Amerika (35 page)

“For God’s sake, Petya, tell me . .

“No. This is my responsibility. I must begin immediately.”

“But what . . .?”

“You will know when the deed is done. Meanwhile, wait here. Begin making plans. The other areas must secede within two weeks.”

“They’re not ready. They—”

“They must. The alternative is worse. As soon as possible, the new regions must form the North American Alliance. You must see that this is done. You will receive credit. Then they cannot keep you off the central committee. But you must do your job, Andrei, as I must do mine, however repugnant it may be.”

He rose heavily to his feet. Andrei rose, too, and stepped toward him. For an instant he thought Petya might fall. “What can I do?” he asked.

Petya lifted his head and gazed into Andrei’s eyes. The proud, tough soldier Andrei had admired for a dozen years now seemed a broken old man. “You have done so much for me already,” he said. “Now you must carry on this difficult task we have undertaken. Remember always that we are a noble people, whatever evil the extremists may force upon us.”

He awkwardly reached out and touched Andrei’s face. They embraced. Samanov stepped back and held him at arm’s length. “You are a son to me.”

They embraced again.

“And you a father.”

Petya released Andrei and started slowly to the door. “I will be in Washington,” he said.

“Petya, is there anything at all I can do?”

“Await developments,” the old general said, and he was gone.

A little after eight o’clock that morning, Michael Laird pulled up in an old sedan outside an abandoned warehouse in Chicago’s deteriorating north side. Despite his status as the PPP’s chief of security, Laird did not mind moving about the city alone. He was armed, and could protect himself, as his was a solitary profession. Laird had been an FBI agent before the Transition, and he had watched the bitter split among his old colleagues. Some, militant anticommunists, had resisted the new regime. As a result, many had been arrested and imprisoned; others had gone underground, joined the resistance. The most hard core had formed a secret society called the Hoover League, which carried out assassinations against Russian officials and American collaborators.

Others, like Mike Laird, had invoked the legacy of J.

Edgar Hoover in another way. Hoover had been an absolute dictator who guided the bureau with an iron hand—you loved it or left it. The new regime was like that, too, enabling Laird and others to move from the old regime to the new with a minimum of trauma. They were, after all, only carrying out the orders of duly constituted authority. The ideology at the top might in theory be different, but in practice one dictator was like another.

Mike Laird was alone on a deserted slum street to carry out a task some might have called illegal. But it was at the urgent and personal request of Marion Andrews, a party leader and now the deputy governor-general, so how could her wishes be illegal?

A pale young man in jeans, sneakers, and a wind-breaker stepped out of the warehouse and approached the sedan. As the young man reached the car, Laird cracked open his window.

“We’re ready,” the man said.

Laird handed him a sheet of paper. “Here’s the route.”

The man glanced at the paper with quick brown eyes. “All right,” he said.

“Be thorough,” Laird said. The young man spit on the street and walked back to the warehouse. Laird cursed and drove away. He hated trusting other people, but this time he had no choice.

A few miles away, in his cell at the SSU Security Center, Devin Milford faced a difficult decision. A guard had brought him a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and real coffee. “Same as our officers get,” the guard declared. After a moment’s hesitation, Devin decided to eat the breakfast. He was still fasting, but he rationalized that it might be a long time before he saw fresh eggs and real coffee again.

Soon after he finished, an SSU officer, a handsome soldier named Ramirez, entered his cell. “Your breakfast was satisfactory, Mr. Milford?” he asked.

“Fine, thank you,” Devin said.

“And you have been well treated while you were with us?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Those were Colonel Denisov’s instructions. You will be leaving now, if you are ready.”

“Pm ready,” he said, gathering up his few belongings. “Where am I going?”

“To Omaha, I understand.”

Devin frowned. “What’s in Omaha?”

“I really don’t know, Mr. Milford,” the guard said, and they started down the corridor toward the elevators.

