The Tomorrow File (68 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Now you answer mine. What is it you want to try on Lewisohn?”

I told him.

He heard me out. Still pacing into shadow, and into light. When I had finished, he came back behind his desk.

“What chance of success?” he asked. Harsh, cracked voice.

“I’d guess between thirty and fifty percent, sir,” I told him.

He nodded, shoved back, continued to stare at me. Horror there?

“I suppose you want my authorization?”

“Yes, sir.” I nodded. “I’ll need it. In writing.”

He made a sound. A grunt? Snort?

“All right,” he said. “Go ahead. Supreme security.”

I had asked Paul to wait for me in the DCS office. Then we’d drive out to Chevy Chase in one of the official cars that had been assigned to his department. Strange. How I thought of it as “his" department. Well, he ruled the daily administration, so l supposed the preconception was normative. It was probably everyone’s.

He and Mary Bergstrom were alone in the inner office. They looked up questioningly when I walked in.

“All set?” Paul asked. “We’re hungry.”

“In a minute,” I said.

I sat down across the desk from him. I noticed he had extended his swivel chair to its full height and had equipped it with elevated casters. It put him at a higher level than the object sitting across the desk from him. I was amused. A typical gig of Potomocracy. He had learned fast.

“Got a Bold?” I asked him.

He slid a package across the desk.

“Hitting the cannabis hard lately, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Am I?” I said. “I wasn’t aware of it.”

“How did the meeting go with the Chief?”

“Fine. It was about Lewisohn. We're going ahead.”

“Going ahead? With what? The em is stopping.”

There was no way I could keep it secret from him. I had no desire to. I needed a capable AA in the Washington area. He’d have to be told, and Mary Bergstrom, and all of Group Lewisohn.

"This is top security, ” I said. “ You both know the regulations." Then I outlined the scenario. About halfway through, Paul rose to his feet. He leaned across the desk to me. Knuckles down. I thought at first that, like the Chief Director, he was horrified by the plan. Then I saw it enraged him. I ignored his fury.

“Group Lewisohn will serve as nucleus for staff,” I went on. “I’ll rule all personnel. Phoebe Huntzinger will rule the computer setup in GPA-1. I’ll bring Tom Lee and Project Phoenix down from Denver to Hospice No. 4. When they’re positioned, we’ll switch the direct-wire link. Alexandria to New York and return. We’ll pick up a time lag there, but of no consequence. Leo Bernstein will also move his project to Hospice No. 4. I’ll start recruiting the surgical team immediately. Paul, I want you and Mary to handle the logistics down here. Try to get the one with Operating Theater D. It’s the largest building. We’ll need living quarters and feeding facilities for the entire staff inside the building. And recreation—movies, TV, music, games, and so forth. Everyone will be locked up. No one in, no one out. Until it’s done. You’ll have to structure the security screen. Art Roach can tell you what you’ll need in the way of personnel and equipment. But don’t tell him what—”

“You idiot!” Paul screamed. Face livid. Entire corpus trembling with anger. “You microbrained idiot! Do you realize what you’re doing?”

“I’m hoping to save Lewisohn,” I said. As calmly as I could. “That’s my prime responsibility.”

“Save Lewisohn?” he shouted. “Kaka! Nothing can save that em. He’s stopping! You understand? He’s practically stopped now. Thirty percent, you said. That’s the chance of success. And for that you’re endangering the whole Department of Creative Science?” 

“It has nothing to do with DCS,” I said.

“It has everything to do with DCS,” Paul yelled. Slamming a palm on the desktop. “
Everything!
You don’t know politics. You just don’t know. You think when we fail on this stupid Lewisohn caper that Congress is going to be sympathetic to our plans? ‘The operation was a success, but the patient stopped. ’ Oh, they’ll profit from that! All the butchers out to gut our bill. You think you can keep Lewisohn’s stopping a secret? In this town? No way! And you and I will take the blame. So why trust us with something as important as the DCS?”

“You’re overreacting,” I told him.

“I tell you, I
know.
You don’t know, but I do. I deal with these objects every day while you’re running around the country having tea with professors. This town will forgive anything but failure. When Lewisohn stops, you and I stop with him, as far as our political careers go. And maybe the DCS stops too. Right in its tracks. But even if the bill is passed, with the sperm drained out of it, they won’t touch you and me with plastirub gloves. The two bright young lads who stopped Lewisohn. What in God’s name were you thinking of?”

