Brother Termite (19 page)

REEN WANDERED
the
West Wing until he wearied of being ignored, then went down to the main building for lunch.

The pantry was a cozy, utilitarian room with an old kitchen table in the center and cabinets all around. As Reen walked in, he found the butler and Jeremy Holt having brunch. The burly black chief of the serving staff popped the last of his omelette into his mouth, swallowed, and asked Reen, “Lunch, sir?”

“Yes,” Reen said, looking at the new President, who was toying with his coffee cup.

“Where do you want me to serve you, sir?”

The President spoke. From the broad Bostonian
a’s
Reen could hear that he was dealing with Kennedy and not the medium. “Serve him in here, ah, Kevin, if you will. It’s always good to have a little company with lunch.”

“Yes, sir. Yes, it sure is.” The butler wiped his mouth with his napkin and rose, taking his empty plate with him to the kitchen.

In the ensuing and prickly silence, Reen sat.

Kennedy said, “Your, ah, Brother seems to have moved into the Oval Office. I take that as a sign you’re out of favor. Am I right?”

“As I recall, that was one of your most annoying habits–always being right.”

“There were a few glaring exceptions.” Kennedy sliced the remains of his Denver omelette into fussy strips. “Anyway, I notice your Brother has taken over with a dexterity that must have come from careful planning. Always be cautious of people who are prepared, Reen,” Kennedy lectured, one eyebrow cocked. “Beware of Boy Scouts.”

“I thought you’d never want to talk to me again,” Reen said.

Somehow Jeremy’s mousy features arranged themselves into Kennedy’s brilliant smile. “Oh, I learned a few things on the other side.”

“Like forgiveness?”

Kennedy threw his head back and laughed. “No, no. I mean, I found out who to blame.”

Fascinated, Reen asked, “Who? My Brother?”

A tired shake of his head. “No. J. Edgar. He suckered you, Reen. Hoover told you I tried to have you assassinated, didn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s why–”

“Don’t apologize,” Kennedy said curtly. “When I was President, you didn’t understand humans very well. Or politics. I’m not angry with you for murdering me. Hoover was a master manipulator. But I wish you hadn’t murdered my brother.”

Brothers again, Reen thought as he watched Kennedy refill his cup from the silver pot. In
the world of Brothers it was perfectly understandable that Jack would forgive Reen for killing him yet still resent his murdering Robert. In
the world of Brothers, Oomal would protect Reen because he hated Tali more.

“So you’re saying you
didn’t
plan to assassinate me,” Reen said.

“I don’t know why you were so gullible as to think I’d try.”

Gullible. Odd, Reen thought, how he believed in his own keen insight, and others thought him naive. “You plotted against Castro. Hoover told us that, and he had proof. He said you wanted to control everything: Cuba and Russia and the Cousins. He told us you wanted to get rid of Khrushchev and me, too. You were dangerous. At least that’s how Hoover explained it. Personally, I had no interest in killing your brother, but Hoover insisted on a trade.”

It struck Reen that he knew where Tali had learned some of his trickery. Not from Hopkins. And not all from Hoover. Some of it came from Reen himself.

Kennedy seemed amused. “I told you Hoover played you for a sucker. Think about it. It made sense to assassinate Castro. Castro was a one-man band. Khrushchev, on the other hand, was an orchestra. Kill Khrushchev, and I’d have the whole politburo to deal with. And what sense would it have made to assassinate you? I’d stop the woodwinds, maybe, but the strings would only play louder. Action in politics has to make sense.”

The butler came out of the kitchen with a plate of finger sandwiches and fresh fruit.

Reen speared a slice of melon, then put it down, uneaten.

“The Senate is up in arms,” Kennedy said.

Reen gave him a questioning look.

“Womack had two more years to his term. That even makes the Democrats uncomfortable. In spite of my assurances, the Senate feels the country is adrift. Partially your fault, you know, for urging the passage of the unlimited term amendment. Fifty-one years of Womack. Fifty-one years. The people can’t imagine another president. Ah, well. If you’ll excuse me, I have a state funeral to arrange.”

When Kennedy left, Reen took a couple of finger sandwiches and ate them as he made his way upstairs.

The maids had been in the oval study. The surface of Womack’s scarred table was agleam with lemon oil. Fresh flowers had been set out: chrysanthemums and hothouse roses. Reen went into the next room.

