A War of Shadows

NINETEEN

They knocked the team out being moving them from Camp Liberty, of course. Although a few of the top people obviously knew its location, none of the teams going into action could be trusted with the information. If even one were caught by the authorities, it would be impossible to conceal any information from them.

Most of the team chose to make the run individually, but Sam and Suzy wanted to go together. Their old relationship had deepened in the weeks at the camp, and with the possibility of death ahead, they were both unwilling to separate until they had to.

They awoke on the deck of a tramp steamer of Liberian registry somewhere in the North Atlantic. The crew appeared to be mostly Chinese and only a couple of the merchant officers spoke good English, one mate with a pronounced British accent. He was in charge of their drop.

“We’ll be in position to drop you sometime tonight,” he told them. He walked over to a chest in their cabin and opened it. “Here, try these on,” he told them, handing out some clothing.

They were military uniforms, obviously tailored for each of them. Since they were supposed to be part of the Air Force personnel team at the alternate Pentagon, they made Suzy a master sergeant and Sam a tech sergeant. “Enlisted personnel are never scrutinized as closely as officers,” the mate explained. “But don’t forget to salute.”

They wouldn’t. Knowing they were to be in the Air Force, they had memorized an awful lot of material they would be expected to know.

Next came the identification cards and orders. They were supposedly Security Police, formerly with the 1334th SP Squadron at Shaw AFB near Charleston, South Carolina. Their orders, papers, IDs and the like were perfect. Being SPs, they would be expected to demonstrate a lot of technical knowledge, and, as military cops, they would carry a lot of weight, particularly as regulars in a military occupation force composed primarily of reservists, guardsmen, and draftees.

They had suitcases with other uniforms and some civilian clothes and toiletries as well. Sam was particularly impressed by the used look of them, even to a worn bar of soap and a partially coiled tube of toothpaste.

A little before 2:00 A.M. they, their equipment, and the mate were lowered into a large rubber raft with two enigmatic Chinese seamen doing the paddling. About an hour later, they were met by an elderly-looking crab boat and transferred aboard.

The crabber was for real; he’d worked Pamlico Sound in North Carolina for almost ten years since retiring, he told them, as a drug smuggler. His folksy reminiscences of raiding small pleasure craft, murdering all on board, then using the boats to make drug runs before scuttling them, were eaten up by an admiring Suzy. Sam was much less enraptured, thinking of all the lives lost for no cause but profit. But, he realized, a lot of his friends and associates used the substances men like this had brought in without thinking of how they got there or asking to see their pedigree. Smuggling remained a romantic pastime older than America, and its grisly side was never played up.

They turned in, past dangerous reefs, to the sound. A couple of times Coast Guard planes and helicopters looked at the old crabber, but it was a known ship with a long history and Suzy and Sam were well concealed. The familiar wasn’t checked very much by the authorities; they were looking for the unusual and out-of-place. Since the crabber had already radioed that he had engine trouble and was heading in, it wasn’t thought unusual for him to be on this course.

“I was supposed to go up to Virginia to help out some friends,” he told them, “but, of course, I was supposed to have a partial breakdown and turn back. Nothing odd. There really is a bad clutch in one of the engines, too.”

“Why not just take us to Virginia?” Suzy asked him. “After all, it’s closer.”

He frowned. “Hell, Norfolk’s a naval base and shipyard. Wall-to-wall checks of just about everything. And the Chesapeake and James are just crawlin’ with boatloads of bored, suspicious patrolmen. No, easier here.”

He pulled into the slip at his pier without incident. There was nobody around; the watermen were long gone, and the rest of the world still hadn’t awakened as yet.

An official-looking military car was parked out front of the crabber’s storage shed, and a man in his early fifties with more stripes than they could count on his Air Force uniform was sitting in front drinking a Coke and smoking a cigar. They stopped fearfully when they saw him, but the crabber called out, “Hi, Mike!”

The old sergeant smiled and got up. “Hello, Joe. These my two recruits, eh?”

The crabber nodded. “All yours now.” He turned to the confused pair. “Joe’s as genuine as you are,” he assured them. “See you all.”

They were dubious but had little choice. “Joe” put their luggage in the trunk of the staff car and told them to get in, which they did. In minutes they were away.

“I hope you two have eaten,” he called to them. “No way I can get us anything until we’re well into Virginia.”

“That’s all right,” Sam told him. He was nervous. Joe didn’t fit at all the image of the conspirators he had built up over all this time, and the car had an awfully authentic look to it.

