But Ray had felt Puckett’s grip. Maybe he hadn’t been an ace before his purported death but he sure was one now. He’d been a scumbag then, and was one now. Except now he was a scumbag for the government.
And speaking of government scumbags, the file on Battle was coming online.
Ray studied it intently, but there were no hints of the bizarre like those that abounded in Puckett’s story.
Battle came from a prosperous family. He was now a lawyer, but he’d started out in the army. He’d been too young for World War II, but he hadn’t served active duty in Korea or Vietnam, either.
After graduating from law school, Battle had gone into government service rather than private practice. He started out in the FBI, but stayed there only into the early 1960s when he disappeared into a haze of agencies, committees, and staff positions that was enough to give a headache to anyone who tried to sort it all out. There was one agency that Ray was familiar with. Battle had been special counsel to CREEP — the Committee to Reelect the President — when Nixon was running for his second term. After that there seemed to be a gap in his career. His next official posting was in the middle 1970s, and he’d also served on both of Reagan’s election campaigns. Currently he was attached to something called the Special Executive Task Force headed by someone named Phillip Baron von Herzenhagen, which sounded like a Nazi name if anything did. The Task Force was headed by Dan Quayle.
Great, Ray thought. Just fucking great. It looked like wheels within wheels time. He thought about it for a second and then dumped the files. He went through his requests meticulously making sure that no trace of them survived in the computer system.
Ray usually didn’t worry about covering his ass, but very definitely something whacko was going on here. And he had put himself right in the middle of it.
He sat at his desk for a moment, thinking. He’d never paid too much attention to office-politics bullshit. His job had been guarding bodies and kicking ass, and he’d been good at it too, until the business with Hartmann.
The senator’s face suddenly filled Ray’s mind and he felt a flash of anger. All those years he’d spent with the bastard, and then the prick had never even come to see him in the hospital when he’d literally had his guts spilled trying to keep Messer from him.
Ray’d done everything he could for the senator, even turning his face the other way when the man had stepped out on his wife all those times, even acting as his personal messenger boy when the man wanted someone summoned to his presence. And then, the first time he failed him, Hartmann shut him off, just like that.
Ray still felt a sense of loss, a void that ached to be filled by the simple touch of Hartmann’s hand on his shoulder. But he hadn’t seen Hartmann since the day he’d been carried out on a stretcher from the Atlanta Convention Center trying to stuff his guts back into his stomach cavity. He’d heard nothing from the senator, no word, no visit, not even a lousy phone call or a stupid card.
Ray caught himself, realizing he was standing on the brink of a very treacherous abyss, and pulled himself back with great effort.
That was then, he thought. This is now. He had Battle to worry about, and their upcoming mission. He looked at his wristwatch. He just had time to head for the second place on the list before he was due to meet with Battle. It was someplace in Chinatown. Looked like an apartment address, belonging to a guy the name of Ben Choy.
Modular Man dived out of the sun with Travnicek in his arms. Wind whipped at Travnicek’s organ lei, and the organs folded in on themselves. The jokers at their posts down below didn’t see him. The lacy spires of the Rox waited ahead.
The android crossed over the outer wall. Travnicek suddenly clutched at him. “Wait!” he screamed. “Stop! Go back!” The words came from several trumpet-flowers at once with a curious harmony effect.
Relief flooded through the android. He began to slow. He’d head back up-sun and get away before anyone noticed him.
“No,” Travnicek said. “No, hold on here.” The panic faded from his voice. “Keep going.”
The android kept slowing. “Are you sure?”
“Yah. Just felt a little frightened there for a second. But I’m okay now.”
Just wait, the android thought, till the fish-things come at you with lances.
But in that he was disappointed.
They were back in Jack Robicheaux’s clinic room. Cordelia’s nails were buried in Wyungare’s upper arm nearly to the point of drawing blood.
“Mon dieu,” she said shakily, “what happened?”
The Aborigine turned toward her and gently disengaged her fingers. He enfolded her into his arms. Just above her head, he said, “That was only a taste of the madness.”
She tilted her head back so she could look at him. “Whose madness? Bloat?”
“At one time, I would have said yes. Now… “ He shook his head. “There is a contagion, and it is spreading like a physical disease, except this one’s not — it’s psychic.”
The black cat whined from beside Jack’s bed. Cordelia suddenly shook her head violently. “Jack! The boy — where is he?” She stared about the room.
“Calm yourself,” said Wyungare, stroking her hair. “He’s still inside there.” He gestured with his chin toward the bed where the great reptile wheezed ponderously and the massaging rollers moved endlessly up and down the mottled body. “We got him out of his initial captivity, but he is still there in the upper world. I don’t think there’s a way to manifest him back here in this physical reality.”
Cordelia looked stricken. Her dark eyes started to glisten. She pulled free of Wyungare’s hands and moved toward the bed, bending down and taking hold of the black cat’s head with her fingers. The cat meowed deep in his throat. “Can’t we do something?”
“We can go back,” said the man. “But we must first have a council. We need to sort things out.”
“The madness,” said Cordelia, not yet turning to look back. “What did you mean by that?”
“The boy Bloat is powerful. On the psychic plane, in the dreamtime, whatever you want to call it, his power has obeyed no rules, confined itself to no boundaries.”
Cordelia nodded silently.
“There’s something you have to understand,” said Wyungare. “In this world there are many, many cultures who have a greater appreciation of these things than do most of the Europeans. With my people, the dreamtime is not just a part of reality, it is reality.” The man hesitated. “Imagine a group of villagers spending most of their lives living in a delicate, balanced environment like a grove of trees and flowers, with a crystalline stream running past their homes. Imagine that one day, without warning, an enormous steel bulldozer bursts through the brush and cuts a swath of destruction through all the green things and through the houses. It pushes all manner of debris into the stream. The shock to the people who live here is incalculable. They can no longer reach what they know is their reality. Some are maddened. Some are hurt in lesser ways. But no one is left unaffected.”
Cordelia continued unconsciously stroking the cat, her face averted toward Wyungare. “Bloat is doing all that?” Wyungare nodded soberly. “He is not simply giving scattered sleepers nightmares. He’s destroying them — he’s blasting their realities.”
“Whole peoples?” Cordelia whispered.
“He has to be stopped. If he can be healed, then that will happen. If not…” Wyungare spread his hands in a universal gesture.
“You can do this?”
The Aborigine chewed his lip. “Perhaps. I have some allies. There is a Peruvian holy man named Viracocha. I hope to draw aid from Buddy Holley here in your country. There are others. It is possible I — we — can help the boy.”