“There’s a chance the operation will succeed,” I said.

“A chance!” he scoffed. Still trembling. Face twisted with his wrath and frustration. “Thirty percent. Some chance! Don’t you think the whole DCS is chancy? I can tell you it goddamned well is. But if that gamble isn’t enough, you’ve got to pile chance on chance, endangering something I’ve served on every minute for the past six months.”

“
You’ve
served?” I shouted. Rising to my feet. Leaning across the desk so that our faces were inches apart. ‘‘
You’ve
served? And what have I been doing—fluffing my duff? Whose idea was it? Mine! Who wrote the prospectus? I did! Whose record and reputation convinced the Chief Director to go along with the DCS? Mine!

All mine! You’re just a server here, and don’t you ever forget it. I’ve watched you swell and preen and gloat over the miracles you’ve accomplished. Kaka! Ripe, rich kaka! You’ve got the brain of a server, the talents of a server, the ability of a server. That’s all you are, that’s all you’ll ever be.”

Then we were both screaming at once. Spraying spittle in each other’s faces. I was vaguely conscious of Mary Bergstrom still sitting woodenly, expression stony. I knew where her sympathies lay. But I didn’t care. I didn’t need Paul
or
her. If necessary, I could do it all myself.

Finally I pounded a fist on the desk.

‘‘All right!” I shouted. “All right! All right! Enough of this. Enough!”

We both quieted then. And drew back. Breathing hard. We were not physically violent types, either of us. But I could taste the bile in my mouth. Smell a sudden change in the odor of my own perspiration. I think possibly if the confrontation had continued for another few minutes, we’d have been at each other’s throats.

“All right now,” I said finally. Trying very hard to keep my voice steady. “I’ll make it simple for you. I’m
ordering
you to assist on Operation Lewisohn.
Ordering.
Do you compute that? If you choose not to cooperate, please tell me now. I will then report your decision to the Chief Director. All clear?”

He turned his back to me. Stood facing the wall. Staring at a framed photograph of the Capitol. The silence went on and on. I lighted another cannabis with shaking hands. And waited.

Finally Paul turned to face me. Unexpectedly he was smiling. A tepid smile, but operative.

“Sure,” he said genially. “I’ll cooperate, Nick. We both will— won’t we, Mary?”

I looked at her. She nodded. Without speaking.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll flash Luke Warren in the morning and tell him you’ll be out there tomorrow and to give you everything you need. Get moving on this.”

“Will do,” he said lightly. “Should we go home now?” 

“No. I think I’ll take the shuttle back to New York. I want to get started on a personnel roster. You can drop me at the airport.” 

“Anything you say, Nick,” Paul said. The smile warmer now. “You’re the ruler.”

About three hours later I was standing on the terrace of my GPA-1 penthouse. Staring down at the lighted, deserted compound.

I had showered. Mixed a large vodka-and-Smack. Pulled on a robe. Unbelted. Before starting the preliminary Table of Organization for Operation Lewisohn, I had stepped outside. Just for a moment.

It was an unusually balmy night for early April. Sky clotted with thick clouds. Wind mild, with a hint of fairer days to come.

Spring is surely the saddest season. One thinks: “My God,
again?"

I found I was not replaying the scene with Paul. Nor even computing the Lewisohn scenario. I was dreaming only of Grace Wingate. Wishing she was standing, loosely robed, alongside me. Barefoot, as I was. We would stand in silence, for a while. Then we would. . . .

It had scarcely begun, and yet I knew the end. I think now the most precious passions have within them the seeds of stopping. Hope is, after all, an immature emotion. The astringency of end brings to even the sweetest affair a balance of flavor. Comfortable on the palate. So that one tastes with a sad, knowledgeable nod, and murmurs, “Good.”

Poetry by Nicholas Bennington Herrick Flair: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may; the thorns come soon enough.”