“Is this car stolen?” he asked the driver.

Joe chuckled. “Hell, no. I signed it out at Shaw and I’ll turn it in at Andrews. You steal one of these and they have you in ten seconds. Nothing but military and truck traffic to hide in.”

Even Suzy was intrigued now. “Then you really are an Air Force SP?”

Again the older man chuckled. “No, ma’am, definitely not. But I was, once-before they caught me with my hands where they shouldn’ta been. Sweetest smuggling racket ever done, all on Air Force equipment. I had twenty-seven years in, so they didn’t throw me in jail, just reduced and booted me.”

That seemed to answer the motivational questions, and even tied him in with the likes of the crabber and the underground drug trade. But they would get no more information out of him about himself, just reassurance.

“The sergeant’s for real, he’s just somewheres else,” Joe said. “All of the procedures are perfect. You can do almost anything in the military if you got the right orders and the right forms.” He chuckled. He seemed to find everything slightly amusing. “That’s what got me in the end—one form. A real form, perfect signature and everything —and the damn ninnies lost it in the bureaucratic shuffle. Lost it! Military inefficiency defeated me. There was no way to duplicate the signatures on the spot, this drew attention, and that was that. You remember that. Depend on nothing but yourself, and keep it as simple as possible.”

They passed a large number of military check-points. It was easy. All they had to do was pass over their orders and ID cards. Joe had his and the proper authorization for the car which was real and therefore would withstand even a check with Shaw. Their own IDs had their photos, and their orders said they were proceeding to Thurmont with transfers to the 2794th SP Squadron, Headquarters Command. It was true that a check with the 2794th wouldn’t reveal that anybody knew they were coming, but that was so normal in military circles that it wouldn’t even be wondered at.

For the first time they saw how tightly the government was gripping the country. Military were everywhere; in a small town in southeastern Virginia they saw several ordinary-looking people pull over others, flash IDs, and randomly check papers. The roads themselves were ghostly not only for their lack of auto traffic but for the graveyards of motels, eateries, and tourist traps ruined by the restrictions.

Outside the towns, where public transportation was the only way to travel, school busses, trucks, and anything else that would do had been pressed into service as shuttles for the people. Those who lived too far out even for that could phone for service; farmers were allowed to use their tractors to get to shuttle-serviced routes.

Two things amazed Sam and Suzy: the apparent ease with which the majority of the population seemed to be coping with the tremendous inconvenience, and its almost casual acceptance by the people.

“Oh, there’s been a lot of trouble,” Joe told them, “but once you clamp down martial law and use it publicly, consistently, and effectively, you get obedience. Acceptance comes from the isolated cases of terrorism that manage to penetrate the security screen, and the occasional shootouts when they find one of our safe houses. The government controls the press, radio, TV, everything very tightly, and they use them to best effect.” Again the chuckle. “Hell, they’ve caught and killed more of our organization that we ever had! And crime’s down to just about zero.”

It was Sam’s turn to smile. “You mean they fake big victories?”

Joe nodded. “Sure. And, remember, for every really heavy-handed guy in uniform who gets power-drunk there are hundreds of ordinary folks in uniform. The power-drunks get short shrift; report a really bad actor to the local commander and you nail him. Congressmen are also keeping close watch for abuses in their districts.” His voice grew grim. “And the real bad abuses, they get covered up. Lots of people just disappear in the night, never to be seen again. They got big concentration camps all over the West, too, guarded with the best elite troops. Americans weren’t any different than any other population once they started living in constant fear.”

Suzy seemed to like the idea. “So our ‘different breed’ is just the same after all. It won’t be difficult to remold them, with the proper guidance.”

Sam was silent on that one, but he didn’t believe it. Revolution looked exceptionally unlikely under these conditions, and a lot of human misery was being perpetrated, and perpetrated not by some dictator in a poor and starving country or one with a long tradition of dictatorship, but by a government with its finger on the nuclear trigger and growing increasingly fascistic.

This quickly, too! he thought. He found it hard to accept. Maybe American society was truly as rotten as he’d pictured it—and maybe it was also the most totally politically naive society on earth.

Speed limits were something for the distant past; they filled up several times at military stations, grabbing food at the same time, but mostly they kept going. From Mann’s Harbor in North Carolina to the Catoctins was four hundred fifty or so kilometers; they made it in the early afternoon.

