress established the administrative areas in 1993, there has been little change,” Andrei went on. “The UN Advisory Office has been very successful working with the five state governors and enlightened members of the state legislatures. Studies by our own Area Advisory Group and the National Advisory Group have determined that a central coordinator for each area needs to be established. There is still unrest in the areas, as most of you know, and our efforts to restore the kind of national communications network which existed prior to 1993 have met with less success than we had hoped. Sabotage and, frankly, the increasingly diverse nature of the areas have forced us to come together more as a region, with more area-wide planning for the future. We would all like to speed the day when foreign advisers of every kind will be able to leave your soil.”

Peter and a few others spontaneously applauded, and Amanda joined in, though she was a little hesitant, unsure of whether enthusiasm over such a prospect would be deemed appropriate by Denisov and his ilk. After several seconds of applause, Andrei signaled subtly for quiet and received it almost instantly.

“I’d like to take this opportunity,” Andrei said, “to introduce the no
min
ees for the new post of governor-general of the Central Administrative Area: the area you have come recently to know as Heartland.”

Amanda was mildly curious. She wondered if Peter would know any of the candidates, and hoped he didn’t get caught up in any of the political wrangling that would no doubt follow the “coming together” of this “Heartland” thing. He had worked hard as county administrator, and had managed to do it all without selling his soul to the PPP or compromising his belief in what used to be called the American Way. Amanda hoped whatever this new alignment called for, it wouldn’t take that away.

“I would like to have the nominees stand as they are announced,” Andrei went on. “Please hold your response until they all have been named. Oh—and I should also tell you these candidates have been approved by the National Advisory Committee, the office of the national adviser, and your own area senators and representatives to the National Congress.”

When he read the first four names, the only one Amanda recognized was William Smith, the governor of Missouri and a none-too-popular one at that. The others must have been local PPP types in their own regions, Amanda thought. None of them got a particularly noteworthy introduction, until Andrei got around to the final nominee.

“Now, last but not least,” Andrei was saying, “I give you a brilliant local leader, one of the rising stars of the Heartland . . .”

He paused for dramatic effect. The crowd’s interest was piqued, because Andrei had already lavished more praise and enthusiasm in that simple preface than he had on all of the others combined.

“. . . my good friend, the county administrator of Milford County, Nebraska, Mr. Peter Bradford.” Amanda spun around, shocked. Peter avoided her eyes as he stood and turned to Andrei, who timed his own applause with Peter’s rising. Marion Andrews, seated at the next table, stood and applauded, and within seconds the entire room was standing, applauding. Amanda watched in disbelief as her husband, stiff and uncertain at first, began to warm to the ovation, beginning to grin and to wave back at the crowd as if the applause were intended solely for him—and indeed it seemed as if it were. Peter held out his hand to Amanda and she realized to her horror that she was expected to join him. Dazed, she stood up and forced a s
mil
e as the cheers washed over them.

She looked up at Peter in profile, an arm’s length from him but feeling a million miles away. To Amanda, he had never looked more handsome or self-confident. Looking around at the faces in the warmly applauding crowd, she knew in one awful instant that her honest, decent husband had never been more fulfilled in his life.