Don Pendleton - Civil War II (9 page)

Winston's was untouched. He waved Fairchild away, fidgeted, and watched his President attempting to pull the mantle of dignity back. The police chief completed his chore and resumed his watch in the chair. The silence ticked on. Presently Arlington sighed heavily and told Winston, "I must apologize to you, sir. I have treated you badly."

"Thank you," Winston said.

"And you have treated me badly."

"Yes sir. And I also apologize."

"Good. Now we have that rot out of the way. We have made a terrible mistake in this nation, Mr. Winston."

"Yes sir."

"Yes. A terrible mistake. We turned the military over to the blacks—lock, stock and artillery. And now we are at their damn mercy, sir. Do you understand that? We are at their mercy."

"It may not be too late to—"

"Of course it's not too late! That's the whole idea. It is
not
too late."

"I, uh . . . I've lost you, sir."

"You've never had me, Commissioner." The tired old eyes slid over to inspect Fairchild. "We are going to have to tell him, Tom."

"I agree, Mr. President."

"And you understand what this will mean."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

Winston did not particularly like the looks exchanged between the two. He watched Arlington, and waited, wondering what sort of game was starting now.

The President lit his cigar, coughed, then leaned forward in his chair to impale Winston with a faint echo of the earlier hard glare. "You are not in the midst of fools, Commissioner. Did you imagine that you are the only man in government who is aware of the treachery developing in this republic? We have been watching them. We know who they are, and we have suspected for some time what they are up to. I must candidly confess, however, that your intelligence was a bit of a shock. We were not aware of the arms stockpiles. And we were not aware of General Bogan's treachery. Others in the military establishment, yes. We mean to know
all
of them, and we mean to learn precisely what it is they are planning. And you, Commissioner, must guard your information with your very life. You must keep it to yourself, and you must make no further moves, or you will upset our intelligence effort. Do you understand?"

"I believe they already know of my suspicions, sir. I had a tail earlier today. I am being watched."

"All the more reason, then, for you to go about your activities as though you are completely innocent Go back to your job, your job of administering the Negruh's needs. Speak no word to any man regarding this matter. And let your government handle the matter."

"Forgive me, sir," Winston said hesitantly, "but I feel in my very bones that the situation has gone beyond the help of an intelligence effort. I believe that you should move immediately, forcefully, tonight. Every person known or suspected of treason should be rounded up and locked up. Every police department in the nation should be placed on federal activation, and each of those arms stockpiles should be seized and destroyed. Tonight."

Arlington sighed, stared at Winston for a moment, then turned to his chief cop. "Tom?"

Fairchild shook his head. "No, Mr. President. It's the wrong approach. Our intelligence indicates no need whatever for panic at this stage. And we could lose the heart of the entire thing if we move too hastily. Another ten days, I feel, and we'll be ready to move. But certainly no sooner."

The President nodded and said, "My feelings exactly. Thank you, Tom. Goodnight, Mr. Winston. Thank you for coming."

Winston's head was spuming. Only vaguely was he aware that he was leaving the President's study. He was moving woodenly at Fairchild's side, through the doorway

and along the wide corridor, down the steps into the waiting automobile.

Fairchild started the engine, moved the car gently along the sweeping drive, through the gate and onto the avenue. Then he pulled to the curb, produced a set of plastic handcuffs and the nickle-plated revolver.

"You're under arrest, of course," he said quietly.

Winston did not immediately comprehend. His thoughts were tumbling, a sense of frustration and urgency plucking at the taut fibres of his nervous system. Fairchild snapped one end of the cuffs onto Winston's left wrist, closed the other end around a clip on the dashboard, then moved the car back into the thin traffic of early-evening Washington. It was just beginning to get dark in the nation's capital. Winston stared at the handcuffs, at the little gun resting between Fairchild's legs, at the cold face of his captor.

Then the taste of rage came sweet to his tongue.
So that's where Charlie first got fucked! By that old man back there, that pompous and empty-headed ass who sold the nation on a sleight-of-hand apartheid plan called AMS\

The curtain rang full open in Winston's mind, and he saw it all then, the entire conspiracy of two decades,
a white conspiracy,
an entire nation bent to the will of one pompous and probably demented leader.

He reached across with his right hand, snared the steerling wheel, and lunged across it. His left foot found Fairchild's right, on the accelerator, and he stomped with everything he had. The cop was fighting him for the wheel, scrabbling desperately to disentangle his foot.

"You crazy bastard!" Fairchild screamed. Then the brick wall loomed up over the scrunching hood of the car and Winston felt the piercing bite of the plastic cuffs as he became a dislocated flying object.

I did itl
he exulted, in that smashing amount of impact.

Not until some time later, however, was he to be entirely sure of just what it was he had done.

He had, in effect, become an integral part of the Omega Project.

BOOK II - GATEWAY TO TOMORROW

CHAPTER 1

Fairchild was unconscious, a white welt traversing his forehead and a bit of blood on one cheek, but he was breathing. Winston fumbled through his pockets, found the key to the handcuffs, and freed himself. He glared at the little revolver through a moment of indecision, then pocketed the weapon. Fairchild was beginning to stir. Winston backed out of the wrecked vehicle on all fours. Several other cars had halted and a crowd of curious pedestrians was forming.

"A man in there is hurt," Winston advised nobody in particular. Then he slipped through the crowd and walked rapidly down the avenue, turning off onto the first side street he came to.

There was an ache in his ankle and his head was beginning to spin. He saw a familiarly-shaped building, one of those modernistic atrocities they were calling religious architecture in the nineties, and the neat plaque set into the side with the two words almost apologetically whispering: AMERICAN CHURCH.

