With a flourish, he tossed the carton and the waxed-paper doughnut wrapper into a public trash can, wiped his lips delicately with the knuckle of his index finger, and unlocked the door of a faded silver 1985 Chrysler LeBaron. He had purchased the car with cash in Richmond and had already, in just three days, put four hundred miles on it. It was the first car he had ever bought, and he didn’t care whether he owned it or not. He had sole use of it, and that was what counted.
The remainder of the bag full of cash — about ten thousand dollars — he had stashed in the trunk under the spare tire.
“Okay,” he said, listening to the engine smoothly idling. “Where to?”
He squinted a moment. Now, the orders usually came from people, and not from the indefinite nonvoice of what those on the network called the Boss. Reuben had even come to recognize the “signatures” of certain human personalities he communicated with, but this time, they were not familiar to him.
“Cleveland it is,” he said. He pulled several maps from the glove compartment and used a yellow marker to draw his course along the highways. He had spent the last few days stealing hundreds of books and optical disks from libraries in Washington and Richmond, and buying hundreds of others from bookstores. He had passed all of these on to three middle-aged men in Richmond, and he had no clear idea what they were going to do with them; he hadn’t asked. Clearly, the Boss was interested in literature.
With some relief — he did not enjoy thievery, even in a good cause — he took to the open road.
Spring was coming fast. The hills surrounding the Pennsylvania Turnpike were already rich green, and trees were bringing forth leaves that they would not have time to shed. There would be no summer or autumn.
Reuben shook his head, thinking about that, hands on the wheel. When he was on the road, the network rarely spoke to him, and that gave him plenty of time — perhaps too much time — to wonder about things.
He refilled the LeBaron’s tank in New Stanton and parked in front of a diner. After a quick meal of a hamburger and a small green salad, he paid his tab and looked over a rack of postcards, choosing one showing a big white barn covered with Pennsylvania Dutch hex symbols. Purchasing a few stamps from a machine, he scribbled on the back of the card,
Dad,
Still working steady here and elsewhere. Thinking about you.
Take care of yourself.
Reuben
and dropped it into the box outside the diner.
He made it to Cleveland by eight. A quiet rain fell as he checked into an old hotel near the bus depot. He parked the LeBaron in a public parking garage, uncomfortably aware that he would not be driving it to the final destination. Somebody would pick him up and take him there.
He was no more than a couple of miles from Lake Erie, and that — so the network had told him — was where he would have to be in the early morning.
Reuben regarded himself in the bathroom’s spotty mirror. He saw a big kid with a patchy beard and strong, regular features. He saluted the big kid — and the network — and went to bed, but didn’t sleep much.
He was scared. Tomorrow, he would meet other people in the network — some of the people behind the voices. That didn’t frighten him. But…
Something in the lake waited for them.
How much did he trust the Secret Masters?
What did it matter?
He’d be on the lake shore, at the Toland Brothers Excursion Terminal, at six a.m. , clean-shaven and freshly showered and dressed in the new suit he had purchased in Richmond for just such an occasion.
56
Trevor Hicks stepped out of the rental car under a big iron trestle and screened his eyes against the sun. He saw Arthur Gordon crossing the street. Gordon waved. Hicks, exhausted from the drive and still nervous, made a feeble gesture of acknowledgment. He had never become used to driving in the United States. Unable to find a quick route by surface streets, he had taken the freeway to get to the Seattle waterfront, then had driven in circles beneath the bridge for ten minutes, twice barely missing other cars in the narrow aisles. Finally he had managed to park just down the long concrete steps from the Pike Place Market. Across the street, warehouses converted into restaurants and shops vied with new buildings for views of the bay. Sea gulls wheeled and squeaked over a half-eaten hamburger in the street, lifting on spread wings to dodge passing cars.
Gordon approached and they shook hands awkwardly.
Despite having communicated recently on the network, they hadn’t seen each other since their first meeting in the Furnace Creek Inn. “My wife and son are in the aquarium,” Gordon said, pointing down the street. “That’ll keep them busy for a couple of hours.”
“Do they know?” Hicks asked.
“I told them,” Arthur said, “We’re staying together, wherever I go. We’re driving to San Francisco next week.”
Hicks nodded. “I’m staying here. I hear there’s going to be activity in the sound soon.” He made a face. “If you can call it ‘hearing.’”
“Any idea what sort of activity?” Arthur asked.
Hicks shook his head. “Something important. In San Francisco, too.”
“I’ve had that impression.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Hicks said.
Arthur stared at him, puzzled. “Sorry?”
“Mr. Feinman. It was in the papers yesterday morning.”
Arthur hadn’t thought of Harry much since leaving Oregon. “I haven’t been reading the papers. He…”
“Monday,” Hicks said.
“Christ. I…Ithaca probably called, and we were gone.” He lifted his head. “I told him about the network, too.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I think he probably did.”
“Then maybe it helped…No, I suppose that’s silly.”
Arthur stood with hands in pockets, shaken despite the months of preparation. He felt vaguely guilty for not thinking of Harry; he had called several times before leaving Oregon, and had been unable to speak to his friend. He took a deep breath and indicated they should climb the stairs to the market. “I wanted him to know that not everything was lost. I hope it helped. It’s so difficult sorting everything out.”
They passed in silence through the mostly empty aisles, stopping at a bakery to buy coffee and sitting at a white wrought-iron table placed between shops.
“How have they kept you busy?” Arthur asked.
“I’ve been visiting libraries, universities. Locating people…That’s how I’m most useful, apparently. I help find people the network is looking for, scientists, candidates.”
“I haven’t been doing much of anything yet,” Hicks said. “Do you know…who the candidates are?”
“Not really. There are so many more names than places. I don’t think any of us are making the final choices.”
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Arthur said.
“In a way.”
“Have you heard anything about the bogeys? On the network, I mean.”
“Nothing,” Hicks said.
“Do you think we’ve slowed them down, done any good by blowing them up?”
Hicks smiled grimly. “No. Just about as effective as Crockerman.”
“But he didn’t…at least, I presume he had nothing to do with the action in Death Valley.”
“That’s right,” Hicks said. “He’s done nothing. So have the hotheads. Certainly, they’ve boosted our morale a little…but nobody believes they’ve fixed anything. The bullets still spin.”
“Then what purpose did the bogeys serve?” Arthur asked.
“You stated it once. They were a distraction, a misdirection. We’ve concentrated almost all our attention on them.”
Arthur blinked. “I didn’t think they were just decoys.”
Hicks shook his head. “Neither did I.”
Arthur pushed aside his sweet roll, all appetite gone. “They dropped them here, to deceive us, test us, as if we were laboratory mice?”
“I would say so, now, wouldn’t you?”