Four years ago Gunther could have written everything he knew about the US computer industry on the back of a stamp, since then he had become intimately acquainted with the ways, means, feral business practices and cut-throat alley cat morals of the competing players greedily engaged in shamelessly fleecing every last greenback from the US taxpayer.
A man did not have to be any kind of technical whizz kid, strategic genius or brain box computer analyst to know that SAGE, the multi-billion dollar system that its designers and builders had promised would enable American citizens to sleep safe in the beds at night had in the last few hours dismally failed in every meaningful aspect, in its avowed raison d’être. Moreover, right now he was looking at one of the ‘experts’ — albeit a bloodied example of the species — responsible for that failure and the subsequent deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands, perhaps, millions of Americans, whose first response to letting down his country had it seemed, been to launch a ferocious, unprovoked assault on his own boss.
Gunther had files on all the civilian contractors at Ent Air Force base. Most of those files were thin; name, age, hair and eye colour, contact address sort of thin. The files on the key senior Burroughs and IBM contractors were like doorstops. He had Max Calman’s life history on record; and that of his wife, Lena, also. Their lives and the lives of their extended families, their friends, and every kind of affiliation, quirk, and foible were minutely detailed in his files. Calman’s home phone was not currently being tapped, but every call he made out of Ent AFB was monitored, likewise his checking account with the 1st Union Bank of Colorado, and his credit agreement with Chrysler for the Calman family station wagon. The civilian contractors hated being under surveillance, the military’s constant snooping and the periodic ‘security interviews’ to which they and in some cases, close members of their family were subjected to; but it came with the territory. If they did not like it they could go work for Coca Cola or Disney.
“When I put a man in hospital I always know why, Mr Calman,” the Chief of Security at Ent Air Force Base said grimly.
“I am not a violent man,” the civilian replied. His tone implied that he had initially intended to append “like you” to this statement.
“I doubt if Mr Drinkwater would agree with you about that.”
“I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”
“What sort of stress, Mr Calman?”
“My wife’s pregnancy.”
Paul Gunther did not think Calman was the sort of guy who lived and breathed his spouse’s pregnancy. He seriously doubted if the little prick had noticed the poor woman was pregnant at all until she was so huge she had trouble getting through doors. Calman was workaholic, obsessive, manic about his work. Sure he was married, a lot of the technical weirdoes were. The married ‘techies’ tended not to attract as much attention from the watchers as the single men; and having a little woman — better still a little woman and a few school-age kids — in the background lent a man who worked in a key, ultra-sensitive security role an air of reliability, an intrinsic soundness that curtailed any number of otherwise intrusive and inconvenient inquiries. For example, it established prima facie evidence that a man’s sexual proclivities were of a nature unlikely to lay him open to blackmail. Likewise, a stable married home life made it less likely that a man was an enemy agent because to get away with being a spy a man’s wife would have to be in league with him. Therefore, all things being equal, a married man was generally viewed as less of a security risk. Gunther suspected that Calman was the sort of man who had got married for no other reason than to reduce his ‘risk profile’ in the eyes of men like him. That suspicion had red-flagged Calman’s file a long time ago.
And now it just so happened that on the night of World War III Max Calman had put his boss in hospital and paralysed the Burroughs ‘expert team’ responsible for systems data analysis of a small but possibly mission critical NORAD department!
“You met your wife at college?” Gunther asked.
“Yes.”
“When you were twenty and she was eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t get hitched until a decade later?”
“No.”
“You didn’t get hitched until about the time you applied to join the Burroughs Corporation Systems Integration (Peterson Air Force Base) Network Implementation and Testing Team?”
Max Calman scowled impatiently.
“Joining the team was a big promotion for me. Lena and me had met up again a few months before and we were both excited about the opportunity. It made sense to get married.”
Paul Gunther sighed, got up and retreated to the wall by the door.
Max Calman held up his bloody and bruised hands.
“I need some ice on these,” he complained.
Chapter 16
Apart from the rain pitter-pattering on the windows it was very, very quiet. The quietness of the night was broken only by the distant amplified bullhorn of the army truck driving around town and presently it was touring the other side of Bellingham.
“The governor of the State of Washington has declared a state of emergency. Martial law is now in force. All citizens are advised to stay in their homes and to listen for the fallout alert. Looters will be shot on sight…”
All things considered staying in bed seemed like the best thing to do in the circumstances.
“It doesn’t feel like the end of the World,” Judy said lowly, lazily.
Sam Brenckmann was not about to disagree. Most of the time since the craziness started — about seven or eight hours ago, he guessed — he had been getting progressively more intimately acquainted with the funny, pretty and sexy woman in his arms. In fact if he and Judy had got any more intimately acquainted they would have fucked each other to death by now.
Except, it had stopped feeling like fucking the last couple of times.
Judy wriggled and squirmed, giggled, rested her head on his chest.
“I can feel your heart beating,” she announced.
“We must be still alive,” he suggested, squeezing her close.
She giggled again.
In the morning — if they were still alive — they would have to face the new age. Everything would be different and none of the changes would be good news.
“Do you have a gun in the house?” Sam asked, idly.
“No, of course not.” Judy shrugged from his embrace, looked to him in the darkness. “Why?”
“If this is as bad as it looks,” he said, attempting not to be melodramatic, “places like Bellingham may be the only ones left standing. It could be that there will be a lot of people from the big cities looking for someplace to live. The roads may be blocked and food, gas, all that stuff might not get through for a while. People get kind of territorial when something really bad happens. My Pa was in the Navy in the forty-five war. His ship went in to British ports during that war, to refuel and stuff like that. He said some of the places he saw were like ruined from end to end. The Brits held it together back then but they had time to get used to being attacked, it didn’t all happen overnight…”
“The Government won’t let things get crazy,” Judy declared, not really convinced.
“Yeah,” the man agreed, even less convincingly.