The men jumped to their feet in a roar of applause. Peter responded with a ceremonious salute.
“Governor-General Bradford, you have your army,” announced Sittman, with husky pride.
Earlier that evening, soon after Andrei reached the mansion in Virginia, he called Kimberly at his apartment in Chicago. In his despair over Petya Samanov’s death, he reached out to her, as an embodiment of life and sanity in a world gone mad.
Kimberly had made her decision. She was throwing some additional things into a suitcase when the phone rang. She was not going to answer it, but then realized it might be Cliff or one of the others calling with some last-minute change in their plans.
She lifted the receiver cautiously.
“I needed to talk to you,” Andrei implored.
He sounded lifeless. “Are you all right?”
The question amused him. “No,” he said.
“What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”
He did not answer. Kimberly became uncomfortable with the silence.
“Andrei…”
Andrei took a deep breath. In that moment, he wanted to reach out for the simplest thing—love—the love he felt for Kimberly; that spirit and insolence she represented to him.
“What do you think of me, Kimberly?”
“What a funny question.”
“I need your love,” he said evenly.
“You’ve never needed me. Really.” She laughed suddenly, and it seemed inappropriate. “Bored with running the world already?”
“I have never had time for love. Maybe that’s why you mean so much to me. I’ve always needed your insolence, your unconcern for things the rest of us thought were so important.”
Kimberly was quiet, not quite sure of what Andrei was trying to say. “I’m… I’m leaving Chicago.”
“Where are you going?”
“I won’t tell you. I don’t want you to find me.”
“If I asked you again to come to Washington?” Kimberly sighed. “I can’t.”
“I can’t,let you disappear—”
“You said you wouldn’t stop me.”
“No. I won’t.” Andrei searched desperately for a way to keep their contact alive, even for a moment.
“Do you remember that little song—from the musical you did in that church?”
“The Fantasticks?”
“Yes.”
“The one you said was silly and sentimental.”
“Yes. Could you sing a little of that song to me?”
“Now? Over the phone?”
“Please.”
Kimberly laughed. “There must be—”
“Please, Kimberly.”
“Okay… ‘Deep in December, it’s nice to remember the fire of September that made us mellow. Deep in December, our hearts should remember, and follow, follow.’ ” Kimberly caught herself longing for Andrei again, but then fought it off.
“Goodbye, Andrei.” She hung up the phone.
Kimberly sat for a moment, crying softly. Then she gathered her belongings and hurried out to meet her newfound friends.
In the next few busy hours, she all but forgot Andrei. Miller, their man inside the police force, had somehow arranged for Cliff, Kimberly, and himself to fly to Omaha aboard a transport jet.
In Omaha, at the air freight terminal, no one questioned their documents and they caught a cab into town. They got out on a dark, deserted street, in what had once been Omaha’s stockyards. It was a blustery night, and they walked along, heads bowed against the wind, for more than a mile before a dented, rusty old delivery van pulled alongside them. The driver was a young black man in workclothes. Beside him was a fleshy, white-haired man in his sixties, who, when he spoke, sounded drunk.
“Hey, this the Chicago shipment?” he called. “Or are you people lost?”
“Eric?” Miller yelled. “Dammit, get us out of here.”
Eric lumbered out of the cab and opened the door of the van. After he and the newcomers climbed in, the young black, who never spoke, slammed the door on them.
Kimberly looked around in the dim light and saw that the van was filled with old broadcasting equipment.
Miller said, “Eric, Jeffrey said he needs you back at Natnet.”
Eric pulled a bottle of homebrew from his pocket and took a swig. “That’ll be the day,” he said. “He and I won an Emmy together before the Bolshies took over.
He was a young hotshot on the rise, and I was an old-timer on the skids.”
“You’re Eric Plummer?” Kimberly asked. “I remember you from the ‘Nightly News,’ like when I was in high school.”
“The very one, madam,” Eric said with a bow. “Behold how the mighty have fallen. Welcome to Radio Free Omaha.”
“You broadcast from here?” Cliff asked. He was shocked.
“I do indeed. Usually one step ahead of the law. My driver is a very talented young man; we’ve dodged their patrols and electronic gear for three months now. Drives ’em crazy.”
“And there are people listening?” Miller asked.
“I daresay I have the highest ratings in Omaha. People twist their dials all night long, hoping for a few words of news, satire, or truth. And do I understand that this charming lady is to be my guest performer tonight? That we have a special message for my listeners?”
“That’s right,” Miller said. “We took some serious chances to get her here. And I think we’d better get started.”
Eric took another long pull of rotgut whiskey. “Say no more,” he declared, and started twisting the dials on his radio equipment. Lights began to flash and transmitters to hum. The truck was headed uphill now, toward higher ground. Kimberly began to feel nervous. Before she left Chicago, even when she talked to Andrei, the idea of “danger” had been an abstraction, but now, closed up in this old van, banging around the streets of Omaha, knowing that police cars would be searching for them, the danger seemed very real indeed. And yet, when she thought of Devin Milford, and the courage he had shown, and the love of America that he had stirred within her, she knew she could not turn back.
The van rattled to a halt. “Okay, kids, this is it,” the old newsman said. “Do your stuff, then we’ll move to another location for an encore.”
He handed Kimberly a microphone. She smiled at him, at all of her fellow conspirators, and began to speak in a sweet, passionate voice.
“Hello, fellow Americans, we have important news. Devin Milford, the founder of the American party, has been arrested and brought to Omaha. He’s in the psychiatric unit of the People’s Acceptance Hospital. He’s been fighting for us and now he needs our help. Please help any way you can: give him your prayers, show him your support. Now I want to play you a remarkable tape, of Devin speaking to the people of Chicago from the courthouse steps last week. Please listen; his message touches us all. I know it touched me.”
Kimberly set back, emotionally exhausted, as Eric punched a button and the tape began to play.
Over the airwaves of Omaha, the voice of Devin Milford began to proclaim “America, America!” and the people of Chicago chanted back “America, America!”
The tape played on for three minutes. Then, lest the police patrols pin them down, they stopped broadcasting and lurched off to their next stop. Kimberly was grinning, glowing, looking ahead to an encore of her greatest performance.
General Sittman arranged for a national guard plane to fly the Bradfords back from Chicago to Omaha. At
Peter’s invitation, he joined the flight. They had not been aloft long before Amanda and the children were asleep. Peter and the general sat at the rear of the plane talking in whispers.
“You don’t want a head-on collision with Marion Andrews and the party, not yet,” Sittman insisted.
“No, but I’m not going to let her walk over me, either,” Peter insisted.