The Shield of Time

XII

Koskinen returned the following afternoon from a violent game of handball with Lean—he dared not show himself outside the residence, but it included a gymnasium—to be informed by a servant of a conference at 1600. They changed clothes and went to the study at that hour. Vivienne and Trembecki had already joined Abrams there.

The executive gave his daughter an unhappy look. “Not you, my dear,” he said.

“Don’t be silly, Dad,” she protected. “I’m in this as much as anybody.”

“Yes, and I wish you weren’t. We’re not playing tiddlywinks.”

“I found out the hard way in Europe,” Trembecki added, “that the fewer people who have complete knowledge of an operation like this, the better.”

“I wouldn’t blab,” she said indignantly.

“Of course not. But there are such things as PI drugs.”

“Do you mean somebody might kidnap me?”

“No. It’s sufficient if they arrest you, just as they did Dave.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “Yes. What can I do, then, to help?”

“The hardest thing of all: sit tight.”

“Well—” She squared her shoulders. “I’ll be seeing you, Pete. I mean that.” Her hand lingered in his for a moment before she went out. The door slid to behind her like a closing mouth.

“For the same reason,” Trembecki said, “I think we’d better leave that bomb around your neck.”

Vivienne stirred uneasily in her chair. One hand went to a small purse clipped on her belt. Slowly she relaxed again. “Maybe,” she said, flat-voiced.

“You’re the logical person to keep the detonator,” Trembecki said to her. “You don’t know how to make a shield unit yourself, do you?”

“No. We didn’t finish drawing the plans in the Crater, and without a background of theory, what circuits I can remember are just so much junk.”

“That leaves you the only person who does know, Pete.” Abrams’s regard of Koskinen was troubled. “Do you agree—if worst comes to worst, Vivienne should be able to silence you? Life as a permanent prisoner wouldn’t be fun anyway.”

“I guess so,” Koskinen dragged out of himself.

“Not that I expect any such outcome,” Abrams said less glumly. “In fact, things are looking up for us. Sit down and let’s talk over our next move.” He placed himself behind his desk, bridged his fingers, and considered for a space before he started:

“Our problem, as I see it, is this. We’ve got to keep the shield from falling into the wrong hands, yet use it as a bargaining counter to get our friends released and, if possible, to get Marcus out of office. The best way to work is through the President. If he can be convinced of the truth, and I think he can, he will act. After all, once the United States armed forces have shields—most especially, once our cities and other vulnerable points do—then the Protectorate won’t need very tight controls over the rest of the world. If MS can’t actually be abolished, it can at least be sharply reduced hi size and function. That will please the libertarians and the economy-minded hi Congress, without offending too much those who make a fetish of national security.

“But it’ll take tune for me to get an appointment; and then a single talk won’t accomplish much. All I can hope to do the first time is get nun so interested that he’ll agree to let you demonstrate the effect. That will have to be done secretly, so Marcus can’t forestall us. I wouldn’t put it past him to have you assassinated and the generator destroyed, if there’s no other way to safeguard his power. Such a meeting between you and the President obviously requires careful pre-arrangement. And then still more time must pass while the President sets the political stage for what will almost be a coup d’êtat in legal form. In the meantime, you’ll need a safe hiding place.

“Jan could have arranged that easily hi his old days. But unfortunately, he and I have lived blameless lives for many years now. We haven’t got the right kind of contacts. I trust the loyalty of the household staff, but not their ability to play tag with the cops. Given a week or so, we could doubtless arrange a good bolthole for you; but we don’t have that week. You mustn’t stay here an hour longer than necessary. Your guess was right about MS, my Washington sources tell me. They did pick up so many leads and clues about the Chinese underground that it’s taken almost all their resources to follow through. But their attention is sure to turn back on me good and hard as soon as that pressure eases off, which I imagine won’t be long now.

“So…it is a risk, but I think the least risk we can get by with, if we try turning you over to the Equals.”

“Who are they?” Koskinen asked. “It seems I’ve heard mention of some such name, but I don’t place it.”