As I began preliminary structuring of the Operation Lewisohn scenario, I saw the problem devolved into four elements: personnel, equipment, setting, timing. All these factors were crucial to the success of the experiment, but the selection of the most skillful servers available was, I felt, of prime cruciality. I would need:

1.    Surgery team

2.    Computer team

3.    Project Phoenix team

4.    Leo Bernstein’s team

In addition to these four major groups (I made a note: “Gowns to be color-coded”), I would also require such supernumeraries as a Chief Nurse and assistants, Equipment Chief and assistants, a Chief Anesthesiologist and his associates, and a Production Team who would serve as medical stage directors, getting everyone in place on cue, timing the operation to the second, and coordinating the entrances and exits of the other players to avoid a mob scene in Operating Theater D. There was also, of course, Hyman R. Lewisohn himself.

Having determined the parameters of the personnel requirements, I began drawing up “optimum skill profiles” of the objects needed. These would go to Data & Statistics to be coded, then fed into our OA (Object Ability) computer. We would then, hopefully, get a selection of names of objects in Public Service who could perform the services required. I would make the final choices myself. It was, perhaps, regrettable that I was limited to Public Service by the “supreme security” nature of the assignment. There were many talented civilian scientists, some close friends, who from a vapid idealism had refused to sign the Oath of Allegiance. Thus limiting their careers. The US Government had the love.

All this took time. It was slightly more than a week before requisitions went out all over the world, calling in surgeons, anesthesiologists, medical equipment specialists, computemiks, and surgical managers with experience in directing long and complex operations. I estimated the entire Lewisohn scenario, from first knife slice to final hookup test, would take a minimum of fourteen hours.

Meanwhile, I had satisfied myself that Paul Bumford and Mary Bergstrom were serving as promised. An entire building at Hospice No. 4 was taken over for Operation Lewisohn. To the anguish of Dr. Luke Warren. A fence was constructed, a security screen implemented. Arriving staff members found themselves temporary prisoners within a restricted area. They slept in the “Lewisohn Building,” ate there, found recreation there, and communicated with the outside world only through a censor control board.

I estimated later that the total cost of Operation Lewisohn ran well in excess of one million new dollars. The subject of this governmental largesse was continued on parabiotic therapy with a special IV diet designed to maximize his physical stamina, if only temporarily, to help him withstand the trauma of what awaited him. I avoided all personal contact with him during this period.

Neither Paul nor I allowed Operation Lewisohn to impede our efforts to move enabling legislation for the Department of Creative Science through the House of Representatives. Hearings before a subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee were scheduled to begin during the third week in April. A favorable vote there would almost ensure passage by the full committee. HR-316 would then pass to the House Rules Committee for scheduling of floor debate.

There were many strings to pull, many egos to lave. At that point in time, our primary concern was the structuring of a roster of sympathetic witnesses to testify in favor of the bill at the hearings of the subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee. We had carefully_orchestrated a group of civilian scientists, academics, enema doctors, sociologists, hygienists, energeolog-ists, science historians,, gerontologists, and nuts-and-bolts businessmen. The last were enlisted with the assistance of my father’s committee: Businessmen for the DCS. He had delivered.

Two days before the hearings were to commence, I went down to Washington. I stayed at the Chevy Chase place. I flashed Louise Rawlins Tucker, and told her my whereabouts and plans. She returned my call an hour later and said I’d be welcome to join her for lunch the following day. At her home. At 1300. Her manner was grave.

I walked from our Chevy Chase place. A solitary pedestrian on a gray, weepy day. A black raincoat buttoned over civilian clothes: Norfolk jacket, turtleneck sweater, flannel slacks. I tried to walk briskly, purposefully. A neighbor on an errand. Some neighbor. Some errand.

“Out for a stroll, Dr. Flair?”

“Oh, yes. On my way to seduce the Chief Director’s wife, thank you.”

If I had stopped to ponder the consequences. . . . But I did not stop to ponder. Could not. I think, perhaps for the first time in my life, I “was not in full possession of his faculties.” Journalese for nuts. But that’s not operative. Quite. I was aware of what I was doing but could not forbear. A unique experience for me. A not unpleasant one.

If Louise Rawlins Tucker or a server had answered my ring, I might have burst into tears. But neither did. After the third ring, the door opened. It was she. She! Grace Wingate let me in. Closed the door swiftly behind me. We smiled at each other. Shakily. I think we both said, “Well!” at the same time. '