Then, suddenly, we—you here, and the others who have passed through this camp—will strike, massively, despite all of their militaristic repression. Out of the rage at their heavy-booted impotence will come the popular revolution many thought impossible.”
During the questions, one thirtyish man with a southern accent stood.
“I’m an American, born and reared,” he told her, the implication that she was not obvious in his tone. “I firmly believe that the American just doesn’t think in those terms. That’s why I quit the Movement. All we were doin’ by our little bombin’s was to entrench the government in power. It’s the lack of pressure, good and uneventful times, that make Americans forget about their nationalism. How can this work now?”
She didn’t seem upset at the question. “First of all, Americans have never before experienced true repression. The poor may be starving to death, but they are free to gripe all the way to the grave, which is what keeps things as they are. We have induced a situation where, now, for the first time, they are finding out what it means to be dictated to, to have the Army and a single group run them. Since it is in power to serve the corporations and bankers, it is those institutions who will be protected and prosper; the individual will simply get stepped on, constantly. This will fuel revolutionary fires. And as for there not being a revolutionary spirit there—well, the U.S.A. was founded in popular, bloody revolution although it was perverted in the hands of the merchant and slave-owner aristocracy who seized control. And as late as the 1930s, under the Depression, granges and collectives in South Dakota took up the red banner and had to be suppressed by federal troops. The seed is there, it needs only to be fertilized and nurtured to grow.”
There was more. This was only the introductory phase and it only spelled out the theories. Sam realized that he could only place two people in the camp, old revolutionary hands he knew more from the newspapers than experience. He didn’t know who these people were, where he was, what countries were involved, or anything.
Some spy, he thought glumly.
The next class, in another tent, was on modern counterinsurgency techniques. They sat again in folding chairs and waited for another lecturer to come in.
Finally, she did. A small woman, exotic and dark complected who moved with the grace of a cat to the front, where she turned and looked them over.
Sam Cornish could only stare at her, a knot forming in his stomach and a tingling coming over his body. His mind raced and couldn’t settle; he was numb, overcome.
After a decade, Suzanne Martine was as beautiful as ever.
TWELVE
A tall, good-looking man in a business suit entered the room and looked at the unconscious forms of Sandra O’Connell and Joe Bede. He turned to the other men who’d done the deed; the chloroform smell was still in the air.
“Give ’em each a hypo to keep them out,” he said. “Harry, go get a laundry cart. Phil, call Baker Control and get a laundry truck of ours over here. Then get back here.”
The others nodded and went to their tasks. He turned to the remaining ones in the room. “Edelman’s people are watching the building, so we have to move fast,” he warned them.
Harry came back with a large laundry cart, complete with laundry. They removed a lot of it, all medical whites and other standard uniforms used internally by the R D and lab departments. Joe Bede, who was large, they put in first, then the smaller and lighter Sandra O’Connell. Neither stirred, although they had some problem getting them both in so that they didn’t harm each other. Both would be bruised and battered by this, but finally the leader was satisfied that they wouldn’t die on him. Some of the laundry was piled loosely on top, allowing breathing space, with a single loose crumpled cloth hiding the faces.
Within five minutes the one called Phil reentered the room with a small and mousy-looking white-clad man. The two men got behind the cart and started pushing. It was heavy going, uneven and unbalanced, and they were straining. It looked extremely suspicious to be laundry.
The sentries at several checkpoints noticed the problems, but at each point the high-level IDs of the men and their passes got them through unquestioned. Soldiers are trained to obey higher authority; once the authority of the men was established, it was none of their affair what was in the cart.
Finally they got the cart into the truck and it started off into midday Washington traffic. After an extraordinarily long and complex route through the streets and clearances at dozens of military checkpoints, they were satisfied that they had not been tailed or spotted and relaxed. The state of emergency helped them; the normally congested streets were nearly empty of vehicles, and a tail would have been pretty obvious.
Now the driver made for the Capital Beltway, also nearly deserted and with military checkpoints at each entrance and exit ramp. They cleared the first, got on, and went around until they reached Andrews Air Force Base and cleared two more checkpoints. They drove onto the base, down to the airfield itself, and to a small hangar off to one side. There the two were unloaded, and the little laundry truck rumbled off to its pickup points. As it actually was the Andrews area truck, it followed its routine with no trouble. Later the driver would report some mechanical problems that had delayed him, and there would be a motor pool sergeant with appropriate paperwork to back him up.
Two small planes were inside the hangar, and a crew of efficient technicians placed Sandra O’Connell’s still unconscious form in the back of one, tying hands and feet and gagging her just in case, and the equally limp form of Joe Bede in the other.
Two military-garbed men got into each plane, and, one by one, they rolled out and took off. One man made certain the passenger stayed unconscious, the other flew the plane.
As they disappeared into the afternoon sky, one of the men came over to the leader, now visibly relaxed and smoking a cigarette.
“I don’t get it,” he said to the smoker. “Hell, why not just wipe ’em and be done with it?”
The other man smiled. “They’re both useful people. Better to ice them than wipe them if you can. You can always wipe ’em if the icing doesn’t take.”
The small plane circled and landed at a private field in upstate New York. An ambulance was waiting for it, and they made the transfer at the far end of the field. Few words were exchanged; the plane was off again in moments, ready to make seven scheduled stops on minor errands so that no one would ever know that anything was out of the ordinary.
The ambulance carrying Dr. Sandra O’Connell travelled back roads for close to an hour. During that time a technician monitored her, making certain that she remained out. Finally it pulled up to a gate, where the driver said a few words to a guard and then entered and drove up to what appeared to be a cross between a hospital and a rest home.
Sandra was wheeled in, taken to a special room, undressed and then redressed in a hospital gown, then placed in a bed with sensors attached to her skin monitored by a technician outside. As soon as she started to come out of the drug-induced state of unconsciousness, they would know it. When the first signs showed, he punched a button.
A man dressed as a doctor and another wearing nursing insignia responded almost immediately and went in to her. The doctor checked her over. She shifted, mumbled, and groaned. Not completely out of it, but emerging.
“The usual dosage?” the nurse asked.
The doctor nodded. “Standard. Remember, this stuff’s dynamite. I want her on the B schedule, twenty ccs every thirty-six hours, like clockwork. No slips.”