Cold Allies (21 page)

“Right here,” the general said, pointing. “You can see it.” At the top right of the screen, the captain was fumbling for her gas mask, shaking like a drunk with the d.t.’s. This was what Gordon hadn’t seen. The captain’s death, and everyone else’s in the squad, had been peripheral. His, attention had been on Dix.

Now he saw Rover moving in, as if for the kill. The light pounced-and winked out. Where the captain had been was empty straw.

The monitor went black. Pelham turned off the VCR and looked inquisitively at Gordon. “You don’t remember,” he said.

“No,” sir.”

“Mr. Ishimoto took over for you,” Pelham said. “But the light didn’t return. It still hasn’t.”

“You have some sort of control over it. Why’?” the general asked. “What does it see in you?”

“No, sir. I don’t have control over it, sir.”

“Don’t give me that!” The general jumped to his feet, purple-faced. “I saw you tell it to go into a corner! I watched it obey you! Goddamn it, son, don’t lie to me!”

Gordon glanced to Pelham for protection. The colonel was astonished.

“General Lauterbach, he—” Pelham began.

“Shut up!” the general shouted, then suddenly bent over Gordon. He was inches away, and Gordon could read a savage longing in the man’s pale eyes.

“You saw the place the aliens take them,” he said.

“I just dreamed about it, sir.”

“You saw it. I want to know why that pilot punched out when his RIO said he could have landed the F-14. Why did he do that? Why did they take him? How did the man look?”

“Well, sir, he—”

“Did he tell you anything?” the general shot.

“Nothing much, sir. He was kind of frightened.”

The general’s face was so taut, his cheeks twitched. “Frightened,” he said in a hollow voice. Suddenly the hazel eyes lost their predatory look and grew sad.

The general gazed around the room aimlessly, as though searching for something he had lost: his keys, a pen, his earlier anger. “Seo de Urgel,” he said. “The Arabs are at Seo de Urgel, if my calculations are correct.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s right,” Pelham said, physically shaking off his befuddlement.

“The main ANA army is moving east. They’ve surprised and overrun the single French battalion at Gerona. The other Arab division will begin crossing the Pyrenees tonight. It will probably take two days.” His back to Gordon, the general was now studying the map, his hands folded behind him. The man’s small body was still, but Gordon could see the fretfulness in his hands. They were contending with each other, two weary armies.

“They mean to attack the French western army from two sides, then,” the general said thoughtfully. “The French are sending an Israeli commando squad up on the heights to catch the Arabs on the switchback at Llivia, before they reach Mont-Louis. I want the Israelis to have a complete and disastrous success. I want them to kill them all; otherwise the division will simply back down the mountain and we’ll play our waiting game again.”

Pelham looked warily at Gordon. Gordon himself was startled by the disclosure of battle plans and wondered if he should leave the room.

“I want this man in control of that CRAV,” the general said without turning around.

“Sir,” Pelham said gently. “I’ve given the sergeant a couple of days off.”

The general didn’t take his eyes off the map. His voice was flat. “I want him in control or the CRAV, colonel. See to it.”

“It’s okay, sir,” Gordon said to Pelham. It was more than just okay. He wanted to be in the CRAV now. He had to regain the equanimity of the goggles; he had to get that safe distance back.

“I want to see if the light returns,” the general was saying. “If it does, I want the CRAV to move up toward Mont-Louis, meet with the Israelis, and then block the road while the squad blows that mountain.”

“Block the road, sir?” Pelham asked, incredulous. “But the CRAV’s missile tubes aren’t functional.”

“If the light comes back, colonel, he won’t need the missile tubes,” the general said quietly. “God forgive me. I’m going to find out just how much the aliens love him.”

IN THE LIGHT

Maybe Purgatory was simply a place where nothing happened. Rita imagined time spinning around her, trapping her in its centrifugal force. Centuries might whirl here in this limbo, this library of pale light and subdued shadows.

She took a deep breath. The air smelled of old books and the wood smoke from the fireplace. From the tall windows came the ubiquitous clatter of rain.

“Tell me about death,” Dr. Gladdings said.