“It’s Saturday,” Joe told them, turning off a road and passing through the checkpoint at a little town called Thurmont, then up a small, winding road where the signs read Catoctin Mountain Park. The scenery was beautiful, wild and isolated; it was amazing that there was so quiet a wilderness this close to so many millions.

They turned off on a road where a sign directed them to Cunningham Falls State Park, then got backed up behind three olive drab school busses full of people. Finally they turned, went past a beautiful lake, and down to an enormous parking area.

“Put on the SP armbands and strap on the pistols under the seats,” Joe told them. He was already doing so himself. “We’re going to be three cops—me the old hand and you two being introduced to the area. All of these people are military having some fun in the water here. Just act new, poke around, and use that phone box over there to make your calls. You have a little money, so get something to eat if you want in the snack bar. Then just wander around, and wait.”

They pulled in near the snack bar just up from the bath houses. Hundreds of men and women were here, playing games in the grass and woods, and making use of the man-made beach to swim and play in the beautiful and large man-made lake.

Joe wandered into the snack bar, and for a few moments, the first in a long while, they were truly on their own.

“Now what?” Sam asked her.

“I’m going to take a shit,” she said. “You get what you like from the snack bar and make your call. I’ll do it later.”

He nodded and she went off. He didn’t feel like eating. What he felt like was getting a bathing suit and joining those people having fun down there on the lake. Still, he was also conscious that this was the place for them to get out of as quickly as possible, and he fumbled in his pocket, found a quarter, and went over to the phone box.

He stared at the phone for a moment, then reached back into his pocket. Yes, he had two quarters. He sighed, put a quarter in the phone, heard the dial tone, then dialed the number that was supposed to bring the next stage of people here. It was an interesting number, unlike any he’d ever heard of before. One-500-555-2323. What was a “500” number, anyway? And wasn’t “555” information?

The phone clicked several times, then rang once, and he heard another picked up. For a second he was confused, somehow conditioned for a response, but now he realized that there would be none. It was probably a recording anyway. “Twenty twenty-five,” he said “Two-oh-two-five.” There was a click, a dead silence at the other end of the line, and, even before he hung up, his quarter came back.

He remembered suddenly his first encounter with this organization, the TV mail-order switchboard, and realized that this number was probably tied to something like that. A perfectly public toll-free number for subversion, he thought. It was somehow ironic; it said something else about the culture.

He considered whether or not to make the other call. He put the quarter in, then hesitated for a long time. Did he, in fact, want to use the FBI signal?

He thought about fascist America, now actually what he’d always claimed it was. He thought of the camps, of the terror, and of the people in this new organization. Most of all, he thought of Suzy.

Did he want to betray them? Deep down? He had to confess to himself that he did not, although those pictures of the Wilderness Organism victims were never far from his mind. Most of all, it was Suzy. She would never be taken alive, he knew that. He couldn’t. Not now. He just couldn’t.

He hung up, got his quarter back, and turned. Suzy was coming toward him.

“God! I feel better!” she enthused. She drew close to him. “Did you make it?”

He nodded.

“Okay, then, go buy us both Cokes. I’ll be with you in a second.”

He turned and walked into the snack bar. He didn’t see Joe around and figured that the older man must have come out while he was on the phone. Almost at the same time as the Cokes came, Suzy was there as well, smiling and nodding to him.

“Let’s go outside. May as well look the place over,” he suggested, and they walked outside.

The staff car was gone.

They walked around a while, looking officious, and talking with some of the people, particularly some of the lower-ranking MPs and SPs on routine patrol. Both bluffed extremely well, and were extremely well briefed for the job, but it wasn’t comfortable. Parading in front of the enemy when one slip could ruin you wasn’t the most pleasant fun in the world; Cornish was only happy that it was hot enough that heat perspiration masked the nervous type.

“I wish they’d come,” he muttered between clenched teeth.

“They’re looking us over good first,” she whispered back. “Want to make sure.”

The hours passed, making it all that much worse, and since their cover had them on duty they couldn’t relax. Suzy almost had a problem when she failed to salute a first lieutenant in uniform but it was glossed over quickly with apologies. Afterwards she swore that one day she’d kill the son of a bitch.

Finally an official-painted green station wagon with the logo of the Maryland Parks Service pulled up next to them. A young woman in park ranger garb and Smokey the Bear hat leaned out the window and peered at them through dark sunglasses.

“Hey!” she called to them. They went over to her.

“One-500-555-2323,” she said softly to them. “Get in.”

They got in, still sweating, and moved off.

“I thought you’d never get here,” Sam said, relieved.