He merged in with the twenty or so people moving up the stone steps, fingering his AMS card and wondering whether he could risk using it. If there was a Zot-spot out on him . . . no, surely not so quickly.

Winston hadn't been inside a church for a long time, and ] he felt vaguely uncomfortable at the prospect. But he was not seeking an enlightenment of soul—merely a place to wait and rest and bring his whirling mind together.

The plastic box at the head of the stairs featured three j slots. One was inscribed CHRISTIAN TRADITIONAL, another NON-CHRISTIAN, and the third NEW AGE. A small line of people waited to use the latter two. Christian Traditional was not making it too well and most of the cards feeding into that slot, Winston noted, belonged to the very aged.

The ankle was hurting and Winston followed the line of least resistance. He carded Christian Traditional and went on through the electron door, picking up his card on the other side. He dropped it into his pocket and shuffled along a narrow passageway with the old folks.

They came into a large vaulted chamber. A choir of heavenly voices was singing softly somewhere, recorded of course. A tremendous montage was playing on the back wall, semi-motion, depicting a group of robed figures baptizing one another in the rushing waters of a stream.

Winston took a seat in a far corner of the chamber, dropping his wearied frame onto an uncomfortable wooden benchlike affair. He AMS'd another inevitable plastic box affixed to the backrest of the seat just ahead, and this started a soundtrack near his right ear, just loud enough for personal listening. Sure, God still lived ... via the AMS sermonette. Winston was not interested in the soundtrack, only in appearing inconspicuous.

He tried to shut out the soothing tones of the automated sermon and pulled his throbbing ankle onto the opposing knee and tried to rub the ache away, allowing his eyes to travel slowly about the big room.

He wished the droning voice in his right ear would shut up. "Christians have no guilt with the state of this world," the voice was assuring him. "To many scholars, the present world situation is Armageddon come to pass. (Bet your ass, buddy). It is the prelude to the millenium, and God's chosen have been gathered together here on this continent to receive the blessing of abundant life. We must share no sense of guilt for the famine and starvation loosed upon the abandoned peoples of Africa and Asia. Does mortal manquestion the wisdom and design of He Who Createth All / Rejoice, Christians. Christ has overcome the iniquities ol a sinful world, and America we must rejoice over our God-given abundance. This is the end of this sermonette. Please re-program with your AMS passport to receive the next message, the text of which is .. ."

Winston abruptly stopped listening and jerked upright in the chair. Two young men had just entered the room and were now standing poised on the balls of their feet, hands clasped behind their backs like undertakers, looking die place over. They spotted Winston and began moving slowly in his direction.

He casually got to his feet, pivoted toward the exit, then beat it in a fast Walk. He glanced over his shoulder as he cleared the doorway and saw that the men were now walking rapidly after him. He went through the exit vestibule, then doubled back to mix in with a thin crowd of churchgoers who were moving up the steps to the entrance.

Winston jostled and pushed his way to the head of the queue, flipped his card into the NEW AGE slot, and passed back inside. It seemed unlikely that his pursuers had been able to follow that quick reverse.

The New Age chamber featured a totally different atmosphere. It was semi-dark. The domed ceiling was a universe in slow motion—stars, moons, and distant galaxies all moving about some sublime center. There was a sweet smell to the air and a faint humming sound trailed down from the dome, the sound of spheres or molecules in motion, Winston presumed.

He dropped onto an overstuffed leather lounge, noting the inevitable plastic box buried in the armrest. A pretty girl sat to his right. He smiled at her but she offered no awareness of his presence. Winston supposed that she was meditating or something. He debated using the AMS card again, then decided again in favor of inconspicuity. He dropped the card through and immediately experienced a not-unpleasant electric shock where he sat. A little tray slid out of the armrest, offering the worshipper a plastic packet.

He picked up the offering and glared at it in the dim light. It contained some sort of fine powder. A trade name, stamped near the top of the packet, read merely EXPANDO.

Hallucinogen, Winston decided. He dropped the packet into his pocket along with the AMS card and wondered about the tingling in his butt. Something was getting energized down there. He felt himself getting an erection, and tried to mentally discourage it. He looked at the girl next to him. She was still in some other world. Then he noted the color wheel in a little box facing hear. Psychedelics. He cautiously moved his head across the dividing arm, then quickly jerked it back. God, what sounds! An electronic insulator, he presumed, kept the noise confined to the personal dimension.

His curiosity aroused, Winston explored his own area and found another card slot just beneath the first one. He pondered a moment, then slipped the card in. Immediately Winston had a color wheel and sounds of his own—and it was too much, too much. He felt himself slipping into some sort of mindless abyss and quickly lurched to his feet. Thank God he had not taken the Expando!

He left the New Age of religion where he had found it and made a casual exit. The two men from Christian Traditional were nowhere in evidence. Winston had his own personal pipeline to that thing some people called God, and he quietly thanked it for a minor miracle neatly worked.

He moved cautiously around the building, hoping he'd just been
feeling
persecuted. His ankle still hurt. He leaned against the wall, pulled the ankle up into his hands, and rubbed it some more. His head came into contact with a harsh metallic object. He reared off and stared at it. AMERICAN CHURCH, it sneered at him.

Winston sneered right back. This must have been at least the second place where Charlie got screwed!

If God were truly dead, Winston decided, then this was the place where they buried him.

CHAPTER 2

Bettina Fairchild glanced anxiously toward the window of her Alexandria mansionette and tried to disentangle herself from the amorous grasp of her husband's young disciple, Jimmy Royal. "Listen," she warned him in a purring voice, "if he
is
coming home, this is about the time for it."