Bells rang and hinges squealed as an old door was closed again.
“I spoke with Mick earlier,” Thurman said, seeming to sense that he’d brought up a sore topic. “You two are going to head down to Atlanta and see how the excavation is going.”
Donald snapped to. “Of course. Yeah, it’ll be good to get the lay of the land. I got a nice head start on my plans last week, gradually filling in the dimensions you set out. You do realize how deep this thing goes, right?”
“That’s why they’re already digging the foundations. The outer walls should be getting a pour over the next few weeks.” Senator Thurman patted Donald’s shoulder and nodded toward the end of the aisle, signaling that they were done looking through books.
“Wait. They’re already digging?” Donald walked alongside Thurman. “I’ve really only got an outline of my structure. I hope they’re saving mine for last.”
“The entire complex is being worked on at the same time. And all they’re pouring are the outer walls and foundations, the dimensions of which have already been settled on in committee. We’ll fill each structure from the bottom up, the floors craned down completely furnished before we pour the slabs between. But look, this is why I need you boys to go check things out. It sounds like a damned nightmare down there with the staging. I’ve got a hundred crews from a dozen countries working on top of one another while materials pile up everywhere. I can’t be in ten places at once, so I need you to get a read on things and report back.”
When they reached the Secret Service agent at the end of the aisle, the Senator handed him the old book with the French embossing. The man in the dark shades nodded, reached inside his coat for the smaller of two bulges, and headed toward the counter. Donald watched as the agent stood in line behind customers gazing up at a chalkboard to prepare their orders. There was something comical about him waiting there with that French book, doing the Senator’s shopping for him.
“While you’re down there,” Thurman said, “I want you to meet up with Charlie Rhodes. He’s handling delivery of most of the building materials. See if he needs anything.”
“Charles Rhodes? As in the governor of Oklahoma?”
“That’s right. We served together. And hey, I’m working on transitioning you and Mick into some of the higher levels of this project. Our leadership team is still short a few dozen members. So keep up the good work. You’ve impressed some important people with what you’ve put together so far, and Anna seems confident you’ll be able to stay ahead of schedule. She says the two of you make a great team.”
Donald nodded. He felt a blush of pride—and also the sinking feeling of extra responsibilities, more bites out of his ever-dwindling time. Helen wouldn’t like hearing that his involvement with the project might grow. In fact, Mick and Anna might be the only people he could share the news with, the only ones he could talk to. Every stupid detail about the build seemed to require convoluted layers of clearance. He couldn’t tell if it was the fear of nuclear waste, the threat of a terrorist attack, or the likelihood that the project would fall through. Everything for their political party seemed to hinge on this. Across the aisle, lips were chapped from all the licking going on at the prospect of failure. It created a situation where it was better to keep mum than risk being the one who blew it.
The agent returned and took up a position beside the Senator, shopping bag in hand. Donald had the feeling that someone was watching him, then and always. It reinforced the need to keep quiet. He didn’t even know who was seeing the plans he was working on; Thurman said others were impressed with his work, but he’d sent partial files only to Anna.
The agent studied him through those impenetrable sunglasses. Donald wondered if they had access to his computer—and whether it mattered. The files were for them, anyway.
Senator Thurman shook Donald’s hand and said to keep him posted. Another agent materialized from nowhere and formed up on Thurman’s flank. Donald felt a flush of heat as the two men marched the Senator through the jangling door.
Damn the secrets and the intrigue. He cursed the need for them. Donald wished he could just call his wife and let her know about his day, his job, what he was working on. Standing there in that bustling hive of a bookstore-turned-coffee shop, he considered the web of deceit and misdirection being spun in every direction, how a few slender threads could grow from seemingly innocent beginnings.
He already felt caught up in it, keeping things from his family, from his secretary—even from Mick, his only real friend on the Hill. He had wandered with innocence and naïveté into this web, and now every move would wrap him tighter. Each lie would stick to the others, until one day he would find himself in a tight little cocoon, trapped and suffocating from the thousands of little fibs that living and working in that cursed swamp of a city seemed to require every man to ooze.
8
The Book of the Order lay open on his desk, the pages curling up from a spine stitched to last. Troy studied the upcoming procedure once again, his first official act as head of Operation Fifty, and it brought to mind a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a grand display where the man with the shears took credit for the hard work of others.
The Order, he had decided, was more recipe book than operations manual. The shrinks who wrote it had accounted for everything. And like the field of psychology, or any field that involved human nature, the things that made no sense usually served some deeper purpose.
It made Troy wonder what his purpose was. How necessary was his position? He had studied for a much different job, had been promoted at the last minute, and somehow that made him feel arbitrary. Anyone could be slotted into his place.
Of course, even if his office was mostly titular in nature, perhaps it served some symbolic purpose. Maybe he wasn’t there to lead so much as to provide an illusion to the others that they were being led.
This was a terrifying thought. Troy imagined the great ship he was helming, this long night shift of six months duration, all of humanity crammed onboard. He could spin the spoked wheel and feel that the linkage to the rudder had been lost. But his job was to turn it nonetheless, to gaze over the bow and pretend that all was in hand as the swell and foam of human nature tossed them to and fro. The deckhands, seeing him at the helm, could then coil lines and trim sheets and sleep soundly in their bunks.
Troy skipped back two paragraphs in the Order. His eyes had looked at every word, but none of them had registered. Everything about his new life made him prone to distraction, made him think too much. It had all been perfectly arranged, but for what? Maximum apathy?
Glancing up, he could see Victor sitting at his desk in the psych office across the hall. It would be easy enough to walk over there and ask. They, more than anyone else, had designed this place. He could ask them how they did it, how they managed to make everyone feel so empty inside.
Sheltering the women and the children played some part. Troy was sure of that. The women and children of his silo had been gifted with the long sleep, had been whisked into lifeboats while the men stayed and took shifts steering that gutted wreckage off the icebergs. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves.