Jacobi nodded silently.
“I’m placing you on administrative leave until this mess gets resolved. You’ll get half pay. No duties. Just report in every morning.”
“Okay.” Tightly.
“Stay away from the demonstrators.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s all.”
Jacobi half turned toward the door, but quickly spun back again to face the chief. “I just couldn’t do it! I mean, Reverend Umber! I couldn’t whack the guy! The whole crowd would’ve swarmed us. It would’ve been a riot!”
The chief made a reassuring motion with his hands. “I know, Franco. I understand. But Waxman wants your balls pinned to his wall. Give me a couple of days to make him happy again. Cool yourself down. Stay out of Waxman’s way.”
Evan Waxman, meanwhile, was still at his desk, fuming at the image on his wall screen. Hundreds of men and women were sitting in front of the Chemlab Building, relaxed and chatting with one another, eating and drinking as if they were participating in a mammoth picnic.
The security guards were nowhere in sight. Most of them were still inside the building, cringing like sheep, while the crowd outside showed no signs of dispersing. A few of the guards had picked their way through the protestors and disappeared from view. Cowards, Waxman thought. Miserable weaklings who shrank from doing their sworn duty.
And there sat Kyle Umber, in the midst of the demonstrators, speaking intently, earnestly to those nearest him.
Waxman recognized Alicia Polanyi sitting next to the minister, and Raven Marchesi next to her. They’ll pay for this, he told himself. I’ll make both of them wish they’d never been born.
His phone buzzed. The screen showed that it was the security chief calling him. A glance at the clock on the screen’s face showed it was eleven thirty. Almost time to put the plan into action.
Without preamble, Waxman asked, “Is everything arranged?”
The chief nodded solemnly. “The guards inside the building are armed and ready. Six mobile units are assembling on the edges of the park area.”
“Good,” said Waxman. “Tell them to be ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Waxman killed the chief’s image and then reached out and touched the button that activated the habitat’s public address system.
“Good evening,” he began. “This is Evan Waxman, chief administrator of Haven. Those of you now loitering before the Chemlab Building have until midnight to leave the area and return to your homes. At midnight the security guards will forcibly eject anyone remaining in the area in front of the Chemlab Building.”
MIDNIGHT
“We have until midnight,” said Alicia.
“Don’t move,” Umber told her, his amplified voice carrying across the little park. “We must all stay where we are.”
Pointing to a handful of people who had gotten to their feet and were leaving the plaza, Raven muttered, “Tell them.”
Umber made a philosophical shrug. “The weak are always among us. Let them go in peace.”
A tense silence descended across the plaza. Raven saw that most of the protestors were still in place, sprawled across the grass and the walkway. A few had risen to their feet.
Raven glanced at her wrist. Almost twelve o’clock. Several police cruisers glided to a stop on the outskirts of the plaza.
Midnight.
The Chemlab Building’s glass doors banged open and a phalanx of guards marched out, helmets on their heads, truncheons in their hands.
“Time’s up!” shouted their leader. “Up and out. Now!”
Umber sat with his arms around his knees. No one got to their feet. The few who had been standing dropped to the ground. Raven saw that the crowd of protestors outnumbered the security guards by about five to one.
“Stay where you are,” Umber told them, his amplified voice booming across the plaza. “Don’t move. Don’t resist.”
The leader of the guards came up to Umber. “On your feet, Reverend.”
Umber looked up and smiled at him. But did not move.
“Haul him up!” the guard leader commanded. Two of the guards hefted Umber by his armpits to a standing position, but as soon as they let go of his arms the minister sank to the ground again.
“Up!” the guard leader shouted, his face reddening. “And get him the hell out of here.”
The guards dragged Umber’s limp form off toward the edge of the crowd.
“And the rest of ’em,” shouted their leader.
A pair of guards grabbed Raven by her arms and hauled her to her feet. She winced at their gruff handling but said nothing. She saw Alicia being hefted too. Side by side, the two of them were dragged toward the edge of the crowd.
One of the guards whispered to Raven, “Hey, you wanna have dinner with me tomorrow night?”
She didn’t even turn her head to look at him.
Raven saw that Reverend Umber was dropped like a sack of cement onto the paved walkway that circled the outer edge of the plaza. As the guards who had carried him there walked back into the still-seated crowd, Umber got to his feet and walked back behind them.
Once the guards deposited her on the outer walkway, Raven also got to her feet and headed back toward the Chemlab Building’s entrance. Alicia did the same. So did the other demonstrators that the guards had carried away.
It was almost farcical. The guards were hauling away the demonstrators, who got to their feet as soon as they were dropped off and headed back to where they’d been picked up.
Umber smiled and nodded encouragement to the demonstrators. Passive resistance, thought Raven, with a smile. We could keep this going indefinitely.
But it ended suddenly. One of the guards, his face twisted with frustration and rage, smashed Reverend Umber on the side of his head with his truncheon. The minister dropped to the ground, moaning.
For an instant everything stopped. Then the demonstrators who were still sitting scrambled to their feet with an animal roar.
“They’ve killed him!” a woman’s voice screamed.
The unarmed demonstrators leaped at the security guards. Truncheons flashed through the air, striking flesh and bone, but the demonstrators far outnumbered the guards and swarmed over them. The plaza became littered with fallen bodies. Women as well as men attacked the guards with fists and teeth and wild, maniacal fury.
Raven leaped onto the back of the guard nearest her, reaching across his face to scratch at his eyes. Alicia kicked a guard in the groin and smashed both her knees against his back as he fell. Another guard cracked his truncheon into the back of her head and she slumped to the ground, unconscious.
Time lost all meaning. The plaza had turned into a battleground as the demonstrators pummeled the guards, grabbing their truncheons and swinging them against the unifomed men.
Raven struggled to her feet, ducked under a guard’s panicked swing, and crawled to Reverend Umber’s fallen form. His face was split open from temple to jaw, his eyes glassy, unfocused. But he was breathing. He was alive.
With the guards disarmed, one of the men picked up a discarded truncheon and pointed at the entrance to the Chemlab Building.
“Tear it down!” he shouted.
Howling their fury, the angry mob followed him, surging through the entrance and into the building.
Raven saw Alicia sprawled on the grass, unmoving. She screamed into her wrist phone, “Medics! Medical help needed at the Chemlab Building. Immediately!”
Most of the crowd was pouring through the building’s entrance. Raven went to Alicia and lifted up her head slightly. No reaction. Umber was groaning, his legs moving slightly, slowly, his eyes fluttering.