The bed was rumpled, the floor cluttered. His uniform still lay on the bathroom floor. As he bent to pick it up, his claw clicked on something in the pocket.

Marian’s tape.

He took the cassette out, went to the oval study again, and closed the door to the hall. In the cabinet of the bar he found a tape recorder, the one Womack had been using to dictate the eighteenth volume of his autobiography. Popping the cassette out with his claw, Reen replaced Jeff’s tape with Marian’s.

He turned on the recorder. From the speaker came the squeak of a chair, the empty hiss of white noise. Then, “Do you know why the President has called the press conference?”

The words were distorted, but Reen recognized the voice. It was Tali.

A tap-tap-tap. Someone rapping out a rhythm on wood. A pen against a desktop?

“No idea.”

Superstitious horror made Reen nearly drop the recorder: Hopkins’s voice was so clear. The man must have been sitting much closer to the mike. “The Speaker says there’s gossip that Womack will spring some surprise on Congress tomorrow. Doesn’t know what it is yet, but he says not to worry. Platt’s dense but malleable. I’ve told him to take care of it. He will. We hit Womack, anyway. You bring the Helpers in and put them on Security Chief Landis. It can’t be one of my men. I want Landis to pull the trigger, you understand?”

“We do not need the Loving Helpers. It is dangerous to bring them into the building. I am afraid one of the other Cousins might see. Besides, the suggestion has already been implanted, and the man is under my control. I will say the word, and he will do anything I ask.”

“Bring the Helpers,” Hopkins said.

A sigh.

“So. It’s all decided. And the kidnapping’s set up. A few minutes from now my men will snatch Reen, take him out to Camp David, and bury him with Jonis.” A pause. Then Hopkins said slyly, “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Tali made a small throaty sound. “It is not what I wish. It is simply what must happen. Reen-ja is wrong about many things. And he lacks the morality to lead. But this decision about Womack is different. It is a human one. I have done as you requested. I have put Landis under control. I do not wish to know what you do with my Brother. And I do not wish to watch what happens to the President. These violent matters are disturbing to me. I will give the order, I promise you, but other than that ...”

Hopkins’s laugh was rich and careless and vibrant, nothing like the laugh of a dead man. “No. I want
you
to do it. I want you to bring the Helpers in, and I want you there when Landis blows Womack’s brains out. Otherwise I’ll see the Community gets all the evidence I have. They’d be shocked, don’t you think, to learn how you traded Womack’s assassination for the murder of your Brother?”

The angry squeal of a chair, a thump.

“Sit down. You’re not going anywhere,” Hopkins said calmly. “I have copies of that evidence salted all over Washington. And an interrogation session with the Helpers isn’t going to help, so don’t even think about it. Sit down. Sit down!”

The chair squeaked again. Tali’s voice was plaintive, hurt. He hardly sounded like himself. “You told me J. Edgar Hoover was your hero. That’s why I had Reen appoint you. That’s why I trusted you enough not to use an implant. Hoover would never do such a thing to me.”

“Tough shit.” Then in a conversational tone Hopkins said, “Tomorrow.”

“All right.” Tali’s voice seethed. It sounded like Tali again. “Tomorrow.”

Reen started, hearing footsteps in the hall. Quickly he turned off the recorder and slipped it into his pocket. The footsteps continued down the hall to the elevator. Just the Secret Service. Or one of the staff.

Taking out the recorder, Reen held it in his hand. Marian was right. This was all the proof he needed. He would go to the Oval Office and confront Tali and the Sleep Master. The Sleep Master wouldn’t listen to Reen, but he couldn’t ignore the tape.

He hurried out of the oval study, ran down the steps and through the colonnade. He passed a Cousin typing in the reception area and threw open the Oval Office doors.

The room was empty.

Reen whirled to the Cousin secretary, set the recorder on his desk. “Listen. I know you are not allowed to hear me, but listen.” Reen punched the
REWIND
button, fumbled for the
PLAY.
From the speaker the squeak of a chair, a thump, Hopkins saying, “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere ...” And Tali’s injured response.

The Cousin never paused in his typing.

“Listen to it!” Reen shouted.

REWIND. PLAY.
Tali: “... put Landis under control. I do not wish to know what you do ...”

Picking up a pile of papers, the Cousin walked from the office. He never looked back.

