Alternities (13 page)

Part of the power of the presidency, Tackett thought as he repacked the briefcase, is that you can always get the last word. With a simple, “Thank you, everyone,” you can end discussion whenever you choose.

Madison had been entirely right—Robinson hadn’t called them in to ask their advice. And when it began to look like he was going to get an unsolicited contribution from O’Neill. Robinson had simply thanked them and excused himself, ending the meeting.

There was not much conversation in the wake of his departure. A tradition of etiquette—or was it paranoia?—called for any postmortems to be conducted away from the West Wing, in the privacy of a car or the inner sanctum of an Executive Office Building suite. While on the President’s turf, the staff tended to keep its own counsel. But watching them scatter, Tackett knew that this time more than etiquette was at work.

Rodman followed on Robinson’s heels, and the CIA chief was almost as fast out the door. Probably going out to Langley to scream at his people for not keeping him informed. Tackett thought, spinning the locks on his case. The Secretary of State glanced at his watch, said something about a hearing on the Hill, and backed out the door. O’Neill left without moving: he sat in his chair and stared at his own folded hands, which were perched on the edge of the table.

Endicott was the exception. He circled the table to where Tackett stood and peered curiously into the briefcase. “Hell of a road show you’ve got, Al,” he said. “It’s like having a patent on the funniest joke ever told.”

“I guess it is at that.” Tackett picked up the heavy case and started for the door.

To his annoyance, Endicott followed, inviting himself into Tackett’s company. With a will, Tackett stilled the queasy feeling Endicott evoked in him. The President was expecting both of them in the Oval Office. He would have to endure it a while longer.

Several paces down the hall, the Senator touched him on the arm. “If I could slow you down just a moment, Al—”

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing wrong. Just a little request.”

Save your breath, Tackett thought. The President’s already scratched your back for you. “What is it?”

But Endicott’s interest was more personal than an objection to disbanding Red Section. “A few weeks back you procured a… ah, package for me. I’m sure you remember.”

Procured. That’s the right word, all right. “I remember.”

“I have need of another, same specifications.”

Another? Tackett was incredulous. It’s not like you can use them up—“Something wrong with the girl?”

“No. Nothing wrong. I just have need of another. You do remember?”

“I think so.” Tackett remembered. White. Female. Long hair, chestnut preferred. Well fed, but not fat. Young, but not too young. A one-man operation, nothing on paper. Tackett had selected and instructed the iceman personally. No one else knew.

The Guard’s icemen had carried out more than a hundred snatches in the last five years, some of them involving different “versions” of the same person. They had brought back aircraft designers, electronics and computer engineers, guidance and propulsion experts, crack cryptologists, weapons specialists.

Each snatch required its own ExOps, a clear prior justification. Often Tackett said no. The risks were substantial at both ends. The disappearance of prominent or talented people drew unwelcome attention. And a clean snatch did not guarantee success. Several early targets had never found a reason to work productively for the Guard. Two had managed to commit suicide.

Tackett had become more selective, narrowing the candidates he would consider to those technical specialists whose special knowledge could be put to immediate practical use. Otherwise worthy candidates that he rejected went onto lists for reconsideration when either the risks or the pressure to produce were reduced.

But Endicott’s package had been procured outside the rules. There was no ExOps anywhere in the files on the woman, for the only justification Tackett could offer was that he had been ordered to have it done. Which was not nearly enough to keep the whole business from setting his teeth on edge.

Endicott was holding Tackett in an expectant gaze. “I trust you’ll be able to take care of it, then,” he said.

Tackett answered with a hard, cold stare. Giving me orders, you bastard? I’ll take care of it, all right. I’ll keep it to myself and pretend you never said anything. That’ll take care of it. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “No promises.”

He turned away and moved on down the corridor before the Senator could say any more. The President apparently liked and trusted Endicott. Tackett was not obliged to feel the same way, and he didn’t. Endicott’s real usefulness had ended when he surrendered the secret of the Cambridge to Vandenberg: Robinson had other friends who could chair the Intelligence Committee. If it had been his call to make. Endicott would have quietly disappeared long ago.

