He removed the device. She was right. It took a bit of effort. That was good. He didn’t want his expensive electronic ear falling out on the sidewalk where somebody could step on it…
“Now let see it.”
He handed it to her.
“Here’s a little wire loop tool, to clean the wax out of the speaker channel, like so. Hold it angled down, so the wax falls out, see. And you can use the little plastic poker, right here, to clean out the air channel, that’s this hole here. Don’t clean anything else, except with a little brush, or maybe wiping it with a soft cloth. No cleaners, no soap, no water. Don’t shower or go swimming with it in, you don’t want to get it wet. A hat should protect you in the rain, a drop or two probably won’t hurt anything, but if it looks like you are going to get deluged, stick it into this little waterproof packet and put it in your pocket until you get somewhere dry.”
He nodded again.
“I want you to wear it for a couple days, go on about your business as usual, then come back. We can adjust it if something is too loud or harsh or not loud enough. It only takes a minute to do that. I just hook it to my computer and program the changes.”
She handed it back to him and he put it back in his ear.
“You’ll have to change the battery about once a week,” she said. “I’ll give you a package of spares, and a little holder you can carry a couple around in. Don’t drop it on the floor if you can help it, or in the bathtub. Like I said before, if you lose it or break it, it’s covered for two years. By then, we’ll probably have a new model anyway.”
“Sounds pretty simple.”
“It’s not particle physics. If you can stick your finger in your ear, you can use these things.” She paused. “Are you a betting man, General?”
He raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’ll wager ten dollars that nobody but your wife notices you’re wearing it unless you tell them — and another five that even she doesn’t notice.”
“You must be pretty sure of yourself.”
She nodded. “Like I told you, it’s not visible from the front, and you can’t see it from the back. The only place someone can spot it from is directly to the side, and even then, most people don’t look at your ears.”
He grinned at her. “Do you make that bet with all your patients?”
She nodded. “All of the ones who get this model. In fact, I usually bet them twenty bucks, not ten, but you’re a tougher case. Cops, federal agents, those folks who automatically mark you for purposes of ID, they’re the most likely to notice it, and they are exactly the kind of people you work with.”
“Great.”
“Even so, it’s better than going ‘Eh, sonny, what’s that?’ all the time, isn’t it?”
He felt a little stab of vanity. “Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say.”
She suddenly went very serious. She looked at him silently, not smiling at all. After a moment she gave a small nod and turned her head to the side so he could see her right ear. Then she turned to show him the left.
She had hearing aids in both ears.
“One of the reasons I went into this field was because of a nasty virus I had when I was a child. It caused a high fever and burned out part of the wiring in both ears. I’ve worn hearing aids since I was eleven.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Zuri,” he said.
“Don’t be. I’m not. Not anymore, anyway. These things really do work great, General.”
Howard sighed. She was right. A little piece of plastic and circuitry and a computer chip sure beat the other option, no doubt about it.
He stood up and shook her hand. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. See you in a couple of days.”
Howard nodded and headed out the door, whistling as he left.
Ames stood in the middle of a dry and dusty plain, alone. All around him was emptiness and desolation.
From where he stood, there were no signs of civilization whatsoever. No roads. No cars. Just the tire tracks his own driver had left, and they were already crumbling in the sand.
A hot wind was trying to take his hat off. The summer sun played upon the mostly barren ground. Tumbleweed, the only sort of life he could see, bounced slowly along the sun-baked sand.
If you didn’t know any better, you might think a man out here alone would be in trouble.
Ames smiled, feeling a certain sense of, well, superiority. He had a secret.
Everybody knew about Cheyenne Mountain, near Colorado Springs. The bombproof military operations center had been obsolete for that purpose before it was ever finished. By the time the excavation was done, and before they had even built the massive doors, the Soviets had targeted the complex. Rumors were they had enough megatonnage of ICBMs aimed at Cheyenne Mountain that, if the shooting ever had begun, the complex would have become a radioactive crater.
The best part was that the government had known all this, and they went ahead and built it anyway.
The cold war had produced more than a few such “secure” sites. Some of them probably would have survived a nuclear engagement, if for no other reason than that they really were secret. The ones the Soviets knew about, like Cheyenne Mountain, would have been destroyed, of course.
There had been a handful, however, that had been carefully and secretly constructed. Usually — but not always — this was under the guise of mining or heavy industry. The locations were never bandied about, and, through great diligence and great luck, their very existence was kept secret. Some of those would have probably made it.
Ames knew about three of these. One was outside Washington, D.C., for congressmen and senators. There was another one in Mississippi, and Ames knew that one would always be safe. Nobody in their right mind would waste missiles on the Holly Springs National Forest in northern Mississippi. Not unless they knew for sure there was something worth shooting at there, anyway, and probably they didn’t. Fifty-odd years after it was built, most of the locals didn’t even know the bomb shelter was there.
The third site was in central Texas.
Some miles southeast of Odessa, this third one had been designed to house close to two hundred people. Ames guessed that the intended guests were probably big oil barons who had contributed significantly to certain politicians’ election campaigns. It had been stocked with water, food, medical supplies, diesel engines and fuel, and power generators to run the lights, and air-conditioning, refrigeration, air filtration, and sewage systems. It would keep that many people alive and well for six months. The fewer people inside, of course, the longer they could survive.
Built in the mid-1950s, it had a fair-sized library. It also had dozens of radios and little black-and-white televisions, all with vacuum tubes, most of which still worked. And it had a gold mine of vinyl records — LP albums and 45 rpms that had never been played and were probably worth thousands to collectors.
The contractors had dug an underground garbage pit a quarter mile away from the compound. Electric golf-style carts could haul trailers of trash to it via a concrete tunnel buried thirty feet under the ground.
It had cost millions to build and stock, and it had never been used. The cold war ended. The threat of nuclear winter didn’t go away completely, of course, but it had been greatly reduced. And the underground hideout had become a great white elephant.
So Ames had bought it. A real steal at six million and change, with both sides of the arrangement convinced they had suckered the other. Ames smiled at that. He had spent almost that much simply restocking and updating the supplies.
It had come with a huge pantry of canned goods, much of which were still useable, even after more than five decades. He had added smart-freezers and refrigerators stuffed with high-quality produce and meats. If he ever had to come here for an extended period, the only thing he would miss would be fresh fruits and vegetables. With freeze-drying, however, he could keep all kinds of foods not quite as good as fresh, but better than canned, almost forever.