Reen sat on the edge of the desk, looked at the recorder, tapped a defeated, listless finger on the buttons,
REWIND. PLAY.
“... snatch Reen, take him out to Camp David ...”

STOP.

Sighing, he looked through the open doors and saw that in the Oval Office the portrait of Millard Fillmore was crooked.

A quick three-step throb of his heart. Stuffing the recorder into his pocket, he walked into the office, pulled a chair up next to the fireplace, and checked behind the painting.

The manila envelope was still there. Reen, in his haste, had left the portrait awry.

As he pried the envelope from its hiding place, a slip of paper dropped from the open end. He picked it up: that nine-digit number.

What could it be? It was about the right length for a bank account but one number too short for Social Security. 7039713991.

703. The first three digits leaped from the page, and the picture fell into place. There were no dashes to indicate area code and exchange, but it was obviously a phone number. A phone number in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Reen walked to the telephone and dialed. There was a pause as the circuits clicked through, then a shadowy, faraway ring.

For some nonsensical reason he thought of the Old Ones. Oomal had said Jeff was setting up an AT&T long-distance line with the Old Ones. For an instant Reen had the absurd thought that the Old Ones had rented a house in Fairfax County, and Jeff had found out about it.

Ring.

A nice house. The Old Ones would rent a nice house. A traditional Fairfax County place with red brick and white trim and a pretty garden.

Another ring.

They’d have flowers, a few trees, and maybe a springer spaniel. Heritage would demand it.

Click. The sound of the receiver being picked up. “National Wildlife Federation,” a female voice chirped.

Reen hung up. The National Wildlife Federation?

He left the Oval Office and went to the East Wing to find Oomal.

OOMAL WAS
in
an office barking into a phone. He looked and sounded more like a leader than Reen or Tali ever had.

“Goddamn it!” his Brother was shouting. “I don’t give a flying fuck
how
the bugs got into the macaroni! We have a warehouse full of weevils, and we’re not feeding them to one-year-olds! You come-no, no,
you
come and take that macaroni out of our warehouse. You—I’m not finished. No, Cousins don’t have some magic wand that makes weevils–no. Hey, but I have a team of lawyers with twelve-inch dicks. What? Watch me. I said
watch me!”

Oomal slammed the phone down so hard that it gave a broken-piano complaint. “What do you want?” he snapped at Reen, who was standing, a penitent, in front of his desk, Womack’s envelope in one hand and the recorder in the other.

The phone rang again.

“What?”
Oomal screamed into the receiver. Abruptly his face and his tone softened. “Yeah, Jerry. Sorry, I ... Right, uh huh. Burn the production records. Trust me. Just trust me on this... . No, nothing’s going on. Just tell the reporters you don’t have any comment other than what I said at the press conference. What? No, no. Of course I wasn’t making it up. The birthrate’s just going into a little dip. It’s nothing to worry about... . Come on, Jer. Have I ever lied to you? No... . No need to apologize. Just– Yeah. I appreciate this.”

He hung up, this time softly, and sat staring into space.

The official photo of Jeff Womack, taken during his first term, smiled down impishly from its perch on the wall. Hurriedly, Reen slipped the recorder back into his pocket, hoping Oomal hadn’t seen. He had been wrong to play the tape for Tali’s secretary. The truth was a responsibility he now wished he didn’t have.

Tali’s treachery was merely his way of following in his big Brother’s steps. Reen and Hoover taught him how to use assassination and deceit.

Oomal wiped his hands down his cheeks. “Well. Have you seen the front page of the
Post?”
He shoved the paper across the desk.

Reen glanced at the top half of the front page. More about Womack’s suicide. A piece on the birthrate. He flipped the paper over and looked below the fold.

INDICTMENT SOUGHT IN KENNEDY

ASSASSINATION

WASHINGTON, D.C.–The Justice Department is looking into allegations that the White House chief of staff may be implicated in the November 22, 1963, death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

“We have talked to the President, and he is disinclined to pursue the matter,” Ted Rice, Justice Department Special Prosecutor, said in an interview with the Post today. “But this is not a civil case, and there is no statute of limitations on murder. The Justice Department feels that there is cause to bring charges of criminal conspiracy before a grand jury.”

President Kennedy/Holt could not be reached for comment.

“Murder?” Reen said in a weak voice. “I’m going to be accused of murder?”

“Not that story. Forget about that story. I’m talking about the one that’s not there. The Hopkins piece. He had a maid. Why didn’t the maid report the body?”

Because that’s where Tali went last night. He went to get Hopkins’s evidence, didn’t find it, and then hid Hopkins’s body to buy himself more time.

Hopkins had been a good teacher.

Oomal sat back and linked his hands across his belly. “What’s that you’re carrying around?”

Reen stiffened, then realized his Brother wasn’t asking about the recorder. “Oh. Jeff’s envelope? I found the National Wildlife Federation’s phone number in it.”

Oomal sat forward. “Let me see,” he said, taking the envelope from Reen. He thumbed through the pages, pausing momentarily to wince at the autopsy photo. Then: “This one? This 703 number?”

“Yes.”

“I keep getting the feeling that the other shoe is about to drop. And I keep wondering why the humans who know about the sterilization haven’t talked. Maybe this will give us a clue.” Oomal pressed a button on his intercom. “Zoomer? Come see me.” His face pensive, he asked Reen, “Where’s Marian Cole gone off to, Brother?”

Reen stared at Oomal, Oomal the Conscience, Oomal who was burdened now with upholding the law. “I don’t know.”

“You have to know, Reen. I know you know.”

Zoor’s entrance saved Reen from answering.

“Zoomer,” Oomal said, getting to his feet. “Round up two or three Helpers and meet us at the ship.”

Reen’s heart sank. He followed his Brother’s quick stride from the East Wing and to one of the small Michigan commuter ships. “Why do you suspect Marian?” Reen asked.

“We did a fly-by of the entire border of China. There were no troops massed there. If there were no troops, Reen, and if Womack signed the tariff bill, what are those tanks doing still stationed in front of the White House?”

Reen looked at the fence. The soldiers were staring at them. The cannons of the tanks were pointed at the street, but they could just as easily be turned. They could ...

“Just before Hopkins died,” Oomal went on, “he was trying to tell us something. Something about Marian. And she got rid of her competition very conveniently, don’t you think? We go to Camp David, and Kapavik’s already dead. She tells you Hopkins is behind it all, and you kill Hopkins before he can tell his side.”

Reen tore his anxious gaze from the tanks. “His side? We know Hopkins’s side. He admitted it. You heard him. We all heard him.”

The door of the ship spread open, and Oomal threw himself into the navigation seat, leaving Reen to crawl around him to the back. “I heard him admit to killing Womack and Jonis. That’s all I heard. He never said he kidnapped the others. Besides, if Marian was so worried about what Hopkins was doing, why didn’t she just come out and tell you earlier?”

“Maybe she was frightened,” Reen said miserably as he watched Zoor herd three Loving Helpers out the door and across the lawn to the ship.

“That doesn’t solve the problem of why the humans haven’t talked. Or why the other Cousins were kidnapped. Come on, come on, Zoomer,” Oomal said anxiously under his breath.

“Maybe Hopkins kidnapped the Cousins to put more pressure on Tali, Cousin Brother.”

The Helpers began to file into the ship, taking their places behind Reen. When Zoor got into his seat, Oomal jerked the command ball upward, and the ship shot into the air.

“You don’t believe that,” Oomal replied.

No, Reen didn’t believe that. But in the press of other dilemmas he had put the problem of the kidnappings out of his mind.

“It was a good thing that you saved Marian from Tali,” Oomal went on. “If he killed her, we’d never learn the whole truth. But we’ll have to talk to her sooner or later, and when that time comes, I want you to tell me where I can find her. And don’t lie to me, okay? You know that frequency like a human baby knows its mother’s breast. And when I ask for it, I want you to give me that frequency, understand?”

Reen watched the noon traffic on Route 50. The spidery winter trees of the Virginia countryside flashed by. He had always said he would kill Marian if she proved too dangerous, but he had lied to the Community. He had lied to himself. “I took the transmitter out of her two years ago.”

“What?”
Oomal tore his eyes from the controls to glare at Reen. “You did what?”

Zoor flung himself across Oomal and righted the ship before it could dive.

“There was no sense in keeping it in her. Angela was a viable embryo.”

“Goddamned Marian was the CIA director! You made her CIA director, Cousin Brother! And you thought it would be a nice idea to let her walk around unsupervised?”

“Watch where you’re flying, Oomal,” Zoor said quietly. “Can you just watch where you’re flying?”