Slowly Rita turned. The sparse hairs at the top of the old man’s head, greased and combed to cover as much of the bare scalp as they could, seemed to be sinking into his skull. His eyes, darker and larger than life, bulged over his cheeks as though forced out by some unimaginable pressure.

“I don’t know much about it, really,” she told the professor.

Her response seemed to surprise him. Insistent rain beat its tiny fists against the panes.

“Of course you know,” he said. “You must. Haven’t I taught you anything?”

“What do you want?” she asked. “A definition of clinical death? A physician would tell you that death occurs when the brain shuts down. A biologist would tell you that cells live on, oblivious to the death of the organs.”

For a moment she pictured her corpse in the barn: her cells, like an army which had not yet got word of the defeat, trying to expel the poison that had killed her.

She tried to picture her funeral; but the mourners, except for her mother, were faceless, anonymous forms, like all the acquaintances who had peopled her past.

It was an aptly lonely Purgatory she was in, she decided, empty but for a man who was lonelier still. She recalled Dr. Gladdings’s solitary, bent figure striding across campus: it was wound so tight around his ever-present armful of books that the books seemed the anchor for that rubber-band body. Take them away, and there would be no center left. His arms, his legs, would fly apart; his tense mind would unravel.

For the first half of the semester she had thought he disliked her for her color; later she saw that he disliked everyone, and that the pile of books and the lecturing pointer were fortifications for his solitude.

“There must be something else to death,” Dr. Gladdings said in a bewildered voice.

“What? The soul?” she asked wryly. If this scene were not being played out in the electrical twitchings of her dying brain, then this odd, spongy Dr. Gladdings must be demon or angel. But a demon should not be so tentative; and an angel would not be so lost.

Dr. Gladdings’s face, as ill defined and pulpy as a toadstool, was drawn into an expression of dismay. “I thought you would know.”

Embarrassed, she looked away. She ran her hands over the dusty spines of the books. “I’m not a theologian. I mean, that’s the ultimate question here, isn’t it? Does life after death exist? You tell me.”

He didn’t reply. The noise of the rain against the leaves outside had a dreamy, comforting quality that reminded her of damp-wool winters and marshmallows spreading sweet white foam over hot chocolate.

Rita closed, her eyes and leaned net: head against the books. They were solid, cool, and smooth. “Please,” she implored him. “You tell me.”

CRAV COMMAND, TRÁS-OS-MONTES, PORTUGAL

Mrs. Parisi sat as primly as she was able in the uncomfortable chair the Army had provided. They’d treated her, well, she supposed, although the accommodations were Spartan. Since landing in Portugal, she had found herself paying less attention to her bed and food and more to the little nuances of people’s speech, their sidelong glances. She was all business now, her nerves as alert and bristly as a cat’s questioning whiskers.

When she heard approaching footsteps, she leaned back to peek around the open doorway but found she couldn’t see much of anything except the hideous olive-painted hall.

The footsteps stopped suddenly. Down the corridor, two men were arguing, but not loudly enough for her to understand.

“—traumatized.” The husky-voiced man’s word burst into the air like a single firework and hung there, sparkling with possibilities.

Mrs. Parisi was listening so hard, she was scarcely breathing.
Traumatized?
she thought. Well, it was war, that was the entire point of armed conflict, wasn’t it, to traumatize as many people as possible.

They were talking again, the one giving soft, low orders, the other murmuring a plea.

There was a story unfolding there in the corridor. In
life, there were always stories. She liked stories; she had made up some herself—the supposed interviews with eyewitnesses, the tales of abductees and dreamers.

Suddenly the conversation in the hall broke up. Heavy footsteps receded, the footsteps of a big man made heavier by the weight of disappointment. A moment later lighter, quicker footsteps approached the door. She jerked her head around to the empty desk before her, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.

“Mrs. Parisi?”

She turned arid saw a short, balding man enter the room.

He was dressed, as all the soldiers were, in an unappealing camouflage uniform.

With a regal gesture she extended her hand. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

He seemed taken aback, but quickly rallied. “T. Williams Lauterbach,” he replied, giving no indication of his rank. He didn’t need to. There were four stars lined up like toy soldiers along his collar.