“Short for Egalitarians. They’re an idealistic movement, a number of people who want the Protectorate converted into a representative world government. That in itself isn’t an illegal thing to advocate. Sure, Marcus and men of his stripe have denounced them as softheads and stooges for foreign interests. But nothing has been done about them because there’s nothing that needs to be done. They only organize clubs, discuss, propagandize, work in election years for candidates sympathetic to their ideas. They’re mainly significant because they attract a lot of intellectuals.”

“They don’t sound very promising for our purposes,” Vivienne said. “In fact, those Equals I’ve met in the past tended to be dear old ladies…of both sexes.”

Abrams laughed. “True. Not all, however. There seem to be some Equals who believe hi direct action. And they don’t tell the dear old ladies about that.”

“What sort of action?”

“if I’d been able to find out in detail, the group wouldn’t be worth much. The fact is, though, that outlawed books and pamphlets get published and circulated, calling for violent overthrow of agencies like MS. More significantly, people sometimes disappear when they get in trouble with the Protectorate. Remember Yamashita a few years ago? He was stirring up the Japanese people on quite a large scale—if stirring up is the right word; actually he preached passive resistance. MS arrested him, then lost him again. They haven’t caught him yet. But he keeps popping up in remote villages, still drawing crowds to hear him, and vanishes before MS can arrive. There are several similar cases known to me, and doubtless many that I haven’t heard of. Well, this sort of thing takes organization. Somebody is operating an underground which isn’t nationalistic but universalistic. I suspect very strongly that Equals are involved. They may well be the prime movers.”

“I don’t like it,” Trembecki muttered. “I think the outfit has engineered some murders too.”

“Maybe. But the victims needed murdering. Like General Friedmann. Remember what he did to stop the protest marches in Rome?”

“Um-m-m…Granted, I’m not one to talk about niceties. And anyway, I haven’t a better suggestion to make. Go on, Nat.”

“So,” Abrams said, “there’s this Carson Gannoway, executive secretary of the local chapter of the computermen’s union, and an Egalitarian. I’ve dealt with him for years, and in the past couple of days I’ve had my personal detective staff investigate him to within an inch of his life. He’s not overtly involved with the underground, of course, but I’ve gotten some strong hints. For instance, there’ve been illegal strikes now and then, with some violence. Gannoway, like the rest of his union’s officials, publicly deplored them, asked the men to go back to work, and said he was helpless against their ‘spontaneous action.’ But, while conspiracy could never be proved, someone had obviously put them up to those walkouts. Now I know Gannoway and I know that he could have prevented or aborted those affairs if he’d really wanted. He’s that able. Which suggests he was the actual brains behind them. Or there’s the fact that he’s been gone on ‘vacation’ several times precisely when something broke…like when the Toronto rioters suddenly acquired guns.”

“Has MS noticed him?” Vivienne asked.

“No, not particularly, I’m sure. They can’t keep tabs on every last one of us, thank God, and Gannoway isn’t a conspicuous public figure. It’s only because I, as I said, have known him so long, that I slowly got the idea he had connections with the underground. I wasn’t about to rat on him. I haven’t been violently anti-Marcus until now, but I never liked the way MS operates. Why shouldn’t somebody like Yamashita remind his people that they have a heritage of their own? So I simply kept my suspicions to myself. The underground never did me any harm. Now maybe it can help us.”

“You think, then, Gannoway can—” Koskinen choked on his own excitement.

“Well, we’ll try him and see,” Abrams said. “Jan phoned him today and asked if he could drop around to his home tonight to discuss a business matter. You two will go along. If he can hide you, great. If not, I’m sure he’ll keep his mouth shut. Then we’ll arrange a place for you in a warehouse I know of, though it’ll be a poor substitute.”

“If he does offer to hide us, but I don’t like the looks of the offer, we’ll head straight back too,” Trembecki said.

“Us?” Vivienne said. “You’re going to be with Pete and me?”

The Pole nodded. “I’m still tolerably fast with a spitgun,” he said, touching a spot beneath his tunic. “Though what I really want is to—Well, Vee, you can land on your feet as reliably as the next she-tiger, but Pete here seems, frankly, a wee bit naive. I think he could use a word on occasion, from a guy who’s had some experience with the underside of the world.”