Oomal took back the controls and looked out the window. “We passed it. We’re halfway to fucking West Virginia. Shit on a stick.” He jerked the ship around so fast that the angle overrode the baffles. Reen was flung into a wall with a thump.

They flew to the National Wildlife Federation in silence and didn’t speak as the ship settled into the parking lot beside the red-brick building.

The Cousins left the Helpers on board and went up the long sweeping concrete ramp to the entrance. In the huge lobby two receptionists sat behind a doughnut-shaped desk where two young raccoons were playing.

“May I help you?” one of the women asked while a raccoon went through her Rolodex with its quick, inquisitive fingers.

Reen found himself staring at the bandit eyes, the furry banded tails. It looked as if the animals had been placed there as part of the Wildlife Federation decor.

“The director, please,” Oomal told her in a no-nonsense tone.

Near the second receptionist, the second raccoon had managed to pull out a drawer and was trying to fit its body between the hanging files.

The first receptionist whispered into the phone, then turned brightly to Oomal. “He’s on his way.”

A thud from the drawer. The raccoon had apparently gained entrance. Neither receptionist paid any attention to the animals, as if the raccoons, like Reen himself, were sentenced to invisibility.

People sat on chairs lined up near the windows. A man who looked like a farmer waited next to a cardboard box that periodically made a mew ling sound. A housewife sat holding a plaster cast of a hoof.

“Good afternoon!” a boisterous bass voice said. Making his way across the carpet, hand out, was a friendly looking bald man in a dark suit. “I’m Ralph Gunnerson. What can I do for you?”

Oomal stepped forward and shook the man’s hand. “You can tell us why the National Wildlife Federation’s number was found in papers that belonged to a murder victim.”

Gunnerson’s rosy skin went pale from cheek to scalp. “I think,” he said, licking his lips nervously, “we’d better talk in private.”

The Cousins followed the director through a room of secretaries. In the back of the building Gunnerson ushered them into a large paneled conference room and sank into a raspberry-colored velour chair. “First off,” he said, “you have to guarantee all of us protection. All our wives, all our kids.”

Reen kept silent. Across the table from him, Zoor sat mystified.

“Promise me,” Gunnerson urged. “You have to promise.”

Oomal nodded.

Gunnerson passed an unsteady hand over his forehead.

“Look. We’re dedicated to animals. Everyone here loves animals. It’s a job requirement. I get choked up when I see a bald eagle. I’ve seen one of our staff bawl when someone brought in a wounded deer.” He stopped, as though either afraid or ashamed to go on.

Oomal said gently, “Continue, Mr. Gunnerson.”

“It was the men.” The director picked at a nail.

“What men?” Reen asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know who they were. They wanted animals. You see how people bring in wild animals. They bring them in all the time. I don’t know why. It’s not like we’re a zoo. But we never turn an animal away. We’ve had coyotes, rattlesnakes, you name it. If they’re hurt, we patch them up. If they’re sick, we tend to them until they’re well. Then we take them back to the wild and let them go.”

The director picked at the nail until he brought up a bead of crimson blood.

“The men,” Oomal prompted.

Gunnerson’s head bobbed. “They wanted wild animals. I told them no. I started getting phone calls late at night. Threatening calls. They harassed my wife at work. At the store. It got so she was afraid to go out. They followed my children.” His lower lip trembled. Tears gathered in his eyes. “They...” His voice lowered. “They raped one of our assistants.”

“You don’t know who they were?” Reen asked after a decorous pause.

“No. But they came every day to see if we had animals. If we had any, they’d take them. I had to give up the animals. You can see that, can’t you? I was responsible for my staff. I couldn’t let anybody else be hurt. Then one day, about three years ago, the men stopped coming. About four months after the men left, I found a bug in my office. It was poorly hidden, so I’m sure I was supposed to find it. A reminder not to talk. When AT&T installed our new phone system last year, they said there were indications that someone was tapping our lines. I don’t know what the men did with the animals, but I imagine ...” His voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard.

Oomal asked, “When did these men start taking your animals?”

“Five–no, six years ago. It started six years ago.”

“Do you have any idea who they are?”

Gunnerson let his breath out in a sigh. His body sagged. “You might ask the SPCA. One of our receptionists came from there, and after the men stopped coming to us, she said the SPCA started having problems with them, too.”