The Bradford family spent the night in the Palmer House Hotel, and that morning they hosted a ceremonial breakfast there for Marion and Caleb as well as various political leaders and PPP officials. Marion wore a dramatic pink wool suit, but Peter thought Amanda was more beautiful in the simple elegance of her blue outfit. Following breakfast, the party of more than two dozen hurried out to the limousines that would take them to Soldiers’ Field.

A cheering crowd greeted them as they emerged onto the sidewalk outside the hotel. They chanted “Brad-ford!” and “Heart-land!” and waved hand-lettered signs. Peter waved back—it was an automatic gesture now—and wondered if they were for real. He knew the live coverage had already begun, and it would not have been beyond Andrei, or Marion, to have arranged this “spontaneous” show of affection.

He turned to Amanda and winked.

Amanda smiled but her heart was not in it.

They emerged from the elevators into a big shadowy garage packed with SSU vehicles. Captain Ramirez led Devin toward two black vans parked side by side. The driver of one of the vans produced papers for Ramirez to sign.

Glancing around, Devin imagined that he glimpsed General Sittman far across the room, but he wasn’t sure. The lines of authority here were tangled beyond his understanding—the PPP, the SSU, the national guard. All he knew was that Marion hated him and Andrei Denisov wanted to protect him, and that he wasn’t likely to receive the same royal treatment in Omaha that he’d enjoyed here.

Ramirez nodded as Devin stepped into the back of one of the vans. “Good luck, Mr. Milford,” he said, and the door shut.

The crowd cheered as the limos pulled away from the hotel, the sirens of their motorcycle escort howling. Peter, waving to the people on the street, glanced back and saw Marion sitting expressionless in her limo, clutching Caleb to her side. He had come to realize that she resented her number-two position, and he wondered how long she would settle for it.

His two children, dressed for the occasion, were sitting on jump seats. Jackie hadn’t looked so happy in weeks; she waved enthusiastically, even as the crowds began to thin out. Scott, seeming somehow grown up in a dark suit, gazed out at the city in wonder. Peter

guessed it had been a big jump for the boy from Milford to Omaha and now to the hugeness of Chicago. He knew he should spend more time with Scott but didn’t have any time to call his own anymore.

Amanda leaned close to Peter and whispered. “I saw Devin this morning, early.”

“How was he?”

“He seemed very at peace with
him
self.”

He studied her face, trying to glean understanding from her expression. “Is he willing to give up Billy?” “I don’t know.”

“I can’t help him if he won’t.”

“I told him that,” she said, almost sullenly, and turned to the window.

Scott turned from the window and said, “Can’t they go any faster?”

“They’re going fast enough,” Peter said, and got out his speech for some final polishing.

The iron doors to the SSU’s underground garage slid slowly to one side, and the convoy moved out. First came two motorcycles, then a jeep with a mounted machine gun, a light attack vehicle, then the black transport van that held the prisoner. Behind the transport vehicle were more attack vehicles and motorcycles. The convoy picked up speed, and when pedestrians saw them coming, they slipped into doorways.

A few moments later, Andrei’s limousine slid out of the garage and drove off in the opposite direction. In the distance the sirens from Peter Bradford’s motorcade could be heard, but it was going in the opposite direction and soon the sound died out.

The convoy moved south on Lakeshore Drive at fifty miles an hour. There was little traffic and the few cars they saw pulled over to the side when they heard the sirens.

It was a routine run until they reached a comer where a delivery van was parked. The pale young man in the windbreaker was at the wheel of the delivery van and when the SSU convoy came round the corner he shot forward, heading straight for the black transport van. The SSU van swerved to avoid a collision, skidding onto the sidewalk and crashing into a utility pole. An antitank gun fired a rocket from a nearby building and the transport van exploded in flames. As the delivery van sped away, there was shooting from all directions. Soldiers leaped from the jeeps and were pinned down by machine-gun fire. The SSU officer in charge, at the risk of his hfe, ran to the burning transport van and tried to open its door, but he was beaten back by the flames.

