He picked up a sheet of paper, a fax.
“The Marines in Harkness, Michigan interviewed some of the locals. They reported the appearance of several men in black uniforms who they assumed were our guys until they demanded information about local airports and subsequently kidnapped a man. His body was found over two hundred miles away, south of Marquette… The body had gray eyes.”
“So?”
“Gray eyes with no pupils. And the body was cold. Very cold.”
Cervera rose, hands on hips, head shaking in a manner that would have brought a certain non-crook American president to mind a century earlier.
“That’s impossible. We put them all on—”
“Santa Fosca? Yeah, well, SF doesn’t exist anymore, Tony. Milicom is shitting bricks over this.”
“What are you saying, Jennings?”
“These events have to be linked together somehow—”
“Impossible. They’re half a world apart.”
“Impossible? Here’s one last bit of information. The Pentagon team you yourself sent to Sawyer Air Force Base to set up a situation response net never reported in. All communication with Sawyer has been cut off—”
“What? There’s a fleet of B-4’s at Sawyer!”
“Exactly. We’re having troops diverted from Harkness and the Line to investigate, and to use whatever means necessary to nip this problem in the bud.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a plan at work here, within our own borders, and in our own territory. It has begun, and now it’s our job to end it. It could be an attempt at a Milicom corporate takeover. Maybe the Japanese found out about the B-4s. This could be a full-scale invasion, for all we know. We have to take extreme measures.”
“Extreme measures.” Cervera had an air of disbelief about her. Indeed, she did view the President’s motives with caution. Jennings couldn’t be trusted under this extreme stress, especially not after what had happened to his family.
“In all likelihood, the Lake Superior site is the jump point of the major invasion, if that’s what this is. It makes the most sense. So they’ve started to send in advance groups, small insurgence parties—”
“With all due respect, David, that’s crazy.”
“You’ve never given me my due respect, Tony. They took out Santa Fosca to cover up the fact that—.”
“This isn’t the Quebec War, Jennings.”
He continued to ignore Cervera. “What we need to do is evacuate the area. The Marines are in Harkness already. We evacuate the civilians, and send in more forces. We reevaluate the situation from there. We surround Sawyer and move in, try to capture whoever cut off communications alive. And as for the Guam site, I don’t think we should fuck around any more. Something down there took out three of our ships and hundreds of our people.”
“What are you talking about? Are you going to nuke it?”
“Americans have been killed! More lives could be at stake!”
“Are you trying to start World War Four?”
Calm. Jennings remained calm.
“General, someone else already is.”
Cervera was silent.
“I want two Spears on a scalping run by 1200 hours. The Guam site. And I want Harkness evacuated. We’re moving in. This has to end on our terms.”
Thoughts ran through Cervera’s mind, but she kept silent.
The game began.
12:00 Noon. Harkness.
“Come on, people. Move it.” The armed Marine directed several citizens of Harkness onto the military troop transport parked in the street. Other transports rolled up and down Main Street, some empty, most filled with civilians.
The exodus had begun.
Local television and comnet stations, and even loudspeaker trucks broadcast the same message: the Milicom subsidiary Chemtek chemical plant outside of town had experienced a serious gas leak overnight and the fumes were deadly enough to warrant the evacuation of everyone within twenty miles. It was a shallow excuse, but the Chemtek people had cooperated willingly enough when armed Marines stormed their offices.
Sometimes living in a police state had its distinct advantages.
The last troop transport rolled up to the secured checkpoint on U.S. 41 going out of town.
“That’s the last of them, sir.”
“What’s the final tally?”
“One thousand two hundred sixty-one.”
“Close enough. Inform D.C. that we’ve rounded up the locals, and the town’s clear.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Marines boarded the last transport out of Harkness and left the town quietly, dead in the midday sun.
“Sir, what do you think this is all about?”
“Private, Uncle Sam doesn’t pay us to ask questions.”
Sawyer AFB.
They had the base surrounded.
“Tell Wind River that the Sawyer perimeter is secure. We’re moving in.”
The Marines tightened the noose.
((“Reynald, the natives are closing in on us. We’d better launch as soon as possible.”))
Reynald sat in the cockpit of a B-4. Such simple technology, with its electrical circuitry and computer controls. No bioneural flux or Shadow here. He only hoped that this plane carried enough fuel to take them to Magdalene.
((“Understood. We’re launching. You know what you must do, Joseph.”))
((“Yes, Captain. Godspeed.”))
((“Thank you, Joseph.”))
The man in the guardhouse turned back to the road before him. An armored transport was coming up the path.
He heard a noise behind him, engines cycling up, and he felt the earth shudder as the B-4 taxied to the runway and picked up speed. The huge plane seemed to attain an impossible speed as it lifted off the ground. The landing gear retracted.
He was alone now.
He did not feel any anger or despair at being left behind. He had volunteered for this job in the first place, and he knew at some point he would have to give his life to preventing the Purpose. He felt a resigned satisfaction.
This was his time.
His job completed, Joseph closed his eyes and heard the voices of the countless dead within him. He took a calming breath and felt the shift within himself.
He could not remain here. He could not let the Enemy rape the souls from within him. He would sooner die than let the Omega consume the lifetimes and civilizations that resided in his carrier mind.
“Good luck, Reynald. May we meet again in a better time.”
He shifted higher than he ever before had and felt his mind tear itself free from the boundaries of his body. In the instant before he died, Joseph could see the faces of everyone he had ever loved; he could see everything and nothing. Joseph died in the light of non-existence, and his lifeless body fell to the floor of the gatehouse, cold gray eyes looking still into the void.
“Damn it! Get a squadron of Spears on that B-4, stat!”
The Marine Commander standing at the gate to Sawyer watched the B-4 until it was a small speck on the northwest horizon.
“It heading towards Harkness! Take it down.”
Jennings sat alone in his private quarters, staring at a portrait of his family, his beautiful wife and daughter. He wept in the cold darkness of his isolation.
This time would be different. He would nip the problem in the bud. This time, America would not be dragged into a war. They would end it before it began, and if that meant using extreme measures, if it was for the good of the people, it would be done.
The phone rang. He was startled, recovered, picked up the receiver.
“Good. Okay. It’s time then. You know what to do. This is authorization Jennings, David IDCOM 050 776 9191.
He hung up the phone.
Please forgive me, he thought, and wished that he still believed in a god.
The troop transports formed a convoy on U.S. 41.
The citizens of Harkness and several close villages had been evacuated because of the bad Chemtek nerve gas leak. They would be housed in Ishpeming until the gas dissipated.
Robert Hodge found the troop transport intimately boring, so he stood and peered out the canvas cover of the back door. Those Chemtek nuts had finally messed up, and Rob was the one being punished, forced under armed guard into a dim, noisy troop carrier that was crowded with other townspeople.