Never too late, he thought, raising a hand to the President’s appointments secretary as he passed through to the Oval Office. That would really take care of it—

Robinson settled back into the white and red claw-footed armchair by the fireplace and invited his guests onto the facing couch with a gesture. “Let’s see the dossiers.”

With a nod. Tackett pulled the briefcase to his lap and attacked the locks. Beside him. Endicott stretched out his legs and snuggled down into the corner in search of a comfortable position.

The contrast amused Robinson. The two looked for all the world like the loyal eldest son and the carefree black sheep from an episode of
Sins of the Wealthy
. And I love ’em both, he thought. Need them both. Even if they can’t stand each other.

“From what Al said down the hall, the only real choices are Yellow, Green, and Blue,” the Senator offered, peering sideways into the briefcase.

“I have profiles for the both of you on your counterparts in every alternity except for White, which I think we’re all agreed General Betts can keep with our blessing,” Tackett said, handing a black-covered report an inch thick across to Robinson and a slightly thinner version to Endicott. “I think you’ll find all the fundamental questions answered there,” he added.

The fundamental questions: Who am I? Who’s in charge? How much distance is there between the two?

“I’d guess so,” Robinson said, hefting the dossier. “You have been working hard.”

“And I thought the Guard was padding that line-item for typing paper,” Endicott said. “Jesus, Al, I’m going to have to skip meals to get this read in a week.”

“I wanted the President to have the detail he needed to make an informed decision,” Tackett said stiffly. “He asked that you be provided equivalent detail.”

“Thanks a lot, Peter,” Endicott said wryly, flipping through the first few pages. “Remind me to send you a thank-you present—a couple of new puppies with diarrhea, maybe, or an eager little trixie with the clap.”

That brought a chuckle from Robinson. Skimming the contents of his own copy, he asked, “What’s your projection, Albert? Where should we go?”

“Sir, that’s not my decision to make.”

“I don’t want a decision, just an opinion. Did you do run-ups on yourself, by the way?”

“No, Mr. President.”

“Even better. It’ll be an unbiased opinion What do you say?”

“We’ve had several of the analysts score the options,” Tackett said. “The majority came up for Alternity Yellow. We’d have the option there of staying in England, which would almost assure that all the Common Worlders on the list wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. And it’s a comfortable place, on the whole.”

“Looks like I’m missing my Yellow bio here,” Robinson said, frowning at the page before him.

“No, sir. Your counterpart in Yellow is dead.”

“Really,” he said lightly. “How did I die? Anything dramatic?”

Tackett shook his head. “A car crash on National Highway 5, coming back in a freezing rain from a party in Chicago. December 24, 1971.”

“Rather ordinary, if you ask me,” Endicott observed. “Unless it’s your name the stonecutter has to spell right. What about me? Where am I dead? Besides Red.”

“In Alternity White. You were shot by your wife’s lover, May of 1965,” Tackett said with evident satisfaction.

“So young. I hope they at least fried the bastard.”

Tackett smiled. “Your wife hired him a first-class lawyer—possibly bought a judge, too. He served sixty days probation for involuntary manslaughter.”

“The bitch.”

“You don’t even know her,” Robinson said, bemused.

“How much more do I need to know?” Endicott said gruffly. “Well, needless to say I’m not interested in going there. Or to Red, of course.”

“I don’t think you understand what’s planned,” Tackett said sharply. “The public profile of the Alpha List member counterparts and the internal security of the particular society are the top considerations. We’re not crossing over to take over—we’re crossing over to protect our families and preserve our government. We’re crossing over hoping to come back.”

“Yes,” Robinson affirmed.

“In point of fact, counterparts for several members of Alpha List are dead in every alternity,” Tackett continued. “That hardly matters—we can’t go there as ourselves. We have to go there prepared to deny who we are, to keep out of the way, to hide if necessary.”

“We’ll have the gate, the Station’s financial resources, and friends,” Endicott said. “I see no reason to condemn us to poverty and obscurity.”