Suddenly it stopped. The attackers abandoned the van and disappeared into an alley, leaving only the sound of the utterly shredded and burning vehicles. The SSU officer, cursing in Spanish, ran down the street looking for a telephone.

The limousines stopped on the infield and the guests of honor climbed out. Twenty bands blared the Heartland anthem, yet the roar of the crowd still drowned it out. Peter gazed up in awe; he was not prepared for this. A hundred thousand people packed Soldiers’ Field and thousands more ringed the stadium, just to have the music and the speeches piped out to them. Peter, stunned by the spectacle but remembering that the cameras were on him, waved with both arms.

There was an awkward pause as all the officials and their families got in line to proceed to the speakers’ platform. Peter waved to General Sittman, who with a group of national guard officers would form an escort platoon. Peter squeezed Amanda’s hand.

Amanda was too awed by the mass of people to speak.

Peter paid no attention as a dark-suited man, vaguely familiar to him, hurried up to Marion and drew her aside.

“It’s done,” Mike Laird whispered.

She looked at him sharply. “You’re sure?”

“The convoy was hit by what appeared to be a resister group.”

Marion sagged, took his arm. Laird tried to look solemn, as if this was urgent party business. In a moment she composed herself. “Thank you. That will be all.”

Laird nodded and walked away.

Peter walked over to Marion. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. Just butterflies,” she said with a smile.

“It’s nice to know you’re at least a little like the rest of us,” he said.

She smiled. “Are we supposed to walk separately or can I take your arm—as though we were getting married?”

Peter smiled, offering his arm. “You can take my arm until we get outside, but under no circumstances are you to say, ‘I do.’ ”

The bands began “Hail to the Chief’ as they marched to the platform to begin the festivities. Upon seeing them, the crowd began to chant “Heartland . . . Heartland.”

Alethea and Ward were having coffee when the patrol car came roaring up the driveway. They had the

television on, with pictures of the Heartland rally, but Alethea had decided to keep the sound down until either Peter or Marion spoke. “We ought to show some respect,” she said. “I mean, they gave us a holiday.” Ward rose to his feet as the deputy, Cy Spraggins, leaped out of the patrol car and ran toward the house.

“Something’s up,” Ward muttered. “Cy hasn’t moved that fast in twenty years.”

The deputy burst in the door. He was a lanky, jug-eared man, and his face was red with excitement. “They’re coming,” he yelled. “The SSU. Out of the barracks, full strength!”

Ward held up his hand. “Hold on, Cy. Maybe it’s just maneuvers.”

“They were headed for town. Right behind me. It didn’t look like no maneuvers.”

Will Milford, his friend Dieter, his grandson Billy, and Clayton Kullen emerged from the bam, saw the patrol car, and hurried to the house. “What the hell’s going on?” Will demanded.

“The SSU’s headed for town, Dad,” Ward said. “They may be coming here, looking for Billy.”

The old man nodded grimly. “Ward, you and Cy get on out of here. The less you know, the better. Stall ’em if you can.”

Ward scowled—he hated to run from a fight—but he knew his father’s plan made sense. He and Cy drove away, leaving Will, Alethea, Dieter, Clayton, and Billy. There was a moment’s awkward silence. “Maybe the exile camp?” Dieter suggested.

“No, they’ll look there,” Alethea said. “They’ll tear it apart. They always do the obvious, so we’ve got to be smarter than them.”

“The root cellar,” Will said.

“Too easy to find,” Alethea protested.

She looked at Billy and saw the uncertainty on his face. “Hey, handsome, it’s gonna be okay. We’ve just got to formulate the plan, as the deep thinkers say.”

Billy did not return her smile. “Maybe ... I ought to go back,” he said. “They just want to take me back to my mom. I don’t want to get anybody hurt.”