The Distance Beacons (17 page)

"The right decision, of course, is to vote yes—vote to support the government—vote to stay part of the United States. Such a vote entails responsibilities, but with those responsibilities comes the possibility of renewed greatness. You will remain a vital part of the adventure that is America, and you will help our nation take its place once more at the forefront of human progress. And perhaps a hundred years from now people will look back on this day, and say that it was then that the tide turned, it was then that the long darkness ended, and the new day began to dawn."

The president stopped speaking. The applause that followed seemed genuine, but it also seemed tentative, and a bit confused. She had offered people what they had always said they wanted: freedom from the Feds. But did they really want that freedom if the Feds were also offering to give them a say in the way they were governed? After all, that was something else they were always complaining about. They couldn't have it both ways.

All of a sudden the referendum was no longer a joke.

The president waved and shook hands with the people on the platform and waved some more. The music began again. And before long the applause faded. People were going to have to go home and do some thinking.

The president came down off the platform and started shaking hands with the dignitaries in the roped-off section. The crowd began to drift away. It started to rain.

And then the president walked past the dignitaries and the guards who protected them, into the milling crowd, reaching out physically to the people she had just tried to reach with words. I looked back to the platform. General Cowens was still there, staring at her with his arms folded. Major Fenneman stood next to him, gesticulating with his walkie-talkie. This, apparently, was what they had been unable to talk the president out of.

"Want to try and shake her hand?" the woman next to me asked her friend.

"What's the point?"

"Well, she's the president, after all."

"So what? Come on. It's raining."

A lot of people seemed to feel the same way. There was no surge to greet her, no spontaneous outpouring of respect and affection. The weather was more important than Ann Kramer.

Still, there were hands to shake and an occasional baby to kiss, while her grim-faced bodyguards stood by and reporters struggled to record what was happening. I stayed where I was and watched her progress across the plaza. She was progressing, I noticed before long, toward me.

I got down from the bench. I saw Gwen among the reporters. I wondered if I should leave. It was raining, after all. President Kramer smiled at me. "Well, Walter, what do you think?" she called out as she approached.

"Great speech," I said.

"Did I convert you?"

I shrugged. "You certainly gave me a choice to make."

"But you haven't made it yet?"

I shook my head. "Maybe I'm too—"

The gunfire interrupted my reply.

For a moment I didn't understand. What was that noise? Why were people ducking and sprawling and screaming? I turned and saw a large green car come roaring out of the crescent of abandoned shops and offices beyond the plaza. Two masked men leaned out of the front and rear passenger-side windows. They were firing submachine gun rounds into the air. The car was heading right at us.

I reached for my gun. No gun.

I turned back to the president. Her bodyguards were pulling her down to the ground. She stared at the car as if she couldn't believe it was real, as if this were just a nightmare that would soon pass. The gunfire stopped and I heard the squeal of brakes just behind me. I turned once again. The masked men were out of the car and coming toward me. It occurred to me that I was literally the only person standing between them and the president. Not a position I would have chosen, but here I was.

I tried to think of something to do. Nothing came to me. I wanted to fight, but fists can't accomplish much against submachine guns.

So I stood where I was and wondered if I was going to die as I watched the men approach. I noticed their black masks, their shapeless tan jackets and dungarees. And—and—

I didn't have time to finish my thought. One of the men pushed his machine gun into my midsection. I clutched my stomach and gasped for breath. Then the other man swung his weapon at my head, and all thinking ceased.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an out-of-focus General Cowens. He was conferring with Major Fenneman. I tried groaning to see how it felt. It felt awful. Cowens turned and looked down at me. "He's conscious," he said to Fenneman.

"What do you want me to do?" Fenneman asked.

"Take him to Nashua Street. Find out what he knows." Fenneman made a gesture, and a couple of soldiers came into view. They reached down and picked me up. I glanced around. No green car. No president. Plenty of soldiers—with weapons now. And there was Gwen—standing just beyond a line of troops, gazing anxiously at me. I tried a smile for her. It felt awful.

The soldiers tossed me into a jeep and sped away from the plaza. I closed my eyes as we bounced along and felt my head throb. I had a feeling things were not going to get any better for me. Apparently I was being taken to jail, although I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

Chapter 12

The Nashua Street Jail was a brick pre-War monstrosity on the Charles River, not far from the Federal compound. It had survived the Frenzy, but just barely. Entering it felt like entering a mausoleum. The soldiers handed me over to a fiendish-looking old man with a limp, who led me through dark corridors, meanwhile muttering unintelligible phrases that could have been prayers but were more likely curses. He deposited me in a small dark cell, where he left me to ponder my fate with the part of my brain that was still able to ponder.

I didn't like being in jail. There are drawbacks to growing up after a nuclear war, I grant you, but it does give you a good bit of freedom in many ways. And you grow fond of your freedom, because you don't have that much else going for you. I hadn't enjoyed the youth camps; I hadn't enjoyed the army; and I certainly didn't enjoy being locked in a prison cell with a splitting headache and no idea what was going to happen to me.