The hand in hers was firm yet dainty, like the hand of an athletic woman. “So delighted to meet you,” she said.

He walked to the desk, took a seat behind it. “I’ve read your books,” he told her.

She had surmised as much. With an effort she managed to look pleasantly amazed. “How gratifying for me.”

“Tell me about the aliens,” he said.

His hazel eyes were level and shrewd. The general was not a fan, she realized. And this interview had more of a test about it than flattery.

“The Eridanians are wise—”

“How wise?” he asked.

“Very, very wise.” Oh, my. She wasn’t getting anywhere.

His face had closed into hard, suspicious lines.

“Tell me something substantial. We need to determine that what we’re seeing is intelligent and not merely an atmospheric phenomenon.”

Good heavens. The general was smart, but he’d slipped and handed her a clue. Atmospheric phenomenon, was it? Like the odd blue swamp gas that had eaten that horrid boy. The swamp gas had seemed to act intelligently. At least gullible, superstitious people might construe its action that way. And what had the boy said about it? She searched her mind. Ah, yes. Keeping a sweet expression on her face, she tossed out a small, teasing bone. “Eridania is a lovely blue planet. It rains quite a bit there, you know.”

“Really,” he said in a noncommittal voice. The general had an excellent poker face, but she could see that he found her remark toothsome. His hands folded on the desk, tightened.

“What do they want?” he asked.

Remembering the look on, the boy’s face, she replied, “Love.” The general’s expression told her she was on the, wrong track. Of course, love is not to them what it is to us. It is more of an interest, you see. They find some, of us simply fascinating.”

Her words seemed to have struck a nerve. For an instant the general’s eyes clouded. He unlaced his fingers and sat back in his chair.

There was pain in him when he talked about the aliens. Yet there was a keen- curiosity, too. And a neediness so strong, it nearly took her breath away.”

Most people were easy to read: the woman who hoped the Eridanians would give her something to worship besides a bad marriage; the man who wanted a distraction from his own failure; the person who had lost one faith and was searching for another. This general was more complex than that. Mrs. Parisi knew that when she conquered his doubts, he would become her greatest trophy.

‘They love us, Mr. Lauterbach,” she said earnestly.

He squinted. “Seems odd, since we’ve had soldiers killed by the-lights.”

Mrs. Parisi hid her shock, and she knew she was more successful in her effort than the general had been at hiding his need. “Yes,” she told him patiently. “But don’t you see. They killed them with love.”

To her surprise she saw the man wince. She’d verified something, she realized, and if he had been inclined to disbelieve her before, he was leaning the other way now.

She’d have to be careful. She’d have to pussyfoot and eggshell-walk, but she’d win. Relaxing at long last, she enjoyed the victory inherent in his stunned and credulous face.

CRAV COMMAND, TRÁS-OS-MONTES, PORTUGAL

Gordon stood when Pelham entered the room. The colonel wasn’t looking his way, however, but studying the floor, as though some compelling and sorrowful news were written on the linoleum.

Pelham didn’t take a seat; and Gordon was afraid to get back in his chair. They stood a couple of feet apart, Gordon watching the colonel’s down turned face.

“Your orders are to take your CRAV and make your way around the ANA to the switchback just past Llivia. The Israeli team will rendezvous with you there. And then you will block the road.”

“But you explained to the general, didn’t you? My missile tubes—”

“Didn’t you hear me, sergeant?” Suddenly Pelham lifted his head. His eyes were burning.

“But ...”

“That’s a direct order. Go to your command station now.”

Jesus. The general hadn’t changed the orders. Block the
road?
And hope that Rover saved him? The Arab army would run him down. And then what would happen when the shell hit, when the TV screen in his mind splintered to let howling reality inside?

“With all due respect, colonel, I can’t,” he told him and waited for Pelham’s wrath to fall.

The MPs would come next. The court-martial. It didn’t matter. Gordon could retreat into himself the way he always had into comic books and fantasies. Soft edges. Distance. That was the way things should be.

Pelham didn’t shout. His eyes lost their anger as he regarded the map on the wall, “I’ve been asked to inform you that noncompliance with this order will be considered desertion.”