“You can always go back to Red,” Tackett said, poker-faced. “You aren’t dead there, only missing-and-presumed.”

“Lovely place, my old home,” the senator grunted. “Brats and bugbombs and other brands of unpleasantness. A business friend of mine was taken hostage and murdered just last week. Thank you, no. I think I can do better.”

“I think we can all do better,” Robinson said. “I don’t think any of us can see taking a family to Red.”

“No,” Tackett agreed. “But Blue, Green and Yellow are all excellent candidates for a quiet refuge, temporary or permanent. And we have well-established stations in all three that can provide transition support.”

Barely aware he was doing so, Robinson made a wet sucking noise by drawing a breath with his teeth pressed against his lower Up. An aide had once pointed out the idiosyncrasy in a critique of a press conference, and Robinson had demanded corroboration from a half-dozen other staffers before he was convinced it was real. “I thought Green was where the mob owned Washington.”

“It is,” Tackett said. “It makes less difference than you might think.”

“I’m poor there,” Endicott said, reading from his binder. “Heaven forfend.”

“I’d hope that the choice of destination for Rathole would turn on those conditions that affect everyone on Alpha List,” Tackett said coldly.

“Of course it will, Albert,” Robinson said reassuringly. “You have to understand that what catches our eye the first time through the material is the personal dimension. It’s a natural bias.”

“I understand that, sir—”

At that moment, there was the sound of raised voices beyond the Oval Office door. The three all turned their focus that way in time to see Gregory O’Neill burst through the doorway, with the red-faced appointments secretary following on his heels. They spoke at once, O’Neill insistent, the secretary apologetic.

“President Robinson, I have to talk to you—”

“President Robinson, I told Mr. O’Neill that you—”

“—and Albert about this business—”

“—and Mr. Tackett and the Senator had business—”

“It’s all right, Donald,” Robinson said easily. “Come on in, Gregory. Go on, Donald, leave us. Gregory, find a chair and join us.”

But O’Neill was too agitated to sit. “This has been going around in my head all morning,” he said. His hands moved jerkily in the air, a silent stutter that underlined his distress. “I don’t understand why in God’s name these alternities exist. What’s the purpose? Albert, you’re living right on top of this thing. What have your people found out? Have you done anything at all to figure out the reason?”

“We have a research section looking at that issue—” Tackett began.

“What do they tell you?”

“They tell me what I told you in the Cabinet Room. Everyone accepts that the alternities are real, but no one can explain them. Frankly, we’re more interested in the ‘what’ than the ‘why’—we have our hands full trying to understand how to best make use of the gates.”

Robinson was watching O’Neill closely and not liking what he saw. “Perhaps you could outline what you are doing, Albert.”

His face wrinkling up in a scowl, Tackett complied. “Well—the research section is working with our crackers, trying to gather more data about the maze itself. We close down the maze to everyone but the crackers for six hours out of every twenty-four.”

“That’s a start,” O’Neill said.

“But that’s a means to an end—several ends: finding any other exits that might be there, cutting down on our runner losses, finding a way to bring metallic objects through. There are a hundred inventions we could make immediate use of if we could simply buy them there and bring them through. As it is, we have to acquire designs and plans and try to recreate them here, a much slower process.”

“That’s a philosophical question you’re asking, Gregory,” Robinson said easily. “You’re asking why the world is the way it is.”

“I know that, but isn’t it worth asking? Don’t you realize what we’re sitting on? How this changes everything? My God, when I think of the revolutions in human thought—the Copernican revolution only changed where we are in the universe. This changes
what
we are. And the questions for theology, philosophy—how can one soul be split among seven bodies?”

O’Neill was looking fragile and lost, a condition without precedent in Robinson’s dealings with him.

“ ‘Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold,’ ” Robinson quoted. “Gregory, we each have to wrestle with that one on our own. It’s not a matter of state interest. It’s a question of private conscience. Albert never promised you wouldn’t have a few sleepless nights about this. God knows I did.”