“Only the first step,” the woman replied. “Remove the gun belts and armbands and put them in that first aid locker back there.” They did as instructed, although reluctant to part with the weapons.

The car turned off onto a dirt road in the middle of the forest. It was marked Official Use Only—Keep Out. At the end of the road was a maintenance shed of some kind, but no people.

“Go into the shed, get rid of your military clothes, and put on the clothing you find there. You also will have new IDs identifying yourself as Maryland State Police undercover.”

They went in and did as instructed. Now they both wore shorts, tee-shirts, and sandals. The new IDs, with badges, looked impressive, and their photos again matched. The clothing fit perfectly.

They walked back out to the ranger, who was leaning against the side of the station wagon.

“Over there you’ll see a trailhead,” she told them. “Take it. Walk a kilometer and a quarter until you reach a small road. You’ll be picked up there. Don’t rush. Your contact will go by several times.”

They started walking. The woods were beautiful this time of year, the air warm and the shade of the giant trees invitingly romantic.

“I could stay around here forever,” Sam told Suzy. “Sort of like Vermont. You know some of those trees back at the lake were maples?” He looked at her, seeing that she was sharing some of the same feelings.

“If we had a blanket it’d be real neat,” she whispered sexily. They kissed long and hard there, then, after a while, arms around each other, they continued down the trail to the road.

The reason why their contact passed here several times was that he ran a shuttle bus. He was a teenager, no more, in an Army private’s uniform. His bus was empty.

He pulled up to them as they sat by the roadside. “Hey! You the state cops?” he yelled.

They got up, went over, and boarded the bus. “That’s us,” Suzy told him. “Want to see our IDs?”

The kid laughed. “Naw. Too much of that now. Just take a seat. I got a long run here.”

They wound up, down, around and through the woodlands, often picking up people and dropping others off. Once they passed a gatehouse and Sam whispered to Suzy, “Look! That’s Camp David!”

She stared at the sign and at the strange network of walls, fences, and sophisticated electronics detection gear atop them. It was Camp David; they were passing right by the getaway White House.

“Boy! How I’d like to spray some pixie dust in this neighborhood!” Suzy breathed. For once Sam agreed with her. If the President were in, he suspected, millions of Americans would applaud him for it.

They finally rolled into Thurmont, and the bus driver stopped near a small parking area now crowded with official cars.

“I was told to tell you that the keys were in it,” the kid said. They got off and he rumbled off. They stared after him for a minute. “Do you think he knew what the hell he was doing?” Suzy wondered.

“I doubt it,” Sam replied. “Just asked to do a favor, I think. We’ll never know for sure.”

They started looking over the dozen or so cars. Six were State Police cars and they found one, a brown plainclothes-type vehicle with a flasher that popped up through a roof opening. It had the keys in it.

They got in. Sam decided to drive, and he turned to her. “So where do we drive to?” he asked her.

She rooted around the glove compartment and other places but found nothing. She shrugged. “Start the car. Maybe there’s something…”

He started the car and the police radio sprang to life, startling them. They were now at a loss as to what to do next, and sat there for a minute or so, wondering. A uniformed man looking like state troopers of all states had looked since they were invented came out of a store, looked over, stared, then started running for them.

“Oh, oh,” Sam muttered. “Wrong car, maybe?”

Suzy looked around. There was a shotgun in a case in the door, and she reached for it. The trooper was there first, immediately saw her fumbling for the shotgun, and drew his revolver.

“Okay. Don’t make a move,” he told them. “Get out of the car and spread ’em!”

They had no choice. Sam had the sinking feeling that this was the ironic ending to their spy-novel odyssey. All this to get pinched in the wrong car. He cursed the spy-masters inwardly, remembering Joe’s admonition: keep it simple. They had gotten so cloak-and-dagger they’d gotten tripped up.

Suzy was different. “Wait a minute!” she told the trooper. “I’m Sergeant Fearing and this is Corporal Woods. We’re working for the same people you are. Check our IDs!”

The trooper looked dubious. He pulled Sam’s wallet from his hip pocket and flashed it open. Then he carefully got Suzy’s.

A police van pulled up, driven by a trooper who looked like the first’s brother. The side door was unlocked, pulled back, and revealed a bench seat and wrist and leg irons in an inset cast-iron cage. The two troopers had them exceptionally covered, and got help from a couple more. Despite Suzy’s protests they were both placed in the leg irons in the van and the door was slammed shut.

The van lurched into motion.