I tried to think about what had happened back in the plaza. It was mostly a blur and a roar in my memory, but some things stood out: the green car appearing out of nowhere; the approach of the masked men, their little eyes fixed on me; the president's expression as she was dragged to the ground. Was she all right? It didn't seem likely; her bodyguards weren't armed, and everyone else was too far away to help.
If she comes, she faces our wrath,
TSAR had warned. That made me feel even worse. It seemed so stupid, so preventable.

It had been my job to prevent it.

I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could have done, right? If there was something, I would have done it. Right?

There had been something, it occurred to me. Not something I could've done, but something I could've... I tried, but I couldn't bring it back. And then it was too late.

"Sands?"

I opened my eyes. A soldier was peering in at me. The fiendish old man was unlocking the cell. "Uh-huh?" I said.

"Let's go," the soldier said. "Major Fenneman wants to talk to you."

The soldier escorted me through more dark corridors to a small, windowless room. There were two wooden chairs and a table in the room; Major Fenneman sat in one of the chairs. A naked light bulb hung down from the ceiling. "Sit down," Fenneman said.

I sat in the other chair. I didn't like this room any more than the cell. Fenneman regarded me from across the table. "What happened?" I asked. "Is the president all right?"

"I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind," Fenneman said. Uh-oh, I thought, he'd been studying his tough-guy lines. "Why were you eavesdropping on me before the speech?"

It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. "What do you mean, 'eavesdropping'? I went over to let you know I was there, in case it mattered to you. Then I left."

"But you stayed long enough to find out what the president was planning to do after her speech."

"No, I didn't. All I heard was your end of the conversation, and you were just complaining about how annoying she was being." What was he getting at, anyway?

"And then afterwards it was merely coincidence, I suppose, that you stopped the president and talked to her at the exact spot, at the exact moment that TSAR struck—and in an ideal location to make their getaway."

Oh, Lord. I had known the Feds could be stupid, but not this stupid. "Are you suggesting that I set this up somehow? Look, the president came over to talk to me. Ask anyone who was there. And take a look at this bump on my head. This isn't a fake. One of those guys really did whack me with his machine gun."

Fenneman wasn't interested in examining my bump. "Maybe that was just a way of diverting suspicion. At any rate, we need the truth. Now."

That didn't sound encouraging. I stared at Fenneman. He was an awfully big man. His hairy hands flexed on the table. My head throbbed. "I can't tell you anything more than I've already told you," I said. "I had nothing to do with this."

Fenneman glared. Had he really expected me to confess to something? He got up and came around to my side of the table. He reached out and pulled me up from my chair. His hand was around my throat. His face was close to mine. I could see the broken veins in his cheeks, the hairs in his nostrils; I could smell his sour breath. "Now," he repeated.

"This is all a mistake," I tried to say.

His grip tightened.

"Excuse me, sir?"

It was a timid voice coming from the doorway. "What?" Fenneman demanded.

"Could I just have a moment, sir?"

Fenneman glared at me, then thrust me back down into the chair and went out into the corridor, shutting the door behind him. I closed my eyes. I could hear the murmur of voices. Fenneman's was loudest; he sounded angry. Finally the door burst open and Fenneman reappeared. I tensed. "Get up," he ordered.

I got up.

"Bolton wants to see you," he said. "But you'll be back. And then you'll talk. Understand?"

"Uh-huh." I saw a soldier standing in the open doorway. I walked toward him. Fenneman didn't stop me. "You'll be back," he repeated as I left the room.

"Let's go," the soldier said, and he hurried off down the corridor. I struggled to keep up; I sure didn't want to get left behind. After a few turns and a couple of staircases, I found myself outside once again. Rain had never felt so good.

"Walter! Over here!" It was Danny, standing next to a jeep across the courtyard. Gus waved from inside the jeep.

I hurried over to them.

"I heard they conked you on the head," Danny said. "How are you feeling?"

"I'd feel a lot better if Fenneman didn't think it was all a trick."

Danny looked puzzled. "What sort of trick?" he asked.

"To keep people from suspecting me, I guess."

"But that's crazy."

"Tell Fenneman." I got into the jeep. "Why does Bolton want me?"

"To have you help find the president, I guess."

"She's alive?"

Gus started up the jeep, and we headed away from the jail. "No one told you?" Danny asked. "They kidnapped her. Apparently got away clean." He shook his head. "Isn't that something?"

"Oughta k-k-kill the bastards," Gus muttered.

"Gotta find 'em first."

Jeeps and police cars rushed past us, and I heard the distant wail of sirens. I was glad she was alive. And I thought: surely, with every soldier and policeman in Boston looking for her, she shouldn't be that hard to find. But then I thought: if TSAR gets her out of Boston, and no one snitches on them, she'd be almost impossible to find. It was a big country out there, and the Feds controlled only a small portion of it. There were plenty of places to hide a single human being. "What do you think'll happen if we don't find them?" I asked.

"I think things will get very bad, Walter," Danny said.

I couldn't disagree.

As usual, Gus parked outside the Federal Building and they brought me up to the governor's office. The VOTE YES signs and the "See Your President Speak Thursday" signs in the lobby looked grim to me now, but no grimmer than the guard who searched me before letting me enter Lisa's waiting area. "Hi. Um—"